Back at the beginning of time, I used to go after one client at a time. Boy, was that exhausting! It pretty much describes how I developed my entire clientele during the first few years of my web site design/web marketing business. But then someone introduced me to the idea of Centers of Influence.

Centers of Influence (COIs) are those individuals or entities that are in a position to bring you more than one client. In the best case scenarios, they create a constant stream of client referrals. In some cases, they are rewarded with reciprocity (you send them clients) and in others they are compensated with a percentage of the sale (say 10%-15%).

One of the best Centers of Influence for my web site design business was web hosting companies. They are basically leasing storage space for web sites, and I was designing web sites. Can you see how this was beneficial for both of us?

When they got a call from someone wanting information about web hosting, they would ask them if they needed help designing the site. If so, they’d send the business to me. Other times, they would receive calls asking about web design and since they didn’t have an in-house designer, again, they would send the business to me. They didn’t want to do web design. They wanted to work with computer hardware. On the flip-side, every one of my clients required web hosting. So, who do you think I called to set up their web hosting? online clomid australia

The most important part of a COI relationship is that you share the same target market. You may offer completely different services, but sell to the same people. Or you might each specialize in a different part of a project and by teaming together, you can offer a complete solution for the client. Here are some examples of other Center of Influence relationships:

• advertising agency – graphic designer
• banker – accountant
• handyman service – landscaping/lawn care service
• organizing consultant – home cleaning service
• marketing company – direct mail house
• event planning company – caterer
• wedding photographer – wedding bands
• virtual assistant - bookkeeper

You might be wondering why these businesses don’t hire an employee to do some of these functions. Why didn’t the web hosting company hire a web designer? Why doesn’t the advertising agency hire an in-house graphic designer? Why doesn’t the virtual assistant offer bookkeeping services too? Maybe the advertising agency wants to utilize graphic designers with different styles for different jobs. Instead of hiring five different designers, they can outsource to different ones as needed. Perhaps the virtual assistant isn’t qualified to do bookkeeping, doesn’t want to do bookkeeping, or believes that it would be better to specialize in other areas. There are a number of business reasons that lead companies to outsource instead of keeping every facet of their business in-house. So, take advantage of it! filme online schauen, bei uns auch.

Setting up COI relationships is relatively easy. Put together a portfolio of your work, testimonials from clients, a listing of your services, etc. Then define your target market (hopefully, you already have a defined target market) and write it down on a piece of paper. Go to a search engine and search for your target market (e.g. "female business owners") and see what types of web sites pop up. As you research, write down each industry you find.

Once you have a list of ten (10) or so industries to target as COIs, pick one to start with. Then, go back to the Internet and do a search for those industries. Look at the web sites that come up to identify which ones appeal to you. Write down the company name, web site address, email address, contact name & phone number. Once you have 10 potential COIs identified, contact them via phone or email to ask whether they would be interested in discussing the potential value of client referral.

During this discussion, begin by specifying your target audience and the services you provide for them. Ask the potential COI if they serve the same audience and if they provide any services that would be in competition with your own. If not, proceed. If so, discuss whether you might still be able to refer one another clients for different elements of your business.

Once you’ve qualified the person as a quality COI, define how and under what circumstances you will refer business to each other. Will you pay for referrals or simply reciprocate? Will you do the work under your business name or theirs? Who will have liability for the work done by the other company? You may want to outline these things in a written agreement.

If you are willing to invest the upfront time to develop quality COI relationships, you can multiply your sales by focusing your working hours on billable client work while the referrals roll in!

~~ It's Your Turn ~~

Let’s assume you spend 10 hours a week doing marketing-related activities. What if you invested the time to develop relationships with your own Centers of Influence? And what if those relationships were so successful that you no longer had to spend those 10 hours marketing? What else could you do with that time? Billable client work? How much do you make per hour? Multiply your hourly rate by the number of hours you are saving by eliminating some or all of your marketing efforts. Is it worth that amount of money to establish some quality COIs for your business? If so, start today!

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"Although David has been a graphic designer for a decade, he’s only been a business owner for a little over a year. He was becoming increasingly discouraged with his clientele. "I'm the only person in the business, and even though I’ve been in business for a whole year, I’m still having to spend a lot of time marketing to get new clients. And the ones I do get usually only have one small project for me for the entire year. To top it off, I don't even get to do the kind of work I really enjoy. They all just want the basic logo, business card, letterhead job. I really want to work on full-scale marketing campaigns where I’m designing print ads, direct mailers & media kits . How do I get more of the right clients?"

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