I don't have any new clients yet, but you will absolutely start to see the seeds being planted and my expectation of future harvest. This episode starts with my meeting with Indian Valley Chamber President, Steven Hunsberger. Steven loved my approach to meeting the other members. Although I had no intention of joining the chamber right away, Steven uttered these words. "Ken, you'd be the only cleaner." My next words were, "Steve, can I have an application?"
I also attended my first Montgomery County Business Alliance (MCBA) meeting as a member. Gary Volpe of Volpe Enterprises was the man in the middle as he shared a current situation and asked the other members to help him group solve it. I felt like I was back in Gatlinburg at the Mastermind Retreat. Prior to the meeting, I used the common area restroom outside of Vernessa's office and MCBA location. The restrooms were maintained, but not to my standards. After the meeting, I asked Vernessa about these common areas and she connected me with Sean from the grocery store that did that cleaning work. This was my first lead for the week. I went directly to the grocery and asked for Sean. He wasn't available, but I left my business card and said I was referred by Vernessa. This is exactly like "Building My New Cleaning Network II" and "I'm a friend of Eva Finlan and she told me I should connect with you." I was also networking at home as well. This is a big part of my strategy - 50% in-person networking meetings and 50% social media / email marketing. It was my last week of my free LinkedIn Sales Navigator trial. Since my target for new small office clients are the office managers, I tried connecting with OMs directly by friending 100 through LinkedIn. This approach was a failure as very few responded. I'm not sure if it's because they don't use LinkedIn much or they don't know me! Either way, I needed a new approach, so I shifted to something new. Over the past month, I've met over 50 local business people in the various networking groups I've attended. I added as many as I could to LinkedIn. They are now 1st connections. I did a search of 2nd connections in Harleysville, Telford, Souderton, and Lansdale. These represent the 1st connections of the new friends I've just made locally. I used a simple script, "Good morning Bill, we're new in the Harleysville area and saw we have mutual connections. Thought I'd reach out and introduce myself." I am getting excellent response from this approach as they trust me more with the mutual connection. I immediately say, "Thank you for accepting my connection request, Bill." Some would respond and message me back. I would glance at their profile and ask a question about their work, which would hopefully initiate conversation and a new business relationship. This new approach lead to two new friends this week. One was an old high school friend that connected me with a lead for commercial post-construction cleaning. Of course, I chased this lead right away! This LinkedIn approach will change once I cancel my premium trial, but the concept is solid for growing my local network. I was invited to do a real estate presentation for Jeff Silva's Keller Williams Team in September 2018 and made a great impression. Some of his realtors have kept in touch. In fact, Jeff wanted me to stay connected through email so I added his whole team to my cleaning newsletter to keep my name in front of them each month. One of his agents reached out this week and wanted to get me over to his girlfriend's house as she needed a cleaning service like mine. I chased this lead and set up an estimate this week. Side note... the cleaning newsletter is one more example of how you can market your business by keeping your name at the top of people's list. My newsletters shares cleaning tips for homeowners, office managers, and realtors. Click HERE if you'd like to be added to my newsletter. There are two other avenues I am pursuing from home. One is NextDoor and the other is Facebook groups. Thankfully, we have a thriving moms group with 2,000 members locally that my wife has agreed to start connecting. It's a long-term strategy with both of these online communities. Once I get a client in one of these communities, I need to impress them big time and then ask if they could promote me. This would open the door to more house cleaning clients. Teresa is helping with Facebook and I'm being a giver on NextDoor. This has lead to an opportunity to meet with a local realtor who agreed to add me to her preferred vendor list. This episode closes with some other tidbits like doing GEMS for Dennis Gehman's office. A GEM is Going the Extra Mile and has always served me well. I also updated my website to better target my ideal client, one that truly appreciates the art of Presentation Cleaning. Teresa and I had a coffee shop date at a new upscale cafe and I decided to leave some business cards on the bulletin board. The guests who visit here are not discount shoppers from "The Jeans Don't Fit". Other friends I mentioned:
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