Isolated in your Micro-Business?
Working from home often means you are at home for hours at a time with little contact with any other person. We take for granted the huge number of personal and business contacts we make everyday as employees for other organisations.
Instead of being left isolated and a great way to boost small advertising budgets is to develop your own networking strategy. Too often home business owners talk about relying on word of mouth sales to generate sales, but then do nothing planned about getting them to work.
Scan your local newspaper
Look for community events that are free or very cheap that might have some of your customers or clients attending. Take the time to try and book one in each month.
When you attend take some business cards with you and decide how many you will hand out before going back to your isolated workplace.
This is a great way to stay connected with the local community and build your home business awareness.
Find your local business network
Even in small regional towns there will be a collection of business owners that have started their own network group of like minded individuals.
Attend a meeting and really consider joining. It is worth a small outlay for this form of advertising and networking. This way you will become aware of any changes in your local business area.
Turn to the Online Community
The power of social media for networking is vast in our time and any home business owner that is not active in at least one or two platforms is missing out.
"Caution needs to be taken when online as you are not meeting them face to face and this has its own problems. Social media networking does not serve for all your networking as you need to keep your personal interaction skills as well."
Be very selective about which blogs, forums and social arenas you choose to participate in as your comments will last almost forever. This form is a very cost effective way to advertise your home based business if managed correctly.
Go for a walk
Wait for a nice day to go for a walk. Not only will this help clear your mind and give you a chance to leave your computer, but if planned properly will build more networks for your home based business.
Take at least 50 business cards with you, dress appropriately and map out a walking route that takes you along shops or businesses you haven't visited before.
As you go past each business, have a look to see if they would be suitable to know as a supplier, client or alliance partner. Then walk in and introduce yourself and what you do.
Start talking and the rest will happen naturally.
Information supplied by Paul Baker
Over twenty years of business development & change management strategies successfully used in National organisations across Australia. The focus is on continuous improvement of business systems to stimulate growth through our principles of Initiate, Inspire, Innovate.
Customer-centric focus using our extensive experience in consumer behaviour and business process operations to find ways to help business owners manage their organisations.
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