"How can I best use the internet to sell management consulting services?" - Tim Wilson, Northborough
This question was submitted to us on our webcast teleseminar about The 5 Traps of Internet Marketing. It's a good one because it can apply to any business that provides services, coaching and consulting.
If you're in any kind of business where people aren't buying tangible products but hire you for your knowledge and expertise, you've got to demonstrate your intelligence, your personality, and your values. Traditionally this is done face to face. Most consultants also rely heavily on word of mouth.
But these days most everybody who hires consultants will do a Google search on your name to get background information and find out more about you. Having a strong web presence means you control your brand and your message.
In fact, you really can't afford not to have a strong web presence. And a blog is a great way to do that inexpensively and easily.
But you should also submit your own press releases online, and articles to article directories. Use content to market yourself by publishing as much as you can in as many different places possible.
How do you do all this and still have time to service your clients? Once you put your online marketing pieces into place, they continue to market for you while you do other things.
It's not rocket science but it does take some time and knowledge to set it up. Fortunately there are mentor programs like The Law of Action 2.0 where we teach you what's needed. There are also more virtual assistants available now that you can hire to put these pieces in place.
To find out more about our 4-week mentoring program starting July 1, 2008, listen to this free audio teleseminar, The 5 Traps of Internet Marketing. It's full of information you can use right away for online marketing.
We invite you to Google each of our names (Patsi Krakoff, Denise Wakeman, and Kathleen Gage) and find what you need to know about our expertise. When I checked about a week ago, there were over 36,900 search results for Denise, and over 94,200 for Kathleen! Have fun reading! (With my results of 30,200, we have well over 160,000 Web articles, interviews, and blog posts.)
Relevant Posts:
Blogging for Leads: Put some bait on your hook!
Relevant Content: Search Engine Bread Crumbs
Great ideas as always! One thing I realized is that there are others out on the net with my name. That makes the numbers look even more impressive than they really are. On the flip side, I have asked my prospects what they have used to search my name and I have found multiple variations not just one!
Stephanie Calahan
Stephanie LH Calahan
Stephanie L.H. Calahan
Stephanie L. H. Calahan
Steph Calahan
What a mess, but at least I know that I should use variations so that people can find me.
Posted by: Stephanie LH Calahan | Friday, June 27, 2008 at 09:50 PM
Great Post, the internet has revolutionized how we do business, with so many avenues to promote, it is important to be where our prospective customer would be, let it be social media, (the myspace and facebooks), entertainment portals and directories (citysearch, and others) blogging and more
http://gaizer.com the business start up blog
Posted by: Dan | Saturday, June 28, 2008 at 07:34 PM
Thanks for your contributions, guys. One thing that is important to do is to sign your name in a unique way. Notice that Denise and I often leave our signatures as Denise aka The Blog Squad, and Patsi Krakoff, The Blog Squad.
David Meerman Scott uses his middle name to distinguish himself. Stephanie, maybe you can sign your name in a way that identifies you with your business, (the productivity lady? the get organized gal?). For sure, the LH in the middle will help.
Posted by: Patsi Krakoff, The Blog Squad | Sunday, June 29, 2008 at 04:56 AM
I must say ...I never thought of it that way
& stephanie I would agree that the variation in names is a mess ...even while you add meta tags!
Posted by: david solomon | Friday, July 11, 2008 at 04:57 AM