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Everybody has had that moment of pause when contacted by a potential new client. There’s something about this person that doesn’t seem quite right, something just a little off, and you can’t help but feel that they might not be best for your company. However, times are tough, new clients are scarce, and it’s usually a bad idea to turn down a potential source of income based on nothing more than a gut feeling.

When you get a client that you are unsure of, try asking them some fairly simple questions which will help you better understand who they are and what they’re looking for.

1. How did you find me? This first question is by far the most important. If they’ve been recommended by somebody else in the field, then you have somebody else you can ask about this person. If they’re responding to your advertising, at least you know they are consumers of the kind of media that you advertise in. Knowing how they came across you goes a long way in establishing their bone fides that they are legitimate clients.
2. Have you ever worked with somebody in this industry before? Again, this is a good way to find a potential reference for this client. If they haven’t worked with anybody in the field before, find out why they’re suddenly coming to you. If they have, find out why they’ve decided to seek you out instead of continuing with their current professional.
3. Was your previous experience helpful? If it wasn’t, this should be a major red flag. Why would your services be any better than the person before you? If they were good and helpful, why find a new person? Knowing if they were actually able to take advantage of the skills of somebody in your field will go a long way toward actually helping them and give you an idea if the reason they’re changing professionals is because of them.
4. What did and didn’t work about your last experience? This last is important, since it’s not just about what happened that caused the breakdown of the previous working relationship. It’s about how you can, if this person turns out to be a legitimate client, improve on their previous experience.

And that seems to be part of the purpose of these questions. Not only will they give you a basic idea of who you’re working with and a lot of information that can help you make a decision if this is the kind of client you’re looking to work with, they can also give you an idea of how to succeed where others have failed.

You should always trust yourself when it comes to screening new clients. It won’t always be easy to do, but it’s better than taking a risk that may have an adverse affect on your business. Asking a few simple questions could go a long way toward putting your mind at ease or confirming your suspicions. Either way, it’ll be better for your company to take the time to be careful.

It disturbs me on a fundamental level that the concept of the press release has really died. There used to be a time that a well written PR could make it in papers around the country, informing the public about your product or service, letting them know the salient points, invigorating interest, and generally announcing to the world that something new has arrived.  This was a good system, and it had a simple purity to it that I frankly miss today.

The fact of the matter is that press releases, like so much else, have become a question of knowing the right people and not promoting a quality product. A purchase from sites like PRWeb is pretty much a waste of money if you’re hoping to see your press release actually make any sort of print. It’s a fundamental problem with a system that used to work, but simply can’t keep up with the sheer bulk of information that is available on a daily basis. Especially with print media slowly bleeding out all over the world wide web, editors have to play an educated guessing game with every piece they publish, asking whether this one will somehow draw people’s attention in ways that another piece might not. It’s no different than trying to predict fashion trends, only the odds are that their efforts will prove ultimately futile in the end and the print media empires will have to change drastically or go the way of ancient Babylon. At that point, why not simply cultivate friendships, especially if you might need a job? See my post on business models for more of my feelings on that topic.

In today’s business world, press releases are valuable not because they actually make it into the press. They’re valuable for their digital content. Blast emails to websites that may reprint your PR have a potential to increase your internet traffic. It’s a fair to decent way to promote your website and get the search engine spiders to believe that you are being linked by third parties. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work well or for long, and often you’ll find that you’re spending a lot of money on press releases (remember when you sent them to the papers for free?) that doesn’t translate into profits since there’s really no way of controlling your target audience with the kind of coverage you need in order to manufacture search engine relevancy.

It’s unfortunately, but soon we’ll have seen the end of the press release. A part of my past will be gone along with what used to be an important step in any product rollout. The world is changing, and we have to keep up, but the basic disconnect between company and customer that this represents, that businesses have lost one tool to communicate directly with people, makes me a little sad.

I’ve often heard small business owners wonder how to cut their capital output. All businesses have a finite amount of money to work with, so smart practices that help them spend less of it are always in demand. That’s why programs like service exchanges are such a good idea.

For those who haven’t heard of it before, a service exchange is where two businesses, rather than charge one another directly for complimentary services, perform the functions of their business for one another instead.  For example, a cleaning company might do monthly carpet treatments for a consulting firm that pays them in discounted or free service.

Now, the big problem with this is that there is a certain outset of money involved in service exchange. Our example cleaning company still needs to pay its cleaners, buy solutions, move their supplies, etc. The consulting firm has to spend time and resources developing strategies. However, the time and supplies are still a small fraction of what full charge would otherwise be for what they are receiving, especially new businesses that may not have a lot of business yet to keep them busy.

More important than the monetary incentive is the social one. No business can thrive on its own. It requires the good service of other companies, people who it depends on for resources. I wouldn’t suggest that any company wouldn’t do its job when being paid for the service, however too much distance between a company and a supplier means they have no personal incentive to go above and beyond for you. Service exchanges cut down on monetary gain, but they create a close relationship with a supplier who may be able to help you with referrals or at the very least will work harder to recognize the “favor” you’re doing them.

It may mean working for less or even for free, but a service exchange encourages communication between businesses and gives you an opportunity to do what you do best in exchange for what somebody else does. Moreover, the savings in capital outlay will add up very quickly.

Referral marketing is one of the easiet, cheapest, and most effective marketing strategies that a business owner can pursue. That is to say, if it’s done properly. What too many company owners and executivew do is attempt to build good word of mouth by luck alone, and it does require a certain extra amount of work. However, that work can pay off big in terms of customer volume. Most importantly, it’s a system that builds on itself.

The first thing that you should do in a referral marketing campaign is to set yourself a goal such as 10% business growth in the next ten weeks. Make your goal realistic, make sure it’s clear and that there’s a timeline. This will help keep you on track with your efforts and make measuring success easier.

When asking for referrals from current clients, there are several things you should keep in mind. Your timing can be very important in how effective your referral is. Asking for one right after the close of a sale, which is commonly accepted as the time to do so, can come off as aggressive and often results in lukewarm praise at best. Let your customer or client experience your service, do a followup, make sure that they realize that you’re willing to go out of your way to ensure their pleasure with your company. A thank you note is rarely unappreciated, and a subtle reminder to tell a friend if they were pleased can often lead you to a new customer.

Providing rewards for referrals can be an excellent incentive to bring new customers to your business. Is it worth a 10% or even 20% discount for a person if they bring in five new full-paying customers? Can an extra service for a specific period of time balance the introduction of a larger client base? Usually the answer is “yes.” The risk involved in this sort of incentive program is very low and the potential gains from it immense.

Make sure that you’re giving in this process. There are a lot of things almost any business can give away. In fact, when you write your business plans or budgets, plan a little space for extras that you can use either to go a little further for a happy client or calm down and angry one. Some of you are old enough to remember when pediatricians gave out lollypops. If it means a discount at your lawn service, a free sample at your deli, or a small toy for children at almost any business imaginable, then it may be worth it to show your customers and clients that you are not a faceless corporation, but rather an honest, human business owner. This sense of familiarity encourages them to refer friends and fosters trust between you and them.

Small efforts and rewards can go a long way toward drawing in new customers. Very few, if any other marketing strategies can produce the same number of loyal customers and clients as a smart referral campaign. It will require a little extra work on your part, but it’s worth it.

There was a time when the reputation of your business was made or destroyed right there in the town where you lived and worked. The townspeople and you’re customers knew you better than some of your relatives did.

Their kids went to school with your kids, you belonged to the same clubs as they did, they knew who your friends were and they knew just as much about your friends as they did about you. You were assessed and judged not only on what you did and how you behaved socially and in business but also on how your friends behaved socially and in business too.

Then along came the Net and you could take your business to the world. New friendships were made and people didn’t know so much about you anymore … they couldn’t see how you behaved socially or in business because your business had grown way beyond the boundaries of any town.

But then the Net began to mature and change and social networking became important and gradually people began to see who your friends were once more … and once again people began to judge you and your business abilities based on who your friends were. These days, instead of being judged on your abilities you’re more than likely to be judged on those friends you have accumulated.

So who do people see as being your online friends and how do those friends stack up in the eyes of the people who might want to do business with you? What sort of people are on your friends’ list on the social networking sites that you’re a member of?

Are all those people on your friends’ list fine upstanding business people or are they perhaps a little shady … a little dangerous … maybe a little dumb? Of course it’s hard for you to know and when you look at social networks it all seems to be about being the person with the most friends doesn’t it?

And if you think that success is all about having the most friends on Twitter or FaceBook or MySpace then you’re not really going to be all that worried about just who friends you or joins your Twitter stream are you?

Well maybe you should be very concerned about who your online friends are because they may well be the sort of person you would never want to be associated with. Behind that smiling avatar may be a criminal … someone who wants to rip you and others off … someone who has a totally different agenda to you.

If that does bother you, if you really are concerned about who follows you and what message your list of friends sends to others then you’re going to have to take responsibility for your list of friends. You’re might have to stop amassing all those friends and start looking for quality more than quantity mightn’t you?

When I joined Twitter I decided that I was there to represent my business and I wanted to present myself in a way that people would trust. That meant that I wasn’t going to chase the mirage of popularity … after all the popularity of the Internet is about as real as the King’s new clothes. No, I didn’t want to be popular … I wanted to interact with my peers and I wanted to learn and I didn’t want to bring disrepute on myself or my business.

With those goals in mind it didn’t take me long to work out how to manage my list of friends. The list of people that I interact with on Twitter now is tiny in comparison to some others. I make sure that when people ask to follow me we have something in common … we have some mutual contacts … people that I trust because they’re like me … and I make sure that I’m not letting a spammer in to harvest my list of contacts by looking at what they have said and done on Twitter in the past.

No matter what social networking site you hang out on … even if it’s just a message board … you can go back and see how people have behaved and you definitely should.

By keeping my list of friends under control I make sure that people can look at me and judge me by that list. They can see that the people I follow are all people who are well-known and trusted in the field that we work in. There won’t be any ‘rotten apples’ among my ‘friends’ who can cast a shadow over my online reputation if someone does a search for the names of my friends.

And that means that people will trust me and when you’re doing business online there’s nothing more important than being seen as trustworthy. So let me ask again, who is on your list of friends and what will that list tell others about you?

There’s no doubt that in today’s social networking world it really is a case of not what you know that can affect your success or failure but who you know. If you’ve got a friend’s list that’s free of bad influences and those who like to play fast and loose with the truth then people will notice that and see that you are someone who can be trusted.

On the other hand, if all you’re interested in is building a list made up of everyone who comes along then you can expect people to be reluctant to deal with you and that’s definitely not what you would want to happen if you’re serious about your business.

Fiona is a very talented real estate photographer. Her photos can turn a plain and ordinary house into something that looks as though it’s the product of an award-winning designer. When agents post her photos on a real estate website they know that the phone is going to start ringing within minutes.

Fiona’s work diary has been full of appointments for months as more and more real estate agents discovered what she could do for their sales. But as the global financial crisis has begun to bite gaps have been appearing in that diary. Even in the seaside tourist town where Fiona lives and works things are getting a little tough.

Then one day her phone rang and it wasn’t an agent … it was a resort owner who needed some quality photos to go with a new website he was having a local web design company build for him. It came as something of a surprise to Fiona for she had no contacts in the local tourist industry at all … she had focused entirely on real estate.

So she asked the new client who had suggested that he use her services and was surprised to find that it was the web designer who had suggested that Fiona’s photos would enhance the new website. Fiona and the owner of the web design company had been acquaintances for a while but nothing more. Yet it was this acquaintance who had been only too happy to recommend Fiona for the job of photographing the resort.

That was the start of a whole new area for Fiona to work in and before long the local resort owners had filled all those empty spaces in her work diary. It was also Fiona’s introduction to an informal business network that the web designer had been quietly building for several years.

It’s a network made up of small businesses that all take pride in their work and offer a great service at a reasonable price. As times became harder that network has helped the members to pick up enough work to more than just survive.

One member of that network is a search engine specialist and he’s given several in the group advice on how to improve their search engine rankings. Fiona has been able to use her real estate contacts to help several builders in the network pick up work that they would have otherwise missed and a computer technician in the group has kept them all up to date on the latest Trojans and computer viruses and how to avoid them.

Those things might sound like little things that don’t amount to all that much but put them all together and the impact on the people on the network has been amazing. While others businesses in town that are outside of the network are struggling to survive this small group of business people go on helping each other to grow and prosper.

I suppose that all sounds like a bit of a fairy tale but it’s reality and I can guarantee that it is because I’m part of that network. There’s nothing very social about it … although a few people in the network do get together from time to time for a meal … and there’s nothing very formal about it either. It all happens because the members of the group look out for each other and phone or email each other when they hear of something that might be of interest to others in the group. The message might go through two or three different people before it reaches the person it’s intended for but then that’s just a part of networking.

That’s how informal a group like this can … and probably should … be. Networking shouldn’t take up a huge part of your time but it certainly can help you to survive tough times like these and even give you the edge in the better times too. I’m not even sure that everyone in our network knows everyone else in the group but that doesn’t mean that they’re not connected to the group. Knowing just two or three people in the network is enough to ensure that everyone gets the messages that move around the network.

Our network operates on a very informal basis and messages pass via phone calls, conversations in the street and occasional emails but there are other ways that business networks can operate. Some of the social networking platforms that are out there, such as Twitter and FaceBook, are great ways to network with others who are outside of your local area.

There are some very informal networks on Twitter that involve people who are spread all over the world. Despite the distance they can alert each other when something happens that affects their industry. They can share news and information in real time and that can save other people in the network hours of work and considerable amounts of money too. They also share information about jobs in the industry and contracts that some members might like to compete for.

So how do you find these networks? Basically the way to find the networks and become part of them is the same regardless of whether the network is in your local area or spread across the world. You look around and start talking to people who share common interests with you.

Some people will rebuff you and some will just plain ignore you but don’t be put off. Keep on working at becoming part of the network you want to be a part of and it will happen.

Once you’re part of that network you and your business can enjoy all the advantages that come from networking with good people who want to help you survive. But always remember, networking is a two-way street and you only get out as much as you put in.