Let me guess, you are running a home based business on which you have
set high hopes on. You understand that you need to promote your
business, so you given an advertisement in a newspaper, but you are not
seeing too many customers coming to your shop. You have even talked and
invited many of your friends and family to your shop and they have shown
interest in your home business, but no one wants to spend money and buy
things from you.
If your home business story is similar to above mentioned one, then all
you need to do is follow these tried and tested steps
1) Expand your social and professional network
Lets face it, your family and close friends may be supporting you, but
you need more referrals to spread word of mouth for your business. Local
trade shows and phone could be effective. Online networking is another
effective method where you can take part in forums and groups where you
have more chances to increase awareness of your services.
2) Ask for business proactively
You need to go forward and ask for business from people who could use
your services. From experience you will learn that if you don't ask for
business, your competitors will and you may not get business from then
onwards. For example, if you run a business where you are offering
content writing services, then you need to reach out to people who need
them.
3) Talk to people
Anyone and everyone could be your customer, whether it is female sitting
next to you in train or just a relative sitting near your table in a
wedding function. Strike a conversation with them, ask them what they
do, and they are likely to ask you what you do. It is the same
techniques which are told to lawyers who have just started practicing.
It is observed that many people have been successful in getting
significant business just from a simple chit-chat.
4) Do not promote your business as a home business
People think that home business is not a professional one. Make sure
that you promote your business on the basis of what product you sell or
what services you offer, not where the business office is.
5) Give a demo on demand
If you are able to give demo of your work to people, then will naturally
think of you when they will be in the need of such a services
6) Stay in touch even with non-buyers
If someone has not bought your services or products at first, it doesn't
mean that they will never do it. Make sure that you stay in touch with
people who haven't bought from you, they may recommend you to someone
who may buy from you