By Elizabeth Boardman, The Milspo Project, Co-Founder
Today we want to talk to you about something we have put into practice in our own businesses, and the shocking results we have received because of it:
How daily, in-person, coffee meet ups ramp up (and sometimes double) sales, all while extending your brand’s reach online.
That’s right, face-to-face discussions about your business with people in your community really do affect your bottom line. That even applies to businesses with a regional or national audience!
Highly successful people do this all the time — take business coach Tom Ferry for example. He has found that he must connect with approximately 50 people, in person, before he can make a sale. Furthermore, he has used this law of averages to help him become one of the leading real estate agents in the United States.
When we first started The Milspo Project, we were (and still are) running our own businesses, which meant we spent a lot of time in front of our laptops. Since we worked from home, we rarely carved out room in our schedules to leave our houses, with the exception of seeing friends or running errands. After past PCS’s (and in light of our husbands’ recent deployments), we found ourselves doing the same thing. Naturally sales in our other businesses started to became stagnant.
Sound kinda familiar?
Today we are going to show you some of the simple steps (the two-part “secret sauce”) we use to help leverage The Milspo Project’s message, and how to identify, contact, and meet with the right people in your community to help you do the same.
The Milspo Project’s “secret sauce” for doubling sales
Motivational speaker Jim Rohn famously said that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. We know you have heard this before, but this couldn’t be more true.
Part 1: Identify the people in your community you would most like to emulate, and take them out for coffee.
When top earners know what you do, you will become a top earner too! Tweet that.
Not only do we both practice this in our own businesses, we have started to do this when we are traveling for The Milspo Project. On a recent trip to Washington D.C. we identified the people who were influencers in the milspouse community, and reached out them about meeting for coffee. You will be surprised that most people are happy to give you 30 minutes of their time, and will gladly give you business tips if you come prepared with questions.
Now imagine if the five most influential people in your area knew what you did. You are bound get more customers in no time at all!
Part 2: Create a “sphere of influence” and schedule time to meet with those you feel most connected to.
At a recent social gathering we attend, a close personal friend of both of ours had no idea that we were the co-founders of The Milspo Project! She even asked one of us if we were running a regional chapter of the organization, or just volunteering locally. This is a person we had known for quite some time, someone we had run a half marathon with, and someone we had been seeing on a weekly basis for more than a year!
As military spouses we need to do a better job of sharing our businesses with the world. Tweet this!
Telling your friends about your business, is the first step towards growing your sales. One-on-one, tell everyone about your business! Tell your friends, tell your hair dresser, tell your teller at the bank, tell your dog groomer, tell your doctor, tell your daughter’s soccer coach, tell your barista, tell your car dealer (get the point?).
Write down the names of everyone you interact with on a daily basis. Most real estate agents call this their “sphere of influence” and some multi-level marketing companies call it a “personal sphere.” Why do you think companies like Stella and Dot and Nerium International are successful? The independent contractors that work for these businesses tell everyone about the products they are selling. Such companies encourage peer-to-peer marketing, and ask all of their brand partners to make announcements on social media and connect with everyone in their address book. They do not discriminate when they tell others about their product, and that isn’t a bad thing! Can you imagine if you did the same in your own business? It would probably lead to more sales, and at the very least more awareness about your product.
While we definitely aren’t telling you to blow up your friends’ newsfeeds, we are encouraging you make a list of everyone you know in your community, and ask yourself, “do these people even know I own my own business?”. Choose 10 people on this list, and you guessed it, take them to coffee!
The honest truth: not one email, Facebook post, or will replace the marketing power of an in-person meet up.
Do you have any tips you would like to share for getting the most out of in-person meetings, or how to get past the fear of meeting with someone new? Please add to the comments below to join the conversation, we would love to hear from you.
Thank you so much for reading this article. If you like it, please share it with another motivated military spouse you know.
Wishing you wild success and happiness,
Elizabeth + Nicole