The Business of Online Marketing

Questions to Ask on Your One-on-One

This chapter is response to a couple of very interesting questions that were asked by students named Sumaira did Hamid. I wanted to address those; the first question was Do you have any generic documents or information when going to your first one on one with one with a potential customer.

And the second question is; what are the right questions to ask him or her their prospects so to address the first question any generic documents or information. When I first started I didn't bring anything with me what I would do is I would bring a pen and paper and I would meet with a prospect in a Starbucks or at their place of business or wherever it was.

I would just bring a pen and a notebook that I had and I would ask those questions and I would listen the goal was just to try and get a feel for their business what it was that they needed everything that they were doing not doing when it came to online marketing. And then even some of their other efforts that are related to online marketing like their marketing their sales and so forth.

So I would just listen to them break down their business and then that would help me really get a feel. Now what I would say is if they are a bigger prospect you're going to be a bigger client you can really feel that it's going to be a little more of a challenge to close them. What I would do is definitely do some homework research them online and see what their web site looks like see what their social media presence see what they're doing or not doing online and have that ready.

And another thing you can do is when you can actually prepare maybe a quick sheet of 10 things that they can do to immediately boost traffic to their Web site or 10 things that they can do immediately to fix their site to get more phone calls something like that. And you can present that to them as they leave behind or is better than a business card so you can give them that.

And that's something that they can use whether or not they go with you or not. So those are just a couple of ideas that things that you can do but typically the most important part of the one on one is to ask them questions and to really get to know their business. Then after you've done that then you can present them with your game plan your proposal right.

Yardy have a feel for their business and this may be your game plan that you have as a template and you just stick their logo on there and change their business name in there in the correct fields. But it all help them well it will help you and help them to get a really custom tailored game plan for them.

If there are specific services that they mentioned that they want and that you don't normally offer but you feel like you could you're going to of book put that in the game plan anyway. To follow up with the next question which you are what are the right questions to ask the prospect here are some key questions the key to these questions is that they're open and that the key to all your questions when doing a one on one.

They must be open ended. You can't ask questions just like you guys doing online marketing or they are going to say well no that's why I'm discussing to you or whatever the case may be. You want to make sure that you're asking open ended questions so that you can get a real feel for their business so.

A good question.

Where does the majority of your new business come from? Currently is it online or is it off line. Is it from flyers or mailers that you're doing it from your truck ads whatever it may be? Where do you most your customers or clients come from.

They'll give you a feel for what they're already doing and what's already working. Another question I'd like to ask is what's not yet perfect about your online marketing or what do you want to improve about your online marketing. And that's going to really spill the beans. They're going to say oh we need to do this we need to do this we need to do this and that's why I hope that we can work with you.

They're going to say stuff like that. Another key question I'd like to ask is what you have done so far to market your business online. Now if you've done your homework you should already know. You can visibly see what they've done but you can see you can hear from the business owners perspective what they've done already online and then how you can kind of fill in the gaps and how you can help them make it even better.

You can also ask a quick question what's worked well. So in their online marketing efforts already what's worked well have they done Facebook ads?

How did that work for them?

Have they done paper quick?

How did that work for them?

Have they done blogging?

Have they done videos whatever they've done?

Ask them how it worked for them. You could even do it like nurses do on a scale of 1 to 10. How well did it work for you. And then another question you could ask is what you would like to see happen with your online marketing or what results do you want to see.

Well we really want to increase our e-mail options or we really want to improve our Web site so that we get more phone calls or whatever the case may be. So keep in mind those questions.

I'll put them in the notes here. Be sure that they are open ended and that's the focus of the one on one the follow up. Then of that one on one that first meeting is to then send over the game plan. Now keep in mind I personally haven't done a one on one in person in over two years now. Everything that I do I still get a lot of referrals from current clients and I still like to do the selling part or that first touch with the new client and I do it all over the phone so it works perfectly and I do my homework before I call somebody and I say I can see that you've got about five hundred twenty seven followers on Facebook and I can see that you've done this and this and this and that really helps.

People are impressed when you done some homework and that when you're into them again it goes back to that. Know like and trust concept right. So you want to make sure that whether it's in person at a Starbucks or at their place of business or on the phone or via e-mail whatever it is you want to make sure that you have a really good feel for their business.

And it's very important to bear concept because as an online marketing agency you're working vicariously for them you're acting as if you're an employee for them. So you want to be very familiar with their business even from the get go especially from the get go when you're discussing with them and when you're in the sales process.