One area where leaders neglect to focus as they build their services business is expanding their social network. While many people use this for personal relationships, social networks can be used to generate highly qualified leads (you can read more about lead management strategies in our article 4 Lead Management Strategies for Commercial Cleaning Companies). Your social network in your connection to the world and without deeper bonds and rich connections, it will be more difficult to grow your business. Spend time to cultivate your social network and your connections will be there when you need them.
What is a Social Network?
A social network is a company or a person’s personal network of friends and acquaintances. When you include people who follow you on social media and they don’t actually know you, it is called a “like” circle. You can join a network by being invited or forming a connection. This is important because the more people you interact with online, the more likely you are to build a valuable connection. Those connections could be critical in gaining customers, adding insight, hiring great staff, or simply having support when you need it the most.
How to develop a social network for your services business
Start by creating accounts on all of the major social networking platforms. Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and all of the various social media networks will help you grow your presence and network. Then, let your connections know when you appreciate them and share their work. It is important that you are generous with your praise and acknowledgement of others. This can be done in a number of ways including comments on their posts, sharing of articles, pictures, etc. addition to commenting on people’s posts, sharing articles, showing appreciation and love, and use apps like Postly and Hootsuite to automatically send out these messages to your network. The goal is the expand your network and develop rich connections. You are there to help each other. Building a services business is hard if you dont have a little help to connect you to the people and customers you need to grow. If you are not willing to help others when they need you, then they will not be there for you when you need them.
Think of social like a friend. If you do not invest time and effort into building a friendship, it will not bloom.
Social Networking Tips
One of the most important tips is to actually post current and relevant information for your network. Some people do live videos on a consistent basis and respond to comments that are given to your posts. Others post regularly about elements of interest to the group. You need to show the right value to the audience you are communicating with. By being active with your personal posts and your networks posts, you will gain more followers and you can still promote your social media in a unique way that gets your message across. Think of social like a friend. If you do not invest time and effort into building a friendship, it will not bloom. Social requires the same level of support and encouragement as a normal friendship, but it applied to a larger number of people. Strive to be honest and engaging in order to build trust in your network. Together, you can build amazing futures.
Conclusion
The easiest method of selling is to sell to people you know. This method of warm connection selling will help you get sales without the need for extensive cold calling or expensive advertising. The best way to built those warm connections is through fostering the development of your social network. By building those connections and expanding the reach of your professional and personal brands, you can drive additional sales and better customer partnerships. If you are using our software, these connections can be easily added as Leads to help drive sales. Click here for more about the customer lifecycle features of our software. For more information about social media, visit the ISSA to learn about How to Dominate Social Media in the Cleaning Industry.
