First of all if you don’t have a lead capture mechanism on your site you’re missing out on potential sales and leads.  A lead capture mechanism can be as simple as an opt-in box to your mailing list.

Now for the technique.  Let’s assume you created an opt-in box to get people on your mailing list.  Why would I want to sign up for your mailing list?  Normal reasons are coupons, exclusive discounts, more information, etc…

In addition to that we can also give out a free report or ebook.  I know you don’t want to write an ebook.  I don’t either.  That’s why I’m going to tell you how to create an ebook in 5 – 10 minutes.

First things first.  Fire up Word or any word processing program you might have installed.

Second go to article directories.  There are tons of them, but here are a few to get you started:

Ezine Articles

Go Articles

Article Dashboard

Third:  Search for your topic.  For example you do plumbing in Wall, NJ, so you search for plumbing.

Here are some of the great articles I’ve found:

Plumbing Basics

A Short Guide for Plumbing Emergencies

Plumbing Tips – From Thawing Frozen Pipes to General Pipe Repairs

Plumbing Problems and Solutions

Inexpensive Bathroom Remodeling Secrets

Electric showers: Making your bath economical

Emergency Plumbing Service: How To Choose The Best

Plus there are literally hundreds of other articles.  I found these articles in literally two minutes.

The good thing about these article directories is you can use their articles, all you have to do is leave the author information in.

Fourth: Create a cover page in Word (make sure to include your contact information).

Fifth: Pick your favorite articles and copy and paste them into Word, right after your cover page.

Sixth: Use a PDF converter to convert your document into PDF format.  Here are a few free PDF converters:

PDF 995

Primo PDF

Open Office

Seventh: Relax and take a nap.  You’re done.  You’ve created a good ebook with tips you can give your future clients in literally five minutes.

You don’t have to use this technique to create ebooks and reports, if you get stuck on what to write to your mailing list or are in a rush to get a mailing out you can do the same thing for your mailing list.

You can also use the articles on your sites for fast, keyword rich, free content.

Sorry for the long delay in between posts.  I’ve been insanely busy lately, which of course means business is booming.  Which brings me to the point of this post.  How can you make your business boom?

It’s easy look for clients in places you don’t normally look and of course SEO (search engine optimization) helps out a ton.

Business wasn’t exactly slow a few months ago, but I decided to try different tactics in my spare time to drum up added business.  I’m a workaholic so working 16 hours a day doesn’t bother me (as long as it’s not manual labor), but I can’t work 16 hours a day because I do have a family.  The first step I took was figure out a way to turn every day into a 16 hour day without doing 16 hours a day of work.

So I looked around and found tons of unpoached leads and generated several of my own leads (through SEO), a long story short I got myself up to 16 hour days by getting new clients, but my family was almost being neglected, so I decided to have two of me.  In the last month or two, I’ve hired three people.  Two of them I let go because their performance wasn’t up to par with the way I work.  I’m left with one (who’s doing an excellent job), but it’s really making me much more efficient and now there’s more working hours available in the day.  I’ll probably hire someone else because I think having two people help me would be even better and I probably do need two people because I’m creeping back up to those 16 hour work days (and have had several in the last week).

The point of that whole statement was I found leads in unlikely sources, I converted the leads, I hired more help which motivates me to generate even more business (because now more can get accomplished), and I’m going to expand again in the near future because I don’t want to start a waiting list and lose out on customers.  Don’t stop trying to generate leads.  The minute you stop new clients might stop showing up.  Word of mouth can get you tons of clients, but even that can be tapped depending on your business.

I know you’re probably waiting for the unlikely lead source.  Sorry that’s not included here (or for sale).  Look back on some of my posts and you’ll find several ways of creating leads, that work.

SEO won’t let you down no matter how you look at it, SEO being your first form of attack will get you noticed no matter what business it is you do.  There are so many people searching online that the yellow pages…dare I say…is just about obsolete.  I read recently that some companies are planning on doing away with local yellow pages unless you request them.  Online is the place to be.  If you don’t have a website you better get one designed and created now.  I don’t care if you’re a carpenter in Howell or a dentist in Toms River get yourself online now.

Sometimes you need to work harder and then smarter.

The title might be off a bit, but if you sell online leads to your clients.  There is a simple way of doing this without having to purchase expensive scripts and you can get the leads into your clients email account in minutes.

There are two ways of doing this.

The first way is with your contact form.  Most contact forms allow you to send the email to multiple senders or CC multiple senders.  Take advantage of that and send the email to yourself and to your client.  This way you have a copy of all of the leads and you know what to bill your client.

The other way is with Outlook or a similar email program.  Basically we’ll be creating a rule that will sort the emails out for us.  The sorting can also be used with the contact form.  You’ll understand as I explain it a little more.

Open up Outlook.  I blurred out a lot of stuff (especially stuff that’s not necessary).

Go to Tools then scroll down to Rules and Alerts.

Pick Rules and Alerts.  Then click New Rule.

Pick Start from a Blank Rule.  Make sure Check Messages When They Arrive is highlighted.  Click Next.

Check with Specific Words in the Subject.  Then click on Specific Words.  Add whatever words the subject line are in the subject line of your lead capture form.  For my example I picked, “Hot New Lead for XYZ Client.”  Click Ok.

Click Next.

I prefer to keep client leads in separate folders or apart from my normal emails.  We also need to send those leads out to the client.

Click on Move a Copy to the Specified Folder.  Click on Forward it to People or Distribution List.

Click on people or distribution list.  In the blank space next to where it says To – > write the email address of your client.  Then click Ok.

Click on specified folder.  Then click New (if you want to separate clients from your own email).

If you clicked New type in your client’s name in the blank line.  Then press Ok.

Click Ok out of that.  And once you’re back in the Rules Wizard.  Click Next twice.  Then if you have any leads already in your Inbox that you want to separate check Run this Rule Now on Messages Already in “Inbox”.  Turn on This Rule should already be checked.  Click Finish.  Click Ok.

I’ve created a lead capture page just for this.  It took 2 minutes so it’s not the prettiest.

I’ll fill out the form and submit it.

I check my email and there’s the email magically appearing in it’s own folder.  It was also sent out to my client.  At the end of the week I can bill him for all of the leads he received.

The Rules and Alerts system in Outlook is very powerful and easy to use.  It can help you sort years of emails into nice and easy to find locations.  You can setup these rules for any emails coming in or that are already in your Inbox.  You can even setup rules per client and have emails sent and received from a particular client in a separate folder.

Experiment and play around with it.  You’ll find the rules are very easy to create and it’s easy to customize to your needs.

If you don’t have a way to capture a visitors information on your site you are potentially losing a lot of money.  Depending on your product or your services you might want to have an “in your face” approach to capturing client information.

You can have a popup come out and ask for their information, you can have a opt-in box on the sidebar or inside of your landing page, you can have a contact form, even a phone number works since some people prefer to call.

The easiest way to get someone to give you their information is enticing them to do it.  You could give away a free report, an exclusive discount or if you’re the only game in town just tell them to contact you for more info.

If you have no competition you don’t have to be “in your face” about it.  You can just have a link to your email address or your phone number.  The problem is there usually is competition and if you’re not ranking in the first few spots on the search engines for your keywords you need every bit of help you can get.

Once you capture a lead make sure you treat each lead right.  That means following up.  If you don’t follow up a big chunk of your leads will go bad.

I’ve gotten some requests for how to build a lead generating site and sell the leads to clients.  I use custom scripts to handle the backend for me.  But on Monday I will post a way to do this for free and with very little effort.  That way if you do build sites to generate leads for your clients, you’ll have a way of keeping track for billing and record keeping purposes.

Everything can’t be free but it sure is nice when it is.  When you want to get new clients/customers you have to hit them from every angle and look for new business in as many places as possible.  Have you ever bought something or visited a business because you saw there ads and things that reminded you of them plastered all over the place?  I know I have.

Here are some low cost techniques that can get you more exposure:

Fliers – You can print these out yourself by the hundreds and pay someone $10 per hour to hand them out for you.  If you go to Manhattan or any major city a lot of times you see people handing out fliers.  There’s a reason why they do this…it works.

You aren’t limited to just handing out fliers in front of your business.  You can have the person walk around handing out fliers.  As annoying as it is they can place them under windshield wipers (check your local laws first).  You can drop stacks off at businesses, post them on bulletin boards, and the list goes on and on.

They are cheap to make and the main thing is giving them out to as many people as you can.

Business cards – Just about everyone has these made already so now you have to give them out.  Give them out to everyone you meet, drop them off at stores, post them on bulletin boards.  You can do almost the same thing with a business card as you can with a flier but a business card is much smaller and doesn’t fit the same amount of information.  A business card is appropriate in a lot of scenarios where you can’t use a flier.

Yard signs – You can get small plastic yard signs very cheap if you buy them in bulk.  Just pay someone to stick them all over the place and you’ll have an advertisement for as long as the sign is up.  In a lot of places as long as it’s public land or you ask permission you can stick your sign up.  These have an advantage over fliers and business cards because each sign can be potentially seen by thousands of people.

T-Shirts – Create a stylish t-shirt with your company information.  Everyone that you give these to will be walking billboards.

Here’s a little tip:  If you don’t know anyone that travels a lot in public, try going to a local bus or train station and handing out your t-shirts.  These are people that are using public transportation and a lot of times they travel all over the place.

If your business targets young people hand out your t-shirts to young people, if your business targets older people hand them out to older people.  Also if you see someone that wears a suit all day, they might not be your best target to give out free t-shirts.  Look for people that normally wear t-shirts.  If your t-shirt is visually appealing people will wear it.

Tell everyone – Simple and free.  Tell everyone about your business.

Tell everyone to tell everyone – Also free.  Ask people to tell their friends and family about your business.  Something as simple as, “I really appreciate your business, if you have any friends or know anyone that would be interested in my services or products, please let them know.  I would appreciate it.”  When you tell someone to do something for you, they realize they are helping and a lot of times will oblige.

Give something away – Give out something that costs you close to nothing to buy.  Word of mouth spreads when there is something free on the table.  A lot of companies have loss leaders; where they give something away or sell something at an incredible discount because they know most customers will buy something else.

Work with other businesses – A lot of businesses compliment each other.  You can create an exclusive discount for customers of another business and have that other business hand them a flier or card with your discount.  Your best bet here is using businesses that compliment yours, not competing businesses.  If the other business wants you to reciprocate, then you do the same for them.  That way you both leverage your clientele and help each other.  It’s like having double the traffic for almost free.

Mailers – You can mail your ads/fliers to potential clients.  If your client is a certain type or age group you can find lists of your target demographic and send them a mailing.  Most successful mailings are multi-part, so one mailing won’t always get you the best results.  Make sure to give a discount or offer a compelling reason to buy from you.

The list can go on and on.  Be creative and spend a couple of bucks to build your business.  Not everyone uses the internet and the one’s that do it’s not guaranteed they’re going to find or look for you.  Sometimes a surprise ad will remind someone they need a service and it can help you find the impulse buyers.

Don’t tell anyone this, but your local library is a gold mine for information.  Their prices are great to0 (free).

For example do you sell mainly to businesses with 5-10 employees that make over $1,000,000 per year?  That’s an easy one.  I don’t need any expensive subscription services, I just go to my local library’s website, Ocean County Library, pull out my library card and start searching the ReferenceUSA (InfoUSA) database.  I can find out the owner’s name, phone number, address, employees, and tons of other pertinent information.

This works for people searches also.  I can find out who just bought a house, who just moved, I can find people by how much they paid for their house and where, the options are limitless.  This is like a free lead factory.

The other day I had a small problem with one of my cars.  I didn’t want to buy the manual for the car because I’m not a mechanic and really I knew I didn’t have to buy it.  I went to my trusty library’s website and lo and behold they have the Chilton Library available for free.  If you guys don’t know about Chilton’s books, go to any auto parts store and you’ll find these are the guys that make repair manuals for just about every car.  This of course is even better than buying the books because they even have helpful videos on this site.  This site is literally gold for a mechanic.  Now they don’t have to buy every manual out there, this site has had every car I’ve searched for.  I showed this site to a friend of mine that fixes cars and now every time I see his computer he always has this page open.

Do you need a generic legal form?  The library has you covered.  Through their site you can access Thomson Gale LegalForms.  I always suggest contacting an attorney before doing anything but….for the do it yourselfer this is a great resource to have.  You can get forms from leases to contracts to everything else in between.  These forms are a big time and money saver.

Have a lot of employees that speak a language you don’t?  No problem the library let’s you access Mango Languages, to learn a ton of different languages.  Now if you don’t habla español you can start to learn it anywhere you want for free with no pressure.

These are just the tip of the iceberg.  I’ve used the website for more than just this, but these are a few examples of how powerful that free library card is.

I also go into the library every once in a while and take out books.  You’ll be surprised at what books they have in stock.  I use to go to Barnes & Noble all the time to buy books, then one day I visited my library and thought, “Holy Shit!!!  These guys have half of the books I’ve bought, read once and never looked at again.”  I am an avid reader, so although I don’t visit as often as I should and still buy plenty of books they probably have in stock, it has saved me money on several occasions.

Support your local library.

It stands for, “What’s in it for me?”

Any time you create a lead capture page, try to generate leads or even on a sales page you should always ask yourself the question, “What’s in it for them?”  No one wants to give out their personal information whether it be as simple as an email address or as complex as a social security number or credit card number.  There always has to be something in it for the reader, viewer, whatever.

You have to offer something of value.  It could be as simple as exclusive disounts, a free report, and if it’s for sales they have to believe it’s the best price/service they’re going to get.

If you forget about your target audience you will not fully appreciate high converting lead generation.  I know I’ve created a good lead generation tool when all I ask for is an email address or a phone number and somehow I end up with social security numbers and tons of private information.

Keep yourself up to high standards and others will regard you in the same way.