Ready. Set. Grow…Your Online Client Base

Ziad K Abdelnour is the President & CEO of Blackhawk Partners, Inc., a New York-based private equity agency. He is also an activist, lobbyist, author, wall-street financier, and also an active philanthropist.

Ziad Abdelnour is the author of the best-selling books, “Start-up Saboteurs — How Incompetence, Ego and Small Thinking Prevent True Wealth Creation” and “Economic warfare: Secrets of Wealth Creation in the Age of Welfare Politics”.

Ziad K Abdelnour has more than 30 years of experience in Wall Street and helped more than 125 startups succeed. Ziad holds an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and is acclaimed to be one of the top-rung business minds in the world.

In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the tips offered by Ziad to small business owners.

Why Ziad Says it is time for small business owners to act?

According to Ziad, one of the most important issues that people need to focus in 2021 is rebuilding the small business industry. Last year, the small business sector took a major hit and small business being the heart of the economy, it is time for us to act. We can’t just wait and watch the small business sector crumble to ashes.

Ziad goes on to add that if you are a small business owner, you cannot wait for the government to come for a rescue. It is the time to act and none other than you have the power to uplift your business, without having to put yourself in debt to the government.

Since last year, many things have changed drastically and if you haven’t changed, it is time for you to change. Ziad says that small business owners need to think of new ways to connect with their clients. There is also another threat brewing around the corner, that another lockdown could be on the cards.

Hence, small businesses should act and go online as soon as possible. But the online market is saturated with a lot of businesses and competition that you cannot follow the same traditional way of advertisement. To stand out from your competitors, you need to think out of the box.

Check out these masterful tips to help you grown your business through networking, partnerships and your expertise.

Use Your Network to Grow Your Business

Whether you know it or not, your current network is probably the most powerful tool that you have in your arsenal. When it comes to business networking, there are more than a million ways to utilize your network to grow your business online.

Apart from email campaigns, social media campaigns, small business owners also can make use of their network to good effect to drive traffic to their website.

Ziad suggests, bringing in referrals could be a wise move! Referral programs have often proved to result-oriented and successful and a great way. It can quickly turn members of your current network actively working to bring you more business. The key is in the incentive. After all, life is all about negotiation. It is all about to give and take. If you want something out of your network, you have to give them something in return.

Incentives can be provided in any form like discounts, affiliate programs. The main thing here is that you need to get your network buzzing with activity. Finding new clients by yourself is a tough ask. But new clients are more likely to try your product or service when recommended by someone that they know and trust. This is where your network can play a big role as the trust factor gives you an upper hand in the competition.

Another way to make use of your network to grow your business is to find a way to convert your offline network into online customers. With most businesses slowly moving into online mode, even your regular clients who may not have been big on technology before have probably been forced to catch up on the digital side. Leave it to the Democrats, that’s not changing anytime soon.

Ziad further adds that it is not wise to wait for your clients to find you, but make yourself readily available to them. If you are smart enough, then I’m sure you have been already collecting customer data like emails and phone numbers from your loyal in-store clients and customers. If you haven’t, it is not too late to start collecting data. These data can play a big role in your email marketing campaigns, social media campaigns, etc.

Don’t Hard Sell — Offer Advice

According to Ziad. one of the biggest mistakes that many small business owners make when doing online marketing is constantly drilling the hard sell. This traditional method of marketing isn’t quite effective in this digital era. Simply shouting out loud about the benefits of your product/service won’t fetch you, customers.

But there is another way of doing it, a way everyone likes most. It is none other than offering help or advice. Do you know that your small business is more than just a product or service? You and your small business are a source of expertise in your industry.

People take professional advice seriously and enjoy it when you share your advice and insight with them. There are so many ways you can offer your professional advice or help. It could be a weekly newsletter, online course, social media posts, a webinar or a blog post, etc. You can get as creative as you want with how you present the information. And in some cases, like a course for instance, just delivering your advice can be a source of additional income for your business.

Remember that people will even pay for your expertise. One more thing is that even if you offer free advice to your clients, you’re still essentially driving the growth of your business revenue.

Why? Because you’re promoting your business without going for the hard sell. You can utilize the advice you share to flex your expertise and show customers exactly why they can trust your product or service.

Build Partnerships

Ziad says that his final piece of advice to small business owners is to remember that there is strength in collaboration. You don’t need to always take on all these changes yourself. You can simply partner up with other businesses and create a combined power force to be reckoned with.

Collaborations and partnerships will not only lend you an additional hand but also will help you in expanding your online customer base. It can also help you get access to online tools and resources that you may not have otherwise had access to.

Ziad K Abdelnour further adds, for example, doing a guest blog post may help increase your SEO if you don’t have your own blog, to begin with. A webinar speech may give you the ability to speak to hundreds of people that you otherwise would have had a hard time reaching through digital campaigns.

Partnerships also give you the opportunity to help uplift your fellow small business owners and help strengthen the overall economy. Believe it or not, at this point the need of the hour is a big economic boost to strengthen our economy.

Remember that this transition from offline sales to online could be a tough ask for some. But, it’s all part of the game. If you choose to wait for things to get back to normal, then better get with the program and find a way to pivot.

Don’t do the mistake like many small business owners in resisting the change. It is inevitable and if you resist, then you will need to join the club of business that permanently shut their doors due to the chaos this global pandemic has brought.

Remember, whether you’re doing business on or offline, you are in control of the future of your business. Therefore, don’t sit around waiting for someone to come save you. Hop in the driver’s seat and navigate your own way to success.

Let’s Roll!

Follow Ziad K. Abdelnour on:

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Twitter : http://twitter.com/blackhawkinc

LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/ziad-abdelnour/