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Using Seminars to Build Your Professional Practice
By Kirk Ward
Advantages of Seminar Marketing
Seminar marketing is one of the most productive and cost-effective ways to build your financial practice!
You can:
• Obtain an implied endorsement of you and your practice through sponsorship
• Increase your visibility in the community and develop long-term relationships with small businesses organizations
• Present seminars to large groups of qualified prospects with similar needs
• Utilize a systematic marketing process
• Reduce your marketing expenses while increasing your ability to meet qualified, motivated prospects:
• $4,000 to $8,000 for local media advertising
• $2,000 to $3,000 for a direct marketing campaign
• $150-$300 to fill the room at a seminar sponsored by a local organization
Your Window of Opportunity
Sponsored seminars are expected to grow 10 to 15% annually for the next decade. The following factors have created greater demand for seminars sponsored by community organizations and financial institutions:
• Entrepreneurs starting their first business
• Better managemnt skills needed in an existing business
• Employee lawsuits threatening business stability scandal
• Individual business owners seeking financial education
• Employers evaluating new systems and procedures
A Better Way Build Your Accounting, Consulting or Tax Practice
Sponsored seminar marketing provides you with a repeatable, systematic marketing process.
You can leverage your time and money more effectively to accomplish your most difficult practice building steps listed below:
1. Prospecting
• Sponsored seminar marketing puts you in front of more people
• Sponsored seminars give you credibility through an implied endorsement
• You can reduce your marketing expenses by 75%-90%
2. Education
• Your seminars give you a forum to educate attendees
• Build trust and rapport in a noncommercial, interactive environment
• Showcase your expertise and establish your integrity
3. Data Gathering
• Performed by the attendee as part of the seminar process
• Learn techniques that lead to greater than 50% client conversion
4. Decision Making
• Streamline the decision-making process
• Educated prospects understand your recommendations
5. Implementation
• Learn how to make a smooth transition from educator to advisor
6. Client Retention
• Client appreciation seminars make annual reviews easy and profitable
• Open new doors to small businesses during the process
The result - you convert a high percentage of the qualified prospects you meet into lifelong clients.
You Need A Seminar Marketing Tool Kit
Your Seminar Marketing Tool Kit should include the following:
• Sponsor solicitation materials
• Scripts, checklists, and marketing approaches to open doors to local organizations for sponsorship.
• Topics for seminar promotion, closing techniques, and specific actions steps to help you implement your marketing strategy right away.
• Brochures, invitations, letters, and surveys.
• Seminar promotion materials
• Client appreciation brochures
• Sales Close Decision-Making presentation materials
• Take home packets and handouts for seminar attendees.
• Miscellaneous materials - Proposals/Forms
When you are giving a seminar to market your professional practice, you don't need to have a payroll, an office outside of the home, an inventory, or any fixed financial obligations associated with your practice building.
All you need is planning ability and an idea to sell - your information, skills, abilities or techniques that other persons need and want enough to acquire from you. Your successful seminar can stimulate vigorous new interest in your professional practice and new customers or clients can be acquired based on your publicity or meeting contacts.
About the Author
Kirk Ward provides free marketing resources for accountants, consultants and tax professionals at http://instantpracticebuilder.com.
Or, you can visit http://thefrugalaccountant.com and Kirk will provide you with free links, an article distribuiton service and a press release service to help you get your website noticed.
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