How to Generate More Business In A Struggling Economy

Generate more business for your efforts using online marketing, social media, and bartering. This post will analyze some ways you can implement right away to generate more business for yourself while our economy attempts to right itself. One of the main things I try to focus on when I need to generate more business for my company is online marketing: what have I been doing that’s working, and what do I need to cut out. If you need to drastically find and land more clients, I suggest you check out some of my previous posts on the subject of online marketing:

• Online Marketing: Bridging the Gap from Offline Marketing
• Online Marketing: Networking and Social Media
• How to Use Online Marketing to Make Money With Your Blog
• Online Marketing – Category heading

Also, a great way to keep up-to-date with ways to generate more business is to subscribe to my free weekly newsletter and RSS feed.

Finally, I’ll talk a little bit here about an interesting new way I’ve been using to generate more business: bartering.

I’ve been wanting an iPod Touch for awhile (and during that while, I’ve been calling it an iTouch; no one told me otherwise for the longest time…). My girlfriend just purchased one, and I’ve been messing with it for some time. Though I couldn’t tell you how to turn the thing on or off, I could tell you the best casino Blackjack and Texas Hold ‘Em poker games available for it.

Anyway, I don’t have the money to buy one, and I don’t have the clientele to make the money to buy one. I decided I could either work to generate more leads and referrals, or I could cut out the “middleman” and just barter for an iPod–which has, strangely enough, indirectly become a way to actually generate more business than I thought I would.

Bartering has come along way in society, from farmers and tradesman bartering for goods in a village to the modern version: bartering on Craigslist, or using a site such as BarterQuest.com to find and exchange goods of value. Here’s how it panned out:

1. Craigslist proved to have many iPods available within the past few days in my area, and I took to spamming them all with a simple email: “Hello, my name is Nick. I don’t have any money, but I make websites…” along with a few examples and a link to my portfolio. The responses were decent (I sent out about 60 emails–Craigslist prevents more than about 20 emails from one email address in a 24-hour period, so I used three email accounts!), but most people either weren’t interested or had already sold. A few people responded with a less-than-satisfying, “I’ll think about it.” To find clients on Craigslist, I’ve found that you need to either sell yourself as a freelancer when necessary, even when you own a company like mine.
2. BarterQuest turned out to be fruitful. You simply make an account and list a “Have;” something that you can offer others–either a good or service, and one or more “Wants”–what you want in return. Clicking the “Match” button matches you up with someone who has something you want, and preferablly vice-versa. I posted “Web Design” as a “Have” and an “iPod Touch” as a “Want,” and within 24 hours someone contacted me interested in a very simple site design. I look forward to our relationship, and I think it’ll be a fruitful experience for both of us. Best of all–BarterQuest doesn’t seem to require a percentage payment–at least the listings are all free. There may be some premium listing option that I’m not aware of. To generate more business with a site like BarterQuest would be a bit harder, I imagine, though not impossible–you’d first need to complete your barter agreement, then “upsell” to a higher-level service or product package with your new prospect.

The great thing about trying to generate more business by bartering is that people do not associate dollar figures to a good or service under this system. If someone (like me) is desperate for an iPod, I value that object more than other things that may actually have a higher dollar amount associated with them. Likewise, it’s easier for me to handle accounting and bookkeeping for my business when there’s no money exchanged (!).

I recommend checking out bartering and if you can offer something people want. This is a great way to generate more business, and while you may not be generating direct revenue, you’ll be generating a strong, satisfied customer base that will hopefully point you to new clients and repeat sales!

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