Start Selling by Involving your Family
Let us discuss marketing. And I don’t have in mind the traditional ways of advertising through print ads, television or radios - though for the kind that I have in mind, these ways can be used as supplements.
This article is about the kind of marketing that is done involving your family.
Your family can be the best source of marketing, right on down to your children. Make them aware of what you do, what you sell, maybe why you sell this particular product or service.
“Why?” you may ask. Well, your family is already a value to you, not only because they are family but because they know you.
Because families talk and are generally aware of other members, this puts them closer to the product or service one may be offering.
Take for instance a freelance photographer, a writer, a researcher, a paralegal or some kind of small, limited invested company.
How do they advertise and can they afford it? Family, if they are knowledgeable, will have the tools to use in everyday conversations to promote this type of “business” in a more conversational way.
General conversations and the message in them can often times be heard more loudly than a radio ad saying, “Hey, I’m a freelance, hire me.”
My mother, brothers, relations and good friends all are quite aware of what I do for a living and to what degree.
In most respects they even know what I don’t or won’t do. I can go to town and run into someone who has been given this information by word of mouth, and when I leave town the possibility of me having obtained a new client is that much higher.
My brother has brought me a recent customer, simply because he is aware of what I do and it was a general conversation he had with his friend who in turn told his parents…see how that worked?
Raffles can be used with all family members and friends. One of the things I do is outdoor photography, and not to toot my own horn but I am good.
Occasionally I will raffle one of my prints with the proceeds going to ROTC or some other needed program. What does this do?
This not only provides needed funding for those programs, but also gives out information that you are available for this type of work.
Raffles, carwashes, and conversations are almost all family-orientated ways of promoting a business. When starting a store front business, family members can be useful anywhere from setting up, to receiving and stocking, to providing a service to customers, doing errands, and making calls.
Often times, in beginning stages and even beyond they do it to help and not necessarily for pay. And the end result is that you have a family-run business.
Letting your family help you, please do not forget to show them how valuable they are to you. Remember they’re helping and they want to feel that you appreciate that they do.
