People are the foundation of any business. The most successful business entrepreneurs are those who better understand people’s needs and provide solutions to them. So us, small business owners know that our success depends a lot on our capacity to build long-lasting and positive relationships with different groups of interest.

Building relationships requires time, effort and a mutual benefit for each part. As in any relationship, you must be willing to give, share and support, not just take or receive.

In today’s post I’m sharing some of my best practises to build relationships and how they impact on my business.

Who are those groups of interest

1. Clients. Most small business owners find it easier to sell a new product or service to an existing client than finding a new one. For this reason, keeping in touch with my clients after delivering a project is one of the priorities in my agenda.

Also a happy client can become a referral.  There is nothing I love more than someone contacting me and saying “Hi Rosa… { name of a previous client } has referred me to you to build my new brand or design my new website...” My clients are the most powerful marketing strategy to get new jobs, by word-of-mouth. Meeting and exceeding expectations and staying in touch on a regular basis quite often brings repeat business and new clients.

2. Suppliers. Good vendor relationships will carry you through challenging times or tight deadlines. As they’re also part of my business industry, they are quite often connected to many potential clients and can also refer some work to me.

Employees and business partners also come into this group. I think the main reason why I’ve seen many small businesses to fail has been due to internal issues between business partners.

3. Local community. People who are geographically close to your business could be your best potential clients. Local businesses with a similar target audience, but not competitors, usually offer great joint venture opportunities. For example, if you have a sports clothing store, you can offer exclusive discounts for members of local gyms.

4. Media and bloggers. They may not be your target market or potential clients but they can be excellent influencers. Research has demonstrated that 81% of blog readers trust the advice given by their favourite blogs, and 61% of them made a purchase based on a blogger’s recommendation*.

Getting interest or attention from this group can be challenging as their mailboxes are always saturated with press releases and feature requests. I found the best way to approach to bloggers is by giving a product for free to write a review on it or hiring them to write sponsored content on your brand and products.

5. Competitors. Sharing information, struggles, resources and best practices with other industry fellows can also be a very important factor to build success.

A few years ago, I used to attend industry events, join professional organisations and even be part of their committees. Now I’m a mum and don’t have as much time as I used to before having my baby, I found that a simple coffee with other creative entrepreneurial mums with similar businesses in the area is the best networking activity that I can do on a weekly basis.

I'm honestly surprised by the amount of emails that I get everyday from web design and seo companies asking me if I want to partner with them and outsource some projects. I feel as if someone just sent me an email asking me to marry him and I don't even know that person. I prefer a slower business approach that allows my potential clients and myself to get to know each other and ensure we'll make a fantastic team.

Three ways to build business relationships

1. Social Media

Social media is designed to help people build relationships of any kind, and almost every business uses these platforms for that purpose. People make friends, fall in love and stay in touch with long-distance friends and family members through social media channels. Why can't clients fall in love with your brand or your products through those channels too? They certainly can.

When you have different social media channels you can use each of them to connect with a different group. For example, I found Facebook and Instagram great channels to connect with clients and prospects, Twitter is great to build relationships with suppliers, Pinterest is excellent to be found by bloggers and LinkedIn perfect to connect with industry fellows.

2. Events

Social media is an easy way to connect with your audience but it's not even close to having a face-to-face conversation with someone. An event can offer the perfect opportunity to build relationships with any of the groups mentioned above by meeting and talking to people face-to-face in a relaxed context and friendly environment.

In this other post I offer some event marketing tips for promoting local businesses.

3. Relationship-oriented websites

Yes, that’s right, your website can also be a great opportunity to start long-lasting relationship with potential clients if it’s being properly designed and oriented to build those relationships.

To design a relationship-oriented website I try to think about what my clients would do if it was an event: people come into the venue – your website –, you meet and greet them and introduce yourself – your about page – , then you offer free refreshments – downloadables, discount coupons, free advise and tips – and start different conversations with your guests  - that can be done through your contact page or your blog comments - . And finally you get their business cards for future communications while in your website you can collect contact details through a sign-up form to stay in touch.

This other article on relationship marketing by Sharon Fling published on Business Know-how offers some more useful tips to use your website and email to build long-lasting relationships with your market.

* Source: Quicksprout, How To Develop A Solid Blog Outreach Strategy

An event can be an effective marketing tool to promote an small business. Unlike your social media, an event gives you an excellent opportunity to connect face-to-face with customers and prospective clients.

When it comes to organise an event there are three questions that commonly pop in any business owner's mind:

- "What sort of event could I have?"

- "Who is going to come to my party"

- "How much is going to cost me?"

In today's post I'm trying to answer those three questions as well as providing some guidance on how to use event marketing to promote your business.

Defining your event

Before organising an event, business owners must ask themselves five simple questions: what (format), when (date), where (venue), who (audience) and why (purpose).

The opening of a new store, the launch of a new product, your business anniversary o any other special date in the calendar (like Christmas, Chinese New Year, etc) can be excellent reasons to host an after-work cocktail party, if your store has a good capacity for it.

If there is no special reason other than showcasing your business to the public, an open house day will be the a good option too.

Before setting the date for your event, check a what's on calendar to find any other industry events or popular events of general interest that could clash with your event. Avoid public holidays, long weekends or school holiday periods.

Targeting your event

Targeting means deciding who and how many people will be appropriated to invite to your event, as well as identifying the best ways to do it. The length of your invitation list will depend on your budget and room capacity, and who to invite will depend on your event objectives.

1. Clients and suppliers - your event is an excellent opportunity to thank your existing clients and suppliers for their support. The best way to invite this target group is by electronic invitation (by email). Keeping a database of clients and contact details is an essential tool for many marketing purposes, including events.
2. Local community - if you’re opening a new business or a new store to offer services or sell goods to your local community, it's a good idea to organise a small event to introduce yourself and showcase your business to your community. To invite this group you can advertise your event in local newspapers, send invitations by post and promote your event on your own store.
3. Media and bloggers – industry bloggers could be also interested in attending your event. If they find it interesting, they will write about it after the event, giving a good promotion to your business.
4. Potential clients or prospects - an event is also an opportunity to bring new costumers to your shop and showcase your business. However, reaching people who are not clients or part of your community can be difficult.

Although many large events use social media and advertising to promote themselves, a small business usually doesn't have a big capacity and budget to host a big event. Open invitations can also have the risk of losing control on your target list. More effective ideas to reach potential clients are:

• Through clients and suppliers, as they can help you to promote your event by word of mouth. Allow your invited clients to bring a guest or forward the invitation to a work college. To not lose control on your list you will have to set an online registration form for acceptances, or ask anyone accepting your invitation to confirm the name of their guest by email.
• By partnering with a local business to co-host the event, so that they also invite their existing client base. For example, if you have a sport-clothing store, you might want to partner with local gyms so that they invite their members to your event.

Budgeting YOUR event

even though you may hear that sponsorships or ticket selling are usually a good source to finance many events, I personally can't see this as an option to pay for a promotional small business event. The cost of your event may have to come entirely from your marketing budget unless you find a co-host who is willing to share expenses.

Having a structured budget can help you to decide what you can afford, track your expenses and ensure that you stick to your budget and don't overspend.

Here  you can download an event budgeting template to help you manage your event budget.

managing your event

I managed hundreds of events over the time that I spent working in the corporate world. Whether those events were seminars, cocktail parties, conferences or workshops, I always used the same event template (you can download this template in .pdf in the link below)

An event plan has five different parts:

1. Event pre-planning (setting budget, objectives, date and time, and deciding on venue, speaker or special guests)
2. Event communications plan (creating invitation list, save-the-dates, invitations, reminders, online registrations and thank you emails)
3. Event marketing and promotion plan (if you don't have an invitation list you may want to advertise your event through social media, blogs, press releases, advertising, mailing and other channels)
4. Event logistics (catering, entertainment, audiovisual equipment, name tags, gift bags, staff, etc)
5. Post-event evaluation (collecting feedbacks, getting attendance numbers and debriefing co-hosts)

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Sources: Small Business Trends, 42 Tips For Producing A Memorable Small Business Event, by Jamillah Warner