Seeking Business for Service Companies

For service companies seeking new business, the first port of call is to truly understand what it is that you do best.

Copy the multinationals by writing a mission statement before you do anything else. You don’t have to put it on your website or make a sign for your shop, it’s just about identifying who you are, what you do and how you do it.

The reason that a mission statement can help service companies seek new business is because you have to know what you your skills and advantages are – what you are getting paid for, effectively. In the current economic climate, service companies have to be the very best they can be - no one is paying for ineffectual service businesses anymore, but good service companies can still do well.

Know Your Core Business

To gain service sector customers, you have to know what you are offering them. Take time to understand your core business – a great way to do this is to ask existing customers what they value about your service. Online tracking programmes are also helpful, as are feedback forms.

Identify what areas of your business are already gaining repeat business and areas where you are not seeing that trend. All too often, the information is under our noses but we choose not to see it. Try to be objective about your service business as this is the only way to improve.

Utilise Networking Opportunities

Service businesses thrive on word of mouth because it can be harder to advertise a service rather than a product. You have to be creative with how you utilise networking opportunities and a good way to start is to know who else is going to be at the event and be armed with information on your competitors.

Networking opportunities can be found in many guises – they don’t just have to be those formally arranged meetings that can actually just take you away from core business. Of course, you don’t want to be one of those party bores that just talks about their work, but you can find new business in the most random of places.

Utilise Service Sector Leads

A classic place to find new business is to use service sector leads. There are many lead generation services that you can sign up to, with various fees payable depending on how regularly and exclusively you want to receive leads. These leads are typically from people that trawl the internet, trade press and other sources to find out what’s going on in your industry. There are a growing number of free lead generation services available, such as Google Alerts, but bare in mind that free services are far more subscribed than paid services.

Maintain Quality

Although it may seem obvious, the best way to gain new business as a service company is to look after your existing customers. Don’t forget the saying that ‘a happy customer tells three people and the unhappy customer tells nine’ – many marketing experts agree that they’re simply trying to recreate word of mouth referrals, so make sure your service is great and you customers will tell people about it – for free!