Five easy things to do to make connections with local regional business?

As regional people and locals we have the point of difference that we can be face to face with people but locals also want to support and trust other locals. You’re a shoe in before you get started and having the confidence to deliver a proposal to a customer based on trust and relationship is your key to getting more business.

It can still be hard growing an agency in regional areas though with smaller operators doing work on the side of their main job for next to nothing. Everyone starts somewhere right, I personally built the agency I work with over 10 years with work on the side but found the right people to collaborate with over this time and produce some steller outcomes for our customers. (If I do say so myself)

Here are five things you can do to get more local business pretty easily but they are all things that have a clear value statement that is contextual the customer’s scenario. While they might seem obvious to you they may not be as obvious to your prospect so identifying them as a way and making it seem easy for them to get a good outcome and return could benefit both you and them.

1. Restaurants and cafes – A booking system will save these business time and money so they can concentrate on the process of their business and not on just booking enquiries. While most locations have adopted these systems usually on a monthly fee for specialist system approach the can be expensive. Some of these may SMS the customers reminders and be better than others. Get familiar with the best system and do a comparison of native platform paid plugin one off solutions that could be meeting the same requirements for a cheaper end solution that has the same benefits as a paid SaaS solution.
   
   
2. Google places management – You may do this for free as part of a website setup but you shouldn’t. Getting a google local place or business verified and setup takes time and you should look at what business are verified their listing and if you can help to verify those that haven’t. Doing so is not only helpful but gets you the admin right to assist with updates and branding. You could charge a small yearly fee for this maintenance such as $10 per month noting that it could deliver a large increase in business if it’s done correctly and testimonials are also used with the listing. Setup I would charge probably $200-$300. There are tools available such as LeadsGorilla which can help with figuring out if Google or Facebook pages have been claimed by their owners and if they are missing certain information.
   
   
3. Check for broken links – This one is super simple and you can use a tool like broken link checker to simply check a prospects website for broken links.
   
   
4. META Information – Another super simple one that takes a minute to check but can be more difficult to communicate. If the site is five years or older though there’s a good chance you’ll make an impression if you approach it the right way helpful and willing to listen to the customers other problems.
   
   
5. Financial Advisors & Insurance Brokers - These industry regulated business’ need to make updates regularly to their policies. They might already have someone in-house or a freelancer or agency helping with this. A content update plan as a monthly might just work for these guys but you need to establish trust and a relationship first up.

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