If you’ve been following this blog for any length of time, you know that one of our ongoing themes is that cold-calling is no longer an effective way of finding new business. Your potential customers are just too busy managing their day-to-day operations to talk to you about your company. So how should you go about finding new security guard clients? I’ve written about the answer to that question in our free eBook All The Things That No One Told You About Selling Security Guard Services, but there is another relatively easy way that I haven’t talked about – webinars.
Webinars are a great tool for finding new prospects. Over the past 5 – 7 years more and more of your prospects are looking to webinars to find answers to problems that they face daily. Although there are other resources for solving problems, webinars have several benefits that many other resources don’t. The top three benefits are: 1) Convenience, because you can attend a webinar from anywhere; 2) Time savings, because there is no need to travel; and 3) They are low-cost because many webinars are free.
I have seen several security companies doing webinars, but none have committed to them to the degree that AlliedBarton has. AlliedBarton regularly produces webinars that property and facility managers find informative. Each attendee for the webinar has to fill out a short registration form that allows AlliedBarton to collect the contact information from an untold number of potential clients. Great job AlliedBarton!
Host A Webinar Your Potential Security Guard Clients Won’t Forget
So now that you have seen the light and are eager to conduct your first webinar, here are a couple of tips to help ensure that it’s a resounding success. Although the title of this article is Try This Easy Way of Finding New Security Guard Clients, webinars need to be done correctly to ensure a good return on your investment. Here’s how to ensure a good return:
1. Get Your Audience Involved Beforehand – One of the most important aspects of having a successful webinar is heavily promoting your webinar and then getting your audience involved before the webinar happens. One great technique for encouraging audience involvement is to allow them to submit their questions about the topic to you upon registration. Another technique is sharing free content prior to the webinar that helps heighten the attendees interest in the topic.
2. Have a GREAT Topic – Your prospects won’t attend a webinar that they don’t find compelling. So make sure that you know what issues your prospective security guard clients are facing or what topics they are interested in learning about.
3. Determine the Format – There are several formats that you can choose for hosting your webinar. The ones that are used most often are:
- Single Speaker – In a single speaker format a single subject matter expert (SME) speaks, demonstrates, and answers questions from your attendees.
- Interview – In an interview style webinar the host asks a set of predetermined questions to the SME for his/her response.
- Moderated Panel Discussion – This format has multiple SMEs on the webinar at the same time, with the host facilitating a lively discussion.
- Interactive – In an interactive webinar attendees participate fully via host-led exercises and facilitated conversations
4. Have a Dynamic Speaker and Support Team – To help hold your attendees’ attention, ensure that your SME is well versed in their area of expertise and is also capable of handling the follow-up Q & A session.
Although all of your prospects have attended the webinar to hear to your SME, your support team also plays an important role in having a successful webinar. So in addition to a dynamic SME, also find someone who is a good moderator, and an assistant to do all the behind the scenes legwork.
5. Have an Incredible Deck – No one likes to look at a PowerPoint deck in 10pt Comic Sans font with 15 bullet points per slide. To keep your audience engaged, be sure to give them something nice to look at. If you’re a Powerpoint novice follow these tips on creating awesome slides…or consider hiring a professional (contact us, we know a good one).
By offering free webinars you will be attracting and collecting contact information for prospective security guard clients in addition to building your brand authority. While a sale probably won’t happen immediately, you are building the foundation for a relationship that may yield a contract in the future.
Have you considered hosting webinars for your company? If so what prevents you from doing so? If you have hosted a webinar, what was the outcome? Please feel free to leave your comments below.
