A business owner I was speaking to this week was bemoaning the lack of new clients due to covid. He had been working like crazy, doing everything his online coaching program told him to do. And here’s why he was getting nowhere and how you can shift things around for your business if you’re in the same boat.
Marketing, The Distraction
Whenever I hear about businesses starting to do social media, write books or start to pump out any form of marketing content, I always want to ask them: “how are you monetizing that?” And mostly, the vague answer I hear is: “we’re not sure”. What most of them mean is: “we’re not exactly swimming in clients but we’re sure hopeful that someone, somehow will see our content and decide to work with us”. As someone who has content coming out the wazoo, I can assure you that that’s not where my clients are coming from.
Stop the Marketing
When I start working with clients who are in a do-or-die cash crunch, I always make sure to put a hold on the marketing and turn on the outreach. Creating marketing content takes time. First we have to figure out the right strategy (ie. target and niche specialty). This takes time and has to be done right or it’s throwing money out the door. Then marketing content is time consuming to create and post and share etc. While you’re doing all this, the outreach is stalled. Nobody knows you exist. Plus it takes a while before your content becomes the 12th point of contact with a buyer. (as in, it takes 7-12 touches of your message before a buyer will buy). So, you have to drop the marketing and start the outreach.
Outreach for Cash
In the covid world, my outreach is all on social media. It’s commenting, sharing and liking my target’s content. Then, it’s connecting with them. Then it’s direct messaging them to establish a rapport and communication. Then lastly it’s inviting them to a call. That’s it! If you do this hundreds of times a day, believe me-you will have way more clients than you do now.
Other forms of outreach could be emailing and calling people in your network or past clients to re-engage in conversations around their new projects.
Outreach is the fastest path to cash, my friends. So, even though I’m a marketing strategist, believe me when I tell you to drop the marketing in a cash crunch and step up the outreach. You’ll be so glad you did!
Want to reposition your messaging to grow your leads? Follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, watch my Podcast on YouTube or connect with me on LinkedIn –and let’s talk.
