So, you’re a business owner – and you do what you can to market your products and services. You’ve hired a team of professionals to handle your content creation and distribution, and it’s going well.
However, this is one aspect of the marketing machine that can sometimes get overlooked: marketing yourself.
After all, your business is just an extension of yourself. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, your business is all of the aspects of your personality neatly packaged into a specific box.
So, what am I talking about here when I say market yourself? This can apply to personal brand stuff on the internet, but I’m not even talking so much about that.
What I’m really exploring here is getting out in your community and meeting people who can help you move the lever in your business.
Let’s go over a great example. One of my clients is a construction company, and they were in a home show last year. I called the organizers of the event and told them I’d like to come out with my cameras.
The idea was that I would float around getting a bunch of photos and video clips, and then after the event was over I’d share the photos and an edited video with the event organizers.
They, of course, were into this and so I made it happen. At the time, my main intention was to work with the home show organizers, in the hopes that they could use me for something else in the future.
I hadn’t even thought of what I was actually doing. I was in a room with a big collection of home service businesses, a niche that I’m good at serving. I was able to float around the room, meet every single business owner and have long chats with them.
We talked about their business, about my business, and just life in general. At the end of our chat, I’d ask if they would mind if I grabbed some photos of them. Everyone said yes, of course.
Then I would give them a card, and tell them to shoot me an email so I could get the photos to them. I told them they would be good for social posts.
Now, yes – I had chats with a lot of businesses, and most of them didn’t turn into anything – but one of them turned into $10,000 in business so far, and there’s another $10,000 worth of work in the pipeline.
Case in point? I put in an entire day of chats and shooting, and then say a half a day of editing and half a day of emailing. 2 days of time investment in total, in exchange for 10k in profits so far, and 10k of more potential profits.
You see, I benefited from having these chats and working on my ability to get folks interested in what I do anyways – I met some great people and had some good conversations, and it also turned into business opportunities.
I recently learned with this client, that an infinite amount of people reach out to them regularly about working together – they said that it was annoying.
There have been times when I’ve endlessly cold called individuals to get projects going – it almost never turns into anything.
The journey of client acquisition is one of introducing them to you, and gradually warming them up from a cold to hot lead – in the most natural way possible.
Depending on your industry, try this strategy for yourself. Get yourself into rooms with people who need what you offer, have great conversations with them and give them value for free.
Over the years, I’ve tried it all – and this method really is one that’s been tested and proven time and time again. It’s down to earth, personable, and thorough. It’s sustainable and scalable, and allows you to build lasting working relationships with individuals who resonate with your messages and modes of doing business.
To Your Success,
Jay Ashcroft
four32 MEDIA
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