How do you grow your business?
“People don’t buy WHAT you do. They buy WHY you do it.” ~ Simon Sinek
I heard my phone chime with a text as I made my way toward the summit. I looked at my screen and saw a single, frowning emoji from my client, Jerry. Before I could reply, another message landed: “I didn’t listen to your advice, and my launch bombed. Can I set up a time to talk soon?”
I already knew the piece of marketing advice he had ignored.
Jerry is not alone. What I teach is so deceptively simple, my entrepreneur coaching clients refuse to believe it works. Of course, I understand the reason—the vast majority of business marketing lore tells us that complicated wins over easy.
I, too, have fallen prey to the siren calls of the standard counsel to chase market traction via creating elaborate online strategies and deploying sophisticated messaging across multiple channels. Not to say that those methods do not have their place, they do. But they come well after we have a lock on precisely who our ideal clients are and have enjoyed repeated success in serving them.
Hit the Reset Button
If we start intricate, overly-technical approaches to connecting with our clients too soon, we can easily get entangled, lost, and then defeated. We can then believe the lie that maybe we aren’t cut out for this world of entrepreneurship.
As we begin a new year, let’s hit the reset button on how we build our businesses. It can be as simple as 1, 2, 3.
Step One: Gather together the data on your 2021 sales. Determine how each sale was generated. That is, how did each client find out about you and your business?
Step Two: Using a spreadsheet or a legal pad, categorize each sale. You might have categories such as Referrals, Social Media, Print Advertising, Online Advertising, Direct Mail Campaigns (print and/or digital), Walk-Ins, Speaking, Website, Media Appearances, etc.
Step Three: Determine which category is your number one sales generator.
Surprised?
Nearly every time I walk a client through this process, they are taken aback and will say something along the lines of, “You know, I thought my biggest marketing strength was through X, but I kept thinking I needed to focus more of my marketing time and dollars on Y and Z.”
Almost each of my clients has admitted to overriding their intuition as to how they should grow their business and market because they kept looking outside of themselves to what everyone else seemed to be doing.
Do This One Thing to Grow Your Business
How about we simply double-, triple-down on doing what comes naturally to us? Do more of what is already working for us because it is an inherent strength.
Once you have surfaced your top revenue driver, supersize it by combining it with knowing why it is you do the work you do and communicating that in your messaging. For example, I do the work I do because I am on a mission to help entrepreneurs become wildly successful, creative, and free. When I educate my referral network (my top sales generator) with what my “Why” is, they more readily grasp my work and, importantly, know how to convey that to people within their circles of influence who may be searching for help in their enterprises.
Does this mean I don’t have a social media presence? Or that I do not believe in online advertising? Does this mean I don’t subscribe to the notion that securing media appearances are beneficial? No, no, no.
All of these are important revenue drivers. We can tend to a multitude of marketing channels after we have ensured our top way of attracting clients is well-tended first. If we are just starting out, or are like my client, Jerry, and are launching something new, embrace simple and what you know works for you first.
Hit escape velocity before putting other planes in the air.
Determine how you naturally pull your market to you and become a champion of that method. Trust your intuition and do more of the marketing work that fills you with joy, ease, and flow.
Your ideal clients are already searching for you. Make it easy for them and you. The work you do matters, and the world needs what you have to offer more now than perhaps ever before.
