Author: Emmanuel Lao

Outbound the Inbound

The first big tip is to outbound the inbound. Posting content is not enough to generate new clients. You need to engage with people who engage with your content. The purpose of social media is to start conversations. When you post, make sure you post with the intent to start a chat.

Consistency

Posting as frequently as possible creates more opportunities for conversations. The second big tip is consistency. Figure out a system that allows you to create a daily post cadence. Themed days and weeks make it easy to come up with content ideas. Look inside Facebook groups where your ideal avatar lives to see what questions they’re asking. Create a quick written post or video answering those questions.

Poll your Audience

The next big tip is to poll your audience. Ask them questions about what they like, what they recently purchased, or how they feel about a thing. Get data from the people in your database. Use that data to learn more about them as a whole. Create strategic business development partnerships to do things like giveaways.

Focus on Business Development

The fourth big tip is to focus on biz dev. Create content featuring other people and small businesses. Network with business owners and interview them on video. If you feature a business owner in your tribe, they will be more likely to feature you in theirs. It’s called the law of reciprocity.

Focus on Video

The fifth big tip is to focus on video. Video is one of the best, easiest, and fastest ways to create content. You don’t need a fancy camera to do a quick interview. Your phone will work just fine. Video is pretty much the new normal and one of the most effective ways to engage with your potential clients.

Repurpose Content

The sixth big tip is to repurpose content. Create content with the intention to repurpose it for multiple platforms. Record a long-form video and post it on YouTube. Turn highlighted clips into shorts for TikTok, YouTube Shorts, or Instagram Reels. Rip the audio from the video and post it to Apple Music or Spotify for a podcast. Create a quick transcription from the interview and share it as a blog post. Share an abridged version of the write-up as an email or Facebook post. Create a text message campaign to promote the video and send the link. Repurposing content makes you present everywhere quickly and easily.

Profit First is a cash flow system created by Mike Michalowicz that operates on the principle of taking out profit before paying for expenses. This is the complete opposite of the traditional accounting system that operates on the principle of income minus expenses equals profit.

To implement the Profit First system, you’ll need to open five accounts, three checking accounts, and two savings accounts. The first checking account is your income account, where all your income goes. Twice a month, you’ll withdraw the income and disburse it into the remaining four accounts.

The first account is your Profit account (savings account #1), where you’ll allocate about 1% of your income for bonuses, paying off debt, or hitting milestones. The second account is your taxes account (savings account #2), where you’ll allocate about 14% of your income to cover your taxes. Pro tip: put these two accounts in a different bank, so you’re not tempted to use the money for other expenses.

The third account is your salary account (checking account #1), where you’ll allocate 35% of your income to your salary. This is the money you’ll use to live off. The last account (the final checking account) is for operating expenses, where you’ll allocate the remaining 50% of your income. This is the money you’ll use to operate your business, including lead generation, sales, and client activities.

By allocating your income to these accounts, you’ll be able to budget based on what’s available in each account. If you can’t afford a particular expense, you’ll have to get resourceful and figure out how to do it yourself, just like grandma did with feeding the family on a tight budget.

Principle #1: Personalization

This means making sure that your communication with a lead is unique and personable. Use the lead’s first name and write an email that feels more like a 1-on-1 conversation instead of a mass marketing email.

Principle #2: Relevance

Provide valuable and relevant content that addresses a lead’s pain points, goals, or challenges. To do this, you need to know your audience. For example, if it’s summer and you specialize in families, you can send them information on summer activities that would be relevant to them.

Principle #3: Consistency

Stay in touch with your leads on a consistent basis to build a relationship and keep yourself top of mind. This could be as simple as sending 2 emails a month, a text message, and making a quarterly phone call.

Principle #4: Timing

Make sure you reach out to your leads at appropriate times. For example, families may be more likely to respond to text messages on Sundays, when they’re winding down for the new week.

Principle #5: Measurement

Track and analyze the effectiveness of your lead nurturing strategies. This can help you accelerate the “know, like, and trust” factor, leading to faster lead-to-client conversions. You can measure the effectiveness by dividing the number of replies to a campaign by the number of people you sent the message to.

Principle #6: Optimization

Continuously improve your strategies based on the data you collect from measurement. For example, if you get a lot of responses to an email about a new restaurant but no responses to an email about mortgage rates, you should create more content about the restaurant and stop creating content about mortgage rates.