Someone as sharp as you should have some #$%^ clients, right?
If you are in the process of starting your business, you've probably realized it's not as easy as you had hoped. So why don't you have enough clients?
We start a business with optimism and confidence. Lots of people have done this – how hard can it be?
We get to work on all the trappings of business – the cards, the website, the logo, the EIN, the business card – and wait for all the cash to roll in.
Then, it starts. The business becomes not fun. It's all expenses and no income. What the heck?
So we start looking for the reason. It can't be us. We are working our a$$es off – reading articles, getting trained, taking courses, hanging out with the old guys at SCORE (who by the way never actually started a business) – that can't be the problem. It must be time. It's probably time.
So we quit our jobs, thinking that will make it better. But it's made it worse. SO much more worse. Because now we have all the time in the world, and it is still not happening.
So what to do?
Most of us start our businesses with the wrong tasks. We start with setting up the stuff of business, without testing the most important part – do clients want to pay for what I'm offering?
What's needed is what those of us from the IT world call a proof of concept. We need to start offering what we do and see if anyone wants it.
The most important part of doing this successfully this is credibility.
Let's say I meet you at a networking event. I'm not totally clear on what you do (because you aren't yet totally clear on what you do), but it sounds interesting, so I hang on to your card and check you out.
Except according to the internet, your business doesn't exist.
There's no website, or it's so full of stock photos and copy someone else has written that there's no soul to it. Your Facebook business page has been filled full of meaningless articles written by the social media savvy millennial you hired to “handle social media” because you read a book saying you need to outsource stuff. Your personal page is full of your personal drama and bears no sign of you having experienced the transformation you are offering clients.
Imagine a brick and mortar store who pays a ton of money for advertising, bringing you in to the shop to browse. When you get there, the shop doesn't have anything on the shelves and the windows aren't decorated. You'd leave confused and conclude that they must not be serious about their business or must not be ready for customers.
Credibility.
Before you spend a dime on lead generation or appointment setting or inbound marketing or anything else, you must be crystal clear on who you are and what you do and it needs to be on your website, your LinkedIn profile, your business Facebook page (if you have one), and at least periodically referenced on your Twitter and IG accounts (if you have them).
Marketing and sales are going to be the very last things you outsource. No one can sell you as well as you. Paying someone to try to do so is throwing away money. And as a money coach for entrepreneurs I'm going to recommend you not do that.
If you notice at the big law, accounting, or consulting firms, the highest paid people are the partners, and they are the highest paid because they are the rainmakers – the ones who can bring in the clients. These are your role models.
If you are going to outsource initially, start with things in your personal life. Hire someone to clean your house, use Instacart for groceries, buy prepped meals, have a neighbor mow the lawn. No one cares who does these things. They are invisible.
The same rule stands true for your business. Outsource bookkeeping and other administrative tasks. Find someone you can hand a stack of business cards to who will key them in your CRM. Hire out the functions that are invisible to your clients.
The interaction with clients and potential clients is the most precious aspect of your business. It's where the money comes from, it's where you will find a sounding board for the ideas you have, and it's where you will refine your pitch.
It's where you develop your credibility.
*Have you reviewed your internet presence to see if it represents you well?
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