The Best of The Audience Growth Podcast Ep. 5 - Five things you can do right now to win business

Hello and welcome to the Audience Growth Podcast. I'm your host Nikki Hutchison and I'm delighted you're here. As you hopefully know by now, we're currently resharing some of the very best episodes of the Audience Growth Podcast as we gear up to launch a brand new podcast this summer. But we're not just resharing any old thing.

This week I'm bringing you the third in a series of three of my solo episodes that are going to help you make more sales even if business is feeling stale or slow. You don't need to listen to them in order, but if you haven't already listened to the previous two weeks episodes, you can do that after this one. Today I'm resharing episode 67, which is going to give you five things you can do right now to win business. Let's dive in.

No matter how far on you are in your business journey, it's pretty inevitable, whether due to a global pandemic, say, or perhaps you've just been through a period of growing your team and you need to generate some new business to make sure the additional staff costs are comfortably covered and more every month. No matter why or how you end up in this situation, there will definitely come a time when you think, I need more business right now. So today's episode is a masterclass in what to do when you feel like that.

Throughout the episode, I'm going to refer to selling services, but pretty much all of these tips can be applied to product-based businesses too. Now, before we get into the five things included in today's episode, I recommend you audit exactly where you're at financially right now. How much business do you need to generate? Really?

It's all too easy to slip into panic mode, which never does anybody any good and definitely won't help you bring in any more money. So look at those outgoings, your balances, any guaranteed future income and get a good picture of where you're at. Once you've done that, the first thing is to identify exactly what business you want to bring in and from whom. Do you want to sell smaller services in larger volumes, like multiple power hours, for example?

Or do you want to aim to sell one bigger service at a higher price Or perhaps somewhere in between or a mix of each Once you decided what you want to sell it then about identifying who needs these things and needs them right now There no point trying to sell things to people now if they don't actually need them until a certain point in the future. There's no urgency for them in that case. So identify who needs each of these services you want to sell and then you can go on to think about where to find those people.

The second step involves identifying who in your network either needs your services or knows someone who does. Go through your LinkedIn contacts, your email list, your inbox, your CRM system, anywhere you store business-related contact details. Go through them all, always with your specific service in mind. If you've decided to try and sell more than one service, you can repeat this step for each individual thing you want to sell.

Pick out every single person from every single place who needs your service. Then go through your contacts again and pick out every single person who knows someone or has access to an audience of people who need your service. Then contact them. Ha!

You knew I was going to say that, but at the same time, you were secretly hoping I wouldn't. Yep, yep, yep. Outreach has to be done when you're in this situation and you need to make some cold hard cash fast. Make it less painful and copy paste an email or a text, topping and tailing it with some personalized introductory info and a personalized sign-off so that the recipient knows they're not just a number.

Or use a video app or voice notes, one of my personal favorites and massively time-saving if you have a script in front of you that you can roughly follow. Next up, go on to Eventbrite or Facebook and start looking for local networking events. Find the ones that sound like your jam. For me, that generally means women only, definitely means no gray suits in sight, and pretty much always means daytime as I'm too tired for small talk by around 6pm these days.

But what types of events appeal to you? You'll find all sorts and the thing about being selective and not forcing yourself to go to the ones that you think will be good for you means that you generally get on well with the other people who are there Push yourself to sign up to at least three events within the next two weeks head along with a positive attitude armed with your best smile and I can pretty much guarantee you'll have some leads by the end of it. Follow up with those leads fast.

Don't leave it longer than 24 hours and see if you can get a call booked in to discuss their needs. Number four, and this is an obvious one, but honestly, one that people very often don't do enough of, and that is talk about your services. It really makes me so sad when I see people cancelling things, wondering whether they'll get enough people to join, conveniently forgetting about the offers they've created because they don't want anyone to notice that nobody's bought them.

All of these things can be avoided if you just talk about your offerings more often. What do I mean specifically? I mean, talk about them in your copy, write blogs that relate to them, script podcast episodes that relate to them. Talk about them when you're being interviewed or at the end of workshops you're delivering.

Instigate real conversations about them, both in person and virtually. Create videos about them. Share those videos far and wide across your socials. Find your cheerleading squad, which goes back to another piece of my advice, to always be a joiner.

Inside My Business Accelerator, members are always shouting about each other's offers. Just this week from inside the charge, I've seen emails sent, stories published, posts commented on, all supporting each other and shouting about how great each other's services are. Find your cheerleading squad, rally the troops, get them talking about your services too. You never know who's listening.

And if you need more people to listen and take notice so that you can generate more business, then you can guarantee that making more noise about your services is key to making that happen. And my final tip for today, get out from behind your desk and make more effort. Yep, I said it. Want to bring in more business and expand your reach?

You need to go out there and make it happen. Take responsibility for your own success. I decided when I started this business that I didn't want to limit myself to working with business owners in Scotland. So I regularly go and network in person across England.

I've been to London twice in the past two weeks for events and I'm heading to both Newcastle and Leicester later this year. I sure I book more in too Of course it always an investment but it always pays off I also taken myself abroad investing in a retreat in Majorca back in the very early days of starting this business I think it was around two months old. And most recently, I went to Social Media Marketing World in San Diego. And as a direct result of getting out from behind my desk and meeting actual people from different places, I've worked with business owners in America, Australia, Sweden, and across the UK so far.

Make the extra effort. It always pays off. Even if you're listening to this and thinking, I can't do that. I've got XYZ restrictions in my life.

I get it. I started my first business when I had two young kids and there's no way I could have done all this traveling. But keep it in mind for the future. And for now, push yourself to get out and meet people locally or online as often as you can.

Broaden your network. Get crystal clear on how you can help them. Communicate that everywhere you possibly can. And that old and not particularly pleasant granted expression will come true.

Your network is your net worth. You'll see that the theme of today's episode is to get yourself and your business out there. No matter how badly you might want to keep your head down, tell yourself that you can't take a break from doing the work until you've brought in more business and more money. Don't listen to that voice.

Instead, listen to me. Get yourself out there, get to know people, tell them about your services and listen to how you might be able to help them or the people in their network. Be proactive and it won't take long for you to start being noticed and for more opportunities and business to start coming your way. Now that was maybe a slightly stern episode, wasn't it?

But I hope you took it the way it was intended, to help you generate the levels of business that you need. I hope you enjoyed today's podcast, the final in a series of three episodes that, if you listen to them all, will help you make more sales this month. If you're listening and enjoying the podcast, please let me know. Tag me in your stories and I'll reshare in mine.

I'll be back next week with more information about what's coming next. So stay tuned. Until then, take care and keep marketing. Thank you.