The Big 3

When I get overwhelmed and I want to go back to basics (and laser-in on growing my business), there are three focus areas I come back to again and again.

Opportunities are not scarce. Clients are not hard to find. A new project or customer can come from anyone, at any time. As long as they know who you are and what you do - they can decide, suddenly and “out of the blue,” to engage you.

• Could be a brand new acquaintance you just took the initiative to meet.

• Could be someone you haven’t worked with (or spoken to) in 15 years.

• Could be a LinkedIn connection who’s been silently watching your content.

• Could be a fellow pro in a networking group who sees one of your comments.

• Could be a leader who attended a virtual panel where you spoke.

• Could be a stranger who was introduced to you by someone who trusts you.

With that in mind, I’m going to link a number of helpful resources in three key focus areas. If you’re smart, you’ll spend a little time working on all three areas every week. It doesn’t need to take more than a few hours to hit all three in a meaningful way. Here they are:

1. Meet new people every week

2. Nurture your connections

3. Be visible with value
   

🔸 MEET NEW PEOPLE EVERY WEEK

What it means: Your opportunities can only grow if your network grows. If you’re not actively and intentionally growing your network, you’re stagnating. You’re needlessly limiting yourself to a tiny pool of people (the people who already know you) vs expanding your horizons. Aim to put out your hand and meet new people every single week. And if it helps, reframe “cold pitching” as “meeting new people” - suddenly it feels a lot more doable, doesn’t it?

Resources to help:

Cold pitching doesn’t have to be gross

How I think about cold pitching

My favorite cold pitching template

5 ways to use LinkedIn to grow your business

🔸 NURTURE YOUR CONNECTIONS

What it means: To tap into your existing (and ever-growing) network, you need to find ways to nurture them. People need to come to know you, trust you and like you in order to get to the point where they will work with you or recommend you to others. How will you achieve that? The process may take weeks or it may take years. It may happen 1:1 or it may happen at scale. Check the resources below for ideas to put together your nurture strategy.

Resources to help:

How to get more leads out of your network

Hand out lots of “green cards”

How to set up referral partnerships (with templates)

My 5-part series on the sales process (this is part 1)

How to build a marketing funnel (from Nicole Ramirez)

Example: “Cool Stuff” is how I nurture my whole list at scale

Example: Alyssa Towns created a resources page to share / pull from

🔸 BE VISIBLE WITH VALUE

What it means: In communications and marketing, we often cite that an audience needs to hear a message repeated at least seven times before they’ll remember it. And if we want that audience to take action? They need to hear it even more. In many different formats. You, as a business owner, need to put yourself out there into the market again and again and again so that people think of you when a need arises. You need to be continuously visible in the spaces that matter - and always looking to share value.

Resources to help:

Stop trying to go viral (credit: @Sam Szuchan)

Mastering LinkedIn content: Examples of great posts / List of good tips

Content thought starters specifically for consultants

Innovation Women (group for speaking opps ~ men are welcome!)

When you have a weekly plan in place to tackle these three key areas, see if you can carve out a little bit of extra time to continue learning + experimenting. Come back here and check out the other content and resources I have at Solopreneur 101 (the homepage is organized into categories, and the search function is quite good).

Your independent journey is a long, winding road and your personal and professional growth will never be finished. Try to view that as exciting, instead of daunting!