Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:01):
This is Sarah
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(00:24):
Hey beauties, it's Sarah NoahBlock here, and welcome to
episode 158 of the TinyMarketing Show.
Today I'm doing something alittle bit different because I
have started joining thesemonthly consultant calls where
consultants of all walks oflife, the only thing they have
(00:45):
in common is that they are solo,come together and ask their
questions, and then the otherconsultants answer them.
So what I'm doing today is Iactually have the list of
questions that were asked onSeptember's call.
And I'm going to run throughrapid fire style answering those
questions for you.
(01:06):
Since many of you are soloconsultants, I am willing to bet
that you have these questionstoo.
So I'm going to pause and pullup the first question.
Okay.
The first question that came upwas LinkedIn cold messaging
outreach.
How do you do it?
(01:27):
So honestly, you could refer toepisode 157 last week's episode.
Um that wasn't planned that way.
It just happened to work outthat way.
Um don't.
I think cold, well, you can docold outreach.
I'll take that back.
I'm gonna fast forward orrewind, whatever one that would
(01:50):
apply to.
Um cold outreach is fine if whatyou're trying to do is connect
and build a relationship withsomeone.
So my advice with cold outreachis to use the magic DM.
And that would be, or I guess itwould be more of called a
(02:10):
connection note.
So when you're sending thatconnection request, you can add
a note to it.
And in that note, you'll want toexplain how you found them in
the first place.
That's the first line.
So hey, Sarah, I found youbecause we're in the same niche
community, name that community.
And then in the next line,you'll want to explain who you
are.
(02:31):
You just use your one-linerhere.
So basically, what it is is hi,this is how I found you in the
first place.
Line two, this is my one-liner.
This is who I am, who I help,and how I help them.
And then line three is some sortof closer, like I'm really
looking forward to your posts.
And send it away.
(02:52):
So that will allow you to openup that relationship with them
knowing how you can solve theirproblems, but you're not
pitching them.
You're just informing them.
So that's the first thing Iwould do with cold messaging is
that.
And then referring back toepisode 157 again, I would pause
(03:13):
on the DMs for a while and warmthat relationship up, engage
with them, engage with theirpublic content.
Um, I said that's so weird.
Engage with their contentpublicly for a while.
So you build some familiarityand warmth with them before you
slide into DMs and deepen thatrelationship.
(03:34):
Um, you can look for signals orhand raising um triggers that
will tell you they're ready todeepen the relationship.
Maybe they are commenting onyour post pretty regularly or
engaging with it.
They've viewed your profilebefore.
They signed up for yournewsletter after connecting with
you.
Things like that tell you thatthey're ready for a deeper
(03:57):
relationship.
So, what I want you to do if youare looking to do some cold
messaging is start off with thatmagic DM and then move towards a
warming period.
And it can take a couple ofweeks, but that's okay because
you're building a deeperrelationship with them.
Wait for two to three warmingtriggers and or warming signals
(04:21):
would be more accurate.
And then you can dive into adeeper relationship where maybe
you have a conversation aboutwhat challenges they're going
through, but more naturally thanthat.
However, you would ask aquestion like that.
Okay, let's look for questiontwo.
(04:44):
Question two.
What is worth outsourcing ordelegating to make your business
easier?
Whether it be apps or hiringsomeone.
So the first thing that I woulddelegate is the thing that
you're worst at.
So for most solo consultants,you're good at that thing that
you're doing for your clientdelivery.
(05:05):
I'm gonna use myself as anexample for this.
I'm good at marketing.
Um, what I'm terrible at isaccounting.
Like I want nothing to do withit.
That's the first thing that Ioutsourced was I got a
fractional CPA to take care ofall of my bookkeeping accounting
stuff.
I wanted nothing to do withthat.
(05:25):
So look at what it is thatyou're either not good at or
have zero desire to do andoutsource that first.
I would use an Eisenhowermatrix, which is basically a
grid where it's what you want todo versus what you're terrible
at doing.
So, what do you like to do?
(05:48):
And uh, what do you maybe whatdo you like to do, but you're
not good at it?
It would take you a long time tolearn how to do it.
So anything that falls into acategory of I'm not good at it
and I don't like doing it,that's the first thing that you
should delegate.
So for me, that was a fractionalCFO.
Um, the next thing that Idelegated was content
(06:09):
management.
So I love content creation, butputting it on the landing page
or updating a website or puttingit in my social media automation
tool, that felt like a completechore to me.
So the next thing I delegatedwas getting a virtual assistant.
(06:29):
So basically, first thing youwant to look at is what do you
hate doing and what are you notthat good at?
Delegate that first.
All right, on to question three.
Okay.
Productizing andor creatingstructured offers or tiers for
your consulting services.
So that was one of the firstthings that I did because I did
(06:51):
not want to charge hourly.
And a lot of consultants startwith charging hourly, but then
you get into almost like a powerdynamic issue with your clients
where they're constantly like,well, what did you spend those
hours on?
What were you doing?
When really you should begetting paid for the outcomes.
(07:12):
What is it that they're gettingat the end of the day?
If you're a really, reallysmart, really good at what you
do, it's gonna take you lesstime than someone else.
You shouldn't be penalized forthat.
So, what I want you to doinstead is create tiers with
deliverables.
So, tier one, these are thedeliverables or the outcomes,
(07:33):
depending on what you do, thatyou'll get with this amount.
So it's a set amount and youknow that it is profitable.
So you need to look at a numberwhere you know how much time it
actually takes you to deliverand you're making a hefty profit
on it.
So choose that for that number.
And then your next tier can be acouple extra deliverables and
(07:56):
it's a higher tiered price.
Um, three tiers is usually best,and use your middle tier as an
anchor.
That's usually where people willland is I want to go to that
middle one first, and then theymight move up.
Um, so you can use a popcornstrategy where your tiers are
(08:19):
only like a little bit apart.
So it's easy for people toescalate to that next offer.
And that's a strategy wherepeople are like, well, why
wouldn't I pay a thousanddollars extra a month and I'd
get all of this instead?
So that's one strategy.
Another strategy with yourpricing is you can make the
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highest tier way more than themiddle tier.
And that's just guiding pricing.
You want, like, if you're whatyou really want is for people to
buy that middle tier, likethat's your goal.
Um, then you want to price anduh offer deliverable
strategically so people areguided to that middle tier.
(09:00):
So maybe your highest tier isreally, really expensive.
So you're guiding people to thatmiddle tier.
So that is one way to do it.
And if you want to dive moreinto pricing and offer
structure, that is there's anentire module or mission inside
of Tiny Marketing Club where weget into building out your offer
(09:24):
and pricing strategy so you canfigure out the right pricing and
how you structure those offers,tiers, offer products, however
you want to call them.
So let's go on to the nextquestion.
Four.
Okay, next one.
How to jumpstart businessdevelopment?
There's so many options, limitedtime, and I'm not trained or a
(09:47):
natural-born salesperson.
Girl, me either.
I'm not a natural salesperson.
What I am good at though ismaking friends with people.
So that is my only goal when I'mdoing business development is to
build a deeper relationship withsomeone.
So if you want to jumpstartbusiness development, I would
(10:09):
start with a small pool.
And I've talked about this athousand times before.
You can search my podcast foranything around niche
communities, and I'm probablytalking about this strategy, but
find a niche community.
It's small, it's tailored to avery specific person and become
valuable in that.
(10:30):
Answer those questions thatpeople are coming up with.
Set keyword alerts so you're thefirst person to answer
questions.
Um, connect with them over onLinkedIn too.
So you're kind of hitting themon different levels, not just in
the community, but now they alsosee you on LinkedIn.
So that's where I would start isas niche as possible, find the
(10:53):
communities where your idealcustomers are hanging out, be
super valuable, answer questionsthere, move that relationship
over to LinkedIn so it canbecome more of like an inerture
sequence because once they'reover on LinkedIn, they're seeing
all of your content.
Um, you can comment on theircontent, you can deepen that
(11:15):
relationship.
It's no longer surface level.
So that is what I would do assomeone who is also not a
natural-born salesperson.
It's combining like the businessdevelopment of niche communities
to LinkedIn and then combiningthat with a gateway offer that's
easy to say yes to.
I call it hell yes pricing.
(11:35):
Like choose a price that youknow people are be like, why
wouldn't I?
Why wouldn't I buy that offerwhen it's going to solve this
problem?
So it should be low ticket buthigh value.
All right, on to question five.
Okay.
Actually, a few people answeredor asked this question.
(11:56):
So I will go into how do youknow when it's time to scale or
bring on help under you as asolopreneur?
It's kind of tied into thatprevious question about who
should, like, what should yououtsource first, but a little
higher level, like how do youknow when it's time to bring
someone else on?
(12:16):
So I would say there's a coupledifferent elements to this.
Like, if there are parts of yourbusiness that you were incapable
of doing, and there's no shamein that, there are parts of my
business I am incapable ofdoing.
Bring that person on right awaybecause you need that solved.
(12:37):
For example, taxes.
You don't want to do yourbusiness taxes yourself.
Get someone else to do that.
That makes sense.
But now let's go to that nextlevel.
And we're talking deliverables,which I'm assuming is what this
person is asking about.
Like, when do I know that it'stime to get support in
(12:57):
delivering to clients?
Because that is usually the lastthing that solo consultants
start doing.
Like, it's scary.
Now all of a sudden you'rebuilding a team and you have
other people who are responsiblefor supporting client
deliverables when it was alwaysyou.
It's super scary.
I've been there.
So I would wait until you'restarting to feel the pain.
(13:21):
You feel the strain of what it'slike to just like be
overextended.
When you start feeling that painand you're like, I can't do this
on my own anymore.
I'm getting too many clientsright now.
I can't handle the amount ofdeliverables I need to do
(13:42):
anymore.
That's when it's time to bringsomeone on.
And the first person I wouldbring on is someone who can
support, again, back to theEisenhower matrix, the things
that you one aren't that good atdoing and don't like doing.
So usually that's a virtualassistant.
So that's what I would do.
(14:03):
I was wait, I would wait.
And I wish that I had done this.
I started my business, but now,like smarter five years later,
me.
No, I'm maybe six years later,me, um knows that I would
continue doing clientdeliverables until I couldn't
(14:23):
anymore.
And then I would bring people into do like the low-level client
stuff that they're not touchinga client directly.
That like from what I was sayingearlier, the content management
is something that I delegated.
But um, wait until you'refeeling that pain because you
might as well keep all theprofit you can while you can.
(14:44):
Okay, on to question six.
Okay, this one's fun.
Testing business ideas.
How have you done this before?
What worked and what hasn't?
So, my favorite way to testbusiness ideas is to create a
pop-up offer.
So it's an offer that is notavailable all the time.
(15:04):
It's limited.
I might only be selling it forseven days, but it gives me an
opportunity to test out if Iwant to expand that offer
further and also see is thissomething I like delivering.
So that is how I would do it.
But let's take it back one stepbecause you also need to
(15:25):
validate if that idea is evenworth trying to do a pop-up
offer.
So you can validate the offer bycreating a wait list, like
telling people, teasing out theidea for the offer on social
media and on your email list,and then having a wait list
available that people can signup for to show that's their
(15:46):
little hand raise, that they areinterested in the offer.
And then from there, I wouldmove over to pop-up list or
pop-up offer.
I will do this for the nextseven days.
This offer might never happenagain.
But so if you want it, you needto get it within the next seven
days.
And the nice thing about that isit's a cash injection.
(16:08):
You're getting a lot of money atonce.
It allows you to test out theidea without being committed to
doing it long term.
You're not married to it.
You're just trying it out.
And you can just walk away afterthat.
So that's what I like doing.
I like a good old-fashioned waitlist plus pop-up offer to test
(16:31):
out ideas.
Okay, and we will end withquestion seven, which I think is
pretty interesting.
And probably a lot of you aredealing with.
How do you get your clients tofocus on what they really need
and prioritize it?
Current client who is greatwants to do a huge project
overhaul with many parts, butisn't prioritizing areas or
(16:55):
spending time to think throughwhat is needed.
Um, I'm worried that we'll godown rabbit holes.
That's so common.
So let's get into it.
The first way to eliminate therabbit holes from happening is
to start the engagement with agateway offer.
Because the gateway offer allowsyou to get information from them
(17:18):
right away, build out thefoundation for what that project
or engagement will look like ona document.
So documented.
Um, next stop, you review itwith the entire team and they
say yay, nay.
And at that point, youprioritize what's the most
important thing for you.
Now you have all of thisdocumented.
(17:41):
So as you move into theexecution phase, let's say you
did that gateway offer.
They're like, yes, I want you todo it.
You upsell them into theexecution phase.
Now you have the document sayingthis is what you signed up for.
This is the priority that youchose.
These are the milestones we'regoing with.
(18:03):
And we're gonna stay focused onthat for I'll just say the next
90 days, and then we can reviewand revise to see what makes
sense.
So that helps a ton is havingthat gateway offer, getting
their sign-off, and choosing thepriority up front before you
ever sign them on for theexecution engagement.
(18:27):
Because if they can't agree onpriorities, then when you're in
that smaller container and youcan still say bye and walk away
from the whole project, thenyou're already seeing red flags
and you know that they probablywon't be a great client.
So I will end there with this.
(18:47):
I still have quite a fewquestions that came up in that
consulting call.
So maybe if you guys liked thisstyle of episode, I will do
another one of these.
I'm actually in a half hourabout to pop into another one of
these consulting calls forOctober.
So in the comments, let me know.
Did you like this style ofepisode and should I do more?
(19:11):
All right, I'll see you nextweek.
You love all things tinymarketing.
Head down to the show notes pageand sign up for the wait list to
join the tiny marketing clubwhere you get to work one-on-one
with me with trainings,feedback, and pop-up coaching
that will help you scale yourmarketing as a B2B service
(19:34):
business.
So I'll see you over in theclub.