Solosode: 12 Ways to Promote Your Signature Offering (or business), with Britt

If you've exhausted all the social media video options and you're just not feeling like your business is getting out of this slump in sales, I hope you know you're not alone and that there are other ways to promote your business or signature offering! I did a training last week inside the MEO Cache Squad (our group coaching program) on this, and I decided to share it here too! Episode 112 of the Moments with an MEO Podcast is about 12 ways to promote your business or an offering that are either very cheap or completely free! 

In this episode, I talk about: 
- Local options to grow your reach, get noticed, and start the conversation with those directly around you day to day. 
- Ways to promote yourself, your business, and/or your signature offering that don't take up any time at all. 
- One way that you may not know is actually a requirement of getting an LLC in many counties, that you may need to do legally.

and more! 

Like this episode? Please rate and review on your listening app of choice! It would make my day and helps me get a feel for which types of content and which episodes you enjoy the most! 

Have a topic in mind? Want to connect about coaching opportunities? Reach out at newaltitudesllc@gmail.com

Check out MilSO Box here: www.milsobox.com

Transcript

Britt  0:00  
When you get your LLC, sometimes it's required to put a local listing inside your local newspaper. And that varies again by county, not even state. So like Pima County, the county I live in does not have that requirement. I didn't have to do that. But if I had done that, would it have improved my odds of getting a sale? I don't know. I don't know because I didn't do it. So it doesn't hurt to pitch yourself pitch your business pitch your story, pitch, a fundraiser idea, pitch something to your local newspaper and local listings. You can also just like put an ad in a local listing, that's fine too.

Alright, guys, so today's podcast episode looks a little bit different. Today is going to be a high value training that I did inside me geocache squad. So every single week, we do a training. And then we do open office hours, where you can ask me anything, hang out, chat, catch up with others in the group in the community, etc. And so every week, I drop a training just like this one. This is a training from about a week ago, and it is 12 ways and I give you an extra one. So technically 13 ways to promote your business or offering that are either very cheap, or 100%. Free. So give this training lesson. This is directly from our portal, have all of our videos. And let me know what you think.

Hello, hello. Today we are talking about 12 ways to promote your signature offering that are free or cheap. So these are ways that you can either pitch or promote your business or your signature offering that we talked about last week, that don't take up a whole lot of your time. And if they do, it's well worth it. So these are just 12 different ways that you can pitch, promote etc. A lot of times there is this pressure to sell but not be salesy. And a lot of that is mindset, not only mindset around money, but mindset around sales mindset around being an MBO and who you are and what you do. And I just want to remind you, that this is your business. And your business needs to sell. And the only person that's going to pitch, promote, encourage support your business is you. So part of this is mindset, part of this is getting over, unfortunately, getting over the mindset of Well, I don't want to pitch I don't want to be annoying, etc. Another huge thing is to realize that just because you are saying it 14 times, doesn't mean everybody is receiving it 14 times. What I mean by that is if you send an email, and then you make a social media post, and then you go up in your stories on Instagram and you talk about it, you feel like you've given this message to three people, or three times to everybody. However, not everybody on your email list, opens up your emails, not everybody on your email list is over on social media. And not everybody who's watching your feed is watching your stories and vice versa. So what I mean by that is, you can constantly be promoting your stuff. And people aren't even going to notice that you're repeating yourself so many times. So Please promote yourself. Please promote yourself and what you do be that voice now am I saying, you know, create an ad account basically where all you're doing is promoting what you do and telling people to join you and telling people to buy from, you know, there's smoother ways to do that. But don't come off, like what I fear, or what a lot of people fear like that. used car salesman vibe, right? Like we don't want to be the slimy used car salesman. Now, I know quite a few used car salesman who are not slimy. And you do it right. But we all get this image in our head when I say that. And so I feel like a lot of times the fear that we have is to become that. First of all, if you have that fear, you're not going to become that. And second of all, promoting your stuff in a way that one reminds your audience of what you do and how you can help them and to help them find solutions to their problems that they have. That's what being a used car salesman that's helping them with what they need help with. So that mindset shift can really help. Also because of the way that social media works now with seven seconds videos and all this other crazy stuff. Keep in mind that our attention spans have shortened as human beings, it's just part of the game. And so our attention span has shortened, our interest level has decreased dramatically from one person one content to another. So that means that we have to be promoting our stuff more and more and more, in order for people to take us seriously and want to purchase from us. It used to be that seven times was the magic number, someone saw your promotion of X product or why service and after seven times they wanted to work with you, then it bumped up to 12. Now studies are showing 32 times, which means you have to promote your product 32 times in order for someone to want it. Now, that seems extra. But it's important to know that you cannot oversell it. I personally have never promoted something 32 times in a row. And that's probably why people come to me six months after they've been following me because finally they hit that 32nd time. And they were like Brent, I finally like want to work with you. So keeping that in mind, as you're going along, that it takes a lot more than it used to, to get people to want to purchase from you. And it's not you. It's just the human psyche. It's that we're bombarded with ads. On every app in every corner, Instagram promoted an app to me, like Instagram had an ad on my newsfeed yesterday. So this is something that we as humans now have to deal with. And we as business owners have to adjust to. So nobody wants to follow a social media account that is strictly just ads and just quote unquote, work with new posts. But we have to throw those in. Otherwise, no one's going to take us seriously, we won't even take ourselves seriously. So today, I want to talk about 12 different ways that you can promote your signature offering whatever that is, and help you do that. And I'm going to list these and offer some insight into each one. So number one, is local listings. So whether you have a local newspaper, like our community has a local newspaper. So I know in the newspaper says who the editors are, it says who the producers are, it says who the writers are, and it lists their email. And I literally just emailed them back when Kristen and I both live in this community. And we were both writing for military spouse of the year. And I pitched to them our story of being best friends and a nominating each other for this award, and how fun it was to go through that process. So I just sent them an email and I said, Hey, this would be a great story. So if you are doing something like if you had a fundraiser or you are planning a fundraiser, if you are brand new business owner, a lot of times your LLC, in order to get that it's actually required, and it depends on your county. But when you get your LLC, sometimes it's required to put a local listing inside your local newspaper, and that varies again by county, not even state. So like Pima County, the county I live in does not have that requirement. I didn't have to do that. But if I had done that, would it have improved my odds of getting a sale? I don't know. I don't know because I didn't do it. So it doesn't hurt to pitch yourself pitch your business pitch your story, pitch, a fundraiser idea pitch something to your local newspaper and local listings. You can also just like put an ad in a local listing, that's fine too. But of course, that would cost money. So lots of things that you can do with local listings. You can also check like your coffee shops, and other small businesses to see if they have like community bulletin boards where you can hang up stuff. And you can just put a flyer up about what you do. That you know, would cost very little, and it would allow other people who come and go from that local spot to recognize it and to see it. So that's an another idea for local listings. Number two is social media. Y'all know I love this one, but obviously seven to 15 second videos, posting your face face to camera interactions like on stories where you're talking to the camera, things of that nature are all great. Highly recommend if you're looking to uplevel your video strategy to follow this is Virginia Kerr on Instagram. I love her so much. Today she posted a real about how to pitch your content. I will put the link to it If I can find it, I'll put the link to it in the portal as well. But you can just go to this is Virginia Kerr and watch her reels. And that's where I learned the majority of my video confidence is from watching her watching. Okay, this is where I put my hands. And so highly recommend that you check her out. Alright, so social media. So yes, video is huge right now, however, reels tic TOCs, things like that they're not going to stay forever. That's just what's popular right now. I remember when stories first came out, and they were super popular. So take that into consideration as well that what's popular now is going to fade and what's next? I have no idea. So just be aware that you know, yes, lean into trends, if you want that extra boost in the algorithm, but everything ends and so so will these trends. The next one is like informative posts. And what I mean by that is not social media, but things like blogs or YouTube channels, infographics that you can share online, things like that really help you because it's more of that building rapport, building that connection piece, and that no, like trust factor. And so within your blog, within your YouTube channel, or within your infographics, you can share why your product or service is going to benefit them. So if you already have one of those, if you're planning on creating one, that's another great way of promoting your services. Number four is website SEO. SEO is just search engine optimization. It's basically how well you pop up in a Google search. So if somebody's searching for your type of business, how likely are you to be on that first page. All right. And really, you want to be on the first page because I don't know about you. But I personally don't go past like the third or fourth page on Google. So just keep that in mind as you're going along. Now, website SEO is not something that I am fluent in at all. But little things that you can do today to just kind of boost it is number one, make sure that you've got keywords for like, if your ideal client were to type into Google your business, what would they type in to find you and make sure that those keywords are on almost every single page in your website, make sure that if you're using Etsy, that inside your name and description, you've got the keywords there, that the majority of people who are searching for that type of product are going to type in because you want your product to pop up when they type in that word. So think about that. Think about website SEO, if you don't have a website, obviously creating one would be the first step. And then building up your SEO from there. And I'm working on getting someone who has a military spouse or veteran who knows a lot about website SEO. But there's not so many of them out there because it's a beast and everybody's scared of it. But just another another thing to keep in mind. All right, number five is press releases. This kind of goes with local listings, but think bigger than local press releases can be in like Forbes magazine, or in business X magazine. It could be an online forum where you offer to write an article for someone, it could be in the form of like a podcast or something else. So think bigger than local listing. But press releases can also be like just an announcement like hey, shop opening up like if you move or if you haven't promoted your local business, or your business to your community yet, but just think bigger than local. This would be you know, much bigger. Number six is online communities think Facebook groups think clubhouse think local mom groups, things like that, where you can hang out with people in a space that is designated for networking and communicating. This could be something as simple as hey, my ideal client hangs out here. So I'm going to offer feedback and answer their questions so that my face pops up more than they click on me and they see what I do. And they go and buy from me. Or this could be like, hey, in my mom group, I'm going to talk a little bit about what I do and just you know, even if it's in the form of like, just excited for the week, like I've got four client calls this week, super excited. Tuesday is going to be really crazy busy for me, what does your week look like? That just kind of puts it in their brain it kind of like plants the seed and then every other time that you just bring up those little things. It's like watering the seed. And so eventually it's gonna bloom and they're gonna be like, Oh my gosh, like, I know that you do this, but like tell me more about it because I need somebody. So you want to be front of mind. Lots of ways that online and in person communities can help you out there. All right, number seven, not so much like a singular item. But something that can apply to all of these is use high quality visual images. So, images, everything, when it comes to online selling. So, image is not everything when it comes to being a human. But when it comes to being an online business owner, the quality of your images matters. So if you can take a free photography course to learn product photography, or if you can find a mentor who can help you navigate a difficult space, so that you can create pretty photos or so that you can create those images or graphics or hire somebody to create graphics for you or use Canva. You know, investing in Canva Pro, I think it's like 120 a year, super affordable, considering that's the whole year, and you get access to everything in Canva. There's lots of different ways to go around that. But high quality visuals is key. Number eight, you can pay for ads, and I bring this up loosely, I have found a military spouse who specializes in that she's opening up a business very soon about this. So I'm excited to interview her for the podcast. paid ads include promoting your social media posts, you can also do pay per click like on Google. And you can do TV, radio ads, things like that, I actually pitched to our local radio station, my podcast, and I was like, Hey, I've got this podcast, I think it'd be great. The DJ ended up just like announcing it on the radio, which is really cool. I didn't pay for it. But he was just kind enough to talk about it on the radio for me. So that's something else that you can do for your business as well if you're trying to promote that local community. Now another thing number nine that you can do is local events, like trade shows, submitting something for the fair if your fair has contests and things like that, things of that nature, where it's a local event that you can show up in person, we always are more likely to remember someone that we met in person versus online. And so being able to show up and even provide examples of your product or be able to sell your product at different things. Number 10 is host a workshop or a webinar. And so this would be probably free or extremely cheap. And you'd basically do like a five day whatever or a one hour course or a five day you know, workshop or whatever it is that you're interested in doing where you teach about something. So this could be like a five day training to plan your perfect Disney vacation. And so maybe day one, you talk about resorts day two, you talk about tickets, day three, you talk about each park, and what there is to offer. And day four, you talk about how to book and timing of all that. And Day Five is an open q&a. And basically, you're like, these are all the steps that you need in order to do this. But if you don't want to actually do it and put in the work, you can just hire me and I'll do it for you. Right. So it's just something to kind of get them in the door and get them excited to work with you further. And to kind of like tease show a little bit of what you're good at which you know how to do. If you're a product or in business, this could honestly just be like, hey, like, I'm gonna teach you how to make this product in my shop. You spend two hours making said product in your shop and teaching them how to do it at home. And they have a list beforehand of all the things they have to pick up at Michaels before they can do it. And then they watch you do it and it doesn't come out perfect. And then you're like, or you could just buy it from me because it's in my shop. So there's lots of different ways that you can do this both service and product. But hosting a free workshop or webinars are a great way of building rapport very quickly. Number 11 out of 12 ways to promote your business and your offering number 11 is utilise a freebie to increase your email list and increase your community size. This one's huge. This could be that free workshop or webinar, this could be a blog post or an infographic that you've created. This could be something else entirely. So hooking them in with a freebie to get them to join the email list or sign up for whatever is a great way to increase your community and your audience size and ultimately promote number 12 is create and verify your Google business profile. This is free. If you have not done this you should, especially if you have a physical location that you can put into Google. This is basically where your business will show up on Google Maps, and it's called your Google business profile. You can plug in In all the info and verify that it is your business, verify your ownership. And then it'll be on Google, which means anytime somebody puts, you know, a Travel Advisor Tucson, they're going to pull up people who are travel advisors in Tucson. And if you're on Google Maps, you'll show up on the list. So it's just a really great way, again, of getting that out there, especially if you have a brick and mortar. But you can do this for a peel box or something, I highly recommend that as well. Something else that I did not talk about number 13, I guess, would be your email list. So making sure that you're talking about what you have to offer in your email list. Not everybody's going to open up every single email, like the average open rate is 20 to 30%. And the average click rate, like if you have a button that clicks to your website, or that clicks to a discovery call calendar or something like that, that click rate is usually less than 2%. So if you can increase those odds, if you can promote regularly, if you can talk to your audience about that, then that's a great way to do that too. Alright, guys, that was 13 ways to promote your business and or your signature offering.

If you have any questions, drop them below. Alright guys, that was my training that I did in the MCS mo cash squad just a week ago, about 12 ways to promote your business or offering if you enjoyed this, then feel free to join us we have a group coaching program, and if one on one coaching makes more sense, then feel free to reach out about that too, because I'm here for it all. If you guys have any questions again, feel free to reach out but otherwise have a fantastic week. And I cannot wait to drop more juicy podcast episodes just like this one in the future. Take care guys.