#startingabusiness? Not sure how to get your brand out there? No #marketing budget yet? Try this!




YOU NEED TO HAVE…
A great attitude, a brand you want to whole-heartedly show off, a business voice for people to take you seriously, the appropriate work attire, an elevator pitch, local phone number so people know you aren’t a fly by night, fantastic website, beautiful business cards, professional email address, clean social media personal and business profiles.

CONNECT ON A PERSONAL LEVEL
Get your family and friends onboard to follow you at first, from there move to your old colleagues if you dare, old clients if they are accessible, send out a personal message where appropriate like “I’ve just launched my business, LightVantage Consulting, specializing in law firm optimization. Do you need an operations director for an hour/day?”. Speak to your hairdresser or your doctor – get them on board (they see more people in a day than you do at the moment), connect with people you coffee’d/ networked/ interviewed with, and lastly get your Alumni’s onboard - stalk them down, create a group and haul them in.

FOLLOW INDUSTRY RELATED CONTENT
Follow bloggers, look for podcasts/podcasters to follow, read online magazines to learn the industry norms, join/create social media groups, subscribe to association newsletters to see if you can target your next client, contribute to forums while getting your brand out there, piggyback on competitor platforms.

TASK IT
Cold call if you have your target but I would rather cold email the target - it is less intrusive, work for free/volunteer to broaden your network, write and share a blog/article, record a podcast/video and share it, create an online campaign/promotion/event and share it on all platforms, write content for others to get industry exposure, compile a portfolio for distribution to potential clients.

GO TO…
Co-working spaces and meet strangers, I use Parkdale Centre for Innovation, others are WeWork, Workhaus, speak at events (invite yourself to speak), join societies and associations that govern the industry, attend community events/projects like the mac cheese festival, sign up for social networking events like I did last week with Shuffle Social and meet some strangers once a month, become a regular at industry related conferences/workshops, and attend webinars with a mission to get a target name.

APPS
Make sure you are on LinkedIn (you and your business) and Shapr (it is like Tinder, but to find a job/network with professionals). When you are on social media, forget the browsing and do the following - 1. like posts (including your own) 2. tag people and companies to get more exposure 3. hashtag people, groups, trendy words like #innovation 4. share popular peoples posts to attract eyeballs 5. comment on feeds from popular people by giving a compliment, don’t sell yourself just yet.

WORK WITH TECHNOLOGY
Set up your business on Google My Business, take advantage of their facilities, use search engine optimization (SEO) they work, analyze your visitors so you can optimize, claim your $100 credit on Google Ads, list your business on online business directories in your area, register your business on the top search engines. Check out Buzzsumo, Social Animal and NinjaOutreach for an education.

ORGANIC GROWTH WILL HAPPEN
From day one you need to cultivate your relationships, define your reputation, remember to be diverse - don’t just shoot high, but aim wide, cash in those social media reviews and dish them out too, word of mouth will bring in those referrals.

WHEN YOU GET INTO SOME CASH LOOK INTO…
Paid advertising, social media ads, pay per click (PPC) on Google Adwords, print publications, create a mobile app, use experts to define your search engine results page (SERP), and people love freebies, dish out those corporate gimmicks!

Happy marketing!


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