Why are you in business: Lifestyle or just to make some money?
Last week I went out to see my good mate Furkan at his shop, Kebabs on Bell, for a photo and video shoot. As you can tell from the pic, we enjoyed the food, went for a walk for to get coffee and chatted to the local business owners and caught up on our bro talk.
It was so fun, it reminded me of why I started Social Star in the first place. It wasn't to make loads of cash, although that would be nice for sure, but not at the expense of enjoying the work. The work for me is hanging out with business owners, talking shop and seeing how I can help them improve their businesses. I'd do it for free I enjoy it so much, but it's nice that I get paid to do it too :)
In fact, Furkan WANTS to pay me for it. He would rather give me the money than some random that throws ads at him and forces him down a click funnel. You know the ones; if you dare click on something, they don't leave you alone. Phone calls, emails, following you on every social channel. Kind of annoying. It can work, but is it worth it?
The answer is, it depends on why you are in business. If you just want to make some coin and not really engage with people on a meaningful level, then go home to get your fulfilment in other ways, then ads and click funnels can work great. For a lot of businesses that have transactional products, it works well. My business isn't like that and neither am I.
My style is to be MORE engaged, connected and close to my clients. I like it. Today, I sent a funny email to a client on holiday as I knew he would get a kick out of it. Will not make me any more money, but it makes work fun and business more like a lifestyle. Rod, if you are out there mate, why are you reading my posts and I was just kidding, I'm not in the Seychelles on your dollar.
Another client called me to give me an update on life and business and refer me a clients. I have worked with Andrew for over 10 years and we always look out for each other. He had an injury so I referred him to one of my clients for some help - see how the circle goes around. You don't get that from Meta ads and a cold funnel.
So if you are a bit like me, enjoy your clients company and want to spend time with them and make a good living, here are some tips on how to build a business without relying on a complex digital or AI system.
Note: this works best for service based businesses that have high value and low volume clients, in industries where referrals are common place and you are an expert. It can work in any industry, but it works best with these conditions.
Step 1 - Be more you. Stop rounding out the edges of your personality to fit in with everyone. Ads and AI content will take the average of all thoughts and make it vanilla. Great content stands out and is specific. So use your personal brand and speak your authentic voice.
A good example of this is our new AI start up client that is super duper technical. I encouraged him to create a newsletter here to share his thoughts and WOW the first post was long and you needed a PhD to decipher the content. But it worked wonders for his business as the right people got it - they came forward to talk to him as he showed what he was made of.
Step 2 - Dial in your niche. So many of my clients have gold that they don't even realise they have. They have expertise in their industry, but are not projecting this as they think being generic is a better way to attract clients. It's logical but not correct. Just like you can't cut a tomato with a spook, a knife works better.
My new physio client positioned himself like all physios do, we fix your injuries. That was until I realised he loved running and had a passion, experience and skill in this area. He doubled down on this and now get's loads of referrals for people who run, go figure!
Step 3 - Don't push, pull. Instead of chasing your leads down the road trying to sell them something. How about you let them know what you are good at, how you can help and why you are different and LET THEM BUY. It holds your expert status and if they decide you are for them, it's likely they will stay longer, query prices less and refer more clients as they know you will not chase them.
I call this slow selling and it's the opposite of most marketing content out there. Recently I read that if you call a lead in 5 minutes you get higher conversion. Could be true in some industries, others find it akin to stalking. 'Oh I noticed you were on our website, would you like to buy my software?'. Ick.
But you build funnels and do ads Andrew - are you a hypocrite? Not really. Once we build your brand, niche and slow selling framework, we use funnels to automate your work to save time and ads to share your content with more people. It's quite a different use to what other agencies are doing. EG I boost this newsletter so more of my network know I wrote it. That's different from an ad to say 'buy my XYZ'.
These simple steps seem easy, but like any diet you have ever had, they can be hard to follow.
So let's finish the blog by revisiting Furkan's story. We first met when you cold called me to ask for some help. As a 20 year old professional boxer, he needed personal branding to achieve his goals. Bold call, but I agreed to take him on pro bono. Then COVID hit and his boxing career was kyboshed.
He was super grateful for my help so he reciprocated in the only way he knew how - by training me and my kids in boxing through the dark lockdowns.
Post COVID he took over his dads Kebab shop and grew it 100% based on his unique personal brand. Everyone loves him! We remained friends and now he employees my agency to help him build his corporate catering division of the shop. Full circle moment!
What's cool about this story is our mutual desire to help each other personally and in business. Not a software funnel or ad in sight. Just real relationships which last. Times this by 100 and you will have a thriving lifestyle business that is fulfilling and financial.
