Yellow Dog Consulting

Sales & Marketing Consulting for solo-preneurs.

Take a Buddy

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I was talking to someone last week and he mentioned he had recently attended an event he thought would be ripe with opportunity but fell flat. I asked if went with a co-worker or friend and he said no, he prefers to go it alone. He doesn’t want to get distracted or just hangout with that person.

A lot of folks like to attend networking events alone so they don’t end up hanging out with that person. However, I prefer to go to a networking event WITH someone. I know people who will be at the event, the friend knows other people at the event, and if you play your cards right, you can meet some really great people, plus you look like the fun group for those people who came alone and they’ll WANT to join you.

I’ve made some awesome connections when I network as a team. Think about who you want to connect with, and meet before the event to talk about your goals for the event. Then when you get there you both know what you’re looking for and when someone pops up on your radar you can connect them.

So what about you? Do you prefer to network as a team, or go it alone?

Get Out of the Office

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The summer is a great excuse to not work, and with the sun only in Seattle for short periods of time, we tend to skip out on work to take advantage of it. But, work still needs to be done, bills have to be paid, life and business don’t stop in the summer. But that doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of the weather.

Find ways to meet your clients where they’re at. Not in their office, but get creative. Meet at the dog park, or walk Green Lake, take your coffee OUTSIDE, or meet on a nice restaurant patio for happy hour. Get creative, everyone’s happier when the sun is shining and they get to be out enjoying it instead of trapped in a conference room.

The Value of Partnerships

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Today’s Guest Post comes from Ralph Allora, Principal at TRAY Creative in Seattle. A great team for your branding and design needs!

To paraphrase a line from The Graduate, I’ve got one word of advice for small businesses and entrepreneurs: Partnerships. You can thrive as a one- or two-person operation, but it’s almost impossible to get there unless you start building strategic alliances with other independent-minded people who can complement your expertise.

My own company, TRAY Creative, came about because I was a solo practitioner who happened to meet another solo practitioner at a business networking event. We had complementary skills (I focused on marketing, copywriting and content development; she focused on digital and graphic design and development) and a similar mindset in terms of our vision for what a creative agency should be. We eventually joined forces, and cultivated an extended network of experts to bring in when we needed them. Without them, we wouldn’t have grown as much as we did over the past couple of years.

Even if you’re not trying to grow your business by taking on formal business partners as I did, you can still leverage the expertise and connections of other solo practitioners. Instead of automatically looking for a quick online or software-based solution, seek out the right partners: sales/marketing experts like Elizabeth at Yellow Dog Consulting, tax experts, retail experts, and so on, depending on your needs.

Yes, it’s not as cheap as a do-it-yourself solution. But you’ll get so much more for your investment: the collective skills, brainpower and network to put yourself on equal footing with competitors who are much bigger than you.