Yellow Dog Consulting

Sales & Marketing Consulting for solo-preneurs.

Pick One Thing and Own It

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Norm and his ballI was talking to someone the other day who heard me speak recently. They mentioned one thing I said that’s been working well for them. In my 2 hour presentation I obviously covered a TON of ideas and made a variety of recommendations. But their favorite recommendation and take away?

Pick One & OWN IT

During my presentation we talked about using social media as a follow up tool instead of a sales tool (more on that soon). I made recommendations for Twitter, LinkedIn and yes, even Facebook. But my recommendation was to start with one thing. Wherever you’re active, pick one and try it. Not just once, but a few times. Play around with it to see what works.

Overwhelm gets the best of all of us. When I present a 10 page task list to a client, they’re likely to ignore it. But if we walk through and prioritize it, that’s going to help to ease the overwhelm. Start with one thing.

I just started working with a client and they asked about Google and Facebook Ads. With all the OTHER marketing efforts we’re about to implement my recommendation was to wait and save the money right now. Let’s see how this work we’re doing together fits for their business first. If it brings them in business, great. If we need to add in Google ad words or Facebook ads, then we can try those out in the future (by them hiring a qualified person to manage it, because that’s way outside my scope).

When you go to a speaking engagement and like EVERYTHING the speaker says, start by implementing just one thing. Get that down, then add another one to the mix. I know this isn’t something new or crazy, you’ve heard it before. My challenge to you this week is to actually do it. One thing.

Let me know how it goes!

5 Ideas for Better Speaker Follow-Up

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norm being difficult
I didn’t have a good pic for this post, so here’s Norm being a puppy

I was talking to a friend of mine a while ago about speaking and list growth. She mentioned when she talks she encourages attendees to go to her website to signup and download her giveaway and get added to her newsletter. Then she mentioned her conversion isn’t great for this. So we talked about an alternative to get more subscribers to her list when she speaks. Here’s what I suggested:

  1. Ask for a list – When I speak at an event I always ask for a list of attendees WITH email addresses. Let’s be honest, email is the currency of choice (besides cash, duh) when speaking. If I can’t get a list of attendees (which is OK) I ask if I can have a signup form passed around or I will do a drawing for a free phone consult or something along those lines. Pro tip – MailChimp has a sweet app you can download to save yourself a lot of time. 
  2. Pitch the follow-up email – When I speak I mention that I’ll send them a couple of things in the follow up email they’re going to get. “If you give me your card and write X on it, I’ll send it to you after the event.” “I’ll send you an example of this after the event, just make sure to give me your card.” Let them know they’re going to expect something after your talk.
  3. Write the follow-up email before you talk! You know exactly what you’re talking about and what you’re offering or pitching at the event. Save yourself the time and energy and write that follow-up email before you walk into the room. You’ll thank me later.
  4. Get that follow-up email out within one day – Ideally you’ll have time that afternoon to input all the emails into your newsletter program and hit send. If you’re using the MailChimp app it ‘s super easy to do this, if you have a box of business cards to input, turn on some Housewives, pour a “reward” drink and input those bad boys!
  5. Do the Follow-up – People this isn’t hard. If you’re speaking at an event make sure that if someone asks you for something specific or wants to buy into your program but has questions, DO your follow-up. Once you hit send on that email you’re going to get responses, so make sure you have time blocked out to do the follow-up from your event.

What other follow-up best practices do you have when you speak?

4 Things Your Interviewee Want

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podcast-guest-interviewI hope your week is going great! You may have noticed over the past couple of months that I’ve been featured on a couple of podcasts and last week I was featured on the Turn Knowledge to Profit radio show. I’ve had a great time sharing my message of consistency, follow up and sending a regular newsletter. And I love to share this media with my network. If you host a radio show or podcast, or even have a guest blogger to your site I have a few suggestions to make this easier for all of us.

4 Ways to Get Better Guest Promotion

  • Let me know! One recent show never told me it was coming up – I just downloaded the episode and there it was! At the bare minimum give your guest a heads up please!
  • Send out the link one business day in advance. Getting a note the night before is a bummer. I usually stop working at 5 pm, even if you don’t. A couple days a week I am out of the office all day – so it could be a day and a half before I have a chance to schedule or post about it. If I had access to the link (even if it wasn’t yet public) a full day before I can schedule a few more posts to promote!
  • Ask me to promote – I will gladly share me talking about me to my network. You know me, this isn’t a surprise. But help me do it. Send me some pre-written tweets, some short blurbs I can add to LinkedIn, Google+ or Facebook, and maybe even an image I could use on Instagram!
  • Do Your Part – I’m going to assume you’ll be promoting the crap out of your blog post, radio show or podcast. Make sure to tag me along the way so I can retweet, comment or share with my networks as well.

If someone is a guest on your show they probably have a message they want to get to a larger audience. You’re giving them that opportunity and it’s a huge value to them, even if they don’t take advantage of all the opportunities you provide. Do your best to help them take advantage of this opportunity you’re giving them to share it with their network.

Have you been a guest in the past? Have other requests you’d like? Are you a host and wish guests would do more to promote? Share your thoughts in the comments!