The difficult thing about business is that it runs on hope. Especially in service based businesses where we are working on an as-needed basis, our workload is never the same month to month. So to grow, what do we do? I am a big fan of input/output equations. If I do x it equals y. There are only 8 ways to get business in any industry and can be found in books, webinars, TED talks, and everywhere in between. The thing is, there are only 4 you can actively control the results on and really only 3 I focus on. You control: -Warm Outreach -Cold Outreach -Content Creation -Ad Spend Others are: -Employees -Affiliates -Agencies -Referrals Out of the 4 you control, the one method I generally don’t touch is Ad Spend. Social Media companies are businesses and they want your money. So when you spend money to boost a post and you don’t have a large enough engagement base on your content for them to make ad money off of you, then the more practical business model is to no longer boost your posts organically. I mean, why would they? So unless you plan to spend $100 a day to hop into the ring of the millions of other companies fighting for limited attention spaces, I personally choose never to go that route. So lets talk about the 3 I do focus on. Warm Outreach: This is reaching out to people already familiar with your brand. Maybe they worked with you before. Maybe they have seen your content. Maybe you met them in person at a networking event. They already have a feeling what it’ll be like to work with you and thus, this is probably the easiest target. Cold Outreach: This is contacting someone who has never heard of you. A lot of minds limit this to cold calls and email marketing but it’s not limited to that. Proposals sent via government platforms, freelancer sites, craigslist searches, auditions, messaging companies on social media, or really anything that puts you in front of someone new to make a first impression. Content Creation: This is pretty self explanatory. Youtube, Tiktok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Alignable and a bajillion others. Don’t forget. Video converts better, but static images count.

I have a habit of watching motivational content often. At first I thought it was helping me and giving me incite into the minds of those who have accomplished goals. But I realize I was instead looking for answers on how to do things more effectively when I already know what to do in my business. And that is market. Or listening to other people's stories instead of paving my own. Or avoiding the monotonous tasks by justifying a time suck. Discipline eats motivation for breakfast. So instead of focusing on more things to add to my business, I will be looking at what I can take away to buy back my time and reengineer what will get me to my future. What would you remove?

Thank you for joining me on this journey of Services Based Marketers on a journey to improve the efficiency and value of your business! I created this community because of a scarcity of information for service specific businesses. A lot of entrepreneur services are not needed all the time and are built around collaboration and staying top of mind. They are build on nourishing relationships with clients and bringing as much value to a new prospect as possible. So when I ask a sales guy or ecommerce guy how they create a follow up strategy, they say "call em back in 2 days" or "If you are emailing someone 7 times, you need to be a better closer." We are in sales, accounting, business management, copywriting, and the collection of other skills we have had to develop based on our niche. For me, that is audio engineering and voice over. I wanted to create a place where we can not only share the tools, resources, and actionable things that create a flourishing place where service entrepreneurs can thrive, but also to build an environment where brotherhood, sisterhood, and mentorship can be accessible. We've heard a lot about the "lonely phase" of entrepreneurship, but a community makes it a little less difficult to do. My goal is to share the things that worked in my business and made more opportunities accessible. So why the golden helmet logo? Because we are silent warriors. We send emails, cold call, follow up, send proposals on freelance sites, work on our socials, manage customer service, work on our websites, learn multiple industry languages, keep our forever student caps on, and do it all in our quiet offices. We are determined, focused, and forces of natures because we have amazing solutions to offer and have found purpose in providing those at a high level. The basics of a business stand but the world is evolving, new programs are created to make us more effective, new ways of working are formed every day while some of the old habits have become obsolete.