37. How to Grow Your Business Without Posting Constantly on Social Media - Listener Question

Hello & welcome back to Sales & Business Growth for BUSY Entrepreneurs. I am your resident sales and business nerd Lindsay Fletcher, and this podcast is the place for small business owners to learn how to make more sales, have more time, and grow your business.

 

I’ve launched a FREE tool on my website that you can download that we have used to figure out which sales and marketing activities actually create revenue. My SALES GROWTH TRACKER is now available for download on my website - go to LindsayFletcher.co/free-resources. Click on Sales Growth Tracker and drop your email and I will send it over to you immediately, along with steps on how to use it. It has been THE TOOL that we’ve used in our service-based local business and I’m using it to track my sales activities in my consulting business. So go to my website LindsayFletcher.co and click on the free resources tab and you’ll see Sales Growth Tracker at the top of the page! Download it and use it, and be on your way to Sales Success!!!

 

Today, I’m featuring a listener question:   

How do you grow a business without posting all the time about your whole life?

 

Thanks for this question, Melissa.  It’s one that I’m so freaking passionate about because I think we’ve been bamboozled into believing that we have to live our whole lives on social media for our businesses to grow, and I know that just isn’t true. The business that my husband and I run together is proof, and I have several business friends that agree with me. I’m hardly on social media where the public can see me.  I do go into my women in business facebook community often and I’m trying out instagram again for my consulting business, but here’s the cold hard truth: At the end of the day, follower counts do NOT equal dollars. Let me say that again for the people in the back: Followers don’t equal dollars.  So, while social media might be one part of your sales and marketing plan, it should be just that: one part of your sales and marketing strategy. 

 

Oh my gosh, I’m fired up…I could literally talk about this for hours and hours if not days and days.

 

Here’s how we approach social media in our service based local business:  Social media is a place for customers and potential customers to learn a little more about us as service providers.  Our business pages, meaning Facebook for us…we have an instagram but we don’t really use it much, is a place for us to funnel customer reviews, pictures of our work, and updates about our company.  Then we share those posts into local facebook groups and that’s where the real social media magic happens for us. We do show our faces every now and again in posts because it’s important for our local community to know we live here, work here, and are raising our family here.  But, we do not live on social media by any stretch and we certainly don’t share everything in our lives…and I probably could with 4 kids - they’d keep y’all entertained for hours. HAHA!  We use it for more of a portfolio-type of thing.  

 

In my consulting business, I’m using social media a little differently.  I’m growing this business more online than in person - meaning my sales and marketing funnels are mostly from online platforms - my podcast, my online community, my email list. Again, it is only ONE part of my sales and marketing strategy, so I am doing other things to market my business, but the online space is where I’m building for now.  Here’s what I’ve learned about the online space: it’s harder to build trust.  People may watch you for a long time, like years, before they buy from you.The sales cycle is going to be longer from awareness to purchase. So, you have to “toot your own horn” so to speak more often than you do if you meet people in person to build trust. Tell them why they should trust you - what your background and experience is, and you’ll have to prove yourself with your content.   

 

Now, here’s where I think online businesses miss it, especially for a new online business. Even if your business is online, I suggest still having some grass-roots style components to your sales and marketing approach and network a bit. You can still build your business locally because local people know other local people and they also know other non-local people. So, share your content in local facebook groups, invite your online friends to like your page(s), network in local business groups. Literally everywhere you go is a networking opportunity and I don’t mean be slimy and salesy.  But literally, the grocery store line, the PTO, the places you volunteer.  I say this all the time and I’ll say it again here - if you aren’t talking about your business, no one else is either.

Ok literally, I could go on and on about this. I just really think people are still craving human connection, so while I do think that using social media as one part of our sales and marketing strategy is a good idea, network and expand your circles in your communities.  Think about how to reach more people in person and online because awareness is sometimes half the battle in business. 

 

I'm praying for you and your business!

My best,

Lindsay

 

LINKS:

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