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Episode 87 Transcript: “How To Reach Out To People You Don’t Know Online To Build Your Business (Or Should You?)”

Hello and welcome to the Maverick Mompreneur Podcast. I’m your host, Ashley, and in today’s episode, we’re gonna tackle a question that was sent in by one of my amazing Elevate Academy members from our free Facebook group. She asked about how to effectively reach out to people that she doesn’t know. This is a great question. I have a little bit of a hot take on it, maybe not exactly what she is expecting, but it’s my real honest opinion and experience and I hope it’s helpful. But before we begin, remember always, if you have a strategy that’s working for you and you’re enjoying it, more power to you take what I’m gonna say with a grain of salt. Generating leads and making connections is obviously a really important part of business and needs to be done. But there are alternative ways other than reaching out. And so I’m gonna give you some food for thought.

Before we get started, I wanted to mention from the outset, if you are someone who is looking to add systems to your business, you are looking to create a discoverable brand to get off of the hamster wheel of relying on solely social media to generate leads. I will have two one-on-one coaching and mentorship openings beginning in August, and I have a wait list going for that. So if you’re interested in being on that wait list, you do get entered into a drawing for a free monthly coaching call and business audit from me just for being part of the wait list, as well as some other exclusive goodies that will be sent to you via email. One-on-one coaching and mentorship with me involves a private zoom call, either weekly or biweekly depending on your needs and which package is gonna fit you best, where I can get my eyes onto your brand and business, the assets that you have, the ones you would like to create as far as a website, email, marketing, sales funnels, and really to help you gain clarity on your brand and how you can monetize it with multiple streams of income, how you can continue to grow your target audience in a way that feels aligned to you.

Mapping out your first offer or program, either a membership coaching consultation, a passive digital product, a course creating a launch plan for this product, building out your Evergreen brand marketing framework using SEO and so much more. So if any of the above sounds good, definitely head over to elevated with ashley.com/waitlist or click the link in the show notes and get yourself on there. Okay, let’s get growing.

Let’s jump right into it. Reaching out to people that you don’t know on the internet can be super intimidating and a task that you don’t necessarily look forward to doing, particularly if you’re an introvert like me, but you may have been taught that this is something that you need to do when building your business. And for some people you see it working like gangbusters and they’re selling you on their method or they’re growing their business like crazy. They’re generating all of these kinds of leads, but perhaps for you it’s not working or it doesn’t feel good. In the past, I used to definitely reach out to people who I didn’t know and I don’t wanna get into what did I say? What was the script? Because the whole point that I want to make here is that if you are reaching out and people are receiving that, well, people that you don’t know are receiving that, well, I should specify it is because you have influence 99.9%.

That is the case. If you are reaching out to people who you do not know and they are ghosting you or they’re not responding, that likely means yes, it might mean they’re busy. I think we were, a lot of us were taught that if someone doesn’t respond, it’s that they were busy, and that can be true. But if it’s a global type of situation where you feel like you’re getting ghosted or people are not feeling your messages, then that’s more than likely off-putting to them that they’re receiving a message from someone who they don’t know who has no influence on them. I want you to think about someone that you follow, someone that has influence over you, who you are influenced by. And if they reached out to you and they didn’t know you, but they reached out to you, you would probably be stoked, right?

So some sort of Instagram celebrity reaches out to you. I don’t care what they’re reaching out to you about either a business opportunity or their coaching package or just to say hello. You would be stoked. It doesn’t matter what they’re saying. You might think it was a little weird, but more than likely you would be excited because of who this person is and the influence that they have. So just keep in mind and keep that self-awareness and that critical thinking hat on that when you’re listening to a coach who’s teaching you how to directly reach out to people that you don’t know, a, if this was successful for them, when were they doing this? Now that is played out and not working. For most people, when Facebook first started and people didn’t know about home business opportunities or they weren’t accustomed to any type of selling or even the platform, this may have flown, but you have to ask yourself, when did someone create success?

Reaching out to people on social media? And then secondly, if it is still working for them, they have recently built their business in this way by reaching out to people. They likely more than likely, I cannot think of a counter example, have influence in their niche in their industry. If you can give me an example of someone who is crushing it by reaching out to people in dms that they don’t know who has no influence or social media presence. The most simple way to establish a relationship with someone is to reach out to them when you don’t know them in dms. But what do you do if that traditional method isn’t working for you or if you simply don’t want to do it? Now, there’s things in business that we don’t love doing, and I keep seeing this. I guess sentiment go around that. If you feel that if something’s out of alignment, you shouldn’t be doing it, then you’re wrong.

Well, I disagree with that. There are some things that’s a, first of all, I feel like that’s a really toxic statement that keeps people doing things that feel really bad because they feel like that’s the only way to do it. I agree to an extent that there’s always going to be things in our business that aren’t our favorite things, but one, a lot of that you can get to a point where you can outsource or delegate some of those things you don’t like doing. But I’m talking about when things don’t feel good, you do not need to be doing those things. There are other alternate ways that are going to feel more in alignment with you and who you are. Again, if you’re reaching out to people, cold messaging or warming them up. But anyway, reaching out to people who you don’t know online and that’s working great.

If it’s not, here are some alternative strategies that I would love for you to consider. So number one, and this is baseline focus on building a powerful in influential brand. What your goal is, is to become a go-to leader, a go-to influencer in your niche. So someone that people follow and want to go back to you over and over again because you have value to share within your niche. So by establishing yourself as that kind of authority and thought leader, you’re attracting the attention of your target audience. So you are attracting their attention, and if you can keep their attention, you can eventually have their sale. So how do you do this? Well, in, in a nutshell, very simplistically, creating consistent content that’s really valuable to your target audience, engaging with your community, sharing valuable insights that are gonna help them. Because remember, people are way more likely to buy from someone and to reach out to someone that they perceive as an expert and someone who can help them.

So if you are magnetizing with your content, this is when you can have people reaching out to you. This is when people are going to buy from you if you share your link. So my number one tip would be to focus on really building an impactful, influential brand that is the long-term play. And that is going to be what gets you away from feeling like the only way that you can generate business is to DM people who you don’t know on the internet. So if you don’t want to do that, that’s strategy number one. Number two, generating leads through a lead magnet, also known as an opt-in, also known as a freebie and nurturing a relationship with those leads via email. So in a nutshell, what you do to create a lead magnet is create a valuable free resource, like a downloadable pdf, an email series or an offer.

And again, this is called a lead magnet that’s really going to be irresistible to your target audience. They would be happy to give you their name and email in exchange for this free value. Hopefully it’s something that’s either going to give them a quick win, it’s going to give them something tangible to move them forward, moving the needle forward in whichever niche you are serving. So if you are showing up on social media anyway, if you are showing up on your podcast, if you are blogging, however, you are creating content, you want to be able to to direct your audience from your content to that lead magnet, and then from there, guide them towards your offers and your products and your services via email. And you’re gonna have the opportunity to nurture these leads over and over and over again in a place that you own being your email list versus them coming to your content, viewing it once, and then you getting lost from their world forever.

This happens all the time. I come across someone online or I come across a blog article, and if I don’t get captured as a lead on their email list, I may never see their content again. The market is so saturated online in general, and so generating leads through a lead magnet and nurturing them via email is so key. If you do not want to be reaching out to people who you don’t know via dms, they’ve already raised their hand by giving you their name and email and you’re already establishing a bit of authority with them. If the lead magnet is truly hyper valuable, the third strategy to consider is my favorite. It is so powerful and it stands the test of time, despite changing algorithms and anything else, it is the long-term play, and that is search engine optimization. And there are several places that you can utilize search engine optimization, but what I always recommend for any entrepreneur is having a website and optimizing that website with content that has targeted relevant keywords and key phrases so that your, your target audience can discover you organically through search engines.

So when they are Googling something, you have a chance to be discovered. Your offers, your products, your services, your content have an actual chance to be discovered. It is not that way on social media. Now, YouTube, you can utilize YouTube seo, you can utilize s e o on Pinterest, you can utilize s e o on podcast, but the big daddy is gonna be websites. And so that is why I highly recommend you using a website as an s e o search engine optimized hub where you can repurpose your content from social media. You can repurpose your content from your podcast. This podcast right now will be immediately turned into a blog post. And I have thousands of visitors per month to my site who listen to this podcast through my website, but then they’re also exposed to my offers. They’re also exposed to my lead magnets.

Going back to point number two, this is a way to drive a steady stream of qualified leads into your business without you having to reach out to people on social media who you don’t know. So if that’s not your jam, that’s another consideration. And then finally number four, and this is something I utilize in my business because I do not like reaching out to people I don’t know on the internet. I have not done that in about four years now, and it never felt good to do, to be honest. And the only reason it worked for me is because I was an influencer. I had started out as an Instagram influencer mommy blogger for years before I ever started doing that within my social selling business. And so I’m sure it was off-putting to some people, but I got results because of the influence that I had with my target audience.

So again, I really strongly believe that that is the case, and you’re free to disagree, you’re free to have a different opinion. But in my experience, in my opinion, and with the hundreds, if not thousands of women that I worked with in social selling, I saw that to always be the case. Those who were having success with that were having success because they had good, strong interpersonal skills, communication skills, and influence with the people that they were reaching out to. So number four, after that little bird walk is meta and or Facebook ads. So this strategy involves creating a compelling ad that focuses on what you do and the value you provide. Now, this could drive to your lead magnet or this could drive to an actual offer. This could drive to your Facebook group. I have an ad running every single day that brings in up to 20 or 30 leads every day into my Facebook group.

This is a very powerful way to draw people to you versus you having to reach out. So recommendations for this, for the actual ad, and this could be like 40 different podcast episodes, but you want to capture what is your unique selling proposition. So what makes you your offer, your products, your services, your group, your lead magnet, unique and special, and capture the attention of your target audience, and then you can direct that ad to the specific people who you would like to see through targeting. You can also run ads. So mine go on Facebook and Instagram, but it’s up to you. So that is an option, and it’s one that, yes, it’s a paid version. It’s not organic like seo. It’s not organic like a lead magnet that you’re driving traffic to through your social media or your blog or your podcast. But it is a way to scale your business if you have the funds to do it, or you have a low ticket offer that’s converting, and you can use the sales from that low ticket offer to drive and fund your ads for a larger funnel leading to a higher ticket product.

So those are my four suggestions. If you are someone who reaching out to people you don’t know, doesn’t feel good, you don’t like doing that, you don’t want to do that because there are other strategies. And if it’s not working for you, I encourage you when something is not working, don’t continue beating a dead horse pivot and learn how to do and start doing something differently that is going to work for you. So remember that all four of those strategies can work by themselves as standalones, or they can actually be in combination with each other. So for me, all four of those things are things that I do daily within my business that the key is to find what’s gonna align best with your personal preferences, with your business and all of that. So the ultimate goal is to attract and connect with your ideal clients, with your ideal customers in a way that feels authentic and genuine to you.

All right, so hot take on reaching out to people that you don’t know. I hope you found these alternative strategies helpful in tackling the challenge mentally, emotionally, and business wise of reaching out to people that you don’t know. As always, I am here to support your entrepreneurial journey. I’m so blessed and lucky that I get to be your coach. Thank you for listening to me. Thank you for taking your time. If you ever have any questions or topics that you’d like for me to cover in future episodes, feel free to reach out to me or head on over to our free Facebook group, elevate Academy. You can always post in there. It’s an awesome community of thousands of female entrepreneurs who are building aligned brands and businesses based around a strong, influential personal brand and with multiple streams of revenue. So again, thank you for tuning in.

Until next time, cheers to your impact. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. My goal is to help as many women in business online as possible to build strong, powerful, aligned and profitable personal brands. The best way to show you appreciate this content is to screenshot and share on your social media or share with your team. Actually, even better would be to also leave a review for the podcast on whichever platform you’re listening on. If you are looking for any additional support, you can always reach me via email at hello elevated with ashley.com. You can DM me on Instagram at Ashley r Latimer, or join us in the Free Elevate Academy for brand building maverick marketers and mompreneurs Facebook community. Can’t wait to chat with you next week.