Get Proactive with Acquiring New Clients
That Solo Life, Episode 275: Get Proactive with Acquiring New Clients
In This Episode
In this episode of That Solo Life, co-hosts Karen Swim, APR and Michelle Kane discuss strategies for solo PR professionals and marketers to improve their own business development and marketing efforts. Key points include:
- The importance of using your own channels (e.g. YouTube, social media) to share your expertise and build your audience, rather than just focusing on client work.
- Techniques to reclaim time and be more efficient, such as using automation tools and AI to streamline administrative tasks.
- Developing a strategic content plan for your own business, rather than just reactive posting.
- Utilizing the holiday/end-of-year period to prepare for a strong start to the new year.
A common challenge faced by many in PR is the tendency to rely on passive client acquisition methods. Listeners are encouraged to play an active role by taking control of their own media presence and marketing efforts.
The co-hosts discuss the fatigue that can come from managing client work while neglecting your own marketing channels. They emphasize the importance of consistency in promoting your expertise through social media and other channels. Karen and Michelle also discuss practical steps to reclaim time and streamline our processes, including the use of automation tools and AI to manage administrative tasks and enhance productivity.
Michelle and Karen stress the importance of strategic planning for our own businesses, just as we do for our clients. By identifying where our target audience is and how they prefer to engage with us, we can create a focused content strategy that resonates with potential clients. We explore various content formats, from articles and podcasts to social media posts, and encourage listeners to leverage tools that can simplify content creation.
The audience is reminded that a monthly theme can help maintain focus and consistency. The co-hosts also share the value of using AI for ideation to generate relevant topics and streamline content planning.
As the episode wraps up, listeners are encouraged to use the upcoming holiday season as an opportunity to prepare for the new year. By starting now, you can alleviate the pressure of January and set yourself up for success.
Join us for this insightful discussion as we motivate each other to take proactive steps in our business development efforts and embrace the opportunities that lie ahead!
Episode Timeline
00:00:00 - Introduction to That Solo Life
Join Michelle Kane and Karen Swim as they introduce the podcast and discuss the importance of business development for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves.
00:01:00 - The Importance of Proactive Marketing
Exploring the passive nature of client acquisition and the need for independent professionals to take control of their own marketing efforts.
00:02:30 - Overcoming the Overwhelm
Discussing the challenges of balancing client work with self-promotion and the mental fatigue that can come with it.
00:04:00 - Reclaiming Your Time
Strategies for analyzing how time is spent and the importance of breaking down billable hours to find time for business development.
00:06:30 - Utilizing Automation and Tools
The benefits of using automation and AI tools to streamline administrative tasks and free up time for business growth.
00:08:30 - Setting the Table for Success
The necessity of preparing your business infrastructure to handle new clients effectively and efficiently.
00:09:30 - Creating a Strategic Plan
The importance of developing a strategic plan for your own marketing efforts, similar to what you would do for clients.
00:10:30 - Leveraging Content Creation Tools
How to use AI tools to generate content efficiently and maximize your marketing efforts with minimal time investment.
00:12:00 - Using AI for Topic Ideation
Tips on using AI to brainstorm content ideas and create a content calendar to stay organized and consistent.
00:13:00 - Preparing for the New Year
Encouragement to use the slow season to prepare for the upcoming year and set goals for business development.
00:14:00 - Conclusion and Call to Action
Wrapping up the episode with a call for listener engagement and feedback, encouraging sharing and reviews.
Resources:
Enjoyed the episode?
Please leave a review here - even a sentence helps. Share and tag us (@SoloPR, @SoloPRPro) on social media so that we can thank you personally! Your support helps us keep bringing you insightful content every week. Thank you for tuning in!
Michelle Kane (00:13):
Thank you for joining us for this episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves, people like me, Michelle Kane, with Voice Matters, and my wonderful co-host, Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro. Hey Karen, how are you today?
Karen Swim, APR (00:27):
Hello, Michelle. I'm doing very well, thank you. How are you?
Michelle Kane (00:32):
I'm well, thank you. Yes, though, the weeks are flying by 2024. We're looking at the end of 2024. It's coming up faster than we want to acknowledge, but with that, you start to think, Hey, how was business this year? How can I keep my business development flowing? And so we just want to talk a little bit about that today from the point of view of, I know we're always counseling our clients. Sure there's earned media, but how can we take more control of that own media? And today we're going to turn the mirror on ourselves. How can we start to do things for ourselves? Do you have a YouTube channel? Do you have your own channels? And how often are you using them to share your expertise, to share helpful information, all that good stuff. So we're going to dig into that a little bit today. It should be fun.
Karen Swim, APR (01:30):
Yeah. What's interesting, I saw a newsletter from the Smart Gets paid podcast, Leah Al, I believe is her last name, and she shared that the majority because her audience is women consultants, and she said the majority of women consultants get their clients from just waiting for somebody to report to them. So it's very passive, and that's not the best way. I know that's true of PR too, is that most PR people, even large agencies, do not have a marketing lead generation engine built. They really do not. They do not do all of the things that we know are the right things to do, and we as solos don't do that. And so going into 2025, it's probably time to start thinking about doing something differently.
Michelle Kane (02:35):
I agree. I agree. And that's so true. I can't tell you how many times I've said, do what I say, not what I'm doing.
Karen Swim, APR (02:45):
And I get it. I'll look over here. Yeah, it gets really tough in our minds. It's not impossible. It just gets really tough in your mind because it feels like another overwhelming task to add to your list. But hopefully we can share some ways to make that a little bit easier as well.
Michelle Kane (03:04):
Yeah, I agree. I agree. Mean, and it's as simple as what are you doing for your own social media? What are you doing with your own channels? Where are you sharing your expertise? Where it could be low hanging fruit of just being seen and being found. I know I am supremely guilty of that, and I think a lot of times for those of us who've been at this for a while, it's a little bit of fatigue. You're like, it's enough to do my client's social. It's enough to put out content for them, and then, oh, keep up with my friends as myself. And then there's that segment over there of, well, you really need to be consistent on your own channels. And I think of what I tell one of my local clients, I just say, oh, just hop, hop on your pages once a day and just say, Hey, good morning everyone. Life's good here at XX retail store kind of thing. And I think, okay, why am I not doing that for myself? I mean, even if it's use your YouTube channel, are you using your YouTube channel? Did you claim your YouTube channel?
Karen Swim, APR (04:15):
That's very true. And I think one of the first things that I would say is look at how you're spending your time. You have more time than you realize. So Michelle and I have talked about this offline, and it's that guilty feeling that we as independent business owners have. We're busy and we always are looking and thinking about our clients and about putting in work, but are you spending too many hours on clients? You have to break down your time into billable hours.
(04:54):
And I think that for a lot of us, we still, it's hard to shake that workplace mentality of giving 40 hours to your job or more, because let's face it, most of us in corporate America who came from that world, worked 50, 60 hours a week. And so it is very difficult to shake that mindset and think about, well, if I break down the billable hours, that's a fraction of my week. And if I truly stuck to that, I have a lot of time to do business development. I just am busy and I'm doing other things. And so I think as you grow as a business person, and for me, this has been a lesson that I've had to relearn, teach myself not to overwork because I'm not getting paid to do that, and I actually have a lot more time available than it looked like I had.
Michelle Kane (05:52):
Yeah. And that looks like a lot of things. That's over your clients easily getting distracted by what you think, well, I'm doing things all day. This is productive. But really, you really need to schedule time for yourself and for your business. I know for myself, it's like, and I know it's cutting off my own oxygen of not planning, just thinking time. It feels so indulgent and luxurious and not worthy, but oh my goodness, it is. It really is. So I think it's important that we all remember that.
Karen Swim, APR (06:32):
And so start with looking at how you're spending your time and reclaiming those hours and then start to get smart about using automation and tools. So Mike Cuban, who is undoubtedly a very successful CEO and other really successful CEOs are taking advantage of AI automation tools to manage their inboxes.
(06:54):
I use a tool as well, and we'll talk about that later, that organizes my email for me so that it gets rid of all the noise. And so some people are using Gemini, some people are using the Google workspace tools, but that's a good way to reclaim time. So look at how can I use automation and tools to take away some of these administrative things? You do not have to do every single thing in your business. We have got to get smarter. We have to pull the trigger on things that big businesses are using as well. And the reason that we're doing that is because you're actually putting money back into your pocket because you're giving yourself time, and we have to have time to work on the business even before the business development starts. You have to do for your business what everyone else is doing and having things that can run parts of your business a little more effortlessly. So creating that
Michelle Kane (07:52):
Workflow. Yeah, no, it's so true. I mean, that is valuable. And certainly you have to set the table. You have to set the table so that when you do get that new business, you're ready to hit the ground running and you're not bogged down. I think it's so easy to get bogged down. And
Karen Swim, APR (08:18):
Then you said it like your YouTube channel and your social media. I think it's really sitting down and strategically thinking about and making a strategic plan for your own business doesn't have to be super involved, but you should have a plan where is going to have the most impact for me? Where's my audience? Do the same thing for yourself as you do for your clients. How do you show up in the spaces of the people that need and want what you have to offer? So that might mean looking at columns, looking at bylining articles. It could mean being a guest on podcasts. It could mean doing a YouTube channel or doing, there's a lot of PR pros that are using TikTok to their advantage. It could mean doing reels. And even with all of those things, we also have tools that can help us make that a lot easier.
(09:19):
There's so many great AI tools. Streamy Yard for instance, which is the platform that Michelle and I use for the podcast. You do a video and it will generate clips from that video for you. So think about you do a piece of content, you use AI to chop it up and to give you captions and to do all of the hard work for you. 10 minutes later, you have content, five or six pieces of content from one thing that you did. We have to start thinking smarter like that. And then that allows you, now you have some clips that you can put out on social media and you could use in different ways. And so just think about what is going to work best for your audience, how they like to hear from you, and then be consistent at that. But then look at what tools can make this job a little bit easier. Are there things that can streamline my process?
Michelle Kane (10:14):
Yeah, so true. And what I'm about to say is nothing new and it's nothing we don't know, but sometimes we have to retell it to ourselves because as I'm listening to you and I'm thinking, that's great, that's awesome. And I can imagine listeners thinking, oh yeah, but what do I talk about? And it's like what I tell clients, you don't have to have 60 topics every month. Choose a theme for the month and feed off of that. You can make your stuff live longer by boosting it and give a little money. I mean, this doesn't have to be a massive undertaking of time and energy. It really doesn't. I think it's just all of us promising to ourselves to get started and then just being as consistent as possible. We get it.
Karen Swim, APR (11:04):
Again, I'm going to keep inserting automation and tools in here because
(11:10):
They can streamline your efforts. We are so fortunate that this is something that AI is actually pretty good at. I use perplexity AI for this kind of stuff rather than chat GPT, but chat GPT works as well or any other tool that you are using. ARC is another one. Ask AI what the challenges or problems that your audience is facing. You can help with ideation by using ai. And now you're not just sitting there going, huh, what do I talk about? Now? You're actually asking it to come up. And so what I have been doing since last year is I'll say, give me 10 topics that X is interested in. And then it generates stuff and then your brain starts to work and you're like, oh, I need to take this and I can do this with it. And now you can plan out an entire content calendar for the year in about an hour worth of time. And now once you have those overarching topics, then you're going to dig a little bit deeper, but use automation to help you with this. Use AI for that. You do not have to do the heavy lift on every single task. And again, I really believe that if we go into this new year, which should start now, that takes a lot of the pressure off.
(12:29):
Looking at ways that you can become more efficient with your time and even with your business development efforts, you'll be a lot more successful and not stress because we all want to have a peaceful business that works for us.
Michelle Kane (12:43):
Yeah, agree. I can't agree more. And you're so right. I know many of us like to during the holidays, take some time off and that's great, but use part of that slow season to prepare to kick off 2025 ready to go. I think that's a perfect use of your time. And it's kind of inspiring. Sometimes we need these sessions with ourselves to get excited about our work again. And we do need that from time to time too. And when we're operating from that point, that position, we're only going to be that much better for our client work.
Karen Swim, APR (13:25):
I agree. And listen, for some of us, the new year has already started and you're in your new year. You don't have to wait until the clock starts midnight on December 31st. You can start right now and start the year that you really want to have and set your goals and just start to go after them. Now it's not too late to do that. And then you don't feel that pressure of January and the post holiday slump. And then you really can enjoy the holidays because you're already working towards the business that you want to have and working on the goals that you set for yourself. So be smart about your time is really the key to being more consistent in your business development efforts because there is business out there. There are still people that are hiring. There are still work for all of us, but you need to be consistent in your efforts and stay on the radar.
Michelle Kane (14:21):
Yep. Couldn't agree more. Couldn't agree more. Well, now we know what we're all going to be up to in the coming weeks, so we want to hear from you. Send us your wins, send us things you're perplexed about. Hit us up@solopro.com because we want to hear from you guys. We want to know how it's working for you and just what's going on in your worlds, because that helps us all be better. And if you got something out of our time together today, which we hope you did, please do share this around. Please hop over to the Google and give us a review. We would love that as well. And until next time, thanks for listening to “That Solo Life”.