Source:
https://www.podbean.com/eau/pb-r5tq4-13e1111

Spring is in full bloom, thanks to the pollination by bees, butterflies, and birds. It’s a reminder that as solos we need to be in pollination mode all year long. Listen to today’s episode for tips and inspiration to grow your business development.
 
Transcript
Michelle Kane (00:02):
Thank you for joining us for this episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves like me, Michelle Kane, with VoiceMatters and my ever-steady co-host Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro. Hi, Karen. How are you today?
Karen Swim, APR (00:17):
Hey, Michelle. I'm, I'm doing a lot better than you. I know that you are an allergy sufferer and spring comes with the reality of allergy season. So,
Michelle Kane (00:28):
Exactly. It's been a, an agonizingly beautiful season here in southeastern Pennsylvania. So that actually informed our topic today.
Karen Swim, APR (00:39):
It did.
Michelle Kane (00:40):
We're going to talk about how to pollinate your leads. Let's use pollen. Well, we know pollen does good, even though it does get all up in our sinus cavity. So apologies for how I sound today. I sounded worse three days ago, so there's that. But yeah, we're just going to keep it a little light today and just kind of give you, give you a pep talk of how to keep that business pipeline fluid, which we all need to do, no matter how things are out there.
Karen Swim, APR (01:06):
And, and also it's a spring thing. It, it actually was a topic that was kind of rolling around in my head. ‘Cause I get to talk to so many small business people and so many solo PR pros and I have noticed this trend. And so as always, we want to help you to have the business that you want. And again, you know, I, I always preface that because I, when I first started my business, there were a lot of people out there that were, you know posting pictures on Twitter. We didn't have <laugh>, I'm embarrassed to say this, but we didn't have Instagram yet, let alone TikTok <laugh>. And yes, I'm that old, but people would post up pictures of like, these fancy cars and mansions and it just didn't speak to me. Yeah. And it, it was their measure of success.
(02:00):
And that's fine if that's your measure of success, but it wasn't for me. I wanted something different. I was looking, I was going into business for myself for completely different reasons. And so I always like to preface that because whatever your why is, and, and however big or small you want your business to be for everybody, there's a way to do that and, and have a healthy business. And that's kind of what we're aiming for, for people not to struggle. This year we've seen a lot of economic tumult. We've seen a lot of companies doing layoffs. There's a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt. The famous fud, and I'm <laugh>, I'm watching a lot of our small business and solo PRs fall into discouragement. Right. And so we want to talk about, and, and the reason pollinate is such a, a good theme is because here's what some people do, and people that are in traditional jobs do this too.
(03:03):
You, you're, you're working, working, working, head down, and then you lose an account. Or if you're in traditional employment, you lose a job, then all of a sudden you're on LinkedIn like a crazy person, you know, running after job leads or you're running after leads for your business. Pollinating is something that happens before the blooms come; pollinating is critical. And so we want to talk about the things that you really should be doing before the season starts where you will need the business. And so this is why we always talk about business development being an ongoing activity.
Michelle Kane (03:40):
Right. Right. And I think a key way to do that, and I challenge myself to do this as much as anyone else, you know, speaking of LinkedIn, pop in every day, you know, offer, offer just a little nugget of advice. You know, seek to be a helper because then when people are looking for help, they're going to think of you. And if you want to expand that into some content marketing for your business, by all means, please do.
Karen Swim, APR (04:07):
Yeah. You know, there are these habit builders out there. There's yeah. Dig. There's, there's a lot of habit builders. Build a habit of being the face of your business every day. I, I mean, I find that, you know, these consistent habits really do pay off. So for me, I will tell you and, and lean into what you're good at. So for me, I am a relationship person. I genuinely love people. I mean, I genuinely do, even though I'm kind of an introverted extrovert, I care about people and I build these really long-term relationships. And so my superpower is maintaining connections. So I am always, you know, talking to the people that I've worked with. Even when clients go away, I keep in touch. We, you know, we set up like check-ins, like quarterly, monthly, sometimes a little less frequen