Going viral is bad for a consulting business + Let's review some LinkedIn posts

Many small business owners dream of going viral and becoming wealthy!?

I always tell my LinkedIn students this: "I already got the Coww1d, I do not need to go viral."

Instead of going viral, I would rather have a solid strategy I can stick to for the next 90 days and totally focus on an activity goal.?

Going viral is like trying to get LUCKY.?

Here is a self-limiting belief that many entrepreneurs have: “You need to be lucky to be successful in business.”

It's not true! You need to have a strategy.

Luck is a great thing, but relying on luck is a recipe for failure.

For example - you can post on LinkedIn and hope that a million people see it. Out of that million people, you hope that a few clients book a meeting with you, and from those meetings, you can hope that a few become regular clients.?

Hope is a great thing, it's just not a great strategy.?

I remember how my mom would hope and pray that her store on the lower east side would become a sensation and an overnight success.?

She always played the lotto, and on my birthday, she would buy me a special lotto ticket just for me.?

During my birthday, I still go out and buy a lotto ticket, because hey - you never know.?

All you need is a dollar and a dream.?

But you do not need a dollar, you need a dream that will inspire you into action.?

Action to first create a strategy.?

Here is the strategy that helped me get Ajax Union over the million-dollar mark. It is the strategy that kept doubling the business for 3 years in a row landing us on the INC500 as one of the fastest-growing companies in America.?

First, I knew that I wanted to generate a million dollars in revenue and so I had to do the math.?

I am a dreamer, and I take the time to analyze my dreams like Joseph in Egypt.?

When my mom would buy me a lotto ticket, I would write down all the things I wanted to buy if I got a million dollars.?

On my list was a state-of-the-art computer.?

As a teenager, I didn't even have a computer.?

All my friends had a computer except for me.?

Didn’t even know how computers worked.?

Fast forward a decade, and I was a computer whiz, web designer, developer, and I reversed engineered the Google Algorithm to get high rankings for key terms that people were searching for.

I knew that I wanted to create a million dollars in revenue and I was already an SEO expert.?

So why not offer SEO services to small business owners in the NYC area that wanted more traffic to their website?

This would bring me the recurring revenue I needed to get to a million in revenue.?

I was 100% confident that I could deliver results because I have done it over and over again for many of my clients in my side business.?

However, part of your strategy must be creating a simple plan.?

I wrote the following formula down.?

“1m / 12mo = 80k / $599 = 133.55”

This is the first part of the plan.?

To create a million dollars in revenue, we need 80k a month, which is 134 clients.?

Why should a small business owner buy from me? I needed REASONS!?

$599 a month, month to month with no contract, you own all the work, we show you everything we do for you, results in less than 6 months.

I knew the 599 plan would be very attractive to small business owners that have a limited budget to work with.

But will this work??

I knew that MARKETING WAS ABOUT TESTING. So let's run a test… (These days I do this with LinkedIn surveys - Ask me about this!)

I tested it out by having a dozen conversations with business owners I had a relationship with, and they all said they would try it out.?

To get to my goal in a year, I just needed to add 10-12 new clients a month!

That is a reasonable number if both me and my partner are very focused on this and we sell nothing else but the AnewB SEO plan.?

(AnewB was a domain name we bought and we liked the way it sounded.)

Below is the first page of the PDF we would send potential clients.

We did not need a proposal, we could send this to 20 people each day that requested this info and it was so much easier than making CUSTOM marketing plans for each client.

To put the cherry on the top, we hired someone to open doors for us by making 100 phone calls each day.?

He knew nothing about SEO, but he was hungry and knew how to get people on the phone with us.?

We started talking to a handful of business owners each day that were interested, and our pipeline started growing.?

In the first 6 months, we picked up 30 clients, and we knew we had a business.?

We were hoping it would go FASTER, but 50% from our goal was TRACTION!?

Remember this: “People OVERestimate what they can achieve in 90 days but they underestimate what they can achieve in 3 years.”

Fast forward 3 years, we were picking up 50 new clients a month.?

We had 10 sales reps and a sales manager, 3 locations, and 75 full-time employees.?

It all started with me and my partner sitting in an office with a pen and paper writing down a strategy.?

We had a plan, we knew our target and we had our messaging laid out.?

Where focus goes, energy flows.?

You need a tremendous amount of energy to grow a multi-million dollar business.

We did not need funding to get the business off the ground, we did not need resources.?

We just needed to be resourceful and get clients.?

The problem was getting the RIGHT clients.?

At the time, I had no idea that taking on ANY client would actually hurt our ability to keep growing the business.?

We literally worked with every industry you can think of from nonprofit to publicly traded companies to authors to colleges and hospitals.?

Eventually, we got stuck and we could not keep growing because we were missing systems and processes.?

Read “Predictable Success” - you will see the path that ALL small businesses take.

I learned about this when I heard the author Les Mckown speak at an INC500 event.?

He said that every business has an early struggle to get the first few clients.?

Eventually you get to a place where it's all about the sales and it's FUN.

But once you have lots of employees and you need to be more profitable you get to a place called whitewater and things get choppy.?

Often businesses stay in the fun stage and never get to predictable success because whitewater needs a very special type of skillset to get you over that hump.?

I was the visionary and we had an operator but we were missing an integrator and we were missing systems and processes!

Key Message: Do not try and go viral, HAVE A STRATEGY. Understand your business plan, your marketing plan and your target market. Have a compelling message that speaks to your target and know where you are on the ladder of success.?

B2B Marketing Tip: When people come to your website, are they ready to buy?

NO - 95% of your visitors are not ready to buy from you.?

Especially if you have a complicated sale like professional services or a valuable product.?

Most websites are not nurturing their potential clients.?

They are just saying, TAKE A DEMO.?

Create a path that you take your clients through.?

It's called a marketing funnel and we created a 20 minute presentation about it on our website.?

Networking Advice: The fortune is in the follow up.?

Spend 3x more time following up than for the amount of time you spend at a networking event.?

If you want to grow your business, you know that networking is a valuable way to get high quality clients but what you might not know is that it's not just about showing up.?

Most people show up and throw up.?

I say show up and follow up!?

The fortune is in the FOLLOW UP.?

How many times do you follow up with a networking relationship?

Probably not enough times to actually get referrals.?

Just like you have to nurture prospects you need to nurture your relationships by adding value to them.?

Are you open to introductions? If you are, leave a comment with WHO YOU WANT TO MEET. Let's see if 10 people do that after they read this.?

Joke of the week: Why did the marketing couple get divorced?

They weren’t on the same landing page.

Now that we got that out of the way, let's review my LinkedIn posts from the past week!?

Did you know that you can view all my posts on a desktop using this link?

Make sure to review your own posts at least once a month!?

I really enjoy making Instagram reels and I have created over 100 in the past year. Here is how I repurposed my reel on LinkedIn https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/joeapfelbaum_networking-activity-6893532766625964032-xy45?

When I repurpose this video on LinkedIn it automatically loops and if you read the comments you will see how much people love it.?

One of my networking goals for 2022 is to take selfies with my 150 relationships in person. So when I went to the Harvard club in NYC on Thursday I asked 20 of my relationships to take a photo with me, they all agreed!?

https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/joeapfelbaum_networking-selfies-deeper-activity-6892924592277532672-Yvqk if you want to see the collage.?

One of my relationships was WAY TOO TALL for a selfie, so I got up on a CHAIR to do it. https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/joeapfelbaum_networking-activity-6892810815540383744-Voql if you want to take things to the next level, sometimes you need to get up on a chair.?

I also posted selfies with the one on one people in the comments. This strategy gets those people looking in the comments because I mentioned them when I posted the photos in the comments.?

Did you know that you can add a photo to the comments? Pretty cool way of extending the life of a post.?

My VIP post of the week was a post about how to qualify a lead. This post was VERY VALUABLE and when I learned this strategy, it changed the game for me.?

Check it out here https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/joeapfelbaum_how-many-conversations-does-it-take-to-qualify-activity-6892449067054493696-QKVC and you will see the 4 step process that every person in business who cares about closing deals needs to fully understand if you do not want people to ghost you.?

This post got me over a dozen instagram followers from my LinkedIn connections https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/joeapfelbaum_linkedin-learning-instagram-activity-6892197560535044096-1XzZ I like to go deeper on Instagram with my LinkedIn connections because they will often share more personal info on IG but I know who they are because we are connected on LinkedIn.?

This helps me build trust and go deeper. I get to learn about their families, hobbies and interests.?

In this post I wanted to compare ENGAGEMENT on FACEBOOK vs Engagement on LinkedIn and for this topic https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/joeapfelbaum_what-is-the-difference-between-religion-and-activity-6892107690613501952-9G-V LinkedIn SUCKED because no one wants to talk about this on LinkedIn but on Facebook, over 60 people got involved in the conversation.?

Lots of people want to know our LinkedIn process for success. So I shared our 9 step process that we teach inside our course and coaching program. https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/joeapfelbaum_3-steps-to-linkedin-success-activity-6892095522962780162-x2Av We have over 600 people learning how to use our system and getting MASSIVE RESULTS. If you want to check out our offering, just click here and apply if you think it makes sense.?

I tried to play a game on LinkedIn and it failed. https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/joeapfelbaum_test-activity-6891894814720233472-QYqu It used to work really well but people did not dig it. LOL It's ok to fail, I learn from my failures much more than I learn from my successes.?

Falling in love with SLACK and I am using it more and more. I want to create a premium community of people who want to support each other but I AM FOCUSED on getting two new clients for Ajax Union in q1 so im not launching it now. But at least I know who wants to join https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/joeapfelbaum_slack-networking-activity-6891788145680023552-vpIE Before I do anything I survey my ideal clients using a LinkedIn survey and it's really easy for people to tell me what they want.?

I wish I had this feature when I was launching Ajax Union! This is so powerful.?

Want to network with Real Estate Agents? Here I created a post to show people how to find your target market on LinkedIn. https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/joeapfelbaum_realestate-networking-activity-6891742134689423361-Zfi- Ask your friends and relationships to tag some people in a post about networking and watch what happens. We have dozens of amazing people who are real estate professionals on the post. This is a great way to connect with REAL people.?

This is my 1 minute video of the week https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/joeapfelbaum_mojovation-activity-6891531509757480960-GufA Videos help you go deeper with the audience and if you are not using LinkedIn video you are missing out. Even if only a dozen people see your video, it's valuable because those people went deeper with you.?

Alright that is my recap for the week. Please let me know if you are getting value from my LinkedIn newsletter and LIKE this post, leave a comment and let's keep the conversation going.?

Tell me who you want to meet in the comments! I'll be reading all the comments!

Last Weeks LinkedIn Newsletter can be found here - It was about our process for picking up new clients who are IDEAL clients for our marketing agency Ajax Union.

About the Author:

Joe Apfelbaum is the CEO of Ajax Union a B2B Digital Marketing Agency in Brooklyn NY. Ajax Union develops marketing funnels for companies that want to be more strategic. Our strategies include lead generation, account-based marketing, awareness campaigns, and prospecting. We leverage search engines, social media, and email marketing to support your goals and get the right traffic into your marketing funnel so you can have a positive ROI. To learn more go to?www.ajaxunion.com?and watch the marketing funnel presentation!

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