Welcome back to another episode of Selling Your Expertise. I'm Renee Hribar, your host, and I'm bringing you the freshest. Use today's strategies to make money now. Serve clients who respect you and avoid burning your most precious. Resource time. Yes, it is about making money, but we also need to have time.

There's always been these seasons in my life where I had time and not money, or money, but not time, and I was done with that. So when I created this company, it was always about having time and money at the same time, and I want the same for you. And that's exactly what I'm teaching you today. Again, on this podcast.

If you're loving it, please share it with a friend. We have hit top 100 in the us. Woo-hoo. Stay there. And the only way to do that is to keep sharing it. Please, if you fill out, uh, a review, let me know. Email us. It's all on the ask me coach.com page. The legal bribe I've got for you there. This is definitely us making a rally cry out to all the women out there just like us who are sick of other people telling us how we're supposed to do things.

And most of the times those things are a long, long list of crap we don't need to do so. Let me ask you this question. Have you ever asked yourself, where are my people? Like, seriously? Have you ever stared at your calendar and gone, okay, where are the humans who actually want to pay me? Yeah, you're not alone.

If that's you right now, maybe you're refreshing your email, maybe you're scrolling. Instagram thinking. Does everyone else magically know where their clients are except me? Yeah. This episode is for you, my friend. All right, so today we're talking about client connection strategies, where to actually find your people without becoming a content machine, without being spammy and without pretending like you like reels.

I mean, if you do, then you do, but most of the people that I know. Do them or have done them because they think they're gonna help them get more views or get more clients and a yay, yay. So here's the reality. This is, this is why this matters right now. Here's the context around this. What I see all the time with women who are experts at what they do, you know you who you are, right?

You're an operations, you're a fractional. You build systems. You migrate entire digital suites from Kajabi to high level and back again. You build websites. Dashboards, funnels, ad campaigns, and you're so good at what you do. And it's really, it's kept you busy with referrals, but they don't always value your work.

And since they come from a client who had you two years ago before you continue to refine your skills and raise your rates, they think you're going to get a VIP day to 'em for 1500. No, right? You're like, no. But then you feel bad like you owe the person who you worked with two years ago for sending this person to you now.

So you suck it up and think, I'll raise my rates with the next person. Meanwhile resenting them and the project and promise yourself you'll find new people. Right. First you try more content. Oh, long form thought leadership, short form carousels, videos, and yes, you've even tried that TikTok trend, hoping your former boss doesn't see it, or your ex.

Then you try more platforms. I know what it is. I need to be on this other platform. Mm-hmm. Then you say yes to more events. I know I need more in-person events. Then you sign up for three new courses. Then, then Dun, dun done. You start wondering if maybe you should just go back to your old job, because at least that was predictable.

What's really happening isn't that you need new people. you don't know the other people who knew you before, because everyone evolves and you certainly have as well. So if this resonates with you, good, , you're my ideal client, and if this resonates with you, keep listening because I made this for you.

if you're thinking to yourself, how can I tell this story so clearly and with such detail, it's because I hear it every single day. This. Is what I do. This is the story that I understand and can unravel together with you. So the cure for this is not what you think. It's even easier. So let's take a look at what I call connection strategies.

If you've read or listened to my book on Audible, this will be familiar to you. Yes, shameless plug. Go to ask me coach.com and get that book Connection Strategies are important, otherwise, most leads. So leads are initial connections you make on social media at events, through summits or other marketing efforts.

Those leads typically die on the vine because there is no continued connection strategy. So based on what I've learned teaching thousands of experts just like you, is that your connection strategies are either non-existent. Totally random or stuck in a post and pray mode. So today I wanna give you an example, a simple repeatable way to answer that question.

Where do I find my next five clients this week? In a way that feels like me. Alright, so we're gonna walk through. Three main places I always go to find my next clients, collaborators and connectors. Real client stories. I mean, names and details of course have been changed. No one gets called out on the carpet on my show, but of course I want to share examples.

That's how I learn. Like give me an example. Just give me context. Three exact scripts you can steal for social media, email, and straight up outreach, and for a weekly. Challenge a little challenge for you friends. It's December. Let's make this happen so you're not nodding along and not doing anything.

You're gonna nod along and then actually take action. Same offer, new strategy, so you don't have to change everything. That's the real key thing. Let's start with the framework for finding these three places your people are hiding. So when I ask, where are your people, most experts either say, uh, LinkedIn.

Or, uh, referrals or my favorite, I don't know. But if you find them, tell 'em I'm available. So, because I knew I would ask myself this question my entire business life, I built titanium processes around it. Processes. That's what helps me. I have raging A DHD and without processes, you'll see me wandering the streets, wondering if I left the oven on.

I laugh 'cause it's happened. no, no. Houses were burned down. The fire alarms worked. Think of it like planting a garden. Now, I do not have a green thumb, but I understand, uh, where things come from and, and I definitely love this analogy. So if you're thinking about it like planting a garden, if you plant one seed and stare at it, super weird, right?

We wanna plant multiple seeds in multiple beds growing at different paces. So here are the three main places I cultivate, nurture, and find my next paying clients, collaborators and connectors. Number one, social media used strategically and very intentionally, not obsessively. Email and existing contacts, including old Gmail threads and those business cards in your desk drawer.

You know what I'm talking about? Straight up search is my third place, especially if your people aren't active on social or email. Yes, you can find people that are not active on social or email. We'll talk about it. Let's break each one down with stories and scripts. Okay, so let's start with social media.

Without living on social media, this is what I want you to kinda hold in your heart. Social media is not the devil, it's also not your employer, right? I do not think you need to post five times a day, chase the algorithm, or go viral. What I do believe is that social media can accelerate a process that already works, who you're talking to, what you're saying, how quickly you can test.

And refine. That's how I leverage social media. So inside my world, if you're following my seven day sales cycle, which again in the book social media becomes a place where you publish one smart question publicly, then invite specific people to help you answer it. For example, my question before the question post instead of posting.

Who wants to hire me as a web designer, you ask a question that anyone in your world could answer regardless of where they are in their buying journey. So for example, if you're a web designer, you would say, drop your website link below and tell me which page you're most proud of, or tell me your favorite page, or tell me the favorite part of it.

So something that anybody could answer. You're not pitching. You're opening a conversation, and this does three things. It flushes out who actually has a website. Number two, it gives you a natural context to follow up with people. And number three, it trains the algorithm to show your post to more relevant people, right?

You're not asking for their budget, you're not asking for a call yet. You're just asking a low risk. Easy to answer question, and then I follow up with what I call anchor content. So again, for those of you who haven't read my book yet, uh, this is a demonstration of your brain. So anchor content is a demonstration of your brain.

Since you don't sell products, right, you're not selling a mop, you can't be like, here's a spill, here's the mop. It cleans it up. You should buy one you can't do that. Right? So how do you share, how do you show, how do you demo your brain? Well, that's what I call anchor content. So lemme give you some specifics here.

Anchor content is a longer form piece of content, like a podcast. Hey, like this or a video. It could be an email, it could be a post, an article you publish on LinkedIn or a prerecorded podcast or workshop replay you repurposed from that summit you were in last year. Right. So whether it's audio, video, or written, it's something you can use in your email, your socials, and everywhere else.

And it is something you can pull from the back, something you already have. It shows your brain and how it works. It shows you breaking down a problem. The other thing it does is it's content that tells a story about a fictional, but based on truth character. Yep. Like here, I give you examples from my real client work, but I always.

Make everybody anonymous, the anonymous character so that you get the lesson and not the gossip, right? We're not here about gossip. The other thing anchor content does is the characters who look a lot like the ideal client, help the ideal client. Relate and go, huh, that sounds like me. That's me. And it shows the before and after transformation.

thing of it like CSI business edition, right? Like based on a true story with the names and some details edited to protect the innocent. So let me give you an example of a client composite story that I use in anchor content. So in this case, for this. Client composite story. We'll call her Sally, the scrappy founder.

So let's say you're a marketing strategist, right? You create an anchor content story about Sally, a scrappy founder who had sold a few spots in her program, has testimonials, but they're random. Has a website that feels like a brochure, not a sales tool, is exhausted from posting more with no real lift.

And in your anchor content, you walk through. What Sally was struggling with, how that was affecting her revenue and her sanity. What changed when she clarified her marketing, right? Because that's what you do, what life looks like now on the other side after working with you, after applying your strategies and processes and systems, right?

So notice what's missing. You don't. Teach the full process. You're not gatekeeping, but you skip the how because that's what people hire you for. But also, in all honesty, the real how is different for everybody, right? It's context. You're, you're not gatekeeping, you're fully aware that success depends on a lot of different factors.

You're simply helping people say, oh, that's me, I'm Sally. Right? Okay. So now let me walk you through the 30,000 foot view of how to turn social engagement into conversations. So here's a simple social media chain. Number one, you post a question, right? The question before the question. Number two, invite specific people to answer it.

People in your contacts list followers, past clients, people that you know, three. DM people who reply and ask their opinion on your anchor content, which would be about the results of those you spoke about in this question you had posted, right? So it the question pokes at the problem that you're about to solve with your anchor content.

Number four, from there. Thank them for taking the time with a free initial call. Call it what you need to call it. Go back to episode 46 if you need more details on what I mean. So when I work with experts like you, we take these on a case by case basis. What you say and how you say it, wherever you communicate with these leads, we'll vary based on context in which you know them right.

But there are a few hard and fast rules, number one. Be specific. Number two, this is time bound Number three, it's not let's hop on a call with zero purpose. Again, same offers new strategy, so that was just one place. I bet you already feel like you have enough leads to work with this week. Right? Again, I see leads everywhere.

When I start working with experts like you, it's often not a leads problem, like they thought it's a process problem. They were working an old, outdated strategy. Ready? Have you been taking notes? Let's do this. The second place you wanna look is your email and existing contacts. I do that all the time at my Experts Connect events, and every single time people end up reconnecting with a former contact in their email.

Or in their phone, like their cell phone, their text messages from people they used to work with or a former client. And somebody in the room always ends up making an a sale while we're there, and then everybody else starts to have more conversations that they weren't having before. It's that easy.

So. Let's talk about the second place your people are hiding. It's your email and your contacts. This might be old Gmail threads, business cards in your drawer. We talked about that already. People who aren't active on social, but do use email, and then folks you met at events, even if it was years ago. Like I say in my book, there is no statute of limitations on relationships.

I cannot stress this enough, repeat after me. There is no statute of limitations on relationships and connection. If you met someone three years ago at a conference. You had a great chat over the chicken at the banquet you are still allowed to email them, you are still allowed to email them.

It is not weird. You are human, right? Let me share a story with you. So for this story I'll call her Jane, the event connector. So let's take Jane. She sat next to someone at an event last year. Talked about the stage speaker complained about the coffee swapped business cards, and then life happened, never followed up.

Fast forward to now, now she's doing focused work and she's like, let's say it's on, uh, time management for small business owners, right? And you remember that the person you were sitting next to at that conference fits that profile perfectly. So here's exactly what you can do. the founder business card, email, we'll call it.

I found your business card. I know naming things. It's not a scale of mine. I'm pretty straightforward. But here's the deal. Your subject lines are gonna be like, I found your business card or a throwback too. Name of the event, or we both ordered the chicken Bs. If you've been to conferences a lot, you know this, right?

You know, it's always the chicken. This chicken's always safe. All right, here's the email. Getting ready to rewind, press play, take notes. This is your reconnect email script. You're gonna say, Hey, I was cleaning out my desk and I found your business card from the Women in Business event. We both attended in Milwaukee each three years ago.

We were the ones joking about the cold coffee and the chicken. I've been spending a lot of time lately digging into the time management for small business owners topic, and it made me think of you in some of the things we learned at that conference. I've been putting together a short article about the Time Freedom Blueprint for solo founders, and I love a friendly set of eyes on it.

Can I send you the link? Now that's it. so I want you to notice the rhythm here, right? Number one, proof of connection. I found your card from X event. You could even include a picture of the card laying on your desk, right? Number two, tie to your current focus. I've been digging into X and thought of you.

Number three, low stakes. Ask, can I send you the link I've had this also where I quoted them, Hey, I want your opinion on something, could you gimme two or three sentences in a quote? So I've used lots of variations with this with my clients, and you can too. This is really just about the big goal here.

Reconnect with this person, even if it was three years ago and all you talked about was the chicken at a conference. can still follow this pattern. It's ask a question, share some demonstration of your knowledge, then invite them to something more personal. How this connects to your discovery call is really simple.

So once they say, sure, send it over, and you go back and forth a little bit like, Hey, thank you, would you like or what can I change? Or, I was worried about the M dashes. Whatever. Then you can move to the follow through after the anchor content. you could say something like this. This could be the other email.

So loved having your eyes on that. Thank you again. I wanna thank you with a fun and easy way to reconnect and it gives me some more data for my next article. Here's what I have in mind. A 20 minute calendar review where I apply my time freedom blueprint to your calendar. My goal would be to spot your top two time leaks and give you back three hours a week. I'm holding this day, date and time or this day, date and time. Would either of those work for you for a quick 20 minute chat? Time bound specific. Two options for times. I didn't just give her my calendar link, so I'm very, very specific.

So this protects your boundaries, right? Number one, you thank them with a free 20 minute specific review slash audit. Simple focus, not solve your whole life. Number two, if they qualify, you could offer them a paid 60 minute or whatever, no-brainer session where you architect a simple plan. Getting them in a free initial call qualifies them for where they belong In your world, they might be a connector or a collaborator, but can you think of a better way to do that versus a boring old time suck of what you've been up to?

Kind of coffee chat, right? Like this gives it focus. Yes. You're gonna catch up. Yes. You're gonna reconnect. Yes. You're gonna rekindle the flames. Yes. You're gonna ask more questions. But your only goal is not just to sell them. The next thing, it's to genuinely get to know them and give them something and qualify them to see if the next thing that you thought they might need makes sense.

Right. It's just, it's not waiting for the referral. It's not waiting for the algorithm. It's you using what you already have and creating a clear path to, yes. So the third thing is obviously if you both move forward. You'd continue to qualify them for moving into a phase one project or a retainer like you're, but you're not rushing into it.

And that's the part where most people fail is they meet somebody and if they don't immediately shake the door and be like, I need you. Here's $10,000. Then they're like, they don't need me. They don't want me. I'm useless. I don't need to follow up with them. There's no nurturing, there's no in between.

There's zero client education unless they happen to binge read your. I don't know, all your blog posts from 1999, I don't know. Right? Like that's what I think we think is happening on the other side. It's not, we have to spoon feed them. We have to nurture them. We have to ask questions, guide them, direct them.

My clients always say I, I teach them how to be a Sherpa, a sherpa of service, as opposed to a powerhouse salesperson. They're feeling like a Sherpa. Because they're serving other people as they educate them and become educated on them. And that's how they find their 20, 30, 40 clients per year at their 10, $20,000 per year lifetime customer value.

And they're making their. Quarter mill or more per year. Just depends. And that's a great foundation for any other scaling opportunities that they wanna have, or some of them just love that, the sweet spot business. Right? So I just wanna reconfirm with you. You're not letting your free time turn into a 90 minute consulting session.

We are not doing that anymore, right? You still have the same offers, but this is a new strategy.

All right, so you are getting pure gold here today, folks. Pure gold. So this is what I work with you on in detail on a case by case basis. When we work together, you can already see it's about having the right strategy. Nothing is one size fits all. So ready for the third place to find your leads. Oh yeah.

Straight up search. That's right. We have the internet. Yay. Back when I was in the field learning sales back in the 19 hundreds, we had to buy emails from Dun and Bradstreet. Ooh. It's a whole nother ball of wax. So especially when your people are not online, I get this a lot. My, my people aren't online.

They don't do this. Okay. So what if your people are not really on social media, don't have an email list, don't attend events, and yet they clearly exist in the world. Dentists exist. Mechanic shops exist, construction companies exist, chiropractors, dental hygienists, hair salons, med spas, they all exist. So the third place I look for clients, when it feels like where are they, is.

Straight up search. So let me give you an example, and for this story, we'll call her Maya, the marketing agency owner. Yes. Let me tell you about a client we're gonna call Maya. Maya runs a marketing agency that focuses on a very specific, very offline industry. Her ideal clients do not hang out on Instagram or LinkedIn.

They do not have email lists. Rarely they go to any type of event that she attends. All the classic advice of post more, do more reels build a funnel for her was really useless because they weren't there. That's not where they were. Here's what we did, and you can do the same. And so number one, make a list of target businesses in that industry.

Use Google Maps directories, industry sites. Number two, visit their website or Google Business Profile. Number three, record a short personal video for each business. Now, there are lots of variations on number three. Some of my clients who have used this strategy end up not doing a video. Some just use a screenshot, some.

We just words. It just depends on the industry. It depends on what you're gonna do for them. It all depends, again, case by case basis. Okay. Number four, email. The video link. In this case, for this example with Maya, email the video link directly to them with a single simple question that is the same all the time.

So here's a little script and what it looked like. So Maya would be like, Hey, business name. I was recently looking up auto repair and collision shops in their city because I work with a mechanic shop near there. Well, near is a relative word. I came across your site on your Google business profile and I noticed a couple opportunities that could help you get more of the right local leads this week.

So again, time bound specific. I have a personal connection to this industry because again, she can share her why, like my dad owned a shop. Like this for 25 years, and I love seeing businesses like yours win online. Honestly, that third part that I just shared with you, that's the part a lot of these miss and it makes all the difference.

I've got somebody else who work, I've got just, I've used this strategy a lot and whether, whatever industry they work in, there is usually a personal reason. Share it here. Okay. Fourth sentence here is I recorded this quick video to show you two easy fixes you could make right away. And, uh, at the end I have one quick question for you who's currently in charge of your website slash online presence?

Right, so it's literally four little, like 1, 2, 3, 4 little sentences. And then a last sentence is a question. It's short. It's specific, it's clearly not generic like dear business owner spam style, right? Then Maya didn't wanna sh, you know, stop there. She genuinely understands her ideal clients and knows how fast good ideas fall off the priority list.

So we made it a point to show them she's not like everybody else. So for the businesses that responded, even if they didn't become clients right away. Here's what she did. We thanked them for their time in an email, a text, or a phone call. Sometimes all three. Then she did a small spotlight post on them, on her favorite platform, LinkedIn.

So even though her clients weren't on LinkedIn, they understood that LinkedIn is a thing and that it created a sense of, oh, when I talk to her, good things happen. So every business owner knows the value of publicity, PR, promotion, and even though this auto collision repair shop wasn't on LinkedIn and wasn't really gonna go like or share this post, even if they did, nobody would see it.

It is still a chance for her to thank them in that way. PS it also becomes content for her LinkedIn and it helps everybody who knows her on LinkedIn to know who they should connect her to. So the spotlight might sound like this. So again, take your notes. I'm giving you all the juice, friends, I'm giving it to you.

So. The posts say, today I am spotlighting Joe's garage. They serve down river in Wayne County, Michigan. I recently did a quick review on their online presence and found some easy visibility wins. So she's really, really positive. Love seeing auto repair owners like this showing up for their community.

, This is who I love to support so they can spend more time under the hood and less time chasing parts. Invoices and voicemails. So she wove in. Again, we really worked on this. She wove in, oh, she can help them have less time chasing parts. How does she do that? Well, we have an answer.

Invoices Okay. Voicemails, huh? So she tags them if it's appropriate, if they're even on LinkedIn. Or just lets them know that she posted it and takes a little screenshot of it, gives them a link. No pressure. She's not trying to get them to go help her algorithm. She's just doing this as a kind gesture.

Then she takes it one more step further. She invites them to a free 20 minute Google business profile. Visibility check. Hey, as a thank you for all your years of service to the community, I wanna give you a free 20 minute session where I walk you through these easy wins live, and answer a couple questions about how to make sure your calls get answered, the right parts, get ordered, and the invoices get paid on time.

That's her email. , And then she gives them two times. I have this day, date and time, I have this day, date and time, but either of those work for you for a quick zoom share. Again, they might be able to do it. They might not. It depends. It depends. Everything is a case by case basis. She asks a question.

She shares her anchor content, right, which is, I know what I'm doing. I'm here to help. That's her little video about their Google business profile, and then she thanks them and gives them an initial free call. Where she does something specific with them. This is where I usually get the question about how fast this strategy works.

For me, it's all about sustainable pacing, right? Why my strategies go slower initially than you might anticipate. This is where a lot of experts get tripped up. They think the first connection has to do everything. they think the first connection has to tell the whole story, explain the entire offer stack.

Justify all the pricing, answer objections from people who haven't even met them yet. Make sure their mom likes you. Right? Like it's like so much pressure on this first connection. And I had a client that was a dating coach for a while, and what she taught about dating to other people was very similar to what I teach you about your sales process.

The dating coach would always say the goal of the first date is not to decide if you're going to marry them. The goal of the first date is to decide if you want. A second date. Boom. Right? That's it. So take it one step at a time. She recommended 40 minute first dates. That was what this person, I loved it.

Short focused, sustainable, right? Not exhausting. So the same thing goes with your connection strategy. The goal of a question post is not to sell your 5K package. The goal of an anchor content piece is not to solve their entire problem and their business. The goal of an initial free call is not to fix their whole life.

The goal is always, do we want to keep going? And the way you find that out is by asking questions, sharing useful demonstrations of your brain, and then offering clear specific next steps, right? So, okay, I'm gonna challenge you now. All right. Let's make this real. Here's my challenge to you, based on today's episode right now.

I want you to focus on finding five humans. Your goal is to line up five conversations, not five sales, five conversations using the three places we talked about. Pick at least three of these actions, right? Number one, social media question post number two, your anchor content share. Number three, found your business card email Number four, straight up search.

I gave you a ton of places to look and exactly what to say. Your only job now is to start the conversations, ask a question, share something useful, then, and only then invite them to something more personal and private with a focus. So the next time you hear that little voice saying, where are my people?

I want you to remember. They're on social waiting for a smart question. They're in your email and context sitting behind old threads and dusty business cards. They're in search results with websites and storefronts and Google reviews that prove they exist. You don't need a complicated posting strategy to reach them.

You need a question, a story, and a specific next step. All right, go line up those five humans for the freshest new invites on how we can work together. Go to ask me coach.com. That's A-S-K-M-E-C-O-A-C h.com. Get my free mini sales course and you can always apply to work together with me when you fill it out.

I get an alert. I get to ask you a few more questions, and bottom line, you'll get my best advice about what to do next. Even if it's not working with me, it's been so great having you today. Have a great one, and I'll see you next week.