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Conversational sales is the process of talking to qualified leads on their terms, for example online with a chatbot, a phone call, or using forms on a landing page, whatever.

The focus is to use conversation to provide support, answer your prospective customers' questions, and move them through the buying process.

Every sales team, every rep, every company needs to be trained in conversational sales (low-pressure ways of converting leads to sales).

Unfortunately, most sales reps tend to forget the human element. Customers expect companies to connect with them, give a damn, and offer a solution to their problems. They're not just new leads for a rep to call and sell benefits.

So whether you're selling to other businesses—B2B marketing—or you're selling to consumers—B2C marketing—you won't see growth if there's no human impact.

This is why you need to master the art of conversational selling because conversations lead to customers.

But first, you need to know why conversational selling is highly dependent on human-to-human marketing.

Why Human-to-Human Marketing Matters In Conversational Sales

Human-to-human marketing, or simply H2H, is the best thread that unifies both B2B and B2C business models. It's the understanding that all of us want sales conversations with real people, not automated bots.

Customers want personalized buyer experiences. They want to feel like they matter—not like they’re a nameless, faceless purchaser.

You need to show them you care about their hopes, dreams, struggles, and pain points. And here's where the challenge lies. You need to figure out how to make conversational selling work. You need answers to these questions:

• How can you get your customers' attention?
• How can you make them happy?
• How can you touch their lives?

Remember, conversations lead to conversions.  

CX plays a vital role in the growth of your business. But what does CX mean, and why is it important? In short, CX are initials for Customer Experience, and this boils down to how your customers perceive their interaction with your brand.  

As your potential customers reach out to you, their experience and the relationships they build with your brand really matters. Giving this a truly human touch and delivering a world-class experience can transform a once-off purchase into life-long engagement.

3 Tips To Help You Master Conversational Sales

Here are three conversational selling tips you can use to your advantage.

1. Ask questions.

When meeting someone for the first time, how do you start the conversation? You introduce yourself, ask questions, and naturally build rapport. This is how you get to know someone from your lead list too.

In conversational selling, you need to ask questions to see if your prospects are a good fit for your business. If you're out of ideas, you can start asking them:

• What they love?
• What makes them happy?
• What they’re feeling—what emotion led them to reach out to you for help
• What are their needs?
• What are their challenges or pain points?
• Where is their business now, and where do they want to be in six months to year? Knowing this gap is vital
• What are their goals?

Asking questions validates a person. And being validated delivers a unique customer experience—something that's very important for business growth.

2. Be real.

Since this is all about human-to-human marketing, you need to show the human element in your brand. So when you're selling, tell your story. Share your ups and downs in sales conversations.

This is a great way to bridge the trust gap in the sales process and build authentic relationships with your customers. In H2H marketing, people engage and buy from businesses and brands that genuinely show who they are.

3. Deliver value.

There are a lot of ways to deliver value to your prospects and customers through conversational selling. But the bottom line is, you must be open to helping them without expecting anything in return.

For example, a prospect asks for help on a problem they can't fix. Someone from your sales team offers free advice, which they implement immediately. Later on, they see fruitful results. This situation can prove that your service is worth investing in. And in the end, they'll buy from you and hopefully recommend you to others.

For me, this is how you deliver value through conversational selling. Instead of slogging through the doldrums of cold calling, listing your products and services, then waiting until someone bites, target the right people, and offer the value they need.

Now you might be wondering, is conversational sales the same as conversational marketing? Well, let's just say they use a similar methodology.

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What is conversational marketing?

Conversational marketing happens when you personally engage with prospects and customers in real-time through multiple channels. This happens online and in person, and these channels include:

• live chat,
• chatbots on websites,
• video,
• email support, and
• messaging apps.

Any form of one-on-one communication, like phone and email, are considered part of conversational marketing.

Today, messaging is the most effective conversational marketing strategy to reach out to prospects and customers online. According to a recent survey from Twilio, 90% of consumers love to use it to communicate with brands and businesses.

So you want to consider using messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Viber to reach out to your potential and existing customers.

And even if you're worried you can't always reach out to people face-to-face or in real-time, conversational marketing tools like chatbots can really help. You can program them to automatically respond to messages and engage with prospects. Rather than sending an unwelcome form, you can start a conversation with an automated but warm greeting.

What are the benefits of conversational marketing?

When done strategically, conversational marketing can do wonders for your brand. These include:

• Helping you convert more qualified leads faster
• Creating personalized, authentic experiences with prospects and buyers
• Building and fostering relationships with happy customers

How can I be more conversational in sales?

So now I want to talk about sales language. You really want to get this right, because the language you use can make or break your ability to sell.

Think about how you'd engage with a trusted friend. You're relaxed, easy-going, and the conversation flows naturally. This is how I want you to approach selling. You want to put your prospect at ease. So how can you do this.

Well, let’s start with what NOT to say.

Bad Sales and Marketing Language

It’s unfortunate, but lots of sales trainings teach bad language. These are some common phrases that have been overused by sales teams over the years:

• “Follow up”
• “Next step”
• “Moving forward”
• “Would you be interested?”
• “Would you like to explore?”

I wouldn’t be surprised if you've used some of these in a sales conversation before. But I want you to know that this is outdated sales lingo. These phrases immediately trigger an internal alarm in prospects that says, "I'm being sold to." And they will slowly start backing away from you.

If you want to win customers and build long-lasting relationships with them, don't use these in conversational selling.

So now that you know what not to say, let's look at the kind of sales language which works well.

Effective Sales and Marketing Language

Remember, I spoke about keeping your conversations relaxed and positioning yourself as a trusted friend. If you use some of these phrases, you’ll see your sales numbers increase:

• “Tell me a little bit more about that.”
• “How long has that been going on?”
• “Is it a priority to fix it?”
• “Any feedback on our previous conversation/meeting?”
• “That’s not a problem.”
• “You’re absolutely right. It can be perceived as high. No doubt about that.”
• “Where do you think we should go from here?”

As you can see, using these statements in a conversation is not complicated. Most of them are probing questions, and you'll eventually receive a lot of different responses from qualified leads.

It puts the power back in the hands of your prospect, without causing pressure. By asking probing or leading questions, you're actually saying to your potential customer, I care. I want to know more about what you're struggling with.

That creates trust, which is essential to selling.

You can read our list of key sale tips here.

Top Insights into our Team's Conversational Sales Strategy

We asked our lead sales rep to share her best insights when it comes to conversational sales. Here's what she had to say:

What is the difference between conversational sales and traditional sales?

I liken conversational sales to playing doctor. You get on the call with the patient. You listen to their symptoms. Give them space to talk about their problems, and by the end of the call, you can diagnose a solution.

Traditional sales, on the other hand, is pushy. You’re not allowing the other person to uncover what the real issue is. You're focused entirely on yourself, and that creates friction which will turn off a lot of prospects.

Why is conversation vital to sales?

Conversations are vital because the more your prospect talks about their problem, the more it creates a sense of urgency within them to get it fixed. It's almost like they're convincing themselves that they need to take action and solve their problem.

What improves sales conversion?

Speed, really. The faster you can respond to a hot lead, the greater your chance of closing them. Don't give them time to reconsider.

What affects sales conversion?

1. Time: Are you selling a course, program, or software? If your product requires the prospect to invest the time they don't have, that will reduce the number of sales you get. It's really important that you don't encourage your prospect to purchase if you know they won't be able to use the product effectively. That will only lead to unhappiness.
2. Budget or finances: If you sell a high-ticket item, your market is much smaller than an entry-level product. So you will get many more unqualified leads. I'd still encourage you to speak with them. I use these conversations to improve my sales process. I take note of the phrases and ideas that connect with the prospect.
3. Multiple decision-makers: Often, the leads I speak to need to touch base with their partners. It could be a spouse or a business partner. This can make getting the sale more difficult as I need to convince both parties.

Conversational Selling in a Nutshell

Sales and marketing have evolved, and your business should too.

I'm not against classifying business models, but it's right to say that the era of B2B and B2C marketing has ended. It's over. You need to stop thinking that you're either in B2B or B2C. This time, you're in H2H marketing. And, you need to do what it takes to humanize your brand.

The power of conversational marketing and sales lies in personal and real-time engagement. Conversation is the best way to deliver a world-class customer experience.

It branches off in different directions. So whether you want to use messaging apps or chatbots on your website to reach out, what's important is shortening the buying process, understanding your prospects, and boosting the empathic element of your brand.

Every business has one ultimate goal: to gain more customers and close more sales. You need marketing to do that consistently.

And though there are millions of strategies and tactics you can use, the starting point remains the same: have a well-crafted marketing plan.

After all, marketing is what drives your target audience to buy your product or service, bringing in the cash. But without a marketing strategy, it's like going to war without your weapons.

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The Marketing Plan Explained

A marketing plan is basically a blueprint that outlines the methods you're going to implement to make your customers buy your products and services. It acts as a roadmap that walks through your marketing strategies, tactics, marketing activities, costs, and expected results.

It has to be detailed enough to contain the actions that small businesses need to do to accomplish their goals.

A marketing plan ensures you don't get sidetracked and start chasing shiny objects (ooh, look, TikTok!)

You can create a marketing strategy good for a month, quarter, or the whole year.

Want to know what are the best marketing strategies for 2022? Click the link.

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Marketing Plan Vs. Marketing Strategy: What's the difference?

Marketing strategy is the overall big-picture. It answers what you hope to achieve with your marketing and why. Knowing this makes getting buy-in from stakeholders and business owners much easier.

The marketing plan lays out exactly how you'll achieve those strategic goals. It maps out the tactics you'll implement (inbound and outbound marketing), the assets you need, and the processes and systems you'll develop to help you level up your marketing game.

4 Purposes of a Marketing Plan

Every business needs a marketing plan because:

1. It coordinates company goals and objectives.
2. It defines the target market, allowing you to segment them according to your needs.
3. It defines the marketing mix.
4. It systematizes each activity for every marketing strategy.

Why Do Businesses Need Marketing Plans?

It doesn't matter whether you're running a small business or scaling a huge one — you still need to create a marketing plan.

After all, it comes with a whole bevy of benefits like the following:

1. It can help you create measurable business goals.

Clarity is super important when setting your business goals. It shouldn't be as simple as 'not going broke' or 'meeting annual sales KPIs.' Otherwise, you're just setting yourself up for marketing failure.

If you don't have a clear target, you can't implement marketing activities to help you reach what you want to achieve.

With a marketing plan, you can focus on tangible targets, improving your sales and business performance throughout the year.

2. A Plan provides consistency.

Whether you have a small team or a big one, a marketing plan makes sure you're all on the same page. Everyone is given the exact instructions on what to do to meet the company's business goals.

Without a marketing strategy, your plan will end up fractured and ineffective.

For example, some of your employees might work on social media, online content, or email marketing, while the other half uses print and radio ads.

3. It pushes you to stick with your budget.

Even a big business has to work on a set budget.

With a marketing plan, you can place importance on activities that yield the best results. It can save you from the headache of creating strategies that are not worth pursuing.

4. It helps you provide better service to your customers.

The importance of a marketing plan goes beyond the process. You can also use it as a guide in dealing with your clients.

When you understand what you need to do, you can address your audience better.

5. It gives your company the reality check it needs.

Businesses often have multiple objectives, and it can get confusing real fast if you don't have a marketing plan to guide you.

It serves as a benchmark that reminds you if you're hitting your marketing targets. You can make sure that your strategies are aligned and aren't veering away from the business goals you had from the start.

6. It can serve as an excellent motivator to your marketing team.

Say you want to start your business by marketing ten items per day.

When your employees know the exact marketing strategies to employ to achieve that goal, they waste less time in brainstorming sessions and follow-up meetings. All they need to do is follow your marketing plan, and everything will fall into place.

7. A plan is the key to getting more investors.

Let's face it: Building and running a business involves a sizable investment. If you want yours to grow in people, products, and income, you need to invest more capital.

One way to do so is to get different entities to invest in the product you're marketing. But you won't get the funding you need if you can't present a marketing strategy that outlines your business direction. It's massively important if you want to level up your company.

8. It can make you think and be proactive rather than reactive.

Planning lets you understand not just your target market and products but also the process of how you can bridge these two to achieve your business needs.

Teams with marketing plans are also more proactive. So you think about things in advance rather than just dealing with them when they occur. You're able to pre-empt and solve issues immediately.

Do You Want to Grow Your Business Rapidly?

Then you need to market it. But not just any marketing will do. In my Lean Strategy Course, I show you the exact techniques I've used to start, grow, and exit several multi-million dollar businesses, so you can too.

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How to Create a Simple But Effective Plan in 5 Steps

Step 1: Prepare all the documents you need for your marketing plan.

‍You've probably heard of the saying, "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail." The same goes for creating a good marketing plan — you can't come up with many promising marketing ideas without much preparation.

For a seamless planning process, make sure to have the following marketing documents at hand:

• Latest financial reports, including operating budgets and profit and loss activity
• Sales figures by product and location for at least the last three years
• A list of new products or services, as well as their target customers
• Different marketplace documents, such as the list of competitors, regional boundaries, intended customers, current distribution channels, demographic data, and market trends

Step 2: Write about the market situation, as well as the threats and opportunities.

‍When you create your marketing plan, it's absolutely essential to consider the current trends in the marketplace, like your market's dollar size, selling and distribution setup, target audience, and even how much you've sold throughout the years.

Remember, you'll also need to take note of the threats and opportunities your business faces. These include the customers' demographics and the new trends that might be against you. And don't forget to focus on exploiting the ones that work in your favor.

‍Step 3: List down your marketing plan objectives.

‍The focus here should be the business goal you wish to achieve in a specific time frame.

Each objective needs to be clear. It must describe what you want to accomplish in, say, a week or a month, even six months. So be sure to jot down the numbers you want to get.

If you have a hard time creating different objectives for your marketing plan, you can always refer to your old records.

If your business has managed to keep an 80% in gross revenues from customers this year, gunning for a simple 20% to 25% increase in activity is a pretty achievable target, in my opinion.

Again, your marketing plan must also include the tactics and activities you're planning to do to achieve your targets.

For example:

Goal: Introduce the new X item to Roseville and sell 10,000 units for total revenue of $50,000.

‍Objectives:

• Promote the item and reach more customers online using email marketing or social media.
• Run marketing ads in the local newspaper.
• Get a radio ad in a local station.

Tactics:

• Obtain email addresses of Roseville residents by offering freebies on the website.
• Create Facebook marketing ads targeting the Roseville market.
• Contact newspaper people regarding ad rates and reserve an ad spot if you can.
• Contact the station manager and inquire about placing an ad.

Step 4: Set a marketing budget.

‍Now that you have your marketing strategy in place, it's time to talk numbers. I like to tell my clients that as long as you're making a return on investment, why wouldn't you keep plugging dollars back into your marketing activities?

But initially, you want to assign a specific budget so your team knows how much they can allocate for every promotion. The golden rule here is to add 25% more to your current estimate.

When establishing a budget, be sure to plan with the people who will be executing these activities. Their input will help you get a ballpark figure of the amount you want for each strategy. It also allows you to determine a point person who will keep a close eye on the budget and ensure it's put to good use.

‍Step 5: Create an executive business summary.

‍Although this should be placed at the top of your marketing plan, the executive summary should be the last thing you do in your marketing plan. It serves as an overview of the content you have inside.

For easier reading, make sure your plan is written in simple sentences. Bold the most critical points, and list them down in bullets as needed.

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Monitoring Your Plan's Performance

Successful marketing comes down to knowing your numbers.

• How are your marketing campaigns performing?
• Is your lead nurturing sequence converting?
• What messages work and which don't? Check out our messaging framework for refining your marketing message.
• Does your target audience engage with your social content?
• Is your advertising effective?
• Are you tracking Google Analytics, and what do your results reveal?
• What resources are most popular?

Marketing isn't just about putting a piece of content out there and hoping it sticks. You need to gather as much data and information as you can and analyze it to be sure you're getting results and not wasting your money.

So add KPIs to each and every marketing activity.

Types of Marketing Strategies

A clear marketing strategy identifies which tactics your company will use to get your customers to know, like, trust, and buy from you.

If you've built an in-house marketing team, they may wish to create separate plans for each tactic, for example:

• Content marketing plans outline the articles you'll write and post on your blog to rank in search engines. These can be built month to month or yearly in advance.  SEO is one of the best ways to attract organic traffic and grow your audience.
• Media marketing plans outline which media you'll use to reach your audience. This could be social media, PR, SEO, PPC, television, radio, podcasting, or Ted Talks, to name a few. In advertising agencies, you'll be given a media plan that lists dates go-live/publisher dates, costs, and timelines.
• Social media marketing plans or a social content calendar break down the types of posts you'll share across any given month.

A lot of big companies have annual marketing plans. That's why I wrote the 1-Page Marketing Plan. It's something you can review every six months and only update when necessary.

Business Success Starts With A Sound Marketing Plan Strategy

As mentioned, there are many good reasons why your business must have a marketing plan. As the business owner, you need to own your marketing strategy. So it's vital that you're involved in the writing of your marketing plan. Although it can be challenging to build out, it's essential to your business's success. So, make it a priority.

Do you have the goal of building a six figure coaching business? Click the link.

How do you find great remote workers? Does your recruitment process consist of posting an ad on a job marketplace and waiting for the perfect candidate to apply?

There are plenty of hiring strategies to use, but this method is not the best move these days.

It's like signing up for Tinder and getting hundreds of matches while your competition meets their match through a trustworthy mutual friend. You can still find "the one," but it'll take a lot more time, money, and effort.

A remote team is only as good as the people in it. So if you want to work with great talent, you need a strong recruitment process.

Here are three of the most effective hiring strategies you can use to find great remote workers and build a strong and talented team:

Why You Need To Hire A Team

I've worked with many businesses, and one of the first questions they ask me is, "Whom should I hire first?"

Now, let's delve deeper into what your organizational structure looks like.

Are you the center of your team? Do you:

• Hire everyone?
• Onboard new team members?
• Answer all questions from your team members?
• Involve yourself in every decision-making process?

If you handle most of these things, you’re a huge bottleneck for your team. Entrepreneurs are ideas people. You come up with goals, plans, and solutions for a profit. You don't have to train every team member or answer questions that don't involve you from the get-go.

So what works best is to hire from the top, down. But what do I mean by that?

1. Hire from the top, down.

To hire from the top, down means your first hire must employ the rest of the team and run the future team.

There are two reasons for this:

1. Hiring is never easy. Writing job descriptions, posting ads, reviewing résumés, interviewing candidates, and onboarding new team members are labor and time-intensive. You don't have to do everything on your own.
2. You can hold your team leader accountable for the team results. This won't only get things off your plate, but you're indirectly training your team leader to become more responsible for the team.

So again, remove yourself as the bottleneck and hire someone you can trust to hire and run the rest of the team. If you need a reason why you should hire a team, check this out.

What Position Should You Hire First?

This is next question I often get asked and I have two choices for you:

• Marketing Coordinator
• Remote Assistant (Virtual Assistant)

Once you're ready to find your first hire, here are three things you should consider first:

• Budget: First things first, you should be conscious of your budget. Can you afford a new hire? What’s your budget and what tools will they need in their role?
• Buy-in: Who else needs to be involved in this conversation? What is their role? Are they a decision-maker?
• Timelines: Set clear expectations on a timeline to hire, onboard, and ramp-up.

Among these three, budget is the most pressing factor for entrepreneurs. Do you already have a figure in mind? For your first hire, you can choose either of these two, depending on your budget:

• Marketing Coordinator: around $35 per hour or $2,800 per month
• Remote Assistant: around $700-900 per month

Now, if budget is not an issue or your top concern, you can choose based on the candidate's skill set.

Marketing Coordinator (6 Non-Negotiables)

1. Copywriting

Copywriting is central to marketing and success. It touches everything. In every single campaign, you're going to have words—either on a page, video, social media, email sequence, and so on.

Copywriting translates into many other good things that can bring to the business as well. It builds your image, brings out the personality of your brand, and boosts your digital marketing game.

Even if ultimately this person won't be doing all the copywriting, they do need to understand what compelling copy looks like.

They need to be able to understand how to put a message together because if your team leader can't communicate effectively, it'll negatively impact the internal team and everything you put out into the marketplace.

2. Being Tech-Savvy

Marketing has become much more technical. You've got CRM systems, content management systems, websites, and landing pages.

Technophobes (anyone who's scared of technology) won't succeed in this role. You need someone who's willing to be trained to learn how to use different platforms. You also want them to implement systems. Learn more here.

3. Leadership Potential

As I said, you need someone who has leadership skills because your first hire is in charge of hiring and running your remote team.

4. Project Management

As your team leader, they're going to be responsible for the delivery of your projects. You want to make sure they're able to manage your team and deliver projects on time and on budget.

5. Being Teachable and Coachable

Trust me, an arrogant, know-it-all person can bring down a team. I've always found that the best hires are always teachable and coachable. You need someone who can learn new concepts, accept new ways of doing things, and just run with it.

6. Being a Self-Starter

It might sound cliché, but you need your first hire to be a self-starter. You need someone who can work autonomously without needing to be constantly babysat and asked how things are going all of the time.

Remote Assistant (6 Non-Negotiables)

1. Excellent Communicator

Communication serves as the foundation of every facet of your business. You need someone who understands the grounds of their work, who's willing to reach out for help when they need it, and who can create a positive work environment within the team.

2. Detail-Oriented

As the business owner, your role is to always look at the big picture. It’s up to your remote assistant to pay close attention to all of the small particulars when working on projects. This results in high-quality work with little to no errors.

3. Strong Written English (or the language you do business in)

English is the most widely spoken and written language in the world. So, if your first hire doesn't know English (or the language you do business in) well, they can't effectively communicate with you and your team.

4. Comfortable with Technology

Like I said, you need tech-savvy people who're willing to learn how to use new systems and equipment.

5. Reliable

Look for a dependable remote assistant. Find someone who can deliver within the deadline and create high-quality deliverables you’ve agreed upon.

6. Eager to Learn

Growth potential is an important quality in your first hire, and willingness to learn shows that capability. This person must be willing to undergo training or mentoring for career progression.

2. Hire based on attitude first, not experience.

I believe that you should hire on attitude first instead of experience or skill level. Why? The idea is to hire good people who are open to learning new things—people who are not stuck in their old ways of working.

To give you a better idea, consider hiring someone who's a bit more of a blank slate. They've got a great attitude, are willing to learn, and are open to new ways of doing things. You just need to train them to do things the way you want them done.

‍So, don't hire. Invest.

‍You should invest a lot of time and money in training your team.

“Now what if they leave?” people always ask me.

Let's turn it around.

"What if you don't train them and they stay?"

That's going to be a bigger loss for you. You'll be in a world of pain if your team doesn't know what they're doing and they stay in the business.

So, invest in them. And the other thing is, if you’re treating people decently and you've got a fun work environment, it's unlikely that people are going to leave unless they have major life changes.

3. Use your network and different platforms to find great talent.

If you want to find great talent, start by letting your network know you're hiring. I actually found my team leader through my network. All I did was write a job description, post it, and wait for referrals to come. You can also use referrals to get new business. Back to hiring.

Then, my team leader hired everyone else. It's the most efficient and cost-effective way to look for top talent. Putting trust in your team leader just shows that you're involving them in your company’s growth.

Aside from referrals, you can also post on platforms like LinkedIn, UpWork, and Onlinejobs.ph.

Building Your Remote Team

Rather than waiting for great talent to miraculously discover your business and beg for a job, redirect your efforts to strategically sourcing them. So to recap, you must:

• Hire from the top, down
• Hire based on attitude first
• Find talent from your network and other platforms

Sourcing top talent is essential to the future of your business. If you want to get two steps ahead of your competition, hire the best candidates in the market because a solid, dependable, flexible team is the backbone of a successful business.

But finding great talent is only the first step. Now you need to build a work culture that makes them want to log on each day and do good work. To learn more about how to create that awesome work culture, check out this link.

Once upon a time, many moons ago, LinkedIn was a glorified online resume platform for recruiters and job hunters, but that's long since changed.

Today LinkedIn is the largest professional network in the digital landscape, and if you're not on it, you're missing out.

Through LinkedIn, you can promote yourself and build a solid network of professionals who can add value to your business.

And the best part? It’s completely free.

If you're into B2B marketing, it's the top channel to use. In fact, 97% of its users utilize LinkedIn for their B2B marketing efforts.

What you might find surprising is:

• 80% of B2B leads come from LinkedIn.
• 65% of B2B companies have acquired a client or a customer in this platform.

Simply put, LinkedIn is your go-to platform for building your personal brand, generating more leads and scaling your client or customer list. It's an asset.

‍So, how can you make a good first impression? Start with your profile In this blog, I'm going to share my best LinkedIn profile tips for creating and optimizing your account. This step-by-step process is really quite simple to do.

Do You Want to Grow Your Business Rapidly?

Then you need to market it. But not just any marketing will do. In Lean Strategy Course, I show you the exact techniques I've used to start, grow, and exit several multi-million dollar businesses, so you can too.

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The LinkedIn profile sections you need to complete

If you want to stand out on LinkedIn, you need an awesome profile—one that speaks directly to the needs of your target audience.

Now you can have an individual LinkedIn profile or a business profile.

Either way, the profile section tips I share below can be applied to both.

1. Your LinkedIn Profile Picture and Background Photo

Without a doubt, a great LinkedIn profile starts with a good profile picture.

LinkedIn profiles with photos get more views, messages, and engagements rather than faceless ones. It gives the idea that you're dealing with a real person and not a bot.

So your first step is to add a profile and background photo.

‍Profile picture:

• The ideal size is 400x400 pixels. It must be less than 8MB.
• You can crop it in a square or circle.
• Upload a high-quality professional headshot. LinkedIn profiles with professional headshots get 14 times more profile views. It doesn't have to be a high-end, expensive photograph. Just make sure it's decent, presentable, and visually clear.
• Most importantly, your profile picture must fit your branding.

Cover photo:

• The ideal size is 1584x396 pixels.
• It must be less than 8MB, too. It must reflect your passion or advocacy (if applicable).
• You can add your company logo with its tagline. Think about products or services you're known for.
• Make your background picture customized. But if you want to keep it simple, there are ready-to-use templates to choose from in Canva.

‍Here's an example of a nice, presentable profile and cover photo. As you can see, it easily depicts who you are and your branding.

Now, you have to pick your photos carefully. Career experts say that LinkedIn is a platform for professionals. It's not the right platform to show off your significant other or duck face selfies. Here's another reference to look at.

2. Choosing The Right LinkedIn Headline

Aside from your name and eye-catching photos, people will most likely look into your headline. This is similar to your Facebook and Instagram bio, where you can describe who you are in 120 characters or less.

Keep it clear and direct as much as possible. Remember, confusion creates a bad impression. People don't want to waste time trying to guess what it is you do.

Best practice, use short and simple search terms. It takes a few seconds to skim a LinkedIn headline, so make sure yours is meaningful for your prospects.

If you're struggling with creating your own headline, you can use this formula:

‍[Your job title/what you do] | I help [your prospects] to [how you can help them] to [result].

‍This is how it looks.

3. Make Your LinkedIn About Section Count

If you're limited to 120 characters when describing yourself in your headline, you can write as much text as you want in your “About” section.

Now you can elaborate on what you do, how you can help, and what results you can deliver.

But before I get into that, I want to make one thing very clear. Your about section isn't really about you. It's about how you can help your ideal prospect to get results. So make the focus about them.

Here’s what your “About” section must include:

• Introduction: Start by sharing something about yourself or your company. What's your story? What core values and principles matter to you the most?
• Your products or services: How do you help people? Add as many products and services you offer as possible. Then, give them a rundown of what you do. Be descriptive. In my case, I'm known for my book, The 1-Page Marketing Plan that helps people thrive and succeed in business, so I've highlighted it in my “About” section.
• Results: I’ve noticed that a lot of profiles don't include this part. It's an opportunity you shouldn't miss. Talk about the results you can deliver. If you're a PR agency how many press releases do you write a month? If you're a lead generation specialist, how many quality leads can you produce in a month? Or if you own an e-commerce store, how many sales did you get in the past year? What about your current Google rating? Transparency is a major factor here. Just keep it real. Help people to manage their expectations.
• Call-to-action: Although people can directly connect with you on LinkedIn, share other ways they can reach out. Feel free to add links to your website, e-commerce store, email, and other social media accounts.

Take time to write your “About” section. Not a lot of people know this, but you can actually use it as your lead magnet. Here are some tips in drafting your own:

• Keep it personal. Write it as if you're talking to a friend.
• Avoid over-promoting yourself.
• Use your prospects' pain points.
• Define and use your brand voice. What jargon does your target audience use? This influences how prospects perceive your messaging.

4. Summarize your Career in the LinkedIn Experience Section

After going through your About section, people will scroll down to see your “Experience” section. This is an important part of your profile as it shows your work history and proves your credibility and competence.

Employment history differs among people, so it doesn't matter whether it's written short or long. Maybe you own multiple businesses or have different roles in your company. If this is the case, explain each business or role further by adding:

• An overview or description of what you do
• Achievements
• Social proofs or testimonials

Most importantly, link your role to your company page on LinkedIn. Make sure your LinkedIn company page is complete because people will check it too.

See for yourself.

‍

Individual LinkedIn Profile Add-Ons

Every single LinkedIn profile has a profile photo, headline, description, and a list of experiences. But only a few spend their time:

• Filling in their “Accomplishments” section
• Adding recommendations
• Personalizing their LinkedIn URL

This is what I meant by optimizing your profile. Aside from your basic information, these boost your image and branding. Use these optimizing tips to gain a competitive edge and stand out from the rest.

1. LinkedIn URL

All new profiles have system-generated URLs composed of random letters and numbers. So if you want to optimize your URL, you have to change it. A long string of random characters is unsightly. So it's best to keep it short and customized. Here's how to change your profile URL:

1. Click the “Me” icon at the top of your homepage.
2. Click “View profile.”
3. Click “Edit public profile and URL” on the upper-right side.
4. Click the pencil icon next to your URL.
5. Remove the last part of the URL in the text box and replace it with your name, with or without your company name, containing 30-100 characters. Do not use spaces, symbols, or other fancy characters.
6. If your custom URL is no longer available, that means you have to create a different one.
7. Save it. And there you go. You have a new LinkedIn URL.

It may take time for search engines to detect the updates you've made to your LinkedIn profile. If you haven't seen any live changes, reload the page.

2. Your Accomplishments

Your accomplishments matter. It shows your commitment to your field and how others recognize your efforts.

This profile section must include outstanding publications, honors and awards, courses, projects, and organizations.

3. Your LinkedIn Recommendations

Here's a profile tip that most people forget. LinkedIn recommendations are a great feature to highlight statements from people who enjoy working with you and are happy to recommend you.

Even if you're not a job seeker at the moment, 76% of B2B buyers prefer to work with professionals who have displayed recommendations on their profiles.

You're lucky if you get a recommendation from your clients, mentors, or colleagues without asking for it. But most of the time, it’s a give-and-take situation. Write a recommendation for someone and ask if they would write one for you.

Or better yet, you can ask for it through email. You can use this template, do your tweaks and send it to get recommendations.

‍Hey [Name],

Feels like it’s been years since we last spoke. [You can insert some personal notes.]

I was hoping to ask a favor. I’d massively appreciate a recommendation when you get the chance. And I’d be happy to write one for you in return.

Keep in touch and let me know how things are going.

‍Just like any other word-of-mouth, it should be genuine. It should come from someone who knows you professionally and can describe your strengths, character, and skills.

4. Your Featured Section

Optimizing your LinkedIn profile is made even better with new updates. In 2020, LinkedIn launched the Featured section which allows you to showcase the best work samples you're proud of. This can vary to:

• Old or previous posts you've written or shared on LinkedIn
• Successful blog topics from your website (for example a blog about the benefits of a marketing plan) and social media handles
• External media such as photos, documents  and links

Now how does this new section differ from the Activity section on your profile?

The Activity section shows all your activity for the past 45 days. This includes your posts, articles, likes and comments on other LinkedIn posts. With the recent update, you can find it just below the Featured section on your profile or LinkedIn feed if you choose to enable it.

What makes the Featured section different is you can pick and curate the content you only want other people to see. Meaning, you have full control over what to include and exclude in this LinkedIn section.

Optimizing Your LinkedIn Profile for SEO

So now that you've learned about the basics and set up LinkedIn essentials on your personal profile, let's take things to the next level.

LinkedIn is one of the top five sites (Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Wikipedia) that Google regularly indexes. This means that you have to apply SEO to your profile if you want to appear in search results more often.

This won't only help you gain better search visibility in native LinkedIn searches, but also in Google searches. Just think about seeing your name on the first page of Google. That looks interesting, isn't it?

Now, let's talk about LinkedIn SEO.

1. Create a keyword-rich profile.

If you're familiar with how digital marketing works, then you probably know how important keywords are in SEO.

And this is also applicable when optimizing your LinkedIn profile.

So how do you start?

You have to make sure that the keywords you'll choose are those that people use when searching for your products and services.

For example, if you're a dentist, you can include the long-tail keyword "dental care and dental services" in your job title. Then on your job description, you can include relevant phrases like "general dentistry, cosmetic dentistry" and other variations of these.

Now, here's a tip to remember.

Be careful of keyword stuffing. Just place relevant keywords naturally in your LinkedIn profile.

2. Build quality backlinks.

Do you want to give your LinkedIn profile a boost?

Building quality backlinks is the answer. Now what should you do?

You have to link to your LinkedIn profile from your own website. This is extremely effective if your website has a high domain authority (DA).

And if you're guest posting on other websites, use this opportunity to link back to your LinkedIn profile. You can simply use your author bio to get backlinks.

This technique helps your profile rank higher in Google and even in LinkedIn itself, resulting in high visibility.

3. Post New Content (and share) other LinkedIn User's content.

Sure, you've already filled out your LinkedIn profile with everything people need to know from you. What's next?

Apply SEO to your profile through content marketing. Meaning, you must post relevant and valuable content.

This is a fantastic way to interact with your LinkedIn connections. Also, this drives traffic to your blog post, web content, whatever.

Now aside from posting your own content, consider sharing content too. Have you read a piece of content from someone that you find valuable? Share it. This creates a domino effect—helping you reach a wider audience effortlessly. It's also one way to build a better community.

4. Join and participate in LinkedIn groups.

LinkedIn shows the groups you're part of on your profile. In return, this helps the platform to know more about you and what search results are relevant to you.

So take time to look at some groups relevant to your industry and join them. Ask questions or provide valuable answers to other people's questions.

This is one of the most effective ways to grow your LinkedIn network.

Participate in the conversation, and people will start noticing you. Now if you do this consistently, you'll eventually boost your reputation as a thought leader.

5. Expand your LinkedIn network.

LinkedIn search results heavily depend on your network of colleagues, business contacts and friends.

So does this mean it has its own search engine? Yes.

And just like any search engine, LinkedIn also considers a few ranking factors to get your profile on the first page.

This includes the number of connections that your profile has.

For example, if you're one of my colleagues and I searched for keywords related to your profession, I'll probably see your profile on top of the results.

Remember, LinkedIn is also a social media platform. The goal here is to connect to as many people as possible.

Although this is what you have to do, you still have to be careful about who you connect with. More connections may mean higher ranking and visibility on your LinkedIn profile, but the wrong connections are up to no good.

Prioritize getting as many 1st level connections as you can. 2nd and 3rd level connections can also boost your network. Avoid directly connecting to LinkedIn members who are out of your network. Make sure you check every profile who wants to connect and see what value they can offer to you.

6. Use alt texts to name your images.

Are you looking for an underrated LinkedIn SEO hack? Here it is.

Google indexes images just as it indexes web content. So for every image you upload to LinkedIn, you must also name it with a keyword or phrase that's discoverable online.

This is the role of alt texts. Add alternative texts (alt texts) to all the images you post on your LinkedIn profile or feed. This helps voice-over screen readers to know what the image is all about.

So for example, if you're name's John Doe, you can rename the image with your profession.

Now before you do this, I want you to think of a very important matter. Are you running a company or building your personal brand? These are two different things. So if your personal brand matters more, consider using your name as alt texts to your LinkedIn images.

In my case, when you search for "Allan Dib," I'd like to have most of the results to show my profile picture.

7. Use Customized and Generic LinkedIn hashtags.

Let's get this straight. Hashtags aren't only for Twitter or Instagram.

LinkedIn might be a social media network for professionals, but it also uses hashtags.

So take advantage of it. Add hashtags when posting articles and other forms of content on LinkedIn. Users can find you when they follow a hashtag you use. This is a fantastic tool because it just means that others don't necessarily have to follow you so they can see your posts.

8. Get endorsements from fellow LinkedIn connections.

Are you looking for ways to optimize your job search? Here's another overlooked LinkedIn feature that you should check.

Use the endorsements section to boost your LinkedIn SEO game.

This validates all the skills you've posted in your LinkedIn profile. It's also a great place to add target keywords within the skills on your list.

So the key here is to get more endorsements for a few, handpicked skills instead of few endorsements for many skills.

Recruiters use LinkedIn to find candidates. Use endorsements to impress them. Having social proof gives you a higher chance to land a job.

9. Add the Open To Work LinkedIn Banner if you're in the market for a new job

For business owners and recruiters, the Open to Work LinkedIn Banner is a great way to quickly find new talent.

Instead of posting a job and waiting for candidates to apply, you can directly approach a potential employee to see if they'd be interested in new work opportunities.

If you're looking for a new job, this signals to your network that you're serious about making a move.

To add the Open to Work banner, watch this instructional video.

10. Up the ante by taking a LinkedIn Skills Assessment

Demonstrate your technical skills and know-how by taking a LinkedIn Skills Assessment. There are a number of skills tests from various industries that you can choose from.

Once completed, the skill badge is then added to your LinkedIn profile page to help recruiters in their job search.

• Skill assessments don't take long, max 20 minutes.
• They strengthen your profile and can make you more searchable to recruiters.
• It's free.

11. Invest in yourself and complete a course on LinkedIn Learning

I’ve worked with a lot of influences and coaches during my career, and there’s one thing we all have in common…we invest in ourselves.

I’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on 1:1 and group coaching, virtual courses, business books, and speaker events.

I do it because I know there are better ways of doing things, and I’ll only discover them if I’m continuously learning.

So you can use the LinkedIn Learning section to add new skills to your resume.

As a business owner, it's always handy to at least understand the inner workings of things even if you aren't handling it yourself.

Examples of top profiles to follow on LinkedIn

Catherine Gladwyn - Taking women from employment to enjoyment and beyond. Let me show you how to become an in-demand Virtual Assistant - VA Mentor since 2018 and Multi-Award Winning Bestselling Author

Andy Barden - We write really cool stuff for your socials.💥Or we can train you to write even cooler stuff for yourself.💥Your complete social media strategy partner for training and managed ghostwriting services.💥

Lea Turner - Founder, The HoLt | The business community where square pegs fit perfectly | Find out more the-holt.com

Michelle B. Griffin - Thought Leadership Accelerator for Women ➢ I teach female experts to communicate their value, build personal brands & get visible with PR to become top of mind in their field ➢ Author ➢ Speaker ➢ Own Your Lane Book 11/19

Start Using These LinkedIn Profile Tips To Make Your Profile Stand Out

So optimizing your LinkedIn profile is the first step to attracting more high-value leads. Before reaching out to your prospects, make sure that:

• They can recognize you
• You gain their interest and trust

It all starts with providing your personal information. Take it a step further by optimizing your profile with a customized URL and sections for your accomplishments and referrals. This section is vital because it's other customers or clients vouching for your business so fill in your LinkedIn referrals section. We cover how to systemize referrals here.

Then move forward with implementing an effective strategy to connect with individuals you know personally and those you want to connect with.

So start with these LinkedIn profile tips and let me know how it goes.

A lot of businesspeople believe sales is about convincing a lead to become a customer. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I'll make it simple for you. I saw this quote by Peter Drucker: "Marketing aims to make selling superfluous."

That doesn't mean you should axe your sales process entirely. Rather, selling to leads should be easy and simple—not pushy, cajoling, convincing, and all of those things that you typically associate with sales.

So to help you increase your sales pipeline and lead conversion rate, I'm going to share a few truths your sales team can implement today. But let's start with a little myth-busting.

3 Common Sales Myths

1. It's a numbers game.

Say you make 100 cold calls daily.

It's possible to get 20 leads to commit to an appointment and convert 10 people to customers, right?

Yes, it works. But it's a hard slog. It's soul-crushing. Not to mention it's an inefficient and counterproductive sales strategy.

So sales is not a numbers game. It's a performance game. It's about how your sales team deals with people who want what you've got.

2. It's your job to overcome objections.

"No" is a tough pill to swallow, but it doesn't stop a lot of salespeople from overcoming objections. Die-hard salespeople tend to push qualified leads who aren't ready to purchase over the line.

So don’t skip steps in the sales process; it will position you as a pushy salesperson.

Instead, focus on nurturing a lead in your funnel. Keep the communication lines open, and when they’re ready to buy, convert them to a customer.

3. Always be closing.

Everyone has seen the movie Glengarry Glen Ross where it's all about closing the sale and making the deal at any cost.

This is an old sales tactic. And it's a losing strategy. Being aggressive positions you as needy, and it reeks of desperation. Instead, use your marketing efforts to get leads into your sales pipeline.

The Psychology and Mindset of a True Salesperson

Salespeople typically face an uphill battle to win customers and generate more sales. In my 20-year career as an entrepreneur, I've learned that conversations are more likely to lead to sales. That said, there is a right way to approach conversational sales. Start here.

‍Or try this low-key method to achieve these goals.

1. Be authentic.

Have you ever attended a sales training? Sometimes, they talk about things like being enthusiastic and energetic when communicating with leads and customers. If this is your personality, there's nothing to worry about.

But if you're putting on a fake smile and trying to drum up an excited sales voice to convert a lead to a customer, you're only creating pressure for yourself.

Don't fall into this trap. Be authentic. People want to do business with real people, not fakes.

2. You're not in sales; you're a trusted advisor.

A great way to sell more starts with positioning.

You have to position yourself as an expert—a trusted advisor—who has your customer’s best interest at heart. You're their confidant, someone they can trust to help solve their problems.

3. Get to the truth.

The ultimate goal of sales is to get to the truth.

Let's admit it. You can't convert all of your leads into customers. It's a matter of compatibility. You have to figure out if you're a good fit for a prospect. And you do that by qualifying your leads.

Some prospects will tell you they either don't have the budget, are not interested, or are not ready to buy now. Your sales team needs to be open to hear these objections and accept them.

If your instinct is to push the sale and counter objections, you're only creating pressure. This drives leads away, which affects your lead conversion rate.

4. Aim for the right goal.

Aim to sell only the next step in your buyer's journey, not the final step.

This is a common mistake among salespeople. When they offer a sales deal, they skip to the final stage in the sales process. They focus on getting leads to sign on the dotted line as quickly as possible.

And again, this is a poor sales tactic. It makes your marketing campaigns redundant, and it defeats the purpose of building your sales funnel. So rather than shortcutting the sales process, sell only the next step.

2 Lead Conversion Strategies

Besides defining a professional salesperson's psychology, I have two key action strategies to help you convert leads into sales.

1. Positioning

How you position your business is vital. Leads will take you at your own appraisal. Focus on positioning yourself as an expert and a trusted advisor. It gives potential customers the impression that you're the best person to consult with, analyze a problem, and offer a solution.

2. Discounting

Resist the urge to discount. You're unintentionally driving away high-value leads. If your marketing is targeted, you'll attract interest from more qualified leads. You won't lose customers, and people will still buy from you.

So rather than discounting, consider:

• Bundling
• Increasing quantities
• Adding peripheral products or services
• Boosting the value of your offer

3 Risk Reversal Action Strategies

Most leads have been burned before by dodgy salespeople. They were probably pressured to buy and regretted the decision afterward.

So most of your leads have learned to put their defenses up, and trust becomes a major barrier to sales.

To counter this roadblock, try to reverse the risk. Take the risk on yourself rather than putting it on the lead. This will help build trust and remove the friction from the sales process.

Here are three risk reversal tips to help your business convert leads to sales.

1. Using power guarantees.

I'm not talking about generic ones like satisfaction guarantee, money-back guarantee, whatever. They barely work.

Now, if you say you can double their money back if your product doesn't work. That's powerful.

It builds trust and confidence with your prospect because there's nothing to lose. If they're not happy, you fulfill the guarantee, and they move on. And if they're happy, you naturally convert leads into sales.

2. Offer an unlimited package.

Many businesses are moving towards the subscription model. I'm talking about Netflix, streaming services, and similar companies.

One-off purchases still work, but subscriptions have become super convenient for most customers.

For example, to get a prospect to experience your product or service, you can offer a free trial on your website. If they love it, this lead will sign up and become a customer. This is the power of creating a subscription-style service. You benefit from regular, monthly transactions. It never ends.

3. Try before you buy.

Give your leads the opportunity to test drive your product or service before they buy.

This works because reciprocity is a strong instinct. If somebody does something for you, it's normal to feel that you need to return the favor.

It gives the impression your company is willing to take risks to win their trust. So if the customer likes your offer, they won't hesitate to pay and do repeat business with you.

Lead Conversion 101

Lead conversion is more than getting thousands of visitors to your website or thousands of comments on your blog post. It's about capturing and nurturing the right leads and converting them into customers.

Get rid of old habits that barely work. Think about how you can use targeted marketing to drive qualified leads to a landing page on your website and get them to fill in a form and opt-in to your CRM. Re-engineer your sales process so your team focuses on leads at every stage in the buyer's journey.

Follow your sales process. Whatever marketing tactic or strategy you use, it must be aligned with your sales pipeline. Do one step at a time, and you'll get a high conversion rate.

Ever worked for a bosshole? Maybe you were one?

If you can't help micromanaging employees or showing signs of frustration at work, I hear you. Perhaps you're having a bad day, or you have your own personal reasons.

But let me tell you this: Business problems don't exist. You probably have personal problems that reflect in your business.

And this is what embodies work culture. Work culture trickles down from you (the boss) as the person at the top of the chain, down to the rest of the team.

In this blog, I'll help you understand how work culture affects you and your company. I’ll also share some tips on how you can build a work environment that works best for your team.

The Impact of Work Culture

Like I said, culture trickles down from the top.

This means your attitude and personality shape your company’s or organization’s work culture.

Bossholes are poor leaders. Their sole focus is to make themselves look good. And this results in an unhappy workforce.

When you have an unhappy team, there’s often a domino effect. They're not motivated to work hard, productivity slows down, profitability plummets.

In my experience, happy teams are everything. When you provide a sense of vision, purpose, and inspiration to your team, they'll aim to please you and help you hit your goals. And I think that's important.

So how can you make sure you’re building a great work culture? Just follow these five top tips.

5 Ways to Build a Strong Work Culture

1. Check in regularly.

Whether you're the boss or the team leader, you must at least schedule weekly check-ins with your team. Aside from discussing projects, the goal is to see how people are doing. Make them feel like you're willing to listen and address concerns. This will help you to keep your finger on the pulse of your business.

2. Set goals with your team.

Your team isn't only supposed to pull levers, follow your orders, whatever. Make sure you involve them in setting quarterly goals. They know better than anyone else when it comes to what they can achieve.

There are so many companies that set ridiculous goals that demotivate their teams. Why? They're unrealistic and there's no hope hitting them.

So here's what you can do. Before every quarter starts, you can ask each team member to share the goals they want to achieve. You can review them together and decide whether to tweak them or leave them as is.

3. Offer opportunities to learn new skills.

Believe it or not, money isn’t always the biggest motivator. Big paychecks are just one of the things that can make your team happy and in it for the long haul. I’ve found that creating more opportunities for your team to learn new skills is the most empowering thing I can do as a boss.

If your team realizes that you want them to grow and upskill, they'll do great work for you and they won't want to leave.

4. Celebrate wins.

As the boss or the team leader, it's imperative that you provide constructive feedback, correct mistakes, whatever. But at the same time, you must also celebrate wins—whether they’re big or small. This boosts employee morale and strengthens bonds with one another.

You can send a short compliment or a celebratory GIF through email or your group chat. Your team will love it. Recognition feels good. It’s that simple.

5. Be aware and track stress levels.

A happy team thrives on a manageable and healthy workload. So it's important to be at least aware of what's on their plate, how they're doing, and if they’re capable of handling the job.

When your team's always stressed out, they'll struggle to deliver quality work. Their decision-making abilities will also be dulled.

If you think someone has been swamped for quite some time, reprioritize certain tasks or hire another person to handle the extra workload.

Creating a Work Culture for Success

Every company has its own culture. And as the boss or team leader, establishing your company’s work culture falls on your shoulders. Positive work environments don’t just happen on their own, you’ve got to be VERY intentional in building them.

The most successful companies cultivate their work culture over time with  as the endgame. They treat their teams with mutual trust, respect, and empathy.

So use these five tips to create a positive work environment and let me know how it goes. It’s one of the reasons my business is so successful, so I‘d love to hear how it affects your company’s productivity and profit.

Being your own boss seems like heaven on earth. You can reply to your emails in the morning with your PJs on. Create your own schedule. Take a day off anytime you want.

No more long commutes, micromanaging bosses, and everything about the corporate world.

But on the flip side, working on your own can be really stressful. Not only do you need to juggle a lot of tasks, but you also need to motivate yourself daily.

Not sure if you should build your team or not?

I have three major reasons why you should leave the role as a solopreneur and hire more people to your team.

1. Be Consistent

Marketing is a process, not an event. It doesn't happen in a day where you launch with a big splash or spend a ton of money on ads. This is why consistency is the key. And this doesn't mean that all marketing activities (like building out your marketing plan) are supposed to be on your plate.

In the real world, business is a team sport. It's not something you have to do on your own.

As opposed to being a solopreneur, you actually need three types of people in your business.

Entrepreneur

So this is the “ideas person” or the visionary who is always working to come up with great ideas to solve a problem or bridge a gap in the market. They're also willing to take risks for a profit.

If you're a business owner, this is probably the category where you belong.

Specialist

A specialist implements the entrepreneur's vision. They could be an engineer, a venture capitalist, a graphic designer. So they take the vision and make it happen.

Manager

You've obviously got the entrepreneur, which is likely you as a business owner, and you've got someone that can deliver what you want. So now you need somebody to manage your marketing.

So a manager comes in every day to make sure that things are getting done, work gets delivered, and the vision is on track.

It's typical for the solopreneur to become either the entrepreneur or the specialist, or both, but rarely the manager. And you need to have three roles in your organization. Remember, consistency beats creative genius every time.

2. Focus On Your Speciality

A lot of business owners try to fit a square peg in a round hole. I’ll give you an example.

Perhaps you’ve spent countless hours trying to write, design, and run your Facebook ads, monitor your KPIs, and fill out financial spreadsheets all at once. But these are things you don’t  enjoy doing.

Essentially, you’re trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

So instead of trying to be a jack-of-all-trades, think about what your strengths are in the business. Then, focus on them. More importantly, hire somebody who can take over the tasks you can't do or don't like doing.

3. Upscale Your Business

I started as a solopreneur. But after a couple of years of fielding contractors’ and client questions, I realized that if I wanted to scale rapidly I needed help. So I hired and trained my internal team, and it was one of the best decisions I've ever made.

Having a good team will skyrocket your business. Your team can be your eyes, ears and nose in the industry—they can help you uncover great opportunities and create new ones.

‍

Propel Your Business Growth

Think about elite sports persons. They’ve got a dedicated nutritionist, fitness coach, physiotherapist, tactical coach, doctor, manager, PR rep, whatever. It takes a team of specialists to keep them at the top of their game. They may have talent, but without the right people to harness that talent, they’d never reach their full potential.

And this also applies to business owners. It takes more than one person to grow a business. Stop trying to do everything yourself. When it comes to marketing, it's important that things are consistent, and there are designated roles for every responsibility.

So the takeaway here: Hire more people to your team. You need them to amplify your efforts. And later on, you'll see exponential business growth.

It's no secret that more people are transitioning from office to a work-from-home setup.

Remote work isn’t a trend. It's here to stay.

In fact, Buffer’s “2021 State of Remote Work” report found that 97% of workers would like to work at least some of the time remotely throughout their entire career.

And the biggest benefit they see is the flexibility it offers. Being able to pick up and go to a remote location while still being able to work is a massive game-changer for people.

But it’s also a game-changer for businesses. You get access to a wealth of talent. You reduce overheads, and it allows you to build a lifestyle business. You can wear whatever you want, live anywhere you choose, and work at your own pace. So virtual teams are a must. Great. Now what?

If you've got team members living in different places, you need tools to run your entire remote team effectively. This is really important to get right, so I’m going to share the tools you’ll need daily to successfully run a virtual business.

Team Toolbox

The best tool is the tool everyone can use.

Don't get me wrong. There are a ton of tools meant for to-do lists, time management, and other areas. But I’m going to focus on the essential tools that will keep your remote team productive and connected.

1. Asana

Remote work also presents a whole bunch of challenges.

As your team works remotely, you can't just go to a colleague's desk and ask for an update. It's hard to organize documents if they're all coming from emails being sent to you. And, there's no guarantee that you can schedule emergency meetings because your team might be in different time zones.

Thankfully, everything becomes possible with a project management tool.

There are a few popular tools to choose from, but Asana is my team’s favorite (and we’ve taken a few for a spin). We’ve found that it’s a great platform to manage even the largest and most complex projects.

Systems play an integral role in running a remote team successfully. And project management tools like Asana are the right solution for creating and managing a centralized system. A review of Asana showcases its integration capabilities, allowing teams to connect their favorite tools for improved workflow. With your team, you can collaborate in one space. Its main features allow you to:

• Create multiple project boards designated for different tasks
• Build a hierarchy of tasks for a seamless workflow
• Assign tasks to different people
• Monitor tasks that are either completed, in progress, or blocked
• Store documents and other files

2. Slack

Slack is a virtual messaging tool that remote workers love. It's a communication platform that helps your teammates collaborate—to share ideas, comments, and other real-time updates.

It also takes away the necessity for email within your organization, which is not really that bad, but communication tools like Slack notify you when someone sends you a message. It has other integration features too.

Slack basically allows you to:

• Create multiple channels for different team members
• Send personal messages
• Have an audio and video call with someone

3. G-Suite

I still see a lot of people using Microsoft Office, and while it’s the best tool for office set-ups, it won't work when running a team remotely.

It can feel daunting switching from MS Office to G-Suite, but it will be the cornerstone of your team's ability to create assets, share files, and keep everything centralized. And once you’re up to speed on how to use it, you’ll never go back.

These are the G-Suite (now known as Google Workforce) applications my team uses and loves:

• Gmail is the world’s most popular email service with a user-friendly interface and additional features that make it a great choice for business and personal use.
• Google Meet is a popular video communication and collaboration tool you can use to set up weekly or monthly meetings with your team.
• Google Docs allows you to create and edit text documents. Instead of attaching files to your emails, you can simply share an accessible link with your team.
• Google Sheets is a free, web-based spreadsheet application that allows you to create spreadsheets. It has a lot of awesome features, such as colorful charts and graphs, built-in formulas, tables, and other formatting options.
• Google Drive is a cloud storage platform that keeps all your files in one secure, centralized location. Remote workers can store and share documents, spreadsheets, and slide presentations.
• Google Slides allows you to make both online and offline presentations for business use.
• Google Calendar is a time-management and scheduling calendar service so you can keep track of meetings, events, and get notifications about upcoming activities.

Since G-Suite is cloud-based, every single application under it allows your remote team to:

• Share files and projects
• Make changes in real-time
• Maintain a full version history of files and track changes
• Integrate with third-party applications

4. Zoom

Since in-person meetings are not possible when working remotely, Zoom is a great tool for scheduling weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly meetings with your virtual team. On these calls you can:

• Check on each team member's roles and responsibilities
• Track the progress of various projectsSet a plan of action
• Discuss other concerns or issues
• Catch up with each other

Even if you haven't met your team members in person yet (or may never if you live oceans apart), virtual meetings bring the human element to the remote workplace.

So aside from talking about work, allot time for some chit chat—this will help cultivate relationships and build trust within your team.

And don't forget to put together business systems for your team. These are step-by-step instructions on how to use each of the tools mentioned above. You'll thank me for it. Learn what is a business system here.

Other Remote Work Tools:

1. World Time Buddy

If you have to schedule a meeting or event with anyone from the team, you can use World Time Buddy. This is a popular world clock and time converter. It's the perfect solution for dealing with time across multiple time zones.

My team is spread across multiple time zones. I also have clients from other parts of the world, so I keep this open at all times to ensure I’m not scheduling calls for 3 am.

2. Loom

Loom is a Chrome extension that enables you to record your screen and share the video through a link in just a few clicks. It's basically a video messaging platform for work.

So for example, if you want to train someone from your team, you can simply record yourself while doing a specific task then share the link and they can access it anytime. This is also helpful for addressing urgent matters, especially among teams working across different time zones.

3. Calendly

Gone are the days when you have to manually write emails to each team member about the upcoming meeting schedule. Calendly offers a powerful and versatile set of features that allow you to schedule one-on-one appointments, group events, and team meetings.

It’s also great for setting up meetings with clients, consultants, vendors, media, whatever. You can just share your link and they’re able to choose a time that suits them and you.

Tools For Your Home Studio

As an influencer, podcaster, content creator or expert authority, you're required to jump on to Zoom calls or put out new content weekly.

How you present yourself online matters.

If you're using a crappy camera, or audio that crackles, it’s the equivalent of you showing up to speak at a stadium with a big stain on your shirt. That would be really distracting to your audience.

So you need to level up your audio and visual game, and that requires thinking about your home studio setup.

You can find everything you need to know about setting up your home studio in this article.

Using Remote Work Tools to Get Things Done

These remote work tools are a necessity for your business's success. They enable:

• A productive, motivated and happy team
• A collaborative work environment
• Strategic planning with achievable objectives
• Seamless workflow
• High-quality project deliverables that make clients happy and convert to real ROI

It's up to you to try them out. And don't hesitate to explore more options. Use what's best for your team. The good news is, most of them are free, and some have free trial versions, so you can decide before committing to them.

But giving your team the tools they need to do a great job won't guarantee they deliver the goods. You also need to build a strong work culture. Here's how.

Now I'd like to know what you're currently using. Did some of your favorites make the list? Is there anything you want to try?

Defining and understanding your target market are two different things. When I say defining, you have to know who they are.

On the other hand, understanding digs deeper into the question, “Who is your target market?” and identifies, “What makes these people part of your audience?”

This is where you become a spy.

Imagine you’re James Bond or Salt on a mission to uncover where your target market lives in the digital space. Where are they active? Who are the trusted figures in their communities? What are their goals, dreams, pain points?

To help you infiltrate your industry, I’m going to share my top five ways to get into the mindset of your target market.

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Defining your target market

Suppose you want your marketing efforts to yield positive returns. You need to clearly define your target audience. Your niche target audience is a specific group of people who are likely to buy your products and services. So they're potential customers.

Once you identify your target market, you then need to understand who your target audience is.

Market research is a great way to do it. Research reveals demographic information, common characteristics you target audience share, income level, marital status, age, sex, interesting data, and much more.

• It tells you what their needs are?
• What keeps them up at night?
• What are their interests?
• Which social media networks they follow?
• Why your products or services would improve their lives?
• Do you have more than one market segment?

This data informs any marketing campaign or advertising you create for your business. But how do you gather this data?

Well, you can survey your customer base to understand your target customers. You can organize a focus group. However, often current customers will tell you what they think you want to hear, which may impact the marketing campaigns you create.

I prefer to follow these five tried and trusted methods.

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5 Ways to identify your target markets needs

1. Identify trade journals

Trade journals are reliable resources that can keep you updated with the industry trends, news, and other necessary information. They can tell you a world of information about your target audience.

For example, if you want to become a vendor in the dentistry industry, trade journals provide valuable insight into what’s happening in the industry, what changes are occurring, where the gaps are and how you can fill them.

You can google them. Just make sure to be very specific with your search term. So don’t just search for “Dentistry Trade Journals.” Search for “American Dentistry Trade Journals.”

List at least five trade journals that you can opt-in or subscribe to get the latest news, updates, and relevant information.

2. Find out where industry chatter happens

Do you know where your target audience hangs out online? If not, you have to start monitoring the industry chatter.

Find out where they interact with one another. Where do they ask questions, spill secrets, and share their experiences?

Depending on the industry, it can be in a number of different sources. For example, it can be in Facebook groups, Reddit forums, and even old-school mailing lists.

That's for you to find out.

Again, think of yourself as a spy who's been hired to infiltrate the industry. Facebook Insights and SparkToro are excellent tools to help you track down your target market and identify their strong and weak points.

The better you get to know them, the easier it is to recognize how you can add value to their lives. How can you help them?

3. Join industry associations

The great thing about industry associations is you can join for free, or for a small cost.

Besides filling out your LinkedIn profile, having a list of memberships from different associations gives you access to invaluable data—an industry insider primed to share all their secrets. You also look forward to the following perks:

• Get invited to industry events and trade shows.
• Meet vendors and find out what they're selling and who’s buying the stock.
• Grow your network.
• Get more opportunities to grow and upscale in the industry.
• Broaden your industry knowledge.

A quick online search can give you a list of associations under your industry. I'd say choose wisely. Make sure they're legitimate and they have a good reputation.

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4. Identify potential industry blogs

Aside from journals, industry blogs are also great resources for understanding your target market because they provide a more human perspective. Again, an online search can provide you with several recommendations, as long as you're specific with your search terms.

When looking for industry blogs, you have to consider the following:

• Does the site have a high domain authority score? This tells you how high it ranks on search engines like Google and how relevant it is to your search query. You can use free tools like Moz to get this information.
• Are they publishing content regularly?
• Do they engage with their target audience—featuring people's lives and experiences—and respond to them?
• Do their blogs have social shares?

5. Create a list of industry podcasts to listen to.

No one consumes content the same way. Think of your target audience as a mixture of both readers and listeners. While I love to read books and blogs, you might prefer to listen to podcasts.

It's a wonderfully productive pastime. You can immerse yourself in knowledgeable, engaging conversations about the industry you want to be part of while driving, exercising, or doing chores around the house. You also get to hear from owners and their customers so it’s a great way to get a holistic view of the industry.

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So in the end, a little espionage goes a long way

It’s important to get your market research correct upfront. It has a domino effect on everything you do thereafter. If you don’t have a clear picture of whom makes up your target market, your messaging will be off, your media won’t be the right fit, and in the end, you won’t reach the right people.

So defining your target audience is supercritical. It'll significantly impact your marketing efforts.

Market research takes time. Expect to invest a couple of hours on research, tracking down solid leads and getting to know your demographics. Learning which market segment you want to create target marketing for. How best to sell your product or service? Whether digital marketing or social media is necessary. Do you need to update your brand, whatever?

See what your competitors are doing. How can your business produce better advertising and marketing campaigns?

Once you’ve gathered your data start filling out your 1-Page Marketing Plan. This will make identifying your target audience, creating target marketing, nurturing and converting leads to customers much easier.

To help you get started, we’ve shared a few completed 1PMP examples here.

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