Part 4 - Getting the Word Out
Once we have something of value to companies we begin to offer consultation.
Let’s look at the different ways you can get the word out, validate our core offer and begin to gather up prospects.
Let’s get started:
Getting the word out
- social media post
- onto a winner?
- educational product
Once we’ve build a proof of concept we need to let the world know our results.
Here’s an example:
This post shows some work I’d done for my own newsletter - basically a way to grow exponentially for “free” by recouping advertising spend with beehiiv boosts. Check the post on X/Twitter to see the format. The content itself is not important - just check the post for how I presented the information.
It was seen by 70,000+ people and bookmarked nearly 1000 times.
You’ll notice I basically tell people what I did. I lay it all out.
It’s an educational post that, if someone pays attention, would let them copy my methodology.
This prompt will get you started with a basic post for social media. Adapt the content top your specific channels and platforms as needed.
Some people will go ahead and do the work. They’ll read this, understand it and go and implement it. Fine. These people will always be DIY. They won’t pay you and never will. That’s fine.
However, many people will read something like this and think “wow that sounds great. I need this. But I don’t have the time/money/skills/inclination to do it myself”.
These people will get in touch with you to do it for them. These are potential clients.
From this single post of this single tactic I had 100+ people interested in learning more. At $1000 to consult or implement and that’s $100,000 right there.
You can do something similar with your project. Once you’ve cracked something valuable to your industry talk about it.
Here’s a prompt to help with your post:
You're a skilled marketing consultant specialising in creating compelling social media content for B2B audiences. Your task is to help me craft a concise, engaging social media post or thread about an internal project I've developed for a client. This post should highlight the value of the project and showcase my expertise.
Ask me questions one at a time to gather the necessary information. Wait for my response before asking the next question. Cover the project's title, the client's challenge, our solution, the start and end points, key methodological steps, and the most impressive result.
Once you have all the information, create a social media post or thread suitable for LinkedIn or Twitter. The post should be concise yet impactful, outlining the start point, end point, and methodology. Focus on demonstrating the project's value and my problem-solving skills.
Begin by asking me for the project title in 5 words or less.Create a case study that guides people through step by step how you achieved the process. Give it all away (or as much as you feel comfortable - but believe me, more is better!).
If you’ve built a tool connected to your valuable insight share that too. Let people use the generic demo version and offer to make one for them or show them how to deploy it within their business.
Develop education
Continue to post about your successes until something clicks.
Some part of what you work on will (all of a sudden) strike a chord with prospective clients. There will be a certain topic that people will bite your hand off over.
If you haven’t had that reaction yet then guess what - the market probably isn’t that excited about what you’ve built or discovered.
Keep going. Only pursue winners.
When the market is excited you’ll know. It’ll tell you - loud and clear!
At the point you’ll receive interest directly in your comments and DMs.
Here’s an example from 2 days before writing this:
In this video I reference a New York Times article as context about AI consultancy businesses. I then mention I’ll be putting together a community for AI Experts sometime in the future. That’s all.
From this I’ve had 50 private messages from people who want to be part of this. That tells me immediately that the market supports the idea.
If you don’t have social media up and running yet this is hopefully a wake up call. You can use it to rapidly (within hours) assess business ideas. Also, you don’t need a large following if you use TikTok because TikTok doesn’t care how many followers you have when spreading your video. See my Playbook on Tiktokification for more details.
Once you have a post that has traction I’d recommend spinning up a more detailed form of education.
This could be:
- an eBook
- a video course
- an AI copilot
- a workshop
- a cohort
Basically you want to capture your process in a way that you can sell to those interested.
You could jump straight to consulting (as a service) but having this intermediary educational piece is a good stepping stone.
It allow you to:
- capture emails
- immediately generate revenue
- hone your process via creation
- build trust with prospects
And then off the back of this you’ll sell a full AI expert consultancy offer.
In the final Part I’ll cover what your offer could be. We’ll look at consultancy, retainers, advisory, implementation, equity plays and more.