Smart Marketing Show

In this quick episode, Jason and Bridget will help you ask the right questions when hiring a social media specialist to grow your WordPress business.

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In this episode, Jason and Bridget will chat about cold calling — the good, bad, and the ugly. How do you do this in the WordPress ecosystem effectively without sounding like a used car salesman?

No-one likes cold calling at first – it feels slimy – how to do it right?

The problem: How do you let people know that you’re accepting clients? How do people know if you’re available? Are you advertising?

For a regular brick and mortar business, people will just stop in and hire you, but if you’re an online-only business, how do you reach people? How do they know if you are accepting business?

Everybody in the WordPress space has the potential to be everyone else’s competitor – how can you reach out / connect? Everyone has a specialty or a focus – you can refer business to friends/connections that you know that handle a different specialty. If you know your limits, you can refer out work to other people you know through your networking/connections and they can do the same for you.

Bridget would see jobs posted on Linkedin, etc. and take an interview with them and when talking to them say “actually, I’d really like to be your vendor” and then have a conversation with them, basically turning the interview into a sales call!

(Bridget sidenote: The salary in our industry is way too low. If you only pay $15/hr for social media, you’re only gonna get social media worth $15)

Bridget sometimes notices jobs for companies listed for 30, 40 days … sometimes it’s good to approach them and see if they would consider outsourcing temporarily. There is a risk in reaching out but even if it doesn’t work out now, chances are they’ll remember you in the future for another opportunity.

You don’t know until you try, and sometimes you just need to ask to have a conversation!

Some people approach their businesses by choosing a niche (Ie. all real estate companies/websites) … Bridget likes to be monogamous in her relationships with clients – only one web host, only one party planner, etc. so she can really focus her attention on them.

Make sure that the way you are cold-calling people fits with your brand. Don’t try to be something your not.

Bridget suggests offering something for free when you cold call – she chooses to offer them an audit for free. Treat it like hospitality – here is a tray of hors-d’oeuvres … but don’t require them to take it! Offer the help but let them decline without feeling bad about it.

Another option is to offer your services at a discounted rate on a limited trial basis, and then if they like your work, they can do a full sign up at full price and if they’re not happy, they’re free to move on to something else.

Jason: How do you send out a referral and know that the person you are referring them to is able/willing to do the work?

Bridget: I refer them, but it’s up to the person I’m referring to decide if they are able to do it. To her, being resourceful is part of her brand. (Sidenote: Don’t pass on terrible clients!)

Jason: If I’m going to be the ‘Angie’s List’ of WordPress, I like to make sure that the person I’m handing clients off to is actually willing and able to do the work.

Bridget used to have a ‘Guru Referral’ page and would ask people if they wanted to be listed. Beyond the referral to the expert, she’s not responsible. It’s up to them and the client to see if they are compatible and can work together.

Bridget: In all business, it’s very important not to burn your bridges – be very careful how you treat your clients and competitors. Jason: It’s okay to put “caution tape” in front of the bridge if you need to maintain the relationship but maybe hold on referring people! Bridget: everyone has a preference, never say never to referring someone!

Have a portfolio – and ask your clients if you can list them on your page! It helps people to know your style and if you are a good fit for them.

What matters to you the most? Bridget: I care about mentoring people – if anyone does well, then we all do well!

Remember that when you cold call someone, you’re putting them in a defensive position.

Sometimes you have to speak up for yourself because no one else is going to do it for you.

Try: I would love to work with you – maybe we can help each other out! (But make sure your website is ready for when they come to check you and your business out). Or say, I love what you’ve built with your brand – I’d love to be part of what you are doing and help grow your brand

Publicly posting your prices gives you a starting place and a talking point, it opens up discussion. Don’t be afraid to post your prices on your website.

Be discerning, don’t indiscriminately reach out to people – make sure they’re a good fit for what you have to offer and what your passionate about. You want your passions to align with your client = synergy!

To find your ideal client, you need to be self-aware – and sometimes that means reaching out to and brainstorming with your friends. We mentor and bounce off each other in order to make each other better!

Find your peer-counselors (and/or friends) and be vulnerable and honest with them. They can help you grow!

4 Tips:

1. Make sure it’s your ideal client
2. Make sure you’re doing it in a way that helps them
3. Make sure it gives them the option to say no
4. Make sure your website is ready for your clients to check you out

Bridget – What Not to Do: Don’t go randomly follow and contact accounts of people who post about something one time because they were visiting a location

Jason – If you see someone in your area posting a lot about food and you are a restaurant – maybe make the connection – “This person is a foodie!” and follow them, contact them

Bridget: Always be helpful, be polite and be relevant.

TIPS OF THE WEEK:

Jason: Dark Mode on MAC is awesome! https://nightowl.kramser.xyz/ – Automatically toggles night mode at night and normal mode during the day! Can also set by sunrise/sunset

Bridget: https://unionmetrics.com/product/instagram-analytics/ – Instagram checkup is free – get content analytics. Analytics tools are great IF you mix things up – if you only ever post at 11 am, it will tell you 11 am is your best time – the only way to test is to mix it up

Show notes contributed by:

Cheryl LaPrade @YayCheryl

Sherie LaPrade @HeySherie

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DON’T - go to someone else’s website, highlight, copy and paste onto your site - that is bad!

DO - open up your email, look at the emails that your customers are sending you (the questions they ask), THOSE are the questions you should be using to turn into your FAQs and to fill content pages on your site.

HOW:

• Don’t assume you have to start with a title (a concept is fine) but if you have one, use it!
• Ask yourself what are the basic questions that your customers frequently ask or need to know? Questions via, phone / email / in person / help desk
• Make sure to give your marketing team access to any help desk software you use, so that they can see what customers are frequently asking and where they get stuck.
• Write it down or start a Google Doc and keep track of the Q’s
• Go do a Google search - they’ll show “people also ask” which might frame it in a way that makes for a better title  (pay attention to the context)
• Try using anchor tags in your FAQs to help people navigate better

If you are answering the same questions all the time, why waste time repeating yourself?  You’re better off adding the answer on a page or as part of an FAQ or blog post on your website.  That way, when you receive the same question again, you can share the page and your well-worded answer with your customers!

Jason uses a plugin that will take all the header tags on the page and use it to create a table of contents at the top of the page with anchor tag links that will direct customers to the exact spot on the page that will answer their questions.

Check in with your receptionists or the people answering the phones at your business - have them make a list of the questions they are receiving and what people are calling about.  If they are digging around on your site and can’t find things and calling for the answer, maybe it’s time to re-evaluate your content!

https://wordpress.org/plugins/easy-table-of-contents/

https://www.wpbeginner.com/plugins/how-to-create-a-table-of-content-in-wordpress-posts-and-pages/

Richard at WPHelpdesk.nl - He gets comments & questions through a gravity form on his website and when he answers the questions, he posts it as a blog post on his website. This is a great way to create content that’s tailored to your users!

Instead of building a site and hoping people will use it (and that you have the right content), you’re building it based on exactly what your audience needs.  Do right by your audience and your audience will find you! (it’s kind of hard to know who your audience is until you start having conversations!)

Sometimes  your customers can be frustrating - they don’t get it!  When it’s your specialization, it’s hard - you won’t be able to see why they don’t understand. A lot of times the way you communicate when someone doesn’t get it can increase frustration.  

How to excel at communicating with your customers is by offering true education. Use your FAQs to help them understand your products and services. You want an educated customer base that values your products!

Use multiple ways to communicate - try video or audio along with your text, and infographics. (Always include text on the page with your videos - if it’s just video, it will have zero SEO value)

Don’t just think of one way to answer a question.  Think of different ways the question could be asked and rephrase / reframe it.  It will help your google search results too.

https://bridgetwillard.com/social-media-success-adjust-and-adapt-to-change/

Bridget  took a question to google and made note of the different “people also ask” questions and answered each one using them as an H2 on her page!

Your content marketing should be easy to produce. Take a look at the bullet points you include on  your website about the services you provide - each of those bullet points can be the starting point for a blog post!

You can also take a look at your reviews (from Yelp, etc.) and use them to frame a blog post around!  Also, consider reaching out to the reviewer to do a Case Study. The who, what, when, where, how of their experience with your product. The more technical the problem, the more detailed the case study. Case studies are also really excellent for pre-sales!

Russell tends to blog straight from his head and will write exactly as he thinks and not as someone would typically write..  What’s great about that is that people will search exactly as they think too and will get results from his site they might not find elsewhere.

Think about it from your mom’s, brother’s, uncle’s, grandparent’s point of view - what would they ask, how would they phrase it?  You want to answer the questions that your customers / readers / consumers are going to ask.

Use Help Scout or equivalent - it’s a great way to aggregate the info coming in.  Or use Gmail and their Labels feature to help organize your conversations and keep track of them. (Also, remember to keep your subject lines relevant to your emails to make them easier to search!)

Bridget: Use Google Drive https://www.google.com/drive/ to help organize your content/files and make it accessible for posting with your phone (download the app)

Jason: Believes in putting an online chat widget on your site (though, it’s not the answer to everything - someone needs to be actively looking at / responding to it) - great if you have Help Scout https://www.helpscout.net/. There is a feature called Beacon that can help lead people to answers and if they aren’t found, will direct them to chat to get help from a person!

Also Crisp Chat https://crisp.chat/en/ - allows you to chat with your website visitors

Slack https://slack.com/  is great too!  You can keep conversations organized in channels.

Franz https://meetfranz.com/ Organize all your social messaging in one place!

Cheryl LaPrade @YayCheryl

Sherie LaPrade @HeySherie

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• EP5-Embracing the Community Through Voluntourism
• Yoast Diversity Fund • Yoast
• Robert Windisch (@nullbytes)
• Multidots-Custom & Mobile Application Development|Enterprise WordPress
• Providing Enterprise Software Development Services since 2009
• Birgit Pauli-Haack (@bph)
• Multidots (@multidots)
• Jon Brown (@jb510)
• GitHub - schlessera/as-speaking: AlainSchlesser.com Speaking Page Plugin.
• HazeOver:Distraction Dimmer™ for Productivity on Mac
• AlainSchlesser.com Speaking Page Plugin.
• This WP plugin will update GitHub, Bitbucket, GitLab, and Gitea hosted plugins and themes
• Bridget Willard

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Bridget was late to her very first meetup and ended up having to sit up front, and when it was over, she just left - “don’t do that!” ;)

Jason had a similar experience, but he likes sitting in the front row! His first meetup had nothing to do with WordPress. He threw a bunch of search terms at Meetup.com and the Adobe Software meetup kept coming up so he went! Met a guy the first time there who encouraged him to speak at the very next meetup!

Attending your first meetup:

• Be on time (or early!)
• Have a 10-sec intro or “elevator pitch” available to introduce yourself - don’t try to sound clever, just say your name and some quick things about who you are - “If your grandma doesn’t know what you do by reading your twitter bio…”
• Sit where you can hear/see easily
• Meetup.com is a good resource for finding things you like
• If you’re a ‘doer’ and want to get involved in your meetup, sit back for a bit and see what people are NOT doing - then offer to do that!
• Take notes and share them! It’s a great way to help.
• Use a photo of yourself (that actually looks like you) on meetup.com (or on social)
• If you raise your hand with a question, make it a “question”, not a statement. Ask something that actually will have a good answer and further the conversation.

Organizing your meetup:

• Sometimes you hear people say “there’s not enough people speaking at meetups”, but Bridget asks the question “Are you asking people to speak?”
• Recognize that you have different kinds of people in your meetup that might want to help, some are introverts and some are extroverts - they may want to help but won’t speak up
• It’s important to have co-leaders because each leader will have different gifts & strengths
• Speakers -- NO hard pitching!
• Know and follow the ‘code of conduct’. Make sure to create a ‘safe space’ in your meetup
• Start promoting at least two weeks in advance
• Create a facebook group or slack account so that people can connect in between meetups or re-connect if they’re not able to attend one

Bridget got involved with WordCamps when Alex Vasquez reached out to her (since she was a social media expert) and *asked* her to do social media for an upcoming Camp - and she’s been volunteering every since! She was ‘doing her thing’ and others recognized her gifts.

As meetup organizers, Bridget and Jen try to pay attention to what people’s gifts / strengths are.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs - ‘A Theory of Human Motivation’

If you catch someone spending a lot of time focusing on something or asking questions about something not directly related to the night’s topic, why not suggest “Maybe you can talk about that at one of our upcoming meetups!” What’s the worst that could happen? You might get a great speaker!

It’s not that people aren’t experienced or don’t have the needed gifts, but many people just need to be asked. They either don’t want to brag about their abilities or they may even struggle with ‘imposter syndrome’.

Ask “what are you working on? let’s see it!” It’s a great way to get everyone involved and possibly brainstorm new topics. You and your fellow organizers can speak every month but if you ask and seek input / topics / speakers / from your members, everyone can feel included.

If you can get people to talk, even if it’s just answering questions, eventually they’ll become more comfortable with speaking and may even be encouraged to speak at a future meetup

The way you present or comment on a tool/plugin should not reflect on how you view the user.  Don’t make it sound like you’re the only one who is smart because you use “X” plugin instead of “Y” plugin. Share pro/cons and thoughts without being judgy! Try to be host/plugin agnostic as a leader of a meetup. Our job as facilitators is to create a psychologically safe place.

Be careful with gender-specific meetups - be gender-inclusive, not exclusive. You can focus your content and style at women, but you shouldn’t exclude men from attending. We can all learn from each other - men and women do things differently but all have something to offer.

We have a lot of seasoned WordPress professionals who no longer want to attend meetups because it’s too basic for them. We also have very new beginners who feel it’s too advanced. It’s nice, when possible, to be able to mix your content or have different meetups aimed at different levels.

RELATED: EP283 – Who are we presenting to at a WordCamp or WordPress Meetup? https://www.wpwatercooler.com/video/ep283-wpwatercooler/

If we approach any group of people and think “there’s nothing I can learn from any of these people” then we’re looking at it all wrong. There’s always something to be gained from networking and mentoring with other people. We want to get bigger jobs, so we should partner up with each other!

We’re more than just what we do for a living - we have unique interests/skills outside of WordPress - like yoga!

When Matt Cromwell went to WP Las Vegas a few years ago, he went to a beginner’s workshop (even though he’s an advanced user) and got to hear so much for new users that he was then able to take back with him and say “I’m going to do this differently from now on”.

We go through phases where we are advanced at some things and beginners at other things. It’s important to be a lifelong learner, there’s always something new you can learn and people you can learn from.

Try not to always talk about only the commercial plugin options and the pricier hosting options, you have to remember sometimes your audience is Joe, the cat-blogger! Not everyone works for a WordPress agency!

Promoting and blogging about your meetup is really important. Even over the holidays - that is often when people are the loneliest and need connection with others the most.  Try to promote at least 2 weeks out and use more than just meetup.com to advertise.

Taking photos during your events can be super helpful - especially if you use those photos to promote the group on social media in between events

If you’re going to have your meetup on a week night, it can be tricky for people to get dinner before your meeting, so maybe provide cheap eats (pizza, etc) or try to meet up beforehand for a quick bite together.

In your meetup event page, comment & reply to people when they say they can’t attend or when they give feedback on the meeting - be interactive!

If you have a facebook page, try to schedule facebook events as reminders, and if it’s possible, even have someone record it and share it via facebook live during the meetup. (Can even be done with a cellphone)

Andrea Middleton: WordCamps are a celebration of the meetups that happen the whole year before!

Try not to have all of the meetup/WordCamp organizers sit together at events, it can be intimidating and exclusionary - it also makes it harder to focus on meeting new members and getting to know each other better.

Try to do your staff/organizer meetups not at the meetup event. Schedule a separate time for it.

Have consistency - it’s a HUGE factor - people who don’t attend regularly but know your schedule are able to hop in down the road when they may have more time to attend

Being a community means investing your time in other people. ~ Bridget

TOOLS AND TIPS

Bridget: Use Gmail to help clean-up your constant contact email list by searching gmail addresses to find out if they have a profile with their first and last name listed

Jason: There isn’t really any good formatting for doing “stories” on social media - found a great app for phones that allows you to make and customize your story - Unfold

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/unfold-create-stories/id1247275033?mt=8

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.moonlab.unfold&hl=en_US

Cheryl LaPrade @YayCheryl

Sherie LaPrade @HeySherie

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This week, Jason and Bridget are joined by James Laws from Saturday Drive. He's also the co-host of the Adventures in Businessing podcast. We'll be discussing free work, loss leaders, and freemium price models in the WordPress ecosystem.

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