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You are listening to the Grow youw Local Business podcast, where local marketing expert and life coach Leslie Presnell shares the strategies and the mindset to help you reach more people in your city and bring in a steady stream of clients. All right, let's dive in.

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Hello. Welcome to episode 134. In this episode, we're going to talk about the things you do not need in your local business to make money, like the marketing things, the marketing assets that are not required to get local clients. I'm going to break down five, like, major things I see people getting bogged down with. I'm sure there are more, but these are the five main things that I see people getting bogged down with and what you can do instead to get your very first clients. And if, as I'm talking about these things, if you have already spent time creating these things or maybe you're in the middle of it right now, there is no judgment. I can record this episode and I can talk about all of these things from experience. I know the things that I spent time on early on in my business that were not required to get clients. The things that I thought I needed to look more professional or the things I wanted to have, like, ready and perfect. Now I can look back and see I didn't really need those things. So it all comes from personal experience. So if you hear me say things, do not beat yourself up. That the whole purpose of this episode is for you to see how easy it is for you to just get out there and get clients. And sometimes all of the steps that we put in the way of just getting clients and how we delay getting clients, especially early on in our business. So this episode is intended for those earlier on in their business journey. But even if you are further along, I do want you to listen because sometimes, myself included, we still get caught up in focusing on bigger projects in our business. And it can take us away from the really simple ways of making money in our business. Like, we get distracted by projects and things and we stop meeting people, we stop marketing, we stop being visible. So then we stop making money. So I want to talk about that today. And just for you to think, like, what are the things that I feel like I do in my business that. That I feel like I have to get ready or I have to focus on or have to do, or I have to do good enough before I can just go out and make money. Because the easiest way to make money and to get clients is to get out there in your city to meet people and tell them about your business like that is the simplest way. Anything else is over complicating it in the beginning. And when I talk to new business owners, I see them getting bogged down and caught up in getting their business ready instead of just getting out there and meeting people and telling them about their business and how they can help them. And I think some of this is because as business owners, and especially new business owners, we look at what everyone else has and what everyone else's businesses look like and we think we should look like that. We think our business as a new business should look professional from day one. We don't think it really is that simple to just go out of the house, go to a networking event, or go to any local event or any local place and meet a human being and tell them what we do. Like that is marketing, that is being visible. Instead, I see people taking months and months behind the scenes and getting things ready in their business before they can launch, before they can announce their business or like there's this big coming soon thing that they have to build up to. And I just don't think that's necessary. Necessary. Like you could just start today, you could make money today or get someone on the books today. So I'm going to share the list that I came up with of the things that I see people getting bogged down with and the things that slow people down from literally just getting out there and meeting people and making money as fast as possible. And I'm going to tell you why these things aren't necessary in the beginning of your business or why they aren't necessary to get your first clients or even your first few clients. Some of them may not be necessary at all. And, and I want to share this before I share the list. Like I said, I know all of this from experience, mostly from my own experience from starting my own, my first local business in 2010, wanting to look so professional, but also now from just talking to so many of my students inside the LocalPreneur Academy and watching them get bogged down. But here's one of my favorite stories of how I got bogged down. I remember in my first business, for those of you who don't know, I started as a blogger and that blog really expanded into more of a lifestyle brand. And I sold products and I hosted local events and at one of my really early on events, it was a fourth of July pop up shopping event in downtown Baton Rouge and I had organized it and we had planned for the Miss USA pageant participants to be there. Miss USA was being held at our Baton Rouge arena, and they were filming there, so they were all in town, and we had organized it to where all the contestants were going to come to this event, and they were going to walk through it, and they were going to film and get footage in which they did end up actually using whenever they aired the show. And I had spent so much time working with a graphic designer to get these tote bags designed that said Shop, Louisiana on them. Like, I had spent hours and hours of my time thinking of these tote bags and getting the designer to do, like, all these iterations of the logo and. And coming up with what I wanted, like, this catchphrase of Shop, Louisiana. Which, to me, was just, you know, very innovative at the time. And the problem was, I had spent, like, weeks and hours and hours on these tote bags. I had spent way more time behind the scenes designing these tote bags than I did marketing this event that we were having downtown this big. I mean, it was a citywide shopping event. Everyone was invited. So while the Miss USA pageant women did come through, no one else did. We had very few people show up that day. And out of the 200 tote bags that I had designed, one lady at the very end of the day was like, oh, can I have a tote bag? And I was like, yes, please, just take it. Take them all. Like, I don't care. I hated those bags after that. And I ended up keeping them in my closet for, like, seven years. When we moved in 2020, we used them to pack our stuff. Like, I. I packed all my books off my bookshelf in them. But to me, that was, like, such a perfect example of something that I thought that I needed to look professional. I saw everybody else. I don't know why, like, years ago, like a decade ago, tote bags were so in. But I was like. I saw all these other, bigger companies having branded tote bags. Maybe like, Trader Joe's had that. And I was like, oh, well, I need that, too. So I. I just thought. I was like, oh, I need that to be professional, and I need this branded phrase, and I need the logo and all of that. So I spent all of my time and energy doing that and my money when I could have just been out marketing. All right, so that's a very personal example, but here's another. Here's my list of five things that, again, I have done. And I just see so many people spending their time on that is not required to meet people and tell them about your business and make Money. All right, so number one, this is a big one. You do not need to have a website to get your first clients or to make money. A website is a nice to have. A website eventually can become a big piece of your customer journey. A website can be a great place for your clients to go and read all about your services and what you sell and and read everything they need to know to make a buying decision. A website is great for local SEO and getting found. However, in the beginning it is not a requirement to have a website to make money or to get your very first clients. And the reason I wanted to include it is because I see so many brand new business owners spending months and months getting their website up or spending so much money on a website when they could just be going out and meeting people or they could be using social media and posting in the local Instagram formula, which is my mini course on getting discovered locally on Instagram and getting more local people who do find you on Instagram to hit the follow button if you don't have it, if you haven't taken that yet, go grab it. I'm going to link it up in the show notes. Everybody needs to go through that course. One of the things that I teach you in that mini course is something called the local grid of 3, which is exactly like what to have about you and about your services in those top, top three pinned posts at the top of your Instagram feed. And I say all the time to let that and even just your regular social media post operate as your website until you do have one. Even nowadays to take payments and bookings. There are so many payment processors and online schedulers out there that you can use to get people to pay you and to book people that our website isn't required. One of my students, Chelsea, she is a doula. She launched her business earlier this summer and she did the most creative thing ever. She didn't have a website. She had kids. She had three kids at home with her this summer. And she understood that she just needed to get out there, meet people in her city and get them to know that she was a doula and that she wanted to help them. So she was like, I just got to get out there when, when and where I can market. So one of the things she did is she created a Google Doc with information about her and her services that she offered. And then she went around town and posted flyers and the flyer had a QR code on it that directed back to that Q to the Google document. She literally got her very first client from doing that. Her Google Doc was her stand in website. It was the fastest way that she could just get something up and ready so when people scan the QR code, they could read all about what she offered. She did not waste any time getting that up or waiting for it to look perfect and professional. And Google Docs are completely free. It did its job, it served its purpose. And to me, that is the most important thing. When you are starting out, it's not about looking professional or looking like you have been in business for 10 years. It's okay to be scrappy. It really is just about starting and getting clients. I have just talked to so many people who are like, oh yeah, I'm gonna get started as soon as my website is done, or oh yeah, I'm gonna do that event or go talk to reach out to those people, do that collab, like as soon as the website's done. And then it's like six months have gone by. I also have the belief that a website is just never done. It really is. I can tell you after 15 years, it really is just always a work in progress. You're always going to want to be changing your messaging or what this page says or that headline. So I never want to see a business owner stuck waiting on their website to be done to go meet people. I actually just was talking to a client last week who was opening her yoga studio. And this was one of the conversations we were having because we were talking about how overwhelmed she was feeling getting everything done for the opening of her business. And the website was one of the things that was bogging her down. She was feeling very stressed about it. And I was like, look, a website is not a requirement for you to open. And we decided, we got to the place that since she had already been working on the site and there were some things that we're done and ready, we were like, just get out what you have. We're like, forget the about page for now. Forget this page and that page. Launch what you have so it's there and up hide everything else. For now. What you have is fine. And as you find more time, you can always go in and add this and add that, tweak and add more. But going behind the scenes for days, weeks, months, working on a website is not what you need to be doing when there's like all this other stuff to be doing to open your business. And most of all, you just need to be marketing. You need to be meeting real humans every single day, either online or offline, and telling them about your business piddling with a website and fonts and logos and all that is not meeting people. And I told her this student, I was like, if you spend all this time on your website, you're going to end up opening an empty yoga studio but have a finished website. I would rather her open a yoga studio with real human beings who are excited to come take a class versus a finished, beautiful website. Okay, so the second thing on the list is business cards. Business cards are not required to meet people and to get clients. I cannot count how many new business owners have told me that they can't go to a networking event yet because their business cards aren't ready or they haven't come in the mail yet, or maybe their logo isn't ready yet so they can't make the business cards yet. I have never had business cards for my coaching business ever, which I launched five years ago. So that's how I know they are not a requirement at all. Here's what I do know. When I meet someone and they ask me for a card, I tell them I don't have one, but I get their email address, right? Then I open up my email app and I type in their email address and I send them an email while I'm standing there looking at them and I just say something super quick. I'm like, hey, it's Leslie Preston, it was great to connect with you. And I hit send right there while I'm standing in front of them and I say to them, I'm like, okay, great, I just emailed you so you'll have my contact info. And you know, the email has my email signature, you know, like my Instagram and all that at the bottom of it. So they do actually have my contact and I do that with the email. And other than, you know, just following each other on Instagram or something because it's so much harder for me to go back and find somebody if I just follow you on Instagram. But an email, you could also do the same thing with text if you prefer. I can just better manage things with my inbox, but I also send it to them right then so it's instant. It's not radio silence for 24 hours or a few days after the event while they're waiting on me to email them. It's right then. And then the next time, you know, they see it, the next time they check their email. And then a couple days later when I do actually sit down and do follow ups with whoever I met at the event, I do write a more formal email to them, but I didn't want them to have to wait for that connection. Or sometimes, actually a lot of times the conversation just moves naturally, naturally along from that initial email. Like sometimes coffee already gets set up from that instant email. Or the conversation will just naturally start or the next step will just happen. Like there's no delay. And I like this better than business cards. For, for that reason, business cards end up in the bottom of your bag or you lose them, you never see them again. And again, it's just something that I see people spending so much time creating and perfecting or they delay even going to the event or they'll get a version made and then six months later they're like, I have to rebrand now. These aren't me anymore. And I know that because I used to do this early on I would get embarrassed by the current version of my business card and then I would have to redo it. I'd have to, it would have like the wrong logo on it now. And that's like a whole other thing, right? A logo is a nice to have. But to this day, in my coaching business, I also don't have a logo. In my first local business, I think I had probably 49 logos in the first two years. It's like, imagine the time I wasted designing logos and business cards. That I could have just been out there meeting people like it is. No wonder it took me years to start making real money. But this is why you're here, so you can make money way faster than I ever did. All right, so the third thing that is not required to get local clients is branding photos. I love professional photos. I think everyone should have the experience of working with a professional photographer and getting branded photos done. I do believe the experience alone does something for your self concept and your identity as a business owner. However, you do not need to spend time, money or energy on a branding photo shoot to get your very first clients. It's just not required. Branding photos can be something that you add in and plan for later. Maybe it's a year, in three months, in six months, in two years in the timeline doesn't matter as much, but it's not a requirement at first. The real point here is, is when we schedule branded photo shoots early on in our business, it tends to delay things. And again, this is just what I have heard over and over. I have heard business owners say, well, well, I'm not going to launch or open my business yet because I have my photo shoot planned next month and then we have to wait on the photo. So it's this waiting process. But you have my permission to open to be marketing to get clients without the photo shoot. You can always add in the branded photos. Get the photo shoot after you have started. All right, number four, I have to include this one in here as a quickie. It's something that I beat myself up over for years and years. But I in the history have never had a professional branded email account like one of those that ends with your business name Instead of like gmail.com or yahoo.com, i never had one of those until just a few months ago. So my local business used a Gmail account forever. And then whenever I started taking on social media clients in 2016, I just used that same Gmail account. Everything was already there. It was easy. And then when I became a coach and launched the LocalPreneur Academy in 2020, you guessed it, I just kept the Gmail account. And it came down to this same philosophy. In the beginning of my coaching business, I was like, I can either spend time figuring out how to get a branded email address, which I had no idea how to do, I was like, or I can meet people and tell them how I can help them. And your girl needed clients in the beginning more than I needed a branded email account. So the Gmail account stuck for years. So now it is 2025 and I just now got a branded email address. So I have hello@lesliepressno.com and supportesliepressnal.lesliepressnol.com I just got those this year and it still felt complicated and it still felt like a time suck even when I was doing it. But I knew I needed them at this point. As the localpreneur Academy grows, as my reach grows it, it did start becoming more necessary to have those accounts. But in the beginning when I did not have any clients, it was not necessary. And I think this is important. No one ever said anything to me. No one ever said that it seemed unprofessional. No one ever questioned why I was using a random Gmail account that had nothing to do with with my coaching business or the localpreneur Academy. And I grew a multiple six figure coaching company without a branded email address without anyone ever questioning it. So if I can do it, you can get your very first local clients without one too. All right, the fifth one, this last one may come as a shock. You're gonna be like, wait, what? What did she say? But another thing that is not required to get your very first local clients is social Media. And I say that as a marketing coach and as someone who loves social media and teaches social media, but it really is not required to get your first clients. In fact, I have students inside the localpreneur Academy who just decide not to use social media at all. They would rather do everything offline to grow their business. And that works too. All marketing works. That truly is what I love so much about being a local business owner is online and offline marketing works. And I see so many business owners starting social media accounts early on and they get caught up in the branding, in the fonts, in the logo, in the branded photo shoots, anything and everything that can slow them down. Or they haven't quite developed the skill sets yet as a new business owner when it comes to marketing themselves on social media. So they aren't sure really how to talk about their business or how to invite people to work with them, or they haven't really developed the skill sets around creating content that really gets people interested in their services and what they offer. And they don't know how to really build demand around what they're doing. So they just start posting and nothing really feels like it's coming from it. Or they start posting and no one local is seeing it and then they're scratching their head wondering what's happening. Like where are the clients when clients are in other places too. They're in real life, they are in referrals, they are in word of mouth. They are your friends and family. Your first clients can come from anywhere. Social media is amazing. It's an amazing free tool that we have as business owners. I love to leverage it, I love to build it and I love to really make it work for you. So to help you run your business and get you fully booked. But I just hate seeing business owners put it as their very first biggest obstacle to getting their first client. Because all they really have to do is go out and meet somebody and tell them about their business today. And there are a million ways you could do that. Okay, my friends, so just to recap, Those are my five things that after 15 plus years of being a business owner, I don't think any of those are requirements of getting your very first local clients. And that's just again, that's having a website, having business cards, having professional photography, having a branded email address, or even having social media. They are all nice to have. They are something you can of course have and work up to, have things you can work on. But the real point here and the real takeaway, we never want to Go behind the scenes, working on the back end of our business for too long where we aren't just front facing and out there meeting real local people. We want to stay visible every single day. It's the most important thing you can do. Especially in the beginning when you don't have clients. You've got to be out there every day meeting people in your city, being visible, getting your name out there. So if you want a step by step plan on how to do that, that's what we do inside the LocalPreneur Academy. This is where you will have your local marketing plan. So you're never sitting there saying every day what should I be doing right now today to meet people? How do I meet people? It is never a question. You will have your plan to be to be visible in your city, whether that's online, offline or both. You will learn how to talk about your sear services in what you do so you can stand out among everyone else who does what you do and really stand out as that local go to top choice. You'll learn how to grow a local audience with real local human beings who want what you have. So you won't have an audience full of just other people in your industry or random people all over the world. It will be real people in your city and you'll learn how to create content for them that builds demand for what you do. Not just comment. Not just content that entertains or inspires them, but that gets them taking action now to work with you. So if you are ready to start booking more clients and to get fully booked, this is the place to do it. So click the link in the show notes to check out the LocalPreneur Academy and I will see you inside. Hey. If you enjoyed today's episode, I want to invite you to check out my program, the LocalPreneur Academy. This is the only program for small business owners who want to become the local go to in their industry with a steady stream of clients. You can find more information@lesleypressnell.com and I'll see you inside.