
We’re talking about growing a community of real relationships and emphasizing community over chasing vanity numbers.
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Abigail Pumphrey
Selling can be giving value. That's literally the whole point. If you're selling someone something and they're purchasing it, they should be getting more value than their dollars put in welcome to the Strategy Hour podcast brought to you by Boss Project. I'm your host Abigail Pumphrey and I'm dedicated to supporting online businesses. I don't believe in one right way to build a business. I'm here to help you build business you your way. One that supports not only the life you have, but the life you want. I'm on a personal mission to help you become financially free. I'm taking all the lessons learned as I turned a layoff into a seven figure online business. I'm here to help you prioritize your life every step of the way. Whether you're creating your first digital product, growing an email list, or scaling an already profitable business, settle in. It's time to talk strategy. Looking for a way to make a difference with your morning coffee? Grab a bag of talitha coffee@bossproject.com Coffee Every purchase helps support survivors of human trafficking. Make every cup count@bossproject.com Coffee a few weeks ago, I sent an email all about how I had shifted where I was personally showing up in this business and how I was adjusting my attitude and how I was adjusting my marketing strategy and where my time and attention was going. When I originally wrote the email, honestly, it was a lot more for me than I really expected it to be for anyone else. I wanted to process what the last few months had meant for me and how it had actually changed me a lot as a person. And just like we're going to be talking about today, showing up and getting visible is a very vulnerable place to put yourself in. It can subject you to what can feel like so much judgment. Whether that's actually happening or not is honestly irrelevant. It is how it affects you personally. That is the thing that I often see holding people back from taking the steps that they want to take, that they're excited to take, but they're nervous to take because they're afraid of getting hurt. Or they're afraid of what someone else will think, or they're afraid of the repercussions of something they might say. But getting visible has only ever positively impacted me. Not to say that there hasn't been challenges or criticism along the way, but more often than not it has connected me to more people that I genuinely care about, people that have added relationships to my life that I wouldn't have had otherwise and really empowered me to Keep going. In my business, getting visible and having that human to human connection, it's not about growing an audience, it's about growing a community of real relationships. And a lot of people look at growing a social media following like a one sided conversation where they're just talking at people. And while that's something you could do, I'm not saying it's wrong. Having an audience that you are disseminating information down to is not necessarily inherently a bad thing. However, the rewarding parts for me have always been in the ways I have created a reciprocal relationship with the people in my audience and with the people. I would consider my community putting more emphasis here. Over the last 30, 60, 90 days, it has lit me up in a way that I haven't been lit up in years. And the enthusiasm is rubbing off on everyone around me. And I am so grateful for that experience. And it's definitely one that I want you to also experience. And so I do want to invite you to be a part of it. Not just to watch or observe, but to really be a part of my community. And so if you haven't yet, make sure you head over to Boss Project on Instagram. My personal profile is linked at. Abigail says please come introduce yourself. I want to get to know you personally. I want to hear about the business that you're excited to launch and maybe nervous about launching. I want to hear about your big ideas and your dreams and, and your goals. And I'm not just saying this like I genuinely want to know. Getting to know you is my favorite part of my job and one that continues to fuel every other thing I do in this business today. Specifically, I want to dig into how I would start a business if there's no existing audience, how I would get off the ground, how I would get momentum, how I would build a community of people that are actually listening to what I have to say and how I would make real, tangible dollar bills from that community as early as possible. In the process, I've had a lot of people message me saying I want to do this, but I don't have any audience, I have no followers. And I just. Before we get into like the actual strategies, I just want to say that I've never really met someone who actually has no audience. I get what you're saying and that like perhaps you've never started a page with this focus or this niche or background, but we have connections and it's our job to leverage the connections that already exist to build momentum for the thing that we want. And in reality you are connected on average to at least a thousand people. I've seen this figure be even higher. 2000 plus people. But if we were just going to say a thousand, I want to talk about where these people actually are. Because I hear you being like, no, I talk to like five people. I get it. So do I. I talk to my spouse, my sister, my mom, and two of my close friends. Literally, that might be the only people I talk to for weeks at a time. And I get it. You are also in a little bit of a bubble and getting a new business started. When you feel like you don't have any of those connections, it can feel really intimidating because you're like, who the heck am I going to sell to? Like, I don't have hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of followers. And I'm here to say that ultimately, the number of followers, the number of people in your audience, have little to no relationship to the actual amount of sales that you can generate. If someone go to my Instagram, they'd be like, cool, she has 4,500 followers. Which to some of you may sound like a lot, but in the grand scheme of things, I follow plenty of people that have millions of followers, but my business has generated millions and millions of dollars. Instagram is just not necessarily one of the places I put a ton of focus in recent years. I have plenty of other channels with more or larger audiences, but if you were to just scroll on by, you would have no idea how big my business is or how much money I'm generating or what my personal life is actually like. We make so many judgments about how people's businesses or lives really are based on a surface level amount of information. We see the number of followers they have, we see the number of likes or engagement on their recent posts, and we make all of these judgments about how successful these people must be. And I have absolutely witnessed an account with millions of followers who couldn't sell a $19T shirt. So, like, it doesn't matter. Like, the amount of followers does not matter. It's about creating the right community that is supportive of where you're going. And you can have a highly engaged audience that is almost exclusively full of people that you've actually sold to. And it can be very high quality. But before we get into, like, how to actually do that, I do want to talk and break down those thousand people, because I know you're, like, aware. Where are these people that you so speak of? I do not believe you. Okay, so the first set, I would say 200 or so is going to be from family and what I would call family ties. It could be family friends, it could be family related relationships, even if you have a small family. If we do family plus family ties, I guarantee you there's at least 200 people mixed in there. Now I get some of these people you may have not talked to in years. That's not the point. I am just illustrating the sheer quantity that you are disqualifying yourself from. Another 200 are from what I would consider you're like growing up in adolescent years, people you collected while you were in school, whether that was elementary school, middle school, high school, college, grad school, maybe your kids schools, you collect people. And some of those people you had a deep relationship with a decade ago, but you haven't necessarily maintained that relationship. But they still exist. They still would know who you are if your name was said in a room. Additionally, you have approximately 200 or so colleagues and professional connections. And I would say at least that could be a lot higher depending on where you've worked. You may have been in an office that on its own had hundreds of people. And not to say that every single person in that office knows who you are, but I would guess a lot more than you would even imagine do. Potentially even a decade after you've worked there, you can collect a lot of professional connections. And people tend to disqualify these, especially if they've come from corporate and now they're going into their own business. They think, ooh, I can't mix those pots. But like, these people care and respect you. They want to see you be successful and a lot of them would love to cheer you on. So like let them, let them be a part of your world. You spend a lot of time with people at work, so why aren't we letting those people in our lives a little bit more? You also likely have 200 or more across various social networks that maybe you would consider only your online friends. Like you just know them through connecting in a Facebook group or consistently showing up on someone's Instagram page or dming in the stories like those people exist. You also have at least 200 from social settings like church and community organizations or nonprofits you volunteer with or your kids activities and all of the various extracurricular things that either you do or your children do. There's a lot of people there. There is a lot of people there. And even if we talk to less than a dozen people on a regular basis, on your own, you have your own set of a thousand connections but so does each of those dozen people that you maybe talk to more regularly. So maybe it's not your network, but it's your sister's network or your mom's network or your best friend's network. You are connected to tens of thousands of people by literally one step away from someone you know pretty well and have had many conversations with. And we just completely disqualify these people, assuming none of them are going to be interested in what we're doing. And I get it. We have all been jaded by the like attempting to sell to our friends and family on shit we had no business selling. I know the trauma that is associated with some of those conversations, but that is literally not at all what I'm discussing or even considering. I'm not suggesting you go sell to any of those people, but we are going to leverage them to build our community of actually relevant connections. Okay? So I want you to be considering who these people might be. You can even start a list. You don't have to. You can keep listening to this episode. But, but that is a good opportunity to just start thinking about where are these people and how are you connected to them and what would it take for you to actually communicate with them? Like, is it someone you text? Is it someone you see on a regular basis? Is it someone that follows you on like a personal profile somewhere? Are you connected on LinkedIn? Like, what does that look like? Where do they exist? How have you communicated? How are you connected in a way that you could talk to them that is in alignment with the way that you normally communicate in this outside world? Now, before you get all nervous about talking to who these people are, we're just going to set that down for a second. Okay? You know, these people exist. You don't have to be ready to talk to them yet, but they exist. Okay? So we're going to put that down and we're going to talk about how to actually utilize a digital product to attract and convert strangers into buyers from the very, very, very, very beginning. Okay? This is my favorite way to build an audience because a lot of people assume that they have to build an audience first and then they come back and sell to them later. And I'm not saying you can't do that, but typically the digital products I'm talking about are such low hanging fruit that we can put them in front of someone from the very beginning. And even if they don't buy right now, you simply talking about it and promoting this offer will attract the right people to be paying attention. You can build trust and have a clear way for someone to take the next step. At the same time, I don't know why people assume that selling has to be mutually exclusive from providing value. Selling can be giving value. That's literally the whole point. If you're selling someone something and they're purchasing it, they should be getting more value than their dollars put in. Usually it's not even an even exchange. Usually the value is higher than the cost. Right. And so I don't know why we assume that sells have to be taken away from people. It can be additive, and the sales process can be fun. The sales process can be fulfilling. The sales process can attract. And we need to stop thinking about it as the sales process because honestly, you guys get all up in your head about that. This is just another way to connect with people. It's just another way to connect with people. And when you sell something, especially digital product, you are putting all your thoughts together, right? And then you're letting someone in on that. But you don't have to do it every single time. You don't have to have the same conversation a hundred times or a thousand times. You can have the conversation once, and then a thousand people can benefit from it. You are literally multiplying what you are capable of doing in any one minute. Like, it is such a beautiful and incredible tool. And I just want you to not feel so weird about it. It can be amazing. But if I were starting from scratch and I was trying to build an audience that I could also simultaneously sell to, this is how I would do it today in the year 2024. And this is something I think is going to be working at least for the next six months, potentially longer. You know, social trends change, but based on where I'm seeing things going, like, I think this is going to be a strategy that's sticky for a while. And ultimately, we have a lot of history here, and we need to be paying attention to that history. Because the primary goal when starting a business is finding qualified leads that can purchase from us. Okay, sure. It could be, yeah, I need to set up a bank account and I need to do all this legal stuff and like, I need to have something to sell and blah, blah, blah, blah. I hear you. But ultimately, the reason you want to be in business is so that you can sell to the right people because you want to make money, because you wouldn't be a business if there wasn't dollar bills involved. So you want to make dollars, and you need to get in front of the right people to make that money. So how do we do this in the quickest way possible? We need to build visibility. And I've talked about visibility before, and if you haven't heard my take on visibility, definitely go back. You know, search on. If you go to bossproject.com, you can search visibility and see podcasts that have visibility in the title. You can also scroll back on whatever podcast app you have, look for the word visibility or marketing in the title. You're going to see a lot of really relevant things. I especially like my predictions on the future of marketing episode. I think that's a really good one that talks about the basic fundamentals. But ultimately visibility is, I. E. How you get in front of strangers. You need people who do not know you at all to know you exist. That's what visibility is. Visibility is hi and someone going hi back. That's literally all it is. Okay? We are trying to drive connection and so we need a visibility channel. There are several available to you in the year 2024. But my favorite, and the one that I am seeing that has like the most stickiness with like the least amount of work is currently Instagram, which for some of you, you're like, instagram is dead. It's not working for me. I've tried to build an audience on Instagram and it's not working. Pause any of your preconceived notions. I used to have those preconceived notions too. I grew my first account way back in like the flat lay era of Instagram. And for a long time I was like, I just don't get it. Like, I don't get how certain people are still growing in this app. Like, I really think it's going to go away. I think TikTok is going to take over. And right now TikTok and Instagram are going two very different ways again, which is actually a really positive thing because it's going to create their own separate communities and user behavior is going to vary more. Before, there was a lot of copy paste across different social networks. And right now, Instagram is a great way to connect with brand new people. And if I were starting from scratch, scratch, I would start a brand new Instagram account. But if you're sitting here, like, should I start a new account or build from the one I have? Where do you have an existing audience? Even if it's not the right audience? Is that someplace that you could see yourself changing the subject and really focusing from here on out? Because even if it's small, even if you're like, I have a personal page with 400 followers. It's easier to like jumpstart than you think. And someone coming to a page that already has followers is more likely to get additional followers than someone starting from zero. Zero. Not to say that you can't build from zero. I absolutely have done that. I've literally done it in the last right now it's 45 days. Okay, so I started an account less than 45 days ago from scratch to prove that this was possible. And I've been testing it and I absolutely know starting over is totally plausible. It will drive traffic. It will grow an audience. The difference here is if you're starting from zero, we are not only going to be marketing from this page that has zero followers, we are going to leverage all those other connections I talked about. And so the most basic as to where to go from here is we are going to decide are we going to use an existing account or start a new one. I keep seeing it happen. You're caught in a loop, waiting for that perfect moment, overthinking every decision and comparing your progress to the curated realities of others online. I've been there too, and I made a shift that changed absolutely everything. It simplified my approach and allowed me to start trusting my intuition again. Truly, everything changed. My business doubled, then doubled again. I rocked $300,000 launches, enrolled over 10,000 students in a single course, and finally started showing up in a way that felt effortless and aligned. Now I'm sharing those exact tools and strategies in my new three part workshop series Mindset Reboot. Right now you can grab it for just $11. Hurry. Visit creative templateshop.commindset to find out more. We are going to pick a very narrow topic for our content. It should be related to the ultimate type of business that you want to run, but the topic needs to be narrowed in on your ideal clients main problems and like the dream outcome that they want for their life or business depending on who you're selling to. And we want to really focus in on a narrow topic for the first 30 to 90 days. And we're doing that to create consistency because if we continue to talk about the same topic for a period of time, rather than kind of jumping around between all the various things amongst a niche, we will start to be seen as an expert in this particular area, even if it's just like one corner of a much bigger topic. Okay. And it is a really great opportunity to dig in and share really valuable insights. Now what we're going to do is we're going to build a low priced digital product. We're not actually going to build the product yet, we're actually going to launch it and do pre sales to validate the offer first. But we're going to utilize that digital product to attract an audience of buyers. And I lay out all of these steps inside Digital Product Jumpstart. So if you're like, I'm already overwhelmed, I'm not sure what topic, I'm not sure what niche, I'm not sure how to narrow down what I'm talking about. I go through all of this inside Digital Product Jumpstart. You can find out more details@bossproject.com jumpstart and I'll go over that so that you can narrow down who you're talking to and you can narrow down the topic. You can even outline the specific offer and I'm going to walk you through step by step how to get this offer ready for pre sales, creating a no brainer sales page, getting it set up so you can actually collect payment, all of that. Now, once we've gone through the steps inside Digital Product Jumpstart and we have a low price digital product that we can test with pre sales, we are going to start testing a ton of different messaging angles to get clear on what drives engagement and purchases. Now the cool part about Instagram is reels are an incredible way to to get in front of new people and you're going to be exposed to a brand new audience that has never seen your content before and you're getting free organic reach, which for a number of years there was starting to be few and far between. It felt like you had to pay to play. And right now, Instagram reels can go very far, very fast without the need to invest anything but your time. Now, this isn't to say that you can't grow an audience on another platform or that this is the only visibility strategy I would try. I'm just sharing the one that I think is going to give you the most results with the least amount of effort and friction on your part. It's something that I'm seeing working right now for a ton of different industries and definitely one of those, like, if you can jump on and ride this wave, like this is an opportunity. So I'm not just sharing it to like be like, Instagram's the only way. Like, no, it's literally not. There's so many things you could try. This is just one that I really see being effective. So simultaneously, while we are driving engagement with reels and we're going to make this easy for ourselves because we're going to use what I call B roll. B roll is essentially clips where you're not talking, you're not talking to the camera. You're just like doing your everyday life. You could film yourself typing on a keyboard, typing on a laptop, cooking dinner, going on a walk, walking your dogs, petting your dogs, playing with your kids. There's a gajillion things. You are just living your life. And we're taking these clips and utilizing them to highlight different opportunities. Now, if you haven't watched reels anytime recently, I definitely recommend watching some for a while. Scroll your reels page and start to understand what I mean by B roll. What are the people who aren't saying words on the screen? We're not talking head videos. What are they utilizing in terms of the video to promote their businesses? You're going to see a lot of similar things, but it's all individual to the person. Good lighting is still helpful. You showing up as yourself, but a little bit more polished is still, from the things I've tested, going better than looking a bit disheveled. Not that you can't show up that way, but it is getting more reach with a little more polish. We're going to create a folder of just short clips and we're going to utilize those again and again in these videos. But here is where the leveraging comes in. While we're creating new content to get in front of new people, we are also going to go to our network, wherever it exists. If it's on Facebook, on LinkedIn, if it's emails, if it's texting, friends and family, we are going to reach out to people and we're not going to hound them. We're not going to be weird about it. We're going. We just want to let them know that what we're doing exists and we love their support. So, hey, I am so excited I'm launching this new business. I can't wait to share things about this and help people in this way. I'd love your support. If this, you know, resonates with you, you can come follow me over here. Share your Instagram page. You don't have to have a website ready. If you know someone that this could be helpful for or this could impact, I'd love if you'd share it with them. We're talking simple. You do this a handful of times, you may have to do it multiple times over several days or even weeks or even months. But we can continue to Remind people that you exist over here and take your most engaged audience and put them over here to cheer you on. And also have them be letting the people they know who are more likely to be potential ideal clients. Have them suggest that they go follow you because you want recommendations, you want referrals, and we can do referrals for services and things like that and we can do it in a much more direct way. But if our goal is to grow an audience, it doesn't necessarily need to be this huge ask. We just need to get in front of the people, wherever we normally hang out with them and let them know that this other thing exists. I don't know why people assume like they can't cross promote their social networks, but it is highly effective, highly effective and we should be doing more of it now. One of my favorite strategies with these reels is to be using a product called technically a software called ManyChat where you can comment a word and then ManyChat, which is like a little robot, will comment back a word or phrase and let someone know, hey, I sent you a message. And you can drive an individualized DM to a specific person that has engaged with your content and send them a link to the thing that you're ultimately selling, I. E. The no brainer sales page. Right. We can drive engagement this way. Now what I love about utilizing mini chat is it can keep working for you even when you aren't working. So if someone comments in the middle of the night, it's going to immediately comment back and send them a link to what it is that you're selling. Yes, you could say go to my link in bio if you wanted, but this is showing and proving to be much more effective more consistently because people don't necessarily have to leave what they're doing. They can ask for the link and get the DM and then when they actually have time they can go look at that DM and go to the link. So they may not go to the link immediately, but they're more likely to follow through if they have it in a place where they can come back to it. Otherwise it's something that they may just like lose in the abyss. And right now dms are like the most opened like form of media there is out there. Email used to be pretty decent at this, but people get so much email now that they're not necessarily opening nearly as many as they were. And this shifted over to sms. And so that's when we saw this like rise of text messaging because people were doing that where they were opening every single text message they were getting. But in the same way, we're following a new trend and now people are getting so many text messages, they're not necessarily opening all their text messages, but with DMs. Because people can't just spam you. Like businesses, literally, there's regulations. You can't just DM anyone en masse without their approval. You are literally only allowed to contact them for 24 hours once they've contacted you. Because of the rules put in place by Meta, it has created a low spam environment, which means that with the lack of spam, the open rates are massively huge, like nearly a hundred percent, which is like literally unheard of anywhere else. It's not going to last forever, it's just not. Eventually there's going to be ads and the dms. I don't know what it's going to look like, but it will shift and change over time. That is not what it's like right now. And so we have to take advantage while these things are free and available to us and working and highly effective. And so I love using newer strategies. This isn't brand new. Like, this has been around a couple of years, but we are kind of moving down the totem pole a little bit. Where we saw bigger businesses spend a lot of time here because it was pretty complicated initially, the tech has gotten simpler and that means that more people can implement it without needing to have a specialist on their team to set it up for them. Like, this is something you could set up within a few minutes, I suppose, maybe within an hour or two, if this is something you're brand, brand new to. But now that I've done this many times, I can set up a new, like, bot within 20 minutes. Now here's where I see people kind of fall off. They're like building an audience using something like reels. Maybe they're telling the people that already exist on these other social platforms to come follow them. And then they just get in this cycle where that's all they do. They're just creating more reels, creating more content, getting in front of more people. And that is good. I'm not saying it's not going to help you see growth. You will see growth, you will see people continue to follow your account. More people engage, people will purchase. However, if we think of reels as the visibility channel, posts and stories are the nurture side of Instagram. And so if you haven't yet started something like an email list, stories are going to be your biggest opportunity. To close the sale. For someone who has just been hanging out for a while. I love using stories in this way. I think before I would spend a lot of times just updating people on my life and sharing what I was doing day to day. But there is such a huge opportunity to use it as a sales tool and actually convert cold buyers with your content. People need exposure to what it is that you do. And if you can consistently show up and remind them that what you got going on is, is legit, like it is a great opportunity to create that conversion in real time. Now, I get that if you're brand new to business, also adding stuff like a website or email marketing can feel really overwhelming. But when you're ready, taking those customers that purchased and specifically focusing on those people, could you do a freebie and just grow your email list? Yeah, you could. But the people who purchase even in a low ticket are way more likely to purchase again than someone who came in via a cold lead magnet. I have looked at the numbers again and again and again and there's just so much proof in the pudding. You really want to build a list of buyers and emailing those customers once a week on a regular basis. And really weaving in things like storytelling and magnetic marketing, you can consistently share your transformation, where you were, where you went, what life was like, what it's like now, and remind people of how you can help them. It's a great way to consistently show up and even showcase things like client testimonials and use those as stories in real time. It is such an incredible place to continue that nurture cycle. But if you kind of think about it as like a drip, so to speak, you're going to get those like warmest of warm people converting immediately from reels. You're going to get like that second tier of people from stories. And then email is definitely going to capture the people that need to sit around and wait 30, 60, 90, 180 days before they take a next step. That is okay. We can simultaneously be growing that list and continuing to add value. Now the part that I know people are really hesitant on and the one that I know, no, regardless of where you are at in business, you need the reminder of you should be talking about what you sell daily, daily. And I know a lot of people are going to be like, you need to be adding value and you need to be nurturing in between. And you need yes, but those things can happen simultaneously. What you sell can provide value. How you talk about what you sell can provide value. Reminding people to take action is a positive thing. Not to mention no one is seeing 100% of what you put out there. They just aren't. So you need to be louder. You need to be louder more often. You need to consistently talk about what it is that you do. And you need to take people on a journey. Like, it is your job to tell people that they can work with you. It is your job to tell people how they can work with you. It is your job to tell them what step to take next. And I know while all of these things are individually simple, when you add them all together like that is a lot of work. I'm not going to deny that it's a lot of work. But these are things that can be daily actions. Daily actions that are going to have multiplied results when we consistently show up and we post. What if we commit to one reel a day? What if we commit to sharing a few stories a day? What if we commit to one email a week? It is a marketing plan. It is a strategy that is proving to work again and again and again for hundreds, if not thousands of businesses across dozens of industries. You have an opportunity to take advantage of free inorganic traffic and convert strangers into buyers and build an audience in real time. And like, I feel like we're back in a lot of ways. In 2016 there was like this really huge opportunity to ride a wave of free inorganic traffic then and we saw this huge rise of small business and everything goes in a cycle. And I am really thankful that we are back at the beginning of a cycle because right now is a massive opportunity. And if you're feeling a little overwhelmed, like I get it, I want to walk you step by step through this process. I want to make it really easy for you to take action. And so the very first thing I would do before I do anything else is I would head to bossproject.com jumpstart grab digital product Jumpstart this is going to be an action packed course where I am walking you through how to identify your ideal client, pick that niche, identify what your digital product is, how you're going to put it in front of people, qualify and really validate your offer with pre sales. We're going to attract ideal customers with digital products I. E. Get paid to bring in qualified leads. That's exactly where I would start. If you want the step by step, if you want the roadmap, if you want me to walk you through it, head to bossproject.com jumpstart this is what I've used to grow my company. This is the strategies I've used to bring in over 3.11 million in just entry point digital products over $3 million wild. I want to see you successful and I get some of you are starting from the very very beginning and you can leverage the people who are in your corner. You can pay attention to the people who are around you and drive them to where you want to grow an audience. And you can get in front of strangers for free just by leveraging your time. This is your time. I'm here for you. I'm ready to see you be successful and I'm ready to guide you every step of the way. Hey, a few quick favors before you leave. I'd love if you'd share today's episode, send it to a friend who needs to hear it, and post on social. You can show us where you're listening from, your favorite takeaway, or why someone else should listen. Be sure to tag me, Abigail says and ossproject so we can share it. Okay. Second favor to get podcast updates and all the behind the scenes news from bossproject. I'd love if you'd join my VIP list. Just head to bossproject.com signup to make sure I have all your contact details. Really love this show. It would mean so much to me if you'd leave a rating and review. It not only helps more listeners find the show, but allows us to bring on quality sponsors so we can keep bringing you this valuable content for free. Thanks so much for listening. Until next time.
Podcast Summary: The Strategy Hour Podcast – Episode 911: Fan Favorite – Starting a Business with ZERO Audience
Introduction
In Episode 911 of The Strategy Hour Podcast, hosted by Abagail Pumphrey, Co-Founder & CEO of Boss Project, the focus centers on a pressing concern for many aspiring entrepreneurs: how to start a business without an existing audience. Released on December 24, 2024, this episode delves deep into strategies for building a profitable and sustainable online business from scratch. Abagail emphasizes actionable business strategies tailored for creatives, consultants, coaches, agency owners, and service providers aiming to thrive in the digital landscape.
The Value of Visibility and Building Relationships
Abagail opens the discussion by highlighting the essence of selling as a form of value exchange. She asserts, "Selling can be giving value. That's literally the whole point” (00:00). This philosophy underpins her approach to business strategy, where visibility and genuine human connections are paramount.
She reflects on her personal journey, sharing, "Showing up and getting visible is a very vulnerable place to put yourself in. It can subject you to what can feel like so much judgment" (06:40). Despite the inherent vulnerabilities, Abagail emphasizes that visibility has been overwhelmingly positive for her, fostering meaningful relationships and empowering her business growth.
Leveraging Existing Connections
A significant portion of the episode addresses the misconception that one must start with a massive audience to achieve business success. Abagail counters this by stating, "I've never really met someone who actually has no audience" (13:15). She explains that everyone has a network, often underestimated, comprising family, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances from various facets of life.
Abagail categorizes potential connections into several segments:
She emphasizes that, even if one interacts with only a handful of people regularly, the combined networks can expand exponentially. Abagail encourages listeners to recognize and utilize these existing connections as foundational pillars for building a new business.
Building a Business Without an Existing Audience
Transitioning to the core topic, Abagail outlines a comprehensive strategy for launching a business without a pre-established audience. She underscores that the size of one's audience does not directly correlate with sales potential. "The number of followers, the number of people in your audience, have little to no relationship to the actual amount of sales that you can generate" (09:45).
Key strategies discussed include:
Creating a Narrowed Content Focus: Selecting a specific topic that directly addresses the primary problems and desired outcomes of ideal clients. Abagail advises focusing on this narrow niche for the first 30 to 90 days to establish authority and consistency.
Launching Low-Priced Digital Products: Instead of waiting to build a large audience, she recommends launching affordable digital products to attract and convert buyers from the outset. Pre-selling these products serves to validate the offers and gauge market interest.
Utilizing Instagram Reels for Visibility: Abagail highlights Instagram Reels as a potent tool for organic reach, capable of exposing content to new audiences rapidly. She shares, "Reels are an incredible way to get in front of new people and you're going to be exposed to a brand new audience that has never seen your content before" (25:30).
Engaging with Existing Networks: Beyond organic reach, leveraging personal networks through platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and direct communication (emails, texts) can significantly bolster visibility. Abagail advises a balanced approach, "We're not going to hound them. We're not going to be weird about it. We're going... we just want to let them know that what we're doing exists and we love their support" (34:00).
Digital Tools and Automation
To streamline engagement and sales, Abagail introduces the use of digital tools like ManyChat. This software automates direct messages (DMs) in response to specific comments, facilitating immediate and personalized interactions with potential customers. She explains, "ManyChat... will comment back and let someone know, hey, I sent you a message. And you can drive an individualized DM to a specific person that has engaged with your content and send them a link to the thing that you're ultimately selling" (28:30).
This automation ensures that engagement continues even when she is unavailable, maintaining high open rates and facilitating seamless transitions from interest to purchase.
Consistent Marketing Actions: The Triple-Pronged Approach
Abagail emphasizes the importance of consistency in marketing efforts through a multi-faceted approach:
Instagram Reels: Daily reels serve as the primary visibility channel, attracting new audiences through engaging and dynamic content.
Instagram Stories: Acting as the nurturing arm, stories allow for deeper engagement with the audience, facilitating conversions by reinforcing the legitimacy and value of the offerings.
Email Marketing: Weekly emails target the warmest segment of the audience—those who have already shown purchasing intent. Abagail advocates for weaving storytelling and client testimonials into these communications to maintain interest and encourage repeat sales.
She posits that this triad forms a robust pipeline, transforming strangers into buyers and cultivating a loyal community over time.
Embracing the Sales Process as Value Exchange
A recurring theme in the episode is the reframing of the sales process from a transactional to a relational dynamic. Abagail argues, "Selling can be giving value... it can be additive, and the sales process can be fun. The sales process can be fulfilling. The sales process can attract" (18:00). By viewing sales as an extension of value provision, entrepreneurs can mitigate the fear and anxiety often associated with selling.
Overcoming Overwhelm and Taking Action
Acknowledging the potential overwhelm for those new to business, Abagail provides actionable steps to simplify the process:
Start with Digital Product Jumpstart: She references her course, Digital Product Jumpstart, designed to guide entrepreneurs through identifying their ideal client, pinpointing their niche, creating digital products, and setting up pre-sales to validate offers.
Commit to Daily and Weekly Actions: Whether it's producing a reel daily, sharing multiple stories, or sending out a weekly email, consistent actions compound over time to yield significant results.
Leverage Community Support: By inviting friends, family, and existing networks to support and share their new ventures, entrepreneurs can amplify their reach organically.
Conclusion
Abagail Pumphrey's Episode 911 offers a comprehensive roadmap for launching a business without an existing audience. By leveraging existing connections, utilizing digital tools, and maintaining consistent, value-driven marketing efforts, entrepreneurs can build a thriving online business from the ground up. Her insights demystify the process, making it accessible and achievable for creatives, consultants, coaches, and service providers alike.
Notable Quotes
"Selling can be giving value. That's literally the whole point." – Abagail Pumphrey (00:00)
"The number of followers, the number of people in your audience, have little to no relationship to the actual amount of sales that you can generate." – Abagail Pumphrey (09:45)
"Reels are an incredible way to get in front of new people and you're going to be exposed to a brand new audience that has never seen your content before." – Abagail Pumphrey (25:30)
"ManyChat... will comment back and let someone know, hey, I sent you a message. And you can drive an individualized DM to a specific person that has engaged with your content and send them a link to the thing that you're ultimately selling." – Abagail Pumphrey (28:30)
"Selling can be giving value... it can be additive, and the sales process can be fun. The sales process can be fulfilling. The sales process can attract." – Abagail Pumphrey (18:00)
Resources Mentioned
Digital Product Jumpstart: An action-packed course by Abagail Pumphrey designed to guide entrepreneurs through the process of launching and validating digital products. More details can be found at bossproject.com/jumpstart.
Boss Project Podcast: Additional show notes and resources are available at bossproject.com/podcast.
Final Thoughts
Episode 911 is a treasure trove of insights for anyone looking to embark on their entrepreneurial journey without the backing of a pre-existing audience. Abagail Pumphrey not only debunks the myth that a large following is a prerequisite for business success but also equips listeners with practical strategies to harness their existing networks, create compelling digital products, and maintain consistent engagement through modern digital tools. Her approach is both empowering and actionable, making it an essential listen for aspiring online business owners.