September 24: Last Live Show on 100.7 The Point

On September 24, 2019, Kasie and Shennice said goodbye to the 9:00 a.m. Tuesday slot on 100.7 The Point we’ve occupied for 60+ episodes. Here are the show notes:

Agenda review:

• Traction: 19 Channels & the Bullseye Framework (revisited)
• The Opportunity Journal (revisited)
• Thanks, Kev and the entire 100.7 The Point family for having us.

Segment 1:

My students reviewed Traction, the book, in class yesterday and I thought, “We haven’t talked about that in a while.” In fact, it’s been a year. So let’s do this Traction thing as a reprise this week.

Here’s the original show notes that breaks down the 19 channels you can use to reach your customers and get traction in your business.

Highlights: Let’s work through these one at the time and we’ll get through as many as we can.

1. Targeting Blogs: focus on the industry-leading blogs your customer is reading, offer to guest post and share content.
2. Traditional PR: press releases, regular media outlets; working on recognition and building curiosity
3. Unconventional PR: publicity stunts, big events, or single-hit kind of experiences
4. Search Engine Marketing: advertising through Google search
5. Social Media and Display ads: still digital, finding your customers where they are online and advertising to them
6. Offline ads: TV ads, radio spots, billboards, etc.
7. SEO: Making sure your website shows up in key search results
8. Content marketing: creating content that shows expertise and adds value for your potential customers, part of that research process for the buyer
9. Email marketing: sending the content directly to your customer’s inbox
10. Engineering as marketing: building add-ons, widgets, and bots that enhance a user’s experience with a particular platform and thereby advertising your own expertise
11. Growing customer base by encouraging customers to encourage others to check you out
12. Business development: investing in strategic partnerships and relationships to help grow your customer base.
13. Sales: processes that directly exchange product for dollars
14. Affiliate programs: create referral networks through the people you’ve served by certifying them in someway to become ambassadors to your brand
15. Existing platforms: focusing on a megaplatform like Twitter or Facebook and trying to convert their customers into yours
16. Trade show participation and/or sponsorship: brand recognition, opportunity for strategic relationships
17. Offline events: small meet-ups to large conferences, things that get people in the same room to talk about your services and products
18. Speaking engagements: promote your book, expertise, brand, and company through speaking engagements that share your expertise with an audience of potential customers
19. Community building: create a network around an idea or service you offer and let that community help you iterate the product while serving as ambassadors

Segment 2

And here’s the link to the follow-up show where we did the Bullseye Framework, which is how you can determine which channels you should be using.

Highlights:

What’s possible? — what channels can you actually access? Do you have the means? Do you have the expertise? What will it take to leverage those?

What’s probable? — run some tests to see if your customers are there. What is the likelihood of earning customers in this channel? Evaluate each one for likelihood of effectiveness.

What’s working? — finally, determine which channels are working for your customer acquisition efforts and whether you can sustain them.

Segment 3

So how can you determine if your channels are reaching your customers?

Let’s consider an acquisition strategy that sets a goal of net-new customers, renewals, and upsells. If your existing customer base is keeping you busy but not profitable, then you need to upsell them. If they’re good customers but nearly finished with you, then you need to renew them. And if they’re not enough to take you to profitability, you need net-new customers.

So we talked back in November and again in XX about the “opportunity recognition journal” which is a tool for evaluating opportunities that come your way. Here’s a video about it.

The Opportunity Journal has three categories:

• Engagement (your talent)
• Learning Curve (how easily you’ll be able to make something happen here), and 
• Performance (what you’re able to execute and where you struggle).

So, when applying this to customer acquisition, it might look like:

• Engagement – what are you good at? Speaking in public? On the radio? In person? One-to-one?
• Learning Curve – how can you make something happen with that? What’s your conversion rate of listeners to buyers?
• Performance – what are you struggling with here? Is it follow up? Is it the sales conversation after the follow up? Is it crafting a specific solution for the prospect?

All of these tools we’ve gone over for the last year — traction channels, books, opportunity journal, business model canvas, Tom Ledbetter’s assessment, even 1 Million Cups, the Womens’ Business Center and the other resources we’ve highlighted on the show — SBDC, OBO, SBA — all these tools are only good if you USE them.

To work ON your business, not just IN it, you have to be intentional. You need a plan.

Segment 4

So what’s next? Check out http://www.facebook.com/startsomethingcolumbia for some live streams coming your way. And archived episodes will be available, too. Stay tuned. We’re not done yet!

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