6 Ways To Bring In More Business During A Slow Season

Welcome and welcome back to the Point of the Story podcast. I'm your host Sara Noel and you're welcome for giving you the only podcast you won't have to listen to on two-time speed. In Point of the Story, we're talking marketing, business, confidence, motherhood, and everything in between. Point of the story? I can't wait to yak with you. What's up squirrels? Welcome back to the Point of the Story podcast. Today we are talking about a freelancers nightmare, okay? A business owner's monster zinc level nightmare. We're talking about slow seasons, okay? You know how it goes. You check your inbox and there's crickets and you refresh your DMs and nobody cares about you. When you open your striped dashboard and there's nothing and you look at your thrive cart notifications and there's like a one sale in there and then you start spiraling, okay? Is it me? Is my business dying? Should I quit and start selling essential oils? No, okay? Absolutely the fuck not. Obviously you knew where I was going with this. Of course my answer to that is no. No selling essential oils on my watch unless you're super passionate about lavender and that's going to be, you know, your whole ass business. Then, you know, in which case, go off. But here's the thing, all right? Slow seasons do happen, okay? There are times, naturally, where things are going to be slower than others. Like there are times where my inquiries are slower than others. There are months that I get more sales than others. Of course, this happens, okay? We can't expect 100% obsession with our brands 100% of the time. Like I said, slow seasons do happen. People have things going on in their lives, right? People take vacations. What if they're at the beach reading their smitey little romance novel, eating watermelon sauce and living their best life? Do you think that they are thinking about website copy or SEO strategy or Pinterest management or design or CRM setups or brand photography or whatever it is you sell? No, of course they're not thinking about that. But does that mean that you just wait? You just twiddle your thumbs. Hope the universe drops a client in your lap. Absolutely not. Is again, my answer to that. This is what I believe about slow seasons, okay? Despite their, of course, being outside factors that may contribute to why you're getting less inquiries or sales like, you know, I don't know, the country being on fire. I do think there is always a way to bring in business. Now, I'm not an idiot. I know that there are times that it maybe is legitimately slow for you. Cool. This has never happened to me, though, in a way that has made me freak out. Have there been times where I get less than average inquiries in a week or a month? Yeah. Sure. Have I ever freaked out about that? No, absolutely not because I know what to do about it. There will be no day that your girl is sitting on God's green earth crying about how I'm not getting inquiries or sales. I would just get up. I would just do something about it. So I'm going to tell you what I would do if I felt like I were experiencing a particularly slow season. And this can be for any season, any month of the year, anytime that you feel like things are slowing down or anytime that you feel like you want things to pick up, whether they're slow or not. So I'm walking you through six things you can do when business feels slow. Things that I have personally done, things that actually work and things that make you feel like you're not just sitting on your ass waiting for somebody to come pet you or hire you. Okay? Let's get into it. Like I said, there's always a way to bring in business. Maybe it is a slow season and maybe it's a legitimate slow season, but you have to be willing to do something about it. Okay? Because there's two ways that you can react to a slow season. First way, cry about it, complain about it, text your friends and, you know, negative self talk your way into a spiral. Or we could do something. Before I share all of the strategies with you, I do want to give you a little disclaimer. I cannot guarantee they will work for you. They have worked for me. They have worked for my clients. They have worked for my students. They worked for my friends. But just because you hear me saying six things that you can do in business feels slow doesn't mean that I am now responsible for the success of your business. Okay? You're going to have to put some effort in here, but these are my six recommendations, the things that I want to share with you that I feel will work. But again, don't hold me accountable if they don't work for you. Okay? Because maybe we have another problem we need to analyze if one of these six things doesn't work for you. But either way, let's get into it. Strategy number one, rekindle an old collaboration flame. Okay? One of the easiest ways to book more work is to work with people you've already worked with. If you've ever collaborated with another business owner before, maybe you co-led a workshop, maybe you teamed up on a client project, maybe you referred leads to each other. Now is the time to check back in. Okay? Send this person a message. Tell them how much you loved working together. See if they'd be open to collaborating again or referring clients your way or, you know, ask them how things are going for them. Maybe that you can send a project their way and maybe they'll do the same in return. Just put some vibe checks out there. Okay? Put your fillers out there. See what's going on. For each of these strategies, I'm going to give you a specific example. So if this were me and I were like, okay, I'm looking to reach out to some past collaborators that I've worked with before to maybe bring in some more business. I could reach out to Sarah Klaiz, I'll show a website designer and say, hey, I loved working on the Monical Productions website with you. If you ever have any clients who need a website copy, I would love to collaborate with you again. Or maybe I would reach out to Lindsay Clark from Mariko Studio and say, hey, I loved working on Celeste website with you. I wanted to share with you that I now offer website copy VIP days. So if you ever find yourself, you know, with another client that needs copy more quickly, I would love to work with you in that capacity. Or maybe I would reach out to Tori's Brinkle and say, actually, literally just did this the other day, specifically to Tori. I said, hey, do you want to post a collab, post with me on Instagram about website copy tips or like how to get started DIYing your website because Tori and I, well, mostly Tori. Tori has a business, actually, I have nothing to do with it. Tori has a business called EldestdaughterStudio and I write the website copy templates that match the templates in her design shop. So I write the website copy templates for the show at website templates that she sells and designs. So I asked her, hey, do you want to make a collab post about that with me because I would love to promote that to my audience more since I have an affiliate link. And I would also obviously love for her to make those sales. So those are examples of things that I might do if I were going to reach out to an old collaboration flame. Obviously, I'm a website copywriter. So my first thought is always reach out to designers. This is something that I haven't had to do in a while. Knock on wood because obviously I'm having a good time over here. Booking my website copy projects. But if for some reason I felt a lull, that's the first thing I would do is I would reach out to the designers that I worked with previously or even maybe designers that I would like to work with. I would compliment their work and I would share, you know, it's on my bucket list to work with you if you ever need a copywriter or think of me. Obviously, this is not a super like action forward thing like this is not going to directly result in a project every single time, but you absolutely will be top of mind for these people if you reach out to them. So people love working with people they already know and trust and vibe with. I recommend you go and make the first move, especially if you're confident about your project with each other like after working on my client's Celeste website, I feel super confident reaching out to Lindsey because she knows that we did a great job together on that website. You know what I mean? Okay, strategy number two, recreate your last ideal client project. Think about your absolute dream client, the one who made work feel fun and easy who really loved working on their project or it came out super awesome or maybe they gave you great feedback or you just like their energy. Whoever this dream client is this ideal person, retouch them. Okay, email them, tell them how much you love working together, ask them if they know anyone just like them who needs your services or share with them that you loved working with them and tell them if there's ever anything that you can do for them again, you're more than willing. You're sitting here ready to go. An example for me, I could email Katie Campbell and I could say hey congrats on watching your website. I loved every second of working with you. If you were any of your friends or colleagues need a website copywriter, I'd love for you to send them my way. Your website was awesome. Cool. Another thing that I'm going to do is literally on my to-do list to reach out to Katie specifically and ask her if she wants to do a collab post with me on Instagram because I'm going to write a portfolio piece about her website because my new website is launching and her website's a great example and it's going to be one of the ones that I feature on the first page of my portfolio. So I'm going to reach out to her and say that in that same message I could say and by the way I loved working on your project like if you have anyone that's you know you're same vibe send them my way. I could say something like that. I could reach out to the curious collective and other one of my clients. They're ADHD therapists for obviously people that have ADHD. I could reach out to them and say hey I loved working on your project so much if you ever need help with anything let me know. I know you have a launch coming up soon like if you need help with the sales page even if you just want me to look it over I'd love to work with you blah blah blah. A lot of people feel in my opinion uncomfortable about this. These six things that I'm sharing with you today are things that I've shared with people a million times. I've shared with my friends. I've shared with my clients. I've shared with my students. These specific ideas and I feel like strategy number two is the one that people feel awkward about which is funny to me because you're not like cold pitching someone like you worked with this person before but I feel like people forget that it's an option to straight up say hey I'd love to work with you again or hey I'd love to work with someone like you or you know if you hear of anyone eating a website copywriter I would love for you to recommend me if you want to you can implement a referal bonus program that's not something I've ever had to do but I know people who do it and are super successful with it maybe you could reach out to all of your past clients and say hey I'm adding a referral bonus program to you know my offerings if you recommend someone to work with me and they book I'll send you $100 on PayPal or something like that so that's definitely an option for sure but I like this specific strategy because it helps you continue your relationship with the clients that you really love and it makes them feel special like every time I've ever reached out to a past client to say hey I'm checking in on you I hope things are great if you need any help in the future let me know I absolutely loved working with you like your project was one of my favorites blah blah blah it results in some thing and they also feel great about themselves. They're like, oh my god, no way I was one of your favorites. Like one of my clients recently I wrote a website copy for my client Rachel, her brand is called Hay Sleepy Baby if you want to stalk her. She knows that she's one of my favorites and she recently just asked me to speak in her group membership that she has because obviously I stayed top of mine for because I continue to respond to her stories, talk to her, tell her she's awesome, compliment her website, you know what I mean? So I feel that it is a great idea to stay in contact with the clients that you loved working with. And another thing that I would recommend doing specific to strategy number two is ask yourself why you liked those people specifically. What was it about that project that was so ideal? Why did you love working with them? What made it great? Was it their industry? Was it their personality? Was it the type of work you did for them? How can you attract more people like that or more projects like that? I find it to be so much easier to create content instead of having this like fake idea of an ideal client thinking about all the best parts about the clients you actually have and actually liked working with and thinking to yourself, okay, would Katie like this post? Would Rachel like this post? Would Adrian like this post? Would Sally like this post? Like is this speaking to the specific thing that they wanted? Another super helpful tip, this has nothing to do with getting business in a slow season but a super helpful tip I have for you if you're thinking about marketing to your ideal client or that's a focus of yours and you feel like you're not sure if what you're posting is like hitting for them specifically record your discovery calls. If you have video discovery calls on Zoom or Google Meet or whatever, record them and ask when you have this discovery call if you're a service-based business owner ask them why they reached out. Something that I like to start my discovery calls with obviously we have a little chitchat in the beginning and then I usually kick it off by giving them the floor and saying so tell me a bit more about what you're looking for and it's super open ended they can say whatever they want nine times out of 10 they're talking about their specific issues for me obviously in website operators they talk about their specific issues with their website why they don't like it what's not working what they want to happen and they're telling me in their own words obviously exactly what they want from me or from a website operator in general and I find it to be so helpful for content creation because they're it's literally my ideal client sitting in front of me somebody who likes me because they inquired in telling me exactly what they want and need so record your discovery calls and go back and watch them I usually do it like quarterly and then I'll write down like all the things that they said about their specific situation and that helps me a lot in my marketing you're welcome okay let's move on to strategy number three put your name out there even during the slowest of slow seasons people are still looking for freelancers and creatives it's not like oh it's a slow season let me throw in the towel nobody spending money people are spending money okay even when the countries on fire even when things suck even when you know they're catch us through up even when it's a snow day people are still spending money but they're only spending money on the things that they think are 100% worth it I feel like that's the distinction we need to make here sure maybe there's a slow season maybe there's a recession maybe things suck but people will still spend their money on things that they deem worth it I'm hearing a lot of talk about lipstick offers right now I feel like I've seen a lot of creators posting about it that just essentially means when it's a recession okay people buy little tiny things that make them feel better I I don't know the statistic about this and I don't even know who the first person to say it was I want to say that it was VIX but I'm not sure VIX Melger was going to talk about you can go stalker she has a membership that she's launching I don't know if it's launched already by the time you're hearing this podcast but it's definitely out there you can for sure find it I highly recommend going to follow her because if you're concerned with your audience growth her membership that she just launched that's the entire focus it's called volume you should definitely check it out I feel like I should have an affiliate link over here but I don't but go check it out anyway I think she's the one that brought it up first but I have seen that a lot of people talk about this essentially there is data to prove that during a recession or during a particularly hard a financial time people will buy things like lipstick to enhance their experience so people are not stopping spending money they are just changing their spending habits the reason I'm bringing this up is because I want you to know that even in a slow season people are still spending their money so it's important for you to put your name out there okay just because somebody's not in your DMs or they're not filling out your inquiries doesn't mean they're not online looking to spend their money or being willing to spend their money if they were to hear about the right offer or the right person these people are in Facebook groups they're asking for frecks from their friends they're posting on threads that maybe they're just other places okay and they haven't seen you yet so for strategy number three I would love for you to get your name out there in a place you don't usually market okay side no I'm not gonna list all of the places that you can market your business right now because I already did list it for you if you go to my Instagram @btlcopy and you click on my post about how people will do literally anything to sell their offer except talk about their offer it's a picture of a like blue rotary phone I've listed out a ton of places you can yap about yours and I also have 28 ideas for marketing yourself in my sales challenge which Adrian will love to link below for you it'll be the best 40 bucks who spend it a long time I've been having people DM me all month telling me they're getting clients and sales from participating in this challenge and I think you're gonna love it it's super easy you get all 28 tasks in a notion dashboard plus a bunch of extra other resources because it's me in this notion dash and I've been marketing it as my February sales challenge just because I was hosting it live from February 1st to February 28th but there's nothing to do with February in the challenge like you can buy the challenge and start it on March 1st started on November 1st started in fucking 2029 if you want to it's always going to be relevant and you don't have to do it in order you don't have to do it in February so if you happen to have 40 bucks and you want to learn how to market your business better and you need an excuse to do it like a challenge highly recommend that's going to be linked for you in the description so anyway here's an example of marketing somewhere you probably don't take advantage of often go to a Facebook group search for your service like website copywriter Pinterest manager whatever your title is filter by recent post and I promise you there is going to be somebody looking for you somewhere okay drop your info in the comments my specific example to this women in marketing is a Facebook group that back in the day like we're talking 2020 2021 back in the day I used to get clients from this all the time so that was another group that I'm part of creating cultivate is another one go in there type website copywriter I promise there's a post that has somebody asking some question about website copy or websites or does anybody know a website copywriter I would go in there and I would say hey insert name I specialize in website copy and would love to help you with insert detail about their project you can find my services here between lines copy dot com slash copywriting dash services the end okay the reason I'm going to do that despite when the post was despite how many comments were on the post is because other people will go into that Facebook group and search website copywriter when they're looking for one so I don't care if Susie Q posted this on the Facebook group in literally 2023 I'm going to comment on it anyway despite there may be being 115 comments already because just in case somebody might be searching for a website copywriter they're going to go in the search feature of that group and look it up and guess whose name is going to be there mine can you tell I'm speaking from experience this has happened to me so many times it's the most random strategy but people literally will say I found you in a Facebook group and I'm like bitch what I haven't been active in a Facebook group in five years and they're telling me they found me from the comments especially in the beginning of my business has happened all the time and again this is not me being like strategy number three go on Facebook because that's going to be different for everyone like do you have an active Facebook group for your specific industry I have no idea okay I'm just a voice in your ear I can't see you I don't know what you do all I'm saying is I want you to put your name out there in a place that you don't usually market so if you post on threads 24/7 all the time keep doing that sure but maybe one day try posting on LinkedIn try posting on your feed on Instagram try posting on a Facebook group do something else just to see if maybe you get some more traction that way strategy number four blog more and Pinterest more if you are not using Pinterest to drive traffic to your blogs and your offers you are missing out on 400 million monthly users okay and there might even be more monthly users on Pinterest nowadays okay I actually have no idea I've been out here being like 400 million monthly users because that's what I first heard in like fucking 2019 there might be more now okay I bet there are because it's quarter one and the people are still out here with their inspo on Pinterest if you have time which obviously you do it's a slow season right you're sitting on your ass doing nothing apparently if you have time to be worried about not having enough inquiries or not making enough sales you have time to blog okay write a blog post I bet you have an idea in your notes app I bet you have half a blog post in your WordPress draft I bet you have some sort of Instagram caption you read you can repurpose I bet you have a newsletter you could just copy and paste and use as a blog right now blog okay when you have time this is when you should be taking advantage of the fact that blogs are the best things ever okay if you didn't listen to my last episode about how I would grow my business from scratch if I had to start all over I was talking about blogging and saying that I would absolutely recommend that be the number one thing you do to get your business off the ground because there will be times where you don't have time to blog like right now in my current state of business I do not have time to blog if it were a slow season guess what I would make the time for blogging okay I would explain more about this but let me just tell you Pinterest and blog are a match made in heaven and I happen to have a Pinterest and blogging masterclass that I taught with my Pinterest manager Sarah Burke Adrian would love to link that for you too in the description I'm sure it's super affordable and we go over everything we talk about blogging strategy we talk about how to market your blog on Pinterest how to grow on Pinterest all that good stuff is in our Pinterest blogging masterclass so this is not going to be a Pinterest blogging episode this is just my strategy number four if I were you and things were slow I'd be blogging up a storm baby writing more blogs pinning more often and driving traffic while I take advantage of and enjoy the rare quote unquote slow season of yours. Okay. This would be the time that I would be using to spend on my own business. And I think blogging is a great way to do that. Strategy number five, we have two left. Strategy number five is tell your business friends you're open for work. I know that sounds simple, but I bet you didn't think of it. Okay. Maybe you're texting them complaining, but did you say, hey, so and so, I'm looking for a new project in February. If you happen to know anything, sometimes the simplest strategy is the most effective. Just tell people my example. I could text my group chat right now and say, hey, guys, I'm looking to fill one or two spots for August. Like, if you know anyone who's looking for a website copy, let me know. The end done. Okay. If they're real friends, they won't think it's weird. In fact, we'll probably say, oh, yeah, I need a project to like let's, if you think of anyone that knows, you know, they need a Pinterest manager. They need social media help or they need SEO. Let me know. And if you don't have business friends, tell me. Okay. Join my sales challenge and tell the 150 people in our Slack group. Tell literally anyone post about it on Instagram. Okay. I feel that we will do anything except talk about or offer. So strategy number five is fucking talk about it. Please. Okay. Strategy number six, the final strategy that I want to make sure that you do this is the most important strategy out of all six we've talked about today. And that is making sure your services page or your sales page is ready for those new leads. Okay. Maybe you're doing all five other strategies plus all the 28 strategies in my sales challenge. And every other thing every other marketer has ever told you and you're out here marketing your business. Okay. And it's still not working. It's because you have a copy problem. You have a messaging problem. You have a website problem. And that's why you're not getting sales or inquiries or purchases or, you know, applications for your program or whatever it is you're trying to get more of. If you feel like you're putting yourself out there and you're still not getting those actions, those inquiries, those sales, you have a copy problem. So I want you to make sure that your services page or your sales page is perfection. Is your offer clear? Is your pricing easy to find? Is there a big obvious way to book you? Your website should be answering your readers questions. It should be doing the heavy lifting for you. It should be your, I was going to say billboard, but I actually talk about all the time how your website shouldn't be a billboard and it should be a conversation. But a billboard and the sense that it should be obvious what you do and who you do it for. And then it should answer every question that your reader has. Okay. Okay. So before you go complaining about a slow season, just make sure that your services page or your sales page is up to snuff. And it actually shares the things that your readers will want to know and addresses their objections. It explains what's included with your services or with your program or your offer or whatever it is. And if you're wondering, okay, six Sarah, how the fuck do I do that? Like, how do I know if my services page or my sales page suck? I have options for you. Okay. First option. I happen to do copy audits. So if you want me to look over your copy for you, edit your copy for you, explain to you what's good, what's not. Reach out to me. Okay. Book a copy audit. I would absolutely love to do that for you. I'm reframing the way that I do my copy audits. So when I launch my new site, the sales page will be live. But if you're curious about how you can get my edits on your doc DM me and say, hey, I was listening to your podcast and I want to copy audit or you could go to betweenlinescopy.com/copy-audit. If you want me to record a video and have a call with me to talk about this kind of thing, there are two ways that I do copy audits. We'll talk about that later. But I will absolutely look it over for you if you want me to. Another option is go to my site betweenlinescopy.com, click on blog and then type in services page. I have a blog post about it. Adrian could link it as well. I also teach a very, very detailed services page lesson inside of site theory sprint. My website copy course, it's evergreen. You can buy it whenever you want and you can use the code millionaire for $100 off. So I teach you both for free on my blog and for paid in my course, we all learn how to write an entire website. That's how I can help you. And if you have a sales page you want help with, of course, I could audit that for you or audit that for you as well. But I also have a mini sales page course. If you're curious about how to write a sales page, I got you with that both in the course and on the blog. So I'll have all of these things linked in the description for you. But I can absolutely help you with your services page or your sales page. But I don't have to. Okay, this doesn't have to be an us thing. You can totally do it on your own. If you just ask yourself, put on a pair of fresh eyes. Okay, pretend you're your ideal client, your ideal buyer. Would they actually get it? Okay. Would they actually understand what you're offering? Why they need it and why they should choose you to help them with it? And if the answer to that is no, we have a problem. Okay. Okay. Let's recap the six strategies real quick. And then I'm going to tell you what the point of the story of today's episode is. So strategy number one was rekindling old collaboration flame work with somebody that or reach out to somebody that you've worked with before. Strategy number two, recreate your last ideal client project by reaching out to an ideal client of yours and telling them that they you loved working with them and ask them if they need help or ask them if they have any friends that are just like them that you could maybe be recommended to work with. Strategy number three was put your name out there. Okay, get your name in a place that you don't usually market. Number four, blog more and Pinterest more. Number five, tell your business friends you open for work. And of course, number six, make sure your site is good enough. Okay, your services page and your sales page need to be fucking sexy or else. So point of the story is stop waiting and start selling. Okay. Like I said, I absolutely do believe in slow seasons. I understand that they exist. I do believe that sometimes people aren't spending as much and people are taking breaks and prioritizing what matters to them and maybe the world is on fire. But I do not believe in sitting around and blaming a slow season for why you're not making money because there is money to be made. And you just need to find the people that are willing to spend the money on what you are offering by explaining to them why it's worth it and consistently showing them why you're worth it. So if you want things to be slow, great. Own that. Prioritize your rest, focus on your health, do whatever you need to do. But if you don't want things to be slow, stop crying. Okay, get up. Do something about it. Post about it. Pitch someone. Tell something. Reach out. Try something new. Like I said, I have a $40 sales challenge that has 28 tasks for you to get your booty out there and start selling and to help you feel less annoying and uncomfortable and awkward when you do talk about your offer. I have a couple other resources Adrian will link for you in the description of this podcast too. But that's my advice. Get your booty out there. Okay. Maybe it's a slow season, but it does not have to be. Okay. Okay. Thanks so much for listening. I love your guts. Please make sure that you tag me on your story when you're listening to my lovely podcast because maybe I'll buy your coffee this week. And if you leave me a review on Apple podcasts, like I said, I will literally kiss you on the mouth. Okay. Let me know when you did that. And I have a little present for you. Send me a screenshot of your review via DM on Instagram at BTL Coffee. And I have a present coming your way. Okay. Okay. Kisses. Bye. [BLANK_AUDIO]