Finding Leads without a Big Social Following
By Levina Kusumadjaja
You are desperate for leads, but here are your problems:
“What if I’m not an influencer on Instagram?”
“I don’t have a big social following on Instagram.”
“I’m not a content creator.”
“I’m introverted and I’m not outgoing.”
“DM-ing or emailing people to sell my services are not for me.”
Well, welcome to the club—I am also all of the above. I’m an introverted person through and through, and I’m not exactly a natural salesperson. And I asked myself this question a lot: “How will I find leads if I’m not outgoing and I don’t have a big social following?” In my head, getting clients mean you had to be someone relatively famous on Instagram. You have to be this person who gets at least 300 likes, 100 new followers, and 50 shares a day. It had to be all about that and until you actually get there, you won’t be able to find that many clients. Correct?
WRONG. Absolutely wrong.
Melinda totally debunked my mindset through a workshop she did on Lead Gen for Introverts. I learned that finding meaningful leads and getting connected with the clients we want to work with don’t equal to a big social following. However, they do equal to building meaningful relationships. So, our job isn’t simply to grow the number of our followers on Instagram—our job is to really connect and build friendships with people, as many as we can, and then give value to them, as much as we can.
Here are four things I did to begin my journey in building a lead generation and finding meaningful leads:
Start with the community you are in now.
You must already have friends and families who you know and who know you. These people trust you already and they are open to have honest conversations with you. Find people that might possibly be your ideal clients and go to them. Reconnect with them and maintain those relationships as you go. (PS: If you don’t have any community, find one and get connected to one!)
Start with empathy.
Come not wanting to offer a solution, but come wanting to understand where your ideal clients are at. Come asking questions and come genuinely wanting to know what they are struggling with, which areas they need help in. This will help you understand their language and their mindset.
Start by giving value.
Don’t begin with a mindset to sell, but begin with a mindset to serve. Once you know where your ideal clients are at and what they are struggling with, begin to give value. Think about what you can offer that can help them solve their problem. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Maybe it can look like a list of your top 10 podcast episodes on brand strategy that really helped you in your learning process. Maybe it can be 5 coffee shops that are so comfortable for designers to work at outside of their office. It can really be anything, as long as it is helping your ideal clients solve their problem.
Start prioritizing it.
You need to put in effort to build relationships and to make sure that people can find you and reach you. Without that, how can you connect? This takes time and intentionality. It isn’t something that just happens, it needs to be worked on. So start prioritizing connecting. If you want to find leads, you need to be connected with people who are your leads or who might help connect you to those leads.
You have to start somewhere. Finding leads doesn’t need to look like a giant leap into this huge social following before you can actually start doing meaningful work. Sometimes the best people to work with are those you already know. Of course there are more things you can and will need to do after you have done the four things above. However, it’s still a pretty strong start. If you keep reconnecting with old friends and families, and keep connecting with new friends, there is no doubt you will end up finding a lead you would love to work with.
Cheers!
Levina
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About the author:
Levina is a writer based in Indonesia. Because of Melinda Livsey, she recognized the power of brand strategy for every creative. She is sharing about her learnings as she goes to help creatives have fun in their growth and journey of building brands. Connect with her on LinkedIn and say hi!