“We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results.”

~ Henry Melvill.”

In this post I share with you 10 super practical and fairly simple actions you can take to activate your business network.

Let me start by sharing a few words about why it’s so important to have your business network activated. First of all, for the work-at-home, solopreneur, it’s essential to our mental wellbeing and happiness to have a well connected tribe of people around you. The more connected your network is, the more front of mind you are for people, which means more support, more connection and oftentimes more referrals.

I’m also a firm believer that, in life (and business) we get back what we put out into the world and as such generosity and service, together, form the bedrock of my business. When you extend kindness to others, there is a ripple effect. It leads to more happiness and more kindness all round. For me, it’s just a wonderful way to live and to do business.

With that said, here are 10 things that I do on the regular to keep my network alive, healthy and well-connected:

1. Do my outreach challenge

This a challenge that my old business coach set me back when I first started out in business, and one I set most of my 1:1 clients when we first start working together. The challenge is to reach out to 50 people in 7 days. The only purpose of your communication is to connect (see this video for more on that). Think short and sweet messages (via email or social media) to check in with people you know, as well as people you don’t yet have a relationship with. For someone you know it might be as simple as: Hey, how’s it going? It’s been a while and you popped into my thoughts and I wondered how you are. For a new contact, it might be as simple as: Hey, I noticed that you’ve been putting some amazing content out lately and I love what you are up to in the world. Just wanted to drop you a line to let you know that I appreciate what you do. The key is to keep it simple and that’s why it’s 50 people in only 7 days. If you truly follow through with this challenge, I can assure you that magical things will happen.

2. Write to your former clients

Ask how they are and if there is anything you can support them with, offer your support, freely. I like to do this at least every 6 months. For me it’s a way to thank my former clients for the money, time, effort and energy they spent on our work together and also when someone has invited me into their life as their coach, it feels important to maintain and honour the relationship over the long term.

3. Go through your subscriber list

Review your subscriber list to see who regularly opens your newsletters – reach out and say hello, thank them for reading your newsletter, offer your support. Don’t jump in straight away with offering something as that can sometimes come across as a bit intense but ask them how they are and if there is anything that they’re struggling with. If you see something you can help with, then offer something specific and relevant. For example, if I write to a subscriber and ask how their business is and they respond by telling me that they are struggling to get clients, I might offer to send them my best resources on the topic or even offer them a complimentary session for us to identify some strategies that could help.

4. Do some audience research

This is a great way to open a two-way dialogue between you and members of your audience, there are many simple ways you can do audience research ranging from a simple question to an in depth conversation. This video walks you through 5 different types of research you can do. Pick one and do it this week.

5. Curate an article

Create an article using contributions from other experts in your field. Click here for an example of one I did and also click here for one I was invited to take part in. This is a wonderful way to provide great content for your people, cultivate deeper connections with your peers and get your business in front of other people’s audiences. You don’t want to insist on it (because that feels icky) but don’t forget to invite your contributors to share the piece with their audience once published.

6. Go hang out in your favourite Facebook group 

Give yourself a set amount of time and the goal to find 5 posts you can leave a meaningful and supportive comment on. Be sure to choose topics that relate to your area of expertise and be generous in the information you share. My top tip for using Facebook groups for your business outreach is to pick one or two groups that contain your ideal clients and leave the rest. It’s very easy to waste time and energy flitting from group to group on Facebook. Concentrate your efforts and pick one or two groups to show up, shine and be of service in. (If you’re not a member of my Facebook group, the Conscious Business Collective, you can join here!)

7. Ask for referrals

Reach out to anyone who has experienced your work in the past (be that free or paid work) and ask them if they know anyone who would benefit from a complimentary session with you. I like to invite people to gift a session to a friend of theirs, who they feel could benefit. To see an example of a referral request email I have sent in the past click here.

8. Reach out to your biggest fans 

Those people who like and comment on all of your posts. Send them a direct and personal message to thank them and to find out how they are. If after you’ve made the initial connection there’s an obvious way you could support them, offer your help generously. If it leads to a real conversation great, but be mindful not to force it.

9. Offer your audience something for free

For coaches this could be a complimentary session, for teachers a free class, web designers might offer a free website review, healers a taster session. Personally I think that it’s far better to offer this on a 1:1 basis rather than to blast it out to everyone. You’ll want to choose people who are fans of your work and let them know you are gifting this to them because of their loyalty and support.

10. Interview someone in your industry who you admire 

It’s wonderful for your audience, it helps forge a new deeper relationship with someone you admire and there’s also a chance that you’ll get more exposure, should they share the interview with their audience. Click here for an example of an interview I did and another one here and here. If you can get interviewed by someone else, even better!

So there you have it, 10 ways to activate your business network. If you did just one of these a week, I think you would be stunned by the results.

If I could give you one piece of advice on how to approach all of the above, it would be to come from a place of service. If you see this list as a strategy to make money, your efforts will likely fail. Having expectations about what results you’ll get is more than likely to impact the results negatively.

Approach each of these with love and care.Do each task simply because it feels good to connect and give back. Have your intention be simply to connect and to serve. That’s where the magic of this lies.

[09:44] Shifting the focus away from the numbers and more on the relationship side of things: “I personally don’t think it’s healthy to get fixated on the numbers.”

[10:18] “What is coming through very strongly in the online marketing world at the moment is that relationship-based marketing and anything that is human focused, people focused is where people have the edge these days.”

[12:50] The importance of intention. 

[14:50] What we mean by connection: “I basically just want to have lovely conversations with amazing people where I share what I know.”

“The relationships that I help people to develop are mutually beneficial relationships with kindred spirits.”

[19:00] Advice for introverts: “Don’t think about connecting with lots of people and think about having deep, quality connections with a few people…you just connect with one person at a time and it feels good.”

[22:00] The practicalities of connecting with people: “I think the most important thing people can start doing is tuning in to that little ping you get in your brain when you see someone who you feel like: I really want to get to know this person.”

“It’s not about connecting with as many people as possible, but you do have to do a little bit of detective work while you are getting that kindred spirit radar honed.”

[27:00] What do I say when I reach out to someone I don’t know?

[30:30] Why you should send out a ton of messages.

[33:00] How to channel your inner Labrador.

[36:00] What else should I be doing on top of connecting to grow my business?

“Everything I do to market my business comes down to having a conversation with somebody. Especially if you are just starting out, it’s the only thing you need to worry about.”

If you would prefer to listen to this interview rather than watch the video you can do so over on Soundcloud by clicking below. 

Resources mentioned:

• To sign up for Eli’s Sunday Letters head here.
• To watch John P. Morgan’s wonderful video about connection head here.

Want to know more about Eli:

Eli Trier lives in the wonderful city of Copenhagen, Denmark and is a community builder for Quiet Revolutionaries. She helps introverts with big dreams to get connected and build thriving, engaged communities around their businesses, so that they can make a massive impact, find their dream clients, and make their corner of the world a better place.

A long-time business owner, Eli knows first-hand the power of human connection to build a business, and her unique approach got her featured in The FT Guide to Business Networking. She specialises in creating powerful, strategic online community projects and loves every minute of her work (even the boring bits). When she’s not working you can find her curled up with a book, painting, or hanging out with her fiance Lars.

Find her online: 

• Check out Eli’s website here.
• Find Eli on Instagram here.

“Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone’s soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd.”

~ Rumi

In this post I want to share with you a key way to grow your service-based, purpose-driven business in a sustainable and conscious way.

Alongside content creation, authentic outreach is something you should be practicing daily in your business if you want it to grow and thrive.

So what is authentic outreach? Well in the context of growing your business, essentially it means connecting with people in your community and beyond in a direct, personal and meaningful way. By outreach, what I’m talking about is intentionally reaching out to people with the dual purpose of connecting on a deeper level and doing what you can to be of service.

If it’s still not entirely clear what I mean, It might be helpful to also tell you what authentic outreach is not.

It’s not:

• Marketing to your audience.
• Spamming people.
• Pitching your products and services.
• Posting on social media.
• Blogging.
• Email marketing.
• Newsletters.
• Networking.

For sure you’ve heard that “networking” is good for business and at first glance it’s easy to mistake outreach for networking but there is a fundamental difference between the two. The difference is in the intention. With networking the intention is to get more business, in other words to get something from the other person. With outreach, the intention is to build and deepen genuine and mutually beneficial relationships, meaning that you give something to the other person.

What’s the purpose of that, you might ask, if it’s not to get more business?

Well because for conscious business owners, who do what they do for more than just money, there are a whole host of benefits to having meaningful connections with your community and audience. As well as the fact that it just feels good to be connected, doing it consciously brings about more opportunities to collaborate, help and serve people and learn more about what people might need from you.

As well as this, often, because people feel that we are not trying to sell to them, new business comes as a result. If you’re not convinced (or even if you are), I highly recommend this wonderful video by Coach, John P Morgan who artfully makes the case for taking time to connect with people in our network.

So what does outreach look like in practice? below I share a number of ways you can reach out to people.

• You could take the time to send a personal 1:1 email to a subscriber of yours. I like to go through my list of email subscribers occasionally and when I come across someone whose name I don’t recognise but who is regularly opening and reading my emails, I love to drop them a little note to say hello and to see if there is anything in particular they are struggling with that I might be able to help them with. Sometimes this results in me offering a complimentary coaching session to go deeper on something they need help with.
• When someone friend requests you on social media, rather than mindlessly accept the request, you could write a personal message asking them what inspired them to connect and try to find out more about who they are and what they are up to in the world.
• When someone takes the time to comment on or share your post on social media, don’t just like their comment or share, write something meaningful in response. Tell them how much you appreciate their gesture and find out more about what they got from your content.
• You could reach out to your former clients to say hello and see how they are. I like to do this at least every 6 months (more often with clients who I’ve stayed in close contact with) and sometimes, I’ll gift them a complimentary coaching session if they indicate they could use some support.
• If you do your work through 1:1 sessions, you could reach out to people who have been impacted by your work (perhaps a former client or just someone who has had a session with you before) and ask them if they know anyone who would benefit from a complimentary session with you and invite them to share a session with you as a gift from them to their contact. It’s a lovely way to have more people experience your work, it allows you to be of service and has the person gifting the session feel great too.
• You could send a message to someone who you don’t know who has inspired you and tell them so. Let me give you an example of what that can look like. Years ago, I was featured on this website (because of a lovely connection I’d made with the founder) and a few weeks later, so was the wonderful Eli Trier, I loved her piece and felt we had a lot in common (plus I loved her art) so I wrote her an email simply telling her that. We’ve been in touch ever since and this month, she’s featuring me in her wonderful community project Redefining Community and next month she’s teaching a class inside my Female Business Academy aptly called Mastering The Art of Connection. So much amazingness has come from a simple and genuine impulse to connect. We’ve both got so much out of the connection, yet neither of us have ever tried to sell each other one thing.

As you reach out to people, be sure to do so with an intention to serve, ask how they are, listen deeply to what they are telling you and ask yourself if there is anything you could share that might help them. Perhaps there is a book or article you would recommend, or some other resource that could be useful but even if you do have something you think could help the other person, always be sure to ask permission to send it before you do.

Sometimes, people use the idea of “being of service” as a strategy to sell or self-promote and it always feels icky. Here’s an example that demonstrates how not to do this. Several months ago a woman reached out to me on LinkedIn, I accepted her invitation and within seconds she had sent me an message that contained the line “I would love to give you a free copy of my…” It was a guide on how to get started with WordPress (one look at my website and she would have known that I offer website design so I’m not likely to need her guide) and when I clicked the link it didn’t take me to the “free” guide, she said she was gifting me, it took me to an email opt-in, so not so free after all.

Imagine if she’d just tried to get to know me on a deeper level? If she’d just tried to genuinely connect. Or if she had asked my permission to send me the guide, asked if it would be useful for me? Perhaps later down the line, once a relationship was formed, maybe I’d share that guide with my audience. Maybe I might have even referred clients to her. But I guess we’ll never know, because I knew as quickly as it took her to cut and paste her generic message, that she wasn’t someone I had any interest in getting to know better.

As you get into a rhythm of outreach, you will inevitably encounter people who could benefit from your services. If you have formed a relationship rooted in integrity and caring, they are highly likely to hire you, if it’s a fit for them to do so. Or they’ll recommend you to people they know who would benefit from working with you. This is a beautiful and very fulfilling side benefit of connecting with people and what has always left me speechless is when someone with whom I’ve formed a relationship with over a number of years suddenly, and to my complete surprise, declares that they are ready to hire me as their coach. Believe it or not, this is the way a large proportion of my clients have been created.

I’m a huge fan of intentional and authentic outreach. Connection and Service just so happen to be two of my highest personal and professional values. Practicing outreach allows me to live in alignment with those values in a fun and fulfilling way. How about you? Have you tried using outreach in your business? Is it something that you think you might try after reading this post? Either way, let me know in the comments below. 

Let’s not mince words here. Starting a new business for the very first time can be fairly overwhelming. If you’ve never owned a business before, it can feel like you suddenly have to take on a multitude of roles, none of which you feel adequately prepared for. From finance and admin to web design and marketing and that’s just the business side, before we even think about the creation and delivery of our actual products and services.

Pile on to this the abundance of less than helpful business advice that litters every corner of the Internet these days and you can quite easily find yourself in deep water, suffering from cramp in both legs and without a proverbial float.

As you might imagine, this results in panic.

And when people feel panicked they will try just about anything they can to survive. Because here’s the thing. Most new business owners risked everything to take the leap, sometimes against the advice of loved ones and often left with a feeling they need to prove something to themselves or to others. The need to make this thing work can at times be blinding.

I believe that it’s for this reason that I see so many new (and sometimes even seasoned) business owners spinning their wheels on business activities that are only getting them more stuck and fast at the same time as getting in the way of them doing the one thing that could move them forward.

Before I share the one thing let’s look at a few examples of what I’m talking about.

Building the perfect website.

I can’t launch my business, reach out to new clients or network just yet because my website isn’t ready.

Sound familiar? I’ve witnessed countless business owners spend days, weeks and months tinkering with their website before they’ll actually put themselves out there and start actually serving their people. Websites are great, I’m not knocking them but they are not your business. Some of us may even be old enough to remember a world before the Internet existed. How did businesses make money then?

Crafting the perfect niche and/or client avatar 

I’ve spoken to many online business owners who are actively struggling with these two and they often tie in nicely with number 1 which goes something like this. I can’t finish my website because I haven’t completed my client avatar and/or chosen my niche. How’s that for tying yourself up in a nice, pretty bow of procrastination?

Have you ever considered that you’re struggling to define your ideal client and niche because you haven’t yet worked with enough people for that to have become clear yet?

Mastering social media

A brilliant place to procrastinate and avoid the real work of your business is on social media. I’ve seen so many people while away the hours and tie themselves in knots trying to beat an algorithm or execute a punishing social media strategy that involves posting, pinning and/or tweeting 10-20 times a day.

If I get over XXXX followers, I’ll only need to convert X% of those to buyers to make more than enough to live on.

It’s a hamster wheel and there is another way.

I know that some of you may be feeling a bit confused by what you’ve read so far. Surely having a solid and well optimised website, a clearly defined ideal client and niche and a consistent presence on social media are worthy goals to be working towards?

Well yes and no.

All of these activities are aimed at achieving one extremely important thing.

Making a deep enough connection to another human being that they trust you enough to buy from you. But, and here is the central point I’m trying to make here, these strategies take you all around the houses, when instead, you could so easily just hop, skip and jump across the village green and be exactly where you want to be in a heartbeat.

I’d like to make the case that these strategies can (if you let them) actually prevent you from doing the most important thing.

They stop you from slowing down enough to create the space to connect with just one person. And when I say connect I mean really connect, deeply and directly. As opposed to trying to talk to anyone and everyone through a cleverly crafted social media post.

Let me put this another way. Which of these two strategies feels like a more effective (as well as authentic and meaningful) use of your time?

1. Spending 6 months posting inspirational quotes on your FB Business page in the hope that one day you’ll have enough people following you that you start to make some sales.

Or

2. Reaching out to that one person who keeps crossing your mind, who you know your product or service could help, and saying: Hey fancy having a conversation about how I might be able to support you with that thing you’re struggling with?

If you chose number one, I’m probably not someone whose business advice you want to take note of.

Can you see the paradox at play here?

The simplest way to grow your business is often to talk to just one person and to do so directly. At the same time this also can feel like the hardest thing to do, so instead we spend all of our time trying to talk to thousands. 

So let me leave you with this piece of homework because I believe that if you could do one thing today that would further your business the fastest, it would be this. 

First of all, sit down and write down the names of 10 people who you would love to work with and who you believe you can help with your product or service. Secondly, reach out to them directly, be of service. deepen the relationship, offer your help, have a conversation.

Trust me when I tell you that the time spent deepening the relationship with those 10 people is worth a heck of a lot more than the 10 hours you could spend pinning instead and it feels so much better.

I’d love to know if you can relate to what I’ve shared here. Let me know in the comments below what comes up for you as you read this post. If you know anyone who would benefit from reading this post, then feel free to share it and if you feel called to, join my mailing here to receive my weekly soulful strategies on all things business.