Making adult friends is hard; trying to connect with already busy business owners feels insurmountable. It’s not! With the right strategy and a good dose of action, you can connect with the right people for your business.
On this episode of The Content Experiment Podcast, I’m talking with Amelia Roberts about how to make those quality connections and be really intentional about who you’re reaching out to (and who you’re having coffee chats with).
Amelia describes her Modified 25 version of the Dream 100 and why your business foundation is so important before you start connecting so it’s more sustainable.
Tune in and then start reaching out to people on your own list!
Mentioned in This Episode
About Amelia Roberts
Amelia Roberts is a digital native who officially became a practitioner of online marketing twelve years ago with a role as a virtual assistant that quickly transitioned into marketing consulting. Student loans from nursing school and a desire for other income options inspired her to put a long time love of observing human nature, showing empathy and previous marketing expertise to work in new ways.
As a result of launching this business, Amelia was able to pay off student loans in under two years, reach new financial goals and be invited to present her marketing knowledge to multiple stages working with B2B clients, Government organizations and high achievers.
Now alongside other roles, you can find Amelia empowering under-recognized professionals to stand out and “get first dates” in business so that they can become pivotal players in industry shaping conversations all while nurturing and not neglecting opportunities that are waiting for them.
When she is not optimizing human potential, getting people ready to be truly seen and simplifying marketing, Amelia enjoys Bible reading and planning both real and imagined food tours.
Transcription
Abby Herman 0:08
Hey there, and welcome to Episode 149 of The Content Experiment podcast, a podcast that supports the idea that content and marketing are ever moving targets in any business. And it’s okay if you don’t feel like you’re doing it all right all of the time. You have permission to experiment with little tweaks and changes in your content, to find what works for you, what increases value for your audience and what grows your business, and most importantly, what feels good for you.
Abby Herman 0:39
I’m Abby Herman, content strategist and coach for online business owners who are ready to make a bigger impact online. I firmly believe that success isn’t about what big marketing brands and so called gurus think is the right thing. It’s about you and your business, your lifestyle, and frankly, your values and belief systems, you get to do business in a way that works for you.
Abby Herman 1:02
One of the things that has really worked well for me in business is connections. We can’t do business alone. We need team members and business friends. And we also need connections to people outside of our regular circle. That’s how we grow personally and professionally and in our businesses. I’ve talked before about how I’ve made strategic connections over the years and how being strategic is not slimy at all, when you are thinking about the time that you’re saving for both yourself and the person you’re connecting with.
Abby Herman 1:36
On this episode with guest Amelia Roberts, I share again how I was able to connect with two separate podcast hosts to get on some bucket list podcast A while back. Amelia is a master of connection. And In this episode, we talk about Chet Holmes, his dream 100, and how Amelia has modified it to make it work for her clients. She also shares about how too much visibility is really a thing and how to overcome the result of too much visibility, as well as some other visibility tips that she shares that I know you’re going to love and be able to implement.
Abby Herman 2:17
Before we get started though, this podcast is brought to you by content mastery lab, my membership community where we talk about content creation, idea generation, market research, social media strategies, and all the mindset blocks that get in the way of our own visibility plus a whole lot more.
Abby Herman 2:34
Sometimes it takes some time to be brave enough to share our message. And sometimes it takes some time to get the message right. In the lab, we focus on little tweaks and changes in our content to get the best ROI of our time investments because big sweeping changes take a lot of time, money and effort and they don’t always pay off like we expect them to. So stop floundering with trying to figure it all out yourself and start creating content with the confidence that you’re on the right path.
Abby Herman 3:06
Join us monthly or quarterly or commit to a whole year for extra one on one time with me and quarterly planning parties where we work through your content together in an intimate group, head to thecontentexperiment.com/lab for more information. And to sign up, use the coupon code podcast to try out your first month for just $1.
Abby Herman 3:30
Alright back to our guest. I am chatting today with Amelia Roberts, a digital native who officially became a practitioner of online marketing 12 years ago with a role as a virtual assistant that quickly transitioned into marketing consulting. Student loans from nursing school and a desire for other income options inspired her to put a long time love of observing human nature, showing empathy and previous marketing experience to work in new ways.
Abby Herman 4:00
As a result of this business, Amelia was able to pay off student loans in under two years. rock on I love that. reach new financial goals and be invited to present her marketing knowledge to multiple stages working with b2b clients, government organizations and high achievers.
Abby Herman 4:19
Now alongside other roles, you can find Amelia empowering under recognized professionals to stand out and get quote unquote first dates in business so that they can become pivotal players in industry shaping conversations, all while nurturing and not neglecting opportunities that are waiting for them, which is not optimizing human potential getting people ready to be truly seen and amplifying murketing. Amelia enjoys a Bible reading and planning both real and imagined food tours. Here is our conversation.
Abby Herman 4:57
Hi Amelia. Thank you so much. Joining me I cannot wait to have this conversation with you today.
Amelia Roberts 5:04
Hey there, I’m so happy to be here. I feel like this has been like, years in the making, but it hasn’t been.
Abby Herman 5:10
Yeah. So I mean, we have talked about this. And this is kind of a follow up conversation to a LinkedIn live that we did on, I think it was June 2021, that we did the LinkedIn live. And we’ll be sure to share that in the comments. But we’re kind of turning the tables a little bit. So you interviewed me, and now I get to interview you. So I’m really excited to do that. Before we dive into our conversation, can you share with listeners what you do and who you do it for?
Amelia Roberts 5:42
Sure. So I’m a visibility and strategic partnership expert, I work with professionals who are already busy enough. They know that they want to show up in a particular way, but they want to do it in a way that’s sustainable. They want to end feast and famine modes. And they know in order to do that they need to get in front of new people. But they don’t want to also worry about drowning and leads, you know, getting visible. Too much visibility is absolutely a thing. And so they’re kind of worried about that.
Amelia Roberts 6:06
So I support them with sustainable visibility by way of something that we’ll talk about more called the dream 100 strategy. And we use that to focus on select people, not all the people and not being all the places but focusing on select people and nurturing relationships in a way that’s sustainable for the business owner and their team. We’ll talk more about that. But I work with teams primarily right now. Because of the whole sustainability thing.
Abby Herman 6:32
Yeah.
Amelia Roberts 6:34
But yes, that’s part of this part of what I do.
Abby Herman 6:36
I’m- okay. a couple new questions that I have now after that, because I didn’t realize that you worked with teams, and I’m really curious about how a team can help support the business owner with visibility.
Abby Herman 6:49
But before we talk about that, can you share a little bit because I think this will help to kind of put all of this into perspective. How do you work with clients? Like what does your client work look like? And also one of my favorite questions to pair with that? How does the way you work with clients help you to live the lifestyle that you want?
Amelia Roberts 7:10
Oh, thank you. Well, I’ll answer the last question First. live the lifestyle I want. Key to my lifestyle is options, like having options to support loved ones. I do have a nine to five. And I’ve never liked the idea of being solely reliant on the nine to five, because that’s just not a thing I can’t do to anyone. I think we all have learned that. And when things come up in life, I like to be able to help and support loved ones without having to give much thought to it, knowing that there’s resources there that aren’t also being already spoken for. It’s something that’s of value to me.
Amelia Roberts 7:47
So that’s part of Yeah, that’s part of like how I use it to support the lifestyle I want. And now of course, I just forgot your first question.
Abby Herman 7:57
What does it look like to work with you? How do you actually work with clients?
Amelia Roberts 8:01
Yeah, so what it looks like to work with me looks like a few phases. The first phase is messaging. Before, of course, reaching out to people and pitching to get on podcasts, or even collaborations that might look like affiliate opportunities, or joint venture webinars, your messaging has to be appealing, it has to be a win-win win for everybody. And your team has to be, you know, confident and comfortable and saying the same thing, because I found sometimes what the founder thinks is interesting about their business and what they’re known for.
Amelia Roberts 8:30
Their team members may not necessarily say that, you know, that they might say something different. And you know, that’s fine. It’s just getting on the same page messaging wise. And then after that, it comes, you know, looking at who would be a great strategic partner, you know, who would be a great collaborator who has the audience that already has, they’ll know, like, and trust of the people or feature buyers that you want to get in front of, it looks like a brainstorming session. That happens about a week later, or a week or so later after the messaging.
Amelia Roberts 8:59
And then we do brainstorming, and then after brainstorming, my team gets to work. And we get to researching and finding people that would be a match and putting those together building out a database. And that database can live in the project management tools that the team is already using and likes and loves. And then it looks like the handoff meeting, they get to run with it, they get to go with that. Or if the team member might say, you know, they’re already preparing for a launch, and I have a few things coming up. If they want my team to do the implementation, we absolutely can.
Amelia Roberts 9:31
I have been also offering at the elbow support, because I’ve started to require my clients to plan a launch meeting. So that our work sees the light of day, I found that sometimes like at the launch meeting, they want additional support. So I’ve built in a retainer model which is probably just good sense anyway, retainer model that was like me supporting the implementation so that the team members aren’t necessarily going back to the founder with every Question that they have,
Abby Herman 10:01
I love that you have shifted the way you work with clients. So that, like you, like what you said, your work sees the light of day. I did the same thing a few years ago because I was creating content for clients and it was just sitting in Google Drive or just sitting someplace that wasn’t actually getting implemented, it wasn’t getting used. And while it’s great to get paid for your work, you want your clients to actually get results from getting results if it’s just sitting there.
Abby Herman 10:35
So I so like, we shifted in our business to actually do the implementation, do the scheduling, do the formatting and all of that for clients? Who didn’t have a team to do that? And yes, and it feels so much better.
Amelia Roberts 10:49
Yes it does. It does because, I mean, especially for those of us whose faces are associated with, you know, what we do? We need those testimonials, testimonials of people to say, Hey, I’m going live on this platform, or you know, millia, thank you so much for that connection. I need that. So yeah, it’s for multiple reasons where we’re, we care about people actually. Yeah, having other people see the work that we’ve done. Yes,
Abby Herman 11:15
yes. Okay. So I have to ask, you said earlier, you said that you work with people so that, you know, they don’t have like those hills and valleys in Leeds, essentially, because there is such a thing. We know that there’s such a thing as not enough visibility. Can you explain what you meant? When you said that there is such a thing as too much visibility? What does that mean?
Amelia Roberts 11:38
So I’ve had a few clients who have gotten to be very successful as a result of working with me. And they have said, actually, Amelia, we have too much visibility right now, we are not in a place to take on any more clients. So I’d like to pause. And, and I’ve also heard a version of it said, we are getting too much work. And we’re already struggling on the back end. And so we’re not in a position to proceed, it makes no sense.
Amelia Roberts 12:05
And so I would just at first say, oh, wow, that’s that’s unfortunate. Well, you’d be well with that. And then I started to realize, you know, what, I can actually support people sort of on the front end, you know, making sure that they’re ready to be seen, I call that actually readiness to be seen, because some people aren’t necessarily in that position,
Amelia Roberts 12:24
as well. As you know, I was first introduced to online marketing, by way of being a virtual assistant, myself back in almost 2007, I was first introduced to the world of VA work. I know how to support people. And I have folks in my network after almost over 10 years in the industry, I have partners that can support on the back end to getting things you know, organized and situated.
Amelia Roberts 12:45
So I was like, wow, I could actually, you know, expand how I support people and showing up and becoming visible. And I’m more so than just, you know, getting on a podcast or two. Because, you know, it’s not just that it’s, you know, way more than that. i hope that makes sense.
Abby Herman 13:00
Yeah, absolutely. It totally, it totally does. And I hear you like, Yeah, not having the business Foundation, I guess, to support all of the new leads, and all of the new things that you’re bringing in is really tough, and I can totally relate to the Okay, like I’m maxed out. So then you have to figure out, Okay, do you need to hire somebody to help support you and, you know, support your business, hire team members, you know, what does that look like? So I totally get that.
Abby Herman 13:27
And you do need to be ready for that kind of attention. I’ve put off doing some real work on Pinterest for a really long time. Because I know that I don’t have things on the back end of my content set up to support that if I was to get a whole bunch of leads, and I don’t want to waste my money or my time. So yeah, I hear you.
Amelia Roberts 13:47
Yes. And so interesting. There was one client who said literally, that they were drowning in DMS, right? They’re drowning in DMs. And so the millennial on me, you know, goes online. And Googles what to do with too many leads. And Google is not very helpful, as like, everyone was saying, Oh, that’s a great problem to have. And I figured it out, invested lots of money and, you know, working with people to figure out what to do and system to set up.
Amelia Roberts 14:11
But in any case, yeah, it’s so interesting, you know, the preparation for success, you know, you can be successful and struggling. And it’s so frustrating. Because, again, it’s like, not everyone, you know, prepares you to be successful, which is super interesting. But that’s a whole other topic.
Abby Herman 14:28
Yes, yes. All right. So I want to get back to you were talking about building out databases for your clients. And so that kind of segues into the dream 100 I want to come back to the database piece. But first, I’m familiar with the dream 100 concept, although you go way more into depth than what I’ve ever done with it, in the way that you talk about it. So can you explain what is the dream 100? What’s the idea behind it? What’s the purpose of the dream? 100?
Amelia Roberts 15:05
Sure. So dream 100 was coined, or the phrase was coined by a gentleman named Chet Holmes, he passed away in 2012. And he has a book out. And you know, his book is amazing and great. He has some references to things that, you know, we don’t necessarily use a lot in business Now. He talks about the fax machine and flip charts and whatnot.
Amelia Roberts 15:26
And, and it absolutely applies to what we use nowadays, you know, and absolutely does sell because it’s like the foundations of how humans interact. And I don’t know if this is a good time for that quote. But
Abby Herman 15:37
yeah, absolutely.
Amelia Roberts 15:38
But yeah, so there’s this quote that I love. It’s from Reed Hoffman, he’s the LinkedIn co-founder, a guy who knows a thing or two about connections, and connections and business and all that good stuff. But he says, opportunities do not put like clouds in the sky, they’re firmly attached to individuals. So if you’re looking for an opportunity, you’re really looking for a person.
Amelia Roberts 15:56
So Chet Holmes called the dream 100 really a best buyer strategy. And I don’t limit it to just buyers, it’s a great strategy. If you’re looking for your, you know, future client or future referral partner, or affiliate or sponsor, or podcast host or influencer, or employer, it’s just a way dedicated way of putting attention to the next I don’t want to say other but the next person or being that might hold opportunity, you know, with for you, and reaching out to them in a way that takes you from being a stranger to them, knowing with you, knowing who you are, and collaborating with you in some way.
Amelia Roberts 16:32
And it’s just an intentional way of building relationships versus being you know, willy nilly about it, and, you know, just hoping for the best and, you know, sending one email and you know, at mentioning sharing something that they did, and at mentioning them once, and then never doing it again, hope that they noticed it. And then, you know, do that to somebody else.
Amelia Roberts 16:51
And then, you know, it’s like, oh, well, this, this dream 100 thing isn’t working. And it’s more so a way of being and connecting. And, um, with that said, we were just talking to me how some people do it intuitively, like you, you’re like one of those amazing people that do it intuitively, naturally, that’s just, you know, your way of being.
Amelia Roberts 17:11
And there’s those of us who, for me, connecting doesn’t come naturally to me. And in a way it did. I mean, I was doing some parts of the dream 100 organically. And when I came across, oh, my goodness, a strategy actually has a name to it. And oh my goodness, there’s things that you can actually do on purpose, I can enhance what I was already kind of doing sort of, in my own way.
Amelia Roberts 17:33
Sometimes when I thought about it, I could add more attention around it. And that really blossomed the opportunities in my life. And then I started using it for others. And, you know, amazing things happened for them as well. So
Abby Herman 17:45
yeah. So I want to go back to something you said. You said at mentioning them. And so I just want to clarify for people listening, just in case they don’t know, that means that you’re tagging someone in like a social media post, correct?
Amelia Roberts 17:58
Yeah. Yeah, sharing one of their pieces of content, you know, what can you give someone that has everything, you know, people love to know that they’re influenced or influential, people need to love to know, they’re influential, and, you know, taking a piece of their content, sharing it onto your platform at mentioning them saying, Hey, this is a wonderful article that will help blah, blah, blah, you know, thank you had mentioned their name for doing this. And you know, do that on, you know, LinkedIn, Twitter, you know, Instagram.
Abby Herman 18:25
Yeah. And, and to doing it more than once to So you mentioned like, you don’t want to, when you tag someone in a piece on a social media post, that’s not a connection, right? Like, what does a true connection actually look like to you? Like, what do you teach when you’re teaching people how to connect?
Amelia Roberts 18:48
So it really depends on what they are trying to connect for? And, you know, is there a pre-existing like, commonality or not? And I’ll give you an example.
Amelia Roberts 18:58
So I worked with a client, a fortune 200 company, pretty large organization. They were launching a new product, and they had heard of influence their marketing market and micro influencer marketing. And they didn’t necessarily have the bandwidth to implement it themselves. So they reached out, it’s a long story. They’re working with a marketing agency and that agency dream 100 new me, they’re on my list.
Amelia Roberts 19:05
And they said, Hey, Amelia, we need you to come in and help. And so what that looked like was identifying people who serve their audience, but in different ways and look like working with them to say, Hey, you know, what, can you offer these micro influencers? who already have a no life trust and emails of people who can use your enterprise level solution? What can you offer them, and then we came up with some things that might be interesting.
Amelia Roberts 19:46
And then it looked like coming up with messaging, you know, outreach messaging, when you’re working on a campaign, it’s really best to kind of already have the messaging, the outreach messages, you know, right now, you know, so that everyone is, it’s easier to measure when you know what’s actually being said? Because if you just get a whole bunch of people who say, Yes, I’ll promote this thing. Okay, great, let’s repeat what works? What did we say? We don’t know, we all just made up our own things.
Amelia Roberts 20:15
And that’s me over explaining something. But yeah, I’m coming up with, you know, messaging and outreach. And you know, why it would make sense for them to hop on a call to learn more about it. And that’s what that looked like. Because we were working in a short amount of time, we didn’t really have a lot of time to, you know, share their LinkedIn posts and tag them, and then tag them on Facebook, and then sign up to their email list, hit reply and say, thank you so much, there really wasn’t that amount of time, the quickest path to develop relationships still is human voice.
Amelia Roberts 20:44
So when Alex reached in that instance, it looked like he was reaching out for a call to set up a call with me or someone else, I was working with me to learn more about that opportunity. And other cases, it looks like people getting on podcasts, again, that depends, it really depends on the degrees of separation. And I just invite people to think about that, like the degree of separation between, you know, you and me is like few, right?
Amelia Roberts 21:13
Because what, well, for a couple reasons, we’re in the same paid membership community. So you know, we’re already there together. And the degrees of separation between me and someone like Oprah, it might be more, I think the limit is six. It might be more, but you know, so it really, it really does depend. So I can’t give like a firm a fixed answer.
Abby Herman 21:35
Yeah, yeah, no, I totally hear you. Anytime you connect with someone, it’s going to look a little bit different. So I think a couple of examples that I gave on our LinkedIn that we had our LinkedIn live that we did together was one of them. There was a podcast I really wanted to be on. And so I found a point of connection with the podcast host. And I knew that the host did not accept pitches.
Abby Herman 22:00
So I was like, Okay, I’ve got to figure out how to get on this podcast with a huge audience that had the podcast had been around forever. And so I found a point of connection with the podcast host. And that connection was that we have daughters who are the same age, and she would occasionally post about on Instagram stories about her daughter. Our daughters seem to have pretty similar personalities. So I would message her I’m like, yup, my daughter does something really similar to that. And so we started the conversation. And I ended up attending a live event that the host put on and just we continued our conversation.
Abby Herman 22:39
So it was, I mean, that’s how that connection looked. You know, that’s what that connection looked like. Another podcast that I really wanted to be on, I found working out was a point of connection. And so we started the conversation and I would, you know, send her face or I’m sorry, Instagram direct messages every once in a while. And eventually, I was on that podcast as well.
Abby Herman 23:02
And there’s lots of other things like, you know, being in a similar group together, you and I were also want to summit, you’ve actually funny story, you’ve actually been on my list to have you on my podcast for probably six months. So maybe you wouldn’t reach out the first time. So I knew I wanted to have you on the podcast, you were on there because of the summit we were on together. And so I was like, okay, so yeah, just finding different ways to connect. And, and then starting the conversation to I think one of the things that you mentioned on your website is that you are an introvert, I’m also an introvert.
Abby Herman 23:40
Luckily, we have this thing called the internet that makes it really easy for us to be able to get to know each other and connect, where we don’t have to stand at the like, the old dude’s networking events where everybody stands around passing out business cards and feels, you know, which is super slimy. But yeah, there’s so many other ways and new ways that we can connect to now that we couldn’t before.
Amelia Roberts 24:07
Agreed, agreed, agreed. And that’s another thing that I love about you know, the dream 100 Ebert is, especially if you decide your dream 100 you want them to be referral partners, you know, people who can send you clients is, you know, you reach out to them, educate them, you know, educate them on the Buying Criteria of what a whatever it is that you do look like such that, you know, when the need for your services come in to conversation when they’re talking to their clients who also happen to be your best clients.
Amelia Roberts 24:35
You guys serve similar folks in different ways. You know, you already on your lips and on their lips, rather. And so that’s another reason I like it, because it’s an introvert friendly method.
Abby Herman 24:46
Yeah, yes. So I don’t think he mentioned this before. the 100 is because you’re choosing 100 people, right? Like, you get 100 people on a list.
Amelia Roberts 24:56
Yeah, I actually dealt with something called the modifier 25. 100 can be a little daunting. And just because the strategy works is because the strategy works. So well, you may make a list of 100 people to reach out to. And you may only get to person number, you know, 10. Right. And it’s an amazing result. And that might keep you busy enough. And you may not get back to the rest of the list. I said, Don’t throw the list away.
Amelia Roberts 25:26
But yeah, really, it’s not. I don’t know, I don’t be something to take a look at. But really, I’ve used a modifier 25. And it’s, it’s enough to sustain but the dream 100 I think came out of Chet Holmes started to implement this on his he was an employee he was employee of that’s actually interesting. Warren Buffett, we all know him, right? One of Warren Buffett’s business partners, Charlie Munger had this pretty huge organization. And Chet Holmes helped build multiple divisions of that organization, year after year, multiple divisions.
Amelia Roberts 26:01
And, you know, his boss was like, are we doing something illegal? Is this you know, okay. And he was like, Yes, you know, for this legal. And so he looked at their best buyers. And that came up to I think, a little just over 100. I guess that’s where he came from, but it doesn’t actually have to be 100. And sorry, for being so wordy. I was aware of the response to that number.
Abby Herman 26:25
That’s okay. So yeah, cuz 100 is kind of intimidating to think there’s 100 people that I need to reach out to, but I like the idea of doing like maybe doing chunks of like 10, or 25. because like you said, there is such a thing as too much visibility and being out there too much. You don’t want to spend all your time reaching out to these people, you know, and then not have enough time to actually deliver on your deliver for your clients.
Amelia Roberts 26:52
Absolutely. And when I’m working with teams, I absolutely recommend like, you know, when I’m doing it long term, let’s go with five, let’s, you know, look at, you know, the five on the list, let’s talk about fit. Does it make sense? If yes, let’s hit those five, and then re edit that reiterate, iterate, tests, see, see what worked, what didn’t work? You know, and then let that information from that first batch of five, and form the next batch of five, and then let’s that you know, inform the next one. So, yeah, I definitely don’t recommend hitting send on 100 emails that want to help. Thank you for clarifying that.
Abby Herman 27:29
Yeah, yeah. Okay, I love this. So, the purpose of doing this, so the purpose of reaching out to these 100 people, you know, or 10 people or 20 people or whatever, is to achieve some more visibility to establish relationships with them. How do- you said you do your, even your team does some of the research when people are working with you, but how do you decide who should be on that list?
Amelia Roberts 27:56
So during the intake process, I asked my clients about their best buyers and their best referral partners, and asked them to get pretty clear on, you know, what are some of the things your best clients are doing before they get to you? after they leave you alongside working with you? Who knows? I call it who knows the crazy, right? You know, who are they complaining to about, you know, their messy house or their relationship that isn’t functioning?
Amelia Roberts 28:22
I’ll give you an example. Like somebody who is a financial expert, right? a financial expert is brilliant for somebody who is a therapist, relationship therapist, on my timeline, there’s this financial expert in her office, there’s lots of couples that come in and they have issues with money, and there’s dynamics going on and you know, that financial expert has no desire to hop into those, you know, relationship issues that are coming up during, you know, the financial planning meeting, as he was saying, Hey, you know, are there you know, couples that might connect to any couples therapists
Amelia Roberts 29:00
So, so, that was a long explanation for so who knows the crazy you know, who else you know, knows the inside know things, especially when it comes to those of us who offer solutions that people might not be raising their hand say, I have an issue with my, you know, marriage or this embarrassing problem, or my messy house or my disorganized place? They may not be, you know, commenting on your post saying, Oh my goodness, that really hit home with me. My place is so disorganized, you know, who knows, you know, that they have you know, they could want to be a little bit more tidy. What else are they using? You know, who are they complaining to?
Amelia Roberts 29:36
My so that helps inform so any case I ask those questions during the intake session, and also during our messaging session, our messaging session, takes people through a filter I love building a story brand I’m a fan of theirs takes people through the story brand filter, and what’s left from the filter also talks about the pain points and problems.
Amelia Roberts 29:56
And sometimes when people first come to me, they feel as though, you know, they are talking to person x about this issue. But when once we go through the messaging format, and we have a crystal clear message and their core message is left, versus all the things I’ve collected over the years, once we filtered out all that down to the core message, sometimes they said, You know what, actually, I think my best clients really look like XYZ. And they’re probably dealing, you know, interacting with this person before they get to me and this person after they leave me.
Amelia Roberts 30:29
And so a long answer, but by way of an intake form, and the messaging session is where we start to come up with the list that will help us to inform where we’re going to research from there.
Abby Herman 30:41
Yeah. And so it sounds like, like, it’s okay to kind of book and your connection. So you want to be connected to people, you want people on that list, who, like, are not quite ready for you, or I’m sorry. And so the people who work with the people who are not quite ready for you, and you want to also have someone like where can you send your own clients next, like, Who is that person that you should send people to next? Is that right?
Amelia Roberts 31:06
Yeah, yeah. And what it also could look like is, like, say, somebody who is building a website, right? I don’t know anything about websites to sell, this might not be a great example.
Amelia Roberts 31:16
But um, ideally, somebody who is working with a website person, say, you’re a copywriter, right, it would make absolute sense for you to connect with website developers, they need, you know, copywriting work before they get to the web designer, hopefully. So when they come to the web designer, they have all this beautiful, lovely content to put on the website. And there’s, you know, so who does the website person, you know, need to collaborate with, think of when they’re thinking about their collaborations or when the copyrights think about their collaborations, they’re thinking about, you know, where they fit inside of the ecosystem of their future clients.
Amelia Roberts 31:55
So that’s maybe a better word is, you know, I invite people to consider where they fit and kind of the ecosystem of their future client. And so that helps you think about, so who needs to know that you exist. And to put it bluntly, it needs to know that you exist.
Amelia Roberts 32:08
If you’re in the wedding industry, you know, if you’re, you know, serving people who are getting married, you know, do cake bakers need to know that you exist, do event planners need to know that you exist. But photographers need to know that you exist, you know, you guys each fit into the ecosystem of abroad at different time points. So your dream 100, if you’re going for the referral, strategy may look like connecting with these people, and the ecosystem of your future client.
Amelia Roberts 32:36
If you’re using the dream 100 to connect directly with your future client, which is, I like the referral method. Because there’s nothing like a warm word of mouth referral on steroids, you absolutely can build relationships intentionally at scale, by doing the dream 100 for referrals, but if you want to go straight to your best buyer, I’ve absolutely have done that, too. By doing the same thing, you know, thinking about who is my client working with before they might need me?
Amelia Roberts 33:01
For me, it looks like my ideal client, boiler has already worked with a coach, right? They’re already clear on who they serve, they already are earning, you know, money, you know, a certain amount of money each month, so they’ve already invested in a certain type of coaching.
Amelia Roberts 33:16
So I would go to a coach that coaches people at a certain level, and take a look at their testimonials, you know, who have they worked with? And that could be a great inspiration point. I’m not that I want to work with all the people who work with them.
Amelia Roberts 33:31
Because I, you know, I don’t I can’t say that. But these might be interesting people to at least put on my list and start to see, you know, hey, you know, could this be a fit? You know, what are they posting on social media? Do they have an email list? let me sign up and see what they’re sharing with their community, how they’re treating their community? Do they have a podcast? Or, you know, have they been interviewed on a podcast? And then and then go from there.
Abby Herman 33:51
Yeah. Okay. I love it. Okay, so if you are then connecting, if your dream 100 are the business owners who your clients are working with, either before or after those clients work with you? So if you’re going on the referral basis, like you were talking about, what’s in it for your dream, 100 what’s in it for them to connect with you?
Abby Herman 34:17
So I guess what I’m trying to ask is, when you’re trying to foster or initiate a relationship with someone, how do you frame that in a way that’s mutually beneficial for both people?
Amelia Roberts 34:31
So that’s actually part of the messaging strategy, because the messaging has to do with, you know, the messaging for them, you know, what would be interesting? So, it really honestly depends. like with the micro influencers, reaching out to them and inviting them to a conversation about partnering with this larger brand that has a larger platform than they have, just being associated with that larger platform was enough to start a conversation.
Amelia Roberts 34:58
With that particular instance, some of them said, Will I be compensated for post sponsoring? No, that’s not the term, but I’d be compensated for posting on my platform, you know, will there be an influencer? You know, will this company and they were and you know, long story short, this larger company didn’t exactly have a budget.
Amelia Roberts 35:19
So that was kind of interesting. You know, some people didn’t ask for anything some people did. And so that was a whole learning experience for me as well. But in any case, so it really depends, you know, again, some people just were happy to have the name associated with the larger brand. Others wanted payment. And, you know, with when it comes to collaborating with people who are have a larger audience than yours, you know, you may say, okay, Amelia Yes, but I’m still not understanding why somebody would want me to, you know, present to their audience, you are an expert in what you do, they are not an expert in what, what you do. And simple that is as simple as that.
Amelia Roberts 36:01
When it comes to creating content, and feeding the content machine, you’re literally telling somebody take the evening off, when I know that you have to come up with content from your mastermind, every week, or every month, and or your Facebook group, or blah, blah, blah, take the evening off, don’t worry about it. I know that your audience, we share mutual ions, they struggle with X, Y, and Z. I love supporting them with that, and I will come in and out educate and be the expert guests. And so if you’re gonna say you’re giving them the night off,
Abby Herman 36:34
yeah, you’re filling their contents funnel for that for that day. So yes,
Amelia Roberts 36:41
yes. So, um, I mean, there’s lots of things and if it can be, you know, beneficial, and, you know, maybe you are, you know, so it really depends on the nature. And I’d have to think about, you know, if you were asking me like other questions, I couldn’t think of it. But I hope that was helpful. Did that answer the question?
Abby Herman 37:02
Yeah, it’s, it’s and it’s- Yes, absolutely. And I also think another benefit, too, is, so you’re helping them by connecting with their audience and giving their audience value. And yes, it is a little bit self serving, because what you get out of it is that visibility, you get to be in front of the audience. And they understand that totally.
Abby Herman 37:22
And I also think that if you if you demonstrate to the world, if you demonstrate to your audience, to their audience, that you are a, you know, what you call the super connector, that you can connect people together, maybe you introduce that person to someone in your own in your own audience, or in your own dream. 100. So you can also connect other people.
Abby Herman 37:46
So I think that just because you, you know, don’t have as big of an audience as someone else. It’s not the size of the audience. It’s the quality of the audience. It’s the engagement that you get, and it’s Yeah, how, how much does your audience love you, you could have 10,000 people on your Instagram, but if only 20 of them, you know, interact on a regular basis?
Abby Herman 38:12
You know, that’s not not the best audience, if you are not the most engaged audience, I should say. But if you have 100 people in your audience, and 20 people are your biggest fans, then that is a really good solid audience, in my opinion.
Amelia Roberts 38:28
And that really also goes into the phase where we’re brainstorming collaboration, you know, what are your metrics of success? Right? For the yeah So what is Yeah, so what does engagement look like? You know, do you want to collaborate with somebody, so you want to do an IC live with somebody, it would make absolute sense, to just do the math on their engagement levels to see if that, you know, collaboration will make sense?
Amelia Roberts 38:52
And, you know, you may have other success metrics, like, do they, you know, have an email list, right? Or are they emailing their people on a regular basis, you may have, as you start to, I guess, refine your strategy or your iterations. Because remember, I said batches of five, you may say, you know, what, we need to tighten up our list, you know, and maybe now we need to look for this qualification and that qualification, qualification.
Amelia Roberts 39:20
And again, the same thing like your leads. When we first started our business, our qualifications for leads may have been non-existent. Anyone who sets up a call the 15 minute chat, you know, they’re qualified as a lead. But as you start to mature, you may start to have more qualifications, like they need to be earning, you know, 10,000 a month. They need to have a team, they need to fit this criteria, they need to have a business account, right? fit certain, you know, criteria before you know, you’ll invite them to use your precious time but, but similar for your dream, 100 collaborations. It just comes over time.
Abby Herman 39:58
Yeah, well, and just like You know, you have a qualifications list for your clients for the people who you work with. Not everyone is a good fit for you. So not every person who might look good on paper is going to be a good fit for your dream 100 either.
Abby Herman 40:15
So you have an E book, a downloadable ebook about scaling with sanity that relates to becoming more visible, can you share a little bit about what that is? And how people can get that?
Amelia Roberts 40:32
Yes, so it’s a, it’s a high level ebook that goes over my idea that showing up and becoming a visible visionary is not a one person job. I quote a lovely quote from Latvia die that says an empire of one is not sustainable. And the empire of one, it’s not a thing, it’s a mess. And it talks a little bit about virtual speaking tours, you know, what they are?
Amelia Roberts 40:57
And, you know, where do I start with showing up other places online, and some q&a is even about, you know, fixing your websites, because I noticed a lot of people who are thinking about new ways of getting visible. They’re also thinking about their websites, and I throw in, you know, experiences with that. And so, yeah, I just hope that that’s useful for folks. And yeah, I think I gave you the bitly link to that, but if not, I’ll give it to you again.
Abby Herman 41:22
Okay, perfect. And I’ll make sure I have a link to that in the show notes. Amelia, this was so valuable, so much great information. And yeah, I just love being able to connect with you again. Can you share with listeners where they can find you online?
Amelia Roberts 41:38
Sure. Um, you can connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, I’m spending a lot of time on LinkedIn actually doing more LinkedIn lives. So if you want to leverage LinkedIn, if I can just put a plug in to that. Yeah, I’ve applied for LinkedIn live, you know, they’re really favoring the organic reach right now. It really reminds me of Facebook 2008. Please sign up for LinkedIn live.
Amelia Roberts 42:03
If you have signed up and it didn’t work, do it again. But lead with how you’ll help the professional worker. do not lead with your business. LinkedIn is a professional platform for people who are career professionals. So if you have a business don’t necessarily talk about your business too much just talk about how you equipped professionals to be their best person and lead with that I’m going to play again
Abby Herman 42:24
Yeah, awesome. I love it. Maybe I’ll apply. I’m starting to do a little more video in my business or actually getting back to doing video and my business so maybe I’ll apply. We’ll see. Thank you so much Amelia. I really appreciate you being here.
Amelia Roberts 42:39
Oh thank you so much I enjoyed it and I hope this was useful and yeah i’m open book feel free to reach out to me if you have questions about anything. I’m or if I under explained something I can over explain but if I under explained it, for free to reach out to me.
Abby Herman 42:53
I love it. Thank you so much.
Abby Herman 42:56
Alright, so my question to you is this: how important is connection to you and your business? After listening into this conversation with Amelia I hope you answer very important questions. Do you have a dream 100 list or a modified 25 list? even if you can only make a list of 10 people you want to make intentional connections with and fourth quarter start doing it. I will tell you that I’m planning to do the same.
Abby Herman 43:27
If you’re ready to start experimenting with content and marketing in your own business without having to do all the guesswork yourself. Remember that you can join us inside the content mastery lab at thecontentexperiment.com/lab and use the coupon code podcast to get your first month for $1. Pricing starts at just $97 A month after that.
Abby Herman 43:50
If you found value in what you learned here today, be sure to share it on social media. Take a screenshot of the episode on your phone and share it over on Instagram stories. You can tag me @TheContentExperiment and tag Amelia @Talk2Amelia. The more you share the more we can get the podcast into the hands of more business owners just like you who need to hear the message that they are not alone.
Abby Herman 44:16
Until next time, take care
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
