Deliberate Freelancer #64: How to Increase Your Visibility and Get More Clients, with Amelia Roberts
Today’s guest is Amelia Roberts. Amelia is a digital native who officially became a practitioner of online marketing 12 years ago as a virtual assistant. Now, Amelia helps under-recognized professionals—freelancers, consultants, solopreneurs—stand out, articulate their unique value and get “first dates” in business.
She calls these “visibility opportunities” and she helps manage “visibility projects” for clients, such as getting them guest spots on podcasts and speaking gigs for virtual summits/conferences.
Amelia’s own marketing has changed slightly during the pandemic. She can’t build relationships in person right now, which is how she used to get a lot of clients. But she has reached out to her network and received work through referrals.
For people to work with you, they need to see you. Amelia paraphrases LinkedIn Co-founder Reid Hoffman: All opportunities are firmly attached to humans.
When you are looking for an opportunity, you are really looking for a human. Visibility opportunities mean getting in the ears of your best buyers or referral partners.
Wise clients of Amelia’s quickly changed their focus during the pandemic, when in-person events were no longer possible. Many of the opportunities are simply online versions of previous opportunities. There is still a need for guest experts.
Some speakers aren’t as comfortable switching to a virtual format, which opens up the opportunities for those who make that switch. You will have to make some tweaks, including to your call to action, when you switch from an in-person event to a virtual speaking event.
Amelia recommends following her “NURSE” framework and process:
Needs—what message do your ideal clients need to hear?
Utilization of tools—what tools are they using?
Resources—what resources are they investing in?
Success—what does success look like for them?
Evaluate—evaluate the plan they have.
When you “NURSE” your ideal client, you’ll start to see places that will make sense for you to start to pitch yourself.
With any marketing effort, we don’t want to waste time or money on things that won’t work. And you don’t want to join the wrong online group and find your ideal clients aren’t there. Before you say yes to opportunities, think about the needs and tools of your ideal client—is there an alignment with the opportunity? If the opportunity and person does not share your ideal clients and cannot refer you to your ideal clients, you may want to say no, depending on your time, energy and resources.
Look for people who have audiences you could help. Amelia started this process for her own business with groups related to women in business. Once you help a particular group, research and figure out where else those people hang out.
What about introverts and others who are nervous about public speaking and podcast guesting? You may have to block out time around your event so you give yourself time to prepare and also recover and regroup afterward.
Instead of thinking of this as marketing, think of it as putting yourself out there as a resource. Think of it as serving people. You are looking for people who have a pain that you can solve.
Amelia quotes entrepreneur Monica Shah: “Planning is the highest form of self-care.” This is really important for solopreneurs and solo business owners.
Amelia recommends developing a process and system to prepare for each opportunity. Have a goal in mind before you start your marketing effort. Marketing supports your sales process. So, what is your sales process? Are you offering a freebie, leading people to call you?
Think of any visibility effort as a project that can be managed. Break it down into tasks.
Amelia recommends choosing two efforts and focusing on those for 90 days and then evaluating them. Continue if it makes sense to do so.
During the pandemic, two hot trends are virtual summits and collaborations, such as a Facebook group that partners with a guest expert.
Developing a process and structure for your marketing efforts will also make it easier for you to hire a virtual assistant and know what you need them to focus on.
Biz Bite: Use a project management tool like Asana or Trello to track your marketing efforts
Resources:
Freebie from Amelia: Get In Front of Everyone