First of all, later today, Wednesday, November 12, I’m hosting Leslie Nipps for a no-cost webinar on Ancestral Healing, dealing with the ignored middle ground between individual growth and the Divine connection.
This is actually a really big deal for any business owner. The extremely strong currents of the systems we swim in, like family patterns, as well as even larger ones, can make it really, really hard to make progress. Instead, we can feel like we’re being carried out to sea despite our best efforts.
Although I’ve spent years around family and systems constellation work and used it a lot to help, Leslie Nipps is a master at this work, not only for her clients, but also for her students, since she has become internationally known as someone who trains practitioners in this approach.
Today! Wednesday, November 12, 11:30am – 12:30pm eastern
Check out the full description and sign-up:
How Ancestral Healing Can Help Solopreneurs
And yes, there’s a recording for those who register.
Today’s topic: Networking outside of competition
There is a really popular approach to gaining visibility for your business, which is to find someone you really admire and respect, who also has at least something of an audience, or client list, or community, people they are in relationship with, and have them promote your business to their people.
It’s pretty straightforward. And there are some tips that make it work better.
For instance, don’t have them promote a paid offer, but a free offer, so that their people join your audience (email list, for instance), and then can take their time deciding if they are going to buy an offer from you later.
However, there is one thing that people don’t often lean into.
That one thing? Don’t network with your competition.
Now, I know that in truth there is no competition, there is plenty for everybody, we’re all unique, etc… I don’t want to put down this truth.
However, it’s hard to operate like that. When your business isn’t fully developed it takes an almost saint-like inner groundedness to promote someone to your audience, or have someone promote you to their audience, when you do nearly identical work.
The spiritual teaching? There are two.
One is that diversity is strength and brings ease. Networking with people who do completely different work than you sidesteps this entire issue, and their audience will probably be happy to see something different.
The second is that you don’t have to make things harder than they need to be. Joy and ease are available in life and in business. And yes, that’s a spiritual teaching directly out of Islam and Sufism, as well as many other paths.
So… what does this look like?
Too often I see business coaches networking with other business coaches, or sound healers with other sound healers, or web designers with other web designers…
Once, years ago, I was leading a workshop and this topic came up. I had someone from the audience up front with me. She was a coach for women executives, fairly successful, but needing to reach new people.
One of several questions I asked was, “Where do your women executive clients go, where do they gather, what do they do outside of work?”
Now, there are multiple answers to this question, but her answer, after some moments of heart remembrance and contemplation came in a ZING!, “Oh wow, they all have to look put together, so they all go to high-end hair salons. I do, too. I bet the person who cuts my hair would host a talk for me for her clients, or otherwise share my info with her people.”
A hair salon! No competition at all with her services, and because part of what she did was help her clients balance a fulfilling life when executive positions are so demanding, it was a real benefit to them.
Your turn…
Where do your clients go? What do they do?
To make it a little easier, you’re not looking for someone whose audience has 100% overlap with yours. Maybe you can imagine that a local personal trainer who leads classes might have 20-40% of their people that might reasonably be clients of yours, whatever work you do. That’s enough of an overlap.
So, what are five professions, or organizations or communities or businesses that might reasonably have a decent percentage of people who could be your clients?
Now, start to network with them!
with love
Mark Silver,
Heart of Business, Inc.
Every act of business can be an act of love.
