Hey there, my gorgeous listener, welcome to episode 278 of the Small Business Made Simple Podcast.

Thank you for lending me your ears today – I know you have lots of choices, so I sincerely appreciate me being one of them, especially at this time of the year.

If you’re a first-time listener, super super welcome, I am so pleased to have you here.  Excited to have you on the journey too.

Don’t forget you can get the show notes for this podcast at www.socialmediaandmarketing.com.au/278

Did you have a listen into last week’s episode? I got talking about the different Facebook evolutions that will change the way you will use that platform in 2024. An interesting podcast for sure! If you haven’t already listened in, to and do so after this podcast! www.socialmediaandmarketing.com.au/277

It won’t surprise you to know that I stalk other people’s social media – including people who are in the same industry as me! It’s called research not stalking though!

I came across a post, a poll actually, where a business coach asked What are you truly struggling with and need direction with now heading into the new year.

The most clicked answer, by far, was leads.  People need more leads.  It was followed quickly by needing to grow their email list (which is leads though right?).

If you are selling something other than yourself (as in coaching, mentoring etc) than it really is a numbers game.  You need to attract x amount of people to get x amount of people into your funnels to get x amount of sales and make x amount of money.  Like I said, a numbers game. And depending on what you are selling, as to what those numbers look like.  And to know what those numbers look like, you need to know your conversion rates.

Now, I’m no finance person, and I’m not going to talk therefore about conversion rates, it’s not my jam to be teaching, but if you don’t know them, then this is your nudge to get to know them.

So, how do you get more leads into your business?

Here’s five ideas:

1. Email marketing – come on you knew it would be in the list! Lead Magnets – the little pieces of gold that people are willing to exchange their email addresses for. Want to play the numbers game, then start building that email list to be able to nurture your subscribers until they are ready to buy or buy again.  Leads are going to fall out of the sky! As I mentioned a few episodes ago, I have just changed all my lead magnets over for the new year.  Honestly, it took me a few days to create them, write the email sequences for them, code my website so you can see them and all the other buggerising around it took.  But leads are important – email marketing is important to me, so it WILL be worth the hours it took.  Once you have the lead magnets, you need to talk about them often to get the conversions and the leads.  People make them and put them on their website and wonder why no one subscribes! Hint – they don’t know they are there!
2. Paid ads – not all marketing is free after all. Head back to my podcast episode 264 with Bianca McKenzie where she talks about how lead generation ads are probably the ads that work best on Meta – as long as you have the systems and processes in the back end to convert your new leads – AKA email sequences and email marketing set up with the end in the mind – the sale!  If you know the lifetime value of a client, then you know how much you can afford to spend on ads and still get a good ROI.  Also, retargeting marketing – follow up those leads you have. Don’t let them get away!
3. Tap into other people’s communities – as in collaborate with others. Collaborate with someone who is not your direct competitor but has the same ideal client as you and do something together.  If you both have active email lists, share content of each other in the other’s email with a super strong call-to-action.  Reach out to Facebook group admins and ask if you can collaborate on a project – with the end game being you get in front of their community with an amazing offer and they (the admin) get something in return also.  I’m not a huge fan of competitions, but possibly with the right strategy you could find some collaboration partners and run a competition together sharing the data. If you do, please collect REAL data, not this follow or like crap – that does not feed the family or pay the bills.
4. Host a webinar or online workshop sharing your expertise. Offer a free workshop – maybe not even to sell anything but just providing incredible information and will help your audience, but collect their emails and then have a good follow up strategy to convert them over and over again whilst on your email list over time.  Not sure how to do this? Collaborate with someone!
5. If your current community loves you, then ask them for help. Create a loyalty program or a referral program because giver’s get! Ask your past clients and/or current connections if they know someone who might like what it is that you sell.

Getting more leads is not rocket science and frankly it’s not that easy either.  I actually went and asked ChatGPT if it had any ideas on how to gather leads – I thought it might have this Wizz bang suggestion that I hadn’t thought of yet – but alas it did not.

Leads take energy, take time. Leads don’t fall from the sky but nor do they live under rocks – you just have to seek them out with bait almost!  There are people who want what you sell and don’t know you exist yet – so it’s your job (not theirs) to find them, get them to join your community and became a fan and, of course, and hopefully purchase what you have.

What are you doing in your business today to create more leads? Don’t get lazy, you need leads.  Even if business is humming along, you need new leads into those funnels all the time – otherwise, when it goes quiet you will be looking around at empty funnels wondering what on earth happened!

I’d love to hear from you in the Like Minded Business Owners Facebook group. You can join the group here and then come tell me what you’re doing to create leads into your business – maybe you’ll inspire another business owner! https://www.facebook.com/groups/LikeMindedBusinessOwners

But that’s it for episode 278. If you loved this episode and found it valuable, please take 30 seconds out of your day to leave me a rating and review if you want where you are listening.  One more goal of mine is to reach more people with this podcast, and you can help me achieve that, by leaving me a review!  Thanks in advance.

See you next week on the podcast for episode 279.  If you have any suggestions for podcast episodes, please sing out. After 278 episodes sometimes my brain desserts me for ideas!

But in the meantime, let’s hang out on social and get social on social – you’ll find me on Instagram, Facebook and my fav LinkedIn.

But whatever you do,

…….. remember small business peep, as my opening song says, there’s no point in dreaming small!