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Video transcript:
A lot of people have been asking me the question, how would I start an AI business if I had no brand, no money, and I had to build an audience and get leads for my new business idea, really just starting from scratch? And that's what I'm going to cover step by step in this video.
So getting leads is one of the hardest things that people struggle with, especially at the beginning, because your new business is like a big rock, you're trying to get that rock to move, and you put a lot of energy and effort in and it only moves a little inch.
You look at other businesses, who are a little bit further along the entrepreneurial journey, and it's just spinning, and it seems like it goes on autopilot, and it's like, how do you start when you don't have that momentum? So let's talk it through.
Now, I've got to share with you some brutal honest truth about what it takes to get that momentum. Some of what I'm going to share with you, you're going to love. Some of it, you're not going to love as much, because it's actually quite difficult.
It's hard, but I'm going to give you the honest answers here. The first thing is, if you're starting from scratch, you've got to discount paid advertising. Anything paid is an accelerant, but it's not an initiator. So what do I mean by that?
If you've already got a great value proposition, you know your audience, you know what they're comfortable spending, you've got a packaged offer, you've got a great pricing strategy, the way you communicate is super on point, then running ads to any of that is probably going to be a great thing. It's going to work. You're going to accelerate the success.
If you are really refined with your messaging, you can get up on a stage, you can get on a podcast, you can drop some really high quality content on Youtube and Linkedin, and people are going to respond to that. So paying for ads is going to accelerate your success.
But here's the thing, if you're slightly off point, if you're not clear about what it is that you do or the package or the pricing, then running ads and paying to promote an offer that’s not validated is going to accelerate your decline.
You're actually going to learn in a very fast and expensive way that you're off point. It's a little bit like having an airplane where something's not quite right, there are a few rivets out of place, and if you speed that up and throw a lot of fuel in the tank, it's going to rip apart. That's a bad look. It's going to accelerate the damage to the plane.
So you have to get refined on your offer without spending any money and there's three things that you need to do. The first one is you have to have something called a call to action. You have to have a thing for people to do.
It's kind of like if you wanted to get people to turn up to a party, you've got to set a date and you've got to have a place for them to RSVP and you've got to tell them who's going to be at the party and what the party is all about and if there is a theme to the party. You've got to kind of like have something for people to engage with.
So in business, we typically have things like a waiting list, a survey, an event people can attend. You might have a discussion group people can join. You might have a pre-registration or interest form that people can click on.
So there's all of these things that show people exactly, this is what we're doing and here's what I want you to do. I want you to click this button to register your interest. So that's part number one. That's a call to action. Something for people to do. Part number two is signature content.
Now signature content takes the thesis of what your business is all about and it lays it out in a really clear way. So it's going to say this is the problem. This is the solution. This is your background. This is some of the proof that you've got. This is some of the traction that you've seen so far.
Here's some academic research that backs up what you're saying. Here's some real world case studies that backs up what you're noticing. So you're putting that all into a piece of signature content and that signature content outlines the thesis of what your business is all about.
And then the final part is once you've got a call to action and a piece of signature content, you want to do something horrible called cold outreach.
Cold outreach is where you manually message and email people who you don't know, and you let them know about the signature content and the call to action. And the reason most people don't like this is because we're taught not to do this.
We're taught as children not to talk to strangers. Don't bother people. If you're in a country like the UK or France or Germany, it's culturally kind of like abnormal to reach out to someone that you don't know and let them know about something.
But in business, if you're trying to get a business off the ground and you don't have a budget, you've got to do some of the things that take you out of our comfort zone. And this is one of them. This is called cold outreach.
So let's talk about going from cold outreach into signature content and into a call to action. So with cold outreach you're going to send an email or a direct message and it's going to be loosely targeted to people who fit within your audience.
So it could be someone who follows a particular Instagram account. Maybe they use certain hashtags on their LinkedIn posts. Maybe they've got a certain job title. Maybe they've got a certain demographic about them. In some way, you do some loose targeting for the people you're going to reach out to. And you're going to send them a message on social media.
Or if you've got their email address, you might reach out and send them an email and here's how you're going to do it. The opening of your message is going to talk about something you've done in your past that fits this description.
You're going to tell them a story about, I did something special with a certain type of business and I got a remarkable result. So you might say, over the last two years, we ran a marketing campaign using AI automation. It got 20,000 leads and we generated 10 million in sales for that particular business.
You're now going to be sharing with people how that campaign unfolded and how that campaign worked. You will tell them that if you're interested, I've put it into a signature piece of content that you can watch or read about. And if you'd like to, you can attend an introduction workshop that we're going to run about how that campaign unfolded.
So that would be a cold direct message. Dear so-and-so, I noticed that you're an entrepreneur. We recently ran a campaign for businesses that worked really, really well. I wrote about it on my LinkedIn and I'm going to be running an introduction workshop, something like that.
So you're just letting people know there's nothing to buy. They don't have to spend any money, but there's a signature piece of content that they can look at. And there's a call to action they can engage with if they're interested. So the cold message is not what you're doing in the future. The cold message is all about what you did and achieved in the past.
And if someone wants to know more about that, they go to the signature piece of content, and respond to the call to action that is available. That's the formula.
So how many DMs are you going to send? You're probably going to send thousands of DMs and emails. And when you track those numbers, and you have proof that your messaging is working and the right types of people are responding, you see who is finding their way across and who ultimately buys your service.
Once you figure out exactly who are the ones who are likely to buy, then and only then, when you validated your offer, you are ready to put some money behind it and run some ads.
Now I've seen plenty of businesses do this as well. It's a roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty approach, but it works. So if you're starting with no budget, or even if you are starting with a budget, but you're not quite sure if you should deploy that just yet, this is the strategy for getting the wheels in motion.
Now, here's a question that you're going to have. Can I outsource this? No, I don't recommend you to outsource this. Maybe you could outsource this.
You see, there's something that happens when you do this tough work where suddenly it gets ingrained in you. What messages are working? What are people responding to? Who's buying? This is about getting up close and personal with your customers as much as you possibly can.
Look, I have a friend who sold his company literally and became a multi-millionaire. A super, super successful entrepreneur. He's done it multiple times.
Recently, I watched him starting a new business. What did he do? He did dozens and dozens of one-to-one sales meetings himself. He doesn't need to be doing one-to-one sales meetings, but he wanted to be up close and personal with his customers.
He got himself out there, hands on with customers, seeing how they work with his products and services. He worked with customers, putting marketing materials in front of them, seeing how they'd react to it. He got super hands on.
Most people didn't eve, realize they were having a one-to-one with a millionaire, but this guy, he knows what works and he knows that you need to get hands on in your business.
So here's the thing, don't outsource this. This is an important part of the process. This is you learning about your marketplace in a very real way. I know it feels tough. But that's entrepreneurship. You need to get your hands dirty.
Now, if you want to try out some more marketing strategies to get your AI business of the ground, check out the first link in the description where I give away all my marketing training for free to get you started.
And if you found this video helpful, give me a like and a subscribe to tell the YouTube algorithm to share this with others as well. See you in the next video, bye for now