[Transcript starts at 1:13]
Hey guys, Maestro here and welcome back to another episode of Maestro on the Mic. Today I'm talking to you about what I think is the best way to grow your small or personal business. And actually I was. On Instagram, of course, and I read a post by, or watched, listened to a post by Seth Godin, um, and it really, you know, prompted me to put this episode out, because I've been thinking about this for a while.
I actually, and I'm so fucking pumped about this, I actually got asked to speak at the Craft and Commerce Convention next, or it's actually a conference, I should say, the Craft and Commerce Conference next year, uh, in Boise. I go to that every year. Um, this will be my third year. And, uh, it's put on by ConvertKit, which is the email service provider that I use.
I'll link it actually in the show notes. Uh, that is. An affiliate link, of course. Um, but I got asked to speak there and I was thinking about topics and this is something that's really been on my mind for quite some time, especially with the more I do in the digital space. Um, and that's doing things that don't scale.
All right. So most of you listening to this. Many of you, I'm going to assume, if you do have a business, it's, it's probably like a personal business. You're not like owning a global franchise or something like that. And if you are, that's fucking amazing. Uh, but if you want to sponsor the podcast, please let me know.
But I'm guessing most of you have like a personal business, you know, a mom and pop shop, a little side hustle. And that's what I do. And you know, I have a personal business. And. I really strongly feel that in today's atmosphere, when we're all kind of vying for attention or, you know, all the, the viewers and such are vying for, or all the people promoting their shit are vying for the attention of, you know, the viewers in the audience.
I really think that the best way to grow your business. is to do things that don't scale. And what do I mean by that? You know, if you actually go into this digital business thing, and you start like reading stuff and learning, it gets overwhelming really quickly. And they're talking about funnels, and sales strategy, and marketing strategy, and systems, and all this stuff that you're like, holy shit, and like, the marketing is like, how to get your first million customers, or how to make your first million dollars.
Well, guess what? It starts off with one customer and one dollar, or one penny, whatever you decide to sell for. My point being, it starts off small. And The fact of the matter is we live in a time when we are able to connect with so many people. I actually just had lunch yesterday with a friend from Australia.
She's in town and I had actually visit her, visited her when I was out there and I met her when she was Here, a few years ago, we have the ability to connect with so many people, and yet, based on polls and stuff and quote unquote studies that are out there, people have never felt more isolated or disconnected.
And so what I think is going on is that we are trying to get these big numbers and get a ton of eyes on us. Instead of valuing the eyes that we already have, instead of doing the things that don't scale and actually taking the time to reach out to that individual. And I just got finished with my Instagram intensive, which I'm going to be launching again, very, very soon.
So stay tuned. Uh, I just got finished with that and I will link it in the show notes again so you guys can see that what, what it's about. But I just got finished with that. And you know, one of the things that I see is that people will have, quote unquote, a small following, a hundred, 200, 500, 700 and what they think is a small following, and I'm like, dude, have you ever spoken to a room of 50 people, a hundred people, 700 people?
And I get it, Instagram doesn't show your stuff to everyone, but it still means that those are 50, a hundred, 700 people who took the time. To follow you. They took the time to push that button and said, Yes, I want to follow this person and have their content come into my life. willingly. We need to value that and we need to go deep with those people.
We really need to focus on going deep before we worry about going wide. I'm going to link Seth's post. I'm kind of like obsessed with him right now. Seth Godin. I'll link the post because it was really good. And Seth talks about, uh, the attention trust cycle. And if you want attention, you have to have trust.
And if you want trust. You don't, you have to have attention or, you know, more so along the lines of, I guess, kind of how specifically he said it, uh, to get attention, you need trust and to get trust, you need to have attention and it goes back and forth. And so I don't really think it's a chicken or the egg thing.
And he doesn't say that it is. Uh, I think that it starts with gaining people's trust, right? And the way you do that is by doing the shit that doesn't scale. As it relates to the social media, we're not broadcasting. Jill, my girls, you know I love Jill. Jill, if it talks about this, like, we're not out to be broadcasters.
We want to have conversations. And you can't have Conversations with a million people at once, right? That doesn't scale. You have to do it with one person at a time. When was the last time you actually slid into the DMs of someone, you know, you, maybe you're watching their stories. And you liked something that's funny or whatever.
And when was the last time you commented on that? Or when was the last time that you slid into the DMs of someone who commented on your post? Or maybe if no one's commenting yet, that's okay. People are liking your stuff. Maybe you had five likes on a post. When was the last time you reached out to that person and was just like, hey, thanks for liking this.
Do you have any questions? How can I help you? Or the last time that you reached out to someone who followed you. If you have a small follower account, you know, quote unquote small follower account, this is actually far easier. Yeah, I'm, I'm about to hit 50, 000 Instagram homies and I am so fucking blown away by it.
But it's really difficult to keep track of people who follows you in a day. So it's actually much easier when you have a smaller following because you see the numbers, you see the things pop up. You see the alerts or whatever you guys have on there that show you, yeah, this person just took the time to follow you.
And so reach out to them, do the things that don't scale. This is how you will build trust. Seth talks about it in his post that. You build trust by showing up, by doing things that other people aren't doing. You show up for people, you're already ahead of like 99 percent of the population. You follow through on your promises.
You actually answer questions. If you are on social media, you better answer every goddamn DM that you receive. I have 50, 000 homies, just about 50, 000 homies, and I answer every single DM. What's your excuse? Right? You find the time, you figure it out, because this is how you grow. You build trust on a case by case, individual basis.
And then those people, they go and tell other people. The same strategies that we use for, you know, in person organic growth, they work on social media. They work in the digital space. Right. We love word of mouth and word of mouth works in real life. That's how we grow. It's also going to work in the digital space because you're going to show up and you're going to keep showing up and you're going to answer DMS and you're going to do things that don't scale.
And you're going to post and then be online, be on Instagram for the next 30 minutes so that you can answer any questions or respond to any comments that come in, and then they're going to tell someone else, they're going to send your post to somebody else and be like, yo, this person, like, you know, Yeah, this is a good account to follow.
That's how you will grow. That is how your business will grow. It does not scale, right? You can't do this like for a million people, but you can do it for one person. You can do it for five people, you can do it for 10 people. In real talk, if you don't know how to nurture the relationship with 10 people, you don't deserve 50, 000 people.
You haven't earned it. People tend to think like, oh, I just need to like get my big break. And like, like if a big account would just repost me, then I'll be set. No, because those people, right, that they're putting you in front of, they don't trust you yet. You've done nothing to earn their trust. Their trust.
That's so it's not how it works. There's no shortcut to earning trust. Okay. I'm going to wrap this up because I'm trying to keep to the actual Thursday Shorty, I say this every week and I'm trying, right? Um, but I am going to wrap this up. Like I said, the big take home for today, the best way to grow your small or personal business is by doing things that don't scale, the best way.
All right. If you like this episode, please, I'm going to ask for it. Give me five stars, preferably five stars. That's this much nicer. Leave a review, subscribe, all of these things help people to find the podcast. And if you've already done that, thank you. It's so one sided with this podcast space. I always bitch about this.
Like I can't like write back to you. And I hate that. Um, and I did start a Facebook page. For the podcast so that I can write back to you guys. So if you do write in, in that platform at Facebook, Facebook is like what you prefer. You can write stuff on that. I'll link it in the show notes. Um, but just know that I appreciate you.
I see you and I thank you. All right. That's all that I got for you. Until next time, friends. Maestro out.
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