Attract More Clients With Deliberate Shout Outs
Credit: Roland Tangilao
Every good writer knows one piece of essential wisdom – “Show, don’t tell.” This ability took JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, from living on welfare to a 2011 estimated worth of over $1 Billion. In just a few short years!
Most helping professionals are terrible at showing. It makes it much harder for them to attract clients. In this post, I’m going to SHOW you how to use one of the simplest and most powerful client attraction strategies every to be highly neglected. I give you …
(insert dramatic music here) …
The Shout Out.
What the Heck is a Shout Out?
UrbanDictionary.com defines a shout out as “A kind mention of a homey.” While I am a big fan of kindness, I’m guessing that it’s been awhile since you used the word homey. 😉 In the coaching world, a shout out has come to mean publicly acknowledging someone for doing something really well. It’s this second definition that we’re interesting in.
Specifically, I suggest 2 things:
- Make it your business to find people who are doing a great job with the things you want your clients to get good at.
- Start deliberately telling people you know about them. Yep – start shouting them out in person, in your newsletter and on social media.
For example, one of the things that baffles many new clients in my business is how to create something really relevant and useful to offer in exchange for signing up for their newsletter. So I’m shouting out client Monica Milas who just posted one of the best free ebooks I’ve ever seen. Click here to get it.
How Shout Outs Lead to More Clients
One of the fastest ways to turn people off to you and your services is to endlessly self-promote. Think of a dating analogy – would you want to go out with someone who was constantly pestering you with how great they are and all the reasons you should date them? YUCK!
Here are 3 Ways Shout Outs Help You Attract More Clients:
- The shout out is built on the vibration of love and appreciation. These are the among the highest energies on the Emotional Scale. Is there any energy intelligent person who wouldn’t want more good vibes in their marketing?
- You earn their trust. When you introduce living examples to people who are hungry for change, you earn their respect. Then, they want to know more. No more selling to strangers!
- You will naturally receive more shout outs. When you regularly bring attention to the successes of others, people will start to notice and mimic your behavior. Psychology calls this “modeling”. Many more people will start telling their friends about your successes and great offerings. And nothing is more valuable than word of mouth marketing.
The shout out is easy, time effective, and built on the highest vibrations there are. It’s quite remarkable that so few people are deliberately using shout outs in their marketing. I’m such a fan of it that I have specifically added a section of my newsletter called – get this – Shout Outs!
What’s been your experience with shout outs? How effective do you think they are as part of a client attraction strategy? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the form of a comment below. Extra bonus points to anyone who uses the word HOMEY in their comment! 🙂
I love shout outs! It’s fun to share helpful information and resources. I have a section in my e-zine called-Cool Resources- where I share lots of things created by other people.
I also like to bring all kinds of cool, helpful people onto my podcast to introduce my peeps to what they are offering.
It’s good to spread the love.
You are such a great example of someone who does this Paul!
Leah,
I don’t think I’m on your newsletter list. Gonna have to remedy that! 🙂
As I get to know you Leah, I’m starting to see all the fun and wonderfully weird people you know. I’m liking it ALOT!
Thanks for being awesome!
What a great idea. I usually will share something I like on Facebook if it occurs to me…but I don’t make it a habit to actually be on the lookout for opportunities to recognize peeps that are doing something great and worthy of mentioning. I’m sure they’re all around me, and once I open my eyes, I’ll see them everywhere.
(I didn’t use “homies” but I used “peeps” – do I get some extra credit for that?)
Make it Great!!
Theresa,
Glad it’s helpful. Like you, for a long time I wasn’t being deliberate about shout outs. I was doing it sporadically. Sure feels good to make a deliberate intention to shout out more often!
RE: peeps. You DEFINITELY get extra credit! LOL! Thanks for playing! 🙂