Are you a career professional who is tired of being a little fish in a big, competitive, global pond when marketing your services online to job seekers? Because resume writing and career coaching are recession-proof services where you can find your clients literally anywhere, many initially set their sites exclusively on internet marketing thinking they will get the greatest ROI. While this is true given time and nurture, quite often it’s the local market where you can gain the fastest business growth due to limited competition for market share.
You may be even be the ONLY fish in your market!
So, unless you live in a very rural community or the economy is extremely depressed in your area….
Your Local Market Can Help You Gain Clients Quickly and Grow Your Resume Writing & Coaching Business!
I love resume writing and related career services as a business because literally everyone you touch will at some point in their life need your services, or know someone else who does. When you get to say, “I’m a resume writer” as part of introducing yourself, people can relate and often their faces will light up and you’ll hear, “My sister could sure use to work with you right now”.
STOP: I can actually hear your mind spinning that the sister might not be willing to invest in herself, but if you start using CDI’s scripts and strategy, 3-Step Process to a 97% Close Rate and a 6-Figure Income, you will find that these factors are likely not issues. Many career service providers, like myself, have discovered that job seekers will eagerly invest in themselves when you use this very easy edu-fearacating, show-and-tell methodology.
In this 7-minute video you will learn:
- Super easy and painless way to break into local networking and build support and referrals even if you are shy or introverted.
- What kind of groups you should consider targeting for presentations and networking.
- Types of events that can give you the best return on investment.
- What to speak on to shift prospects from a DIY mentality on career services to eagerly wanting to consult with you professionally.
Scroll below for the video, transcript, and additional supporting resources.
Watch the Video
Read the Video Transcript
It’s so easy to get focused on the internet being this low-hanging fruit to potentially find our prospects and new clients that we forget about our local market. And obviously if you live in a very depressed local market, this isn’t going to be for you. But for a lot of people who are just starting out, growing their businesses, trying to get traction, trying to get eyes on their website, it’s just as equally important to look at your local market as it is to be focused on things like networking on LinkedIn, and posting fresh content on LinkedIn, and writing on your blog, and optimizing for SEO.
Let’s think about what our local market can bring us. If you’re a resume writer, career coach, or other career practitioner, chances are very good that your clients are everywhere. You have a recession-proof business because when the market is bad, job seekers need resumes and help to assert themselves and stand out against all this competition. And when the market is good, job seekers feel they deserve more and they want promotions and greater opportunities, and so they tend to seek out help so they can do that. Plus, it doesn’t really matter what group you’re speaking to because at some point, everyone will need a resume or career help or knows someone who will need it.
So for instance, I look at myself. When I was first starting out, I had, I don’t know if you’d call it a benefit or a negative, but that was the 90s and the internet wasn’t more than an AOL disc that you could pop in your computer and hop online. And even that wasn’t until a couple of years into my business. So if I wanted to grow, I needed to really get out there locally and then potentially nationally.
I loved what Anthony Robbins had to say which was if my colleagues were doing 10 presentations a month, I was doing 30 because I wanted to get there 30 times faster. And while I’m not saying you should be out there speaking 30 times a month, that can be excessive, when would you do anything else? But what I’m saying is — look around. There are opportunities everywhere for you to network.
If you’re a woman, join the women, the professional women’s networks in your area. Again, everyone there knows someone who could be your client. If you’re coming from another profession, that can be a great group to go speak to first because you know your audience. You’re going to be at greater comfort there and you can share a topic that a lot of them will need to know at some point during their career, whatever your specialty is.
Also honestly, if you’re a resume writer, I still don’t suggest you talk on resumes because so many will see it as a do-it-yourself service and won’t hire you. There’s actually for CDI members a script in the members section on talking about interviewing being an uneven playing field and how there’s only one winner, and what you need to do to be that winner. And that always packs my schedule with consults when I speak.
So look around, what can you do?
And I get it, you’re possibly shy, this is uncomfortable. Do you have a colleague from that industry? Do you have a professional friend if you’re a woman? Or if you’re just going to a general networking event, a professional of any sex. It doesn’t really matter if it’s not just for women only. Have somebody go with you so you don’t have to go in alone the first couple of times and it will benefit them as well. I, myself, very introverted, believe it or not, and I wanted success as a business owner so bad, but I was so chicken. So at first, my mom would go because she was a local professional, and going together would be a way to get in the door. Once in, we would go our separate ways.
Then I discovered that most of these meetings had 30-minute networking periods at the beginning, so what I would do is I would get there 10 minutes before the networking was ending. Like say this is my first time going. I would get there, I would eyeball the room, I would look for a couple of people who were sitting down already, and I would go over and say, “Oh, can I sit with you? Is this seat taken?” I would go and get into conversation with them, and then the meeting would come to order.
Sometimes we got to introduce ourselves and I’d have my little 20-second pitch about what I did and who I was and that I had flyers available. Meeting would go on. At the end of the meeting, I would ask the people I had talked to around me or who I’d been interested in from the introductions for a card, and then I would go home. Back in the day when we walked two miles to school uphill in the snow, just kidding. I’m not that old. But back then, I would write out a very nice, simple thank you card, throw my business card in there, and I would just say, “It was such a pleasure to meet you last night. I look forward to seeing how we can help each other,” and shoot that off.
It never failed. I would get a couple of people who would call me. Today, it would be also connecting on LinkedIn I would do and probably message them there, although there’s a lot of good things to be said for putting a card in the mail. People don’t do it anymore, so it really stands out and gives you a chance to put your business card in their hand. But if they didn’t call, when I showed up at the next meeting alone and probably feeling a little chicken, somebody would be like, “Hey Laura, come on over. I want to introduce you to some people.” And I would be in and it would be just, “Whoo, we’re done.”
So it’s okay if you’re shy. Just think about how important this is for you to get the results and start small. You can go to a group, you can join it, like you can go as a career professional to SHRM meetings and meet people or like I said, your own profession or complementary ones to start with. And as your comfort grows, then ask to speak and then look at national organizations for that specialty. Do they have webinars? How can you now bridge the gap higher and to bigger opportunities in front of more people?
It’s amazing what this will do for your business. Job fairs, I mean, there’s opportunities all over. You can look for just in your local market to stand out and if you have a process on how to sell yourself once you get to talking to people after these things, you’ll find that you’ll be able to overcome any DIY mentality that your prospects have and sell them on success with your services.
Additional Resources (Free to Members)
Not yet a CDI member? You can access CDI’s entire library for as little as $97! Learn more now.
Model for Converting Your Presentation Attendees into Excited Prospects (Core Lesson) >>
Done-For-You Consultation Script & Sales Strategy for Resume Writing & Career Services >>
6-Figure Blueprint for Consulting, Sales, Packaging & Closing >>
Additional Resources (Free to Everyone)
Master’s Video Course for Resume Writers & Career Coaches Who Want to Close 4-Figure Sales >>
Membership Taste-Test: 8 Free Lessons >>
