Get Amazing Results with a Client Outreach Campaign

What's On My Mind

Buckle up.
Long form article today, folks.

This concept will help you get amazing results.

Let's go.

I've always been in my best shape when I'm gearing up for a big event like a Worlds ultimate frisbee tournament.

There's something about the fixed start date that creates desire, momentum and doing all the little extras.

Day over day, I get in better shape.

I see my progress.

I feel the momentum.

I strive for more.

You can create this same feeling in business development by orchestrating a campaign.

A campaign is when you design a sprint of outreaches offering help and asking for a next step.

You can run a campaign to:

Promote an event or new offering
Make up for a revenue shortfall
Create demand for what you do

I recently ran one myself, telling the world about our GrowBIG Accelerator program.

I prioritized 167 clients and partners.

My effort:

1,324 asks for the next step
129 dedicated hours

My dad summarized it best: 1,000 of anything is a lot.

Whew!

This was spread out over 24 days and was hard, especially in the beginning. I wanted to quit.

I would have been happy with 10 or 20 quality individuals to start GrowBIG Accelerator.

Results to date:

260+ people have already signed up, with more being added each day!
Most importantly, we've already had 58 BIG WINS from the outreach.

What was a BIG WIN?

Anything where the client was excited to do something significant with us.

The best news:

Over half of the BIG WINS had nothing to do with GrowBIG Accelerator.

Like: I really want to take a look at GrowBIG Accelerator after our busy season, but we could really use your help now on ____.

Simply being top of mind prompted more business than I even expected.

Quick math: the campaign resulted in over 5.5x the commercial opportunity than I had hoped.

5.5x!

That's great, but the best part was how fun it was to reconnect with so many people.

Helping a client's daughter look for a job. Helping a client think about their career. Celebrating successes.

Moments of truth.

They fuel me, and it's fun to mix them in while talking about the transformational support we can provide.

Here's how you can get amazing results with a campaign:

List the people you want to reach out to.

Have a nice mix of clients and prospects. Also a nice mix of people you've recently talked to and others where it's been awhile.

Pro tip: The pandemic has created the perfect "do over" to reach out to people you haven't connected with in awhile.
Develop a unique strategy for each person.

Three options: send a personalized asset to stay in touch, ask for a 30-minute catch up video call to reconnect or offer a significant Give To Get to invest in them.

Pro tip: The key is personalizing each message and always having their best interests in mind.
Block off time and execute.

Based on my results, plan on about 30 minutes/person for smaller campaigns like 10 people and 45 minutes/person for larger ones like 100. The larger campaigns generally require more research time.

Pro tip: block off time on your calendar to do the work. Rules of thumb: about 5 total hours for 10 people, 75 total hours for 100.
Systemetize rewarding yourself.

Focus on what you can control.

For me, I focused on Asks for the Next Step and tracked it in a spreadsheet.

I kept focusing on getting that number up, every day, shooting for X more, depending on how much time I had.

Divorce yourself from results and replies, especially in the beginning. Focus on your effort.

Pro tip: focusing on what you can control will get you through the hard beginning.

Campaigns are one of the most effective ways to get us and our teams excited to reach out.

They gamify. They align teams. They create demand.

And once you get through the hard beginning, they're fun.

What We Just Created

I'm a big fan of Advance Your Reach.

They had me on their podcast recently and it was absolutely fantastic. I was joined by Merideth Viguers, who helps people build their dream team. Great compliment to our content!

We covered how we both use speaking to get introduced to new prospects and the exact formula we've found works.

There's a lot of value in the podcast. Check it out here.

What To Revisit

One thing I leveraged in my GrowBIG Accelerator campaign was reaching out to people I hadn't talked to in awhile.
This short article by Adam Grant inspired me. SO good. Check it out here.

What's Coming Up

Speaking of Advance Your Reach, I'm particularly a big fan of Pat Quinn.

He's their leading authority on helping experts craft a signature talk that not only connects, but converts.

He leverages neuroscience like us and is the personal coach of the teams at Tony Robbins, Dave Ramsey's organization, Michael Hyatt & Co and other amazing presenters.

What a list!

I personally took his training and it was the best I've ever attended.

Pat and I are going to be presenting to the GrowBIG Accelerator community on November 17.

It costs money to stay in GrowBIG Accelerator after the first month, but your entire first month is complimentary.

Please, be my guest and attend the event at no charge by signing up here.

Don't miss this one.

What's Making Me Smile

In the campaign I described above, I distinctly remember what it felt like going through the process:

The first 1/3 of the process stinks: Lots of research and effort, 100s of personalized emails, goes sooo slowly, early No's, uncertainty, doubt. Man, it was hard.
The second 1/3: More positive responses. Yes's. Meaningful conversations. Catching up. Finding paid and unpaid ways to help people. Felt so good to reconnect. Tipping point!
The last 1/3: Momentum! Just had hang on and keep helping. So fun!!

What's making me smile is how my emotions were trying to steer me to quit.

The present doesn't want the future to happen.

Thank goodness I kept powering through, or I wouldn't have gotten the great results at the end.

Again, it's like getting in shape for big athletic events.

The beginning stinks, but has to happen to get the success on the other end.

What's Worth Lingering On

Running the campaign to let people know about GrowBIG Accelerator taught me so much.

How hard the beginning is.

How important it is to focus on what you can control.

And like my amazing wife Becky says: just keep going.

How would a campaign like this help your book of business?

Who's on your quick list of people you'd like to reconnect with?

It only takes 2 or 3 minutes to start a list.

Grab a scrap piece of paper and start writing.

Your future self will be glad you did.

Just keep going.