Summary: To grow your client base proactively, you have to do more than just post stuff. It's about initiating conversations. And if you think of your social media content as your first contact, and you recognize that the goal of the first contact is to initiate a second contact (which means to get a response,) then your likelihood of success is going to be greatly increased.<br> <br> <br> <br> David: . Hi, and welcome to the podcast. Today, co-host Jay McFarland, and I will be discussing the topic of growing your client base proactively. Welcome, Jay.<br> <br> <br> <br> Jay: Hey, thank you for having me on. I'm super excited about today's topic.<br> <br> David: Yeah, it's great to have you here.<br> <br> Jay: Yeah, I, I know this is a big question for businesses.<br> <br> I've heard the phrase, if you're not growing, you're dying. And so growth is a constant thing that you have to be thinking about. How do you do that proactively?<br> <br> David: It's a great question because so often we get caught up in the day-to-day of what's going on. Particularly in the early stages of a business, when you don't have as much business as you need, it can be really scary.<br> <br> And what a lot of people tend to do is they just sort of default to whatever it is that they think is going to bring in business. And they lose sight of the fact that if they aren't proactive about it, you can really fall into bad patterns that can create problems and perpetuate a cycle where you're not generating the revenue that you need to grow and scale.<br> <br> Jay: Yeah. This is such important information because I think most people don't start a business because they know how to grow a business. They start a business because I have a great recipe and I'm going to put it in a food truck. Or I'm an attorney even, and I've learned the law or a dentist or a doctor.<br> <br> Those people are not trained or taught how to grow their business. They're taught how to do their craft. So this is outside of anything they've been taught.<br> <br> David: It's really funny because there was an electrician here earlier today at our house and he was taking care of some things and we were having exactly this conversation because he used to work for another electrical firm. He decided to start his own business and we started talking about what they don't teach you in electrical school, essentially, right?<br> <br> I know how to do electrical work, but do I know how to find customers? Do I know how to find the right customers? Do I know how to handle the billing and do collections and hire and fire, and do all the other things that become necessary when you have a business?<br> <br> It's a whole different set of skills. But you're right. And from the standpoint of our topic today, in terms of growing proactively, a lot of business owners really don't know how to go about that. They don't know how to do it, which is the reason we're having this conversation today.<br> <br> Jay: Yeah. And it can be so daunting.<br> <br> So where, where do you start? I mean, you know so many ideas. You know, you got social media, you've got all of these different tools available to you. Where do you begin? .<br> <br> David: Well, I think for a lot of people, if you want to take a strategic approach, you want to think in terms of the types of clients you actually want to have, the types of customers that you enjoy interacting with.<br> <br> By and large, these are going to be people who are pleasant to deal with. They're people who have money and aren't afraid to spend it. They're people who appreciate the value you bring to the table. And a lot of times we don't even think of that. Particularly in the early stages, if somebody is willing to pay us for what we do, we're like, "okay, great. I'll take it."<br> <br> I think that can really be a mistake,
