Dotty Scott built her business through weekly videos since 2009 and LinkedIn Q&A instead of in-person networking. A client named Deborah Morrison found her online and generated multiple referrals. Online visibility made sales and relationship-building easier.
Did you know that I am truly an introvert? I hate going to networking events. They drain me. They take all of my energy and they put like this rock in my stomach. And it's been that way my whole life. But I knew as a business owner that I had to figure out a way to get past that because I would love to be invisible. I would love to just have clients pour in and sit in front of my computer and talk to no one. That would be like my ideal day. But we all know that is not how you grow a business. So I want you to know that's where I started from. I was invisible. The first video I did that I put on YouTube was in 2009, and I started with, again, not really wanting to talk to people. I thought, why don't I just do videos that answer all the common questions? And then when someone asks me that question, I can just send them a video. That's the thought process that went through my head. I'd been doing networking, collecting names, all that stuff. And I started sending these videos out once a week. I committed to myself I would do this for a year, one video per week. And I was shocked at what happened. It was not what I expected whatsoever. One day I went into a chamber event, which if you guys have never been to a chamber event, they're huge. 100 people there, roughly, and it's loud, and my hearing's not that great. I dread going to these events. I went one day, and I had someone walk up to me and say, Dotty, you're everywhere. And I'm thinking to myself, really? I'm in my office behind my computer. Not talking to anybody, being in my happy space. I, I had another person come up to me and start talking to me as if I knew who they were. I had no idea, not a clue, but they were talking about my most recent video that had gone out, whatever that subject was. And so it was easy for me to talk to this person. Whom I didn't even know what their name was, other than they had a little name tag that said whatever their first name was. What I got out of creating these short little videos was the ability to go into these huge networking events and now online events and have people know who I am before they ever call me, which is huge as a business owner. If you can get that online, if you can have people do their research, find your business and watch some videos that you've done, get to know you and then call you, I can tell you it makes the sales process immensely easier. And here's another thing. Laura could totally relate to this one. So back again in 2010, way back then, LinkedIn did this cool thing they called questions and answers. And you could go on there and you could find your topic, whatever you were a genius in, and you could read people's questions and you could answer them. I've been doing that again. As an introvert, it's easy to sit behind my desk and answer questions. And then lo and behold to me, I get this phone call from none other than Deborah Morrison, which some of you here know who she is because she's a member. She lives on the East Coast. She lived in New Jersey at that point. I'd never even been to the East Coast ever. I had zero designs on ever getting clients from the East Coast. But Deborah had been reading some of my questions and answers and she picked up the phone and she called me directly from LinkedIn because my phone number is in my profile. And through the years she became a client. I've built probably between her and her referrals. Anywhere from 6 to 10 websites, and she's the reason I am in Momentum or in WPN. So she's the reason I've met all of you. Ultimately, LinkedIn is the reason I met her, and it's from being visible.
