Twitter $10k Challenge with @TheSeanMoffett - Update #2

Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael. Welcome to another update of the Twitter $10,000 Challenge, where the goal is to bring in $10,000 in new business for my company only using Twitter and using the strategies recommended by Sean Moffitt, who is @TheSeanMoffitt on Twitter. So we had our first update last week as I was getting started using his strategies. I'm pleased to say that we already have our first order that's come in, and that's kind of a little shock. I wasn't expecting anything so quick, but it's for $2,500. Now the company, basically I've been reaching out to them on Twitter, just commenting on some of their stuff. They wrote back and they said they have this event coming up that they want me to be a part of. It's a brand name company, but they were uncomfortable with me sharing both the company name and the dollar amount. They said you can either share the company name or how much they're paying you, but not both, because other people are being hired as well for this event. They're not getting paid as much, so they don't want to ruffle their feathers. So I said I have to put the dollar amount in because that's what I promised to you guys. So I took a quick screenshot of the contract that came in. So this is March— today's the 27th, so this was 2 days ago where it came in. So I have to sign and get it back to them, but the compensation is $2,500 in cash, and then there's 5 other ways that are going to compensate me, mostly in the form of products and media exposure that they want me to, to have, I guess. But in terms of the $10,000 challenge, there The main goal there was $10,000 in cash. I'm not counting any products or media exposure or any other benefits that we're getting. This is purely at least $10,000 in cash. You'll see some of the things that I'm doing in the future. You'll be able to kind of maybe guess the company, but as of right now, I can't say the company name, but we're a quarter of our way through the goal, which again happened a lot faster than I expected, but the timing just kind of worked out. So that's how we, how we're doing so far after, after one weekend. So not bad. Again, just to share with strategies what I'm doing, and I've updated it a little bit of my process. This is my homepage dashboard when I look at every day, and on here is my social media channels. And what I do basically is every day go through some key accounts. So today is Wednesday, so let me pull up the Wednesday one. And it basically pulls in people who are in my space who might be potential either connectors or clients. And here are the most recent tweets. And this is something that we custom coded ourselves to tie into the Twitter API. Pulls in their information and their most recent tweets. And then I try to respond to some of the tweets that they're posting out. And the goal is for every— everybody on my list, we make a list of the top prospects, to be in touch with them at least once per week. And so every day of the week there's a different group of people who I quickly read their tweets and try to get involved somehow, either saying it was a good post or retweeting or adding my two cents on it. So that's how I got in touch with that first company, and timing just worked out that they had a project, we had a quick call, and within the week we already had a contract. They're waiting on me to sign, but the contract is set. So a couple examples of how else that's come up Just so you can see, this is from today. So Intuit is on my list, should be somewhere here on my Wednesday list. Intuit, there it is. So they wrote this post about perks that employees— perks to make employees happy that don't have to cost a lot. It was an article from Inc. that they shared and tweeted. And I wrote back to them, "Ooh, love this idea. Great share, guys." And they wrote back, "You know, glad you liked it, Evan." At the start here, it's just creating a conversation. So looking at what they're posting, trying to get involved in a conversation, recognizing them, and hopefully being on their radar. If you do it enough, they're going to check out your profile, see what you're all about, and if they have an opportunity to potentially work with you, they'll reach out. At least that's what happened with the first one. So, so far so good. I'm not approaching this from a hard sell perspective saying, you know, you guys need to hire me. It's just basically going through, trying to build a relationship, be seen as an expert, and have them come to me when they're ready with a project. So that's an example of one thing that's come in just today, just conversation. There's no deal that's happened as a result. It's just building a conversation. But a lot of people do respond to it, which is great. This one came in from PayScale. They wrote in asking me if I would be at the paid chat today discussing salary negotiation with the link. And I wrote back to say, and this is recent, this is an hour ago, I wrote back 20 minutes ago. I only attend these events when I host them and bring my audience. Have a great event. He wrote back, no problem, maybe we can get you involved with a future paid chat. Thanks again for the shout out. And I wrote back, sure. And so, you know, maybe that evolves into something. I don't know. But another example of somebody kind of reaching out after having a little bit of communication just via Twitter. I don't know anything really about these paid chats and what's going to come, but we'll see. Another one came from Cisco Canada. I'm just going through some examples so you can kind of get the process down and hopefully do something for yourself as well. I tweeted out something to them. They wrote back, "Given your SMB expertise, would be interested in participating in a Twitter chat about how tech can impact business growth." "Sure, email me," with my email, "so we can set up a time to talk." "Thanks Evan, will be in touch soon." And I wrote a happy face back. Now I haven't heard back from these guys. what, it's the 27th today, that was the 21st. So why don't I just write back something right now. Did you guys still want to have that chat? And tweet. There you go. We are prospecting live on the air here through Twitter. So that's basically how the process works. So I use this every day, go through, find their most recent tweets, and then Most of them, well, most of them, maybe half of them will respond with a thank you or a happy face or something like that. And sometimes it develops into a conversation and sometimes it doesn't. These are just ones that I pulled up from today just as an example, but this happens every day as I quickly send off messages to those accounts. And it doesn't take too long to do. I thought it would take longer, but it's actually pretty quick. The other thing that I started adding, doing, adding was a champion of a small business. So part of my homepage dashboard here, It says Champion, and basically when I click that, what it will do is pull in one of the accounts that I'm tracking and recognize them as a Champion of the Day. So it'll be Small Business Champion of the Day, @bellsmallbusiness, thank you for everything you do to help entrepreneurs. So just recognizing them, giving them a shout out. One of Sean's recommendations for me was to thank people who follow me back, and I like that idea. I thought that there wasn't a really great way to track who's following you and who's not following you back when you have a large account such as mine. And it was only a one-time thing, so I was looking at how can I continue to recognize people on an ongoing basis. And so this is a new idea we came up with, is creating that Champion of the Day and just recognizing some of the accounts that I'm, I'm tracking and thanking them for their contribution to the community. So, whoever it is that you're trying to track and get in front of, if you compliment them and give them a shout out to your audience, and if you do that on an ongoing basis, as well as being involved in, in their tweets, they're likely to take notice of you, look at your profile, write back to you, and if there's an opportunity, hopefully do some work with you. So I do one of these every day on top of doing those regular tweets to the main accounts. And so far people have just responded. It's been great. So we did one recently. This was with Microsoft. They wrote back, "Many thanks, you kind sir." And so, you know, it hasn't led to a sale yet, but it's just getting on their radar. Being in front of them and building a relationship. Now as they continue to post, I'll write back and hopefully as time goes on, we'll be able to generate some business together. Who knows? We'll see what happens. So that's my quick update. I hope you guys have enjoyed kind of walking through the process. It's great that we already have our first sale, so we're a quarter of the way through our goal after one week. I imagine it's going to take longer than 4 weeks to get through all of it, but We'll see what happens. For those of you watching, if you like the video, you want to see more, please give it a thumbs up below. Let us know you like this series and you want to keep on top of it as we continue to grow it out. And if you have a comment or a question about the video or about how you're using Twitter to potentially grow your business, myself and Shawn will take a look at it and try to give an answer as best we can. I also personally love seeing the comments come in because it, I don't know, makes me feel good when I wake up and see new comments on the YouTube videos about how we're having an impact. So thank you for your time, and we'll see you on the next episode.