Episode 74: A Pep Talk For Service Providers Who've Lost Business In The Coronavirus Crisis

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Hey everyone, this is Julie. Welcome back to the Create youe Laptop Life podcast. Today I want to talk to agencies and service providers for a few minutes. I know a lot of agencies and service providers because this is one of the avatars that I serve. I serve two avatars, service based businesses and course creators. And so I know that in this climate with the coronavirus, a lot of agencies have taken a hit. It's very common. You serve customers and they lose business and then all of a sudden they look for what line items on their budget sheet they can slash really fast. Unfortunately, a lot of these businesses choose their marketing and advertising budget, which seems absolutely ridiculous to me because that is the lifeblood of a business is getting, getting new customers and leads. So it's kind of a strange, strange phenomenon, but it still happens. And so if you are an agency and you have been serving a local business, whether it's a gym or a salon or a restaurant or real estate or what have you, you might be feeling the pinch here because your clients may be deciding that you're not worth keeping around. And so it's very, very common to sort of panic in this moment. So this could be for social media managers, copywriters, funnel builders, anyone, website designers. You could be losing businesses because you serve a market that's gotten hit hard. But I want to just provide a little bit of encouragement to you because I know that in these sort of situations, it's hard to see where the opportunity is when you're so struggling to figure out how you're going to pay the bills. But there are so many industries and categories of business that are growing in this market, not shrinking, but it is going to require you to look at things differently. So let's just take E. Com for a second. Now, E Com is not something that I have done, but I know that there are a lot of E commerce companies that are exploding. In fact, one of my digital insiders, her name is dawn, she runs an E Commerce agency. And she's seeing business, an uptick in business right here. A couple examples. Number one, people who have relied on Amazon and now Amazon is not shipping out things that are considered non essential. Now these people are working to get their shopify stores up, to get their own sort of buying process done and out there so that they can continue to sell. While Amazon temporarily doesn't allow, you know, non essential goods into their, into their warehouses, then there are essentials, food and medicines and all of those kinds of things. Essential, essential products that are just exploding. So if you think about, I mean, obviously the biggest, the biggest one that we've seen in the news is personal protective equipment, right? But if you think about it, when you think about all the things that we're eating and doing at home, whether it's, you know, making bread or, you know, buying food or first aid care or trying to keep ourselves busy with crafts and projects and books, dealing with our pets, things like that, you will notice that there are tons of companies in every single category I just listed and all of those companies need help with their advertising and their marketing. So if you were a social media manager and you were servicing businesses like real estate agents and gyms, you may need to now pivot your avatar and you may need to start thinking about, all right, how would I do social media if I started going after, I don't know, whole food companies, like you know, smaller businesses that deliver whole foods. I'm thinking about the fact that I order meat for my kids from a specific business, right, that it's called Moink, right? They need advertising, they need Facebook ads, they need social media, they need all of that stuff, right? And so you want to just pivot your brain because if you're an agency, you have a skill set. Now you have a skill set maybe with a particular avatar, but this is the time to learn that skill set in a different avatar. Because as far from where I'm looking, you don't have to all of a sudden decide to, you know, start up a whole different type of business. You don't have to, you know, shut down your agency and then, you know, start selling baking ingredients as a business. But you can become an agency for the businesses that are exploding. So if you've lost clients over the last month because of what's happening, I want you to write down a bunch of industries, niches and markets that are growing. And then I want you to start to think about a marketing plan that you can deploy that will get the attention of these people. Because if they are Growing as fast as I think they're growing, they're going to need more help, they're going to need better customer service, social media, funnels, advertising, all of those kinds of things. So that's the, that's my first sort of recommendation to any agency or service provider that's feeling the burn. The second thing is that there are some service based businesses that are going to need to come online, not all of them. And so you have to be, you have to think about this carefully, right? For some gyms they may say, okay, we're going to transition online. Some gyms may just close. You have to be able to figure out where do I find the customers that are willing to convert to online and willing to pay for those services. Whether you're setting up a members area or you're building a funnel or an online program, et cetera, et cetera. So there are local businesses like that. Therapy is another one, right? Anyone who does any kind of therapy, financial services, legal services, I don't know how well you know, lawyers advertise, but they need to adapt. And there are so many people that are trying to adapt to the online space now that this has happened. And if you're an agency, you've got such a leg up on all of these people. And then the third category that is still growing are low ticket offers, right? Low ticket offers where people are creating products that are less than $50, that are easy for the market to consume but you know, and can still create, generate great revenue. So those types of people also need agencies as well. So if you're listening to this and you're an agency or a service provider and you felt the pinch, these are my three recommendations. Go after e commerce companies that are growing and learn how to pivot your services, your marketing and advertising services to aid those types of companies. Number two, look for the service based businesses that are willing to go online, whether it's financial services, lawyers, therapists, some gyms. You know, if you're serving the salon market, it's going to be really, really hard to get, you know, for them to pivot their business, you know, so just carefully pick the service based models that you could help get online. And then the third thing is in the info product space, low ticket offers are very, very popular and still selling very well. So do not despair. Give yourself a few minutes to feel, you know, panicky or nervous and work through those worries and then pick yourself up by your bootstraps and remind yourself that you have an incredibly valuable skill. Skill. If you are a marketing agency, an incredibly valuable skill that businesses will continue to need even in this climate, and especially in this climate. Because everything is going online. You're going to have to pivot, you're going to have to make some adjustments, but there's no reason why you can't not just survive, but thrive during this crisis.

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