Nicolas Cole says skip the business cards and hard sell at conferences. Instead, start casual conversations with people nearby, ask personal questions to build rapport, then mention what you do only when you can offer something useful. Position yourself as a helpful friend, not a salesman, and clients follow naturally.
You wanna know how you don't land business in conferences? You walk around and you pass out your business card. That's like a surefire way of landing no clients. You wanna know how you land clients at a conference? You make friends with the person you're sitting next to. How do you become their friend? You decide. You're like, "Why are you here?" They're like, "Ah, I came here 'cause, you know, I come here every year." "Really?" "Yeah." "Interesting city, huh?" "Yeah, it's my first time here. You know any good restaurants?" "Yeah, I've been to this one down the street." "Oh, that's pretty cool. What kind of food?" We're friends. And then at some point in the conversation, they're going to be like, so what do you do? I'm like, oh, I ghostwrite for business owners. Oh, cool. What's ghostwriting? What is that? I just— I handle their emails. Like, for example, in your business, like, you probably have like a newsletter or something, right? They're like, oh, actually, I've been thinking about starting a newsletter. Oh, so like, for example, like, I'll tell you what I do with our clients. If you were going to start a newsletter, this is what I would do. I am talking to the person like a friend. No part of me is sitting there being like, I got to get this person as a client. I go, we are friends. I can help you. Here's a bunch of free information. That is the whole game.
What Every Writer Gets Wrong About Their Audience #writing #creator #writingtips
