Using relationship marketing to scale a business isn’t a new concept. For years, way before social media, people were building relationships to build trust to increase sales for long-term success.
If you aren’t using relationship marketing to scale your business to the next level, now is the time to begin. What is relationship marketing? It’s tapping into your existing community to learn what they think of your idea, to hear how they describe you, and for support and referrals.
About Veronica Romney
Veronica helps entrepreneurs fix their marketing teams and build overall company dream teams to scale to 8+ figures. Marketing departments are the most turned-over teams in our industry. Burned-out teams, burned-out CEOs, burned-out audiences, burned-out offers. It’s like my whole career has led me to this moment to solve this particular problem.
Veronica is a Dream Team Architect who helps online entrepreneurs build their dream teams and train their rainmaking marketing leaders. She’s a former Speaker and Trainer for Tony Robbins and Dean Graziosi and the former Chief of Staff of mega-brand BossBabe. Veronica is no stranger to the stage. She has been in the online marketing world for over 15 years. And she’s been featured in places like Forbes, Inc, HuffPost, ABC News Radio, and more. When she’s not helping her visionary clients scale to 8-figures plus, you can find her wrangling her two man cubs in the beautiful oak trees of North Carolina.
Being the CEO of your business
Your ability to market and scale your business starts by being the CEO of your business and having a team to support you. When you want more and want to support more people, having companionship with like-minded people makes a difference.
“You can start a business alone, but you can’t scale it alone.” – Veronica Romney
Being scrappy vs. stupid when marketing to scale your business
When moving from corporate to entrepreneurship, don’t try to emulate the corporate business model. When you start a business, it is important to be scrappy but not stupid.
What is scrappy? Deciding I’m not going to do all of the social media platforms, I am going to choose one and master it. Scrappy is going all-in with one platform and hiring a social media person to help gamify that platform. Stupid is being on all platforms and using them with a C- average across the board, not mastering any of them. The truth is you do not have to be everywhere.
The 5 Cs of Personal Branding
Clarity, cohesive, consistent, content, and community are the 5 Cs. Everything starts with clarity.
As an entrepreneur, you are the brand. What people think, say, and feel about us is going to influence whether or not they hire us or buy from us. It is so very important to have clarity on who you serve, and the people you are meant to serve, and be able to truly feel fulfilled at the same time. Likewise, if you are trying to attract everyone, you will attract no one. Identify where your ideal people are searching for information on your area of expertise.
When starting out, recognize that your first revenue stream will be your current contacts. The community that you already have. Relationship marketing is underutilized. There are so many different types of marketing, social media marketing, paid marketing, and tons of different types of marketing activities and channels. But the one that is often undervalued is relationship marketing, tapping into the people who already trust you and who will validate your offer and spread the word about you and your product or service. Your first-degree contacts will give you the feedback you need to move forward.
Feeling icky about sales – use relationship marketing to scale your business and make sales easier
If you are someone who does not like sales and the thought of selling makes you feel icky, here is a trick from Veronica. Tell the people that you know who love you, trust you, and respect you, about your idea and your business. Because they believe in you, they will spread the word about you. The people that know you, know your heart, integrity, and values, will tell everyone they know about you because they want to help you.
By listening to how they describe you, you will get a clear idea of your branding. Write down what they are saying and how they recommend you. Hearing what other people say about you will also help you feel more confident and empower you.
Veronica emphasized that even with her 7+ figure clients struggle with confidence and imposter syndrome. You mastering the confidence of what you do and how you do it now, at the beginning of your entrepreneurial journey will help you build security and confidence as you grow.
Don’t undermine yourself by telling yourself that you are too small. It is important to define who you are and your unique selling proposition now. Because it is these things that are really critical for knowing yourself. Give yourself grace that this is a beautiful time to find yourself and build confidence for later on your journey.
The visionary key performance indicator (KPI) when using relationship marketing to scale your business
Every business should have a visionary KPI. This is every time you or a representative of your company is front-facing talking about your business. How many times is someone from your organization telling the world about what you do? This includes being on social media, interviewing on a podcast, or any other opportunities to talk about your business. There is a direct correlation between how many times you share about your business and the number of sales you make. You should be tracking the visionary KPI every week.
Being visible is one of the reasons it is so important to do mindset work. If you are afraid to be present on social media or pitch yourself for PR opportunities, you won’t be able to be visible. A lack of visibility means a lack of clients. Fear, doubts, imposter syndrome, and comparison, all get in the way of feeling positive and confident to be visible online.
You can either shrink in the moments of slowness, or you can do your 1% Atomic Habits to continue to improve. These improvements are what will sustain you long-term.
Humanization and personalization are the basis of relationship marketing to scale your business.
If you are feeling intimidated because there is already someone doing what you do, that is not a measure of whether or not you should start your business or be visible. There will always be someone out there who copies you or does the same thing as you, but what they can’t copy is you. No one can copy your story and individuality that make you unique. Start leading with your personal stories and what makes you you. Humanization and personalization will make all the difference in attracting your ideal audience.
No one can rip off you!
If you are feeling intimidated by others in your space, start sharing more about yourself. Get personal. Not necessarily vulnerable, but personable because that differentiates you.
When you adhere to your values the people that you are meant to help, will find you and connect with you.
Two of Veronica’s favorite books are related to storytelling and being your personal brand:
Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company
Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win
It is the greatest form of service to tell your stories to help inform others. this loops back to the visionary KPI. We are doing a disservice if we aren’t showing up and serving the people who need us to solve their problems.
If you aren’t showing up, you aren’t marketing. Likewise, if you aren’t reviewing your KPIs you aren’t marketing.
What you master at zero will help you as you grow and scale. The best sales and marketing are stories that are simple and relatable. Simplicity is key.
Honor the simplicity of what you are doing and who you are doing it for and that will be your guiding compass as your market and scale your business.
A man chasing two rabbits will catch none. – Proverb
Don’t muddy the waters because you are in doubt that clients are coming. Just because you are in a slow phase or clients aren’t coming in, stick with the service you have that is best serving your clients. Keep it simple, always. If you are doubting or feel you need to create additional offers, do mindset work? Hold true to simplicity, if you lack clarity, go back to your purpose.
Learn more about and connect with Veronica:
Learn more about creating a brand marketing strategy to scale your business by downloading my free eBook, The Purpose to Results™ Method, How To Build a Strong Foundation for Long-Term Success.
