4 TIPS TO STARTING A BUSINESS WITH NO MONEY
and welcome to today's call and uh just give me a minute here while we connect so hopefully you can see me now i believe we are live so welcome everyone if you made it live that's absolutely awesome wherever you are good morning good evening good afternoon i'm really privileged to have valerie on the call this evening all the way from the philippines i believe yes manila vanilla nice one good and you know we we get guests from all around the world we've had lots of places in europe and lots of places in the u.s but we've never had anyone from the philippines yet so that's uh that's the first so uh it's awesome to have you here and we're going to be talking about driving traffic and building businesses but valerie's expertise is doing this with without massive budgets because anyone who's got a million dollars from venture capital you know they can just go in and put a million dollars on paid ads and that's really simple but to a degree i mean it's not that simple but it's not that hard but where it gets really interesting is when you haven't got the big budgets like the majority of us and this is valerie's expertise so that's what we're going to be talking about today is how to start your business from a stand still position and i'm really excited so valerie over to you um just before we start let me um i'm gonna see if i can actually see ourselves live in the group hopefully yeah and i can i'm just gonna turn myself down and yeah we are live so that's awesome that's so that part of it works so we're on to a good start okay so um tell me about yourself and uh valerie what's what's your background okay um so i actually started this business last year right at the start of the pandemic in the philippines we got the i mean the lockdown started around march and then when that happened i was actually a chief marketing officer last year in a real estate company here in the philippines but along with five million other filipinos and many many others around the world i lost that job because i was new i was new in that company and um that incident okay so i actually treated that rejection as a redirection and when you're forced out of a job you know you you think of especially in the pandemic you think about you you get scared you think about what's going to happen in the future what if something somebody in the family gets sick you know you need to save money will i ever get a job again etc etc and so long story short um i combined my neural linguistic programming certification plus my advertising and marketing as well as my experience as a co-founder of an e-commerce site so i combined them all together and came up with um a method a digital strategy uh that i called brain science selling and coming from coming from a loss you know because i wasn't sure if i was going to get a job i wanted to make sure that i don't spend a lot you know i don't spend because it was at that point where there was so much uncertainty you don't want to spend and that's how i forced myself to start this business close to nothing like with just as i said my background my expertise just me and my time basically that's that's how i you know that's how i started and then i realized that that actually also came from my first business when we were when we started that e-commerce site because um you know uh i i know it because i came from i came also came from that other other industry where we don't have the the budget so we were forced to learn um even graphic design on our own you know convince a lifesaver that's that's one thing that's one way to bootstrap your business i had to learn youtube is a um it's a gold mine it's a treasure of all of these information and so all of these you know coming from that perspective of a new entrepreneur without the budget without all of these um the money and in the middle of a pandemic with a lot of uncertainty that's what i started teaching other people like you don't have to spend a lot because look at me um we were chatting yesterday and you know here in the philippines the value of a five or a six uh figure business is huge and that was that's what i was able to get from even from bootstrapping nice so you know i want to share to as many as as many as possible the strategies and the tactics that i use because i know that it's going to help a lot of people absolutely so i guess there is two parts to that the first one is to get your company set up which is as you mentioned um the canva getting the marketing together and maybe uh you know just getting things done and the other thing is to generate traffic isn't it which is really where a lot of people struggle um with with traffic i mean i think to be honest they struggle with both they struggle with getting stuff done and it's good to have a kind of know where to go like almost like a like a resource uh to to go to places where you don't have to pay for everything um and also how to drive traffic without having to invest in ads like maybe like some cheap ads but to invest a huge amount of money in ads that's the knack really isn't it yes yeah um so i'm gonna share one of the well i actually prepared um four or five depending on where our audience is in their journey in you know where they are in their business whether they're still thinking of building one starting one number one that really worked for me as a you know as a coach and as a trainer is first to work with teams okay first is to work with teams why is that because you're leveraging um their network so who's this to work with teams so instead of individuals because you know when we start with with our business sometimes we start with one-on-one selling yeah um for coaching even for when you look for clients you know you look for you look for individuals for your clients i did not look for individuals i looked for teams oh nice okay that's interesting that's an immediate multiplier that's an immediate multiplier so for example okay um i don't know if you have uh network groups like uh bni or um the rotaries of the lions club the organization associations so i um actually offered in the beginning three sessions like 30 minutes of you know training 30 minutes 30 minutes of talks and that's how i was able to immediately build my network that's immediate and that's multiplied so that's one i i spoke with um organizations of jewelry makers artisans because that's my my you know my other business is is an e-commerce site with locally made products i also talked to insurance groups brokerage again immediately that's a multiplier you know really interesting yeah yes and then um so you talk to you talk to the boss because their teams and then eventually so since these are either you know they're older sellers meaning they're part of a team or they are organizations of businesses so if it's an organization of businesses each of the participants now come to me and say can you teach my team can you train my team if they are individuals so if they are part of a sales team for example the individuals will now now actually started following me on facebook and asking me for like um you know digital courses because i didn't have a digital course in the beginning it was just all live trainings all live trainings in the beginning and um so when they were asking me i'm like miss val that's how what they call me i want to review the trainings that you give us but i didn't have a recording so i'm like that's a very good insight no that it again expanded my business into something you know a new revenue stream because i realized that there was a need for digital courses something that people can review because they wanted you know they wanted to learn from me so that's the the the magic of working with teams another one is when these people the the people in this in the sales teams when they get promoted when they got promoted last year they got me again this time to help with their own team so in a span of a year i was able to grow my network this is um you know the people that i've taught the people that i've helped four thousand five hundred four thousand to five thousand that i can count wow that's interesting yes but i can that i can count that doesn't include all the facebook lives that i've done or you know things like this all the podcasts etc that doesn't include those are really the people who attended my zoom classes so that's one and when you have all of these people following you um that's when i started my business page so i i did the trainings i did the the service first even before i went social media because they were asking me to f for follow-ups like how can i how how can i get in touch with you how can we learn more from you etc so when i when i opened or when i created my um social media account my facebook the business page itself you know it's it's like an immediate community right i didn't even have to i didn't even have to look for them or get or you know buy ads so that they will follow me i don't also like growing um through ads because there's no relation um though people following me on social media i know them like one way or another they've they've attended one of my one of my training so that's one okay that's immediate multiplier and then immediate traffic so working with teams and then number two is when you're starting or still thinking about starting a business we all have facebook i don't know like how many billions of people right now six billion maybe um and counting people have facebook so that's our um something that we already have we spent nine hours and 45 minutes at least filipinos this was from last year's research so nine hours and 45 minutes on facebook that's more than more than the time that you spend in an actual real job because you're only 18 hours is it a day yes per day oh that's insane so 9 hours and 45 minutes on facebook and and since we're already there you know you just have to monetize and how do you monetize first of all you you are you have to understand how it works so what's your biggest real estate in on your facebook page for example that's actually your cover photo right right that's your that's your biggest real estate and normally our our cover photos is just um you know a logo or a photo of us or some travel photo if you're if if you don't have a business page yet you know um why not use that to actually say something number one is how do you help people what is it what is it exactly that you do and so it's already there even before even before people click on your news feed on your actual profile it's already there make it as easy as possible to for people to find you and for people to find out how to work for you so that's one the cover photo is essential and another thing that you can use it for is when you eventually decide again depending on where you are in your journey when you eventually decide decide to um have freebies download the balls put it immediately on your cover page so say um my cover page in my other in my facebook group is the anatomy of facebook because it's you know people still don't know some people still don't know and then the caption will just say download here and that's your lead generation your biggest real estate is your lead generation material which again doesn't cost anything it's all it's all for free and immediately you can get emails you can get um you know conversations and engagement with people because it's a freebie people love freebies yeah so that's your cover page this is optimization and then this is something that i learned um you know with social media our about page the the about description we usually say something about us it just says about right it just says about so my initially i said you know i'm a trainer i am a neuro-linguistic programming practitioner but then i changed it to what do i do who do i help so i bought it's about people that i have because you know when you when you start a business when you are looking for people to um you know you said business opportunity seekers it is really not just about starting a business it is about finding why do you start a business you start a business because you want to solve a problem you are there to help a certain you know a certain group of people so that's what you put in your about page who are they what do you do for them what what how can you help them with so that's one thing that you know again it's free but that changes people's perception of you because they they place you now as somebody who can help them and not just somebody who is trying to sell their products or you know really push push the sale so the first one let's just review so the first one is working with teams the second one is the smart use of your facebook without um spending anything now if you're ready i last year when i started this um even if i knew how to i actually taught people how to do targeting you know ads etc i didn't want to use it myself uh because again my thing was bootstrapping my thing was bootstrapping but if you have a little bit of a budget um we i don't know if like our audience awareness consideration in conversion parts of facebook right the campaigns so the campaign objectives usually we start with awareness you know brand awareness it's like um confetti flying in the real world free pandemic you give out flyers to everyone anyone everyone which is good which is good for awareness but i've what i did so this is uh you know um how how i made it work for me which is actually very good for you because this we are on video right now is videos i use the video strategy when you sell on facebook or when you sell in on any social media site people don't immediately buy from you um it is between they have to see you between seven to 12 times before they even trust you with their money that's why retargeting is important but when you use videos for your ads it goes down to five okay so because people will people will realize you are not a robot you're a real person somebody that they can talk to somebody um you know that they can trust so instead of seven to ten times which means you have to pay you have to spend seven to twelve times you now only spend five times when you use video as content for your for your ads so that's one and then um with videos there's some insight you can actually check your videos how many you know how long people watched it so they will you know you will see three seconds you will see a playthrough which is 15 seconds onwards and um the thing about that is when when they see 15 seconds when you see 15 seconds onwards you can use that as a retargeting again because the people who watched it for 15 seconds or more means they are more ready they are warmer so you don't have to spend a lot of money on them again they're ready because they're ready they're primed they watched your video already so that's you know that's a strategy um when you're that's that's how i spend my money it's it's really the it's really the brand awareness and um the video views that's how because i spent 309 that's how much i spent in a year okay that's like what um i mean i don't know the equivalent for you though but that's really that's really cheap about 30 a month it's nothing it's like one dollar a day right it's less than a dollar a day yeah i think anyone watching this can afford a dollar a day right so yeah it's it's a dollar a day so that's 309 for a combination of brand awareness and video views another one where you can use facebook which again is it's accessible for us is the use of videos meaning live like this yeah it's the facebook live because um facebook prioritizes videos as far um um as far as content goes they love it when people go live and they push it some more it reboots or restarts or jumpstarts the algorithm you will see that when people follow you and then you go live they will they will get notifications right so that's without even without even spending an ad for them to see that because facebook pushes it facebook pushes that the content so when you go live um that's free you know that's free advertising already without spending without triggering anything and what i did was this was in january of this year so i started my business in april uh well april 23 of last year so january of this year i did a challenge i challenged myself to go live every day for 30 days wow okay but it's just you know shorties so hi i just want to tell you this or sometimes i'm prepared sometimes i'm not i just really challenge myself to go live that jump started so that gave people an opportunity to engage and that gave facebook you know uh to opportunity to also showcase my page me spending anything is engagement so do you do it on a on a page or in a group um on a page right okay oh because you want to you need to be buying the ads from the page yes and then when i have facebook lives that appear to be in um more popular i push it by boosting yes just a little bit of a boosting because people are interested anyway so that gives me an insight okay this is the topic that they like this is the this is something that they resonate with and then i'm gonna push it to more people but i'm not saying like a lot of money two dollars three dollars four dollars only for just to boost it and and and you know um for more people to see the content so video views again video views and when they watch it i am able to retarget them right so that's uh that's the strategy so you know you make people and people now started putting me as a as an expert because i have things to say about certain subjects and then they ask me you know questions when they ask me questions i gather them all together i collate them and that becomes material for my next course or for my next module because i know that people need the news about those things so they asked me about linkedin um okay you asked me about instagram okay so i'm not now going to create material modules about linkedin and instagram but still using my method of brain science selling or even copywriting one of my best selling courses um live and live in the digital course is nlp or neuro-linguistic programming and copywriting because people ask me for it you know they they asked me for it so again when i launched my digital course i didn't even spend for ads because i had ready buyers they asked me for it so when i launched it okay there's already you know a wait list of people wanting to wanting to get that it's in in nlp or in your linguistic programming we call it priming so it's really preparing your customers brains to accept the offer you don't just say you don't just come on facebook and say here's my offer without even priming or preparing their brains to accept it so um that's the third videos video a lot of a lot of videos a lot of showing yourself um and then um number four is the power of social proof yes the power of social proof in in back in 2002 last year last year you you remember when we all started going on zoom so everything was virtual and instead of selfies we had zoom fees time three or six months we were you know taking photos over zoom screenshots of of of our meetings gatherings whatever i leverage that you you can actually again the power of leverage and the power of a multiplier what did i do my my former industry was real estate so i was cmo i was chief marketing officer of a real estate company so i had a lot of sellers a lot of brokers insurance maybe people people in the banks in my immediate community this was before i did the page this was in my personal profile so what did i do to use social proof i posted zoom fees okay i posted zoom fees and i tagged them so by tagging them that shows to their network so it's a multiplier if they have a thousand friends or two thousand friends 500 friends that photo that photo will now be shown to their friends you know that will and then i i just have to make sure that they really have a good experience they will comment usually they comment so when they comment it shows again and on their page it pushes the content again and gives it more more engage more engagement so that's um that's another use for it and then the third is i know it's knowing in the industry that you want to target i knew that the real estate industry is very competitive so again it goes back to understanding your clients i knew that they were competitive and that i knew that when they see that other team doing my training they will think what's that training about how come i'm not there you know they would investigate and that's how i was able to put my name also um out there with the different real estate um you know brokers and groups because they were curious about me why is this group using her she's you know she's a nobody i started from zero i i wasn't the trainer i wasn't the coach i was you know i was in marketing but i had that i had that working for me you know the part of my reputation but as a trainer i was a nobody but that strategy because they were competitive they would see me they would see me she would see my name see my courses without me having to spend nothing and that with that social proof comes the the like in the trust because this other team already trusted me this other team already paid me money this other team already you know is learning something from me and when you say brain science selling it's so new it's such a new concept of of understanding how your clients brains work and using that to your advantage you know using persuade persuasion words using rapport using priming etc and they wanted to you know they didn't want to be left behind they didn't want to be left behind and and true enough i would get random messages from people i don't know because they were referred to me by people who i tagged in the photos interesting so that's you know that's the that's the fourth it's it's really um the power of social proof and just this year so at the tail end of my first year in business i i um what do you call this i made it a goal to become more visible then this is still me being here and sharing with everybody it's still part of the goal i i decided to become more visible but again i didn't have the budget well i had budget but i didn't want to spend it because that's how you you know grow a business profit is still very important um what did they do if you are if you anyone out here listening or watching and you already have a business and thinking of going um getting more pr getting more visibility getting more authority i have two um tips for you okay if you are on twitter and i suggest this is how i use my twitter so we have different social media platforms i use them in different ways twitter i use to get media so when you use the hashtag journalrequest so hashtag journalrequest on twitter you will see journalists looking for sources looking for people to interview looking for materials for their next article and you just have to be patient because i when i when i did this it was um two mo no was just a month of every every day when i wake up because it's you know our time is reversed so ending you were ending your day i'm starting my day so at the end of the day in the u.s i will be getting all of the journal requests from the previous day as soon as i wake up so i check my twitter and then when i when i see something that is related to me related to my business about digital marketing about neuro-linguistic programming i would apply so i would reply to the tweet of the journal request sometimes they give you that sometimes they give their email address sometimes they don't so i i will just um what you call this you just subscribe because you get notifications anyway when you when you subscribe to that hashtag the the journal request and that has given me you know a lot of a lot of um visibility so pr another one is uh the twitter name is called help reporter out i know that one yeah yeah yeah so help a reporter out and sort of a source bottle so if you want to target source bottle is more for um i think australia and asia so depending on where you want help a reporter out is u.s and uk and and europe australia is um source bottle i was able to get a tv interview for free nice one again that helped boost my my visibility my authority the business and and you know showing it to to more people and even in my own network because i was already on tv because they would see me in articles because they would see me in publications i was able to increase my prices even within the year the the people from my helper report out do they do they have a minimum requirement as to how many viewers are on the page or something i think um i back in the day i applied to them but they wanted to see that you have like maybe 10 000 views or something no so anyone can and anyone can can can do that oh well help reporter out it's the same as journal request except it's a platform it's an actual twitter account and when you subscribe to help a reporter out which i did i received three emails a day from help a reporter out or haro so morning afternoon and evening again you have to be you know you have to be how do i say persistent about this you read and then you apply immediately i apply within the date because these reporters get hundreds of replies responses so you have to be fast about it because if not and that happens to me too sometimes i forget or sometimes i'm just too busy to reply once i reply the um application is already closed because they were already able to get you know this much 100 responses within within that time period and um that's been helping me i started the haro and the visibility project in march and you know i have had a lot i can't count maybe around 30 um publications that featured me there's industry leaders i was able to to write an article about nlp and about brain science selling why why did i do that why did i do this visibility challenge for myself because i now i am now when you google my name i'm now number one without spending that's amazing without spending and my name valerie fisher you will see there's even an actress with my name an actress a volleyball player um an insurer a real estate real estate agent so many people with my it's a common name you know in the in in the us but here in the philippines it's just me but i was able to be number one and 80 of the first page is me yeah that's that's incredible and um so the kind of the undercurrent of this is the fact that you are also a very hard worker like for example at the moment it's midnight isn't it it's uh yeah that's where you are it's nearly one o'clock right in the morning yes so so you do you do put yourself out i mean you you know if anyone wants to interview you or anyone wants to speak to you you just go out live speak to them and that's that's one of the things that people have to do they have to understand that you know life is competitive you get a lot of people who just expect success just to land in their lap there's two things you know money is currency but so is time yes time is also currency so you if you don't have the money you better have the time or you have to make time exactly you better make time so if you want a bootstrap if you want to get you know a lot of traffic to your site a lot of traffic to your page if you want to get leads if you want to get clients there are ways multiple many many ways that you can use this without spending money what you spend is time yeah and also the other thing is you get people who they just don't want to show their face on camera and it kind of makes you wonder i mean everyone's got an excuse you know they don't like the way they sound they don't like the way they look but i mean ultimately you know life is short i mean you know the people are just so um just so worried about what everyone's going to be thinking what i would say is just don't don't worry about that you know because we are we're all unique you know we're all unique we all have our good points and bad points but as long as we have something to say people are going to be interested in what we have to say and the way to have something to say is to know your industry take a a real interest in it really be passionate about what you do and then people are going to want to listen to you and it doesn't matter what what you look like or what you sound like just go out there and speak to people and do it on camera and the best way to do it live on camera if you can and even if you can't just do it until you can because even if you're not great in the beginning you will be [ __ ] nature right you know the more you do it practice that's why you need the brains you know we thrive on repetition the more that we do it the more that it becomes comfortable that the more that we get better at it like i'm not i'm not saying that i don't have insecurities like my eyebrows are not you know the same and i see that every time i go live i see that every time i go on interview so you know what what can i do about it the most i can do is just learn how to do better makeup but you know nothing nothing can change that and another thing is if you're not comfortable like i wear my glasses if you know if i can't if i can't fix that properly i just i just i just wear my glasses to kind of hide it you know but um you ha you have to in this in this day and age if you want people to trust you if you want them to know you um like you and to trust you you have to show yourself be vulnerable and and and really show your authentic self in this day and age where even copy can be written by a.i
by robots by algorithms they need to speak to a real person they need to know you and and be um you know attracted to your values they have to resonate with your uh purpose you you have to really put yourself out there that's that's so true that's that's really really true excellent so i'm gonna recap on the on the four tenets so it was uh teams so to leverage um it's interesting because at the moment i'm doing a lot of one-to-one uh through linkedin um you know but um maybe this is something to look at is to not to just do one-to-one but look at who is the head of the pack maybe they have a group or the admin yes to them and maybe you can do a deal with them you know like some sort of jv um so go with teams and then it was to uh leverage your social so you mentioned facebook but i would maybe add maybe more than facebook if you're strong on linkedin or you're strong on instagram whatever it is make sure that your bio and your real estate is optimized yes um the third thing was video that just the power of video ideally live but even if it's not live even recorded i think people can still get a really good sense of who you are because they can really look you in the eye and they can get a feel for who you are and um the fourth one was to sort of um put yourself out there wasn't it the the social proof social proof proof really is you know testimonials but you don't get social proof when you're starting because they don't you know you don't you you don't get that yet so the closest you can do are comments on photos that you tag people with yes yeah okay so you tag people so you like for example i'm going to be tagging you on this okay so when you do an interview or when you mention someone or um when you um i i guess when you refer to someone like for example this is what we even when you share someone's content which is candle on instagram and pinterest you're encouraged to re-pin right and regram you just tag that person and then what you do your profile will be seen on their timeline is that yeah it works okay so find find ways to be able to tag people without being intrusive without being you know without being a pain you're just going to do it in a nice giving sort of way okay nice one yeah i like that that's that's really that's really impressive and i'm really inspired by uh by what you said um so let's see if we have any uh questions i don't know um i can't can't really see if there's any comments or anything but um [Music] uh if not then i can see we've got a few likes and and so on we have a you know some people watching some some people are always a bit shy about you know sort of coming out with with any comments or sometimes i just i just miss missed the comments with this system so if if i did um then forgive me um i didn't mean to miss your comments but what i'll do uh valerie's i will i will tag you on this so that if people want to get in touch with you and i'm sure they would they they know where to find you i think you have a lot to a lot of value to give and so if anyone wants to start their business uh on a shoestring um bootstrapping as you call it without massive ad spend then they they will be they will they will know where to where to find you um other than this i mean if anyone wants to learn more about you and get in touch what's the best way to do this um i have a website it's www.valerie f-i-s-c-h-e-r.net i just um revised it all of my all of my media is there the different ways to work with me i have digital courses i have trainings for teams i just started doing one-on-ones and i also have small groups between five to six people so there's many many different ways and you will see that on my on my website i think that's the best way um i'm also on facebook of course i have my page so my page is valid fisher the same with linkedin the same with instagram i'm even on tech talk oh wow so how is tick tock how's tiktok going for you because i i love it um i don't i don't use it to grow i mean i don't i don't intentionally grow my my my tick tock but again it's the video content of it yeah yeah so i think that has to be very very punchy right like very short and punchy yes you love it it's fine oh really interesting and i guess the other thing i didn't mention is just enjoy what you're doing i mean you seem to be really enjoying it and i think that's a tip that i would give to anyone is just find something that you love doing and you know just immerse yourself in it because you're probably already immersing yourself in it anyway because you love doing it so it means you're doing it in your spare time probably or even in your day jobs just find a find a skill something that you love doing and then just put the word out there you know just just get people to listen to you and then the rest falls into place doesn't it you know but people people are obsessed about am i going to make money from this am i not going to make money from this but the thing is if you love doing something and you just speak to the world and it's never been easier than it is today to put yourself out there to speak to to people about it if you just do it you will definitely get a following and then making money from that just becomes like something you don't even need to think about you know people are going to buy into you so start a training program or maybe promote an affiliate offer that you feel really comfortable with you know the don't be obsessed about how do i make money from it just do what you love put yourself out there and the rest is going to fall into place yes i would i would also add maybe just as a last you know last word is when you when you think about selling and um the root word i found somewhere i don't know exactly where now but the root word old english word for sales or sale which means to serve right so selling is actually serving you always have to think about what it is that you are going to help that person with and the money will come believe me the money will come as long as you have that service oriented mindset that's a really good thing to finish with so uh thank you very much i'm really i feel humbled to have you on the call today thank you so much for having me take care now you have a great great evening and hope to speak soon yes bye bye take care
2021-08-28 14:40
