April 19, 2019
Where do I find people to help?
Sent by Jonathan Stark on April 20th, 2019
If you don’t know where to find people who need your help, it’s a pretty good sign that you aren’t very tuned in to your market. This is understandable at first... pretty much everyone starts there. But it does result in a lack of leads (and therefore, downward pressure on your prices) so it’s something that you’ll want to fix.
In a recent email (subject: “My One Silver Bullet”) I suggested that a reliable way to get more leads is to devote an hour every day to helping people in the spirit of generously and without expectation of reciprocity.
This message generated quite a few replies, which fell roughly 50/50 into one of two categories:
- “Yes! Truth! I love this!”
- “Wha…? Um… I have questions…”
Of the latter, the questions mostly amounted to:
- Where do I find people to help?
- What kind of help would I give them?
Great questions! Thanks to everyone who sent in these requests for clarification.
There are lots of ways to execute on this idea, but here’s the easiest way I know of to get started…
Brainstorm a list of certain types of people who value what you do and would stand to benefit from your advice. This list could be made up of:
- People who run a certain type of business
- People who lead a certain type of department
- People with a certain job title
- People with a certain worldview
- People in a certain phase of life or business
- Students in your discipline
Then, find a place where these folks hang out online (i.e., “watering holes” as Amy Hoy would say) and might express problems you could help with or ask questions that you could answer. Here’s a partial list:
- Quora
- Facebook Groups
- LinkedIn Groups
- Google Groups
- Twitter hashtags
- LinkedIn hashtags
- Instagram hashtags
- Slack communities
- Discord servers
- Discourse forums
- Software support/community forums
Once you have an idea of who you’d like to help, and where they hang out, you can visit their watering holes for an hour every day and just be helpful.
Totally doable, right?
Yours,
—J