__________________

3.1. HOW TO GET CLIENTS

As of now, I believe you are ready to go out and grab clients from the pool of
clients on the internet. So, let’s do that together.

As a newbie who is just stepping into the world of SMM, there is no need to put
too much pressure on yourself.

The reality of this business is that you cannot know everything at once, you will
have to learn on the job.

Now, the easiest way to get clients as a beginner is by working for free, and by
utilizing content marketing.

To get high-paying clients, you must have something to show. Your portfolio will
speak louder for you without you having to shout.

Now, here’s the thing about getting clients; some clients know that they need to
hire a Social Media Manager, while others have never given it a thought.

But that doesn’t matter, we’ll make the unbelievers believe.

But what if you don’t have a solid portfolio? Then you have to build one.
To build one, you need to build a hypothetical one that doesn’t refer to a real
client, or you gain real-life experience by working for free.

As a beginner, I’ll recommend the latter.

How do you achieve this?

3.1.1. Working for Free

Even though working for free is your ticket to getting your first gig as a newbie, it
is important to do it in a way that benefits you in the long run.

To do this, look at the social media pages of potential clients in the niche of your
choice. Then look for those ones whose pages look like they lack proper social
media management.

Those ones are your target.

Now reach out to them that you’d like to help them grow, organize, and drive
more engagement on their social media account (which will lead to more
sales/leads/customers) for free.

This way, you have broken down the first objection they might have.

The truth is that; many business owners need social media managers, but they
don’t know that they need them.

This is a way to get into their system and show them that they need you.

So, instead of trying to convince them with words, use results and actions to
change their minds.
This is generally the easiest way to get your first client. It has worked for a lot of
our students, community members, and partners in recent times.

And that is why we keep recommending it.

It’s a good way to start because a client that gives you that chance will most likely
retain you after one month. So, you can continue what you started.

It’s like giving someone a 30-day free trial and then asking them to enter their
card details later.

They would have been enjoying your service and wouldn’t want to go back to
having a basic account.

This is a win-win situation; because you gain real-life work experience that you
can add to your portfolio immediately.

And you use that opportunity to practicalize everything you have learned. That
way, you’ll know your mistakes and how to correct them subsequently.

This route is one of the easiest ways out as a beginner in SMM.

The Pitching Process

1. Get some samples ready and make them into a social media proposal.
This is something you want to do before hitting up any client at all.

Your proposal is your entry ticket into the client’s kingdom.

You can’t just promise a client your service without showing them exactly what to
expect and what you can do for them.
So, you need a couple of content samples organized together in a presentation.

Your sample should contain the right items and metrics that will leave them with
no choice but to accept your offer.

However, you don’t have to worry about creating an industry-standard SMM

proposal. We have a template that we’ll share with you and we’ll also teach you
how to customize it.

Just enter your own details, personalize it and you’re good to go. This template
has a 99% success rate.

2. Now that your template is ready, the next step is to send a message to
potential clients. However, when it comes to pitching clients, you must
pitch the right ones.

For example, you don’t want to pitch small businesses that sell products of $20,
$30…

These types of businesses will need to sell 50 products in a month to make a

revenue of $1,000. And even if they make $2k, they definitely can’t use their
profits to pay an SMM.

So, if you pitch them and they agree, you might not make any solid amount of
money in the long run.

This means your pitch is as important as who you pitch to.

The right people to pitch are businesses selling highly-priced items, or charging a
lot for their services.
Examples will be skincare brands, law firms, real estate agents/companies,
wedding services, event planning, HVAC, coaches, beauty and cosmetics,
fitness, e-commerce, finance, travel and tourism, food and beverage, high
fashion, music & entertainment, automotive, software & SaaS.

It has been repeatedly confirmed that the niches mentioned above are capable of
paying you a lot of money in the long run.

You only need one month to show them what you are made of.

And they’ll have no choice but to tell you to continue from where you started.
Then we go straight to step 3.

3. Send them messages that evoke responses. But before you do this, you
must have figured out a problem you want to solve for them.

= It might be that they are only active on Twitter and slacking on IG.

Your job will be to help them manage their Instagram and help them build an
active IG community by repurposing the content from Twitter.

REPURPOSING: Your target for this are personal figures and businesses who put
out content only on one social media platform but do not do well on the rest.

For example: some people have amassed a large following on Twitter but lack
visibility on Instagram and TikTok.

You don’t even need to create any content from scratch. You only need to take
their content on Twitter and start posting them on IG and TikTok, but in a creative
way. Because that is what justifies your pay as an SMM.
= It might be that their page looks disorganized. Your job will be to organize the
page and make it aesthetically pleasing.

=It might be that they have stopped posting on social media. This means they are
busy with other things or they run out of content ideas. Your job will be to bring
that page back to life.

Once you know what you want to do for them, you can then go ahead and send
them a message.

“Hi Kettle,

I had a great time going through your page. You are indeed good at what you do.

Do you ship outside the US as well?”

-----

“Hi Martin,

You really have great content on your page. But I see that you haven’t posted
anything in a long time.

Are you still in business?

The aim is to greet them and end the greeting with a question. This way, you are
trying to make them talk.

Depending on the niche, you can customize your concluding question to

something that relates.
This way, you haven’t shown that you want to sell them anything.

So, they’ll be glad to respond to you.

From there, you take the convo further. And when they answer the question you
asked, your next sentence should be like:

“Oh. That’s great. I love what you do.

Anyway, I’m curious as to why you’re not using a particular brand color across
your page.

I see many accounts in your niche customizing their pages and setting brand
colors and themes.

I couldn’t help but ask you why”

Once they answer that question, that is your chance to strike.

No matter the excuse they give as an answer, your next message should be your
subtle pitch.

“Yeah. I understand how daunting it can be to keep up with many things at the
same time.

You really have a great service and I’d love to help you transform your page, build
a community around your product and keep your followers engaged.

Don’t worry, you don’t have to pay me anything. I’ll be doing it for free.
All I want in return is your review and recommendation to add to my portfolio.

Is this an opportunity you are willing to take?”

This is an offer they cannot refuse. So, they’ll have no choice but to say yes, since
it doesn’t cost them anything.

But they don’t know the plans you have cooked for them on the inside.

If you do your job well and expose them to social media management practices
they have never seen before, they’ll not want you to go after 1 month.

Congratulations, you just got yourself a gig.

And if in a rare case, they decide not to retain you after one month, you already
have that experience and you’ll use it to stat pad your portfolio.

Now you have an actual portfolio with experience, you can then start using the
direct pitch method.

PS: This DM script is the indirect script which is ideally the best for beginners
with zero experience.

The direct script is also good for newbies.

It involves you saying something like this:

“Hi Kettle,

I had a field time going through your page and I’m impressed by what I have seen
so far.
I also see that you are not doing [insert the problem you detected on their page].
Is there a reason for this?

You don’t know me, but I am Dushane, a social media manager.

I just completed my social media management diploma at the

University of Social Media™ and I'm looking to gather real-life
experience for my portfolio.

Therefore, I’d love to help you do [social media growth activities that solve their
current problem] all for free. At zero cost.

All I need is your recommendation and review in return.

Is this something you’ll be considering? I’d love to show you exactly how I can
help you attain XYZ”

4. When they agree to give you a chance, you apply the previous knowledge
you have gathered on Client Onboarding to onboard them and tell them
more about what you can do.

It is during the discovery call and onboarding process, that you let them know that
you’ll only be working free for them for one month.

And you can chip in something like towards the end of the call. “If I deliver on my
promises in one month's time, who knows, we might get to have a continuous
work relationship”

That way, you have planted something in their mind.

During this onboarding phase, you’ll need to following:

● A social media audit template

● Social media market research template
● A social media management contract
● A content management system for you and your client.
● Content strategy proposal template

But don’t worry, we’ll make these templates available to you. So, you wouldn’t
have to go through the stress of creating tasking template designs.

===

Apart from reaching out to your clients on their social media platforms, how else
do you get SMM clients?

3.1.2. Facebook Groups

This method is the oldest trick in the book. But it’s funny that it still works today.

So, here’s how to get clients on Facebook Groups.

First, you want to join an entrepreneur group on Facebook. Now, it’s important to
note that there are many groups on FB. So, you have to be strategic about the
ones you join.

It’s always good when the requirements and process of joining the group are
strict. That way, you know that everyone in that group is serious about their
business.

It is also recommended that you join a group of entrepreneurs in a particular

niche. This is like putting an ant in a pack of sugar.
Just imagine your potential clients packed inside one place and you have direct
access to them.

E.g. “Make-up Artists in Miami”, “Event Planners in Stockholm”, etc

Once you’ve joined successfully, your next task is to scoop your clients with great
content.

If posting is allowed, don’t post any promotional content about yourself or your
service.

Remember, “People like to buy, but they don’t like being sold to”

So, you’ll do something called content marketing.

This way, you drop valuable content that can help these business owners grow on
social media.

You drop tips and tricks, case studies, and ‘how-to’ posts.

You don’t have to come up with any content by yourself. You just need to repeat
everything that has been said before on the internet in a way they have never
heard before.

You are in the group to be a helper.

In some posts, you can include conclusion statements like “If you don’t know how
to do XYZ, you can reach out to me.”
Another thing to do is to search for keywords like; “social media”, “Instagram”,
“Reels”, and “Followers” in the group.

You’ll see questions asked by business owners who might be struggling with one
thing or the other.

Then, you comment under their posts and give them a solution as a social media
manager.

You can also follow up with statements suggesting that you can put them through
and help solve that problem step by step.

The goal is to get your foot in the door.

Once this is done, you can reach out directly and give them a soft pitch.

Remember, nothing too salesy. Don’t be desperate, please.

You are an expert who is just offering to help them. Show them how you can
transform their online presence before talking about charging them.

3.1.3. Social Media Content

As a social media manager, you should be the last person to sleep on the
unexplainable power of social media.

This method involves you posting constantly about social media growth and
marketing.

The aim is to establish yourself as a thought leader in the social media

management space.
E.g. “This is how I transformed XYZ company and took them from X followers to
Y followers”

“This is how I changed the content strategy of ABC company, which generated
an extra $17,000 in revenue in 8 months.”

Forget about the fact that you have only 100 followers. Your content will make
people focus on what you can do and not the number of people following you.

Make it a duty to post every day about how to grow on social media, tips for
business owners, tips for social media users, share sample designs you created
in Canva, post aesthetically pleasing visual content, and show before/after
transformations.

Even when you feel like people are not seeing or engaging with your posts, keep
posting.

You are playing the long-term game.

As you are doing this, you should leverage other people’s audience. You do this
by commenting reasonably on posts about your niche/expertise.

Answer questions like a Pro, let people learn new things from your comments,
brag about what you can do, and lastly sell yourself - e.g. “if you are also
struggling with XYZ, send me a DM”

This particular method works like magic because when your content does what
it’s supposed to do, people will be blowing up your inbox asking you to work with
them.
With this, you’d never have to reach out to any client for anything. They will be the
ones hitting you up.

But if you don’t put yourself out there, no one will see what you are capable of,
and nobody will reach out to you.

================

After using the strategies above to secure clients, make sure to take a screenshot
of the account before you start the management. And take screenshots after your
one-month period.

After your free trial, if you are not renewing with your client, use the results you
get from there and the client review to build your portfolio.

Once you have a solid portfolio, you can start directly pitching and reaching out to
your potential clients.

This will give you the confidence to reach out to anyone you’d love to work with.
So, we move to the next stage of client outreach.

3.1.4. Direct Pitching

This one is the grandfather of client fishing.

It involves you going after your potential clients directly and sending never-seen-
before pitches that will leave them with no choice but to jump on a discovery call
with you.

This works best when you have a solid substance in your portfolio, accompanied
by social proof. You wouldn’t have to sweat it at all because you are showing the
right offer to the right people.
This route is the only way to grab millionaire clients who will pay you the 6 figure
income you are gunning for.

And this particular method involves:

● How to search for specific clients on Instagram, Facebook & Twitter.

● Variations of DM scripts to send to them.
● How to follow up like a Pro.

Who Exactly should you reach out to?

The answer to this question can only come if you know who exactly you want to
work with and what you can do for them.

Examples
1.0. Title Tag

● Go to Google, and type the title tag of the people you’d like to work with.

● E.g. “Fitness trainer/ celebrity stylist/ wedding planner/ Life coach

(@gmail.com OR @hotmail.com OR @yahoo.com OR @aol.com) OR
site:http://facebook.com”

● This script will extract the email addresses of fitness trainers (this is their
personal email address).

● Open a Google sheet, and input their first name, last name, and email
addresses. (This will help you keep track and follow up effectively).

● Start sending cold emails to them.

 ● Use this script below and tweak it. Emphasis on the TWEAK.

Subject: Quick Question, Allan (if Allan is their first name)

Body: I saw that you run ASN Fitness, a personal training studio in Miami. Super
stoked to see 41 people talking about their experience with your studio. Awesome
job!

My name is Dushane and I help fitness and personal trainer studios like ASN
Fitness scale the volume of their monthly subscriptions by expanding their social
media reach. ZEDD Fitness doubled their revenue within 3 months after they
worked with us.

I’d love to get 7 minutes of your time to talk about this new strategy and how we
are a perfect fit.

Is Thursday a perfect time to talk about this?

Best, Dushane.

===

Hi Allan. I came across ASN Fitness and I realized that you are the person in
charge.

Apart from the fact that you are not too consistent with the content you put out on
your Instagram page. You are not utilizing the 3V content marketing strategy like
your competitors in Sydney.

You really have a great setting with the perfect aesthetics. But you are leaving a
lot of money on the table by not utilizing the full potential of your content strategy.
JMC Fitness tripled their revenue in just 2 months by repurposing their content to
fit the 3V content strategy.

I’d love to get 7 minutes of your time to show you how you can also achieve the
same feat with social media.

Is Thursday a perfect time to talk about this?

Best, Dushane.

===

“Hi there, Josef

I was looking at XYZ. Great page you’ve got man!

However, I discovered some things that might be turning away potential clients.

I’m a social media strategist. So, I couldn’t help but notice. HaHa

Do you have 5 minutes to spare? I already carried out a comprehensive audit for
your page for Free, and I’d like to show you my findings and exactly how to break
out of the Social Media Jail.

Are you available to discuss this on Thursday?”

===

“Hey Jason,
I checked out the top women’s jewelry store in Melbourne the other day while
SEO-auditing some websites and was hit with one of your ads today. Topnotch
targeting but…….”

This is for email. But you should not limit yourself to sending emails, you can reach
out directly on their social media accounts as well.

2.0 Facebook

● Go to your Facebook, and type a niche plus location.

● For the sake of this tutorial, let’s choose landscaping and Bristol (I
understand that landscaping is a high-ticket niche in the UK).

● You can use any city or country of your choice.

So, you have a result like this:

The next step is to go through each page and check what you can do to improve
that particular business.
For instance, click on the second business on the page which is “Project
Landscape & Design”.

Here is what surfaces when you look closely.

● These details can be used in many ways.

● Phone number: You can save this as a contact and send them a message
on WhatsApp (this is extremely effective but I think it’s unethical)

● They have 355 likes and 380 followers

● As a social media manager you can improve these metrics.

● You can also send them a message on Facebook (this is what we will be
doing in this tutorial)
 ● Their email address is very useful for our cold emailing (Used to follow up
with an email after sending a Facebook message)

● Ratings of 4.7 with 15 reviews can be improved

● The next step is to send them a message.

Before that, however, we want to go through their page to find something unique
about them. What are they doing wrong?

How can we improve it?

● So, If we compare these images, we will see a huge difference, something

like a time lag between the posting period.

● The latest post was on April 13th, after more than 5 months of their last post.
You come in here as a social media manager.
So far, we have identified some uniquenesses.

1. The time lag

2. The details of the projects completed in 2020 and 2022.

The next step is to come up with a unique angle, something particular to them and
tailored to their business.

So, here is something you can work with.

PLEASE EDIT THIS TO SUIT WHAT YOU ARE OFFERING

Landscaping

Hey Josh,

I help landscapers in Bristol bring in more garden design and installation jobs
demanded by people who need simple refurb with low maintenance. Some of
them even need their fence to be replaced When can we have a quick chat? Talk
soon.

Hey John,

I help solar companies in Salt Lake City bring in more residential installation jobs
for people with a credit score of 650+ and an annual income of at least $50,000.
When can we set up a time for a quick chat? Talk soon.

HVAC
Hey John, I help HVACs in Salt Lake City bring in more AC/heating installation
Jobs.

When can we set up a quick chat? Talk soon

If they do not reply…

Body: Hey Jon, I'm sure you are busy but just figured I'd give you another shot to
see if you'd be open to bringing in a few more landscaping installation jobs this
month. When can we have a quick chat? Talk soon

If they still don't reply…

Hey lock, Just wanted to reach out one last time. Are you still suffering from low
sales or low traffics. Or you are struggling to bring in new solar panel installation
jobs? If so, I have a few ideas for you that I think might help. Let me know when
you have some time to chat.

Another sequence…

Ok, Josh... I lied..... I know I said I wouldn't reach out to you again but I just really
don't want you to let this opportunity pass you by. You are busy, I get it. But I know
I can help you guys bring in more installation jobs this month and turn your "slow
seasons" into busy ones. Just give me 10 minutes and I promise you won't regret
it. When can we talk?

In Summary, replace “Bristol” with any Australian city if you are looking for Aussie
clients.
Instead of Bristol, you can write “Solar installation company in Australia “. You will
see solar installation coys in Adelaide, Sydney, or Melbourne

You can explore this with more cities in different countries.