Tips from Small Business Youth Entrepreneurs
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Claire: So if you ever have a meeting with someone, make sure you record it because then you can put it into, like Fireflies, for example. There's apps that you can just get it to, essentially take the transcript and can put meeting notes together, which is really helpful. Right? And we don't want to miss anything in the nuances .
Claire: So across the board, If you have a customer, you need to have their email, you need to have follow up. You need to close that feedback loop, getting feedback to see how could I do better? What did you like? So you can keep [00:01:00] working with those clients and you can keep improving your product or your service.
Claire: What I want you to just to solely focus on is product development, complete a prototype. So figuring out what your product's going to look like solidify it, do your research, come up with something that's easy to execute so you can start.
Claire: Right away
Claire: because right now, you may pay more, but I really want you to source things locally so you can get it immediately.
Claire: Build out your prototype to get a sense of what that looks like. Maybe it starts with something a little more simple so that you can get to market faster, right? When something is so complex and it requires all these different moving parts and you're not having luck, it's good to sit back and think, okay, what's the research saying? Could you start with something else a little more simpler or less complex setup so you could start at least selling engaging some interest. Go look with your market research, [00:02:00] you know, I've introduced you to a little platforms like perplexity where you get sites, right?
Claire: You can go on and look to see based on certain trends what people are purchasing. What are other products they're already buying that you could start there with something really simple and small So then when they build confidence they start growing let's simplify it.
Claire: So why don't you narrow the focus and make it something you can, in a day or two, you can put together and actually start marketing it. Because I don't want you to spend the whole summer researching and figuring out how to get this prototype when it seems almost impossible.
Claire: So, anyone doing content creation, so first and foremost upload those images right away.
Claire: Because you're in drone photography, right Think about all of the companies, businesses that create content, but don't have access to a drone, but they want to supplement their content with aerial photography.[00:03:00]
Claire: So I would reach out to, I would go, let's see, I'm going to share my screen and this goes for anyone doing this kind of research. have you ever heard of Apollo.io? So, a fun trick, one thing I've learned, and it's a software for free, get access to any company that you want. and then you can put them into LinkedIn and it will tell you who the individuals are that you want to reach out to.
Claire: I think the best idea is leveraging all of maybe your parents, friends, or people you know getting their emails and sending out a very personal email because that is a very, very intimate way to connect with them.
Claire: And that will be really interesting to convert that audience. So instead of just doing cold outreach, what you're doing, get, see if you can get a list of like, Hey Claire, could you give me five people that have kids that might want swimming lessons? [00:04:00] And I'll give you five, and you'll say, Hey, I've gotten your email because you have been connecting this way.
Claire: And here is what I'm offering for this summer. And you can give what you're offering. And that is a really strong way to connect with that audience instead of just putting it out to cold calls, cold reaches.
Claire: I think you top up selling in the sense that wherever the area you're in, try and say, we're going to hit up 10 doors by just leaving in their mailbox a little slip. the days that you're actually working on jobs, that's when someone, you know, you take 15 minutes and you run down the street and you deliver because that way if there's someone sees when they come home and you're working on the house and they see the pamphlet, they're going to be like, Oh.
Claire: Wow. Okay. These, these guys are great. I'm going to go over and maybe book them or go right on and book them, right? So yeah. There's no sense going [00:05:00] knocking on everyone's door if they're not there.
Claire: You might as well just mass deliver. Now, something else I don't know if you've considered, but it also might be helpful is there are areas that are more likely to perhaps bigger homes
Claire: have you thought about doing Canada Post, it's 16 cents to do a mail out. And you could do a massive mail out. I really want you to think of something that you can be creating a much Larger net of people with not as much door to door because you're also working on the jobs.
