& A Tuesday!!

Q: Today's question comes from Jillian and Jillian writes:

"I just graduated from college in May and started my business two weeks ago." Congratulations!

"I've plenty of education experience in what I consult on, specifically helping young people

find and make the most of the opportunities abroad. I'm new to my business and don't have

things like customer reviews to establish street cred when I finally launch my services.

So here's my Q, how do you suggest establishing image and credibility at the beginning of

your business when your satisfied customers simply don't exist yet? Thanks, you're a huge

source of inspiration. I even mentioned you in my application essay to Business School.

Thank you, Jillian! Love you!

A: Great question! This is something really important to handle, especially when you're

first starting out, and I know it can feel little like the chicken and the egg. How do

you attract customers when you've never actually had any? Thankfully there are things you can

do to get street cred from the get-go. Here are five easy ways:

Way #1, it's all about your online image and presence. So here's what I mean, you want

to make sure that you have a very clean and "professh" website. Why? Because the moment

that you tell someone you have a business, what do they say? They say, "Oh, do you have

a website?" You don't want to send them to something [jacky like a four-year old made

it?][1:29-1:31]. You want it to be nice and clean, and simple.

You do not have to spend a ton of cash and it doesn't have to be the best design in the

world or win awards. It just has to be functional and simple and clean; and again, professh.

Say it with me, professhhhh. You got it! One more thing about email, please don't use an

email like h0tPaNts97@aol.com. You want to use a professional email address like yourname@yourdomain.com.

It shows you're taking your business seriously.

Way #2, 2, you want to highlight your experience. So Jillian, you said that you have experience

in this field already. You want to let people know about that and the best place to shout

it out is Your About page.

Way #3, you want to communicate what you do clearly and confidently. Both on your website

and when you meet people in person. Here's what I mean, if I met someone at a party and

I asked what they did for a living and they said, "Oh, I design home offices." I would

say, "Well, give me your card because right now I'm redesigning my home office and I perhaps

would like to hire you."

Now on the other hand, if I went to a cocktail party and I said, "What do you do for a living?"

And someone said, "Well, you know I kind of design home offices or I kind of want to design

home offices but I don't have any clients yet, and I think I'm going to do it. I think

I'm really good at. I have little experience but, but." Well I would say, "Hmm that sounds

real good. Good luck with that, I'll talk to you later."

Way #4, you want to get client reviews right now! So here's how you can do this, you can

offer your services for free or for a discounted rate. Maybe for like three to six clients

in exchange for real client reviews. You just have to go out and hustle and make this happen,

girl!

Way #5, get press! Jillian, it sounds like you have a unique business here. I've never

heard of anyone else helping young people find opportunities abroad. And in all honesty,

I don't even really know what that means but I do know that it could be "press-worthy"

if you pitch it to some local press. Another angle is to find some popular bloggers that

serve your target demographic and see about pitching them a story to do about you or maybe

if you can write an article for them.

So here's what you do, once you get some press you want to get those fancy logos and put

them on your media page. You know, "as seen on" Glamour magazine or bop bah bop, People.com.

Remember, logos impress people. So Jillian, that was my A to your Q. I hope you enjoyed

it. Thank you so much for asking. Now of course, there's lots more ways of getting street cred

but these five ways will get you going right now.

So here's what I want you to do. Under this video, if you've got more strategies to share,

please let us know. I'm all about gathering the intelligence for the community. You know

what I'm saying. If you've got anything else to share, leave a comment too. Of course if

you like this video, like it, share it with all your friends in social media and if you

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