Who Do You Know?: How She Used Earned Media To Get Brand Recognition with Cheryl Contee, CEO The Impact Seat Foundation
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🍵 Here's Your Weekly Tea
“Your brain doesn’t know the difference between a truth and a lie” - A couple of weeks ago, Get Sh!t Done Queen Courtney Caldwell dropped this gem as she broke down how she scaled a multi-million dollar business to 900 cities in 7 years. As we see a flurry of “startup darlings” under fire and/or headed to jail for fraud, I started thinking about how we encourage “fake it until you make it” or “fake it until you become it” culture. Look - I’ve totally bought into this stuff in the past. The intention is good but it’s harmful. Think about it… we have to fake being something in order to achieve an outcome.The root is rotten because it’s… fake. The beauty of our brains is that we can mold them to believe in ourselves to Courtney’s point. The danger is at what point can people mold their brain into a weapon that becomes something destructive?
Let's get into your weekly briefing!
💸 HERE'S YOUR TRACTION BRIEFING
Founder: Cheryl Contee | Company: Attentive.ly | Location: San Francisco, CA
Receipts: The first black woman in tech to sell her business to a NASDAQ-traded company, one of the first black women to raise millions in funding, serial entrepreneur and champion for women in business; Cheryl is what we call a bad ass b*tch!
Here's your traction playbook...
How to Successfully Exit Your Company
Create an Exit Strategy In The Early Days - "There are only three ways really to exit your company. You’re going to fail (and 90% of American small businesses fail) or acquisition or IPO. The chance that something that’s not one of those three is gonna happen to you is still relatively small." - Cheryl Contee. The fact is that most startups have a lifecycle of only 10 years. As exciting as starting and running a startup is, most founders eventually have to move on. Understanding and planning for your exit as early as in the beginning helps you get everything aligned so you can exit on your own terms.
How Earned Media Scaled Her Company To The Millions
Build The Right Networks - Getting the word out there about your company will always be your job, whether that's through paid or earned media. Earned media can prove to be especially reliable only if you know who to reach out to and how to reach out to them. Cheryl did this for Attentive.ly by building a network of journalists and influencers within her industry. She regularly kept in touch with them and occasionally pitched stories about her company that she felt would fit in with their content. As Cheryl puts it, journalists and influencers are constantly feeding a machine, so give them something they would be excited to share. Get into her strategy here.
🛠️ TRACTION TOOLS: How to get it done...
How to get it done...
What Is Earned Media? Here's where you can learn more. How 99% Earned Media Scaled a MASSIVE Legacy Company. Here's how Fawn Weaver of Uncle Nearest used earned media to scale a multimillion business in a difficult industry.
How to Retain Customers
Check In On Your Biggest Clients - For many companies, 20% of their clients bring in about 80% of their revenue. If this is the case for you, it is vital to your business that you keep that 20% happy. Simply checking in every now and then with them goes a long way in maintaining a long lasting relationship. This shows them that you care about them and that they are valued. Strong relationships will always be the foundation of a successful business. Learn more here.
🛠️ TRACTION TOOLS: How to get it done...
Here are customer retention strategies that work. How To Master Customer Success: Here's exactly how Kishau mastered customer delight and retained all of her customers.
Support Courtney in Scaling Impact: Follow her on Twitter here, while it’s still around . You can also find her on LinkedIn where she’s always ready to answer questions only from the tribe.
🤓 ACCESS YOUR TRACTION LIBRARY: Whether you are struggling with a limited budget or don’t know what channels to focus on, the Get Sh!t Done Traction Library is here to support you. Access your library here.
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