How to Build a Professional Service Practice That Actually Attracts Clients
In today’s digital landscape, marketing for a law firm or professional service business is no longer just about visibility—it’s about becoming the obvious choice before the first conversation. The professionals who win are not the loudest—they are the most trusted.
This guide breaks down five essential strategies to help you move from being found to being chosen.
Focus on High-Leverage Growth Activities
Not all marketing efforts are equal. The key is identifying what actually drives client decisions. Prioritize organic visibility by building long-term trust through content instead of relying only on paid ads. Be resourceful by using platforms like LinkedIn, YouTube, and blogs to create authority. Generate early wins because quick traction builds momentum and reinforces your strategy. If your marketing doesn’t reduce uncertainty for the client, it won’t convert.Use Joint Ventures to Accelerate Trust
Joint ventures are one of the fastest ways to grow credibility without starting from zero. Partner with businesses serving the same audience. Create a shared offer that benefits both audiences. Leverage borrowed trust to shorten the decision cycle. This is borrowed growth, and it’s often the fastest way to get in front of the right people.Build Offers That Make Saying Yes Easy
Most professionals struggle here. The problem isn’t visibility—it’s the offer. Know what your audience actually values. Avoid discounting and instead add value. Bundle services or collaborate to enhance perceived value. A strong offer removes friction, while a weak one creates hesitation.Build Credibility Through Strategic Content
Content is not about posting—it’s about positioning. Use YouTube, blogs, and LinkedIn to explain rather than impress. Create evergreen content that answers real client questions. Focus on clarity, not complexity. The goal is simple: when a client finds you, they should already trust you.Bridge the Gap Between Visibility and Selection
Most professionals invest in getting found but ignore what happens next. Clients don’t choose based on hype. They choose based on confidence, clarity, and familiarity. Your content, offers, and partnerships should work together to reduce decision friction and position you as the clear choice.
Conclusion
Building a successful professional service practice isn’t about doing more—it’s about doing the right things consistently. If you focus on strategic partnerships, high-value offers, and credibility-driven content, you don’t just attract attention—you get picked.
Frequently Asked Questions
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A joint venture is a partnership between two businesses that share an audience. It allows both parties to leverage trust, expand reach, and generate new clients without starting from scratch.
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Focus on credibility over visibility. Use content, client-focused messaging, and consistent online presence to reduce uncertainty and position yourself as the trusted choice.
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Content builds trust before contact. It helps clients understand your expertise, reduces hesitation, and makes them more likely to choose you over competitors.
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Andrew Colsky (00:12)
Welcome to Be Picked, the podcast where we talk about professional service providers and how you're going to actually get yourself out there and build your practice. Today, we are talking with Nathan Baws, and he himself is a serial entrepreneur who's actually sort of lived life in the trenches. He's done this over and over, and he's going to share his insights with us today. So Nathan, welcome to the show.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (00:38)
Lovely. Thanks for having me, Andrew. Great to be here.
Andrew Colsky (00:42)
Great, thank you, thank you. All right, so as I said in the intro here, we've got listeners who are professional service providers and others who are trying to either build a practice
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (00:54)
Bye.
Andrew Colsky (00:54)
or make their practice better, bigger, stronger. And today that means you gotta understand how to be online. You gotta understand social media. You gotta understand websites, blogging.
And it's not just being online, but you have to be found online and you don't have to just be found online, but then you have to build up the credibility so that people will actually pick you versus the other 10 million people they found online. So SEO, in my personal opinion, it's an important piece, but it's not to be all end all.
So tell me about your experience. What have you found in your experience that is helpful, meaningful, important, and what have you found that is not so worth your time?
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (01:45)
Yeah, cool.
As we mentioned serial entrepreneur I've been involved in a bunch of businesses so up to about 19 different businesses in lots of different industries from health to property to food restaurants weight loss programs all sorts of things bookkeeping company So I just love the concept of business and growing stuff from scratch So when you are growing it from scratch, it's it's really important to understand where the your leverage points are for
getting growth and if that's an angle that that we want to deep dive into tonight, tonight my time, then
Andrew Colsky (02:24)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (02:26)
I'm based in Australia, Western Australia. So the sort of things I love to do is
really, really focused deep dive on business growth. And I generally tend to go organic as much as possible and minimal cost thanks to an upbringing of diet very high in potatoes and not too many dollars in the bank for a single parent. So that's, as they say, when you lack resources, it's time to get resourceful. yeah, so I've
Andrew Colsky (02:58)
Love it.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (02:58)
done a lot of marketing
strategies over the years that have
been very much on the smell of a oily rag and had to find ways that could grow businesses quickly. Always
Andrew Colsky (03:11)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (03:12)
find if you don't grow quickly, if you don't get sales very fast when you're in that startup phase, become, I had personally become very discouraged and tend to drop it. So I need those sales coming in. So I do a bunch of different strategies, do a lot of outreach, do a lot of direct messaging.
in social media, do a lot of email marketing, all very cost effective methods. And one of my favorites is doing joint ventures with people. So a JV is a fantastic strategy that allows you to plug into someone else's database overnight and access a warm bunch of customers that are already trusted by
Andrew Colsky (03:56)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (03:57)
their...
people that have created the database list and then just hook into those sort of So I actually was involved in a book with Tony Robbins and Brian Tracy with where I shared a concept of business growth through these sort of strategies and also dopamine stimulation for business growth. Cause I
Andrew Colsky (04:23)
Wow.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (04:23)
like to.
bring that into the business day. So yeah, quite
Andrew Colsky (04:28)
Wow.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (04:28)
a bunch of strategies.
Andrew Colsky (04:30)
So there's,
there's man, we could do a whole series of podcasts on, all those things. let me, let me pick one place to start and start there. joint ventures you mentioned were very
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (04:43)
Mm-hmm.
Andrew Colsky (04:44)
productive for you. Tell us an example of what types of things have you done and how would someone go about even thinking about structuring something.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (04:55)
joint ventures are just amazing. They are the most attractive sexiest kind of marketing that you can do for your business, I think anyway. So and the good thing is you can do it. It's all down to creativity. You want to find the first thing you want to find is an aligned customer network or a customer group that into what you're into, but definitely not in the same category that you're doing. So you
don't want to go, for example, if you're, let me think. So if I'm in the restaurant business, which I am, I don't want to go to someone else who also is in the restaurant business and then try and utilise their customer database. I want to be thinking outside of the box. I want to be maybe going to a school and saying, here's a beautiful big network of people. They all eat food, which most people do, thankfully,
Andrew Colsky (05:53)
Hahaha!
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (05:54)
which is great for business.
And, but what type of school are you going to? So we want to position ourself to a school which has the exact same database that we would want our ideal customer. Where
does that? So it's really a question of thinking where does that customer hang out and getting super creative because the more
of a tangent you can go without a straight line, the less competition there's gonna be. So if I'm going
Andrew Colsky (06:27)
Right.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (06:27)
to a school as a restaurant, then there's absolutely zero competition. No one else generally will be doing that.
Andrew Colsky (06:34)
Great.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (06:35)
yeah, finding your ideal customer, where do they hang out and identifying that. And then the next step is to come up with an absolutely mind blowing offer.
And the offer is absolutely essential. The stronger, the more powerful the offer, the more opportunity you have to get a result. So
Andrew Colsky (07:00)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (07:00)
again, it's kind of thinking outside of the box. How do we create an office so social good, so strong that it becomes very hard to say no to almost, you know, absolutely say yes to it and impossible to ignore. So that's an, and everyone,
Struggles with the offer I find it can
Andrew Colsky (07:21)
Right.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (07:21)
be you know people go all right. Well, let's give them 5 % off now That's not worth getting out of bed for no one. No one's interested in that so Finding an offer that's great that and I don't like to discount I like to maintain as much margin as possible. So
Andrew Colsky (07:38)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (07:39)
It's often a situation of getting creative in your deal and finding things that have massive value That you can give away for free or offer at a at a
but the discount is coming off a value-added product, not your core range of services.
Andrew Colsky (07:55)
Interesting, interesting.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (07:57)
Yeah.
Andrew Colsky (07:59)
just summarizing this and translating it into my brain for a second, reaching out to the right types of person to partner with translates to me into, let's say we've got a real estate attorney and they're going on a LinkedIn. It's great and wonderful to find a bunch of other real estate attorneys and sure you can connect with them and talk case law and whatever, but
They're not your clients. You need to be thinking about who needs a real estate attorney and connecting with those or who interacts with them. Realtors, obviously. Entrepreneurs who are investing in real estate, obviously. So connecting, like you said, connecting with the right people. Restaurant connecting with the school because it has the people that eat the food. Connecting with people who might bring you business as a real estate attorney. And then the offer is equivalent to me in saying,
So what do the clients actually want? You know, they're not going to come for an offer that they're not interested in because they're not interested. So what do they actually want? And then design your offer around that. So for your example, what would be something that you came up with saying, okay, I
got a restaurant, I got a school, we got this complimentary list. What type of thing, how would you go about figuring out what to offer that's going to make sense and draw the client?
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (09:24)
Yep.
So knowing what that customer likes, the end point is where you need to be at the start of it. So another example might be to explain it better is say, doing a collaboration with, your clientele is an affluent clientele and they like to have good products, good things around them, it might be an aftershave, it might be a BMW or a Mercedes dealership.
So
if that's your end user, if you're an attorney and you're looking for a high affluent customer base, then go where those customer bases are. And then it's creating the offer. So when it's down to the offer, I love to creatively find ways that an offer doesn't cost me a cent. So
Andrew Colsky (10:15)
Okay.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (10:15)
if you can do that creatively without costing you a penny, you can do it all day, every day, just constantly.
leverage it and it's infinite. So if you can get creative in an offer that is so attractive and that doesn't cost you a cent, it's so scalable and you can just go and go and go. Whereas, you know, the moment you start having to discount and you're looking at either a lost leader as a product that you're sacrificing the margin in, or you never ever, ever want to be in a situation where you're actually
you're losing money to acquire a customer. know, a lot of people say, look at the lifetime value of the customer if that's, I don't know, as an attorney, what's the lifetime value of a customer potentially gonna pay you?
Andrew Colsky (11:08)
depends on the type of law and the types of things. Most of the smaller attorneys are going to have that client for that one issue that they need and then they're not going to see them again until
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (11:18)
Please.
Andrew Colsky (11:18)
another issue pops up. the range varies, but typically thousands of dollars is going to be at a minimum. It's just the reality
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (11:27)
Hmm.
Andrew Colsky (11:28)
of the legal practice.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (11:30)
Right, so yeah, I'll give you another example that could tie back to that then when I was running health shops, I would find a lost leader which we could sell at wholesale. So I didn't wanna go under wholesale because it can really cost you on the cash flow and the...
validity of the viability of the business then. So
Andrew Colsky (12:00)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (12:01)
if you do it at cost, then that's fine. You can cover costs and you can run it infinitely and scale it massively. But if you're
giving away, say if you're giving away your time as a lawyer, then that's a limited asset. You can't do that all day, every day. So you need
Andrew Colsky (12:20)
Right.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (12:20)
to start looking for things that you can give away infinitely.
Andrew Colsky (12:26)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (12:27)
And what I like to do is find...
perhaps suppliers that will collaborate with you and might be able to provide you products that helps them to get more exposure
Andrew Colsky (12:41)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (12:41)
and to give away those sort of products and then collaborate with them so they get more exposure. You are seen as the one that's offering massive value and can give a whole bunch of product away, whatever it is, and hopefully aligned to what your end client loves. Does that make sense?
Andrew Colsky (12:59)
Mm-hmm.
So I'm thinking of a couple things going back to the real estate lawyer example.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (13:07)
Mm-hmm.
Andrew Colsky (13:08)
Partnering with someone who does home inspections and your clients get a special discount from the home inspecting company. So you're giving away something, you're helping the home inspectors, they have a reason to help you.
You're not giving away your time, but you're making something of value available to them. You know, there's one example. And the other example that came to mind as you were talking is, wait a minute here. If I put together a YouTube channel as the attorney and I start putting out basic content, obviously I'm not going to advise on a particular case, but if I put out basic content about issues that people run into with real estate law or whatever, not only am I giving something free,
to the clients, but it's evergreen, it's perpetual, it goes to unlimited numbers of clients,
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (13:57)
you
Andrew Colsky (13:58)
it builds my credibility, builds my trust, and does it take me a little bit of time to do? Yeah, it takes me a little bit of my time to do, but look at, it'll pay off forever. There's no limit to it. So those
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (14:09)
Correct. Yeah. Beautiful.
Andrew Colsky (14:11)
are just some ideas that came to my head as you were talking about this.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (14:15)
100%, yeah, absolutely. Those evergreen value add positioning statements that just give people a, you know, and it's gotta be real value, because it's easy to just rattle off something that is, you know, we don't wanna come from the marketing perspective in that stage. We don't wanna be just trying to create another sale. There's gotta be massive value that people will be engaged with and they say, oh wow, this is really good information. I, you know, wanna be engaged.
in that and stay in that and I appreciate that and this guy obviously knows what he's talking about so he'd be the one to hook up with yeah
Andrew Colsky (14:53)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's just, you know, marketing and all these things still come down to the real basic fact that you have to be seen and you have to be known
as the beginning of anything because you may do great work, you know, you may have a phenomenal restaurant, but if nobody knows that it exists or nobody's
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (15:18)
Right.
Andrew Colsky (15:19)
had the opportunity to try it or nobody's...
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (15:21)
Yeah.
Andrew Colsky (15:22)
even knows what type of food you serve, then how do you expect to get the customer?
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (15:27)
Absolutely, and I think that's down to marketing is always more important than the product itself, which is
Andrew Colsky (15:32)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (15:33)
sounds a bit crazy But I mean when you think about it in the world of say burgers Does McDonald's have the best burger in the world? Most would probably say no But McDonald's an absolute titan when it comes to marketing that's undeniable so you know it is very possible to
good to focus on the marketing more over the product.
I think everyone has a pretty good level. I mean, especially in the, I imagine in the real estate and the law world that they have a certain standard. one person, if they're 10 % better than the other, that's not necessarily gonna relate to 10 % more customers, not at all. There's
Andrew Colsky (16:22)
Right, right.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (16:23)
no correlation. But if they're 10 % of a better marketer, then that could significantly impact on their bottom line.
So yeah, think the value is definitely the focus. If you're growing your business, once you've got to a certain level of the product quality, it really doubled down on your marketing.
Andrew Colsky (16:45)
So, okay, so we've been talking about sort of coming up with a way to partner with somebody with something that's going to be meaningful for both of your audiences and meaningful to the actual, you know, person you're trying to reach out to the actual potential client. What are some other things that you have done that you have found to be effective and most worth your time and money?
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (17:10)
As I touched on on the outreach Through through direct messages and that's all again down to the wording that you use the wording is absolutely key That
Andrew Colsky (17:22)
Okay.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (17:23)
you're not coming across as a sales Concept but as really adding value and that you're a human not that you're just trying to sell so that that Takes a lot of time and a lot of trial and error to get the offer really perfected and that the outreach message
really, really perfected. So that's another little one. And I do really enjoy guerrilla marketing. So I've been involved in a few different guerrilla marketing stunts over the years. And it's fun as long as you don't mind embarrassing yourself, a
Andrew Colsky (17:58)
Hahaha
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (17:59)
little bit, getting your hands dirty. And we've done some pretty cool stuff that have got some good results.
Andrew Colsky (18:09)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (18:09)
to
relay one story back in 2009, 2010, during the global financial crisis. We had done some property over in the UK and nothing was selling. The banks weren't lending, so no one was selling and no one was able to buy because they couldn't get the money. So we, my sister and I had a nice property that we were working on selling and it wasn't selling.
put these big yellow ugly boards with buy my flat and our phone number and our payment plan on it. We walked across Tower Bridge, which in London is probably one of the most iconic places around. And
Andrew Colsky (18:55)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (18:56)
we had buses pull up in the street and stop and yell, bus drivers yelling at us, what are you doing? And it got picked up by the newspapers all around the world, actually. We ended up on the front cover of a
newspaper in Qatar for some bizarre reason.
Andrew Colsky (19:12)
Wow.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (19:13)
Yeah, very unrelated. But the phone, we had our phone numbers on this ugly yellow sign with lots of ugly handwriting and spelling mistakes. And we had our phone number in there and the phone rang off the hook and we sold the property in 48 hours.
Andrew Colsky (19:32)
my gosh.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (19:33)
So it was a way of grabbing attention, cutting through the levels of professionalism. So sometimes we get so carried away with the professional level that you try and be more professional than the next person. And then the next person has got the bigger, better business card with the special font on it, right?
Andrew Colsky (19:53)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (19:54)
And sometimes it's just that race to the bottom where it just is a sea of noise and
Andrew Colsky (20:01)
Right.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (20:02)
it doesn't stand.
and
it doesn't cut through. So
Andrew Colsky (20:05)
Right.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (20:05)
I think when you're looking at your marketing, it's always really useful to say, right, what can I do that's totally different? That's gonna be
Andrew Colsky (20:11)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (20:12)
a pattern interrupter and they're the sort of things. And although those guerrilla marketing stunts are time consuming and not leverageable, they can be pretty effective. They still can
Andrew Colsky (20:25)
Great.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (20:25)
really, as a one-off, they can be very, very effective to cut through the noise. And there's a certain level of embarrassment that may
well go with that but that to us all comes down to knowing your numbers and saying all right if I'm gonna walk across from here to there and the next hundred people I see are gonna laugh at me what's that worth?
And we
Andrew Colsky (20:48)
Great.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (20:48)
worked out, we put a value on it before we stepped across that bridge. And we realized that if we could close this deal, would be 40,000 pounds.
Andrew Colsky (20:57)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (20:58)
knowing a number all of a sudden allowed us to go, right, this is definitely worth our while. This is definitely worth the humiliation or embarrassment.
And we didn't see it as that. We just saw it as the steps that we had to go through to get to the end result, that dollar amount that we wanted to reach.
That was the motivation.
Andrew Colsky (21:18)
Right. Well,
you know, there's, there's an additional message in there, I think that's, that's really important to bring out as well, because you, you made a point of making sort of this ugly sign and you said spelling errors and things like that. And that makes you real. That makes you a real human as opposed to this perfectly crafted corporate sign that's elegant and
you would have gotten a totally different type of response from people. And the reason I raised that is because one of the lessons that I learned, I've been doing radio shows and podcasting and stuff for quite a number of years now. And one of the things that I learned early on was, you know, when I started out, and this is the important message for the professional service providers, which is, yeah, if you're going to do your work as an attorney and you're going to file a brief in court, sure, you want it to be the best it can be.
But when you're reaching out for marketing, if you're going to do a YouTube video, you can spend forever and a day trying to make it perfect with the perfect lighting and the perfect suit and tie that you're wearing and the perfect sound. And it's going to go nowhere near as far as the video of the guy who's real. Maybe you stumbled over a word. Maybe your tie was off kilter or God forbid you didn't wear a tie.
The more real you are the more that people can connect with you as a real person The better and the further your message is going to go so, you know people who watch my videos and things they may notice a little glitch here and there and It's it's not intentional that I made the glitch, but it's intentional that I left the glitch
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (23:06)
Yeah, yeah, that authenticity is just so key. Because it's so rare. No one sees it these days. We're all in this pretend world of the Instagram Ferrari.
Andrew Colsky (23:18)
You
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (23:19)
let's rock up on our bikes guys and push bikes
Andrew Colsky (23:22)
Right.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (23:23)
and sell from there and just just be real with people because I think they appreciate it.
Andrew Colsky (23:28)
Yeah, yeah. And
I bet, you know, in your businesses, and you mentioned the restaurant and all, I can just tell just by talking with you that you're that sort of personable, approachable guy, so they can, you know, they don't feel afraid to say something to you. Maybe something didn't go well in their meal. Maybe they had a suggestion for something they thought they could improve.
They might be scared to say that to a lot of people, but I bet you just give across the air that you're more open to being personable with people. And that's an important thing for people to be able to feel comfortable with you, because it means they're going to come back to you.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (24:12)
Yeah, yeah, there's a lot, particularly a lot of psychology, you know, Andrew, you're into that side of things. So I actually studied on a guy who, who
was involved with Alan Peace, who was one of the original founders of Body Language. And there's a real science to that. And there's a real ability that you can learn to connect with people instantly. And particularly when I was in the health industry and I was serving people in the health shops and pharmacies, and it was all about like, I'd always try and train my team about connecting within the first 30 seconds.
to make a real connection, to build trust, we've to do it immediately. And often it's a big smile and a joke, know, saying something that breaks the tension immediately. Other times it's just about getting straight into the problem. Like so much so that we're ignoring the salutations of that, hello, good morning, how are you? How's the weather? Well, no one really cares. They're not here to talk about the weather. They're here to get a result.
So I'll always train my team, right? What are they looking at on the shelf and launch straight into that and the benefits of that and then ask a question. it's, yeah, there's a real technique to it. And there's a lot of body science and body language that you can learn it, know, just jump on online and see what everyone's doing. Cause there's some great stuff that really helps. And that comes down to the selling concept as well. Like we have to be amazing salespeople. Cause if we can sell,
It's all, you know, it's like the McDonald's having not having the better burger but having the better marketing strategy. Well, likewise, we need to have the ability to sell the sizzle.
Andrew Colsky (26:06)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (26:08)
And these sort of tools can really help with the conversions and the sales if we can bring them into the mix.
Andrew Colsky (26:16)
Right, right.
And you you mentioned the golden word there of trust. You know, it's really, when you think about it at the end of the day, what are you doing with all your marketing and outreach and everything? Yes, you're getting seen and all these things, but ultimately, you're trying to build that credibility with people. You're trying to make sure that they feel comfortable with you, that they trust you, because then they're going to want to do business with you.
If you come across in a way that you're cold or you're too corporate, they're not going to feel so comfortable depending on who the client is. And this gives me a brief option opportunity here to just simply mention that I have been working on a book that describes all of this in terms of, from a psychological perspective, what happens
in the beginning before you build trust, what's necessary to happen to be able to build trust. Actually call the book Left of Trust and it talks about all the things
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (27:24)
That was...
Andrew Colsky (27:25)
that happen before people get to trust. So the book is not out yet. will be out. I'll be mentioning it on future podcasts and on my website if you're interested in the book.
That was just a little aside, but it's where I've been doing all my research and writing.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (27:47)
Excellent. Yeah, it is absolutely key. Breaking down those barriers, building instant trust. You know, got to build that very, very quickly. And obviously, more exposure over time is great, but sometimes you got to really work on shortening that timeframe that you can build the trust in because people need often results yesterday. So getting them on board is pretty essential pretty quickly to build that trust.
Andrew Colsky (28:16)
Let me go back to one other thing that you mentioned. You mentioned the DMs that you would do, the direct messaging. Can you give us, you know, we only have about two minutes or so left in the show, but can you give us a sense of who are you messaging and what are you saying to them that you found to be effective?
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (28:37)
Yeah, with the direct messages, it's really good if you can have something in common with that person. This there's so much rhetoric around standard lines, like you'll see people reach out to you and say, I saw that your business does x, y, z. So they've researched you for like point 001 of a second. And they're trying to use that to come across to you like they've actually put a bit
of an effort into their marketing. Well, that does just doesn't cut through anymore. You know, people see through that and AI can do pretty much that in a second. So it's you've got to be very, very aware of being authentic. That is number one in your outreach. It is a little bit challenging to do outreach on scale at this stage, although AI is getting better. And, you know, we use some software that change which you can record a video and then it changes the name of
the person with AI as you're speaking.
Andrew Colsky (29:39)
Hmm.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (29:40)
And that to a level is good, but still not massively effective. It takes it up a notch or two. But I guess when we're really reaching out, it's all about authenticity and being human and not being from a company. Like I am reaching out to you direct as a human being. And people just love that because we're so used to being sold.
to now that bringing it back a peg and saying me not us can be a really big you know I not this big conglomerate of a company can be a
Andrew Colsky (30:19)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (30:20)
starting point and just finding a connection a real connection so
I just recently reached out to the university and connected with all the directors of this university and I threw into it different names that I knew they were connected to and got some really good responses, booked some meetings and we were about to do a bunch of business together now. So I think it's that sort of strategy where they know, you know someone that they know.
can be really good or you imply that you know that person that they know and so you have some sort of a connection so people feel bad if they ignore you when you've got a mutual contact that can be quite a good strategy yeah
Andrew Colsky (31:13)
Right. Yeah. And
again, as you're talking about that, I'm thinking about LinkedIn and how it's built specifically
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (31:22)
Mm.
Andrew Colsky (31:23)
that way. You know, people can see
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (31:25)
Yep.
Andrew Colsky (31:25)
that you're linked to people that they know. And, you know, it helps to build that credibility showing that. So, well, we are we are out of time, unfortunately, for this version of Be Picked.
But Nathan, I'm gonna give you sort of the final word here. Any closing thoughts that you think would be helpful and meaningful for our audience?
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (31:51)
I think just focus on that.
if 90 % of your day could go towards marketing and growing the business and working on the business rather than in the business. And I know that's probably quite hard for your industry that you're involved in, because it's very much down to the business. But I think that comes down to asking really good questions. How can I work more on my business than in my business? You've got a passion for growth, they're the sort of questions you need to be asking, because that's the very starting point
of shifting from working in the business to scaling, growing and leveraging your time so much better.
Andrew Colsky (32:32)
Right, right. Well, I really appreciate that. And for those of you listening, we appreciate you joining us here on Be Picked. We've got a lot more episodes coming with a lot more great information from people like Nathan and others. I do want to encourage you to visit the Be Picked website, which is www.be-picked.com.
because one of the things that's coming soon and maybe even out by time this episode airs is we will have a free assessment tool you can use to learn more about your credibility and your efforts and it will guide you into the areas where you're weakest and help you figure out how to get more out there. So this has been Be Picked. I'm your host, Andrew Colsky. We'll see you on the next episode.
Nathan Baws - Nathanbaws.com (33:24)
Thanks, Ed.