In so many of my newsletters, I focus on how to position your brand online and create content that supercharges your brand awareness. What I don’t often share about are all the backend tools and widgets I use to translate this momentum into moments that further benefit my audience and streamline my business.

This week, we’ll explore 5 ways to create high-impact impressions with your audience that also help save you time and money in the long run.

1.  Send thank you cards

This is an oldie but a goodie. When we’re so focused on building our personal brand online, we often forget the offline activities that go the furthest in cementing an impression in our connections’ minds. 

Keeping a stack of thank you notes in the corner of your desk is the perfect way to let a prospect, partner, or audience member know how much you appreciate their engagement and your relationship.

Frequently, I receive a “thinking of you card” from Megan Reilly, who attributes good ole’ fashioned pen and paper sentiments to be a core chunk of her success. Speaking as a recipient of these thoughtful outreaches, I couldn’t agree more. It always feels like Megan knows what’s going on in my life and is thinking of how I’m feeling during those transitions:

2.  Make use of social platforms’ autoresponders

When you start building your personal brand, your social inboxes will start to explode. This is super exciting at first, but  can quickly become overwhelming if you don’t have a system to handle all the action coming your way. Since follow-up is 90% of the battle in ensuring your personal brand and your reputation are aligned, use social media autoresponders to channel inquiries to one place for easy follow-up. 

LinkedIn refers to its autoresponder as an “away” message. You have to pay for a premium membership ($60/month) to receive this tool, but to me, it's worth its weight in gold. 
Here’s a great example of how Robbie Kellman Baxter uses it to direct interested audience members to helpful resources and her speaking programs:

For my LinkedIn away message, I simply direct folks to my email. From there, my team can push inquiries into my follow-up system:

 You can set up autoresponders to direct messages in apps like Facebook and Instagram too. 

3.  Automate your email follow up 

Automating your email follow-up can help create a great first impression while also streamlining your work and saving your sanity. Here are a few tools I use:

a. A virtual assistant

We have a wonderful assistant from the company Wing Assistant who goes through my email inbox and helps coordinate follow-up appropriately. While there are a number of organizations you can use to find a great VA, Wing Assistant has quickly become one of my favorites for their cost-effective packages, excellent matching criteria, and caliber of talent they hire. 

Cost: If you’re looking to get full-time help, they have packages as low as $899/month, and you can get $100 off your first month here.

b. “Get to know me” videos 

When someone reaches out to me about working together, I automatically send them a video message sharing all the various ways I can help them. They can only schedule a call after watching that video and filling out a coordinating short form. Doing this ensures that I protect my time, but more importantly, ensures that I don’t waste their time when it comes to our conversation.

 4.  Set up an easy way to collect testimonials…about everything

Building a personal brand effectively means providing a ton of value to your audience, and people will start to say very kind things. Instead of simply thanking them and glowing with all this praise (which you should absolutely do!), ensure you have easy ways to collect these 3rd party endorsements. That way, you can use them to promote your products and services later.

Here’s a good example…

Recently, someone reached out to me via LinkedIn and said very kind things about my weekly newsletter. I was so tickled to read their high praise. After thanking him, I asked if he wouldn’t mind copying that sentiment and pasting it into my Testimonial software so I could embed it into my newsletter sign-up pages.

This increases my newsletter sign-up rates because audience members can see the type of value that other subscribers are receiving:

The key takeaway here:

Don’t simply collect testimonials about your products and services as you build your personal brand. Collect testimonials about your articles, speaking engagements (unpaid or paid) that you do, workshops you host, or any media appearances you make. (No kidding, when someone tells me they took a lot out of a podcast interview I did, I ask them if they could share that on my “Media Guest” testimonial tool. Then, I take those testimonials and show them to producers, bookers, and hosts.) 

Remember, what you say about yourself is important, but what others say about you reigns supreme. Don’t let all that goodwill be a one-and-done thing. Use this praise to get more opportunities to provide more value to people. 

5.  Keep a spreadsheet of strategic partners at-the-ready.

Not everyone who reaches out to you will be a good fit for your services and products, and that’s a great thing! It means you know your target market and how best to service them. Instead of apologizing that you can’t help, send them a referral to a vetted referral partner. 

The easiest way I’ve found to do this is to keep a spreadsheet of people I talk to and their specialties. You know who I’m referring to – these are those awesome folks you have a great “synergy” call with, immensely enjoy, and then forget about afterward because you haven’t cataloged their information properly. This is a missed opportunity for the person reaching out to you, that wonderful strategic partner, and yourself.

So, don’t be that person. Keep a spreadsheet with their information (Name, email, website, price points, type of folks they help) and send that to prospects who you know won’t be a good fit.

Everyone will benefit from it!

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