Life as a small business owner: What happens when you email 200 connections asking if there are opportunities to collaborate?

In many ways the current market feels like there is a recession without there being a recession.

It’s been 4 years since I started my business (Shiageto Consulting); the first year was terrible (thanks Covid) but since then things have gone well.

In years 2 and 3 we managed to double our revenues each year, grow our client base and expand the team; then around Autumn last year, it became clear that the market was changing.

Within the space of 6 weeks, our 3 biggest clients all “tightened their belts” and all 3 decided to reduce spend on our services.

Up to that point, we’d made the classic mistake of being over-exposed to a few key clients (about 70% of our revenues came from these 3 clients) but that 6 week period changed things.

To offset the impact of these clients spending less, I backfilled with smaller clients and smaller pieces of work that we had previously turned down.

Net result: Same revenues, just a lot more admin and effort

The band aid can only last so long

Come early summer, Shiageto’s pipeline began to look thin. The big clients were still not back to spending the amounts they had been and the smaller projects were coming to an end.

All would have been fine had we not expanded and had “more mouths to feed”. As a result, I decided to go into business development overload.

I sent more voice notes than normal, started working at client offices to generate more conversations, went to more networking events, worked in more co-working spaces to meet new people and blogged more to share my story.

I also decided to do something I’d never done before:

I wrote a personal email to 200 of my best connections simply outlining the position we found ourselves and requesting a catch up so we could explore if there were any opportunities to collaborate.

In contrast to previous messages I’d sent, I was very direct about the situation and the need to find more work; it was clear what my ask was.

So what happened?

Well, by far and away the biggest thing that happened was:

I got a lot of out-of-office responses.

Of course, it was the summer and people were on holiday [at least it resembled my previous experience of receiving a deluge of out-of-office messages].

Once that settled down, it was quite a surprise that about 40% of people just ignored the email. Of the 200 emails I’d sent, a good 80 just got no response at all.

Of those that replied, about 50% said straight out that they’d like to help but weren’t in a position to do anything.

Of the remaining 60, about a third asked me to send them some material about what Shiageto does so they could mull it over.

The remaining 40 agreed to a catch up, either in person or virtually.

I’m still working my way through those catch ups but even these haven’t been without drama; many get cancelled last minute, others being met with confusion when I talk about work.

In some cases, people say they have something and that doesn’t materialise or worse, they agree to a follow up meeting or offer some work and then disappear completely.

This is very similar to the phenomenon of ghosting that I experienced when I first started my business. It no longer amazes me the behaviours you see and I don’t take any of it personally.

I still have confidence that this approach will bear fruit as I continue to chat to the amazing 40 people that responded [watch this space].

That said there are 10 key takeaways as a small business I’ve learnt from this experience

1. Running a business, no matter how big or small, is all about matching demand with supply; you’ll mostly spend the majority of your time with too little or too much demand
2. Never get too comfortable with how your business is doing as things can change fairly quickly (this works both ways for good times and bad)
3. There is no quick fix to finding new work
4. People instinctively follow the path of least resistance so ignoring you is the easiest strategy for people to adopt when you come asking for something
5. Despite how much you would like to believe otherwise, you’re business (and to some degree you) are not as memorable as you think for some people
6. It’s better off assuming that people haven’t engaged with any of your content prior to you contacting them
7. You can never be too clear or succinct in your messaging [hence why I’ve relaunched my “What is it you do?” sub 30 second vlogs]
8. Even where there are positive conversations, as soon as things get tricky with regards getting a piece of work over the line then the other party are more than likely to disappear [see lesson 2 above]
9. Don’t hold anything against any of your connections as you never know what’s truly going on when things don’t work out and the relationship is far more important to preserve
10. Keep the faith as there is always gold at the end of the rainbow and it feels so great when you do secure new work

So, that’s a little snapshot of how the current market is for a small business and what the results of a heartfelt, direct approach are.

How are things for you and your small business?

I’d love to hear all about it and, as ever, I promise to keep you informed on how we get on at Shiageto Consulting

Faris 🙂

Faris is the CEO and Founder of Shiageto Consulting, an innovative consultancy that helps firms and individuals sharpen their effectiveness. Connect with him here

Success = IQ x EQ x FQ

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Originally Published on https://farisaranki.medium.com/

Faris Aranki Strategy & Emotional Intelligence

Having spent over 20 years delivering strategic change for the corporate and non-corporate worlds, Faris has experienced first-hand the fine differences between strategic success and failure.
His work has spanned numerous companies (from global behemoths to small start-ups), in numerous countries, across a range of sectors, supporting them all to unlock strategic success.

He came to realize that often what hinders institutions from achieving their goals goes beyond the quality of their strategy; it is their ability to engage effectively with others at all levels and remove barriers in their way. This has led to his passion for improving strategic effectiveness within all businesses and individuals and the foundation of Shiageto Consulting.

Over time, Faris has worked to distill his knowledge of how to solve complex problems in a structured manner combined with his skill on engaging effectively with others and his ability to quickly determine the barriers to a strategy's success. This knowledge has formed the foundation of Shiageto’s workshops, courses and methodologies. Faris believes that any firm or team can adopt these improvements; all it requires is a little of the right support -something Shiageto provides!

On top of leading our business, Faris is now an accomplished speaker and contributor for a variety of outlets.