I just got my branding done. Bethany, as always, did an amazing job.
Brent surprised me with my very first vanity plate. My car says BOOMP now. Honk if you see me! I've ordered branded sweatshirts and hats.
It's all coming together!
Five people filled out the preview yesterday. Three came from the email I sent, finally introducing myself to the Venture Cafe community. Two must have come from search.
That must mean that the switching of domains from glowsocial.com to boomp.net is going smoothly, which is good because I didn't want to mess anything up there.
But I think I've been trying to attract the wrong type of customer.
I had breakfast with Ash (one of my favorite things to do, although I typically prefer it if we've hiked together first. Someday it'll cool off again, right, Phoenix, right?!?!), and we were brainstorming ways we could somehow work together.
Should we start a podcast?
Local business marketing tips?
YouTube channel(s)? Hers would focus on small business finance, with a plan toward monetizing through affiliate revenue.
Fun, but for me, much too much of a pivot from my main thing: growing boomp.net to 1000 customers.
The conversation turned toward Boomp, and why I've been having such a hard time getting traction (beyond the obvious "it's just summer, no one thinks about ___ in the summer"). Ash does bookkeeping for a landscaper named Matt.
Why doesn't Matt do anything online?
The answer was pretty simple: he's busy enough. His method of getting more work (dropping off business cards in the neighborhoods he's working in, referrals from existing clients) has worked well enough for him.
I'd thought Boomp would be solving a particularly painful problem for local businesses like Matt's.
But thinking deeper about Matt shows that to him, it's not particularly painful.
Solving a painful problem isn't enough if the people who have that problem don't think they do.
Could Matt use boomp to attract new business?
Yes. But does he care to?
Is lack of an online presence, lack of leads from the internet, lack of a digital footprint, etc. a problem that needs solving?
Maybe not.
And if Matt is a representative sample of other local businesses, then they're not even problem aware.
And if they're not even problem aware, they need a lot more education to convince themselves that (waves hands) all this is a problem worth solving.
I got home from breakfast and started scrolling on Threads.
Scrolling is almost never the answer, but that day, I noticed something. Two people who have big digital presences (massive followings, get asked to speak on stage at conferences, big big) were discussing just how hard it is to promote oneself online.
It was like watching that interview where Chris Rock admitted to having stage fright every single time he took the stage.
If these two hate promoting themselves on social media, if Chris Rock still gets butterflies before going on stage, surely that means that ordinary, non-famous people are feeling it too.
And Boomp does a really good job of helping with promotion. It's something I've noticed in my time working with it. It's why I like using it.
It takes the great copy and marketing language I spent time and energy putting on my home page and turns that into social posts.
It solves the problem of self-promotion for me.
And that was my lightbulb moment.
What if that's my wedge?
What if we change the language on the homepage, just a little, to talk about this problem?
The problem, of course, is that there's an ick factor associated with promoting oneself and one's business online.
"Hello, I am hot shit" you think you need to say once you're "out there" on social media. "And because of that, you should pay attention to me and buy things from me."
"Come on down to Kathleen's used car bonanza and we'll get you driving today!"
Ugh. You hate it.
So you don't promote yourself. You (maybe) don't even post at all.
Then someone in your space comes along, unafraid to demand attention, unafraid of the ick (bathes in it, probably), and gets the attention you wanted.
Not just the attention, either.
The conversion.
The email address. The relationship. The sale.
That stings.
But the truth is, your work, no matter how brilliant (and I'm SURE it is brilliant), won't speak for itself.
Maybe there was a time where it could have. Where your portfolio of finished work, your proof of transformations, and your general excellence would have been enough to grow your business.
But that time has long since passed us by.
And until you get big enough where your work does start speaking for itself (and actually, beyond that, since the two people I saw chatting are 'big'), you have to put yourself out there.
You have to make the posts.