Recipe for Building a Business: Part 1

Photo by Becca Tapert on Unsplash

We love giving back to our community. Recently, we had the pleasure of presenting to the wonderful people at Live Oak Unitarian Universalist Church. They are a group defined by compassion, connection, and a shared desire to make the world a better place.

Our presentation explored how to go about building a business while maintaining balance in your life. Entrepreneurship isn’t for the faint of heart. It can feel like you are standing at the edge of a cliff, taking a leap of faith as you hope your idea will transform into success. Those first steps can be especially daunting. One essential ingredient in the recipe of any new business is getting people through the door.

Over the years, we’ve built multiple businesses; three successful psychotherapy practices, a family business, and now our consulting firm, G2 Solutions. Along the way, we’ve learned that while strategic planning, marketing, and staffing are critical ingredients, one of the most powerful (and often overlooked) elements is leveraging personal connection. So, we created a step by step recipe to make sure this ingredient is never left out.

Time and again, personal connection has made all the difference. Some of our biggest opportunities have come not from direct marketing, but from relationships we intentionally nurtured. When you invest in people, they come to see you as a trusted resource. And when their moment of need arises, you are top of mind.

At G2 Solutions, we break down building personal connection into a six-ingredient recipe:

• Target

• Frame 

• Foster

• Timeline

• Pink Spoon

• Developmental Perspective

  
  

We will walk you through the same steps we shared in our presentation, using examples from our journey and providing suggestions that will allow you to put them into action. 

Now to be clear, this process is just one element of getting the word out about your business. Enhancing personal connection is the icing on your marketing strategy cake.  

Target: Every good recipe starts with acquiring the perfect ingredients. In this case, those ingredients are people. To do this, think about who are natural fits for your service. When you intentionally foster the right connections, you create relationships that are more likely to last and more likely to turn into meaningful referrals.

How We Put It Into Action: In our psychotherapy practices, doctors and school counselors were obvious fits. But we are also connected with hairdressers, lawyers, and realtors because they are people who regularly interact with individuals in transition. People in transition often need additional support and that is what psychotherapy provides.

How You Can Put It Into Action: Make a list of professions and people that align with what your business offers. Think about individuals you already know or could easily be introduced to. Your existing network is often the best place to start.

Frame: How you talk about your business matters. Think of this as plating your dish for a dinner party. It shapes how people experience it. Explain your work in a way that highlights its value, addresses any common misconceptions and shows how you are different from the pack.

How We Put It Into Action: For G2 Solutions, there are many business consultants out there, so we describe ourselves as “business consultants with a twist.” Our psychotherapy background gives us unique expertise in helping people and organizations create lasting change.

In our therapy practices, people often assume that our job is to tell people what to do. We often clarify that our role is to help our clients define their goals and help them develop the tools to reach them.

How You Can Put It Into Action: The first step in building a frame is to create your elevator pitch. This is a clear, 30–60 second explanation of your work. Before writing it, ask yourself: What’s the one thing I want them to remember when they walk away?

Once complete, practice it until it feels natural. Look for opportunities to try it out. It could be at a business function or a dinner with friends. For some good information on how to build a pitch, check out this resource.

Foster: Once you’ve created a clear frame, it’s time to build those relationships. This is where consistency matters. Cultivating connection is not just a one and done event. It is tending relationships over time. Connection grows through real interaction like taking people to coffee, offering reciprocating referrals, giving them a free experience of your service, or finding groups to present to together. This is not that different from developing a social media presence where building followers is achieved through compelling story telling.

How We Put It Into Action: At G2 Solutions, we continue to take clients who have hired us to lunch on a regular basis even if they are not currently using our services. It allows us to understand how our clients are evolving and maintains our connection with them. This has resulted in new business time and again. 

How You Can Put It Into Action: Review your target list and start scheduling a few lunches. Keep in mind, the goal isn’t to deliver a sales pitch. It’s to build a genuine relationship and get to know the person across the table. Business will be part of the discussion, but the real value is leaving with a deeper, more nuanced understanding of who they are.

Timeline: No great recipe comes together instantly. Building a referral network takes time. Think of it as a long-term goal.

How We Put It Into Action:

At G2 Solutions, we intentionally calendar connection focused time throughout the year. Not

just networking events, but meaningful interactions with new, existing and former clients. 

We have been psychotherapists for a very long time and have seen how this process pays off. We have built extensive networks of referral services. We continue to tend to these relationships, but they don’t take the same time and effort that they did when we were starting off. 

How You Can Put It Into Action: Create a timeline and calendar out networking opportunities. These will include those lunches we just referred to and as well as formal networking events.  If formal networking isn’t your style, join groups or activities you genuinely enjoy and build connections there.

We have introduced the first three ingredients of our recipe. Stay tuned next week and we’ll give you the final two that will set your table for success.