It's not who you know...

"It's not who you know, it's who they know."

My parents taught me this lesson early on when I first started in sales, and it stuck.

It's become a running joke in my family - any time one of us meets and has a photo taken with someone famous or influential, we'll laugh to each other that it's never who you know, it's who they know.

The truth is that this works on a small scale as well.

When you're promoting your professional services or your business, you may not be in the room with anyone famous or influential. You don't need to be.

You may be in a big city with a slew of friends, or you may be in a small remote area without close contacts nearby, and both are okay.

The 'who they know' principle still applies. Why?

The answer is social media.

I wrote the other week about my quest to improve my own social media presence for this business, and how one 'off' day on social can leave you (unnecessarily) feeling a little defeated.

If you post what you think is a great reel on Instagram, or solid piece of thought leadership on LinkedIn, and the engagement numbers seem low then it's easy to feel defeated. After nearly two decades we've now been programmed to let social media play a part in our self-worth, and it's easy to feel rejected if the whole world isn't looking at the content that you're putting out.

Here's a secret: you don't need the whole world to see your content.

You don't always know who's looking at your content, and more importantly, you don't know who they know.

There are debates within the social media community about how best to handle a lot of the nuances around posting strategy, algorithms, etc. But unless you're funneling millions of dollars into your marketing in order to launch a global brand, stop worrying about it.

Don't let fear stop you from making an imprint on social media.

The more consistent content that you're putting out that's relevant and helpful to your target audience, the better chance you have at reaching them.

That means that you likely won't have hundreds or thousands of views on every video, and you won't have thousands of impressions or dozens of comments on each LinkedIn post.

It does mean though that your content will not only get better, but will have more of an impact on your target audience. Better still, it's content that they're more likely to find helpful, and to share with others in their network who are hungry for your services.

Remember: you don't need to be an overnight sensation in order to build your business through word of mouth.

Keep educating and helping people every chance you get. Those people you know will be quick to recognize your efforts, and it's the people that they know who might just take your business to the next level.