Chicken and Egg

My dear Chicken and Egg, you’ve got a real challenge, so let the Doctor take a crack at it (see what I did there?). You’re asking what comes first, the chicken or the egg. The Doctor will settle that one for you: neither. What comes first is the peep. Meaning, a peep is what draws your peeps, not the other way around.

You’re sitting on your nest in a brand-new sector waiting for the work to come find you. But you can’t just go on sitting there quietly waiting for all those little chickadees to gestate just by twiddling your three toes. So let the Doctor walk you through what that strategy actually looks like. Otherwise, you’ll be snoozing and losing like Rip van Winkle waiting for the projects to materialize, while the firm down the block is plucking the projects you wanted.

This is how you lay the golden egg, unless you have a golden goose (and I hear that they’re hard to come by these days). Look, no one is going to give a rando project to a firm they’ve never heard of when your competitors have been working in that sector for decades and you just fell from the sky (ouch!). Well, maybe you could find someone who might give you a project, but the Doctor’s pretty sure that it’s not the kind of work you want. 

First thingies first: before you spend a dime on outreach, you gotta get crystal clear on what you do better than anyone else. You might call this building your nest egg, heh, heh. Ok, but seriously, you have to know what you have that your competitors don’t. What’s your point of view on where that sector is headed? What kind of related experience can you leverage to show value? Connect the dots for people: whatever you’ve already done that jibes with this new sector can boost your street cred. Don’t be shy.

Nail your positioning and your messages first. If you can’t think of a good reason for being in that sector, it’s going to be pretty hard to win over clients. But you’ve got the drive, so I know you’ll come up with a compelling story. Show the market you’re the smartest people in the coop before they’ve ever cracked open your portfolio (oops, there I go again with the puns. Sorry not sorry).

Then go free ranging to launch your ideas. Honestly, Chicken, the Doctor’s not gonna mince the meat: this takes some investment of time, but you gotta give clients a reason for reaching out to you. Start by writing and placing bylined articles (meaning, written by you) about the trends and ideas shaping that sector. Even if you don’t have the projects yet, you can say “here’s where this market is going and here’s how we think about it.” That’s thought leadership, and it’s how a firm with no track record in a space starts to sound like the expert in it. 

Now a little more advice from the good Doctor: Don’t eat the whole pint of ice cream at once. Pick an area of expertise you can legitimately own and build on that. Chase one signature win and then get your experts onto the stages where your future clients sit in the audience. Get to know the editors and influencers who cover the sector, so your name pops into their heads when they’re hunting for a source or writing the trend piece. Post your content on LinkedIn so your name appears in internet and AI searches.

The point is, my dear Chicken, don’t sit there waiting by your cellphone hoping it’ll ring: Pick it up and make the calls yourself. This is relationship building at its best, finest and most effective.

Finally, create a strategy that’s built around three of the Doctor’s favorite things: deadlines, milestones and accountability. After a year, you should be able to track who found you, which conversations have turned into meetings, and which efforts have created real opportunity. You need to know what worked (or didn’t) and why. Otherwise, you’ll just be running around in circles chasing your tail.

So, here’s your prescription, Chicken and Egg. Be the chicken that clucks the loudest. Rule the roost. Fluff your feathers. Strut your stuff. Check in with the Doctor in a year and let me know about all the eggs you’ve been laying and, better yet, what you’ve hatched!