Welcome August, and welcome to another week of networking!

Hey! Andres here,

Welcome to the networking desk! You know the drill, every week I bring you some practical business / networking / or whatever’s on my mind tips, and share local events in Atlanta.

ALSO:

🌟 Don’t forget to share your networking wins (or business wins and tips) to be featured next time! I will include your name and business so that people can engage and start meeting others in this great community.

Here’s what we got this week:

• What problem to solve for your niche

• Local events

• Non-profit highlight

Alright, let’s do this.

“Lean forward moment” of the week - 🤨 What Problem to Solve

One of the biggest issues I see when working with business owners and nonprofit teams is that
they’re trying to solve problems that no one actually said they had.

It’s obviously not on purpose.

Most of us are genuinely trying to help. But when we skip the part where we ask, when we assume we know the pain, we end up building services that don’t really connect.

That’s why before I move forward with client work, especially with messaging or website strategy, we slow down and ask:

AND we don’t have to guess, the answers are already out there.

You just need to start asking the right people. Not coaches, or competitors, but your actual ideal clients.

Here’s how I research problems:

1. Post on LinkedIn and ask if the content is helpful
Yep, that simple. Create a meaningful post of a problem you are tackling, then ask your ideal customer something like:

• “What do you think I could add to my post? Do you find this is a pressing matter in your industry?” - People want to appear smart, so let them feel like so, this also has super high response rates as you are curious and not salesy.

2. Use LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator
Not sure if your niche is active on LinkedIn to reach out? Use Sales Navigator to check. You can simply search for your industry and see how active they are (this is also great to find out if you should be posting there at all for your marketing strategy…)

This is paid, though, you need LinkedIn premium.

3. Match the channel to the person you are looking for
For example, looking for Doctors? They’re probably not scrolling LinkedIn… or any social media for that matter, but they’re in offices. Which is why medical sales people go directly to where they are.

Don’t be afraid to ask, honestly if I had to guide someone new in business my #1 step would be “go out there and ask your avatar what do they want”.

4. Use ChatGPT’s Agent mode or other agent tools
Ask where your niche hangs out and how they engage. You can get solid platform-level insights without spending hours manually researching.

The new agent mode is specially good at this, it opens its own computer and helps you do research, but please check the sources, lol it can make some crazy stuff up.

For nonprofits especially...

You’re serving two audiences at once: your beneficiaries and your donors.
If your programs are only designed for one side of that equation, you’ll always struggle with either engagement or funding.

Then build from there. Don’t assume.

People will tell you exactly what they need if you stop selling for a second and just ask.
Your job is to listen with real curiosity, and solve with real passion. That’s how real money and real impact get made.

This allows you to go from: “I do graphic design for businesses” to let’s say “I help landscaping companies create trackable yard signs, that lets us see exactly where leads are coming from, and if they don’t get engagement of over 20% I remade the entire branding for free.”

Which one do you think would sell better? But the only way to get there is by asking if that’s what they would actually want.

💻 Shameless plug

Hey! In case you didn’t know, I make websites and help non-profits to stay top of mind to create more revenue.

OR JUST RESPOND TO THIS EMAIL!

🗓️ Now, the events…

Community Highlight - 🏡 SPARC’s 100 Families Mission

sharing community wins!

I love hearing updates from my non-profit clients and what they are able to bring into our communities. So this week I decided to spotlight SPARC, they are currently looking to find homes for 100 single parent families by the end of the summer.

If you think about it, that’s not just a number… that’s 100 families who will finally have a safe place to land, rebuild, and thrive. We are used to seeing such large numbers, but every little change makes a big difference in communities.

They’re currently at 84 families, which is incredible, but there’s still more work to be done.

If you’re looking for a way to support, share, or just follow along with something meaningful, check them out. You can follow, donate, or just read about them! Just wanted to share this great mission.

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Thank you for reading! Quick thing before I go:

1. If you are new or would like to read older posts, check out this page. There is a backlog of previous weeks of “The Networking Desk”

2. Know someone who would benefit from this newsletter? Be sure to share it with them! 📩 (just copy the link or forward this email) I will keep putting out great newsletters for them and for you. That’s a promise.

See you next week.

- Andres Inciarte