Guest Interview: Nikki Berkel - Running a Business WITHOUT a Website

Is it possible to acquire clients with neither a website nor business cards?

Today’s guest, Nikki Berkel, offers actionable strategies for marketing your business when you’re first getting started. She shares her recent decision to fully transition from being a corporate employee to becoming a full-time life coach. Nikki says that she gained the confidence to make this big leap by taking time beforehand to establish a system for herself that ensures she wouldn’t be leaving the “comfort” of employment only to dive into something she wasn’t fully equipped to handle. She researched like crazy, which included attending countless webinars and reaching out to established coaches for advice. In the end, she was able to cultivate the mindset, skillset, and courage she needed to finally pursue her passion full-time.

Because of her desire to get her name and message out there as efficiently and effectively as possible, Nikki stuck to two principles: 1) Be honest with people; 2) Don’t make assumptions. Both of these principles, for Nikki, come down to not overthinking the process. The entrepreneurial journey—especially when you’re just starting out—is plagued with challenges, setbacks, and misconceptions. (Those misconceptions include needing the perfect website and business cards to become successful in business.) According to Nikki, as long as you build an authentic relationship with your customer and do great work for them, you will weather the storm of uncertainty and go far.

Just as she simply reached out to successful coaches for advice, Nikki wasn’t afraid to contact other brands and businesses to ask if they needed her services. She kept a log containing all her prospects. By focusing on the “yes” prospects and accepting “no” prospects as part of the journey, eventually she found recurring business. In her own words, “I went out to people who I knew in general could use this help, and I asked them if I could help them.”

Finally, at networking events, Nikki would collect business cards—not so that she can then hand out her own cards, but in order to be able to jot down people’s email addresses, in turn creating an email list.

By focusing on honesty, relationships, and service, Nikki was able to quickly scale her business without business cards, and while having a website that is only “85% complete”. After all, a fully-booked calendar looks much better than the greatest website in the world.

Connect with Nikki at:

Website: www.nikkiberkel.com