This is a novel concept to a lot of people, which is funny to me because it's always just seemed like an obvious approach to business marketing in my mind. But you should be treating yourself as a small business even if you aren't. Think: dentists and doctors with their own practice, salesmen, realtors, insurance agents, etc. This is how you set yourself apart from all the others in your industry even if you aren't technically a small business. 

Create business accounts on social media for yourself, spend time engaging with your ICA, create behind the scenes videos, go live, post entertaining, thoughtful content, develop a loyal following, and the in-person business will come easily. 

Hardly anyone in any of the industries that aren't conventionally considered small businesses are marketing in this way. Get started and get ahead of the game before everyone else catches up and the return on investment will be tenfold. Even small businesses in the trades such as plumbers and electricia...

The way entrepreneurs hashtag these days literally defies logic. Seriously. It makes no damn sense. For instance, I came across a wedding photographer and along with a bunch of other tags, they had hashtagged "she said yes." Wut. 

Why do they do this? Because all their competitors and their mother are doing it. So I'm not calling out or making fun of this specific photographer...they're far from alone. But what kind of bride is searching for vendors to hire when she gets engaged and searches "she said yes." Not only is it not specific to anyone like caterers or florists or photographers, but it's not even location-specific. What good does searching "she said yes" do? Absolutely none. Hashtagging instead something like "Minnesota wedding photographers" that is location-specific and search friendly makes a whole lot more sense. What I mean by "search friendly" is that it's much more likely that a bride would go on Instagram and search her location along with "wedding photographers" as o...