You may work alone, but the reality is: yours is a relationship business.

And if you’re not getting much traction with outreach, it could be because you’re not spending enough time cultivating relationships.

Now, if you’re doing your homework, writing personal messages, and following up…

It may feel like you’re taking all the right steps.

But that’s just the start.

Outreach - even when done well - rarely works on its own.

What works best is using all three of the tools in the Simplest Marketing Plan together.

After all, they’re designed as a three-part relationship-building structure.

For example, once you make initial contact with a prospect, you might have some friendly back-and-forth. That’s outreach, and it gets things started.

Next, you continue to build the relationship by making sure your high-quality content lands in their news feed or in-box…

And, if you can, by meeting them in real time (ideally in person) through strategic networking.

You may work alone, but this is a relationship business.

And the stronger the bond you build with your ideal clients, the more likely you are to win the project when they are in their time of need.

Watch as I go into more depth on this in the “Best Bits” from this month’s SMP Office Hours:

You can’t control (or even know) when a client will come into their time of need.

But you can control the strength of the bond you forge with them and the degree of trust they have in you.

Sometimes that means pushing past a little discomfort.

But the more you continue taking baby steps every day, the more natural it will become.

By the way, I've got big plans to help you take those baby steps in the coming year - stay tuned!

In the meantime, see how Antonio Meza beautifully summed up how all three tools contribute to better outreach in this thumbnail from his latest Office Hours sketch, here:

Question: Can you ever do too much outreach? See what the community thinks here on LinkedIn.