Unkink Your Hose: How to Break Through Business Barriers and Achieve Your Goals

Have you ever experienced that frustrating moment when a kink in the hose prevents you from achieving your goals? It’s like a blockage that temporarily halts your momentum. In the business world, these “kinks” can manifest in various forms—whether it’s a lack of engagement, delayed results despite hard work, or feeling like your purpose is slipping away. In this week’s episode, we’ll explore how to unkink your business strategy and achieve your goals more effectively.

The Importance of Relationship Building in Business

One of the most significant challenges businesses face is creating genuine relationships with customers and listeners. If you’re a podcast host, entrepreneur, or business owner, you know that building lasting relationships is critical for long-term success. But how do you transform casual clients into loyal customers? How do you move beyond surface-level interactions and cultivate meaningful connections?

Brooke Boltz, founder of Boltz Legal, and Rachel Boltz, owner of Boltz Media, faced similar struggles when they first launched their podcast, Ms. Biz. Despite having a substantial listener base, they realized they weren’t effectively converting those listeners into relationships that could help grow their businesses. They implemented a few key strategies, and in this blog, we’ll share how you can apply them to your business.

Key Strategies for Breaking Through Business Barriers

1. Engage with Your Audience: The Power of Personal Connections

It’s one thing to have listeners, and another to have engaged listeners. Our initial attempt to foster engagement involved free weekly Zoom calls. This gave us an opportunity to connect with listeners on a personal level. However, we soon realized that while these calls were valuable, they weren’t effectively growing the audience. Expanding beyond the core group was essential, but without a strategic approach, scaling these calls proved difficult.

Action Tip: Building an engaged audience starts with offering value. Think about offering free resources, exclusive content, or behind-the-scenes insights that encourage people to engage. It’s not just about talking at your audience—it’s about having a conversation with them. This concept is echoed in research by HubSpot, which highlights the importance of providing consistent value to build deeper customer relationships.

2. Leverage Email Marketing for Stronger Connections

Email is one of the most direct and personal ways to connect with your audience. By offering lead magnets like a free “small business checklist” or “content strategy guide,” we planned to build an email list that would allow them to communicate directly with their listeners. Email marketing is highly effective when it comes to building relationships with your audience, as it allows for personalized communication and immediate feedback. According to Campaign Monitor, email marketing yields an average ROI of $42 for every $1 spent, making it a powerful tool for business growth.

Action Tip: If you haven’t already, start capturing email addresses through lead magnets, free resources, or newsletter sign-ups. Build a connection that goes beyond social media and keep your audience engaged with regular, personalized email content.

3. Turning Free Content into Paid Offers

Another valuable lesson we learned was that giving away too much content for free without a clear path to paid services can limit growth. While our initial Zoom calls were free, we weren’t converting as well as we hoped.

Action Tip: While free resources are essential for building trust, consider offering paid options for those who want deeper engagement or more personalized services. According to Forbes, businesses that successfully convert free content into paid offers often experience more committed customers and higher retention rates.

4. Making Your Services Visible

We realized that we hadn’t done enough to make our businesses visible during our podcast episodes. We weren’t inviting listeners to reach out for their services. It wasn’t until we actively invited their audience to connect and reminded them of the services we offered that the conversation started flowing more naturally.

Action Tip: Be clear and direct with your audience about what you do and how they can reach out to you. Don’t assume they’ll automatically know how to contact you or that they’ll think of your services when they need them. Make the invitation clear.

5. Building a Niche Community: Facebook Groups and Other Platforms

Creating a niche community for your audience can lead to long-term success. We initially tried to build a Facebook group, Ms Biz Nation, to connect with listeners. However, they soon found that engagement wasn’t as high as they expected. Upon further analysis, we realized that not all group members were aligned with the business topics we were focusing on.

Action Tip: Be strategic about who you allow into your communities. Creating a niche space will attract people who are genuinely interested in what you offer. This can lead to higher engagement and better relationships with people who are the best fit for your business.

Conclusion: Turning the Kink Into Flow

In business, there are always obstacles that can feel like a kink in your hose. But as we discovered, these barriers can be unraveled with the right strategies. From engaging with your audience on a deeper level to using email marketing to build stronger connections, these tactics can help you reach your business goals.

By focusing on value, fostering personal connections, and fine-tuning your approach to content and relationships, you can break through those business barriers and set yourself up for success. So, if you feel like your business is stuck in a “trickle” and not flowing as it should, it’s time to unkink that hose and start building real, lasting relationships.

Key Takeaways:

• Engage with your audience by providing consistent value.
• Use email marketing as a tool to build stronger, more personal relationships.
• Turn free content into paid offers to ensure business growth.
• Make your services visible and invite your audience to reach out.
• Build a niche community that aligns with your business goals.

By implementing these strategies, you can accelerate your business growth, foster meaningful relationships, and achieve your goals faster t