Show Notes
Derek writes: "I'm bootstrapping. I can't afford paid ads. How do I get leads without a marketing budget?"
The belief shift: Marketing isn't about money. It's about attention. You can buy it or earn it.
The trade-off: Time or money. When you're bootstrapping, you trade time.
Scott's Craigslist story: Free platform, but not free—it cost time. Wrote the ads. Posted the ads. Played whack-a-mole with Craigslist's spam filters. Today it's Facebook Marketplace and groups. Same concept.
Other ways to earn attention: Direct outreach (LinkedIn), referrals, partnerships, content creation.
The Visibility Trap: You don't need more money. You need to know who you're talking to. Most people try to talk to everybody—and talk to nobody.
The ladies' night analogy: Before dating apps, bars had ladies' nights. Women got in free. Men paid the cover. That's how paid platforms work—you're paying to access the room where your customers already are.
When you move to paid: Pick the cheapest option. Lowest commitment. Start there.
The prescription: Pick one channel. One audience. One problem. Go deep until you get it dialed in.
Scott's example: This show lives in the muddy mile—people who've launched but are figuring out how to scale. That's the niche. That's going deep.
Got a business question? Ask Scott here: scotttodd.net/ask
📜 Full Transcript (Click to expand)
How do you bootstrap a business, pay for marketing, and still figure out how to grow? And that's today's question that comes from Derek. Derek writes I'm bootstrapping. I can't afford to pay for ads. How do I get leads without a marketing budget? Derek, welcome to Fix My Business, the show that helps you fix your business. I'm your host, Scott Todd. I've built multiple seven figure businesses after I left my
Corporate VP job with a Fortune 500 company. And this channel is dedicated to helping you build a business that you love and can give you the freedom that you want. And look, this is a real problem because when you're dealing with bootstrapping and you have limited funds, or the funds are basically what's in your pocket, it's hard because the first part here is that you really have to have really a belief shift, a mental shift here. Because
Marketing isn't about necessarily money. It's about marketing is about attention. And you can either buy the attention or you can earn the attention. Those are your really your two options. Okay. So when you really think about what marketing is at its core, it's about getting people to understand that you exist in the world. Now, when we think about this, there is always a trade-off in
Bootstrapping in business in general, there's always the trade-off between time and money. Those are the two options here, because when you have more money, then basically you don't have to trade your time for it. Okay. And really what you have to do is you have to kind of pick one. And when you're bootstrapping, it's easy to pick the free option or the proceed free option, which is time. So let me give an example.
When I started my business and I had limited money for marketing, what I did was I used Craigslist. So I'd go on Craigslist and I'd market. And Craigslist was free, but it wasn't free because it took my time to write the ads and it took my time to post those ads. And then I figured out some way of automating the posting of the ads. And then we started this whole game of whack-a-mole with Craigslist where
Scott Todd (02:30.772)
Craigslist is like really, really good at like knocking you down, knocking down the ads that they perceive as, you know, automated or kind of what they would term as spammy. But it was free. In a way it was free. But it was still my time, or it was my team's time, or it was computers' time, but it was free. Today a lot of people, I don't think that a lot of people talk about Craigslist.
They've moved to my Facebook marketplace or Facebook groups and all the other stuff, but still it's the same concept. It's time. Okay. And we're using those other platforms, those free platforms, basically to earn attention. But yet there's other ways of earning attention too, right? Because you can do direct outreach. And, you know, where you find people who are your clients, and people do this on LinkedIn all the time. His
You know, they they'll sit there and they will message people on LinkedIn. Direct outreach. Or maybe there's referrals or partnerships or content creation. You see, these are all ways in which we can attract attention.
And we've talked about the visibility trap. And the visibility trap is when you don't have the data really to understand, you know, what the next decision is. And so what we don't need is we don't necessarily need more money. What we need to know, though, is who we're talking to. And that's what's lacking a lot of times is really understanding who we're talking to specifically so that we can go after them. Because in marketing,
Especially in the beginning, what happens is people want to talk to everybody. And so as a result, they talk to nobody. Now, I'm saying all this stuff because when I go back to my Craigslist story, for example, it wasn't just about posting to everybody on Craigslist. Where I began to get my results is when I posted to a specific type of person solving a specific type of problem.
Scott Todd (04:39.845)
And I stayed on that platform as long as I could. I did not deviate off of that. And then when I did deviate off of it, I went to my next available, affordable option. But see, on Craigslist, the challenge that I had is that Craigslist was a hodgepodge of everybody. Okay, so it wasn't just my specific customer on there with the problem that I could solve. It was really everybody.
And I had to get very, very niche to say, hey, here's the problem that I solve. And then when I moved to, let's say, the paid, the paid ads, or I went to a platform next, the platform is where my buyers really were. But that costs money. And I had to earn it. And I went for the cheapest option I could get. Whatever the cheapest option was, that's what I always chose. So when we talk about a
Platform that's free like Craigslist or Facebook, you're you're paying for that with your time and you're really talking to everybody, but you have to force yourself to only talk to people who have the problem that you can solve. Now, when we get into platforms where maybe your customers are, and look, I'm I'm the owner of a marketing platform in real estate. So that's important to understand here because
I'm a big believer that when you go onto the platforms, those platforms actually have the customers, but you have to pay for those customers because those customers were not cheap to acquire for the platform. Let me give you an example. Now, I don't even know if they do this anymore just because that's I don't even know if they do this. Maybe they do. But back in the 80s, back in the 70s and 80s, okay, guess what they had before.
Before internet dating, guess what they had? They had ladies' nights at clubs and bars. That's what they had. Okay? Now, I was a young dude. I never went to a ladies' night, but they were advertised on the radio Friday's lady night, ladies' night at whatever the club was. The cover f was paid by the men. The women did not pay a cover to enter ladies' night, but the men did. Okay? Now
Scott Todd (07:00.952)
The men would show up to pay the cover because the ladies were inside. And that's the way that marketing platforms work or paid advertisement works, right? Like you have to pay to access the spot where your customers are. You have to pay to access the spot to where people that you want to meet are. That's the way that it works. And that costs money. So whenever I would move into that world.
What I did was I always went for the cheapest option. Whatever that cheapest plan was, whatever the lowest commitment was, I went to that. But really, the bigger opportunity here for you, Derek, is to pick one platform. Don't try to be everywhere. Don't try to be omnipresent in all of your marketing. Pick one. Go deep in that one. Focus on one audience.
Serving one problem and just keep going deep there until you get it dialed in. So if that means that you're using a free platform, okay, then you're using a free platform. But you cannot talk to everybody. You have to talk to the person who has the person who has the problem that you can solve. And it's niching down, it's going deeper to where you can help them.
And in some way, it's what I've done with this kind of this platform here is that I'm focused on helping people who are in what I call the muddy mile. It's you've already launched, you're underway, but now you're looking to figure out how to scale and to grow. This is this is where I live. Okay. Like this is where my everything that I I do kind of lives and breathes within this muddy mile area, this little zone here.
Because it's where I feel like I excel. So that's the thing. It's like you have to do the same thing with your own marketing. So again, pick one, one channel, one audience, one problem, go deeper and gain the traction that you will gain from just serving that market. Derek, I appreciate the question. If you have a business question, head over to scottodd.net forward slash ask.
Scott Todd (09:28.114)
And I will see you in our next episode.
Corporate VP job with a Fortune 500 company. And this channel is dedicated to helping you build a business that you love and can give you the freedom that you want. And look, this is a real problem because when you're dealing with bootstrapping and you have limited funds, or the funds are basically what's in your pocket, it's hard because the first part here is that you really have to have really a belief shift, a mental shift here. Because
Marketing isn't about necessarily money. It's about marketing is about attention. And you can either buy the attention or you can earn the attention. Those are your really your two options. Okay. So when you really think about what marketing is at its core, it's about getting people to understand that you exist in the world. Now, when we think about this, there is always a trade-off in
Bootstrapping in business in general, there's always the trade-off between time and money. Those are the two options here, because when you have more money, then basically you don't have to trade your time for it. Okay. And really what you have to do is you have to kind of pick one. And when you're bootstrapping, it's easy to pick the free option or the proceed free option, which is time. So let me give an example.
When I started my business and I had limited money for marketing, what I did was I used Craigslist. So I'd go on Craigslist and I'd market. And Craigslist was free, but it wasn't free because it took my time to write the ads and it took my time to post those ads. And then I figured out some way of automating the posting of the ads. And then we started this whole game of whack-a-mole with Craigslist where
Scott Todd (02:30.772)
Craigslist is like really, really good at like knocking you down, knocking down the ads that they perceive as, you know, automated or kind of what they would term as spammy. But it was free. In a way it was free. But it was still my time, or it was my team's time, or it was computers' time, but it was free. Today a lot of people, I don't think that a lot of people talk about Craigslist.
They've moved to my Facebook marketplace or Facebook groups and all the other stuff, but still it's the same concept. It's time. Okay. And we're using those other platforms, those free platforms, basically to earn attention. But yet there's other ways of earning attention too, right? Because you can do direct outreach. And, you know, where you find people who are your clients, and people do this on LinkedIn all the time. His
You know, they they'll sit there and they will message people on LinkedIn. Direct outreach. Or maybe there's referrals or partnerships or content creation. You see, these are all ways in which we can attract attention.
And we've talked about the visibility trap. And the visibility trap is when you don't have the data really to understand, you know, what the next decision is. And so what we don't need is we don't necessarily need more money. What we need to know, though, is who we're talking to. And that's what's lacking a lot of times is really understanding who we're talking to specifically so that we can go after them. Because in marketing,
Especially in the beginning, what happens is people want to talk to everybody. And so as a result, they talk to nobody. Now, I'm saying all this stuff because when I go back to my Craigslist story, for example, it wasn't just about posting to everybody on Craigslist. Where I began to get my results is when I posted to a specific type of person solving a specific type of problem.
Scott Todd (04:39.845)
And I stayed on that platform as long as I could. I did not deviate off of that. And then when I did deviate off of it, I went to my next available, affordable option. But see, on Craigslist, the challenge that I had is that Craigslist was a hodgepodge of everybody. Okay, so it wasn't just my specific customer on there with the problem that I could solve. It was really everybody.
And I had to get very, very niche to say, hey, here's the problem that I solve. And then when I moved to, let's say, the paid, the paid ads, or I went to a platform next, the platform is where my buyers really were. But that costs money. And I had to earn it. And I went for the cheapest option I could get. Whatever the cheapest option was, that's what I always chose. So when we talk about a
Platform that's free like Craigslist or Facebook, you're you're paying for that with your time and you're really talking to everybody, but you have to force yourself to only talk to people who have the problem that you can solve. Now, when we get into platforms where maybe your customers are, and look, I'm I'm the owner of a marketing platform in real estate. So that's important to understand here because
I'm a big believer that when you go onto the platforms, those platforms actually have the customers, but you have to pay for those customers because those customers were not cheap to acquire for the platform. Let me give you an example. Now, I don't even know if they do this anymore just because that's I don't even know if they do this. Maybe they do. But back in the 80s, back in the 70s and 80s, okay, guess what they had before.
Before internet dating, guess what they had? They had ladies' nights at clubs and bars. That's what they had. Okay? Now, I was a young dude. I never went to a ladies' night, but they were advertised on the radio Friday's lady night, ladies' night at whatever the club was. The cover f was paid by the men. The women did not pay a cover to enter ladies' night, but the men did. Okay? Now
Scott Todd (07:00.952)
The men would show up to pay the cover because the ladies were inside. And that's the way that marketing platforms work or paid advertisement works, right? Like you have to pay to access the spot where your customers are. You have to pay to access the spot to where people that you want to meet are. That's the way that it works. And that costs money. So whenever I would move into that world.
What I did was I always went for the cheapest option. Whatever that cheapest plan was, whatever the lowest commitment was, I went to that. But really, the bigger opportunity here for you, Derek, is to pick one platform. Don't try to be everywhere. Don't try to be omnipresent in all of your marketing. Pick one. Go deep in that one. Focus on one audience.
Serving one problem and just keep going deep there until you get it dialed in. So if that means that you're using a free platform, okay, then you're using a free platform. But you cannot talk to everybody. You have to talk to the person who has the person who has the problem that you can solve. And it's niching down, it's going deeper to where you can help them.
And in some way, it's what I've done with this kind of this platform here is that I'm focused on helping people who are in what I call the muddy mile. It's you've already launched, you're underway, but now you're looking to figure out how to scale and to grow. This is this is where I live. Okay. Like this is where my everything that I I do kind of lives and breathes within this muddy mile area, this little zone here.
Because it's where I feel like I excel. So that's the thing. It's like you have to do the same thing with your own marketing. So again, pick one, one channel, one audience, one problem, go deeper and gain the traction that you will gain from just serving that market. Derek, I appreciate the question. If you have a business question, head over to scottodd.net forward slash ask.
Scott Todd (09:28.114)
And I will see you in our next episode.