How To Confidently Introduce Your New Business or Offer to Friends
You've been deep in creative mode, building your business — writing website copy, choosing fonts and colors, and playing with logos. Next up, it’s time to introduce your new business to people.
Most new entrepreneurs start by introducing their new business to friends. I recommend this as a first move on one condition: they're supportive. Your friends are a warm audience, and they probably like you. If your friends are anything BUT excited for you, know that you probably triggered their lack of determination and action-taking. We don’t cater to anyone who wants to keep you small — ✌️ out.
2 key questions to ask yourself as you prepare to announce your business or offer to friends:
Are your friends your target audience?
If they are — great, but even if they're not, it's not necessarily a reason to hide your business from your friends. Your friends have friends and family who may need what your business offers. Telling your friends is an excellent way to practice talking about your business. Remember, you’re starting a business or expanding the one you have because you’re serious. This isn’t a hobby.Are you ready for unsolicited feedback?
While you’re focused on announcing your business, you may have some friends who want to hurl feedback your way. If you’re going to ask for feedback, only invite those you respect, admire, and trust to have your best interest at heart. Otherwise, you'll be taking well-intentioned advice from people who can steer you the wrong way. When you get feedback from anyone, pause before considering their advice. Are they coming from a supportive place? Are they an expert in your industry? Are they ahead of you in some way, and do you value their opinion?
Expert tip: If you've been relying on friends and family to provide business advice and you're still feeling stuck or second-guessing yourself or confused, it's time to ask experts. If you can pay for expertise from qualified coaches or consultants, great. If not, find or create a business group. A peer-led mastermind or even a paid one that may be a part of a larger group program can provide more objective and sound advice from people who understand your business.
“But what will my friends think?”
If you’re hesitating to introduce your new business, course, or offer to friends, ask yourself whether you care about your friends' opinions or want to run a successful business.
You might freeze or choke up when friends ask how your business is going. There may be deeper wounds to look at before you can share. The most successful people I know in business give a precise number of fucks about the opinion of family and friends. That number — is zero. None.
Learning to trust your intuition and discernment in your writing will save you time from all that opinion-seeking to sift through what's good advice and bad and think about people who literally don't matter to your business.
On the flip side, some business owners worry about being judged by friends after discovering their business or how much they make. You can't care. If they're judging and gossiping about you or your business, they are low-vibration people. Don't give away your power to them. Keep your creative strength and confidently share your business.
Is a fear of being seen keeping you from telling people about your new business?
By holding back on announcing your business, you may be unintentionally keeping your light dim and staying small. If you’re unable to share the words that need to be shared so you can reach and connect to the people who need you, practice using your voice and sharing what you do with people you trust in a sacred container. With a grounded community doing the work, you'll get to use those training wheels.
You want to write a new business announcement and are worried because you're “not a writer.”
Let that worry go. You don’t have to be a writer to write. Many of my clients had shitty high school teachers who told them they shouldn't write or find something else as a career. This leaves people with fears that their writing sucks (it doesn’t).
Love note: I’ve personally reviewed writing from thousands of new business owners. I’ve yet to read anything that sucked. What’s more important than grammar, sentence structure, and great writing — writing authentically from the heart.
Often these people will push forward and write, but then they edit the shit out of their words, water down their messages, and speak in such a contrived, stifled, and inhuman way.
It's writing that's tedious and slow to get out, and confusing to read. I'm sure you’ve read plenty of it. We all have. This often results in people saying, “But my writing doesn't sound like me.” And it doesn't. It sounds like all the people they're trying to please get acceptance from and even sound like.
Write your business announcement message focusing on sharing what's in your heart. When it feels authentic to write, it feels authentic to read.
To get you started, here’s an example you can use to inspire your own announcement.
Intuitive Writing Tip: Imagine you’re writing to your most supportive friend. That one person you can count on to cheer you on.
Personalized example: new business announcement for friends
You can customize the below email sample for your own email or a social post.
Hi/hey/hello [name]!
How are you? It’s been a while since we’ve caught up. How is [specific thing you’d naturally ask about/something they shared recently]?
I’m emailing you today about some big news — I’m launching my [business type] business!
[Add details about timing — my website is live and ready for happy customers now! / It’ll officially go live/open on DATE.]
This is such a dream come true because [reason if applicable].
If you know of anyone who could use my expertise/products/services, I’d be over the moon if you shared a version of the email message below with them. Please customize it as you see fit. You can learn more about my work here [link to your website].
I’m excited to offer [the people you serve/the problem you solve] exactly what they need to help them [what people say they want].
Things like…
[Product/service 1]
[Product/service 2]
[Product/service 3]
If you have any questions, reply and let me know. And I want to hear all about [thing you genuinely want to hear about].
I appreciate your support!
[you]
Email template to include with your email to your friends — make this fit your business!:
Hi friend!
Meet my friend, [your name]. [Note about where you know each other].
She/He is a [title], [helping/serving/supporting] [ideal audience with this problem/fulfilling this need].
You mentioned a while back that you were looking for [support with that thing you offer]. If you or someone you know needs this — get in touch with them at [your email].
Here’s what she's/he’s good at:
Thing 1 you can help with
Thing 2 you can help with
Thing 3 you can help with
You can learn more over here [link to your work with me/services/products/course page]
Thanks, friend!
[their name]
Have you already announced your business and have a specific new offer, free workshop, or program to share?
Here’s an actual sample email I customized and sent to my most trusted business friends:
Subject: Would love your help on something
Hey [name]!
[Custom intro].
I'm reaching out because I'd love your help sharing some things I'm working on. There are two things coming up in my world, so if one makes more sense for you to share than others (or both), I'd rather save your inbox.
1) I'm hosting more public workshops to grow the Intuitive Writing School Community. The next one is on DATE. It's a live workshop to write and get feedback on your clear and confident answer to, "What do you do?" Here's the link to learn more and register — [link] (and of course, I'd love to see your face there too!)
2) On September 22 (also my bday), I'm relaunching my book, Intuitive Writing. I'll do some fun giveaways.
The easiest way to share is to reshare one of my social posts or include it in your own post or newsletter.
I always appreciate your support :) So, if the timing is off, I totally get it.
And if you'd like any special materials from me, let me know! I'm grateful for your help!
Thank you,
💙 Jacq
Examples are always helpful when writing. Heck, I use my own writing as a sample for everything I write. This way, I’m never starting from scratch.
Intuitive Writing tip: When you draft your first email (maybe based on one of these templates), copy and paste it into a new document and save it for the future. This way, you create your own personal vault of communications swipe files for everything you write.
Last thing. If you read through these samples and are holding off on sending emails because you’re worried you might bother people — don’t be.
I sent out the above email to at least a dozen people. Only one or two people responded. If you hear crickets after sending these emails out, it likely has nothing to do with your offer or email. People will often read your message and mentally file it away — or file it digitally if they’re more organized and revisit it when they need it.
This exercise in authentic visibility is to plant seeds and practice using our throat chakras to share our true voice and our work with the world.
Want more inspiration to share your business with the world?
Get more sample emails, 6 social post swipe files, and my best tips for sharing authentically.
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