We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Alan Wood. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Alan below.

Hi Alan, thanks for joining us today. Do you manage your own social media?

Until recently I managed my entire social media strategy. I am still very involved but our strategy and team has evolved as we have experimented and learned. I’ve recently onboarded a video editor and just began training a social media manager who will manually post content for us. The present framework that I view social media is two fold. I see that businesses can use social media in two ways.

The first way is using social media as a ‘Proof of Concept’, essentially as a digital portfolio that shows potential customers that you can do the things you say you can do. The company posts media that shows they can fulfill the product or service that they sell. This includes photos of successful projects, client testimonials, etc. This is valuable because if a lead is interested in doing business with you, they can check out your social media and see proof that you can do the things you say you can do. In this situation social media isn’t generating you new leads per say, but it is helping you convert already existing leads into customers. Fortunately, using social media in this way is simple. The primary levers in using it in this way successfully is

A.) The quality of your media (photos/videos)

B.) The consistency ( every day, every other day, etc – over a long period of time.)

In essence you just need to post decent photos and videos consistently. There are many tools that make this a simple process. One could take 1-2 hours once a month and preschedule the entire month’s post. Most every social media platform has schedulers that make it easy to do this. I have recently begun using an Ai to create 30 days worth of posts in about 3-4 minutes which has been as good and better than hiring a social media person to do this. Simply by teaching the Ai our brand personality, culture, tone of voice and equipping it with good photos and videos that we accumulate over time it will curate a month’s worth of posts. It will then automatically schedule them to each social media platform.

The second way to use social media is to turn it into a ‘lead-generating machine’. It is possible to use social media in a way that generates lead flow to your business. What company doesn’t want that? Using social media in this way is more challenging but it becomes a powerful way to turn a cold audience who has never heard of you into engaged leads.

When it comes to using social media for generating leads for your business there are several ways. Each way will require its own strategy. With social media we have 4 core ways to generate leads. The framework I use to break it down is this:

1.) (1 to 1) We can reach out to prospects who have never heard of us one at a time through private messages / DMs. This is the ‘cold-outreach method’ . For example our company can send out 100, 500, 1000 messages a day to people in effort to convert them into leads and customers.

2.) (1 to 1) We can reach out to warm prospects, people who already follow us and know about us. We can do this one at a time just like the first strategy but this time to a ‘warm audience’.

3.) (1 to Many) We can reach a big audience by sharing high quality media to our pages. By posting valuable, entertaining, and educational content on our social media pages we are reaching many people compared to one person at a time. Our content will primarily reach a warm audience- people who already follow us.

4.) (1 to Many) We can run ads on the platform which allows us to reach a big audience as well, but a cold audience of people who have never heard of us. So ads allow us to get in front of lots of people who have never heard of us before.

Now that we know the four ways to use social media as a ‘lead generating’ machine, we have to understand that each approach requires its own strategy to be effective. By mastering even just one of these approaches, a company can use their social media to consistently and predictably create engaged leads that are interested in doing business.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I have had an entrepreneurial spirit since I was a young kid. You could find me selling lemonade, Pokemon’ cards, and everything else. Shortly after high school I began collecting gems and minerals of all things and soon after became fascinated with creating jewelry. Next thing you know I’m spending 10 hours a day creating pieces to sell at local fairs and markets. Before long I started our own monthly and bi-monthly event called the Savannah Bazaar with a small team of artists. For several years we grew that business all while also being a vendor of the event. At the same time I was growing an Amway business, which is the world’s oldest MLM. I had my hands in everything, all while trying to balance school at the local university. Before long I decided to leave school because I realized that I want to be in business.

After years of growing the businesses, we had traction but nothing wildly successful and profitable. My family struggled to understand why I put all my time and energy into these things that ‘weren’t making money’. I knew that I had to get through this season of acquiring knowledge and skills and ‘figuring it out’. Throughout the journey, I was passionate about creating jewelry and building business. It’s what I enjoyed, so I pursued it. Before re launching my jewelry company I went through a season of skill acquisition. One has to respect the seasons of life, we can’t skip steps. I worked for jewelry stores and pursued extra education, honing my jeweler skills. At the same time, learning business skills through the internet, courses, and mentors.

Fast forward to today, I left my day job and launched AW Jewelry. At AW we turn boyfriends into superheroes by creating one of a kind, engagement rings. We have digitized and simplified the whole custom jewelry process. One key differentiator between AW and traditional retail jewelry companies is our future forward mentality. Most retail companies in the jewelry industry are reluctant to change, and most have operated the same way for over 100 years. However, AW is excited to embrace new innovative technologies and ideas. We make it a point to keep our eyes on the horizon, finding new ways to enhance and improve the custom jewelry experience. For example we have begun experimenting with AR / VR filters among many other potentially impactful tech. Technology is developing rapidly and I see so few retail jewelers keeping their eyes on these developments. I believe this will give us an edge in the marketplace staying ahead of trends. We are a young business, attempting to enter the arena with big giants, and this edge will be one of our biggest weapons in earning more market share.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

In my opinion the greatest asset any entrepreneur could have is to be a ‘learning machine’. In order for any person to become the person who can actualize their goals and dreams they have to develop knowledge, skills, and character traits. The mentality of being a ‘learning machine’, and always learning serves this process of development. I use books, book summaries, youtube, online courses, etc to learn learn learn, every day.

I screen who I learn from however. I do not believe that knowledge is ‘democratic’, and that one can learn from anyone. I learn from very few people, but I go deep into studying everything that these few people say. People want to help people and are always giving advice and sharing ideas- but if they are not the most expert on the topic then their content and advice may be littered with bad ideas. Now the burden is put on the student to filter out the good and bad ideas. I believe that finding a more pure / expert source is less risky and choose to listen to the most expert person I can find on the topic.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

What has helped me build a reputation in my market has been the consistent broadcasting of my ideas through social media. By using the platforms to share my thoughts, ideas, processes it has helped more people see me as an expert and gain trust. For example, posting in industry groups over time and building relationships has contributed to my overall reputation as an industry professional.

Contact Info:

• Website: awjewelry.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aw.customjewelry/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61552542463789
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alanwoodofficial/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlanWood_1
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHoTjlKrrTM915IaA5BELig