TALK TO MORE PEOPLE IN LESS TIME
If you want to extend your influence and grow your business, you’ll have to stop with the one-on-one coffee meetings. You need to be able to reach more people on a larger stage. You’ll need to stretch outside of your comfort zone in order to leverage your influence, your time, and your money.
Samantha Riley from The Thought Leader Business Lab podcast built up a business for decades, with the ultimate goal of retiring early. When she lost everything in a divorce, she wanted to spend more time with her friends and family, so she asked herself, “What can I do that’s in my zone of genius?”.
Her goal wasn’t to spend 20 years rebuilding her old business; she wanted to have a bigger impact in less time, and she wanted to make more money than before. Stepping inside her zone of genius, she realized that she excelled at teaching business leaders how to reach more people.
When you get paid for talking to one person, that’s one person that you’re impacting. When you share your message, and then 20 people pay to hear it, you still expend the same amount of time. This time though, you get paid 20 times. Creating scenarios where these one-to-many conversations happen over and over again is key for scaling up your business. Samantha shared 6 strategies to talk to more people in less time.
DIGITAL CONVERSATIONS
I’ve always said that the best way to sell is face to face, and if you can’t do that, then digital face to face conversations are better. Live webinars, recorded podcasts, Facebook lives, or streaming to Youtube are all platforms where you can boost your message. Yet many people, Samantha says, are deathly afraid of public speaking.
Even as an extrovert, speaking on stage was scary for Samantha. She gets that it can feel scary to step outside of your comfort zone and put yourself up on a stage. Low-risk conversations might be a great place to start if you just want to dip your toes in the water. Just start by posting to social media, speaking on a podcast, or jumping into an online group to share your knowledge.
No one’s a natural born speaker, but it’s the highest-paid profession on an hourly basis in the world. And it is one of the most effective ways to get your message out about your company.
BOARDROOM MASTERMINDS
An in-person boardroom mastermind is an intimate setting that can help you dive deep into a topic. Spending 8-10 hours with a high-level group of maybe 10 or 12 people can give everyone a chance to really get to know each other.
At a boardroom mastermind, you also have the chance to create super fans. Superfans are those people who love your brand or business so much that they do a lot of your marketing for you. They share you with everyone they know, and their power amplifies your message.
PREVIEW EVENTS
My friend Jack uses preview events as a way to teach his audience about multi-family investing. He’ll advertise on Facebook that he’s doing a two-hour presentation, and then he’ll reserve a medium to a high-end restaurant. He’ll pay for the appetizers and the drinks, and then he’ll spend some time talking about multi-family investing.
A preview event should be free or very low cost for the audience because the idea is that you’re making money off of the back end. Especially in real estate where you might be raising capital or looking for some partners, a few hours of your time is a great way to build a relationship with quality investors.
BUNDLING COURSES
If you have a little course here and a great pdf there, Samantha suggests you bundle all of it together to increase its value, build your list of followers, and get more eyeballs on your products. In the digital marketing space, we call that a lead magnet or a tripwire offer.
As a real estate entrepreneur, you might have a lease agreement, a purchase agreement, a private placement memorandum, and an operating agreement. By offering all of these to your email list, you provide value, and it’s a great way to generate leads. And when they come back to you asking for help filling it out, you know where they’re at in their investment journey.
RUNNING A RETREAT
This next strategy might seem a little strange, but Samantha promises that it works, especially for people in the real estate space. A lot of people at this level love getting together with other like-minded entrepreneurs. Renting a tropical island, or a yacht, and then spending three to five days just fully immersed in your tribe can be a huge way to build relationships with other high performers.
VIP DAYS
80% of our income comes from 20% of the people that are already under our noses. Take some time to identify some of your best customers, maybe ones you’d like to get to know better and invite them for a special day. Make it a point to get to know them. The first time Samantha held one of these events, she went around asking her audience how she could serve them. She was really surprised by how much money she made that day because she was really only there to connect with her audience.
Typically the people you meet with at a VIP day have friends or family that could invest with you or buy your products. By focusing on building a deeper relationship with them, that’s going to lead to more investments, more deal flow, and more referrals.
CONCLUSION
What makes you want to buy from someone? Despite our hyper-connectivity through social media and the internet, many people today feel even less connected to others. The ability to form real relationships and connections will give your business a superpower advantage over others. Whether you choose one strategy or combine a few together, give your audience a chance to get to know and trust you.
Be Daring,
Josh
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