If you’ve ever asked yourself, “how come all of a sudden everyone I know seems to be doing what I’m doing?” believe me, you’re not alone. I have experienced that dialogue myself, and now I’ve come to the terms that there are just way too many people in the world, and I can’t do anything about that! And the social networks further proliferate our egos by reminding us how insignificant (and unprofitable) we are compared to the competition.
The fact that others are doing what you’re doing and modelling your plan or implementing the best practices is probably the best thing that can happen to you. It’s a call to action for you to be doing something different in your authentic way.
Most entrepreneurs are resorting to the teach and grow model, which, in my opinion, is quite flawed. The concept requires you to put up a typical webinar with your backstory as you highlight the pain or problem you’re trying to solve and then follow it up with an offer. Slip in a limited-time offer, a few bonuses worth a whole lot more than the product that they’re asking you to buy (making it look free), and squeeze the sale!
If you don’t bite, you’re at least in their marketing funnel, meaning you’ll hear from them now and then. Some maniacs would send you an email with a bloody offer every single day. Nothing’s wrong with that approach from a sales perspective. It’s just fucking annoying!
What should you do instead? Create your authentic marketing model, which could be as simple as:
- Pick a problem to solve (or a bunch of problems to solve)
- Teach your ideas over a single 2-hour webinar or an hour-long series over 3-5 days.
- You can charge people at the outset. Understand that the problem you’re solving is worth something, which makes your free or a low-priced (under $7) a no-brainer.
- Deliver value. You will be surprised how many webinars I’ve attended this past year that offered zero, nada, zilch value to me as a viewer/attendee.
- Invite the attendees to your (gated but free) community, where you post a recording for them to access anywhere and anytime. The best part is the interaction that happens between the community members. It’s beautiful!
- Rinse and repeat.
Wait. What? Where’s the sale? It’s right there at the outset. Of course, you won’t make a fortune charging people $7 for world-class content. But you’re building an audience, a community of members, who will appreciate what you’re doing.
Keep this audience engaged (while bringing more people) by interacting with them live or sharing more exclusive content that they won’t find elsewhere. Once every 3,6,9, and 12 months, you can offer to coach or consult with the audience. And once or twice a year, you can provide a high-ticket item like an artisan-level course with consulting or coaching added to the same (but ever-growing) audience.
And that’s all there is to it when it comes to building an online business.