Audience, Audience, Audience: Proven Tactics For How To Grow Yours

Today’s episode of the podcast is all about the importance of building an audience for business success. So if you need some actionable insights to help you grow your audience, then this is the episode for you!   KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST The key to building trust and a loyal following in any industry Practical ways to retain your audience and keep them engaged Strategies to transition followers to an email list   I want every business owner to hear today's episode, because if you do nothing else in your business, this is the one thing that is going to help you be successful. So please share this week's episode with all of your business friends!   LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter   Transcript How are you doing? So recently I've been in some quite short and sharp episodes, which I'm doing because sometimes these things don't need me to talk a long time about it. And sometimes you just need a reminder of some of these things. And also I mentioned last week that I've decided to bring back interviews. There was a good reason why I stopped them. And, and I will talk about this maybe when, I bring the interviews back, but I, you know, stop them because it didn't fit with the business anymore. And I've decided to start them again because I've had a little rest and actually now I'm ready to have some conversations with people again. And it just means that I, if I don't interview people, I can't talk about things proficiently about things I don't know. So let's take Facebook ads. I do know Facebook ads, but I am not an expert in it by all means. So if I get a Facebook ads expert on, they can talk about it and you can get a lot more decent content from them. So I've had fun having some episodes on my own, but now I'm ready for guests. So they will be coming soon, but until then, we're going to be doing some short, sharp, quick episodes that you can listen to on the fly. So today. I want every business owner to hear this. Okay. So if you know anybody, if you have any business friends, you need to get them to listen to today's episode, because this is the one thing that if you did nothing else in your business, this is the one thing that is going to help you be successful. And today we are talking about building an audience. Now I know I've done lots of episodes on different audience buildings and why you need them and things like that. But actually I was having a discussion the other day and everything comes down to audience, everything. Now, even if you have a high end service that you don't need many clients for, you still need an audience for that service. If you have an online business, that is the absolute key and audience is crucial and trying to sell something when you don't have an audience is impossible. And I know there are lots of experts out there who give examples and case studies of they only had a list of this size or they only had X amount of following on social media and they sold X amount. That is not the norm. That is not what happens. The people who are the most successful, the people who I have had the most success with, who I've worked with one to one or in the club or in the executive club, they have been able to achieve what they've achieved because they've built their audience, because they've shown up consistently and provided for their audience and therefore they have won. Now, what tends to happen is in business, we sometimes think if we build it, they will come. So, If you get a website, the website gets put up and then you wonder why people aren't giving you inquiries. If you start a social media page, so I started a new social media page a while back because I have a new project coming that you will be able to see and listen to because it's a new podcast that's completely different from my business stuff. And I created a new Instagram page just because I wanted to make sure I'd got the name. And I created it, I put up the logo, which has now changed, FYI, but anyway, I put up a logo, put nothing else up, and I've got no followers, right? And that makes perfect sense. And it's been months now that that's been up. It makes perfect sense that I've got no followers because I've done nothing. I've put no posts up. I've done no interaction. I've done no engagement, but we often think as business owners, if we just put it up, then suddenly people will come to us. So having that audience is the most crucial thing in your business. I would almost argue more important than having a product or service to sell. And I know that might sound crazy, but I would much rather you had an audience and been working that bit out than have all your products and services set out, laid out brilliant, perfect website, perfect sales page, and have not built a single audience. So you really, really need to consider and think about what are you doing every single day to build that audience? I want you to ask yourself at the end of each week, what have I done today to help build my audience? So it might seem like a weird thing to say that you've got to build an audience. Like, what does that actually mean? It's the same thing as you need to be visible. What does that mean? And it's not as simple as just post on social media. Now, don't get me wrong. And Becci would shout at me about this because she does my social media and she does social media. It's really important. However, it's not just that there is so much more to it than just maybe putting a post up on Instagram or Facebook or Linkedin. You've got to work a bit harder. So it's about using every opportunity you can to bring people into your world. In an ideal world, you want to bring them straight into an email list. Fine, they can follow you on social media, that's lovely. In an ideal world, you need them on that email list because, and I, it was really sad. One of my members recently lost her Facebook page and her Facebook page was like where she had all her customers. Now, thank goodness she has worked with me for a long time and she has an email list as well. But obviously there were still people on there that weren't on her email list and it got hacked and therefore it had gone, like she literally had to start from scratch. So, you need to be trying your hardest to bring people into your world to then get them onto your email list. Now, when you are a smaller business, or when you're starting off, or if you are sat there thinking, I'm just not getting people on my email list. The beauty of being smaller is that you can do things that are more impactful. So for instance, you could go onto Instagram and direct message people or have conversations with people. Now, I don't direct message people saying, please come on my email list. That is not how I do it. But you could have those conversations that opens up those things. You could have coffee chats with people, you can join networking things where you share who you are and what you do. But the idea here is if you are sat in your office at home or if you are sat in your shop or wherever you might be, and you're not getting people come into your world, then you need to find a way in order for them to do that. You need to build that audience. So the other thing about building an audience is they need to trust you. So one of the ways in which they're going to trust you is consistency and knowing that you're still there. Okay. So I have said many a time that I have done similar sort of content for about the whole time I've had my business, which is over nine years, almost 10 years. So the fact is. I still show up. I'm still here. They can trust that I'm not going to take their money and run because this is who I am. This is what I keep doing. Now. I'm not saying you've got to wait 9, 10 years before you get that, but you can show trust by showing up authentically. And by authentically, I mean, don't pretend to be someone you're not feel happy to show up as you are knowing that not everyone's going to like you. Not everyone is going to agree with what you say. And that's okay. Because you won't want to work with those people anyway. So you'd be more than happy to have the customers that agree with what you say, or have the customers who are open to listening to what you have to say. So showing up as you, showing up as your authentic self, and not being afraid to show who you are. So that's the kind of being visible. That's the kind of step of starting to get them to trust you. Follow through on what you say. So if you are saying, I'm going to email you every week, then email them every week. If you are saying that you are going to go live on a Tuesday, go live on a Tuesday. So whatever it is, make sure that you follow through. Make sure that you're doing what you say. Care about these people. You know what I nearly said then? I nearly said make sure you act like you care about this, but that is absolutely not what I mean. I mean genuinely care about these people. I have done things recently