You don’t have a viable business unless you have customers, unless your business is an expensive hobby and not something profitable. This is ALWAYS the million dollar question for how to get to 6 or 7 figures:
How to learn where your customers are, and create a constant flow of them.
To do this, there are a couple of things you need to understand about the customer landscape
First:
The ready-to-buy customers are the most expensive ones to find.
People go through something called “The Stages of Change.” They don’t wake up one day and suddenly decide to make a huge life change. They go through stages of precontemplation. Entrepreneurs are eager to find those customers who are already ready to buy, but they misunderstand this approach and the problem with it is it’s an expensive arena to play in. Big brand names are fighting for the attention of these customers, and the health and fitness industry is extremely competitive… so you’ll be up against companies with LOTS of money to spend on ads getting people who are ready to buy.
You don’t want to be focusing on ready-to-buy customers! Instead, step back and learn the “Customer Value Journey” people need to go on before they're ready to purchase from you. Your best effort is focused on planting seeds along the way, before you’re asking them to buy from you!
The biggest mistake people make on social media is thinking they can post and get customers, when it doesn’t work like that. It did 8-10 years ago because it wasn’t as saturated, and people weren’t as annoyed at being sold to. Most uplines did it this way 8-10 years ago when their businesses first started flourishing, and since that’s how they got their start, it’s not their fault they don’t know how to direct you in today’s current social media climate!
Second:
Instead of posting and expecting people to just buy right there, I want you to consider the Customer Value Journey.
The first focus is making people aware of you- just like in dating. There’s a warmup process before proposing marriage. If you’re new to the social media scene, you’re required to show up consistently, use hashtags, find commonalities, etc. As your skills increase, you’ll want to use ads to keep new people seeing you. You’ll eventually reach the limits of your own pool, and while uplines will tell you to add new connections to get your posts in front of new people, most of those random “connections” will sniff out your motives right away.
Once your pool dries up and the same people are seeing your posts over and over again without taking action, it’s time to move beyond “organic” psots and using some ad spend to get your posts in front of more people. Once you’re investing in your business, your posts will get boosted and more people will see them. (Now this doesn’t mean you can slap shit together and hope it’ll take off! I’ve tried that, and it’s not the way it works.)
Third:
Once they become aware of you at the top of your “funnel,” they’ll engage with you. Some will drop off, just like a funnel as it naturally cinches in. In this next engagement stage, people will browse through your content to see if your values align. They’ll interact and engage if they like what they’re seeing. Now the next step is what most businesses miss! Engagement doesn’t equal ready-to-buy.
From here, you want them to subscribe. Get them on an email list where you can have a more intimate conversation with them. This is done by having a valuable offer, like a free lead magnet, that they get in exchange for giving you their email address. Everyone checks their email and it’s a huge opportunity most people don’t utilize. When we first hit 26,000 subscribers, every email address was worth around $1 and we could generate $26,000 in sales just via email, because our list was that big. (Some people say each email address is worth $5!) It’s a huge opportunity most people are missing. We have what’s called an “Indoctrination Series” that gives them the best of my content, tells them about my best podcast episodes where they can get great content week after week, and they can get to know me even better through that resource.
Next:
We want to move them to the Convert stage.
It can be a small “tripwire” offer, which means it’s $27 or less. (Ours is our book, F*ck What Your Upline Said.) It can be a training, masterclass, a one-on-one call or whatever you feel you’re good at! Once you get them to make that small time commitment, you want to give them a big “ah-ha” moment. After that revelation of why they’ve been failing and why you have the perfect solution, it’s time to make your offer.
I hope this sounds simple, because it is!
Even though it’s the number one reason people struggle with spending hours on social media with no real results to show for it. They only focus on awareness and engagement, and don’t have backend processes to move people through their funnel. You can’t ask people to marry you after they’ve just started engaging with you and expect it to go well.
I think this needs to be de-mystified. Lots of influencers don’t talk about the backend processes they use. They just want you to join their groups, where they’ll show you how they get engagement… or they want to sell you captions, but there’s no connection to how the sales process actually works. You’ve gotta link the pieces together to make it all work.
If you don’t have these processes built out - such as a lead magnet, and an email series that’s up and running - don’t start ads. Once someone sees a post from you, there’s no other action for them to take, so your ads will never be profitable until you have a system in place that will push them through your funnel.
If you're out there looking for ready-to-buy customers, hopefully this episode has helped you understand what needs to happen on the backend! Instead of focusing on ready to buy customers, you want to focus on customers that are ready to solve a problem.
They need to be problem aware. Realize they have an issue, though they might not have started looking for solutions yet. Personally, I don’t like focusing on unaware people! I want people who are already open, and ready to consider taking action. For building awareness and engagement, something like a podcast or youtube channel can be very effective! People can engage with your material, learn what you’re all about, and start asking questions. You can tell them what they’ll need to understand in order to make an informed decision! Whether that lies with you or someone else, ultimately your goal is educate people so they can make the best decision for themselves.
That’s why the sales process is a funnel. Not everyone who is aware of you is going to buy from you. Your funnel will self-select who should continue to work with you or not. Don’t be afraid if you see people unsubscribing, or if your follower count goes down… As you become more clear in your messaging it’ll become more obvious, and that’s a good thing! It means there’s clarity, and you’re finding the people who are best for you.
Drop me any questions via email or Instagram that you might have about what we’ve discussed today!
Key Takeaways From This Episode:
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