Hello. Hello you guys. We'll come back to the inspired for action podcast. I am so excited for what we are talking about today, which is how to start building an online audience. So most of my clients and most of my audience are people who are currently working with clients one-on-one and getting most of their clients through word of mouth and referral and I was there. That is how I started my business. That's how I grew my business. And then there's this shift that happens when you realize that you want to start working with more people. So whether that's through creating an online course, a membership site, maybe launching a group program, just an opportunity to scale your business and work with more people at once and kind of get out of that client to client hustle and you realize that, okay, now I need to start growing in online audience because I'm not going to be able to fill these programs just based off of word of mouth and referral. So you have to make this shift from relying mostly on other people sending you clients to now you have to put in the effort to building your online audience, building your email list, building your social media following whatever it may be. That's where a lot of my, my clients are. That's where a lot of my audience is. They're in the middle of that transition from working with one-on-one clients to now transitioning to wanting to work with more people at a time, and there are five steps that you need to take to start building your online audience. Even if you're starting from scratch or even if you have just a small audience right now, it doesn't matter where you are in this journey. There are still five steps that you need to take and that's what we're going to dive into today.

Welcome to the inspired for action podcast. I'm Amanda Gunther and I'm here to share inspiring stories of online entrepreneurs who are killing it in their business and having fun. At the same time, I want to prove that there's no one right way to market your business and sell your offers online. There's only the way that feels good for you and that works for your audience. I'll be getting down and dirty with my fellow online entrepreneurs to share step-by-step stories and how they created, launched and sold their offers. It's time to step out of fear and into action. Okay,

let's talk about those five steps. So the first step and one of the most important things that you need to do in your business is you need to declare a niche. Kay. Declare a niche. Take what you're doing with your one-on-one clients right now in focus in on one specific problem that you solve for them. Declare that this is what you help people do. Write it down. And if you're struggling to come up with what that problem is, take a look at what you've done recently for your clients and decide what is it that you most enjoy doing? What is it that people are already coming to you for? And how do you combine those two things together? What do you have fun doing and what are people actually coming to you for? Declare that as your niche. This is who you help. And this is how you help them. That is how you come up with a niche. Okay? So declare that in only market. That step two is to create your offer. So you don't have to actually create it yet, but you do need to know what you're selling. You need to have a really good understanding of what it is that you're selling. So what I want you to do is I want you to come up with a signature package that you can sell that helps your ideal customers solve that one problem that we just talked about. Come up with a signature package of how that looks. How do you actually help them solve that problem? Okay, sorry. I almost said grow their online audience, which is what I help people do. So it's all coming up. All right, so create your problem outlined in Google doc. Actually, when I just launched my most recent service, which is a by my day serve as like a day rate design type of service. I still don't have an official sales page for that, which is funny since I'm the person who talks about sales pages, but I put everything into a Google doc and I even at the, at the top say, you know, just kind of made fun of it. Like, Hey, welcome to my super professional sales page. You know, Winky face, whatever. But just people just want the details, right? You don't have to have anything fancy, just get it down on paper so that you have a good idea like idea of what you're selling. But you can also send that to people who are interested in working with you to get more information about what it is and how you actually help them. So that's step number two is actually outline or create your offer. Whatever that signature package is that you are going to help people with. Okay. Step number three is to create an offer aligned freebie that provides a quick win to that immediate problem that your ICA needs help solving. Now. Now I want you to think outside of the box for this. So instead of the, I feel like 2019 was the year of the roadmap. Let's think beyond the roadmap. Let's think beyond just outlining what your process actually looks like and go more into solving a problem that your clients need you to meet to solve before they're actually ready to work with you. So what do they need to know, understand, or do before they're ready to actually hire you for your signature package? Think about that. Think about that step that comes before they actually are ready to hire you. So I mean, our ideal customers have so much going on in their lives. This one problem that we are helping them solve is not their only problem. They have other things that they need help with as well. So how can you grab them with one of those other problems? Draw them into your circle so that they know that you can help them solve this other bigger problem. So come up with an offer aligned freebie. Think swipe files, templates. Quizzes are really hot right now. Like, what can you do to give people a really good understanding of how they can solve this problem so that they can then hire you to solve it for them? That's step number three, create an offer line freebie. Step number four is to create a nurture sequence that educates, connects and converts your email subscriber. Now, this is not just your general welcome sequence. It can be your general welcome sequence, but what I want to make sure that you're doing in this welcome sequence is solely focused on guiding people towards the sale of your signature offer. So instead of having just a general welcome sequence that just says, Hey, this is who I am, here's my website, follow me on Instagram, check out my latest blog posts, stuff like that. No, I want you to be creating a nurture sequence that is going to coach people into hiring. You do it all through writing without you needing to get on a sales call. Even if you do have to get it on a sales call before they're hiring you, you're getting a lot of the coaching out of the way before they're actually ready to hire you. So the one type of sequence that I absolutely love for this, it's called the soap opera sequence. Russell Brunson teaches about this, I don't know if he actually created this or who created this, but he teaches about this and he outlines it all in his book dotcom secrets, which is a really great online marketing book if you have not read it. But basically what you're doing is with each email inside of your nurture sequence, you're including a cliffhanger that is enticing them to open up the next email that they're going to receive, whether it's the next day or two days from now, whatever it is. But you're enticing them to actually open up your emails because in those emails you are going to be nurturing them and getting them ready to actually hire you, inviting them to work with you, showing them case studies of what you've been able to help other clients do. Remember this entire nurture sequence is solely focused on the one problem that you're helping people solve for the one ideal customer you have and then selling that one signature package that you are offering. That is what this nurture sequence is focused on. Once someone opts in for your offer aligned freebie, they're going to get this nurture sequence and be coached into hiring you for your signature package. So that's step number four is to create a nurture sequence. Then step number five is now instead of trying to always sell your actual paid offer, your signature service, what you can do now is drive about, I'd say 75% of your audience, your traffic, your Instagram posts, 75% of that time can just be focused on promoting your offer aligned freebie. Now, this is really great for people who kind of shy away from sales and just kind of feel icky when they're selling. Instead of trying to always promote your paid offer, what you can do now is just send people to your freebie and allow your nurture sequence to actually sell the offer for you. So that's a really good alternative. Now don't get, don't get me wrong here, you still need to be promoting your paid offer. You still have to be sharing that. You still need to be sharing testimonials and case studies. Empathy behind the scenes looks at what it's like to actually work with you. I think that's what gets people most excited. However, your offer aligned freebie is a really good opportunity to catch people before they're ready, ready to hire you really like before they even realize they have that problem and that's where your offer lined freebie does, is helps get them to the place where they are ready to hire you and then your nurture sequence does the job of slowly getting them ready to actually book the discovery call or pay for the coaching package or whatever it is that your signature service or package is. That's the entire goal of that nurture sequence. So those are the five steps. Step number one is to declare your niche. Get really specific about what you do, what you are, who you help, and what you help them do. Step number two, create your offer. At least outline it so that you know what it is and how it helps people. Step number three is to create an offer aligned freebie. Think outside of the box here. Go beyond just your typical roadmap PDF style. Get really detailed, help people get a quick win so that they're more likely to trust you. Step number four is to create a nurture sequence that is going to coach people into hiring you and then step number five is now drive all of your traffic or at least 75% of your traffic to that offer aligned freebie and let your nurture sequence do the selling for you. All right? I hope this helps you guys who are in the middle or in the process of really starting to focus on growing an online audience. I hope this helps you just get a clear idea of what those steps look like. It really is as simple as this. You don't need to overcomplicate things. Keep it really simple. Go back to the basics with this one and just focus on serving and solving that specific problem for your audience. All right. I will see you guys in the next[inaudible].

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Hey, I just wanted to say thank you really quick for sticking around and listening all the way till end if

you need them. We've got all the links for this episode in the show notes, which you can find over@amandagunther.com forward slash podcast and if you really enjoy today's conversation, make sure to subscribe to the show so that you get new episodes downloaded as soon as they come out. And if you're an Apple user, I'd really appreciate it if you took a few seconds to leave a quick rating or review your reviews. Tell iTunes that this is a podcast worth listening to, which can help me and my guests reach more people and in turn help more online business. So that's it for today. I'll be back soon with a brand new episode, but until then, it's time to get back to work and take some back.