Written by Tina Sibley in January 2018

Are you sick and tired of being told that ‘if only you bought this one programme or mentoring scheme you will take your business to six figures – or increase it from six to seven figures?

Me too!

There is absolutely no reason why you can’t get to 6, 7 or even 8 figures but, let’s face it, it’s never going to be because you bought just one programme or did just one thing! It’s a combination of factors that will bring your business to these kinds of figures and it certainly doesn’t happen overnight.

What I’ve discovered is that there are certain things you need to have in place and certain steps and you need to take – and you need to become proficient in a number of skills within these steps. If you’re running your own business, you have to ensure that you’re either doing ALL of the steps yourself or outsourcing or employing someone to do them. If you’re employed, you’re probably employed to do a certain job within the following steps (for example sales or customer service).

Let me explain:

These are the steps you need to take to be successful in business:

1. Attract interest – usually through websites, social media, ads etc.

2. Capture leads – get someone to ‘put their hand up’ and say they’re interested, either through signing up to a list in exchange for a free e-book or video series – or from a networking conversation.

3. Nurture your followers – whether they’re on social media, your e-mail lists or your networking contacts. Giving value and educating them so they become more connected and understand what you’re about. Build the know/like/trust factor and set yourself up as a credible authority in your field.

4. Convert your prospects into customers through the first sale.

5. Deliver excellence so that your new customer feels valued and looked after. Engage with them differently and create a community so they feel like they’re on ‘the inside’.

6. Engage your existing customers in repeat purchases – it’s easier to sell to an existing happy customer than it is to make a sale to a new one.

7. Look after your customers so they become your ‘raving fans’. Gather testimonials and referrals – your reputation (good or bad) will spread.

But even before all of this – you need to know exactly WHO you’re selling to (your niche) and exactly WHAT you’re offering them – in terms of products and services. And you need to have the mechanism and systems in place to carry out the above steps.

So – it’s simply not true to say that this course on list-building or that course on blogging or the other course on social media will suddenly transform your business into 6 or 7 figures. It’s also not true to say that an expensive mentoring programme will get you there either – although it’s likely to get you closer, it depends on how many of the steps you manage to get cracked.

It’s also true to say that even the ability to speak and the ability to run cracking webinars ON ITS OWN won’t get you there either!

Where am I going with this?

I certainly don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade…

I just want to make sure that everyone who follows me, who is part of my subscriber list and who reads my blog is choosing what they invest in with their eyes open.

I want to help you ensure that you’re setting yourself up for success and not disappointment. So - take time out, check out your niche and your offering and the 7 steps outlined above and so a stock take regarding where you are and what you need to do next.

Let me show you where great speaking and the ability to run cracking webinars will help you in ALL of the steps:

1. Attracting interest

Speaking and webinars are incredibly good at helping you to attract interest. I built my first list through offering a free webinar and the more webinars I ran, the bigger my list grew. Speaking at networking events is also amazing at attracting interest. You can even make an impact during your 60 seconds to the room but if you can get to do the 10 minute education slot, you’re in business! And get to give a talk at a seminar or conference and you’re set to fly.

So, speaking and webinars is a MUST for this step.

2. Capturing leads

Even if you’re offering a free e-book, free video series or free anything else, a video on the optin page makes it much more likely that people will opt-in. It’s the first chance that people online have to see you, get to know what you look like, sound like and whether or not they like you. Running webinars is great for capturing leads as people HAVE to register, giving you their name and e-mail list – so webinars hit step 1 and step 2 in one fell swoop. Cool eh?

3. Nurturing

How are you going to nurture and look after your list? Well, regular e-mails, blogs and information work well – but speaking and webinars work even better. 

Running regular webinars or speaking at events really helps your followers to feel part of a community and you begin to feel ‘familiar’ to them. This increases the know, like and trust factor enormously and I believe it’s one of the major factors in my success when I got my first 5 figure webinar. 

Through running countless webinars before this one, I built up a small following, built up my webinar skills and confidence and also built up the confidence of a JV partner who was willing to put me in front of her audience. Without my track record, this wouldn’t have happened. 

How are you getting in front of your hungry crowd?

4. Converting your followers into customers – selling

Once again, you can do this through e-mail campaigns or sending them to sales pages. However, a 2-2% conversion rate is considered good whereas speaking to them is FAR more successful and can convert in excess of 50%! 

The best method of selling by far is to speak physically in front of your potential customers. If you speak live, you’re much more likely to convert your audience into buyers than any other occasion. The caveat to this is that they are present to listen to you – if it’s a multi-speaker event, they could be there to listen to someone else and so your chances are reduced, but still very good. 

Obviously, if someone’s on your webinar, they are there to listen to YOU and this is a superb way of converting followers into buyers. I regularly convert 20-75% of my webinar attendees to buyers, and you can too once you get going. 

This is why I LOVE webinars so much! Video campaigns are another great way to convert followers into sales – speaking to camera is very effective, especially if it’s combined with other video types such as voice over slides. 

One thing is sure – if you don’t hold webinars or don’t speak to your potential customers, either live or through videos, then you’re not going to convert many of them!

5. Delivering excellent customer service

OK – how you do this depends on your business. If it’s a membership site, make sure it contains what you’ve promised. If it’s coaching or mentoring, make sure you set expectations and then deliver upon them. If it’s a physical product, make sure it’s up to scratch. 

Keep in touch with your customers, ask them how things are? Give them an opportunity to connect with other customers through groups and forums. 

Running workshops, Facebook Lives or webinars for members only is a great way of providing extra value that’s not available to the wider public – indeed this could be how you actually deliver your programme. This helps your customers to feel special and part of a small ‘in crowd’.

6. Repeat purchases

If you look after your customers and show them that you care about them, they’re more likely to buy again. 

This includes handling things when they go wrong. Sometimes, the way you handle a complaint can turn a dis-satisfied customer into a raving fan. 

Once again, speaking and webinars come into play in this step. If you hold physical workshops or run webinars for your customers, you can hold an extra special workshop or webinar where you tell them about the next logical step for them and where you give them a special offer not available to the general public – a great way to get them to purchase the next thing from you.

7. Referrals and Testimonials

Once you’ve cemented a strong relationship with your customer base, through running steps 1-6 successfully, then you can expect to get great referrals and testimonials. 

If you’ve mastered the art of speaking and running webinars, you can pass this on to your happy customers – video testimonials are much stronger than written ones!

What does all this mean?

So, you can see that speaking whether live, through webinars, live streaming or videos will help you MASSIVELY in each of the 7 steps towards building a 6 or 7 figure business! 

And, if you’re employed, I hope you can see where your role fits into the bigger picture.

But I can’t guarantee that any of this on its own it will get you to where you want to be.

For that reason, I’m not going to tell you that, if you buy my programmes or even my mentoring, I can guarantee you will earn any specific amount...   I will let the con artists tell you that!

But what I will tell you is that, if you know your market and have great products to offer them and, if you combine speaking skills and running webinars with other elements in each of the above steps (such as effective use of social media), then you’ve got a MUCH higher chance of success. 

It’s all about putting ALL of the pieces of the jigsaw into place.

If you want to check out how I can help you, then please do visit the services I offer.

Wishing you every success with ALL of the steps you need to take in your business, but in particular with your speaking, webinars and videos. :-) 

Big Hugs
Tina xx