What High Impact Marketing Strategies Allow Experts to Earn $1 Million a Year?

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Welcome to today's episode.

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Our guest today is Anne.

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She is a marketing leader who runs her own agency.

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She's an author.

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She's a speaker.

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Welcome to the show.

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Hey, thanks so much, Eric.

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It's great to be here with you.

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So, before we jump into a story about some of the best marketing you've done, why don't you share with us a minute or two about who you are and what you do?

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So I'm a strategic business consultant.

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I'm also a CEO and agency owner of an attraction marketing and media agency called Expert in you, and so I have two sides to my business consulting and coaching.

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But I work with people who want to build really high-end, premium businesses so they really want to be an influence in their industry.

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They want to get the best clients, top dollar, so that they can build that million-dollar business with a handful of clients and a lot more profits.

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That sounds pretty remarkable and you help a lot of these folks really grow what they're doing as an expert or consultant by as much as 3 to 10x right.

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Yes, a lot of times they can do that even with one client.

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When I take what they were charging, and we can three or 10 times what they are charging they can grow very quickly.

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These are strategies that I use.

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So we use repackaging services so that you can get these premium clients.

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And then what's the marketing that you have to put behind that, what's the sales process you have to put behind that, and then how do you scale it so that you're not doing everything yourself?

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So that's really the gist of what I do.

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All right, so tell us a story about some of the marketing that you've done over your long, illustrious career that you're most proud of from a marketing perspective.

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I love helping people really elevate their whole online presence, their whole online brand, so that when people Google them, it's whoa this person is the expert and the authority in their industry or in their niche.

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I want people to be basically pre-sold when they get to my clients, and that's always the goal.

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So what do we do?

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I help them do what I call, first, online positioning, so that they look like the only one who does what they do.

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And when you position people this way, you literally eliminate competition.

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So that's the first strategy that we use is how can we get you seen across channels, across social media?

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If people Google you, they're seeing a very congruent message about who you are, what you do, why you're credible, why they should invest in you, and then you're influencing them through your content, through everything that they're seeing online.

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So that's the first piece.

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I call it the foundation of your business.

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It's the outside perception that people have of you and your brand.

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So, look, you can either look like the Lamborghini or the cheap used car.

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I help people look like the Lamborghini.

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So that's the first thing.

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The second thing is we do what's called scalable speaking.

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So when you're in the professional space, you're working with businesses or you're working with entrepreneurs or high level professionals.

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Speaking is one of the most powerful ways to get business, to generate business.

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But scalable speaking is even more powerful and the reason for that is it's virtual.

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So if you can speak virtually versus traveling around speaking not to say you have to eliminate that's powerful too, but you're going to max out on that.

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You can only do so many speaking engagements.

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I work with clients who are like oh, I did two speaking engagements this week and I'm exhausted With scalable speaking.

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That can be podcasting.

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That can be speaking to other people's audiences, that can be a guest on a podcast such as I am here with you.

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It can be running virtual events, which are very lucrative, and what I help people do is figure out what is going to be the right strategy for them.

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It can also be live streaming, so what's going to be the right strategy for them and their business and who they're trying to reach?

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So all of these strategies are powerful and what really works is when you start stacking these strategies.

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So now you live stream and you podcast and you run virtual events.

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Hands down, there's nothing like it.

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So that's what's working for me and for my clients to bring in business, to keep growing our business, and those are the strategies that I teach them.

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And so you're helping experts build their personal brand and get out there and do scalable speaking so that people are aware of who they are.

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And I assume that part of scalable speaking is that speaking gets more speaking right If you do a good job, isn't that right?

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What a lot of people don't realize is there are two sides to marketing.

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There's the influence side, the influence system.

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This is what people see, and you said you're helping them build their brand.

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That's only one piece of marketing.

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The other piece is you've got to generate revenue.

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You've got to be able to bring in clients, and so you need a strategy to be able to bring in clients, like Clockwork, and that's where, for example, I help people do six-figure virtual events.

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Okay, so if a coach or a consultant is bringing in $100,000 every time they run a virtual event over the course of a year, that's over a million-dollar business if they did one a month.

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So it goes deeper than just building a brand.

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You have to have revenue systems as well.

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You have to have marketing systems that generate revenue, and this is a missing piece for a lot of people.

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They're putting out great content, they're building their brand, people know about them, but they're not really generating revenue.

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You need both.

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Yeah, that does make sense.

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You have clients that are running virtual events and they make $100,000 per virtual event.

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How do they do that?

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That sounds pretty great.

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Yeah, that is the strategy.

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So it depends on one of the things that I because I help people get very high end clients think about, and the other thing is they do this with.

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You can do this with a handful of clients or a handful of people in the room.

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You don't have to have hundreds of people in the room.

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So, if you are with the strategy, you're vetting the people that you allow to come into your event, into your virtual event.

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You are choosing who you want to come into that virtual event.

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So they're the right people.

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They're your ideal audience, your ideal clients.

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So we have a vetting process and then we make sure that the pricing is on point.

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So let's say they're charging $25,000 for their program.

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The event's free, you can come to the event free and for a day or two days I'm going to just give you massive value.

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You're just going to work with me and I'm going to show you my stuff and we're going to have this interactive workshop and then, at the end of that, you're going to give them an opportunity to go deeper and actually work with you to implement everything.

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So this is the strategy that we use and if you're charging $25,000, I even help them create these really high-end offers.

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So if you're charging $25,000, if you close four clients in that room, you have made that $100,000.

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With hundreds of people, it's around lucrative offers that are going to be high impact.

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I call all of these strategies high impact marketing strategies.

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It's going to be high impact and so a lot of people are not doing that.

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They're not building out their events that way, or they're charging fees and then they're trying to upsell people.

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The problem is you might get a lot of people you might get 200 people If you you're running ads, you might get 200 people to show up to your event, but only a handful of them are even going to be the right people, and so you've got a lot of the wrong people in the room and what I will tell you is you're not getting the right people.

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When you're charging little fees and you're not vetting and you're just letting anybody come in, you might make some money on the front end, but the money on the back end, it may not be quite as good or the energy is going to come down in the event because you've got beginners in there with seasoned people with, and so there's a mix and and it's hard to market to get hundreds of people into a virtual event.

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So it's a very different system from what other people are out there teaching and doing.

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It's quality over quantity.

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I like that.

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Everything I do is quality over quantity, but then also podcasting.

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I teach them how to get in front of these perfect, high-end clients through their podcast, and that's a whole different strategy.

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It's not a typical podcast strategy like most people are using.

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I teach them how to guest, and that's not a typical strategy like most people are using.

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So all of these things again are super powerful to bring in revenue.

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So one of the things I like about what you're doing is that you essentially have a belief that the expert in you that what I've seen is most good business leaders not everybody, but most good business leaders are an expert in something.

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Some people are an expert in very interesting specific things and other people are experts in more broad areas, but it seems like most people are an expert in something if they're a good business leader, and what you're doing is you're helping them get the premium they deserve for that right.

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Most people do not even realize the value that they have to bring to the market and a lot of people you probably have heard this out there Eric charge what you're worth, charge what you're worth.

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Do you ever hear that?

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Charge what you're worth, raise your price.

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Here's the problem with that Number one.

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It's not about you at all.

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It's about what you can do for the clients.

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So I really I don't even like that language.

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It's really, eric, you're worth more than anybody will ever be able to pay you anyway.

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But it's about the value you're bringing to the client.

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So when you start looking at that, you start looking at the value that you can bring to them.

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What is that worth?

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That's where you can get that premium pricing.

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But all these factors go with it.

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You're positioning in the market so that you look like you deserve, like you don't look like the cheap used car.

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You look like the Lamborghini.

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That's the first thing, because we're visual, right, we want to make sure that what we're investing in is at the top end, right, if that's what we're looking for.

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But it's really important for people to understand that they've got more that they could be offering in most cases if they have knowledge and skills and expertise, and they just don't know how to put the pieces together.

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So what's the secret to making people look like a Lamborghini instead of a used car with that packaging?

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But you want to up level a lot of times their brand, so that could be their website, their banners, but it's about okay.

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What do you want to be known for, eric?

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What do you want to be known for and who is that for and what do you?

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So what do you do and why should people buy from you over everyone else?

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So that becomes the first piece is what makes you different?

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I know I can help people three to 10 times their business with ultra high fee clients, with $50,000, $100,000.

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I have a client that just closed a $400,000 sale.

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I know that I can do that because I've done it over and over again and I but I have all the pieces to help people do that, and so it's really important that you know what results you can get for your clients.

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But then that has to come into your messaging and everything that they're seeing.

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So my content has to back up what I'm doing.

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You have to educate your audience so that they know what you do.

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You can't be the best kept secret.

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You've got to get out there.

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You can't be the best kept secret.

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You've got to get out there.

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You've got to step into the I call it stepping into the expert spotlight to sell.

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You've got to get out there and be seen.

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That's all part of it.

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But then how do you close these high-end sales?

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You've got to have a sales process that simplifies the sale and gets the client saying I would be crazy to not hire you, I would be crazy to not partner with you or work with you.

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In other words, you want to get yeses and not nos, and all of this works in sequence to help people really do that.

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So you're really building up a premium brand.

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The other thing you're doing is you're showing social proof when other people are singing your praises, when you're on other people's stages.

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When you're doing is you're showing social proof when other people are singing your praises, when you're on other people's stages, when you're on other people's podcasts, when people are seeing you everywhere and people are talking about you and you're not talking about yourself not that you shouldn't do that, you should but other people are talking about you.

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It builds that credibility, it builds that authority, and so all of that is a piece of it.

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But then you also want to show client results and, at the end of the day, social proof is super powerful.

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So all of those are pieces of what we do to help them stand out as an authority and really get top tier clients.

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But then how do you scale beyond that?

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You still have to be able to scale and grow.

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So it's amazing how much the messaging and positioning you use can drive that premium, because there's definitely better and worse ways to describe who you are and what you do, better and worse ways to describe who you are and what you do.

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And I don't think that people put enough thought, effort, time into that messaging and positioning to get that premium price and a lot of times I think they just get moved down into a more commoditized area because they haven't just done the right positioning.

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That makes them get chosen over other people 14 years ago when I came into the business coaching space, I would go to networking events and I would say I'm a business coach, I can help you grow your business.

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And people would be like, okay, I'm not really sure what that means, but now I say, hey, I can help you three to 10 times your business.

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If you want to get to that million dollars or whatever, with a handful of clients, I can help you do that.

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I help you get those premium clients.

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And so now it's very clear the result that people can get with me.

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And then I can go into okay, here's how we do that.

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Here's step number one, step number two, step number three.

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So I have a four-step method really, but within that method there's a lot of moving parts, but it's very clear.

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And that's the other thing.

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A lot of people don't know how to articulate what it is they do.

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So your message can actually articulate what you do.

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But then, even more than that, eric, is people can go out and they can see testimonials from clients.

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They can see things that I'm doing.

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I'm getting ready to have another mansion retreat that sort of screams luxury and premium.

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Right, I've had other mansion retreats.

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So when you're doing things that align with your brand and with what you are selling.

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I'm getting ready to launch a high-end premium magazine, an expert in you magazine, my podcast.

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So even in the name expert in you that's in the name all of those things align with my brand and so there's a lot of moving parts to all of this.

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But you have to think bigger if you want to do bigger things, and I think a lot of people fall into like cookie cutter programs or paths.

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I did.

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I had to figure things out and get out of that, but the actions that they're taking are not setting them up for those premium clients.

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The virtual event example you gave and the mansion retreat example you just shared.

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Are these along the lines of helping people create what some people have called like their own mastermind group?

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That is one of the strategies that, when I work with my clients, we're going to look at how they want to scale their business.

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So it's not just about getting high end clients, but what do they want to do beyond that?

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Do they want to run high-end masterminds retreats?

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What are the things they want to do?

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I help them with all of those pieces.

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So what's that growth that you want?

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And then how do you want to do that?

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What does that look like for you?

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And then I help them implement that and do put the strategies in place to make that happen.

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So there's not a one size fits all, and I really want to get this point across, because part of the problem in the industry is there's too much cookie cutter in marketing and there's not a customized approach for different people's businesses, and the reason I know this is because I have bought into a ton of programs where I thought this marketing agency would be able to do this for me, but then it didn't turn out to be the right thing and I had to learn all these things when I came into the online world, and now I know what an important piece it is to know is what I am doing the right thing for who I'm trying to reach, and so that's the first thing I look at with people is who are you trying to reach?

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And so that's the first thing I look at with people is who are you trying to reach?

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And is that going to be building a Facebook group?

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Probably not.

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If you're going after $100,000 clients, they're not sitting in Facebook groups.

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You're not going to be able to spam them on LinkedIn.

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There's other approaches that you have to take to reach these high level people, which is why I say we use high impact marketing.

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It seems like there's a lot of variables involved.

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How hard is this for people to do?

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How long does it take people to go down a path like this?

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I'm just curious.

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It's easy to go down a lot of wrong paths.

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It took me a very long time to figure all this out and I still am always learning new things and trying to even get better.

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Ai is just now coming onto the scene, so how am I pulling in AI with some of the strategies that we're using, and so I always try to stay very cutting edge.

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But, eric, it's very difficult if people are trying to navigate this on their own.

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You might be able to get a marketing strategy, build a Facebook group.

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That's a common one.

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But again, is that even going to work for your clients or for who you're trying to get?

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What I see is people trying to do that and then they're really undervaluing what they sell because they only are going to get so much money per client.

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In a Facebook group, those are going to be more your lower value clients that have time to hang out, that have time to engage in there Again, $100,000 clients, ceos, people running millionaires, people running nonprofits they're not going to be hanging out in Facebook groups.

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So that's a common one.

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That's one that I see a lot of people go down.

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Another one is courses or funnels.

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People will get sucked into this, right.

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They'll get sucked into the funnels, build a low ticket thing and then when people buy that, you send them up.

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Look, $100,000 clients do not buy into a $7 do-it-yourself course.

00:20:02.734 --> 00:20:04.567
They just don't do it.

00:20:04.567 --> 00:20:07.709
They're buying speed.

00:20:07.709 --> 00:20:09.116
They're buying expertise.

00:20:09.116 --> 00:20:10.423
They're buying results.

00:20:10.423 --> 00:20:12.573
They want to get things done fast.

00:20:12.573 --> 00:20:13.596
They're buying the shortcut.

00:20:13.596 --> 00:20:14.701
That's what they're paying for.

00:20:14.701 --> 00:20:20.821
A shortcut is not going through funnels, not going through all these steps and roadblocks.

00:20:20.821 --> 00:20:22.846
They want to get right to the goods.

00:20:23.247 --> 00:20:24.490
So I want people watch.

00:20:24.490 --> 00:20:27.540
They'll come across a video or a live stream that I do.

00:20:27.540 --> 00:20:29.625
They'll book on my calendar.

00:20:29.625 --> 00:20:32.873
They'll say I know you're the person that I want to work with.

00:20:32.873 --> 00:20:35.807
I already know you're the person that can help me.

00:20:35.807 --> 00:20:38.112
Let's talk about what that looks like.

00:20:38.112 --> 00:20:42.009
They're already pre-sold, and that's what I'm talking about with all of this.

00:20:42.009 --> 00:20:46.446
They're pre-sold when they come to you because you've done your marketing's, doing the heavy lifting.

00:20:46.928 --> 00:20:49.292
But it's not easy to do this for yourself.

00:20:49.292 --> 00:20:56.420
I'm just going to say that that's why I'm in business helping people do this, because it's not easy and it can be very costly.

00:20:56.420 --> 00:21:01.526
Trying to piecemeal your business together and figure out gosh, what do I need to do?

00:21:01.526 --> 00:21:02.509
Should I go over here?

00:21:02.509 --> 00:21:03.310
Should I do that?

00:21:03.310 --> 00:21:04.442
Should I do that, Should I do this?

00:21:04.442 --> 00:21:11.369
And that's what a lot of professional coaches, consultants, people, entrepreneurs that's what they're doing.

00:21:11.369 --> 00:21:12.291
They're piecemealing.

00:21:12.291 --> 00:21:18.623
When you have someone that can look at your whole business and say, okay, how do you want to build it, what do we want to do?

00:21:18.623 --> 00:21:30.829
And you've get this whole strategy figured out and then you've got someone guiding you and supporting you the whole way through, there's nothing that's going to speed your results faster than that.

00:21:32.201 --> 00:21:40.983
One of the things you mentioned was simplifying the process so it's easier for companies to work with you when you're selling to them.

00:21:40.983 --> 00:21:52.541
The one thing I saw online that you promote around this is don't charge people by the hour, which seems like a pretty friction heavy thing and it definitely doesn't get you the premium price right.

00:21:52.541 --> 00:21:56.571
What other things are involved in making it simple for people to work with you?

00:21:58.501 --> 00:22:13.929
Yeah, one thing that I really teach my clients to do is, especially if they're doing like if they're working in corporations or they're doing things that require, maybe, a proposal First of all, I try to help them eliminate proposals if possible because they suck up time.

00:22:13.929 --> 00:22:29.983
But if they are going to do them because of the market that they're in, then I show them how to really co-create solutions with their prospects so that nobody will have what, nobody will be able to beat them out in that proposal.

00:22:29.983 --> 00:22:32.230
And so many people don't do this Like they'll do it.

00:22:32.230 --> 00:22:41.354
Here's an example They'll talk to the client a little, or the prospect, and the prospect says, okay, we want this and this, and actually this is a big one for marketers.

00:22:41.354 --> 00:22:44.505
So if you have a lot of marketers listening, this is a really big one.

00:22:44.505 --> 00:22:47.152
I help them get rid of proposals if they can.

00:22:47.152 --> 00:22:50.549
But even if you can't, you have a conversation with a client.

00:22:51.333 --> 00:22:55.846
Don't ever write a proposal until that client says they want to move forward with you.

00:22:55.846 --> 00:22:59.000
Then the proposal gets written to be an agreement.

00:22:59.000 --> 00:23:02.489
Or they say, yes, you're the person we want to work with.

00:23:02.489 --> 00:23:07.941
Based on everything you've said here and talked to us about, you should find out the budget.

00:23:07.941 --> 00:23:10.847
You should find all of that out in that first conversation.

00:23:10.847 --> 00:23:20.153
Then you can put a couple of options together and go back over that with them in person, on Zoom, whatever that is.

00:23:20.153 --> 00:23:24.307
You set that next appointment to go over that proposal with them.

00:23:24.747 --> 00:23:31.865
The reason this is so important is because number one you don't wanna put yourself in a commodity category where they're gonna price shop you.

00:23:31.865 --> 00:23:47.284
If you go emailing proposals, either they're gonna end up in the black hole where nobody will ever reach back out and then you're chasing, you're trying to close the client, or they will take that proposal and they'll go shop around and they'll see where they can get the lowest price.

00:23:47.284 --> 00:23:50.209
So do not put yourself in that category.

00:23:50.209 --> 00:24:03.338
You want to seal that deal before you do the proposal and then, if you have to do a proposal to give them a couple of different options that will work for them, get back with them personally and go over those options.

00:24:03.338 --> 00:24:09.232
That way you can overcome any objections, you can answer any questions and you can close the deal.

00:24:09.539 --> 00:24:12.028
It's an agreement at that point that they can sign.

00:24:12.028 --> 00:24:15.589
It's so much faster and it's such a better way.

00:24:15.589 --> 00:24:21.089
The other thing is when you're sitting with that client and you're co-creating what do they want.

00:24:21.089 --> 00:24:22.664
And then do you need this?

00:24:22.664 --> 00:24:23.909
What about this?

00:24:23.909 --> 00:24:34.249
You have the opportunity to really build that out to be a more transformational offer versus a transaction, and when you do, that's where you can get the big fees.

00:24:34.249 --> 00:24:43.186
And when you are giving that client every single thing they want and you can do it within their budget, why would they go anywhere else?

00:24:43.186 --> 00:24:46.924
Or why would they say no, does that make sense?

00:24:47.839 --> 00:24:51.249
Yeah, I think you don't want to be shooting in the dark, is what you're saying?

00:24:51.249 --> 00:24:58.840
Is you have to have all the information of what they really want, all the qualifying information, what their budget is.

00:24:58.840 --> 00:25:07.128
If you're just blasting out proposals that are like here's what our typical package is, it's probably not the people you want to even work with.

00:25:07.128 --> 00:25:21.366
So it makes sense and I think if you've done the work you were mentioning earlier of having the right positioning up front so that people are coming to you saying I want to work with you, you've done a lot of that negotiation already to get the premium price.

00:25:21.366 --> 00:25:31.573
But I think if people skip that step and just try to do proposals, I can see how people can end up with a much lower price point, not getting a premium.

00:25:32.540 --> 00:25:38.973
And also, if your brand and your positioning and everything is set up right, it should show you as premium.

00:25:38.973 --> 00:25:44.607
They should already have an idea that you are premium when they come to you.

00:25:44.607 --> 00:25:52.631
The idea should be I'm not sure if we're going to be able to afford you, but we know that you're the person we want to work with.

00:25:52.631 --> 00:25:58.730
And that's a very different conversation from people being like having sticker shock.

00:25:58.730 --> 00:26:00.827
If people have sticker shock, are you kidding?

00:26:00.827 --> 00:26:11.736
You've done a poor job in your marketing and in your positioning, because it should never be a shock to people when they come to you that you're premium or you're the cheap used car.

00:26:11.736 --> 00:26:17.049
It should be very clear in the outside perception of your business.

00:26:18.974 --> 00:26:27.554
So, given how challenging this is for people to do and all the variables we've been talking through here, what are your sort of final words of advice?

00:26:27.554 --> 00:26:35.083
If there's one or two things that people should really think hard about and remember, what would you share?

00:26:36.465 --> 00:26:39.090
Yeah, I would say the first thing is specialize.

00:26:39.090 --> 00:26:41.282
Don't try to be everything to everybody.

00:26:41.282 --> 00:26:42.686
Don't be a jack of all trades.

00:26:42.686 --> 00:26:53.832
Really dial in who is that premium client or who is that best client for you, and then go after more of those and then set your business up for them.

00:26:54.099 --> 00:27:03.813
So many people are afraid they're going to miss out on business by specializing, but because it's so competitive in the marketplace today, it just makes so much sense.

00:27:03.813 --> 00:27:05.281
It just makes so much sense.

00:27:05.281 --> 00:27:21.669
I like to use the example of if I was a chiropractor and you built websites for small business owners and this person over here builds websites for chiropractors and I needed a website, who would I be more likely to buy from?

00:27:21.669 --> 00:27:26.010
I would buy from the one that builds websites for chiropractors.

00:27:26.010 --> 00:27:29.519
So if you specialize, it makes it easier to market.

00:27:29.519 --> 00:27:34.932
It makes it easier to establish yourself as an authority and an expert.

00:27:34.932 --> 00:27:52.692
You have to be able to obviously back up what you're doing, but that would be that's the main thing and then make sure that message and branding and everything is so congruent that, no matter whether people go to YouTube or Instagram or Facebook or Google you, they're going to see the same thing.

00:27:54.720 --> 00:27:55.664
I think that's great advice.

00:27:55.664 --> 00:28:02.811
If you try to be a master or expert of everything, you end up being an expert in nothing, so I think that's really good advice.

00:28:02.811 --> 00:28:08.511
If people want to learn more about what you do, how can they get in touch?

00:28:09.839 --> 00:28:19.932
Yeah, If you want to see how to build a half a million dollar business with your expertise, you can go grab a free training that I have at expertinyoubiz.

00:28:19.932 --> 00:28:25.084
It's just a quick whiteboard training where I map some things out.

00:28:25.084 --> 00:28:28.290
Or you can book a call with me at akardencom.

00:28:28.290 --> 00:28:29.272
But I'm all over.

00:28:29.272 --> 00:28:36.925
You can find me everywhere Facebook's, LinkedIn, YouTube, my podcast so y'all have no trouble finding me.

00:28:36.925 --> 00:28:37.647
You can Google me.

00:28:37.647 --> 00:28:40.044
I practice what I preach.

00:28:42.211 --> 00:28:42.510
Awesome.

00:28:42.510 --> 00:28:48.023
Thank you so much for joining today and sharing all these insights, very much appreciated.

00:28:48.023 --> 00:28:51.980
I'll link to your website in the show notes so it's easy for people to get there.

00:28:51.980 --> 00:28:54.988
Thanks again for being with us, we appreciate it.

00:28:55.008 --> 00:28:56.853
Thanks, Sarah, my pleasure.

00:28:56.853 --> 00:28:57.642
Thank you so much.

00:28:57.642 --> 00:28:58.243
Bye everyone.