12 Days of Building an Audience of Customers

You're listening to the PT Profit podcast, episode number 209. Today we're doing a high level view of the 12 days of building an audience of customers. Are you ready? Let's get started.

Hi, I'm Beverly Simpson, former fitness manager turned online personal training business owner. And this podcast is where smart fitness professionals, including trainers and clinicians, discover how to increase client performance and movement, package and position their products, services and get out of their own way so that they can increase their revenue to live a life that they love without sleazy sales. Welcome to the PT Profit Podcast. What's up coach?

Thank you so much for joining me on another episode of the PT Profit Podcast. I'm your host, Beverly Simpson. And I'm laughing. I'm laughing for a couple of reasons. Number one, it feels good to be back. I know that I said this on Instagram, but I wanted to just say it again and give a huge shout out to Chris Little, to Ariel, to Michael, to people on my team that like, really, if it weren't for them this last November, honestly, I really don't know where the state of their business would be. I mean, I'm laughing. I'm sure I would have figured it out. I still worked in November, but it was honestly, that was the sickest I've ever been and I feel in my life and I feel like I, I feel like a new person. And so I have shared emails around it, I have shared, you know, talked about what I've learned and, and even in conversations with my husband, I'm like, wait, was this pre virate, Was this pre sick or was this post sick? Like they're just there. It was a really big shedding, for lack of a better word for me. I just feel like a brand new person and I am so grateful for the people that were that hung in there with me and also to my clients, darling clients, for many reasons, but mostly because they had to put up with a lot of hacking, pausing, getting distracted by me, practically dying on every call. And they also had to deal with my brain. My brain was intact. It just, I couldn't, it just felt smaller, for lack of a better word. It's hard to describe. I just couldn't hold as much at one time as I used to be able to. And so I would ask them questions and they would say, well, I'm pretty sure I told you that. And I have a memory that is unreal and usually I can remember what people have told me in a one off conversation, coaching conversation from, you know, last year in an Instagram chat. So for them to say, wait, I sent this to you that, that I thought to myself, oh my gosh, I'm going to get fired. No, not really. I thank you so much for your, your patience during that time. It was just definitely a challenging time. And then I'm also laughing to myself because you know, if you've been around here for a while, you know that I'm a huge repurposer and I'm always looking for the ways that I can maximize using doing content essentially. And so I have. One of the things I told myself was, okay, I am going to film my podcast. I'm no longer going to do these Sunday morning chats which it's five in the morning and I just turn on the microphone and go especially.

I don't.

Know if you heard it, I probably should re record it because honestly it was really good. It had a lot of really good insightful moments about the experience of working with successful people, being successful, the differences, why I think people continue to struggle versus people who, who are successful when it seems like all the information and principles are the same. Right. So I was listening to a clip of it and I did not even sound like me. It didn't even sound like me. So it was just a very interesting time that November. Also I want to recap quickly if you were listening in any time of November and you did submit a review and you shared the show, it was a huge favor and to me and to the team and we read everyone and that was. Which I've shared in the past. It's actually very challenging for me to share, to read feedback, good feedback. I can read negative feedback all day long, but it is challenging for me to read good feedback. I'm working on that in my personal growth side note, I am working on that but it is very challenging for me. So the fact that you did and we read it. Thank you so much. That was just a huge, it's a huge help to helping more people and also helping the children of the night. I submitted my donation a couple of days ago and that was thanks to you. We got, we submitted over $200. So than you so much and I continue, you know, I will continue to do that promotion, grow it in a different way and we will eventually raise more, help more people continue to raise the industry standards and just keep going and growing. So I'm so thankful to you. Thank you so much. I'm happy to be back. Even though I did say I was no longer going to do these dark Sunday Morning pieces of content. And here I am Sunday morning doing a dark piece of content. But it kind of alludes to one of the things that I was saying in that. In the Habits or the seven, the successful podcast that I did that I started like this and it didn't even sound like me, but I, I was talking about the difference between you getting clear on what is commitment, what you are committed to and what are flexibly disciplined to versus what you are letting yourself off the hook. So what that means is finding the, Finding the line for yourself between doing what you don't feel like you're going, you want to do, but know that you always feel better when you do it versus, you know, going to the gym and going and, you know, working out with the flu. This is not, you know, get it done at all costs and we don't want to let ourselves off the hook. So this is one of those moments where I really, I really. Well, since getting sick, I have really been prioritizing my health. Like I have stuck to my word. And I keep saying that, oh, I'm going to do. I'll do a podcast about that. But I keep saying I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it. And then I do do it for a time and then something happens and I was in the habit of doing it and then I got really sick. So now I have, I have made it my number one priority. I moved it to that number one slide. I don't know about you, but I'm the type of person that if it's my number one priority, it gets done. I have been committing to going outside first light and moving the body. I just know myself that it needs to get done first thing in the morning, otherwise it won't get done. And so I woke up and I had all these reasons. Like right now it's 6:53 and I should be on that walk. It's first light, but I'm looking right at the sun and I'm gonna go on the as soon as I finish this podcast episode. So I had all these reasons why I didn't want to do the show because, oh, I could do it later. I need to stay committed to myself. All these things that are really sneaky, your brain, it's not going to be as obvious as people may think. Your brain is so sneaky. Your brain will give you all the really good reasons in the world why you can't do the thing that is going to move the dial and actually move the business. For example, self integrity. That is the number one core component that you need in to have a successful business. So my self integrity says that the first thing I'm going to do is, is going to walk in the morning. And I still stick to it. Granted. Okay, this is where the flexible part comes in. I'm doing my podcast first, but I'm going to get that walk in first thing before my kids wake up, before we start getting into the day. It's in the first part of my day, but my brain is like, oh, Beverly, you gotta do that walk first. That's more important. So was getting my podcast out by Sunday. I kept the podcast recorded by Sunday, otherwise then my team has to hustle in the back and that's annoying and I know that's annoying and I try not to be annoying to them on purpose. So we get it recorded by Sunday and then I'm gonna go on the walk. So that was one of the big key components that we'll just keep reiterating on the show. If you're new here, welcome. Thank you so much. I just kind of already dived in. So thank you so much for pushing play and I'm excited to dive in today. I wanted to give you a high level view of what we're going to be talking about over on Instagram Live and inside of my Facebook group, which is free. So if you haven't hung over there, come over and say hi. Because what I want to do is one of the things speaking of self integrity, which I shared in the first training that I did, is that every year I always say to myself that I want to do something to celebrate the holidays. I want to do a 12 days of something because I want to celebrate the holidays days. But every year, every year, something happens. Something, something. There's a reason I'm not prepared enough. I go into all these really good reasons why I'm not going to do it. And then one day on the 30th of November, when we were calculating all of our reviews and submitting our, submitting our, our donation, I, I just realized, oh, it's December 1st. I did have this moment of wow, November has left me. So there was absolutely no planning that I could do. And I had this idea, oh, the 12 days is coming up and realized, okay, well I want to do something and I'm going to do something because I said I was going to do something and I always do what I say. I'm going to do affirmation for you there if you need it. And so I, I asked the audience I Asked my group, I asked in Instagram, I said, what do you want to ha. Learn the most of? Or what. What is going to be the most beneficial to you in the month of December, especially right now? Because here's the thing. So many businesses, they end up not being prepared for the, for 2023. And when I say businesses, I mean small businesses or, or maybe we're all in the holiday spirit, but I'm telling you right now that the big corporate people that, that the businesses that are super successful, like They've planned out 2023 already for a lot of, a lot of businesses that we're in the super bowl essentially. And for fitness, we are in the super bowl. We are in a buying state of mind. And then people get into this, thoughts of, oh, but it's holidays and Christmas and no to get healthy and fit maybe, but they are still going to be buying right now to prepare for January. And even if they're not, this is an opportunity for you to connect and find your people. And you can always give your people an opportunity to say yes to themselves at any given time and start connecting with people and building rapport. People will say building relationships, but it's not really about relationships. It is it may I. I have to find a way to say this so it doesn't sound like I'm so cold hearted because anyone who knows knows that I am not cold hearted and that I will go to, I will do anything I possibly can for you and that my. I lay awake at night thinking about how to help my clients have better success. So, and, and so there are people out there and I know because I've, I've talked to a lot of clients who've experienced people that have literally just spent thousands of dollars and then ghosted. They didn't come to meetings on time, they didn't have any, you know, and lots of, lots of horror stories out there. And so when I get into these conversations, I always have to remind myself that I am not that person and that I. And that when, when it comes to relationship and rapport building, it matters. And that the trust factor though, is not whether or not they like you as a person. It's more about whether or not they believe that you can do what it is that you say that you can do in the way that you say it. And they enjoy the way that help them get there. Because I had this advice from someone. She gave this to me when we were talking about Broadway, but honestly, I live by it. And she said, you're going to spend more time in the process than you are in the outcome. This is my interpretation of it over the years. So if you don't enjoy the process, then do something else. And so this is true with your clients. They have to be okay with the way that you do it, with how you cue it, with how you build rapport. And so those types of rapport building relationships take time. Otherwise it's gonna feel like you're going into a bar, someone says, hey, can I buy you a drink? Wanna get married now? How much time? That varies. That could be a 30 minute conversation, a 60 minute. That could be 30 days, 60 days, 120 days. You know, I have people that come to every single one of my free things, listen to my podcast, they engage in the group, and they still have yet to join me in any tier of my offerings. And frankly, I'm okay with that. It takes what it takes until it takes. Because I'm not here to convince anybody of anything. I'm here to serve. I'm here to help people say yes to themselves and to go at the accelerated pace that is appropriate for them. That is not a decision for me. And so many people spend a lot of time when it comes to audience building and customer building, thinking about things that actually are out of your control. So instead, how can you focus your energy on what is actually going to help nurture, build rapport and build an audience of customers? Which is exactly why I decided to create the 12 days of audience building of customers. And we've already done two days, so this will be Monday through Friday. We started December 1st. So I was, I was thinking about doing it Saturday and Sunday just to make sure that we stay on track and. But everyone needs days off, including me. So everyone needs days off. Take a day off. And so we'll get back to the training on Monday for day three, and we'll go until December 16th, and we will have an incredible time. And every day we'll be doing a mini training on how to build an audience of customers. So the first thing that we talked about, which I just wanted to quickly recap because we've done 12 things, is I really talked about setting the tone, first of all, for what it means to actually build an audience, because people get into five common audience building traps and I don't want that to be you. And in fact, I already started to talk about one of them. So let me just go ahead and reiterate it is that when it comes to building an audience, that is not the same as building followers. You cannot take Likes, comments, shares to the bank. And so many people are focused on the number of followers and popularity metrics instead of profitability metrics. And being popular is not the same as being profitable. In fact, to prove it, I started my Instagram account over. And in a year of building, we're at 700 followers. Yay. Now I have a. I'm gonna do a separate podcast on that because it's different. It's. It's a. It's a different podcast to explain my experience about. On an audience building. But it's gonna go in here because we are going to talk about it because it is about audience building. Building. Okay, so we will talk about it. But I have grown my, my revenues over 30% in 2022, despite. Despite. And that's with new business. That's not with. That's not with, you know, reoccurring revenue. So does even. Even with that. Right. So it's just one of those things I want to bring to your attention because so many people are focused on the popularity metrics instead of the profitability metrics. And it's just, it's keep. And then the other thing that really kills me about, about popularity is how many times have you had the experience that someone really popular actually shared something that is absolutely keeping someone stuck in pain and perpetuating the problem of health and fitness, but because they're popular, everyone just believes them and they already buy into the fact that they are an authority. This used to really fry me. Over time, I have grown and released that because that's just poison for my. For me, for you. So if you do feel like that, I'm going to encourage you to acknowledge it and work to release it, because honestly, the only one who's getting hurt is you. But I bring it to your attention because hopefully this lights a fire under you to recognize and realize that you matter, that your work matters, and that it doesn't matter if you have 600 or 700 or 100 or 200 or 900 followers, none of that matters. Serve the people who are there who want to be heard, and you will grow, but you have to keep showing up. So that's number one. If you are focused on building an audience, but you don't have the back end of your business set up and you don't have the profitability in place and you don't. You don't have those systems and structures, then honestly, that is like trying to fill a colander up with water. I probably don't have to tell you how effective that is. Because let me tell you, I've worked with lots of people that have anywhere from the blue check to 33,000 followers and yet cannot monetize their their platforms. I've had people that like me that have 600 followers and they are making multiple six figures. I also have that have anywhere from 2,000 to 20,000 followers. And I've seen their P and L, I've been part of their P and L and see that they're making multiple millions. One of the things that you need to recognize and realize about an audience versus followers, which is different, is that followers are visible. Everyone can see that. We all know how many followers you have, but we don't know what your audience actually is. Your audience could be how many people listen to your podcast, you know your audience is, how many people are in your email list, how many people are watching your YouTubes. An audience of people are the people that are, you know, you will have people that are in your audience on Instagram, but how many of them are your audience? Are they bot followers? Are they people that, that engage? Do they not engage? Like, there's so many different contributing factors to what actually makes up an audience that we sometimes get blinded and make assumptions about people's audience without fully considering all of the different components. And listen, it's not your fault because listen, this is what marketing is. People are working on, on assumed authority. How many times? Which is like going into the doctor's office and because that person's wearing the white jacket, you just assume that they're an authority. Or maybe not you, but most people will just assume that they're an authority. But I probably don't have to tell you how effective that is. So what I want us to do in our time together and what I'm going to continue to have us do in our time together of the 12 days of audience building is to just really shift your perspective on what it means for you to build your audience to help more people and impact the people who need to hear your work. Because this is that know like and trust factor, right? Which I talked about earlier. But you want to be known, right? And it's more important to be known than it is to be popular. Because you cannot buy from the Internet's best kept secret, right? One of the things that kind of also fries me up is that I've been seeing this content about people breaking down why they think Alex Hormozi, whom I love, by the way, which why he had to create his book so big. So I can't put it in the gift box, Alex. But I, you know, the. Their. Their hypothesis is. Or their hypotheses of why he's so visible is. Is. Is makes me laugh. Or, you know, why he's disrupting the space makes me laugh. Because it's not any. For any other reason except that he's visible. You want to be number one in your niche, you gotta be the most visible. Oh, but, Beverly, how are we gonna do that? Well, I'm gonna tell you. It's not by buying followers. And I'm also gonna share with you that when you are known in that way, this is why. And I talk about this in this training, this is why. No like. And trust is an accidental popularity metric that people chase, that they unc. Consciously don't even realize it. Sometimes being known for something requires you to say some things and make a case for some things that not everyone's going to like. I equate it to being a good coach. I equate it to being a good parent. Sometimes I have to deliver news. Sometimes I have to set boundaries. Sometimes I have to. To fight for people's potential instead of what they bring into the room, including my kids, including my coach. This is what my coach did for me. And that isn't always a likable thing. I do it with love. It's not to control. It's not to force people. I've also gone down that trap before, but I. I do it from a place to empower. I do it from a place to fight for people's potential, not for their limitations that they bring into the room. They don't even realize, to me, that's what it means to be a good guide, a good coach. And so when you are constantly trying to unconsciously be liked, you run the risk of just blending in with the crowd and blending in with everyone else. And then when that happens, you lose your opportunity to actually be known for something. Because the people who. Who are known are the ones who are known for something. They have. They draw a line in the sand and they make a case for it, and they increase their visibility, and they do it at potentially the cost of being liked, the cost of being popular. And then the trust component, I already unpacked that earlier in this episode, which is, you know, it's not trusting you as a person. It's trusting you as. As the person who deliver delivers the promise in the way that they're going to deliver the promise. I want to just set the tone of that's what we're going to be doing in our time together as we start to build the audience. This is going to require you to make some decisions on who it is you want to serve, decisions on what it is you want to create, on what your stance is, learn something, pull your context in. And then we talk a little bit about, you know, some of the other components. And I won't dive into them here because it's a, it was a good 30 minute intensive training, but I talked about you looking at your relationship to selling because when we're building an, I want you also to recognize that a lot of people will tell you create. You know, start with your messaging and then the offer you're, what you're going to sell is going to come from the messaging. And I just, I don't know, I always do things backwards. And for me, I think your messaging has to make a case for every next step. And so if you don't know where you want them to go and you are not bringing them into an offer, then you're running the risk of just being a messenger and being an influencer, which is cool. No shade app, more power to you if that's what you want. But chances are if you're hanging out here and listening to this podcast, you want to actually build a business. And a business needs customers. And so I want to help you build an audience of people that will potentially be buyers. And so we need to take a look at your relationship to selling. It absolutely infuriates me when I hear really well, meaning people tell you to sell less, telling you you need to sell less, sell less ls. And to me, that just perpetuates the problems of feeling like selling is sleazy. And instead that what that does is it causes people to feel apprehensive about sharing what it is that they have to help someone. And then that will perpetually keep you struggling, broke, not hitting your metrics when instead if you shifted the way you actually looked at selling and recognized that it's a service, because I don't know about you, but if I don't have avocados, I'm going to the grocery store to buy them. And if my grocery store says, oh, doors are closed right now because we're building no like and trust, I'm probably not going to get on the grocery store's wait list. I'm going to the next grocery store that's two doors down the street, street. So I want you to look at your relationship to selling. Then I want you to think about who is the audience that you're creating. For right now, is it for the audience that you have or the audience that you want? And are you falling into the trap of surveying them? Meaning asking them, what do you want to hear from me? Because that's like asking your kids, what do you want for dinner? Because my kids are going to tell me Mac and cheese and ice cream all day long, every single day. Your audience members don't know what they don't know, so they don't know what to ask you or they don't know what to tell you that they want from you. We need to help them identify the problems, the symptoms and pain that they're in, help them see what the real problem is. Because chances are your audience, they are operating from mistakes and misconceptions because either they don't know what the problem is or they're doing all the wrong things to fix it. And there's a reason for that. We are going to create to expose that. Then we make a case for how we're to going, going to specifically fix it. So then I've already done a training on how the, the new way, the new way to niche. I give you four areas of layers of specificity. So really help you uncover the truth about your niche. Because most people will teach you to niche with demographics and we go into psychographics. Because when you can connect with people on one of these four things, then, then it doesn't matter who the person is. Meaning like what you know, their age range and whatnot. No, we are connecting on problems, problems, process, promise and people. So this is what we're going to be talking about, really high level ways, foundations of audience building. And then you can actually build an audience of customers. And when you focus on this and work on this and grow in this way, then it won't matter how big your audience is yet, because you'll still be profitable. And it'll take what it takes until it takes. I just finished writing this for the accelerators. It's a step by step process. So it's like this is what we're doing every single week essentially. And so I wrote the last thing I wrote, which I'm going to share with you too because I said you're in this for the long haul anyway, right? This is your career, this is what you want to do with your life. So what's the rush? And what I read on, wrote on this document is that, you know, what I have put together here for you has taken six years of refinement and you did it in 12 weeks or six months, right? It has taken years of refinement, 120k in debt and a whole lot of failures. And I created it in the hopes that you can learn faster and do it faster than I did. So, you know, just some perspective. And it was funny. As I was turning on this hit record on this, I was laughing because you see all those videos that are like 10k followers in 30 days and I'm like, well, I'm at 700 in 12 months. Again, I wasn't going to talk about that. It's a separate podcast, but 12, 700 followers, 12 months, nailing it. And I just thought to myself, if you are feeling that urgency, please, you are not alone. Me too. That, that's probably been my Achilles heel my whole life, is that I want it. I want it now. I want it now. I don't have the time or the patience to grow it. But think about how a oak tree becomes an oak tree. Oak tree starts from a seed and it takes years, right? And so time, it's not about the amount of time, luckily for us, which is different than the oak tree, it's about the amount of reps and it's about building a system and structure in place that can withstand any amount of sales cycle. I no longer have the urgency to, to have a huge massive following of seven, like above 700, because the way that my business is set up, literally I just need, need 5% of my audience to be buyers. Then we're a million dollar company. I've built the business to withstand any amount of sales cycle. It takes what it takes until it takes. And I'll do another podcast on that as well. So thank you so much for hanging out with me today. As always, if this helps you, please screenshot it and tag me at B. Simpson Fitness. This helps me help more people. Please leave us a review and I will catch you on the next episode. Bye.

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