How to Easily Build an Audience that Knows, Likes, and Trusts You

What if you had to start from scratch? What would you do to build a business? The first thing to do is to build your audience. Let's discuss how to increase your know, like, and trust factor and grow your business faster...all without going to bars, parties, or meetings.

Build Referrals and Grow Your Business

When I first started in my financial consulting career, I asked my mentors how to grow my business.

The grand tip that they mentioned is that I had to grow my business through referrals.

Then I asked, how do I do that when I don't have much people to talk to?

The answer she gave me was, "After you try to close the deal, let them know that you can help out their friends or family members (whether I closed the deal or not). Pull out a sheet of paper and ask for names and numbers."

Hmmm...and how would I do that if I had nobody in front of me to ask?

That was the focus of their grand marketing system.

To me, it was a bad joke. I already went through all of my friends and family members that were willing to hear my pitch, and business sure didn't explode after that.

Regardless of how strongly I felt about my products and services, why would somebody refer business to me if they didn't feel that it could help them out? They really needed my products, but they sure didn't want it.

Become a Sales Expert or Build Relationships?

At that point, I started reading a bunch of sales books. I remember combing through the library to look for books by Brian Tracy and Tom Hopkins. Then I realized that I really needed to do something else...

Marketing!

Sales strategies are great, but you gotta have people in front of you (virtually or not) to sell to.

In order to get people, you have to generate leads.

If you're new to the lead generation stuff, you'll need a landing page (lead generation page) and a form from an email automation system. I personally use Groove with Sendiio.

Building Rapport While Networking Offline

Back in the day, I would network with a bunch of people in parties, bars, meetings, and even with people that I met in the grocery store.

There was a simple formula that I used to work called FORM: family, occupation, recreation, and money.

Those were the topics that I would talk about to help build rapport.

Later, I started learning from Anthony Robbins and discovered something called neuro-linguistic programming (NLP).

That was all the kind of stuff that these gurus taught.

If you think about it, it makes a bunch of sense.

Think about FORM. Most of those topics, depending on your angle, are not so sensitive here in America (for most...yeah, I know some people are more guarded than others).

For most cases, these topics sure are better than talking about religion, politics, and sex with someone that you just met.

If you're talking to people in person, then providing a business card with your website can help. Otherwise, you can share your domain verbally, especially if it's easy to remember.

Building Rapport While You're Networking Online

Nowadays, we have websites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter that allow you to build your network virtually.

You can also build a blog with comments, without comments, and even chat with people on YouTube.

It's easier to add friends that recognize you. Maybe they might have seen your posts in a niche Facebook group. Maybe you commented on their posts because of your similar interest. Once you have communicated with someone at least a few times, it's easier for them to accept your friend invite.

From there, you can have normal conversations as you would offline.

Whether you're building a relationship online or offline, don't try to close people that you just met.

It's kinda like dating and marriage. You typically don't ask someone to marry you after the first date.

Creating Valuable Content to Generate Leads

As you build the relationship, you'll have to have a mechanism in place to convert your warm market (people that know, like, and trust you) into people that are most likely to buy from you.

The easy approach is by offering highly valuable content.

This can be in the form of blog posts, social media posts, free reports, and free YouTube videos.

If you want to take it up a notch, you can create credibility by showcasing your own Kindle or paperback book on Amazon, or by showcasing content that you've created over time.

If people really want to learn more from you, they can sign up to your list. You do this by offering something called an "ethical bribe." That's where you give something to your new subscribers in return for them offering their contact information (in most cases, just their email address).

Build Your List, Build Your Audience

As I mentioned earlier, providing valuable content can help build the relationship, increasing the "know, like, and trust" factor.

In traditional sales, this is often called a "follow-up sequence."

In my case, people visit my landing page (that I created using Groove), and then they enter their name (which then is managed through Sendiio's CRM).

From Sendiio, I'm able to schedule newsletters that I broadcast to people that sign up. I could work on a newsletter in the evening, and have it automatically send out at noon, even when I'm away from my computer.

I can send people to my new blog posts, new videos, share a recent story or a lesson learned.

The cool thing about this method is that I'm not totally relying on a 3rd party that I have no control over (ie. Google, Facebook, YouTube, or Instagram). I might use those systems to build my audience, but I can use any system to funnel people into my list.

From there, people can either learn more, buy from my recommendations, complete application forms, request consultations, ask me out for a cup of coffee :), or unsubscribe.

Conclusion

Were you able to see the power in all of this? Instead of following-up through direct mail or phone calls, you can use technology to build the know, like, and trust factor.

Featured Tools

Sendiio - Build your audience using email marketing, Facebook, and SMS. This is the main software service that I use for communicating with people around the world.

Groove - Create blogs, landing pages, sales funnels, membership sites, ecommerce sites, and more with this digital marketing suite.