September 20, 2023 • 28 mins
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Ready to turn those leads into sales?
Brace yourselves, as we unravel a powerful three-step formula - build, engage, sell - that's designed to help you reel in those prospects playing to your strengths.
We delve into the art of audience building, emphasizing that it's less about the 'how' and more about knowing your customer avatar like the back of your hand.
Let's take a deep dive into understanding your potential customers - their needs, shopping habits, problems, and influencers.
But that's not all! Building an audience is just the start. Nurturing them via effective content, particularly video content, is a challenge we tackle head-on.
We'll walk you through the importance of engaging with your audience, building connections, and creating a robust email list.
To illustrate this, we shine the spotlight on Gary Vee, an influencer who has built a dedicated audience and Bob Clark, a client known for his successful weekly training sessions.
Now, let's get down to the brass tacks - selling. Abandon the concept of hard sell; instead, make them crave for what you're offering.
We underscore the power of providing value via videos and webinars, and the necessity of avoiding aggressive selling strategies. We'll guide you through understanding your audience's needs for a successful promotion.
So sit back, learn, and gear up to convert those leads into sales!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mark Harbert (00:00):
All right, what is happening, everybody?
Today we are going to talkabout three steps to getting
leads that convert into sales.
Now, this is definitely one ofthose things that a lot of
people wonder about.
They get leads, but they get nosales.
There's a simple three stepformula that I learned several
(00:21):
years ago that has really provento be very simplistic, and it
can really help you when itcomes to getting leads and also
getting sales with those leads.
It's not very hard to generateleads.
Everybody can generate leads.
There's many different ways togo about generating leads, and a
(00:43):
lot of people will ask thatquestion how do I generate leads
?
And it's really the wrongquestion.
The right question is whichmethod should I choose?
And so it's not a matter ofthere's just a gazillion ways to
generate leads.
I mean, I could rattle off 10right now.
You just have to choose whatyou want, what you're looking
(01:06):
for and what's going to work foryou and what plays into your
strengths.
So that is very important aswell.
So I'm going to share with youthis morning these three steps,
or these three, you know, threepart framework, if you want to
call it, that's fine as well,but before we, I tell you that I
(01:26):
want to share with you a littlebit of an example, because I
think that this can reallyprovide a path for you to
understand.
Now, one of the things that Ihave seen in literally training
thousands upon thousands andthousands of students over the
years, and even up untilrecently, that one of the things
(01:47):
that hurts people from actuallymoving forward in their
business is that is thisconfusion haze.
They have this haze wherethey're not real sure where to
start.
They've got all kinds ofinformation and it's just in
their head and they're not surewhere to start.
So I went over to on Sunday afriend of ours.
(02:08):
Their two year old boy washaving his birthday party, just
turned two, and, matter of fact,they just moved into the house
about a month and a half beforethat, so about a month and a
half ago and I get to the houseand my buddy is standing there
in the garage with a coupleother people as we walk up the
driveway and I'm like, hey, man,love, your new house Looks
(02:32):
great.
He's.
Oh man, don't look at thisgarage, it's crazy.
So you look in the garage andthere is there's stuff
everywhere.
There's tools everywhere You'vegot look like lawnmower parts.
There's stuff all over thegarage and it's.
You look at it and you're like,man, this garage really needs
to be cleaned up, but you're notreally sure where to start.
(02:52):
And that's how many people feelwhen it comes to their online
business.
Also, they're thinking tothemselves I've got all these
parts, I've got all this stuff,but I don't know how to put it
together into a cohesive way tomake it work.
And this is why many people getstumped today, because they
don't have a plan of action.
They don't know how to put itall together.
(03:14):
So today, I'm hopeful that Ican give you a little bit of
that to help you put some of ittogether, so to speak, so that
you can go out and make adifference in your business.
So one of the things that I hadlearned a couple of years ago
was this very simple three-partformula framework process, but
(03:36):
it is build, engage, sell.
So build your audience, engageyour audience, sell to your
audience.
All right, and that littlesimple three-step formula or
three-part formula or three-stepprocess has helped me and many
other people really define avery simplistic way of looking
(03:57):
at your business.
So what I'm going to do iswe're going to go in a little
bit of depth about these threethings so that you can
understand them better and putthem into practice in your
business.
All right, so let's dig intothe very first one, which is
building your audience.
This is really step one.
This is tier one.
This is the very first step outof the gate that you need to be
(04:21):
focused on, and the goal hereis to produce leads.
Okay, our goal is to produceleads for our business.
Now, leads are a very importantpart of your business.
Now, it's pretty funny becausejust recently, I had somebody
reach out to me and they said Idon't want leads, I just want
customers.
And I thought you don't get theprocess because in order to get
(04:46):
customers, you've got to haveleads, and leads are essentially
people that raise their hand.
They are people that say, hey,I'm interested in what you have.
I'm giving you permission togive me more information.
Okay, it doesn't mean they'reready to buy yet.
It just means that they'veraised their hand and they're
ready to buy and said I'mwilling to look at more
information and see what you got.
(05:07):
Okay, so that's very importantand a very important distinction
, because without leads, youcan't get sales.
Without leads or people to talkto, you can't get people to
purchase your offers, yourproducts and your services.
So leads are a crucial step inthat process.
So the next step here inbuilding an audience now we're
(05:30):
talking about building theaudience right now.
So, first and foremost, if youwant to build an audience, you
need to know who that audienceis.
So you have to take the time tosit down and create your
customer avatar.
Who is the perfect prospect foryou?
Who do you want to work with?
What do they look like?
(05:50):
Give them a name.
Where do they shop?
Where do they hang out?
Who do they follow?
These are the questions thatyou want to answer.
What problem are you solving?
If you can nail down yourcustomer avatar and really get
clear on who it is that you wantto serve, you can serve at a
much higher level.
So take the time to learn whoyour customer avatar is.
(06:13):
Now.
I recently did a video trainingall about this.
You can check it on my YouTubechannels.
As a matter of fact, you can goto my blog at markharvardcom.
I did a training on how to usechat GPT to create your customer
avatar, so you might want tocheck that out, All right.
So very important to know whoyou're serving, because if you
don't know who you're serving,you can't speak directly to them
(06:36):
.
It's crucially important thatyou understand who it is you're
speaking to.
This is important across anybusiness.
Doesn't matter what nicheyou're in, doesn't matter what
product you're selling.
You have to know who it is thatyou're selling to you.
Every single corporation thatputs out a product has a
demographic in mind.
(06:57):
When they go to sell a product,they have a very clear avatar.
They know who it is, they knowwho they're speaking to and they
know who is predisposed topurchase their product first and
foremost.
All right.
So once you've created thecustomer avatar, the next step
is to choose the platform thatyou're going to market to them
(07:19):
on.
So we have all of theseplatforms.
We have Facebook, instagram,tiktok, twitter, which is now X,
we have Pinterest.
We have all these platforms andonce you start to create
content which is a great way tobuild your audience you
obviously want to get yourcontent out as many of these
platforms as possible, but youultimately want to hone in on
(07:41):
just one and really work thatone.
So once you determine thecustomer avatar, where are they
hanging out?
You have to determine that.
You have to find out where arethe majority of my audience
hanging out, and then I want tomake sure that I go there and
engage with them and we'll talkabout engaging here in just a
moment.
That's very important is tochoose a platform and master it.
(08:05):
Now, the thing is, withchoosing a platform, there's
many things within that, too.
I'm a big fan of when you'rechoosing a strategy.
Have a paid strategy, have afree strategy, have a paid and a
free and ultimately, if you cando them both on the same
platform, that's really what youwant to accomplish, because
(08:27):
you're getting the best of bothworlds on one platform, all
right.
So make sure you think aboutwhere your audience is, where
they're hanging out, and thenmake that your go-to platform in
order to build that audience.
Okay, the next part of buildingthe audience is content creation
.
If you want to attract anaudience that loves what you do,
(08:52):
they love what you share, theylove the products and services
that you want to offer, then youhave to create content and
content.
Number one, the number one typeof content you need to create
is video.
Whether it's live video,whether it's TikTok videos or
short form videos.
Really, you need to choose acontent.
(09:14):
Creating content and video isgoing to be the number one way
that you do that.
People do business with thosethey know and trust, and video
is the best way to accomplishthat in the online digital world
.
So make sure that you'recreating content on a regular
basis.
Now content video content servestwo purposes.
(09:35):
It can serve a purpose ofgenerating leads, and it can
also serve as a way to nurtureleads.
Nurture leads, in other words,there will be people that are
not inclined to buy from youright now, but I know I've
literally sold millions ofdollars of products online over
(09:57):
the last several years and Iwill tell you, I've had people
on my email list who purchasedsomething, that joined my email
list two years prior and thensent me a message and said I've
been following you for two years.
I've never bought anything fromyou until now, and I've
literally had people tell methat.
So nurturing people and helpingthem get to know who you are is
(10:22):
a very important thing, andcontent creates that mainly
video content.
So make sure you keep that inmind and that's very important.
So how else do you build theaudience?
It's all about engagement aswell, so you need to engage with
people in the comments of yourvideos.
This is another way that youbuild an audience.
(10:44):
This is another way you get anaudience to start trusting you.
You get your audience to lookat you as an authority on a
subject.
Your audience starts to look atyou like, hey, this person is
not out of reach Some of eventhe biggest marketers out there.
One of the people that reallystand out in my mind is Gary
(11:05):
Vaynerchuk Gary Vee.
Now, if Gary Vee, he's actuallyvery responsive to his audience
and he has a massive audience.
I'm not saying you want toexpect to get a reply back every
single time, but I'll tell youI've never seen anybody like
really connect with an audiencelike Gary Vee.
Now, I love Gary Vee If you canget past all the F-bombs, which
(11:28):
don't bother me I was in theNavy, but the truth is that a
lot of people can't get beyondthat, but they're missing out on
so many great lessons that heteaches when it comes to social
media marketing.
But he has a very rabidaudience that love him and
follow everything that he does.
So doing that is a great way.
Now, the other way that youbuild an audience is to build an
(11:52):
email list.
Now, an email list is thenumber one business asset that
you need to be building.
I'm telling you, I have watchedhuge influencers build huge
email lists and then never emailtheir list.
I know because I've joined someof them.
I followed some of these topinfluencer who have massive
(12:15):
social media influence, hugeamounts of followers.
I've literally joined theiremail list and yet I never get
emails from them, and that's aproblem.
And the thing is, while thesepeople might be making money,
they could be making a whole lotmore money if they were
creating an email list andactually using that email list.
So very important that when youbuild a list, you have to email
(12:39):
them.
Okay, very important, all right.
So these are the things youwant to focus on building the
audience, because all of thesemethods, all of these ways, the
things that I've mentioned,what's going to happen is you
now have permission to shareinformation with these people.
This is where it's vital tobuild the audience.
So you do that through what wetalked about and you do it
(13:02):
consistently over time.
So let's move on to the secondpart, which is engaging with
your audience.
So there are a myriad of waysthat you can engage with your
audience.
So I'm going to give you anexample of a client of mine,
somebody that I work with, beenworking with for the last couple
of years really, and Iabsolutely love my client, bob
(13:24):
Clark.
Some of you guys might know Bob, but Bob, one of the things we
talked about with him wasstarting to engage the audience.
So Bob started doing a weeklytraining that he does.
It's a 30 minute training thathe does every single week.
He uses it to build his list,but he also uses it to share
(13:45):
good quality information withhis audience and then, when he
has an offer guess what?
They are more apt to want tobuy through him or via his link
or his products and servicesthat he offers.
But that has proven to be areally, really high value thing.
That he does each and everyweek.
So engaging your audience is notdifficult.
(14:08):
It's not hard at all.
It's just putting yourself outthere and letting your audience
know hey, come check out.
I'm doing this video right now.
This is a way for me to alsoengage with you.
Creating content not onlygenerates leads, but it also
nurtures leads as well, and I'veheard people say, oh, you don't
(14:29):
need to nurture, you don't needthat.
Okay, you and I can agree todisagree, because I just know
what has helped me and what hashelped me to go on and have the
success I have had in mybusiness, and it's through
constantly building thatrelationship with the people
that give you the permission tocontact them.
(14:51):
So another great way to engageyour audience is through, again,
social media, but commenting.
So when somebody takes the timeto comment on a post, you want
to make sure that you step inthere and comment back at the
bare minimum, like it.
(15:11):
Okay, now I understand, whenyou get to a certain point that
might not always be possible,but the truth is that,
especially in the early part ofyour career, when you're really
trying to engage people, is youreally want to make sure you're
liking and commenting back.
I'm telling you the power of acompliment on a comment is a
(15:34):
massive way to engage youraudience but to also give them a
warm and fuzzy.
Now I'm not suggesting that youdo it in a fake way.
Like I love to complimentpeople.
For me it's just natural.
Like I don't do it in a wayjust to get engagement.
I do it because I genuinely seethe best in people.
(15:55):
I've trained my mind to look atpeople in a way that God sees
them Really.
That's my goal is to look atpeople the way God sees them,
and for me that has workedincredibly well, because I don't
want to see people's flaws.
So when I'm giving, believe me,we all got them.
(16:15):
But the truth is like, when youreally start to focus on those,
that's all you're going to see.
So when I make a comment, it'sgenuine hey, man, I believe in
you.
Hey, you're awesome.
Oh, I love that you have abeautiful family.
Those types of comments.
That is such an incredible wayto connect with people genuinely
(16:36):
, because if you can make peoplefeel an emotion, guess what
happens.
They will remember you.
They almost will never rememberwhat you say, but they'll
remember how you made them feel.
Have you ever noticed, like,when you feel an emotion, what
happens?
Is it kind of sears onto yourbrain?
(16:57):
The emotion is so there's somuch intensity around an emotion
and an emotion is a way tostamp on somebody's brain.
And when you engage people inthat way with genuine, real
comments, you create thatemotional connection between you
and your prospects.
That's an incredible way toreally engage and connect with
(17:20):
more and more people.
So when you want to engage youraudience, that is a great way
to do it Now.
There are a myriad of ways youcan do this as well, doing lives
like this.
There's so many ways that youcan connect through Zooms, where
you do a group Zoom, maybe youdo a group coaching session or
something like that.
There's other ways to do itMessaging back and forth in
(17:43):
Messenger, text messagingconnection.
When you really start to growand your audience gets bigger
and bigger, you start to relymore on technology, like doing a
Zoom or a Facebook live or achallenge of some sort.
This gives you a way to engagewith the audience.
See, you can't just build anaudience and then do nothing
(18:04):
with it.
You can't just build anaudience and then, oh, I got
something to promote.
Now I'm going to promote it.
Why am I not getting any sales?
You left out the one part aboutengaging your audience
consistently, because that'sreally what it comes down to.
A lot of people wonder why dotop earners online?
Why do they seem to get allthese sales when promoting
(18:24):
something?
Man, they just seem to get somany sales all the time, and
here I am over in my corner andI can't get any.
It's because they've investedthe time in the people that have
given them the permission tocontact them.
They've put in the time toengage the audience and that is
where the sales come.
(18:45):
So you can't leave out thispart.
It's crucially important.
So many people wanna go from thebuild stage build the audience
straight to the sale Doesn'twork, not today.
At least you might've been ableto do that 15 years ago, where
you could just build and sell,not anymore.
It's now build, engage and thensell.
(19:06):
So that is the three stepprocess that we're talking about
, the three steps that you wannatake.
So let's move into number three, which is selling.
So, selling to your audience.
We have build your audience.
We have engage your audience.
Now we're going to sell to ouraudience.
So selling is really an art.
(19:27):
It's an art form, and it is anart form that has really morphed
over the years.
Okay, one of the things that Iknow about selling is that
people don't like to be sold,but people do love to buy, and
one of the things that I haveadopted as a philosophy in my
business is that when I do anytype of training that eventually
(19:50):
leads to an offer or a specialoffer that I'm doing, I always
want people to come to thattraining and I want them to get
so much value from it, whetherthey decide to buy or not.
My goal is that they leave thattraining or selling a webinar
or whatever it may be.
(20:11):
I want them to leave feelinggood, because when they leave
feeling good like holy cow, thatwas crazy good value.
Even though I'm not gonnapurchase what he had, I got
value out of it.
Now some people like that.
They say, don't do that.
I don't listen to that becausethat's not the way I'm built.
The way I'm built is I am goingto make sure that you get value.
(20:35):
You know why?
Because you may know somebodythat does need something deeper,
like you may know somebody that, hey, they really want to dive
deeper and they're willing topurchase a program.
And you're gonna say, hey, youknow what you want to learn
about video, go see Mark Harvard.
Like he's the guy.
That's the way I think, becauseone person talks to one, that
person talks to two, and so on.
(20:57):
So for me, it's about makingsure that you get value,
regardless of whether you takeaction and buy or not.
All right.
So that is a huge part ofselling today.
Some people go straight for thehard sale and they twist arms
and they do all kinds of things,which is exactly why they
create a whole bunch of enemies,which is exactly why there are
(21:20):
companies in the past that havebeen shut down because of that.
Strong arming sales, twistingpeople's arm.
Yeah, they made a whole bunchof money, but they also pissed
off a lot of people in theprocess.
So don't be one of those people.
Overwhelm people with value,but also learn to sell in the
process.
I will always credit my goodfriend, ray Higdon, because I
(21:44):
learned how to sell with valuefrom Ray.
Ray is a great teacher on that,and that's one of the skills
that he taught me was how tosell, how to present in a way
that gives people a lot of value, how to put a strong offer
together and how to present it.
That is one skill that if youcan develop, especially today,
(22:08):
when you do it the way I'mtalking to you, when you build
the audience, engage theaudience and sell to the
audience, by the time they getto a point where they're gonna
purchase something, they feellike they've gotten so much
value from you that they're justready to purchase.
It's like the law ofreciprocity.
Now, some people will poo thatyou know and that's cool.
(22:29):
You do it.
You do it your way, I'll do itmine and I'll continue to make
sales.
Okay, because I'm gonna do itin a way that holds me at myself
to the highest level ofintegrity, and I'm gonna hold
myself to that because I wannamake sure that people get value
when they pull out their wallet.
Now I'm gonna share with youright here, right now, one of
(22:49):
the absolute worst examples ofbad advice.
The worst advice you couldfollow when it comes to online
making money online is you'veprobably heard this before and
it's people that say charge whatyou're worth.
I think that is the absoluteworst philosophy in the world
(23:11):
Charge what you're worth.
If I charged you what I'm worth, you couldn't afford me.
See, that is the way I think,because I know that what I have
and what I've learned and theskills that I've learned are way
more valuable than probably youcould afford.
So here's what I do.
My goal is to overwhelm peoplewith value, like, even when they
(23:35):
spend $500, $1,000 from me, Iwant them to go holy cow, I just
got $20, $25,000 worth of value.
The whole goal is creating notjust satisfied customers, but
creating raving fans.
There is a book called RavingFans Very simple book, very easy
(23:57):
to read.
I highly suggest you go buythat book.
It was one of the best books Iever read.
As a matter of fact, I got thatbook when I was still working
in air conditioning in the early2000s, so probably around 2004,
.
I got this book from my bossbecause he had given it to the
(24:17):
entire fleet of techs and hewanted us to read this book.
And I read that book and, man,it just changed my whole
mentality about how I presentand how I work with people.
I don't want satisfiedcustomers, I want raving fans.
I want people to leave feelinglike they ripped me off.
That's really how I want it.
(24:40):
That is how you create a ravingfan base that loves you, that
feels like they get more thanthey pay for.
If you are not doing that, ifyou're just getting people
feeling like, oh, I paid thismuch but I didn't quite get that
value, or I got just about thatvalue, then you know what
that's not really a raving fan.
(25:00):
So when you're selling, youwant to make sure you have that
Now.
It's very important that youunderstand this goes back to the
build stage.
Okay, we're in the sellingphase now, but you got to go
back to the build stage and yougot to make sure that who is
your audience and what are youspeaking to them.
So here's what happens.
All right, you want to makesure that any offer you present
(25:25):
to that audience is in line withthe reason that they're
following you in the first place.
So if I built an audience, allabout this is why I think
traditional advertising doesn'twork very well.
Okay, like radio ads, you mightget some sales.
I'm not saying it doesn't work,I'm just saying I think radio,
(25:46):
tv, things like that, they don'tget as big a response on
advertising as I think theycould.
Because here's the thing.
Let me give you an example.
If I create an audience allabout dogs, dog training I'm all
about training dogs and I'm apet owner, I love pets.
(26:06):
I'm all about helping you raisea happy and healthy dog, and
then you have an offer that'sall about cats.
Guess what happens?
That's out of alignment.
It's out of alignment.
That's not the reason they'refollowing you.
They're a dog lover, they wantto know about dogs, and now
you're talking about cats.
You might get a few people thathave cats, that love what
(26:27):
you're talking about, but theproblem is you're not going to
get the kind of response thatyou would want.
I have people hit me up all thetime because they know I've got
an engaged audience and they'relike, hey, I'd love it if you
maybe consider promoting ourproduct.
And I'm like, what's yourproduct?
And then they tell me I'm likethat has nothing to do with my
(26:47):
audience, has nothing to do withit.
Why would I promote that?
Like my audience would neverbuy what you have because it has
nothing to do with the reasonthat they follow me.
So you have to be that in tunewith your audience to really
understand it.
Now, the longer you serve thataudience, the more honed in
you'll get.
So don't feel like you gottahave it all figured out right at
(27:09):
the beginning.
But that is what also helps youto convert leads into sales.
Being in alignment with whythey're following you in the
first place, all right.
And you have to have the rightoffer at the right time.
Now, not everybody's gonna buyevery time, but I'll tell you
again, there are people thatwill buy when the time is right
(27:32):
and when you make that offer tothem.
If it's the right time and itfits a need that they have, they
will buy it from you.
All right, so I hope you gotvalue from this.
I hope that this helps you andI hope it gives you a little bit
of a framework to function withit.
All right, what is happening, everybody?
Today we are going to talkabout three steps to getting
leads that convert into sales.
Now, this is definitely one ofthose things that a lot of
people wonder about.
They get leads, but they get nosales.
There's a simple three stepformula that I learned several
(00:21):
years ago that has really provento be very simplistic, and it
can really help you when itcomes to getting leads and also
getting sales with those leads.
It's not very hard to generateleads.
Everybody can generate leads.
There's many different ways togo about generating leads, and a
(00:43):
lot of people will ask thatquestion how do I generate leads
?
And it's really the wrongquestion.
The right question is whichmethod should I choose?
And so it's not a matter ofthere's just a gazillion ways to
generate leads.
I mean, I could rattle off 10right now.
You just have to choose whatyou want, what you're looking
(01:06):
for and what's going to work foryou and what plays into your
strengths.
So that is very important aswell.
So I'm going to share with youthis morning these three steps,
or these three, you know, threepart framework, if you want to
call it, that's fine as well,but before we, I tell you that I
(01:26):
want to share with you a littlebit of an example, because I
think that this can reallyprovide a path for you to
understand.
Now, one of the things that Ihave seen in literally training
thousands upon thousands andthousands of students over the
years, and even up untilrecently, that one of the things
(01:47):
that hurts people from actuallymoving forward in their
business is that is thisconfusion haze.
They have this haze wherethey're not real sure where to
start.
They've got all kinds ofinformation and it's just in
their head and they're not surewhere to start.
So I went over to on Sunday afriend of ours.
(02:08):
Their two year old boy washaving his birthday party, just
turned two, and, matter of fact,they just moved into the house
about a month and a half beforethat, so about a month and a
half ago and I get to the houseand my buddy is standing there
in the garage with a coupleother people as we walk up the
driveway and I'm like, hey, man,love, your new house Looks
(02:32):
great.
He's.
Oh man, don't look at thisgarage, it's crazy.
So you look in the garage andthere is there's stuff
everywhere.
There's tools everywhere You'vegot look like lawnmower parts.
There's stuff all over thegarage and it's.
You look at it and you're like,man, this garage really needs
to be cleaned up, but you're notreally sure where to start.
(02:52):
And that's how many people feelwhen it comes to their online
business.
Also, they're thinking tothemselves I've got all these
parts, I've got all this stuff,but I don't know how to put it
together into a cohesive way tomake it work.
And this is why many people getstumped today, because they
don't have a plan of action.
They don't know how to put itall together.
(03:14):
So today, I'm hopeful that Ican give you a little bit of
that to help you put some of ittogether, so to speak, so that
you can go out and make adifference in your business.
So one of the things that I hadlearned a couple of years ago
was this very simple three-partformula framework process, but
(03:36):
it is build, engage, sell.
So build your audience, engageyour audience, sell to your
audience.
All right, and that littlesimple three-step formula or
three-part formula or three-stepprocess has helped me and many
other people really define avery simplistic way of looking
(03:57):
at your business.
So what I'm going to do iswe're going to go in a little
bit of depth about these threethings so that you can
understand them better and putthem into practice in your
business.
All right, so let's dig intothe very first one, which is
building your audience.
This is really step one.
This is tier one.
This is the very first step outof the gate that you need to be
(04:21):
focused on, and the goal hereis to produce leads.
Okay, our goal is to produceleads for our business.
Now, leads are a very importantpart of your business.
Now, it's pretty funny becausejust recently, I had somebody
reach out to me and they said Idon't want leads, I just want
customers.
And I thought you don't get theprocess because in order to get
(04:46):
customers, you've got to haveleads, and leads are essentially
people that raise their hand.
They are people that say, hey,I'm interested in what you have.
I'm giving you permission togive me more information.
Okay, it doesn't mean they'reready to buy yet.
It just means that they'veraised their hand and they're
ready to buy and said I'mwilling to look at more
information and see what you got.
(05:07):
Okay, so that's very importantand a very important distinction
, because without leads, youcan't get sales.
Without leads or people to talkto, you can't get people to
purchase your offers, yourproducts and your services.
So leads are a crucial step inthat process.
So the next step here inbuilding an audience now we're
(05:30):
talking about building theaudience right now.
So, first and foremost, if youwant to build an audience, you
need to know who that audienceis.
So you have to take the time tosit down and create your
customer avatar.
Who is the perfect prospect foryou?
Who do you want to work with?
What do they look like?
(05:50):
Give them a name.
Where do they shop?
Where do they hang out?
Who do they follow?
These are the questions thatyou want to answer.
What problem are you solving?
If you can nail down yourcustomer avatar and really get
clear on who it is that you wantto serve, you can serve at a
much higher level.
So take the time to learn whoyour customer avatar is.
(06:13):
Now.
I recently did a video trainingall about this.
You can check it on my YouTubechannels.
As a matter of fact, you can goto my blog at markharvardcom.
I did a training on how to usechat GPT to create your customer
avatar, so you might want tocheck that out, All right.
So very important to know whoyou're serving, because if you
don't know who you're serving,you can't speak directly to them
(06:36):
.
It's crucially important thatyou understand who it is you're
speaking to.
This is important across anybusiness.
Doesn't matter what nicheyou're in, doesn't matter what
product you're selling.
You have to know who it is thatyou're selling to you.
Every single corporation thatputs out a product has a
demographic in mind.
(06:57):
When they go to sell a product,they have a very clear avatar.
They know who it is, they knowwho they're speaking to and they
know who is predisposed topurchase their product first and
foremost.
All right.
So once you've created thecustomer avatar, the next step
is to choose the platform thatyou're going to market to them
(07:19):
on.
So we have all of theseplatforms.
We have Facebook, instagram,tiktok, twitter, which is now X,
we have Pinterest.
We have all these platforms andonce you start to create
content which is a great way tobuild your audience you
obviously want to get yourcontent out as many of these
platforms as possible, but youultimately want to hone in on
(07:41):
just one and really work thatone.
So once you determine thecustomer avatar, where are they
hanging out?
You have to determine that.
You have to find out where arethe majority of my audience
hanging out, and then I want tomake sure that I go there and
engage with them and we'll talkabout engaging here in just a
moment.
That's very important is tochoose a platform and master it.
(08:05):
Now, the thing is, withchoosing a platform, there's
many things within that, too.
I'm a big fan of when you'rechoosing a strategy.
Have a paid strategy, have afree strategy, have a paid and a
free and ultimately, if you cando them both on the same
platform, that's really what youwant to accomplish, because
(08:27):
you're getting the best of bothworlds on one platform, all
right.
So make sure you think aboutwhere your audience is, where
they're hanging out, and thenmake that your go-to platform in
order to build that audience.
Okay, the next part of buildingthe audience is content creation
.
If you want to attract anaudience that loves what you do,
(08:52):
they love what you share, theylove the products and services
that you want to offer, then youhave to create content and
content.
Number one, the number one typeof content you need to create
is video.
Whether it's live video,whether it's TikTok videos or
short form videos.
Really, you need to choose acontent.
(09:14):
Creating content and video isgoing to be the number one way
that you do that.
People do business with thosethey know and trust, and video
is the best way to accomplishthat in the online digital world
.
So make sure that you'recreating content on a regular
basis.
Now content video content servestwo purposes.
(09:35):
It can serve a purpose ofgenerating leads, and it can
also serve as a way to nurtureleads.
Nurture leads, in other words,there will be people that are
not inclined to buy from youright now, but I know I've
literally sold millions ofdollars of products online over
(09:57):
the last several years and Iwill tell you, I've had people
on my email list who purchasedsomething, that joined my email
list two years prior and thensent me a message and said I've
been following you for two years.
I've never bought anything fromyou until now, and I've
literally had people tell methat.
So nurturing people and helpingthem get to know who you are is
(10:22):
a very important thing, andcontent creates that mainly
video content.
So make sure you keep that inmind and that's very important.
So how else do you build theaudience?
It's all about engagement aswell, so you need to engage with
people in the comments of yourvideos.
This is another way that youbuild an audience.
(10:44):
This is another way you get anaudience to start trusting you.
You get your audience to lookat you as an authority on a
subject.
Your audience starts to look atyou like, hey, this person is
not out of reach Some of eventhe biggest marketers out there.
One of the people that reallystand out in my mind is Gary
(11:05):
Vaynerchuk Gary Vee.
Now, if Gary Vee, he's actuallyvery responsive to his audience
and he has a massive audience.
I'm not saying you want toexpect to get a reply back every
single time, but I'll tell youI've never seen anybody like
really connect with an audiencelike Gary Vee.
Now, I love Gary Vee If you canget past all the F-bombs, which
(11:28):
don't bother me I was in theNavy, but the truth is that a
lot of people can't get beyondthat, but they're missing out on
so many great lessons that heteaches when it comes to social
media marketing.
But he has a very rabidaudience that love him and
follow everything that he does.
So doing that is a great way.
Now, the other way that youbuild an audience is to build an
(11:52):
email list.
Now, an email list is thenumber one business asset that
you need to be building.
I'm telling you, I have watchedhuge influencers build huge
email lists and then never emailtheir list.
I know because I've joined someof them.
I followed some of these topinfluencer who have massive
(12:15):
social media influence, hugeamounts of followers.
I've literally joined theiremail list and yet I never get
emails from them, and that's aproblem.
And the thing is, while thesepeople might be making money,
they could be making a whole lotmore money if they were
creating an email list andactually using that email list.
So very important that when youbuild a list, you have to email
(12:39):
them.
Okay, very important, all right.
So these are the things youwant to focus on building the
audience, because all of thesemethods, all of these ways, the
things that I've mentioned,what's going to happen is you
now have permission to shareinformation with these people.
This is where it's vital tobuild the audience.
So you do that through what wetalked about and you do it
(13:02):
consistently over time.
So let's move on to the secondpart, which is engaging with
your audience.
So there are a myriad of waysthat you can engage with your
audience.
So I'm going to give you anexample of a client of mine,
somebody that I work with, beenworking with for the last couple
of years really, and Iabsolutely love my client, bob
(13:24):
Clark.
Some of you guys might know Bob, but Bob, one of the things we
talked about with him wasstarting to engage the audience.
So Bob started doing a weeklytraining that he does.
It's a 30 minute training thathe does every single week.
He uses it to build his list,but he also uses it to share
(13:45):
good quality information withhis audience and then, when he
has an offer guess what?
They are more apt to want tobuy through him or via his link
or his products and servicesthat he offers.
But that has proven to be areally, really high value thing.
That he does each and everyweek.
So engaging your audience is notdifficult.
(14:08):
It's not hard at all.
It's just putting yourself outthere and letting your audience
know hey, come check out.
I'm doing this video right now.
This is a way for me to alsoengage with you.
Creating content not onlygenerates leads, but it also
nurtures leads as well, and I'veheard people say, oh, you don't
(14:29):
need to nurture, you don't needthat.
Okay, you and I can agree todisagree, because I just know
what has helped me and what hashelped me to go on and have the
success I have had in mybusiness, and it's through
constantly building thatrelationship with the people
that give you the permission tocontact them.
(14:51):
So another great way to engageyour audience is through, again,
social media, but commenting.
So when somebody takes the timeto comment on a post, you want
to make sure that you step inthere and comment back at the
bare minimum, like it.
(15:11):
Okay, now I understand, whenyou get to a certain point that
might not always be possible,but the truth is that,
especially in the early part ofyour career, when you're really
trying to engage people, is youreally want to make sure you're
liking and commenting back.
I'm telling you the power of acompliment on a comment is a
(15:34):
massive way to engage youraudience but to also give them a
warm and fuzzy.
Now I'm not suggesting that youdo it in a fake way.
Like I love to complimentpeople.
For me it's just natural.
Like I don't do it in a wayjust to get engagement.
I do it because I genuinely seethe best in people.
(15:55):
I've trained my mind to look atpeople in a way that God sees
them Really.
That's my goal is to look atpeople the way God sees them,
and for me that has workedincredibly well, because I don't
want to see people's flaws.
So when I'm giving, believe me,we all got them.
(16:15):
But the truth is like, when youreally start to focus on those,
that's all you're going to see.
So when I make a comment, it'sgenuine hey, man, I believe in
you.
Hey, you're awesome.
Oh, I love that you have abeautiful family.
Those types of comments.
That is such an incredible wayto connect with people genuinely
(16:36):
, because if you can make peoplefeel an emotion, guess what
happens.
They will remember you.
They almost will never rememberwhat you say, but they'll
remember how you made them feel.
Have you ever noticed, like,when you feel an emotion, what
happens?
Is it kind of sears onto yourbrain?
(16:57):
The emotion is so there's somuch intensity around an emotion
and an emotion is a way tostamp on somebody's brain.
And when you engage people inthat way with genuine, real
comments, you create thatemotional connection between you
and your prospects.
That's an incredible way toreally engage and connect with
(17:20):
more and more people.
So when you want to engage youraudience, that is a great way
to do it Now.
There are a myriad of ways youcan do this as well, doing lives
like this.
There's so many ways that youcan connect through Zooms, where
you do a group Zoom, maybe youdo a group coaching session or
something like that.
There's other ways to do itMessaging back and forth in
(17:43):
Messenger, text messagingconnection.
When you really start to growand your audience gets bigger
and bigger, you start to relymore on technology, like doing a
Zoom or a Facebook live or achallenge of some sort.
This gives you a way to engagewith the audience.
See, you can't just build anaudience and then do nothing
(18:04):
with it.
You can't just build anaudience and then, oh, I got
something to promote.
Now I'm going to promote it.
Why am I not getting any sales?
You left out the one part aboutengaging your audience
consistently, because that'sreally what it comes down to.
A lot of people wonder why dotop earners online?
Why do they seem to get allthese sales when promoting
(18:24):
something?
Man, they just seem to get somany sales all the time, and
here I am over in my corner andI can't get any.
It's because they've investedthe time in the people that have
given them the permission tocontact them.
They've put in the time toengage the audience and that is
where the sales come.
(18:45):
So you can't leave out thispart.
It's crucially important.
So many people wanna go from thebuild stage build the audience
straight to the sale Doesn'twork, not today.
At least you might've been ableto do that 15 years ago, where
you could just build and sell,not anymore.
It's now build, engage and thensell.
(19:06):
So that is the three stepprocess that we're talking about
, the three steps that you wannatake.
So let's move into number three, which is selling.
So, selling to your audience.
We have build your audience.
We have engage your audience.
Now we're going to sell to ouraudience.
So selling is really an art.
(19:27):
It's an art form, and it is anart form that has really morphed
over the years.
Okay, one of the things that Iknow about selling is that
people don't like to be sold,but people do love to buy, and
one of the things that I haveadopted as a philosophy in my
business is that when I do anytype of training that eventually
(19:50):
leads to an offer or a specialoffer that I'm doing, I always
want people to come to thattraining and I want them to get
so much value from it, whetherthey decide to buy or not.
My goal is that they leave thattraining or selling a webinar
or whatever it may be.
(20:11):
I want them to leave feelinggood, because when they leave
feeling good like holy cow, thatwas crazy good value.
Even though I'm not gonnapurchase what he had, I got
value out of it.
Now some people like that.
They say, don't do that.
I don't listen to that becausethat's not the way I'm built.
The way I'm built is I am goingto make sure that you get value.
(20:35):
You know why?
Because you may know somebodythat does need something deeper,
like you may know somebody that, hey, they really want to dive
deeper and they're willing topurchase a program.
And you're gonna say, hey, youknow what you want to learn
about video, go see Mark Harvard.
Like he's the guy.
That's the way I think, becauseone person talks to one, that
person talks to two, and so on.
(20:57):
So for me, it's about makingsure that you get value,
regardless of whether you takeaction and buy or not.
All right.
So that is a huge part ofselling today.
Some people go straight for thehard sale and they twist arms
and they do all kinds of things,which is exactly why they
create a whole bunch of enemies,which is exactly why there are
(21:20):
companies in the past that havebeen shut down because of that.
Strong arming sales, twistingpeople's arm.
Yeah, they made a whole bunchof money, but they also pissed
off a lot of people in theprocess.
So don't be one of those people.
Overwhelm people with value,but also learn to sell in the
process.
I will always credit my goodfriend, ray Higdon, because I
(21:44):
learned how to sell with valuefrom Ray.
Ray is a great teacher on that,and that's one of the skills
that he taught me was how tosell, how to present in a way
that gives people a lot of value, how to put a strong offer
together and how to present it.
That is one skill that if youcan develop, especially today,
(22:08):
when you do it the way I'mtalking to you, when you build
the audience, engage theaudience and sell to the
audience, by the time they getto a point where they're gonna
purchase something, they feellike they've gotten so much
value from you that they're justready to purchase.
It's like the law ofreciprocity.
Now, some people will poo thatyou know and that's cool.
(22:29):
You do it.
You do it your way, I'll do itmine and I'll continue to make
sales.
Okay, because I'm gonna do itin a way that holds me at myself
to the highest level ofintegrity, and I'm gonna hold
myself to that because I wannamake sure that people get value
when they pull out their wallet.
Now I'm gonna share with youright here, right now, one of
(22:49):
the absolute worst examples ofbad advice.
The worst advice you couldfollow when it comes to online
making money online is you'veprobably heard this before and
it's people that say charge whatyou're worth.
I think that is the absoluteworst philosophy in the world
(23:11):
Charge what you're worth.
If I charged you what I'm worth, you couldn't afford me.
See, that is the way I think,because I know that what I have
and what I've learned and theskills that I've learned are way
more valuable than probably youcould afford.
So here's what I do.
My goal is to overwhelm peoplewith value, like, even when they
(23:35):
spend $500, $1,000 from me, Iwant them to go holy cow, I just
got $20, $25,000 worth of value.
The whole goal is creating notjust satisfied customers, but
creating raving fans.
There is a book called RavingFans Very simple book, very easy
(23:57):
to read.
I highly suggest you go buythat book.
It was one of the best books Iever read.
As a matter of fact, I got thatbook when I was still working
in air conditioning in the early2000s, so probably around 2004,
.
I got this book from my bossbecause he had given it to the
(24:17):
entire fleet of techs and hewanted us to read this book.
And I read that book and, man,it just changed my whole
mentality about how I presentand how I work with people.
I don't want satisfiedcustomers, I want raving fans.
I want people to leave feelinglike they ripped me off.
That's really how I want it.
(24:40):
That is how you create a ravingfan base that loves you, that
feels like they get more thanthey pay for.
If you are not doing that, ifyou're just getting people
feeling like, oh, I paid thismuch but I didn't quite get that
value, or I got just about thatvalue, then you know what
that's not really a raving fan.
(25:00):
So when you're selling, youwant to make sure you have that
Now.
It's very important that youunderstand this goes back to the
build stage.
Okay, we're in the sellingphase now, but you got to go
back to the build stage and yougot to make sure that who is
your audience and what are youspeaking to them.
So here's what happens.
All right, you want to makesure that any offer you present
(25:25):
to that audience is in line withthe reason that they're
following you in the first place.
So if I built an audience, allabout this is why I think
traditional advertising doesn'twork very well.
Okay, like radio ads, you mightget some sales.
I'm not saying it doesn't work,I'm just saying I think radio,
(25:46):
tv, things like that, they don'tget as big a response on
advertising as I think theycould.
Because here's the thing.
Let me give you an example.
If I create an audience allabout dogs, dog training I'm all
about training dogs and I'm apet owner, I love pets.
(26:06):
I'm all about helping you raisea happy and healthy dog, and
then you have an offer that'sall about cats.
Guess what happens?
That's out of alignment.
It's out of alignment.
That's not the reason they'refollowing you.
They're a dog lover, they wantto know about dogs, and now
you're talking about cats.
You might get a few people thathave cats, that love what
(26:27):
you're talking about, but theproblem is you're not going to
get the kind of response thatyou would want.
I have people hit me up all thetime because they know I've got
an engaged audience and they'relike, hey, I'd love it if you
maybe consider promoting ourproduct.
And I'm like, what's yourproduct?
And then they tell me I'm likethat has nothing to do with my
(26:47):
audience, has nothing to do withit.
Why would I promote that?
Like my audience would neverbuy what you have because it has
nothing to do with the reasonthat they follow me.
So you have to be that in tunewith your audience to really
understand it.
Now, the longer you serve thataudience, the more honed in
you'll get.
So don't feel like you gottahave it all figured out right at
(27:09):
the beginning.
But that is what also helps youto convert leads into sales.
Being in alignment with whythey're following you in the
first place, all right.
And you have to have the rightoffer at the right time.
Now, not everybody's gonna buyevery time, but I'll tell you
again, there are people thatwill buy when the time is right
(27:32):
and when you make that offer tothem.
If it's the right time and itfits a need that they have, they
will buy it from you.
All right, so I hope you gotvalue from this.
I hope that this helps you andI hope it gives you a little bit
of a framework to function withit.
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