How to Build a Meaningful Audience With John Lee Dumas

We're going to deliver, today, how you can build a meaningful
audience for yourself. If you're looking to become a
self-sustaining entrepreneur, who has a viable business and
multiple streams of revenue, you need that. Building the Right
Audience for You We, in this day and age, have a great
opportunity.  We can produce content, and we can
produce content in many forms.  Of course, we have
video, audio, written content, and great social media channels,
like SnapChat, Instagram, Facebook, you name it...Fill in the
blanks.  There are all these different content-producing
platforms. So, if you want to build, not just any
audience but the right audience for you, you've got to come up with
a content marketing plan.  Like, how are you going to
deliver free, valuable, and consistent content to an audience?
That's then going to become your audience because they are going to
know and trust you for providing that free, valuable, and
consistent content. Once you have started to build that audience,
and have gotten that consistent momentum, it's all about, "Hey, how
can I communicate with this audience?  How can I actually
reach out and say, 'Daniel, can you jump on a quick Skype call, or
a quick 10-minute Google Hangout, so that I can just ask you 
little more about yourself?'"  Where are you coming from, why
are listening to my content, why are you reading my content, what
are you struggling with right now?  That way, Daniel can tell
you all of their pain points, his challenges, and his struggles.
Then I, the person Daniel likes and trusts, because of that content
I've been producing and they have been consuming, can create a
solution for them in the form of a product, a service, a community,
and/or all three.  That's the beauty of creating that
marketing content and that, again, free, valuable, and consistent
manner.  And, if you build that audience, that
audience will sustain you for years to come. Coming Up
with a Content Marketing Plan If you want to come up with a content
marketing plan, you're going to say, "What's the medium that I
resonate with?"  Back in 2012, I was like, "I don't like to
write.  I'm not a good writer."  I personally don't think
talking head video is very valuable for anybody because, why am I
going to stare at a screen where there's just two faces
talking?  That was my mentality, so I said, "Why not just go
for the audio content?  That resonates with me; I get
it."  I like to consume content that makes sense for
me, when I'm going on runs, when I'm driving my car, I can consume
that type of content, and then I can build an audience around that
as well.  So, I decided to go forward with the
audio-only podcasting content. Frankly, it was a rough
start because I wasn't good.  I didn't know what I
was doing.  I had no interview skills.  I had no
podcasting, broadcasting, entrepreneurial skills, whatsoever. 
But, I was putting myself in the right position every single day,
to do that thing, to get a little bit better. I can even say a
couple of years ago I made that same commitment to writing. 
I was never a good writer.  That's why back
four years ago I didn't start with a blog.  I started with a
podcast.  But, once I nailed the systems down for that medium
of podcasting, I started moving to writing next. Now I
write an email every single day.  Some of the emails
are long, and some of them are short, but a lot of people come back
and say, "Wow John!  Who is your content guy?  Who writes
these emails?"  And, I'm just like, "Wow!  Nobody has
ever thought that I was a good writer before, and now a lot of
people do, but it's only after writing 1,000 emails that I've
gotten to this point." I wrote a lot of crappy ones and a lot of
"okay" ones.  Then I wrote a lot of pretty good ones, until
every now and then, I do come across an idea where I am able to
write a great email.  But, it always comes down to doing that
thing, and that's been really important. Once you've found
the content your resonate with, start working on the other area
you're not as good at.  If that's what it takes to
build the business you want.  I mean, maybe you get to that
point where you've mastered that one medium, and then you look
around and you say, "Wow, I have a great business!  I get
great revenue.  I want to continue to focus, and double-down,
and dominate this medium in my industry, in my niche." Then you can
just stay there.  You just stay in that zone with what you're
in right there.  You don't have to bolt on this or that
because a lot of times people do, and then they look back a year or
two years later and say, "I just created exactly what I did not
want.  This business that now consumes me, instead of me
controlling the business." You know, I would be very
intentional about bolting different things on.  For
me, I made a very intentional decision, two years ago, to add
writing as something that I wanted to improve upon.  I wanted
to make that part of my business.  But, that was after a lot
of thought, and we were already growing  a large audience in
the podcasting area. Tips on Choosing the Right Content Platform
You have to know who you are.  Again, I knew
I wasn't a good writer.  So I said, "I'm not a good
writer.  I don't like to write."  I'm not necessarily a
good interviewer, but I do have a much easier time talking, and
having conversations, and asking questions in a conversation-type
format...in an audible type of format."  So I said, "Let's try
podcasting." The funny thing is that if podcasting hadn't
worked after a couple of months, I might have shifted and tried
something different.  But, that was just the initial
knowledge of the strengths that I had, even though, again, I wasn't
strong as an interviewer or as a podcaster at the beginning, but I
was stronger than as a writer, or a social media guru, or whatever
else there might have been.  I just looked at something that I
enjoyed and was stronger at than other areas, and I went forward
with that.  I think that's a good place for people to start.
Some people may ask, "Does it come down to persistence?"
Persistence, actually, is a word that I would use with
caution.  You can get into a position where you are digging in
a whole.  Yeah, if you're persistently digging in that whole,
you might strike gold in the end.  But, at the same time, you
might just be digging a deeper hole, and there might be no gold
underneath that.  So, you should be persistent to a
level, to a degree, but you should always be evaluating every
shovel of dirt that you are taking and asking, "Is this still the
direction that I want to be digging?  Is this still the area
that I want to be living in?"  If it's not, then step
out of that whole, and shift, and go another direction.
It's consistency that's key.  What are you
consistently doing to produce content, to produce free, valuable
and consistent content to an audience that you're growing? 
And, that's in any form, in any medium.  Again, for a long
time, I was being very consistent with Instagram and with Facebook,
but I didn't get any of the traction that I got in those that I got
immediately when Snapchat came to light, with their stories. 
I immediately shifted from Facebook and Instagram, which was my
main focus, to Snapchat.  And, that's where I've grown a
really cool, awesome, large audience that watches my stories, and
my rants, and my quotes on a day-to-day basis. Then, a couple of
weeks ago, Instagram launched Instagram Story.  So,
now I'm leveraging my knowledge of how to tell stories on Snapchat
back into Instagram. Which before, to me, was not
really a great platform because it just didn't allow me to
communicate the way that I wanted to, which are in short 10-second
bursts of content, ranting, and stuff like that.  To me,
anybody can post a photo of a quote and get a bunch of likes, but
that doesn't distinguish.  My distinguishing factor is
my personality, my take, my thoughts, my rants, which  a lot
of people love and agree with, and a lot of people hate and
disagree with.  But, you know, it's that
differentiator, and I'm able to be consistent with the producing of
that content. Evaluate as You Go You always want to keep your
finger on the pulse. And, "the finger on the pulse" in
these scenarios that we're talking about is your
audience.  It's the people that are consuming your
content.  So, you need to be looking and interacting with the
comments you're getting on Snapchat, with the social media mentions
you're getting on your podcast, with the emails that you're
receiving. You have to really have your finger on that pulse. A lot
of people are scared to because, "I don't want to set the
precedence that I'm going to be responding to individual comments,
or emails, or this, or that, because that's not scalable, that's
not leverage-able."  Well, that's not, but the information,
and the knowledge, and the value that you get from those
interactions is scalable.  It's what is going to allow
you to create a product, a service, a community, that you can then
do 5, 6, 7-figure launches with, like Podcasters' Paradise came to
be.  It was because people were asking me so
consistently about how they could create and monetize their own
podcasts. I never would have thought to launch a podcast and
community if I hadn't had my finger on that pulse, but I did, and
that was 3 years ago.  Now we have over 3,000 members and over
$4 million in revenue, and that was because I did the un-scalable,
unleverage-able thing about having those conversations, about
listening, about really caring about what my audience was
saying.  So, that is always going to have to be part of the
equation if you are looking to build a business in this content
marketing arena. Next Step in Audience Building Now that you've
created free, valuable, and consistent content, now that you've
kept your finger on the pulse and heard what your audience is
actually saying, you'll want to go ahead and say, "I've had the
content produced for you.  You've listened to the content,
you've engaged with the content, you've given me your pain points,
your obstacles, your challenges, your struggles, and now it's me,
as the person you know, like, and trust, to create the solution, to
create the products, the services, or the communities that are
going to solve these issues that you're telling me that you're
having." Then you actually go ahead, and hopefully with the
help of your audience, build out a product, a service, a community
that's going to be of value to them.  That's how
Podcasters' Paradise came to be, Webinar on Fire, The Freedom
Journal.  That's how all of these products and services came
to be.  It's because I listened to that audience who was
telling me their pain points, their challenges, and their
obstacles, and I just handed them the solution in the form of
whatever I thought would be the best form to provide that
solution.  And if it wasn't right for them at first
iteration, I'd just pivot, adjust, and make that move until it
was. Let's say you already have a platform built
up, but you really want a massive audience. The step
is...You already have that current audience, so you're not talking
to them enough, because if you were talking to them enough, if you
were doing things that didn't scale and didn't leverage, like
scheduling 10 back-to-back 10-minute Skype calls with your audience
on Skype, and asking them the real questions, then you would know
how to build your audience more. You would know about where
that audience heard about you, so you could amplify those areas to
make sure they're working.  You would hear what they
don't like about your show on a consistent basis, or you could,
maybe, pivot or adjust that.  Then, you would have that idea
of what you could create for them that could grow your product
suite in the right direction. Then you produce the product,
service, or the community, and you offer it to them for monetary
retribution.  You say, "Hey guys, I created content
for you.  You loved it, and you listened to it.  I asked
you what you were struggling with, and you told me.  I came up
with a solution for you, and now, here it is on a silver platter."
 "You said you wanted it, and now here it is." Have
them start engaging with that paid product, which is something that
they have now actually financially invested in.  Now
you're really going to be just working with the cream of the
crop.  That real audience.  That 5 percentile of people
who are your core audience, and that really do want to take things
to the next level and get more access to you, or to your ideas, or
to your courses, or to the communities that you're creating. 
Then, you're going to be looking at them and saying, "Okay, how can
I add to this?  How can I find more of these 5-percenters?
People that actually bought?  How can I add more people to
this buyer's pool while not focusing on the 95% of people that are
just consuming the free stuff, but never upping into that next
level?" Connecting with the 5% All we have is time as
entrepreneurs.  So, we need to get to the
point.  When we've done all of the steps that we've
talked about thus far, then we're now identifying where our time is
best spent.  Then, we allocate the vast majority of
our time in those directions and taking that time, that we used to
spend in other areas, that aren't the best use of it.  So, it
comes down to an evaluating principle, and it's always tweaking,
and adjusting, and pivoting, and trying new things, but learning
every step of the way in order to get more efficient, more
productive, and more focused on what works for you in your
business. Connecting with John All the magic for us happens at
EOFire.com.  We have great free podcasting courses at
FreePodcastCourse.com.  We have free webinar courses.  We
just have a lot of great free resources for entrepreneurs at
EOFire.com, and the biggest success that I've seen entrepreneurs
have are when they know how to set and accomplish goals.  So,
my passion project, that's now live and available, is a physical,
stunning, hardcover journal called The Freedom Journal: 
Accomplish Your #1 Goal in 100 Days.  It became the 6th
most-funded publishing campaign of all time at Kickstarter
(Kickstarter.com) at $453K in just 33 days, and it continues to
sell in massive amounts every single month.  You can check out
more about how you can accomplish your #1 goal in 100 days at
TheFreedomJournal.com. Resources John Lee Dumas - The
Freedom Journal:  Accomplish Your #1 Goal in 100 Days
John's Podcasting Community - Podcasters'
Paradise Snapchat Instagram
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