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Audience Growth Mistakes and How to Overcome Them · The Expert's Journey: Helping Speakers & Authors Succeed!

• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the experts journey.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Growing an audience takes more than just showing up on stage or posting once in a while.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: Many experts fall into the same traps and it slows them down.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: In today's episode, we'll share the biggest mistakes speakers and authors make when trying to grow and what to do instead so you can build momentum and keep it.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: Good morning, Dixie.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning, Brad.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: How are you doing today?
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: I am good, thanks.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: And enjoying the nice fine weather here.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: We have got quite a topic today.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a good topic, actually.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: I like this one.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: So the biggest mistake, and look, growing an audience obviously is the key to monetization of your business.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it makes a big difference to your lifestyle when you monetize things.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: We all like to eat occasionally.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: So there's obviously quite a few things that, you know, are issues when it comes to growing an audience.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: But the first one I thought would bring up is talking about too many topics instead of sticking to one clear overriding message.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: You're so right.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: There's a saying in the industry, niches or niches, depending on which part of the world you come from.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that there's a lot to be said for sticking to the lane or the lanes that you are well known for and making sure they're narrow lanes.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: If you go too wide, like leadership is a great example where someone will say, Oh, I speak and write on leadership.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: There's a huge number of subtopics within leadership.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: You don't want to end up being someone who is a master of all topics under leadership.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: You want to be leadership for children or leadership for CEOs, leadership for people in sporting events, leadership as it relates to developing younger people or older people or academic people.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: So you want to know exactly who it is that you are a specialist of leadership for.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Stick to your lanes and don't go too far out of them.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you're driving along the motorway and you're on the inside lane and someone crosses three lanes to get to another lane, you notice them, but you also think that they're an idiot for driving like that.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Same with this.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: You don't want to go outside of more than one or two tight topics that are close to what you are already well known for, rather than suddenly meandering completely off into a new direction.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: And it's really key to think about how you're going to put that.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: So sometimes you can define yourself by your audience.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: So you can talk about leadership to accountants or something like that.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: And accountants becomes your lane, and leadership is what you talk to them about.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: And that gives you a wide range of content if you want to go that way, but a narrow audience.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: So you focus in on your audience.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: The other way is to go super niche, how to grow a TikTok channel, for example, niching right down into say TikTok as you're going into a content topic rather than an audience, because you don't care who you're helping, you're just helping them grow their TikTok channel.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: So go both ways.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: A combination, yes, you can drill down even further and actually take a topic for a specific audience, of course.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I see those three things, three circles on a triangle as my way of doing that.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: So for example, in my case, it's helping people take their knowledge and turn it into income.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I work with speakers, authors, experts like yourself.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I also work with other people who are, you know, just people who are looking to get out of their industry who know a lot but want to start a side hustle.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: But I've got that nice defined lane that I want to stay in.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: But it does give me a lot of scope in a lot of ways about what I want to talk about.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: So you don't have to be so niche that you feel like you can't say anything except about this all the time because that can be really boring.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: But you also want the ability to be able to, you know, bring other content in, I suppose, that it will appeal to your audience.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, social media is a great example of this.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of social media experts out there, like leadership.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's some very heavily populated topic or area of expertise.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: So you can either be a real specialist like Adam Hulhan on LinkedIn, or you can be someone who specializes in how do you integrate all of the different platforms together.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, though, you don't want to turn around and suddenly start talking about color therapy.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's the difference.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: If you're going to be an expert, make sure your arrow is straight.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: And yes.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, if you're going to bring in something like colour therapy, for example, or color, even put it into the basket of stylizing your brand rather than making you feel good.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: So, yes, that's the most critical mistake I think a lot of people make.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: The other one that I come up against a lot is consistency.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: When you're trying to grow your business, and this is the same with so many things, and I feel like I use the word consistency a lot for a lot of the conversations that we have.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: But consistency and maintaining contact is the critical point.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: You may get people who are engaging with you, they've either read your book, they've seen you speak, and they want to go to your landing page and download whatever it is that you're offering them, guide them into how to engage with you further.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: But if you don't consistently keep in touch, there's really not much point in having gone to all that work in the first place.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, consistency is a big one and it's really hard.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: I work with a lot of ADHD people.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: Consistency is the worst thing in the world for people like us.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's really difficult, but it comes down to I suppose working to a calendar can help with that a bit.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: And even if you do stray, if you can kind of set it up a bit like you prepare your podcast on Tuesday and you shoot it on the Thursday, at least every Tuesday you go, Oh, I've got to prepare my podcast.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: But it's not like you've suddenly got to come up with a topic to talk about.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: You're already preparing and then you're delivering.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: So it makes it a little bit easier to balance it.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, consistency is definitely a one.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: So second one I've got on my list here is not building an email list from day one.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: And this is a killer because as you've been in this industry since 1996, and way back when there was the internet invented, the only way to communicate with people was bulletin boards or email.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: That was really all there was.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I started building my business on bulletin boards and go and answer questions, and people would go back and look at my webpage and buy my books and my teaching books.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I built a very large email list over that time.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: But a lot of people just don't realize that, say, compared to social media where your reach is controlled by an algorithm, email isn't.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: If you send out 10,000 emails and those 10,000 email boxes are not full, then chances are 10,000 people could see it.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas if you put a social media post, they're going to show it to 10 people, then 50, then 100.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: So your algorithm comes into play.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: So the power of an email list is often overlooked from a business perspective.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: And yet, because I suppose social media came along and replaced it in a lot of ways in people's eyes, but it really doesn't replace it in terms of the facts of how they actually work.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's true.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: And the other thing too is that you own your own email list, whereas you don't own the social media platforms that you're trying to engage people on.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: So social media is a means of alerting people that you don't already know to the fact that you exist.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: But emailing and building that list and getting that stronger connection is where you then have the ability to re-market or to reconnect with people on a level that is specific to you, not crowded with all of the other Facebook ads and Facebook junk and all that sort of thing.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: So, yes, having your own strong list is really important.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And building that list and continually engaging with that list is why you have that in the first place.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's marketing 101, right?
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: Even if you're only sending out a short newsletter once a month, that regular branding appearing in someone's mailbox, even if they don't even read it, they actually see the title and they see it's from you and it keeps you at the front of mind.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: And that's one thing I often work with my normal business clients, and they're people like mechanics and people like that.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I say to them, but yes, okay, they might not read it, but they're going to see your name.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then each month they see your name, they see your name.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then when they want to do something, they remember you.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: They don't go to Google to find someone else because you're at front of mind.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I think a lot of people forget that.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: They think because no one's reading it, it's not important.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's actually not as important as sending it.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: And this brings me to my next one on my list, and that is not having your email list sectioned into tags or specific columns of, you know, who you're contacting and for what purpose.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: So although we talked a little bit before about niching, I, for example, write fiction and nonfiction, and I also have my business contacts.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I have a completely separate list of people that I connect with who I engage with for my fiction stories when I'm marketing to them.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: I have another list that is specifically for my VIP author clients, the ones that I'm already working with.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then another subsection of people that in general have signed up or just have engaged with me and follow a part of my database who I'm not necessarily working closely with.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: So having that means of saying you are important to me in this space, I think is important.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because if someone, for example, got one of my fiction emails talking about my latest romance or historical fiction works, they'd be very confused if they were actually one of my VIP clients working with me on how to write their own book.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't fit.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: The ability to tag people, something that we didn't used to have.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: You made an email list and then you had to make another one and you had to make another one, this sort of thing.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas now, when you create an email list, you just add an automation to tag those people.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: But what it would say is to don't just use one tag, tag people with, say, a specific list name.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: For example, these people came from a speaker thing, so they're speakers, but also tag them with something else, which is say interested in courses.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: So now they fall into two lists.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: If you choose to send to your courses people, you'll get them as well.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: If you choose to send to speakers only and you're writing speakers only, you can hit them with that tag.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: So it does give you options to actually keep people in multiple lists, but be able to talk to them about specific topics, delineate them a bit.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: And this brings me to my next one on my list again, and that is people who buy lists and think that's the answer if they don't have a list themselves.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: So they'll spend all of this money and they'll buy a list of names, and there's no way to validate that those people are current, that they're interested, that they're engaged, that they already know who you are.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: And for example, just this morning I found that someone has signed me up to regularly attend one of their webinars.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm pretty sure they got my name from LinkedIn or from a list, and they've generated this list.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: They've got no connection with me whatsoever.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not interested in what they're selling me.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Same with real estate agents who do this from very old lists or other people's lists.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: They don't check to see if that's actually real, if the interest is there.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: And all they do is just annoy people like me.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so I have a new rule.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you try and put me onto a list, I just delete you.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even delete you, I just block you.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'll report you if you continue to put me back onto a list of unsubscribe from or blocked from.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: And this is happening more and more.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, look, it's really interesting, actually.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: And there's multiple ways of thinking about this from the internet marketing perspective.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's been proven that large lists have results.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so, for example, I have a friend who's a professional list broker.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: He supplies lists of businesses to other businesses and they're all vetted and all those sorts of things.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: And you pay to have, you know, originally a fax sent to those businesses or an email sent to those businesses, but they're on proper lists.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: But on the other hand, many businesses these days know that it's a numbers game online, and we know that spam works.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: Even though we don't like it, we know it works.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: So what they will do is they will set up email accounts by domains, they'll set up email accounts under those domains on the understanding that domain's going to die because it's going to get, you know, spammed, basically.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: They're going to send out a lot of spam email, it'll get reported and it'll get killed.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so they'll do that, but they know that if they send out to 100,000 people, they are going to get a certain amount of response.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: And the numbers say that it does work.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: But as you pointed out, it can destroy your brand.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: So, as a knowledge expert, that is not what you want to be doing.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: So, just because you hear people saying that it works and it does work, which it does, it's not necessarily the smart thing to do when your face, your business, is your brand, because you can do irreparable damage.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I can tell you, I've had domains drop from Google, not through any fault of my own, and it is permanent when they drop you.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: And if you've got a really good site and it's making you$10,000 a month and you get dropped from Google, it's 15 years since that happened.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's a lot of money.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I did nothing wrong.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I think one of my competitors deliberately did it to take me out.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that can happen.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: But beware when you're using email lists, remember it's your name, remember it's your brand, remember the people you're working with.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: It is better to have a hundred really interested people on your list than it is to have a thousand or ten thousand people who don't really care.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's something that's been proven time and time again.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good one.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so ignoring social proof like testimonials and review.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, not collecting them, not using them, and not understanding the power of them.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is an area that I work in a lot, is because, you know, in every book that comes out, you need to have reviews and testimonials and endorsements and not understanding the power of those or not having them updated regularly.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: So for example, I see a lot of people on LinkedIn who have got maybe two or three endorsements and they might be several years old.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: And there's not a consistent updating of those.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: I've got ones on mine that go back to 10 years or more, but I have a lot of them and I've got consistency with those throughout, there's that word again, consistency.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: I've got consistency of those throughout the years, right up until very recently.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I think when you're looking at people's reviews or you're looking at what other people say about you, you have to understand that they are saying it from a point of having experienced you.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: They believe in you enough to actually put words to paper and say, yes, this person was great at doing what they did.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: But if it's years old and there's a lot of water under the bridge, or you've even changed your career path or altered your lane and working in a different niche now, then a lot of those reviews are worthless.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: And look, I'm guilty of this in the biggest way.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not a review or testimonial chaser.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I know I should be, and I've taught plenty of people to do it, but I just don't.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's a self-conscious thing.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: I just don't ask for it.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm often pleased when if I'm presenting like at an online conference or something, the presenter at the end who the MC goes, now don't forget, go and give Brad a review on LinkedIn.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then I'm like, oh, thank goodness.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: Because I completely forget it.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: And it's something that I've got to get better at.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: I know, even with doing YouTube videos, making sure that I get a call to action in early in the video, not waiting to the end, and things like that.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: They are deliberate things you need to do.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I must admit, the most powerful thing I've ever seen was someone who was selling a course.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: And down as you scroll down the page, you got down to the bottom, there would have been 50 YouTube videos, short ones, of people saying, It was fantastic, I loved it.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: And you just kept clicking on them and watch.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: And by the end, you wanted the course, it was that simple because the social proof was so high.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you were an idiot not to buy.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: You felt like you were making a bad decision.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: So it can be really powerful.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: And probably to get 50 videos, if you did a couple of workshops, it wouldn't take that long.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: So that's one of my goals is for my new stuff that I'm putting out now is to start to build that again because I've got to make a point of it.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that people tend to not realize about getting videos and testimonials and reviews and endorsements is that you can actually build a system to do that.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like, for example, when we're launching a new book for someone, we have a process around how we send out copy the final version of the book, the forms that we want people to use to ensure that they know when they're talking to the reviewers that they understand the role of what it is that you're asking them to do.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: For example, we're not saying, please look for mistakes or please write a whole novel about how much you love the book.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Critique it in a positive way, keep it short, keep it brief, and allow us to modify length of sentence if necessary, minor edit, and also make sure that we know how to position your name if you have a title with your review and that you understand that if you're reviewing this book, based on this process, we reserve the right to use this for all marketing.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: The most embarrassing part for me is I actually have software that can do this.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I actually own software that you send people to a link, and on their phone, they just press record and they talk to their phone and they type their name in and press send, it sends it all to me.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I definitely have to use that more.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's easy.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: There's things available that people don't even realize.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a process or you need to develop a process, do it.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it just takes all of the hard work out of it.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: It takes all the guesswork out of it.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: In the same way that LinkedIn, for example, has a very specific way of getting you to either give or receive reviews or recommendations.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: Anything that you can put into a process just makes it easier.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, giving away content without a clear step.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's all very well to give away free stuff.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: You need to be quite emergency about it, I hate to say it.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: Everything needs to be done for a reason.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Because you're putting your time and effort in it.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's all very well to give stuff away.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: I have no problems with giving stuff away.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: I do believe in free.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: But I think free should lead towards your higher quality content or your more time-intensive processes.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: So it's all very well to give away a free lead magnet to download.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: But if people want your time, then depending on whether that time is face-to-face or through an online course or whatever, depends on how much they pay.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: So giving away stuff free should lead somewhere.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: So otherwise, you'll just run out of time in the day creating free stuff and it won't lead where you really want it to go.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: Those calls to action are so important and breadcrumbing through the content that you're sharing so that you have the ability to say, grab this, there's more.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: And when you grab this, there is still more.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: You're talking about engaging in a long-term process of sharing, not just a one-off and grab it and run opportunity.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: If you ever want to read a book about free, get the book Free by Chris Anderson.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's my favorite book on this topic.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: And it's getting older now, but I think it really stands.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: And he actually goes through the history of free stuff.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: He also explains how the whole world kind of works around free.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: And he gives examples of how whole industries have changed.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: For example, if you look at the music industry, people go on YouTube to watch their favorite performer, or they pay a small amount to listen to them on streaming or whatever.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: So an artist isn't making the money they used to from selling records.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: It used to be he sold records.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: So now people have worked out that the way to make money is to give the stuff away and to have concerts.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: And the big concerts you pay top dollar for, and that's where they make their real money.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: And the real example that he gives in the book that I love is there was a Chinese singer who was very famous, and her record company was losing it all the time because someone kept leaking her CDs.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: Or what she worked out was that her CDs were being pirated and she couldn't get around that.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: So what she did was she leaked her CDs.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then when she did concerts or live performances, people would pay big money to come and see her perform.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where she was making her money.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: But of course, the record company wasn't.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: But she worked out that was the way the market works now.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: You couldn't get around the piracy.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: So the book is full of examples like that.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a really good one to make you think about how you use free and how free works within your industry or your niche rather than just following the general step-up process.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds really interesting.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: We will share that link to that book or reference to that book on the podcast for anyone that's listening that didn't grab that.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: But it's free by Chris Anderson.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds former editor of Wise Magazine.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, one of the big magazines worldwide.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: So interesting guy.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: So we're coming to the end of our time today, and I'm sure that there are other mistakes that we could potentially talk about, but I think we've covered some fantastic ones here today.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and look, we've covered a few.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: But the key thing is that when it comes to mistakes about growing audiences, consistency, see, as you brought up, is definitely a big one.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: Not having processes in place probably covers a few of the others.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: And not understanding where your audience is probably the third one.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where we looked at email lists and social media and all that.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: And how to get reach.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: There's probably a million more, but we don't have all the time in the world and we can always revisit this.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: And the last thing I want to say is that I think what we often underestimate is the need to value ourselves and our expertise.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's probably the biggest thing that most of us overlook is we have developed expertise that other people want and want to tap into.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: So value your own expertise.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Don't just give it away.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: Be selective about how you give it away, but value yourself as an expert.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: Always good advice.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: Always remember you're worth more than you asked for.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it's okay to ask for money to do work.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody else is getting paid, and you should get paid for what you do too.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: On that note, I think we'll wrap this one today.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for tuning into the experts' journey.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: If you've picked up some useful tips today, please take a moment to subscribe and share this episode with a fellow speaker expert in your network.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: Really helps us reach more people.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: And don't forget to check out our books on Amazon, Dixie's Start with a Draft, How to Easily Plan and Write a Nonfiction Book and Authority Island.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: And my book, Microcourse Profits, Build a Seven Figure Income with Bite Sized Courses.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: Both are packed with practical tools to help you grow your business faster.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: We'll catch you next time.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: Next time.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Brad.