Andrew McCauley’s Offline Touches for growing Online Business

Laura: Andrew, I know you and I have talked about this quite a few times, but people often forget that an online business really should still have offline touches. They’re very much synonymous with one another.

So what is one thing that you actually do offline that helps you grow your business online?

Andrew: One of the biggest and most important things that I do every single week is get out and speak to people. Get in front of people and speak to them.

Now, some people freak out about speaking. They’re like, “No, I’m not going to speak,†and if that’s you, then start small. Speak in front of two or three people. Go to some of those speaking schools like Toastmasters and that sort of thing where you can go and practice your speaking.

But by far, the biggest thing that I’ve got is that when somebody sees you speak, and whether it’s in front of two people or 200 people, they give you this platform. Basically, they put you up on a pedestal and say, “If you’re speaking in front of people, you must be an expert in your industry.†And all of a sudden, that changes the way people want to do business with you. They want to connect with you. They want to know more about you just because you get out there and speak.

Now as I said, I speak every week. I speak in front of groups of maybe 4 or 5 people sometimes, and maybe it’s 30 or 40 people just locally. I don’t have to travel too far to speak. But the cool thing is that there are so many organizations, there’s so many events out there that are looking for people to speak on a given topic. So go and find where those people are, what sort of people are looking for your expertise, and then offer to speak.

Now, if you’re starting out, don’t expect to be paid for it, which is fine, but the real payment comes when people start wanting to know more about you. They saw an app. They joined your list. They start to get to know who you are. You’re building that engagement, that relationship, and then they will likely do business with you if you can offer them good solid value-added information.

So speaking, Laura, for me, is by far the number one thing that you can do. And don’t be afraid of it. Just get out there and do it.

Laura: Yeah, it’s so true. And one of the things that I actually have been recently considering – And I’ve done this at times in the past and forgot how powerful it is – is that the colleges, the local colleges are often looking for experts in their field to teach nighttime classes in your particular given niche, especially if you were in something like online marketing. You know, there’s so many different areas where the colleges want somebody to come in and speak.

Now, you don’t necessarily get paid for it, but what it does, and the reason that I love this avenue is that it has always forced me to create new material. So if you’ve got a deadline and you know that you have to speak, and you know that even if it’s not your comfort zone. You know it’s going to push you out of your comfort zone and make you grow, the moment that you have to create new material, well now you have even more to be able to market with online as well. So the two…

Andrew: Yeah.

Laura: …they go so well.

Andrew: I’m so glad you said that, you know, because that’s part of what I like about when I speak every week, and without fail, we’re doing new content. We’re not, you know, rehashing all the stuff. I’m not speaking the same sentence every week, and it really does force you to do new stuff.

And here’s the cool thing is that people in the audience was like what would you like to learn about, you know, in this field, and that will give us some more ideas. You’d be like okay, great. Now I’m going to go and create some content about that topic.

But at the same time, it makes me a better expert on the topic because now I have to teach it. There’s nothing more like teaching your topic to get better at it, and I love the fact that I’m creating brainy topic, brainy content every week.

And I’m not always going to always repurpose that for something else whether it’s another podcast later or a blog post I want to use. I’ve created the slide next. I could use it on something like a slideshow app. There’s so many possibilities that you can repurpose once you’re actually done and created that first piece of content.

The post Episode 98: Andrew McCauley’s Offline Touches for growing Online Business appeared first on Online MasterPlan Series | Delegation and Social Media Training.