I know a few of you want to build or expand your business online. I do not sell online products. However, I have collaborated with many people who do sell online products of their coaching businesses. I sometimes do the videos for them and I have learned a few things along the way. I currently collaborating doing a few videos with a very successful coach Jessica Campos and have seen many others like her in action and they do 3 main activities to get results.

Ready? The three main activities are building, engage, sell. These 3 steps are very popular in networking marketing circles. They are popular because it works. They even call it the "Online Guru Formula." Many of you have bought online courses. I know I have bought thousands of dollars in self-development courses and when I look back I see they what they did to get my credit card and it was this exact formula and the coaches I have worked with are doing the same.

Build

Your audience is the key to making everything else in your online business move forward. Within your audience, you will find your soon-to-be leads, prospects, sales, and sign-ups. And they're waiting for YOU!

You must constantly be building your audience every single day.
What does an audience look like? Here are some examples:
Facebook Fan Page Likes & Followers
YouTube Subscribers
Twitter Followers
Instagram Followers
Your e-mail list of subscribers

You don't have to build an audience in all platforms. Actually, I encourage you to start with just one social media platform and your email list. Just start with those two so you avoid spreading yourself thin. However, the rule is always be creating content as much and often as possible. Don't do content once a month. At the bare minimum, it must be once per week doing a long-form content like a blog post or a video post. You can then break that long-form content into small pieces like quotes or soundbites and post it on your online media.

Gary Vaynerchuck from Vaynermedia suggests 6 to 7 pieces of content per day. I know that seems overwhelming. Just remember it can be very small pieces of content. Pictures. Inspirational Quotes. 3 sentences with a tip and so on and so forth. The more ambitious you are with your dreams of building passive income the more content you have to produce. I have seen many consultants crush it with a small daily Facebook live videos. Video is the most powerful of them all. If you grab your cellphone do a small video daily. Don't worry about not looking professional. These videos are for building rapport with your audience. You can always hire a videographer later to include a video on your product landing page later on. For now, just focus on building trust. Plus I have a free course where you can learn how to record more professional videos with your smartphone for free. Now you don't have to worry about your smartphone videos not looking professional enough.

Engage

The second component of this is to make sure you are posting valuable content that people would want to share and comment. It's the actual act of building a relationship by interacting with your audience. Reply to comments as much as possible. Become friends with your audience. Appreciate that they leave comments and practice gratitude. Be Human! Do this and your fans will follow you even if you change your business later. It has happened to me.
All social media platforms are different so take the time to learn how the platform you chose works to engage your audience. Ask people to leave comments. Ask people questions. Ask people to like your post on your social media pages. Ask for engagement!
Promote your content when you can organically or by paid campaigns. Promote your content on Facebook groups. Find relevant content & leaders in your industry that others are engaging with, and ENGAGE WITH YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE, build relationships, serve your audience by only creating quality content, and you will get the engagement you are seeking.

Sell

Notice that selling is the last part. Many people leave out the first steps and that is why they fail. You have seen it. On Facebook groups where they just leave a copy and paste of their link selling their product. Don't be that person! Attract people by being valuable and solving their problems. Instead, do the following approach (Please adapt it to your current needs) Many consultants schedule Facebook Lives recording and offer a certain amount of tips for a certain amount of days. They are sometimes called “Facebook Challange” and it looks like this. Say for example we have a health and wellness consultant that gives 1 tip daily for 5 days straight on how to lose five pounds or they give instructions the first day on how to lose the five pounds and then the rest of the week the videos are about motivation, encouragement, or more tips so their audience can lose the 5 pounds that week and by Friday they announce an online course or workshop where they can lose 20 pounds or something along the lines. That how they make their sells. Others use the same system but using webinars. In any case. The consultant builds the content on a platform of their choosing, engages and then sells.

Like I mentioned I know many consultants who apply this strategy with superb results and it can be applied to any business, not just online products. I recently posted a video on Youtube with my friend Isabel Tinker Affinito. She records Facebook live videos on her laptop and makes real estate sales that way. Keila Jeanette Mendez; a psychologist and my favorite cousin, by the way, is constantly posting on Facebook videos, pictures, and mental health thoughts and she gets clients that way and is currently working in doubling down in her online presence. My own brand is an example. I am posting on Youtube weekly and building my audience on Facebook even though I am not selling online products but the principle and foundations are the same. Having an online business is possible but you need to have a media mentality. You are your own media company. Keep posting content, writing blogs, make videos as often as possible.