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Interview with Andrea Reindl

The result is this by now you're going like what is she insane? And how exactly are we going to cut through the noise and that's when we're bringing in my friend andrea, who is going to help us and giving us some of her tips about how to about platform building and how she is sort of making this all work so let's see if she's if she's life when I was god coalition there's no, you look beautiful, I think you okay, so why don't you introduce yourself really quickly? So everybody knows who you are and what you're doing? Sure, my name's, andrew randall, I am the co founder of a company called promote a book, and basically what we do is work with authors to help them organize their message, and really, we always say, find test and then amplify their voices. And what we're most famous for is putting books in the wall street journal, new york times usa today bestsellers list shall I tell us how many? No, I think we're at eighty seven, so wait a minute. So so what does that exactly mean? You h...

ave taken eighty seven books and you put them in the number one spot s so many of them not number one but eighty seven on the new york times or wall street journal or usa today bestsellers list so to be accurate but yeah basically what we do is work with authors that have big enough platforms I was listening I've been on for about ten minutes listening to you so we take people have big enough platforms and enough audience from enough of those different places to be able to generate the sales required to make it to the best selling status ok so what would you tell to somebody who doesn't really know all that much about platform building like what are some of the tips that you could give them I think you need to approach a lot like you approach any level of education it's a huge very multifaceted way of looking at marketing really is what it is and it's really about two things it's your audience and your message and what do you want to say and what is your audience care to hear and really finding where can you bridge the gap between where your audiences and where what you have to say meets them at a place where they have a felt need it's a big big gap often for people and so it's really top four million is about really finding that gap and then filling in for people and then finding out where your burger personas hangout where are the people that are your tribe you know seth golden is the one who started and coined the phrase tribe I think it's an accurate one for platform building you don't need a massive tribe, you just need to find enough that are interested in what you have to say. Excellent. So now we just went through sort of all these different wheels on this blood from building things, so they're they're all a little bit overwhelming on, and probably they are a little overwhelmed now. So where? How can how can somebody start with us in your experience? What are some building blocks that are absolutely necessary? So I think it's really important to have what we call a voice first and be really clear on what it is that you want to say now you don't have to be one hundred percent term what you want to say because the beauty of the internet is, I heard you mentioning some really good, great places like click bank and some of the places where you can start to and click makes that may be the best one to start practicing your voice, but really started to test your message. So even when you're perfect host on facebook or instagram just seen which ones pick up and which ones don't pick up because you'll find they're certain topics that are just hot buttons. I know you've found that with your work that certain topics just really get people's attention, so pay attention. To that, and start honing in on that message and that's a process, it can take three years for someone to get real clear on their voice. What really resonates with an audience. Yes, and as an example, we can talk about the women's code because, as andrea was actually part of my team, when we first came out with the with the women's code message and part of the women's code was that we had said, we know it's for women that are overwhelmed, that have that are not balanced by what we did find is that even though everybody was nodding when we were saying you were overwhelmed and out of balance, but they weren't buying anything, nor were they investing in any kind of program simply because they were too overwhelmed to buy to buy anything extra. So we had to go back and change the avatar and say, who are we selling to like, who has who has the money, which is then what made us arrive at the career aspect of things and said, well, how can the women's code help you with your career? Then we found out that going down the career path now we in competition with everybody else because that's what every other woman out in the spaces focusing on and helping women and how to have a better career. So that was hardly unique. And so we didn't really get to this the core of the women's code until we identified women leadership and now with the big the big ticket item, the gender equality off saying we may need to support other women to help them to get to that collaboration at work that will then take them tio achieve mohr and fast, because if the supported by the women, which is all the stuff we had talked about in the very beginning, but it it wasn't it's almost like you have to look at it from different angles. Yeah, and you always have to get him to the audience, the mind of your audience. And what is that? Those people really want, the people that are your tribe and really looking at being patient enough to let your message curate and just keep testing? I think I have a few examples of people that I've watched build platforms over the last few years, and a couple of them are what I call real vanilla. This is maybe not going to the nicest they get her to say, but, you know, there's like it's, not even like new creative, really amazing idea they are just ridiculously passionate about what they do, they love what they do and they're willing to stick with it and after three or four years I've watched two people in particular come to mind that both have three hundred thousand dollars a year plus businesses just by sticking with it and all they're doing is really basic blogging, basic social media and just continuing to show their message and now they're building you know mastermind and they're creating I heard you talking about products they're creating products able to sell those products just by sticking with it after three years it's really stick with him for three years and just be patient and let it really curate and cure it's it's a process is there a particular way to go about it? Is there particular way to not to go about it to go? But I think it's important to be authentic I think it's important to remember that you have to repeat the same thing many, many times so you know women's code right? You tried you were you're often saying the same thing that you were just tweaking the message a little is you went and you were patient enough to allow to continue to put it out so it's just being patient and really making sure that you're saying the same thing over and over and over again just tweaking it for the words of your audience is they give you feedback not to go about it is don't be pushy and what you do I don't think that really helps ever anything yes it's like the selling part of things and what we were injured what we were talking about earlier is also sort of the elevator pitch and how sort of your personal story ties into that what are you insights on that? Well, I heard you cutting through the noise right that's part of cutting through the noise that you were talking about earlier in your personal story and tying them together I think it's really important to really have a powerful personal story that you tied because I think most people there in this kind of business have some sort of personal story that's connected to why they're doing what they're doing I have yet to meet somebody who doesn't say I had this pain in my life and then I learned this thing and now maybe I want to help a new a few people avoid that pain because I've got some knowledge I didn't have before so tell your story and then remembered always tell it in about twenty percent of your copy you don't want to tell us all the time you want to keep it about your audience but continue to tell your story in a really sustained way I know there's some really great places you do the job of teaching people how do you really it's distinctly tell their story yes, I think that there's this story telling to me, you know, that sort of the longer I've been doing it, and the more I pay attention to, it becomes a more more important part because people remember stories more than you were seven stories we live in stories more than anything else, we're just people to people when you're having these conversations, you know, I'm having a conversation with you right now, but I know there's a lot of other people watching that I'm having a conversation with and it's always the people it's always people that are behind the mouse, right? We always say, like, often, our office will say something that people are quicks right every time someone's clicking on a button, it's a person and clicking on that button. It's not a machine it's a ah person who's had a story in a life before they got to that moment that brought them to your website or to your course or to your webinar, whatever it is that they're interacting with you, it's, just a person on the other end. Absolutely very good. Okay, staff, go ahead here is like when you're in a blogging environment what's the frequency at which you publish is it once a week once a month, one supporter? What what's what's the cycle there so we typically recommend two times per week minimum. It does depend a little bit on your subject matter and the length of the block posted you put out, but it's more advantageous to part out more short content. Then it is to do one like three thousand words block post. So if you have something that you think might be three thousand words it's, a really long block post instead, take that three thousand roadblock postings, let it into three smaller one thousand five hundred to one thousand were blocked post. You might even be able to get six out of a three thousand word block post, and the reason for that is that our society has become very, very dd. I don't know if you guys don't notice it. I noticed even my personal attention span has gotten shorter and shorter and I having to work a lot harder to focus on something for a long time so the shorter you could make up, the quicker you could make a point, and the more you can make a point without having to require too much of people's time initially. The better it is to engage your audience, and most people that follow blog's will tend to come back to and read the same block over and over again, so they might like you on facebook, and then the next time you publish something it's really important to take your block and then publishing on your facebook page or through your facebook notifications that way, anyone who's like you on facebook, your block post will show up in their news feed, and that way they may reach something about you the first time they read a lot of post that you've written, then three days later, you post something else that's similar but different. They read that again, and then three days later, they read it again. Now you've got six days and showing up in their world three times, they're more likely to want to continue to come back, and people who read blog's often will read for months before they will give you a dime of their money way have one saying that I think is really powerful came for more h williams that I know beyond follows his work as well, and he says time and money are two sides of the same coin. The more time you get from people, the more money you're likely to get later on interest and it's really important to remember that the more time people will engage with you that's an investment that they're making its investment of time but eventually that investment of time can turn into investment of money later on if you're looking to build a business which I think most of us are here right well I think that honestly at this point in time and where we are in business without it it's impossible I mean certainly not if you want to break through thea other other end e think we have we have a a choice to make what we either are going to be a business like any other business and we struggled to succeed by you know, hit and miss kind of traditional marketing and finding clients or we are really becoming very smart about how we market to and that only goes if you know who you are and you are the authority on the subject um another question I wanted to ask could you also known as the persona architect tell us about that yes so we all know that we're not all the same people right we all like to think we're really unique snowflakes but what I do with persona architectures basically the science of taking people's decision making styles and pairing it with a way of communicating to them so an example we often uses you could have four state home moms in the same community who have husbands that have relatively the same blue collar jobs all their kids go to the same school, you know? They all get up in the air and drop their kids at the same school, but if you were trying to market a product to them, you wouldn't necessarily need to use the same language for all for them because they all may have different decision making styles. And so what we do with personal architectures actually boil it down to there's only four main types of decision making styles, and we take the same message and translated into all for decision making styles so that you are copy and the way you communicate with people is far more effective because you're hitting the felt need of all for decision making styles and the advantage of that are higher conversion rates is the easy advantage of it. Higher conversion rates needs more people in your on your list, more people following you, more people who feel like you're really speaking right to them and to answer the question about blogging earlier, even if if you you could write the same block post four times just from four different angles of approach for the different decision making cells, and then they will all absorb it and understand it because you spoken to them in a language that makes sense to them, okay, and what you happen to have an example, unlike a decision making stuff for us yeah sure so one of the examples of the decision making style is the quick logical which I think you following to see a real logical but how you make it is israel please just can't imagine right and then you'll quickly decided you're slow to change her mind right it's like very quick this is what I know because it's quick and logical you see the bigger picture first and then you make the logical decision now conversely, I am a deliberate emotional decision makers so I will see the bigger picture first but then I will make a slower decision because I'm busy pondering all the ways that might affect the people around me and likely would they even come to the same conclusion we just use the different path to get there I think there's the people that are more deliberate and ed quick are your deliberate quick so sorry I was giggling about that intimate thing there's what a more logical and deliberate so those air more the people that you want, you know building bridges and tall buildings because they're really thinking through every aspect before they make a decision and we call those methodical people we call people like you competitive we call people like me humanistic and then the fourth type of spontaneous which is the quick emotional decision maker and they'll make a very quick decision based on their emotion rather than their logic right away and when andrea and I were working on the women's code, we literally put together avatars for the women in the different age categories so I think we had four times for we had sixteen of them and with the with the benefit that when you then do talk to them that you have the picture off the person that you are addressing right in front of you very much so because it's easier to talk to a real person than it is to talk to a crowd of people right as long as you're having a one on one conversation with someone feels very natural so we use the personas or the avatars is another name for them and basically what we do is we give them our our authors khun sit and look right at their persona the person that they're communicating with and then right straight to that person so that they don't have to we'll try to make something out that feels like more of a conversation even if they're just in writing okay very good all right so let me just check one more time if if if we have any questions for you specifically ok it's going to go from from folks at home hi andrea I can here representing the folks at home so we have a question from mike mccaul in and this this could be perhaps for both of you actually on dh mike has had a podcast podcast for several years, but what he's wondering is what is what have you seen to be the best way to convert folks from a podcast? Yeah, did you want that and you want to? Well, podcasts are very difficult because podcasts are not intended to convert you know, podcasts really are more content, more content heavy and more part ofthe authority platt from building, but what I would do is I would create a free giveaway of some sort you know what we will actually talk about in the lead generation day? A call to action on why people have to go to a website and give them your name and information in exchange for something that they perceive valuable and that is really the formula all across andrea, what do your your thoughts? I would agree with you completely. I think the real benefit of a podcast is that you're getting really investment of time with people you know, people who are podcast listeners and they're willing to spend ten to fifteen to thirty minutes listening to whatever it is you're talking about those air loyal fats. So what you have to do to convert them is exactly what I said set up some sort of an online hub that moves them from the podcast environment to another way that you can communicate with with them and the way to do that is some sort of a free offer tie it to something that's relevant to your content, followed by then getting them on your email list and then making sure you're communicating with them at least once a week through your email that's a newsletter of this is the update here's the podcasts and create some sort of a theme with your with your newsletter that's, you know, maybe referencing like one little section that's talking about testimonials, one little section talking about not what you're going to do next week of one little section talking about what you did last week, and that way people start to begin to I feel that they're part of your community and they could start to interact with feeling like they're part of that tribe that you're building, and also what always works in that space is if you go ahead and ask questions as to what would you like to have me cover? Is there? Is there a topic that it I's very interesting to you? Or perhaps built a contest around? Submit your ideas for ah podcast in the winning podcast idea he will be invited on my show or something that, you know has some sort of additional interaction because user engagement uh, is really, really, really, really powerful because again, you know that's, then you're your word of mouth you refer a person that comes in and saying hey check it out you know this guy's really is talking about it I had an idea he threw it back over the fence to me I was on the show we were talking you know now he's telling all his friends so it's really just like this a big circle of interactions but ideas always no matter what you do and that's why we're covering in the generation and what we have a whole day just feli generation is how do you get them to come to you and then convert them into leads and on that note you happen oh no we have another one we do way also had a comment from w gordon three in the chat rooms who says really interesting guest thanks so thank you for that human way have l am who's been with us all day today? Who's questioned it for you and er is what has been your biggest platform building challenge and how did you figure it out but to overcome it no that's easy information overload absolutely. The biggest challenge when you are building a platform is information overload because everywhere you go you're going to get a different piece of advice from a different expert who will tell you that they're one thing is though a thing that you should forever be doing and I I think that that's never the case it's always a very multidimensional piece of media so cat four million is really about that multi layers of media so it could be information overload when you're trying to learn it and then how do you start to execute it? But you know if you start thinking about doing your work once and then replicating it and repurpose sing it, you can take one block post to make sure that you're mentioning on facebook and instagram and twitter and then make sure that you can take three block posts and put them together into a little report that you give to people and you could start to repurpose your work a lot but it feels like just overload at the beginning and if you just master one at a time within a couple of years you're an expert on it on building your own platform and it didn't take that long just learn they know that you have to master several pieces for it and I think that's what theater is talking about a lot when she when she shared all that that I was listening to ten minutes before right platform is all these different moving parts you don't have to learn them all at once but be prepared to learn them all eventually yes exactly and it depends also on the message and where the message is going so if we you know the whole purpose is thie you learn the information and that's why we talk about your elevator pitch in who you are and what your voices in your objective fists and then we somehow you know, take this together and it will be revealed in the lead generation day on how we're going to do this uh so that it becomes this tangible executed will plan right now it's just like taking in the information and listening to what all these pieces are and saying, you know, I could do that never right because we want you to be comfortable you're going to be most you're going to be really good at certain things and really terrible and others some people just don't want to write then speak some people cannot be in front of a camera without an anxiety attack well then find another way to do that. So this is not about saying there's a one formula thank you so much for saying that you know there's not one thing it is a combination of different things and thank god we can pick what we want on our own. This one just came in from susan cameron who asked how do you use youtube as a platform? Youtube is one of the best free traffic but it's not it's certainly free but youtube is one of the best traffic sources, so a lot of people don't know this about youtube but the best thing you can do is key word your descriptions for your youtube videos and then also make sure your key word in the title for every description like for every youtube video because youtube is one of the best places get people to engage with you on an ongoing basis and by getting more views on youtube again, you can if you collect, collect your youtube account to your google account, you can then edited at the end of videos you know where they say, click here, subscribe over there and you could do all of those kinds of things and you begin to drive leads over to an offer again and get them to join your email list and then that would begin to build a tribe that you can communicate with both on youtube and off youtube. You can communicate in their in box and you can communicate in other ways with them. I think youtube is one of the best places to build platform and if you think you suck on video to start with that's okay, everybody does it's just practice the more you do, the better you get thank you so much for for being here, it's always great to see you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Thank you for having me. I still enjoyed it yes, all right, take care thank you. Bye bye thank you okay, so let me just repeat that. So andrea is has brought her her persona architect. Report. You get it, be known today. Dot com. Just simply entry email and download your report. It will help you to get these avatars that we talked about, too, our individual audiences, and to figure out who they are.