What does it look like to leverage your expertise? What are some of the practical ways you can do this?
Perhaps you’ve heard me talking about this topic in the last few podcasts, and you’re wondering what it looks like in real life. In episode 104, I want to share with you my own journey of leveraging my expertise so that you can see some of the possibilities for yourself.
If you have an expertise and you are working with clients in a 1:1 setting, there’s only so many people you can reach. You are somewhat limited by time and the number of clients you can serve at one time.
But as you develop and grow in your expertise, you may find that you want to expand your impact and grow your income.
In episode 104, I share with you a bit of my journey and the various ways I have done this over the past 7 years. Looking back, I can tell you that this is a bit messy. I was doing some of these things at the same time. Some of them worked really well, and others took longer to see results.
Overall, I want to give you some ideas and help you to start to see the opportunities you may have that you’re overlooking about how to leverage your expertise.
Many people believe that creating a course is the end all be all way to create passive income and financial freedom, but while creating a course is one of the ways to do this, I personally believe there are other things you should do first.
I want to share with you a few ways you can leverage your expertise and create your own freedom financially that I’ve learned from my own experience.
Podcast Guesting
After I started my own podcast, it was very easy to start getting podcast guest opportunities. I invited others onto my show because I truly wanted to connect with them. And often, if they had a podcast, I was in turn invited onto their show. It was a natural result of me reaching out to them.
Other times I was invited simply because of the relationship building I was doing. I have rarely ‘gone after’ podcast guesting opportunities, but I did proactively build relationships and support other people’s shows.
Move from 1:1 to Group
Another thing I did was begin to shift my offers from exclusively 1:1 to 1:many.
In 2018 100% of my income came from DFY (Done For You) services. I was doing podcast management services as well as online business management. I launched my own podcast in July of 2018. I had learned a lot from working with my 1:1 clients doing podcast launch services, and carried that over into my own podcast work.
Because I had experience helping other people launch their podcasts, in 2019 I launched my first group program, Podcast Propel.
This allowed me to start to shift some of my income into 1:many offers. I leveraged the expertise I had built up in my 1:1 work and offered it at a much lower rate. This started to shift my income into something where I was teaching a group of people rather than doing 1:1 work.
Over those next few years, my income gradually shifted from majority 1:1 services to now, the majority of my income is from group programs.
Grow an Email List
Another thing I did was that I started to focus on growing my email list. I actually did this way back starting in 2016, when I was working on building a blog about motherhood, marriage, and ministry. Over the years, my email list has shifted and changed many times, along with my business. But I consistently have made an effort to create resources that my target audience would want.
When you are 1:1 service provider, you don’t really need to grow an email list. But when I realized that I wanted to start shifting into group programs, I started to focus more on this. I created a few resources that were related to podcasting and started promoting those. This allowed me to begin to reach the kind of people who would be interested in my future group offers.
Launch a Podcast, Youtube Channel, or Blog
I started my blog in 2006, but got serious about blogging around 2015. I decided to launch my Christian Woman Leadership Podcast in July of 2018, and this podcast, the Christian Woman Business Podcast in May of 2020.
Each of these things gave me an opportunity to leverage my expertise. I was able to share my thought leadership and express my views about the topics that I was wanting to focus on. The podcast specifically allowed me to reach a much bigger audience than I was reaching with my blog. I started to build a community around the topics that I was podcasting about, and this created opportunities for speaking and collaborations.
Speaking Opportunities
Another thing I did was begin to look into speaking opportunities in order to expand my impact and potentially bring in more clients. Since I had established myself as a podcasting expert through my 1:1 services, group programs, and my content I was putting out, I was able to put myself out there for speaking opportunities. These opportunities allowed me to reach even more people and build more connections.
Start a Facebook Group
I have started a couple facebook groups, each directly related to my podcasts. These groups provided a place where I could get directly connected to the kind of people who might be listening to my content. It allowed me to get first hand market research. As the leader of teh group, people naturally see you as the expert. So you can leverage this authority as you provide value, build relationships, and then make offers.
Next Steps
Now, with all of these methods, there’s one thing that will supercharge your efforts and help you to stand out from the sea of people doing something similar. It’s something that will give you a ‘leg up’ from people who do the same type of work as you: it’s your unique framework. And it’s absolutely beneficial to establish this before you try to shift from 1:1 services to group offers.
That’s why I am hosting a workshop to teach you all about how to uncover your unique framework and the way you get results for your clients right now.
Join me for this 90 minute workshop on February 16, 2023.
Read all about how to join me for the workshop here!
Quotes to Note:
“If you want to leverage your expertise, doing so via a blog, podcast, or youtube channel can often be a great avenue to do that.”
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