Your Audience is Waiting for You. Ready to Meet Them?

Imagine getting up every morning to spend the hours you choose absorbed in doing something you love for people who are raving fans of your work.

These people are your crowd.

Here at TransformNation, we’re passionate about helping you make that a reality.

Elsewhere, there’s been a lot of chatter about the web being a big place.

The same folks will talk about all the traffic you’ll need and all strangers you’ll have to weed through.

And we’re here to tell you that the Personal Web is making it easier for people around the world to find and engage with the most specialized niches you can imagine.

One of those niches can be your site.

Certain things are timeless in marketing, whether you’re doing business online or own a corner store. Here’s one:

When you produce real value and connect with real people, you can make a real living.

So, how do you do that online?

After nearly thirty years in the biz, watching what works and what doesn’t on real-live web sites, we’ve narrowed it down to four critical steps required to make any business work.

First, Take a Stand.

In branding, we talk about something called your “Unique Selling Proposition.” If you sell a carbonated beverage that’s just like somebody else’s carbonated beverage, you’d better come up with some catchy, memorable USP. (We propose something like: “Our fizzy stuff kills you a little more slowly than their fizzy stuff.”)

Maybe you can create a “Brand Called You.” Catchy, unique, special.

Problem is, people have been self-branding now for a decade, they’ve been clever, and lots of them even have some pretty hot websites. Nowadays, creating a brand with a memorable hook is not only expected, it’s the entry-fee. It’s what gets you in the door.

How do you get noticed, and draw your crowd?

You take a stand.

You discover what you are passionate about, what you know something about, and can defend.

What do people notice online? Brands and people who have something to say. People are looking for leaders, willing to take a stand.

But what if you don’t have any Big Opinions about world politics or baseball?

What are your talents, skills, hobbies, passions? What do you do in your spare time that you can’t wait to return to?

Others may be searching right now to learn more about what you know.

Maybe you’re a craftsman, with a workshop where you’ve created one-of-a-kind hand-crafted items others treasure.

Do you have any opinions about all that prefabricated stuff lining the shelves at Wal-mart? Want to tell someone about it?

Are you a master in the kitchen, with a specialty? Maybe you whip up a mean meringue, and you haven’t seen a restaurant meringue that stands up to yours.

Take a stand — show the world. There may be other part-time chefs just waiting for your wisdom.

What are you passionate about? What will you defend online?

Next, Add Value.

It’s not enough to put up a blog where you spout your passionate opinions about stuff.

The real question is: how does the stand you’re taking help someone? What problems do you solve?

Create a product that solves those problems.That product can take lots of forms: eBooks, audio, video, seminars, workshops — the options are endless.

Once you blend your passions with the needs of an audience, and talk about it in their language, then you’ve got a business.

Now, Draw Your Crowd.

There’s two elements to this: how big of a crowd are we talking about, and where do you go to find your crowd?

1. How big does your crowd need to be?

If you can imagine 1,000 people loving what you do out of the millions of people in the English-speaking world, then that’s a great place to start.

(And if you can reach out to more languages, great!)

Gone are the days where you had to be a big company with a big budget to get any traction online. The Personal Web has changed all that.

Got big dreams? Want to speak to an audience of millions? Start with creating the kind of value that will attract your core crowd of 1,000, then you’ve got a solid foundation to grow from.

2. Where does your crowd hang out? Where do they congregate?

Now’s the time you decide where you’re going to take a stand. Online? That’s certainly an option.

Some opt to put their products on the store shelves, or on Amazon.com.

Others rely solely on live events and workshops.

How do you decide? You let your audience tell you where they want to experience you. You let them tell you how they best absorb information, and where they hang out.

Here’s one example:

We had a client who was Twittering like a crazy person trying to draw a crowd to her website. We asked her who her ideal client was. Turns out, that crowd just doesn’t hang out on Twitter. Or Facebook. Or Online. In fact, that crowd rarely uses email.

We took her offline, and created a winning mail strategy to reach out to her audience with her passionate message.

Here’s another one:

Maybe you’ve heard about how great membership sites are for creating “leveraged income.”

Another client had built an expensive membership site packed with lots of very valuable content, in both video and written formats. He’d done everything right, and invested a small fortune.

But no one came. A year passed, and he had attracted few takers.

We did some research for him and quickly discovered why. His audience didn’t want to learn this type of content online. They didn’t want to watch it on a computer screen. They wanted DVD’s they could load into their player and watch while seated in their living room.

He changed his model accordingly.

Where does your crowd hang out? Where would they prefer to interact with you? Find out, and start the conversation.

Then, Make a Living.

We believe virtually any kind of product or service provider can find a way to present their message online to find their crowd, their passionate audience.

And when you do?

That’s what this page is all about.