In any market or industry a few people make literally all the money. They are the ‘go-to’ guys, the ‘experts’. Once you understand how they position themselves to become the ‘chosen ones’, you can use the same strategies.

Paul Harrison sits down with Daniel Wagner who is known as the ‘Expert Maker’, helping people from different industries become authorities in their markets or industries, for his three best insights.

Tip 1: Build a personal online brand
Everyone Googles you – but most of us are unprepared! Take charge of your online footprint. People will not do business with you if they can’t find you! It’s your perfect opportunity to present yourself and your business in the right light. It’s not a business website, because after all, people do business with people. Have a clear positioning strategy – say what you stand for and what you stand against.

Tip 2: Create a strategic product staircase
People want to sell stuff online, but don’t take human psychology into account. You must take people through a strategic set of steps to move them from ‘suspects’ to ‘prospects’ to customers. We focus on making the internet an ‘automated prospect qualifier’ and take much of the higher ticket sales offline. Stick with a simple model that you can tweak and improve. Literally all the money is in the backend conversion. Once you know your numbers you can outspend your competition in lead generation.

Tip 3: Cultivate a buying audience
Having a powerful brand and a great product staircase won’t make you a dime unless you have a trusted and loyal following. ‘Tribe building’ can be learned and follows rules and formulas. Say no to the wrong kind of client, have a goal greater than yourself, have clear and strong positioning, have an antagonist and then communicate honestly and frequently using multiple media and always, always be on a journey and mission!

Q&A: Daniel answers Rob Hargreaves’ questions.

Rob Hargreaves is originally from Cape Town and now lives in London. Rob runs his own successful video production and marketing business. With the economy in recession, Rob asked the following questions:

What are the elements that go into building the right sort of website to improve my online personal brand?
Use WordPress as a platform. Get your personal domain (like DanielWagner.com) and make sure you add a couple of relevant keywords so that people can find you. Include a high quality professional portrait photo and create a ‘strapline’ – which is in essence your ‘promise’. Also include social media follow options (Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter as a minimum and others depending on industry). Lastly a way to collect emails and offer something for free is to give something away to build authority and trust.

One often hears of people claiming that you can make for example £2, 000 in 7 days, how true is this, and how does the strategic product staircase differ?
To make any decent money online you must have a strategic staircase. It is far easier to sell low price products (£20 and below) and then move people to higher value transaction. If you only have a low ticket product like an e-book, then to make any decent money will need too many transactions, e.g. if I want to make a million with a £10 product I need to sell 100,000 of them. If I have a strategic 3 or 4 step staircase, I can make a million with just a couple of thousands transactions

What’s the best way to increase or cultivate more of a buying audience for existing business owners?
Most business owners focus too much on the business aspect of a transaction and too little on the human and personal aspects. People will connect with you better if you share who you really are and include some fallibility. Tribes and audiences need leadership and a good mixture of education and entertainment. Create a mission and choose an antagonist and keep sharing the same message – and you will build a following.

If you want to find out more about Daniel and becoming the go-to person in your market or industry, go to DanielWagner.com or download a free chapter of his new book at ExpertSuccessFormula.com

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