#31: Top 5 Strategies for Attracting a Group of Raving Fans

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Welcome to The Unconventional RD podcast, where we inspire dietitians to think outside of the traditional employment box and create their own unconventional income stream. We’ll talk all things online business to help you start, grow, and scale your own digital empire.

What to expect from this episode

Hello there. And thanks for tuning in again today for another episode of The Unconventional RD podcast. Today I’m talking about something that I’ve spoken on in the past at one of the RD Entrepreneur Symposiums.

And that is my top five strategies for attracting a tribe of raving fans. And I love this topic because it’s something that I have a lot of personal experience in. I’ve been in this online business blogging space since late 2010. That’s when I first started my very first food blog. I had launched that before I went back to grad school to become an RD and do the internship and all that.

But my experience running that food blog and my experience running this business, The Unconventional RD brand, were like night and day. So looking back on that, I was able to pull out some lessons and reasons why I think that The Unconventional RD brand connected with people better and grew exponentially faster than my food blog. And today I want to go over those five reasons with you.

Background on my attempt at food blogging

So just to recap, when I ran my food blog, it was just ericajulson.com. It’s still out there in the world today. Of course, I’ll probably rebrand it cause that’s not a great use of my name as a domain name to have my old food blog up there. But as of right now, it’s still up there at ericajulson.com.

And I had been, as I said, off and on hobby blogging with that blog since late 2010. And I would post at least once a month, um, in the beginning when I was busy with grad school and my internship and all that. So it’s kind of slow and steady growth, but then in about 2015, I decided, okay, I really want to put in some effort here and I want to try to grow this food blog into a real income stream.

And so I put my head down and I was posting once or twice a week for over two years. And still wasn’t really seeing a lot of success. I think my best month with that food blog throughout that whole time period, I maybe got like 14,000 visitors to my website in one month. And that was like my best month ever.

And now looking back, I’m like, Oh man, that’s like barely anything. But at the time I was like, okay, it’s kinda sorta, maybe working, but over two and a half years, that is not a great return on my time and all the effort that I put into learning photography and editing and all that.

So anyway, I think, of course, part of the problem was that I didn’t understand SEO (search engine optimization), which I’ve now mastered and teach to other dietitians through my SEO Made Simple course, which you can find on my website theunconventionalrd.com. Just click on the courses tab at the top and it’ll take you right to my page with all my courses.

But beyond that, I think another problem that I had with that website is that I didn’t have a niche. I didn’t know who the heck I was speaking to and I wasn’t really solving anyone’s problems. So all I was doing was using it as like a personal recipe journal of sorts. So whatever I was making for myself, I would just throw it up on the blog and call it a day.

And that’s a backwards way of thinking about your business. Ideally, you want to have an ideal person or client avatar, reader avatar, who you’re speaking to. Someone who you know what they’re struggling with and your content is there to solve their problems. Not just something they scroll past on Instagram one day. Like you want it to call to them and be like, wow, I need this. This is my all-time favorite website. They get me. Everything they publish I’m into and I want to make, or I want to read, or whatever.

So I was totally lacking in that department and was not solving anyone’s problems because I didn’t even have a niche within my food blog. Like I would post vegetarian stuff, vegan stuff, uh, you know, very meat-heavy, rich things, long meals that take hours to braise, and then like five minute side dishes. I was all over the place. And I bet a lot of you listening right now, I bet you resonate with that. So if that’s you, don’t worry, you can still figure it out. But the first step is just being aware that maybe you’re doing that in the first place.

Examples of messages I received with my food blog

But anyway, with that blog, I want to give you an example of some of the messages that I used to receive via my Facebook page. I would get people messaging me saying things like, “Hey, Erica, I see you use barley. Can I send you some free barley to try and maybe you could give me your feedback?” So people trying to send me products for free in exchange for work that’s not actually being compensated.

Another example, “Hey Erica, super random, but I saw that you liked my Facebook page and I wanted to thank you for the support (and then here comes the ask), but since you’re a registered dietitian, I wanted to get your take on the supplement, which I’m sure you’ve heard of, Shakeology. What do you think of the ingredients and any thoughts in general? I’d love your input.” Again, someone just asking for my mental labor without compensation.

Um, another really vague message: “Hi, I’d like to speak to you about a possible project.” AKA, probably a scam.

And then a very demanding comment of “When are you going to do a duck recipe? I want duck.” So clearly I’m not connecting on an emotional level with my audience here. I’m not getting any messages from people being like, Oh my God, this is amazing. I love your stuff. You helped me so much like blah, blah, blah. It’s just people kind of like asking for things of me and demanding things. So like, you know, that should be a sign that maybe you need to rethink your content creation strategy here.

Examples of messages I received with The Unconventional RD

And then I just want to compare that to the Facebook messages that I would receive when I launched The Unconventional RD Facebook community and was posting stuff about blogging and getting online business conversations started and sharing my income reports on my website.

I got messages like, “Hi, Erica. Just wanted to thank you for all you do. You’re truly inspiring.” Like, what? I never got a message like that before.

Another one: “Hi. I officially have a full blown professional crush on you. Not in a weird way. I promise.”

“Hi Erica. I wanted to let you know I mentioned a ton of your stuff this week in a video and on my blog. Please let me know if there’s anything I can better share about what you’re doing with this group.” So again, that’s another indication. If people are sharing your stuff for you, then that’s like, Whoa, a huge sign that you’re doing something right and you’re really helping people cause they can’t help but share it cause it’s so awesome.

And then people were also reaching out for real collaborations. Here’s another message: “Hi Erica. I hope that you’ve had a great week. I’ve been thinking about reaching out for a while now, but it’s taken me a little bit to build up the guts. I really love the Facebook group The Unconventional RD and what you’re doing for other RDs. I was wondering if you would potentially be interested in collaborating on a joint webinar or something of that nature.” So that’s a real actual person reaching out to me to collaborate. compared to the mysterious message I got from my old food blog, “Hi, I’d like to speak to you about a possible project.” Like, no, that’s not legit.

So it just crazy. Like night and day difference. And honestly, comments like this would make me cry cause they were just so like, wow, what, like, how is this happening right now? I guess this is really what I’m meant to be doing because I’ve never gotten messages like this before. So clearly I’m hitting on something where I’m, I’m enjoying my work and I’m making an impact and people are enjoying it.

So the point here is that I want you to pay attention to the types of messages you’re getting or not getting from the people in your audience. Cause that can be a really good guiding force on where to lean in, where to maybe pull back. Maybe it’s a mirror shining back at you to help you notice if it’s time to pivot or hone your content to better serve a person.

Because I think one of the bigger shifts that you need to make, if you’re interested in online business or blogging, is that your content and your blog, it’s not for you. It’s not just a personal dumping ground for your thoughts in your head or your place to share your opinions on things, although that can happen throughout your content, but that shouldn’t be the bulk of your content. Your content really exists to serve your ideal customer or ideal reader or client. Your goal is to figure out what they’re struggling with right now and help them.

And I think the reason why it really worked for The Unconventional RD community and why it connected with people so well is because I was speaking to my earlier self. As I got better at blogging and I created a membership site and an accompanying blog and I understood how to grow the traffic on that blog, I was able to pass on the lessons that I’d learned. But I was intimately familiar with what it felt like to still be at square one and feel frustrated and stuck because I spent years in that position.

So what do you have that’s similar? Like, is there some skill that you’ve developed or expertise that you’ve developed? It helps sometimes if you can have some sort of personal experience, like maybe you, you know, dialed in your nutrition for running marathons or maybe you had a baby and you had a really interesting experience learning about maternal nutrition, prenatal nutrition, and postnatal nutrition, that type of stuff, breastfeeding, whatever. Do you have any sort of personal experience that you can draw on and really connect on a deeper emotional level with your potential clients?

That’s one way to do it, but you know, even if you haven’t been in the exact shoes of the person that you’re trying to help, that’s okay too. You just need to push yourself to really try to understand what are you really helping these people with and make sure that your content is addressing those pain points. That’s how you’re going to stand out. And that’s how you’re going to start getting these messages of people saying, “Wow, your content is so helpful. How do you understand every little thing that I’m going through? Like I just am so glad I found you.” That type of thing.

Top 5 Strategies to Attract Raving Fans

So I’ve kind of distilled this down into five things that you can focus on to help engage with your audience much better. My top five strategies for attracting your tribe of raving fans.

1. Authenticity

The first thing is authenticity. And what is authenticity? If you look it up in the dictionary, the definition of authentic, it means not false or imitation, real or actual, true to one’s own personality, spirit or character. “Is sincere and authentic with no pretensions” is an example.

So what does this mean for you as a business owner? Perhaps it means admitting that you don’t love working with clients one-on-one. That was a huge one for me. I, earlier in my career, felt a little pressured to trade my time for money and work with clients one-on-one. It felt almost like the only way to be an entrepreneur, when I was first starting out. I now realize that’s not accurate at all, but at the time that’s what it felt like. So it was hard for me, you know, after I, I was working with clients to actually admit to myself that I didn’t love it. I felt like it kind of made me a failure or something, like not a true dietitian if I didn’t like working with people one-on-one and doing that one-on-one transformation. I liked the educating, I liked the writing and the content creation, but I didn’t love the one on one counseling. But part of that, like admitting that, is being authentic.

Maybe it means embracing your non nutrition-related skills and passions. How can you bring that stuff into your current business that makes you really unique? And that’s what people are going to connect with. Those little side tidbits and things that they know about you outside of just, you know, your niche and your your job or whatever. That’s going to help people feel an authentic connection with you.

It also means embracing the nutrition philosophy that speaks to you. So if there is a little like feeling in your gut, that whatever niche you’re in right now, isn’t the right fit, listen to that. Cause that’s right. Your gut will never steer you wrong. So please pay attention when you’re doing different things in different niches and trying different types of jobs, listen to how it feels on the inside and lean into the stuff that feels good. That feels easy. That feels effortless. Like you were meant to do that stuff, you know? And if you’re doing something just cause an opportunity came your way, but it’s not sitting right with you, you don’t need to stay in that position forever.

It also might mean using slang words or swear words. O not using those things! Whatever your true, authentic personality is. This, again, just comes back to the point of not trying to put on a front to be something that you’re not, but to really lean into the authentic you. I mean, maybe you have purple hair and tattoos everywhere and you know, maybe you’re speaking to a younger millennial crowd or something like that. Like if that’s you, lean into that, because I guarantee there’s tons of people out there looking for you with that type of personality and that way of connecting with people and maybe that’s missing in your space. That can be your unique differentiator that sets you apart and gets you new clients. Or on the flip side, maybe you’re older, or you’re not older but you love working with older people and you want to lean into that space, then do that. You know? Like, who are you speaking to? Who are you attracting? And what feels right on the inside?

You don’t want to put on an act to attract a certain type of person. You just want to lean into who you really are. Like for my example, I don’t really swear that often, so I don’t go out of my way to do that in my content or in my podcasts. But if something slips out, like that’s fine. I’m not like offended by it. And that’s my personality. Some other podcasts that I listen to, they swear all the time. Like I listen to Gary V (Gary Vaynerchuk). He has a podcast. Um, and he swears all the time and it doesn’t bother me and that’s true to him. So, you know, you need to just be authentic and let your true natural personality shine through when you’re creating content.

And then the last way to really boost your authenticity is to not always have that front up. Give people a glimpse behind the scenes of what you do or behind the scenes of your life. This is where things like Instagram stories can be really powerful and connecting. You can share little glimpses of like what you’re doing on a Friday night or, you know, something really great or really bad that happened in your business. You can share it in real-time and people feel like they know you and they like you and they trust you. And like they’re your friend.

Don’t hide behind the facade of your professional buttoned-up image if you’re trying to build an online business. Of course, it’s not to say that you can’t build an online business if you choose to have a professional front and never veer from that. But just in my opinion and in my personal experience, I do think that if you can connect on a more interpersonal level, it only helps you.

2. Be Vulnerable

My second tip for attracting a tribe of raving fans is to be vulnerable. And vulnerable, if you look at that definition, means capable of being physically or emotionally wounded, open to attack or damage. And then the example that they gave in the dictionary for using this word was “vulnerable to criticism”.

So this means you need to put it all out there. Good and bad. Being vulnerable means you’re not just sharing your shiny highlight reel, but you know, if something doesn’t go the way you were hoping or whatever, that you can share that as well.

It also could mean talking about things that aren’t always discussed publicly. So for example, I started out sharing my income reports way back in like 2017, I want to say. And that was my attempt at logging what was working or not working in my online business and just sharing very objectively what things I tried that month, what worked, what didn’t work, with the goal of not only holding myself accountable, cause I’m putting it out there to the world. So it’s like, Whoa, I better make sure I’m putting in consistent effort cause people are reading this. Um, but also so other people can learn from what I’m trying and doing and what’s working and what’s not working. And part of that was discussing money and how much money I earned every single month and how much money I spent every single month.

And you know, that is rare for people to talk about online, especially in the dietetics realm. So that I think helped me stand out a little bit in the beginning. I need to get back on doing those because I just ran out of time, to be honest. I kept adding more things onto my plate, like creating a free website tutorial, and every time I added something to my plate, there is less and less time to do things like the income reports. So I’d love to get back to those. Hopefully I will in the future, but all the old ones are still on my website at theunconventionalrd.com. If you just click the main navigation, you can go to the area for the income reports.

So being vulnerable also means not being afraid of being wrong or learning from others. And this is a huge one in the dietetics realm. In my opinion, I think there’s a lot of people who have trouble listening to others or they may read someone’s comment or something on social media that’s challenging something they said as a personal attack or being told that they’re wrong when they’re really just maybe asking questions or asking for clarity, et cetera.

So I think it’s important to be open and to take a little step back, separate your ego here from whatever’s happening and be able to hear someone’s criticism or questioning of something you said without taking it personally. No one knows everything. And I probably need to say that again or 10 billion more times, no one knows everything. You don’t know everything. The other person doesn’t know everything. And no one should know everything. The whole point of life is to just continually grow and learn. As you take in more information and you learn something new, you can change your frameworks, you can change your opinion. You can change your mind. You can change your niche. You can do anything with that new information that comes your way.

So, you know, it’s really important if you want to grow and you want to be a good example and a good leader, it’s okay. If you’re wrong, you can admit that. You can learn from other people and you can move forward.

And again, part of being vulnerable is being okay with receiving criticism, whether it’s warranted or not. And this is easier said than done. I know even myself, if you catch me on a bad day, it might not go over as well as I’d like it to, but you know, with practice and more exposure to criticism and also seeing other online business owners that I admire being criticized, it’s like, okay, you can’t escape it. You cannot escape criticism. So as long as you know on the inside that you feel good about what you’re doing and the help that you’re providing for people, it’s not going to bother you.

I’m in Christine Dyan’s diversity book club right now and one of the points that keeps coming up over the last couple of meetings is, you know, criticism only really bothers you if you think that there is like an inkling of truth to it. So if somebody says something negative about you, like for example, a few weeks ago in my own Facebook group, I was called a horrible person and it didn’t bother me because I’m not a horrible person and there’s no way that I take any credence into this person’s personal insult. So it just kind of rolled off and I was like, Oh, okay. Like, are we really going there? I guess we are.

But then on the flip side, if someone said something else, like, I don’t know, I can’t even think of a good example, but if they said something to where I, instead of laughing it off, got a little defensive, um, that’s an inkling that like, Oh, is that true about me? You know, like deep down am I displaying this type of behavior or trait or whatever the person’s commenting on? And you know what, that’s okay. You can receive that criticism, take it in. You can decide which bucket it goes in.

Whether it’s something that maybe you want to dig deeper into and reflect on and maybe do some growing, or is it something that you’re just going to let roll off cause it’s ridiculous, you know? But criticism is going to come your way. So don’t let that be a reason to not be vulnerable. The more open and vulnerable you are, to be honest, the less people have to even come after you for, because you’re like, well, you know, this is me, this is everything I’m doing. I’m not hiding anything. If you vibe with it, cool. If you don’t, that’s fine too, move along.

And then the last piece about being vulnerable, I also like to encourage other people to be vulnerable in the spaces that I create. I’m trying to foster a space in my Facebook community where people can open up and talk about things and have discussions without feeling like they’re going to be attacked. So I’m not trying to tone police. I’m learning more about this, but I do want people to feel comfortable and feel like they can ask questions in my groups and be heard and felt listened to. Because if you’re vulnerable, it helps other people become more vulnerable. And people need to feel safe and welcomed to open up and ask questions like that, where you can really help them in your community.

3. Be Helpful

This leads perfectly into the third point third strategy for attracting a tribe of raving fans – be helpful.

And this means to give assistance or support, to make something more pleasant or bearable, to be of use to, to further the advancement of something, and to change for the better. Basically, help solve people’s problems. This is the number one thing you can do in my opinion, to attract a tribe of raving fans.

So as we said, create those educational posts around the questions that your people are searching for on the internet. And I share a lot of ways to find out what your people are searching for in my SEO Made Simple course. So again, just go to theunconventionalrd.com and click on the courses and then click on the SEO Made Simple course and you can learn more about that course, but, um, there are ways and tools that you can use to actually kind of like spy on what people are typing into the Google search bar.

And then you can figure out what people are Googling thousands of times every single month. And then you can say, okay, out of all those different topics that people are Googling within my niche, you can narrow it down to find the ones that are not super competitive to write about. And then you just create content about that. And then when your ideal client is searching for something on the internet, your piece of content, your blog post, is more likely to show up on the first page of the search results and get clicked on. And then someone’s going to discover you and your website, maybe join your email list, maybe sign up for a freebie that you’re offering. Maybe send you an email, maybe book an appointment, whatever it is. They can very well find you through your educational posts.

And those posts help establish trust that you know what you’re talking about, it helps establish connection, cause they can read your voice and understand whether your personalities might be a good fit and all of that.

You can also be helpful, not just with educational posts, which are great, but also inspirational posts. So share, you know, the wins of the people that you’re helping or your own personal wins or things that you’ve learned or, you know, awesome things that you’ve been working on to help even more people. Anything like that.

And then the third type of helpful posts could be like a resources post. So maybe you don’t personally have all the answers. Maybe you’re still in the beginning stage of your business. Maybe, you know, you don’t have a book yet. You don’t have an online course or you don’t have a membership site. You don’t have any one-on-one options to work with you, whatever it is, whatever you don’t have yet, point people to resources that are out there that can help them. And that can be a way to establish trust as well.

And if you perhaps are an affiliate for any of those things, you could make these recommendations using your affiliate links and potentially earn a commission on any sales that your audience goes on to make. So yay, that’s a win win, right?

And I do think that in your longterm plans, in order to be helpful to the most people possible online, it does help to be on as many platforms as possible. Now, I’m not saying to start and go like 110% on every single platform. That’s not very realistic and you’re probably just going to like kind of half-ass through all of the different platforms and never really dial in and get a strategy going for any specific one. So I think the end goal should be to have as many platforms for people to find you as possible, like blogging or maybe making videos or a podcast or Instagram or Pinterest or LinkedIn or your email list or whatever. Um, but you know, tackle them one at a time.

But the goal is, you know, once you’ve tackled one, like let’s say you are learning how to blog. You took my SEO course and you’re like, okay, I got it. I understand how to blog, check the box, have all my systems down. Now. I feel like I can outsource whatever I want to outsource, take on whatever I feel comfortable with. And I have enough space here to now tackle the next thing. Maybe that’s Instagram, maybe that’s Pinterest. Maybe that’s your email marketing, but kind of take it in a stepwise fashion.

And then as the months and the years go on, eventually you’ll have all these really awesome pieces of your business machine kind of just humming along. And you’ll know that you can use your content and all these free platforms like your blog for your social media or whatever, to attract people to you. And then you have all these systems in place so that once, say, they join your email list, then you know exactly what emails they’re going to be getting. You have maybe like a system of emails already set up to go out to then pitch them on something that you’re offering for sale or an affiliate product, or to book an appointment with you one on one, whatever.

Um, but once you have all those systems in place, then, I mean, all you really have to do is continue to focus on growing your audience. Cause you kind of have this like machine running in the background where if you find more people to know about you and they come into your ecosystem, you know a certain percentage of them will go on to be customers.

But it all starts with being helpful and creating that helpful content on whatever platform that you enjoy to attract them to you in the first place.

4. Be Present

Tip number four is be present. And that means “constituting the one actually involved at hand or being considered”. So this basically means don’t outsource your personal connection. You can’t outsource your personal connection.

And when you’re just starting out and you’re trying to attract your tribe and build your people and your group of raving fans, your biggest asset is you. So some of the bigger name people that you might see out there in your niche, you’re like, Oh, how could I ever compete with that? Like this person’s been doing this for like five or 10 years. Like I’ll never catch up. They’re just going to get all the business and there’s no point in even trying to get into this niche right now. Some people feel like that, but guess what, you, as the newbie, your secret advantage is all the time that you have to spend personally connecting with people one-on-one.

As your business and your brand grows it gets harder to maintain that. It’s not really scalable, but when you’re just starting out, if someone sends you a DM or, um, an email, or they’re asking a question in your Facebook group, you could potentially respond to every single one. And then people feel like, wow, this person’s really hearing me. They understand me. I can’t believe they’re taking the time to answer my question. And it’s so effective in building relationships with people.

So you want to try to foster a community like that with your fans, your readers, or your customers. So do your best as, as long as you can, to respond to comments on social media and your blog respond to those emails and Facebook messages start conversations in your Facebook group or blog that are engaging. So where you’re kind of like asking people questions or to share something, to boost that engagement and get people talking, and then just like basically be a good human and care about the people who follow you. That’s my best advice.

5. Give Back

And my last tip, tip number five for building a tribe of raving fans is to give back. Show your fans how much you value them. Say thank you often, you know, in your email and your social media platforms, thank the people who follow you, who have joined your program. You know, it’s not like they’re just a number, they’re a person. And you’re so grateful that they decided to sign up to work with you.

You can send special thank you offers to your email list or just special offers in general, only for the people who are subscribed to your email list to make them feel special. Maybe like a little special sale that’s only for your email list or a special upgrade or PDF something that you put together that’s only for them.

You could also reward your most loyal and engaged fans. I know one time, I think maybe the first year that I started my Facebook group, it had, I don’t know, it had maybe a couple thousand people in the group at the time and it was around the holidays and I wanted to do something nice for the people in my group who were, you know, being so engaged and active and having conversations in there. Cause I just appreciated it so much. I didn’t have a ton of money at the time. So it was a small gesture.

But what I did was, in Facebook, it can give you the analytics of who’s the most actively engaged in your group for that month. And so I just went in the top 10 people who were there, I just sent them all a $5 Starbucks gift card as like a, Hey Happy Holidays, thanks for being such an active member of my group. I really appreciate it. Here’s coffee on me, type of thing.

And you know, I didn’t talk about that anywhere. This is probably the first time possibly that I’ve even told anyone that I did that. But I did that just for the people who I just felt really grateful for at that time.

And another thing that I do, not everyone agrees with this and it’s up to you how you want to run your business, but personally, I also choose to honor my earliest customers. So for example, you know, for my membership sites, I offered memberships, like annual or monthly recurring payments, at a lower rate for my very first customers, because I was trying to validate my idea and I pre-sold it before I had even created the product, just to make sure that there were real people who were really willing to spend real money to purchase this idea that I had before it existed. And those people, they got a great rate that’s significantly lower than what I’m selling the same product for now, but I don’t ever increase the cost for them. They’re always going to have that rate forever as long as they’re still a member. Because personally I just, I just believe in that philosophy.

Not everyone agrees with me here, but that’s just how I choose to run my business. I mean, it wasn’t like a ton of people either. You know, it’s maybe like under 50 people who have the lower rate. So it’s not like the make it or break it of my business, whether I raised these people’s prices by like five bucks or whatever. It feels good to me to continue to say thank you by like keeping that lower rate for them for as long as they want to remain a member. So that’s another thing to consider as well.

Recap and Action Steps

So action steps today. Things that I think that you can do to create a tribe of raving fans be authentic.

Show up as your true self. Take a moment to really get clear on who you are and what your values are, what feels good to you, and how do you want to show up in the world. Show up in that true, authentic way. And any time that something doesn’t feel right to you on the inside, that’s okay. You can pivot and work on continuing to be in alignment with what feels good and authentic for you.

Number two, be vulnerable. So do your best. For some people, this comes naturally. For other people, they have to work at it, but be as open as you can and as vulnerable as you can to share what’s truly happening in your life, in your business, you know, with your clients, whatever. I mean, obviously if you’re doing MNT you can’t share personal information from anyone else, but just in general, just be open, be vulnerable. If you don’t know the answer to something, just say that and say, Hey, I’m not sure but I can go and find out for you. That’s an example of being vulnerable and honest and open and authentic and not pretending like you know all the answers to everything.

Number three, be helpful. Genuinely try your best. Create free content on your blog, your social media, whatever, to attract your ideal client right to you. You want to create content that solves their problems. And that, in my opinion, I can’t say it enough. I think that is the biggest way, the most effective way to create a group of true fans who feel like you’re really truly helping them. Cause you are! You’re not holding back. You’re creating content that’s really helping them do something. Like an example would be my free start a website tutorial. I could easily charge hundreds of dollars for that, but for right now, I’ve decided to put it out for free.

Cause I know a lot of people, especially right now with their jobs and you know, their careers potentially up in the air. I mean, they may be interested in starting an online business, but they don’t know how to make a website and they don’t have the money right now to hire someone to create a website, potentially. So that was just my little thank you project that I’ve been working on.

Cause I’ve built all my own websites myself. So like why keep that information to myself? Why not share that with my community as a gesture of really authentic good will and true helpfulness for people. So yeah, that was the goal there. And what can you do in a similar vein to be really, truly helpful for people? That’s how you get people talking and sharing your stuff and messaging you with these really nice, grateful, wonderful messages.

Number four, be present. So as much as you can, depending on where you are in your business and your life right now, show up for your people. Engaging your Facebook group, send them emails, respond to comments, comment on other people’s social media, et cetera. That is a huge piece for building and growing your community.

And then last, always give back. So once you’re in a space where you can give back, you know, as I said, when I was doing my little gift cards for people, all I had, I could barely afford like a $50 thank you gesture, for 10 people. It was $5 each, and I knew that wasn’t a lot, but it just felt nice to be able to say thank you in some sort of way for people, you know? It doesn’t even have to be monetary. It could be some other sort of thank you, even just a message. But just the gesture and the thought and showing that you’re thinking about people and you’re thankful and grateful that they’re showing up and hanging out in your crew.

So those are my top five strategies for attracting raving fans right to you. And you know, as soon as you start to see some success here, bask in it for like 0.2 seconds and just keep going. Cause it’s only gonna keep growing from there. So I hope these strategies were helpful for you guys today.

Again, if you’re not already in The Unconventional RD Community on Facebook, head there, please and hang out. Enter your email if you want to join my email list and you’ll get nice roundups of all the conversations that are happening each week and online business news recaps and all that jazz. So, yeah, head to The Unconventional RD Community on Facebook or my website at theunconventionalrd.com. Thanks guys. And I’ll catch you again next week.

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