E9: No Audience…No Sales

You’ve got the offer. The branding. Maybe even a logo you love. But if there’s no one to sell to? You’ve got a hobby, not a business.

In this episode, we get straight to the point: you need an audience.
Not thousands of random followers but the right people who are interested, engaged, and ready to buy from you.

We cover:

• What an “audience” actually is (and isn’t)
• Why your audience doesn’t have to be big — just right
• When to start building it (spoiler: before launch day)
• How to avoid the Google rabbit hole and focus on connection
• The one thing that makes all the difference to your first sale

Whether you’re just getting started or wondering why the sales aren’t flowing, this episode is your reminder that growing a community is the essential ingredient to building a business that lasts.

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Transcript

 Welcome to the Real Talk and a Slice of Cake Podcast with your favourite business besties, Emma & Leanne

No fluff. No jargon. Just straight-talking advice, smart strategies and a dash of mischief to keep things interesting.

If you’re starting or growing a business and feeling a bit overwhelmed don’t worry, we’ve got you.

Between us, we’ve built four successful businesses - and learned a lot the hard way.  Now we’re sharing what actually works… PLUS the stuff we wish someone had told us sooner.

From hobby to hustle, side gig to full-time business…you’ll get honest conversations, practical tips, and lots of laughs along the way.

So grab a brew, cut yourself a slice of your favourite cake, and let’s dive in!

Hello and welcome to Real Talk and a slice of Cake with me, Leanne, and my business bestie Emma. In today's episode, I want to talk about audience growing your audience, and I want to start with what actually is an audience. So for me, an audience is people who are going to buy your product or service. So they could be, you might refer to them as a client or a customer, but without an audience, without a client, you can have the best products, the best services, the best business model in the world.

But if you've got nobody to sell to. That's not a business. I guess that's called a hobby, Emma. Absolutely, yes. And, and we see that a lot, don't we? In, in our jobs as, as business strategies. We see that a lot. People who have the most amazing products, the most amazing marketing systems in place, you know, tech in place, all of the stuff in place, but they're not making any.

Sales. And that is because they haven't built this audience of people, this community of people who actually want what it is they are offering the products that they are putting out there. Um, because if you haven't got those people, Anne says, how on earth are you gonna actually start making the sales?

So I think that is why, you know, we chose to, to talk about this topic today because you ain't gonna make that first sale, which is what you want, isn't it? When you launch your business, if you don't have people to sell it to. But it's not that easy, is it, Leanne? It's really not. It's, and, you know, we hear about influencers online, say, you know, you grow your, you can grow your audience to 10,000 followers, you know, within 30 days.

And the reality is that's just not true. Um, and it's not about. The numbers, it's not about the vanity metrics. This, this is about people who believe in you, believe in your products and service, see you as the expert and want to buy. It's not about the numbers, so if you, you can have a small audience of people that are.

I'm doing chomping at the bit things here that just shark things that are ready to buy, no matter what you put out, they they want to buy and it takes time. And I think what, from my experience, I remember talking to you, Emma a few years ago when I was talking about lunch in my business and it was like, well, I'll start posting on social media in October when I launched my business.

But actually you quite rightly kept pulling me back. You need to. You need to build that authority, you need to build that, that know, like, trust. So that's what people know you, they like you, they trust you. They know you are going to deliver on the thing that you say you're going to to deliver. And it is just, it takes time, doesn't it?

Yeah, it absolutely does. It absolutely does. And I think there's two things there from what Leanne was just saying that I just wanna pull out a little bit more. One, because I'm feeling really cheeky and I think what Leanne has just told us is that size doesn't matter. Is that right, Leo? I think it's Emma.

I think that's what she just told us. But, but joking aside, I think that is true, isn't it? I think, you know, there's, there's often a lot of focus on I need masses of people on, you know, masses of followers on Instagram, because that is what's gonna get me the sales. Absolutely not, because those people might not be the right people to buy from you.

So this is about building a following of people. Who could just be 5, 6, 10, 20, a hundred people if they are all the right people for you. So I think it's key to get that right size doesn't matter as long as they're the right people, that is what actually does matter. And then I think the other thing to, you know, to sort of expand on a little bit more when we're, we're talking about that is how you connect with those people.

And I think, Leanne, have we done a podcast episode on, on where to show up? I think we have, haven't we? We have, yeah, we've done that. So again, that's about really understanding who your ideal client is, where they hang out, how they consume, hang out. That sounds wrong, especially you've just been talking about size doesn't matter, but you know, um, how they, where they consume their information and, and, and how they consume it.

And then making sure that you are showing up in, in those spaces and talking to them. Absolutely. So if you wanna learn more about that, we're not gonna cover that in then this episode. But do go back and find that episode. It's probably, um, episode. Two or three something. It's right at the very, very beginning anyway, so do go and have a look at that episode, um, because that will help you to understand who those people are.

So I think really what we're trying to say today is that we know when you launch your business, it is all about getting that first sale. To get that first sale, you need to have connected with people who are going to buy that product or service, and you need to start doing that as soon as you can. So don't wait until launch because on launch day.

You're gonna be very disappointed if that's the case. So if you put your offer out there on launch day. Nobody's gonna buy 'cause nobody knows you exist. So the sooner you can start to create a community, an audience, a group of people, um, the sooner you are gonna start making your sales when you do actually launch your products and services.

Anything else we wanted to talk about around. Audience today. We didn't want to this, this is a huge topic by the way, and we didn't want to overwhelm you with lots of information. Today was really just about saying you need people in your world to sell to. Absolutely. And I think, you know, my take takeaway message would be it's never too early to start building that audience.

And, you know, you can use your audience for some market research as well. Get really clear on what it is that they, that they want. What are their, their, their problems, their challenges. You know, what, why are they, why are they, why are they in your audience? What is it that they want? And, um, that will help you leaps and bounds as you, as you move your business forward.

Absolutely. So we're gonna leave you there. Make sure you go and start building your audience. Start nurturing them and talking to them and getting them ready for when you have actually launched. And just to add to that, that process never ends. But be patient 'cause it does take a little bit of time.

Thank you for listening. We will see you next time.

That’s it for today’s slice of real talk…we hope you’re walking away with something you can actually use.

If you liked what you heard, hit follow, leave a review, or share it with a fellow business bestie.  

And if you’re craving more cake and conversation, come hang out with us on Instagram @simplifybusinesssuccess

Thanks for tuning in and remember, no fluff, no jargon…just real talk.

 See you next time!