Episode #189 Doomsday Predictions – The Expert Industry In 2019

Transcript

Is it the Doomsday for the Expert Industry here?

Well let’s explore it today in this episode of Explode your Expert Business Show.

Hi, my name’s Simone Vincenzi, co-founder of GTeX and turn expert into authority.

Today I want to talk about the doomsday of the expert industry.

Now there are a lot of things that are changing right now in the expert industry, in particular in 2019.

And I want to explore what are those changes, how they are affecting the expert industry, what can you expert in 2019 about the expert industry, the things that they’re going to be affecting negatively the expert industry, and the things that are actually the opportunities that are emerging from this doomsday.

So stay tuned, you will have a blast.

First of all, happy 2019. Welcome, welcome, welcome.

It’s an exciting new year. I spent my New Year’s Eve watching Mission Impossible, on the sofa with my wife.

It’s been very relaxing, relaxing evening. Then watching the fireworks, a glass of bubbles and then yeah we go to sleep. It’s been a really relaxing 2019 as a starting, but then immediately on the the first day my wife and I were in the living room recording all the video content that we needed for January.

So from day one we immediately started taking action that’s our like, to start the year.

But let’s not talk about my year, actually I’m interested to understand how was your New Year’s Eve?

Let me know, I’m curious to hear what were you up to? What did you do?

Just write it down here in the comment or sent me a message, I’m really curious to hear that. Hope you had a good one.

So let’s talk about the doomsday of the expert industry.

Now 2018 has been an intense year for the expert industry, in particular because there were a lot of things that changed.

Big changes happened and as you probably know, on Facebook and with all this changes happening on Facebook with the profiles being closed down, advertisement budget going through the roof, adverts not working as they were working before, a lot of people creating fake accounts and using scamming strategies.

All this made sure that actually Facebook is making our work to spread our message even more difficult.

Because now we need to come up with more creative and engaging ideas to get the attention of the people that we want to get the attention to.

What is the landscape? What is going to be now with all these changes that are happening? What’s going to be the landscape in 2019? Well first of all I want to start saying that 2019 is going to be a very, very crowed year.

More and more people are joining the expert movement as we call it, and they are aware that they can make more money using their own skills that they have been crafting and doing over the years.

So they are now starting more and more businesses and therefore there is, guess what?

More and more and more competition, while before there were a few people maybe doing what you’re doing right now, now everyday businesses are starting out doing, and experts are coming out doing exactly what you want to do, targeting exactly the same people, with exactly the same message.

Because sometimes maybe they are taking inspiration from you or you’re one of these people that now is taking inspiration from them and rightly you’re doing what you need to do to get out there and to capture their attention.

So as I said, things are getting more and more difficult because the space is going to be super crowded so the challenge will be, how do you stand out?

How do you make sure that actually you get the clients that you want and those clients, they don’t go somewhere else?

That’s going to be a big, big, big, big, big massive question to answer in 2019.

And then another thing that I wrote down here, that it’s going to be even more difficult and the reason why it’s going to be even more difficult is not only because of the social media platform changes that happened, but also because there are going to be more and more technologies.

There are going to be more and more opportunities as well, there are going to be more and more strategies.

There are more and more experts coming out, teaching how to be experts that they don’t know what they are doing, so they are teaching the wrong things.

And the reason why it’s going to be even more difficult, it is because it’s going to be more difficult to even keep focus on the things that are important, on the things that really work, on the things that matter.

Because it’s going to be very easy to be scattered. It’s going to be very easy to move around and follow the latest influencer which is promising to be the new messiah that is going to change the that is going to change the world of your business.

And I’m saying this because I’m one of them, and there are a lot of people that unfortunately not like myself, they haven’t been through the trial and error, they haven’t been running their businesses for years and now they’re just getting out there and saying, “Oh you know what, that’s what you can do,” and sometimes I see so much bad advice given and it makes me feel sad about how the whole industry is going down because unfortunately there are some people that don’t value putting the work in.

Not value building their experience before teaching something because they are interested in the quick buck.

And there are going to be more and more of these people coming out because this industry is becoming really popular.

And so how do you distinguish who are the right voices from the voices that you shouldn’t listen to?

That’s going to be a very, very interesting time, also for influencers like myself, “Who do I listen to?” I think we all are in the same boat.

Then the other things that we said is going to be about the Facebook ads cost.

Before Facebook ads was the new thing and it was fairly affordable to get people to come to your event.

Hello Siawash, thank you very much for joining all the way from Norway.

As I was saying, there’s going to be more before, Facebook ads they were a great way to get people to join your courses, to get people to join your seminars, your webinars and it was quite affordable.

Unfortunately right now, Facebook ads are increasing day after day. And what before maybe was costing you two or three pounds, two or three dollars to get someone to join your mailing list or to join your courses, now we’re talking about 10, 15, 20, 100, 200, 300, depending on the kind of lead that you want to acquire.

So if you don’t have that capital actually Facebook ads at the beginning is not revealing to be a great strategy or the best option.

So we need to be more creative also in which ways are we going after the audience that we want?

And using our budget accordingly. And then the last thing that I want to mention in this doomsday prediction is the trust factor.

It’s going to be more and more difficult for people that are starting and getting into this industry, getting bombarded from messages left, right and centre to know who to trust.

And they will subscribe to more and more mailing lists, they will follow more and more people and buy less and less because they don’t know who to buy from.

So you’ll find that there are going to be a lot of people that will obtain, that will consume a lot of your free content but they will not give you that money because they going out consuming the free content of everyone else up until they find the right person that is speaking their message, that is speaking to them, that can build trust, that can a relationship and have the right product and the right offer for them at the right time.

And so this is important for you to understand because now that you know this about your landscape, then you can craft your marketing message accordingly, and that’s something we’re going to teach our client this year because your marketing need to adjust depending of the time and history in which you are and what you have at your disposal.

So these are the doomsday prediction, I think these are the more challenging times that we have ahead this year.

But now I want to switch, now I want to talk about actually the things that are going to happen in 2019 that are positive notes.

That are opportunities because as you know, every challenge represent an equal greater opportunity.

The bigger the challenge, the bigger the opportunity. At least that’s what I believe and that’s how I’m running GTeX and that’s how our teams believes as well.

So there is something that, is it going to become more difficult with being bombarded by tools and different information to understand who to follow.

At the same time it’s going to become way easier to run our businesses. Artificial intelligence is becoming available for literary pennies.

There are great tools and softwares that are going up online for free, for subscription of 10 dollars, 20 dollars, 30 dollars, 50 dollars a month that can literary run your business for you.

We’re talking about landing paid software that are becoming cheaper and cheaper and cheaper.

Email sequencing software that are becoming cheaper and cheaper and cheaper.

CRM systems and not only they’re becoming cheaper but they’re getting evolved.

So we’re talking about artifical intelligence going into those machines, also for small business owners which is something that so far was just reserved to the big guys, because they had the budget to develop those platforms and to get the developers in-house.

So that’s one thing that you want to be aware of. Technology is going to make a massive leaps, it has already been making it for years at a really fast speed but the speed of technology is going to get faster and faster and faster.

So it’s worth having someone in your corner who’s a bit of a tech geek that is going to consult you and is going to help you and he’s going to let you know when new software or a new tool is coming out that can make your life and your business simpler.

For example, I’m one of these geeks because I love the latest software and systems. I love to test new things all the time, but also we have in GTeX CJ, CJ is our tech geek and he’s aware with all the new tools and new technology, making sure that business function in an optimal way, using and making the most of really inexpensive tools.

So be aware that in 2019 you will have even more opportunities to use technology to make your life and business easier, so you can have more time to do what matters rather than doing a lot of manual things.

Artificial intelligence and tools they are going to replace a lot of these things that you might be doing that actually you can outsource in a smarter way paying a 10 or 20 dollar a month subscription.

Then the other thing that is going to happen is that because there are going to be so many people that are going to flood this market right now calling themselves experts, but are not.

If you really know your stuff, and if you are showing how deep you know what you’re talking about, then you’re going to immediately stand out.

Because the majority of people might not have your depth of knowledge, might not have your depth of expertise of results that you have provided.

So all these things then it would come a really huge asset for you and it will be easier as well to stand out.

The reason why it is because a lot of people they’re going to put out content that only scratches the surface.

So if you take your time to create something that is going to blow people away as well as creating top of mind content then you are onto a winner.

I’ll give you an example. Now I’m going to spend more time actually writing detail in depth content in 2019, but as well I’m going to use a more automated strategy to put out the top of mind kind of scratch the surface content just to get people to see me all the time.

Because you need to have both, you need to have the depth and you need to have also the width. You need to be in front of your audience as much as possible.

Like while before just going in on one social media platform was acceptable, now it’s not acceptable anymore in 2019.

You have enough tools and you have enough integrations to make sure that your message goes everywhere.

And do you want to have that, and you need to have that?

Because otherwise people are going to buy from the other person which is being in front of them consistently and he’s also going to write the deeper content.

So that’s the kind of game you want to play and if you’re the kind of person that said, “Oh but I don’t really want to get out there too much,” well I’ll tell you it’s going to be tougher and tougher for you to get any business.

Well before maybe you could survive, now it’s going to be tougher because you have even more people that are joining and you need to stand out in some way. But on the other hand, if you show what you have and you invest time in creating long-form videos, long-form pieces of content that are actually valuable, people will build such a level of trust in you and they will see that you put so much work behind it that they will want to buy from you.

And the good news is that for example, you don’t want to spend hours and hours to do this, you can outsource it.

You can create the content on video or audio format and then have other people writing the content. For example that’s part of the strategy that we use at GTeX.

I’m going to be mainly creating video and audio content and the deep detail long pause form, because I want to build this relationship with people. I want people to understand that here at GTeX we know what we’re talking about and we know it better than anyone else.

But then on the top of mind content, which is the more short form, I’m just going to create all the videos and getting someone else to transcribe and create posts from those videos.

That’s exactly what I’ve been doing yesterday, I recorded more than I think 32, one minute between 40 seconds and one minute video that will be on social media everywhere.

But also these are going to be the written content that I’m going to put out. So we talked about that it’s going to be easier as well because of the tech.

We talked that it’s going to be easier as well to stand out by really showing how far much you know and the results that you can do for people.

Also I think that there’s going to be a shift here. You will see a lot of big and a lot of people building their personal brand.

Because 2018 has been the year where everyone has been talking about building your personal brand, building our personal brand in particular following Crushing It from Gary V and so a lot of people jumped on the band waggon now.

However now you’ll see that everyone else is going to be talking only about themself and talking only about what they do and how great they are. There is going to be a shift in some point where now people are going to get bored about it.

So something that we’re going to do as well as to always keep talking and building my personal brand but is to slightly turn the volume on more on our clients, results, case studies, community, stories, features.

Because while everyone then is talking about themself, we are going to talk 60% about our clients and 40% about us. Again, this is another way to stand out and to be different.

That’s why it’s important to understand what’s going on in your market, because then you can or do the opposite, or adjust, or do better what other people are doing and therefore stand out.

So that’s one of the ways in which we will stand out in 2019 and getting the shift more on the community that you’re building, and if you’re not building a community, massive, massive mistake.

This is something that is going to be even stronger in 2019. Even, even stronger but then switching the focus in particular to that community.

And then another thing that is going to make a massive difference in 2019 that you really want to be aware of is that, as I mentioned before it’s time for you to be everywhere.

And it’s time for you to be almost on every social media platform, because people are going to check you out. Now a lot of people are saying, “Well, but I don’t really like twitter, but I don’t really like this platform, I don’t really like this other platform.” listen I hate Instagram, I still don’t find it exciting. I love Facebook, I love Linkedin, Instagram really find it pretty dull, pretty boring but at the same time I know there is a massive opportunity on Instagram and a percentage of my clients and potential clients they hang out on Instagram.

And I’m getting incredible results with my story views, something that I wouldn’t expect. Even if it’s something that I’m not really a consumer of.

So what is it you need to think about? Is that you need to put yourself in your client’s shoes.

See where they are, see what they want and imagine that now one of your clients go on Instagram and doesn’t find you, goes on Linkedin and doesn’t find you, goes on Facebook and you’re only on Facebook.

What are they going to think about you? Well they will go and find someone else and now they are on Linkedin, they are on Facebook, they are on Instagram, they are on Twitter, they are on Periscope, they are everywhere.

So I’m telling you right now to choose at least three to four platforms where you can be in consistently.

But this is the thing, you don’t need to create content for every single platform. You can repurpose the content that you already have created from one platform and put it also in the other platform.

Because now there is such a cross reference of platforms that as long as you create a message that can work for different platforms, then you can now have massive exposure on your content.

And you can see that people like Gary Vaynerchuk, Karen Cardone, Tony Robins as well, Oprah, they are doing, Ariana Afintin, they are doing this incredibly well. Now you can say, “But Simone they are big teams, I’m not as big as them.” Well I’ll tell you right now, I didn’t have a social media team and up until now at the moment of the recording, I have a virtual assistant that does the repurposing, so we create a content, I tell her where to go and then she’ll publish and post it.

So you don’t need to have a complex social media team as long as you structure things from the get go in the right way.

In fact if you want to know more, join our online course in our online membership because we’re building a training on how to create the structure, the entire structure of content creation and repurposing.

You will absolutely love that and you get 30 days for free as well, and then it’s 47 dollars a month, so less than really like a cup of coffee every two days, to get that.

But this is one of the courses that we’re building and on top of the other 20 plus courses that we have. So look at the way you’re creating your content and that you can expand and be published in different other locations.

This is one of the best ways to build your brand and to build your client’s brand as well in an organic way.

And then if you want you can also put some paid advertisement around it.

For example we are now putting more and more money on Facebook advertisement, it’s more expensive but at least it’s still one of the top ways and the best ways to build that right audience and I love the Facebook advertising platform. So be everywhere alright?

And then we have the last one which is I think it’s going to be a buzzword in 2019, which is relationship. I predict that word relationship is going to be a huge buzzword in 2019, you have seen it already, many times in 2018.

But it’s going to be more used in 2019 why? Because there are going to be so many more choices for people that they don’t know who to work with.

And so you want to build to have a stronger funnel that builds a relationship instead of instant sales. Now there are really important to manage both, you want the instant sale and you want the relationship. But remember that the instant sale, as things are going it’s always going to diminish and become harder and harder, and the relationship game is going to be more and more important.

So the leads that you will get now might convert at three months, six months, 12 months, 18 months but this is why it’s important to do the work now and to always consistently get leads, because those one will convert maybe six months or 12 months down the line.

And if you plan your relationship game well you now have multiple different touch points and multiple different offers to give them so then you can build that ongoing relationship with your audience from the lower paid programme to the higher paid programmes.

So these are the things that are going to make an impact in 2019, relationship, relationship, relationship. Invest that time, invest that money, invest those resources in building relationship with your audience, with your clients, with your potential clients, because it’s going to becomes even more important.

And also referrals are going to become even more important than before because now if people don’t know who to buy anymore from, they will turn to their friends and said, “What is your experience with X person, who do you recommend?” So make sure that within your content strategy and within your relationship building strategy, you always have very very strong referral strategy.

For example that is something that in GTeX we have not been really consistent at using, and it’s going to become a massive focus for us in 2019 now that we have more than 400 clients that have been, joined our courses, seminars, paid programmes online and offline, so we’re going to massively build on that. Now there is one thing that you might be saying that for someone who has been in business now for a few years what I’m saying him is making perfect sense.

They’ll say, ” Okay Simone, thank you very much, you’re absolutely awesome, thank you I appreciate it and I’m going to get going.” but for someone who’s starting their business, who’s starting their expert business, they hear this and they say, “Oh my God, really, am I in the right place, can I make it, it’s too overwhelming, no I can’t do it?” Listen, if you’re at the beginning, start simple okay?

You can have all I’ve said today as an end goal for your strategies. Because if you’re learning business skills and you’re refining your expertise while building your business, there are too many things going on so instead of having a one year approach and say, “I want to make a million this year and I don’t even know what I’m talking about, I’ve never run a business before.”

I’m not here to poop on your dreams because I believe that everything is possible. What I’m saying is hope for the best and be prepared for the worse.

Take also, have in mind that it might be, it might take a longer journey and from the experience I have there are only about one percent of people that are just the shooting stars and all the others, they take five six seven years, three years five years to build a sustainable business.

A business that can give them reoccurring income, that can give them clients every time they want. To build a strong name to build a strong reputation.

Now I’ve been in this industry now for eight years at this point and there’s still no much time compared to a lot of the other guys that have been around for 20, 30, 40 years. I started when I was 22, I’m 30 now, but there is something that I can tell you. I’ve got a lot of people buying from me now than they were following me when I was 22, and the reason why is because they admire the consistency, the progress, the fact that no matter what we were showing up every single day.

And we had our goals, we had our big dreams and we still have them, but at the same time we’re putting a pinch of reality in there and I know for some people that are very super visionaries, they will say or they say, “No but the law of attraction doesn’t say this.”

Listen I believe in the law of attraction and I believe in business so I’m combining both. I’m always visualising, I’m always looking for the doors that I want to open and the money that I want to make and I tell you it works all the time.

But at the same time I’m also more careful and more conscious that what I want might not manifest right away.

Sometimes it does sometimes it doesn’t, but what I’m willing to do is to do whatever it takes to make that happen to make that a reality.

And that’s what works for me, everyone manifests in a different way, everyone creates in a different way, for example my wife approaches business in a totally different level but what I can share with you is what works for me.

And what I can share with you as well is that it’s important to know your creative process and I think that that’s something you might want to invest some time and money on in 2019 if you haven’t done it yet.

Understand yourself in such a way that you know what makes it work, that you know what makes you create, that you know how you naturally get results, that you know what are you more inclined to do and not to do because self awareness is a number one skill that you can have as an expert as an entrepreneur.

And then you will find that audience will resonate naturally with who you are, will resonate naturally with your message.

The moment I stopped looking at how other people were creating their success and start thinking about how could I create my success, what made sense to me still studying other people.

I’m not saying not observe, but what I’m saying is not to take exactly what they have done and put it on you because you’re a different person, you have different resources, you have a different time, you have different skills, you have a different background.

I love that you are modeling but I think they’re a lot of flaws built in and it’s not just because you found a hack something and you’re going to get the same result, actually very unlikely.

But what you can understand is what are the principles that these people are using that you admire and then have a reality check with yourself, does it resonate with you, does it make sense to you? And if the answer is yes boom, right go for it.

If the answer is no, find your way. Find you way and you will know and you will notice that when you find your way when you will find your uniqueness then you will start to attract the best clients that you possibly can attract, the best opportunities and you will attract like a magnet.

And that’s my wish for you in 2019, if you’re starting out and as well if you’ve been in business for a while. Now these were my doomsday predictions, I’m curious to hear about what predictions do you have?

What do you think is going to happen in our industry, in the expert industry in 2019?

Please leave a comment below or send me a message, you can send me an email at simone@gtex.org.uk.

And if you want to monetize your speaking business and make sure that this year is the year where you make money in your speaking business, and you get clients in your speaking business, and you get booked consistently and you stand out from the stage then there is a link here in the share notes and on the video and you can click it and apply for our monetize your speaking business programme.

This is a programme that we can do one to one or a group programme, you can decide.

We have few different options and we’re going to help you get booked consistently, create your converting pitch from the stage, help you create your brand as a speaker and also teach you how you can connect consistently with event organisers.

So that’s how the programme works and we will be there with you, guiding you every single step of the way giving you the templates, giving you the tips, helping you also in the different interaction with event organisers. If we have a relevant connection that we can make we will make it but it’s not guaranteed, depending on your level of speaking, that’s the most important thing.

But this is what we will be doing for you and the team that you have access to. So there is a link in the share notes and here in the comments.

Click the link on monetise your speaking business and apply right now.

Thank you very much for listening today if you haven’t subscribed to the show subscribe to the podcast if you’re watching on Facebook live then like the page, or subscribe on our YouTube channel if you’re watching this on YouTube.

I’m looking forward to seeing you in the next episode because I’ve got something special for you in the next, well I think it’s going to be 12, 13, 13 episodes, I’m going to give you access audio, the audio version of one of our programme called your road to business success.

Where we’re going to explain how the expert business canvas works, so then you can have your business strategy and refine your business strategy for the entire 2019.

Every week I’m going to release three different episodes and we’re going to talk about three different parts of the canvas so then you can week by week work on different aspects of your business.

This is going to be a mini series the videos are an average of from three to five to 10 minutes long, the audio in this case, which is taken from these video which are part of our private membership site, and I’m sure that you will love this training.

It’s the first time we do an audio training on our show, and I decided that will be a great way to start the year, where there a focus on January on your business strategy, and that’s where the next audio will be from.

I will always create an introduction so then I give you more context around the training that you’re going to see so every time you listen to one of our shows, get pen and paper because we’ve got something special prepared for you.

I’ll see you next time, Ciao.