Melanie Benson, is an Authority Amplifier, Revenue Strategist and Money Mindset Coach for expert-preneurs. With over 12 years experience in corporate America and 21 years as an entrepreneur and coach, Melanie specializes in transforming wisdom into wealth through powerful mindset shifts, influence boosting strategies and aligned visibility that generates an endless supply of clients and opportunity. She is also the host of Amplify Your Success Podcast, a top 1.5% podcast, where I’ve been a guest.
Watch our interview here. Below the video, you can read a shortened version of her answers and get the link to her free offer.
Who do you serve and who are your clients?
My clients tend to be people who have an expertise. They have worked very hard to cultivate their work in the world and they’re ready to grow their impact and their reach, but they feel like a best-kept secret. They’re experiencing the symptoms of people not choosing them, and them being rather invisible in their marketplace. But also like I think my clients deeply want to make a greater impact in the world and when their message is bottled inside of them and they feel like that message is not having an impact.
What is their problem, their need, and what are the symptoms of that problem?
They’re wanting to grow the revenue of their business, grow the impact of their business, but the things they’re trying require so much work and so much effort, that they cannot sustain it for very long. Like they’re trying to get to that next level of growth, but the way they got here, can’t get them there.
They’re oftentimes so busy in the delivery of the work they do in the world, that they don’t have time to market properly. And so some of the symptoms I think people have are they have up and down cash.
What are the common mistakes people make or obstacles they face when they’re trying to solve the problem on their own or with other solutions?
We tend to see the work we do through the lens of our training, so people think in terms of features instead of how the world around us thinks, “what’s in it for me?” So it’s not outcome driven so people aren’t attracted to it.
Sometimes, it’s just boring. It sounds like everything out there. Messaging is the hardest thing to do for yourself.
What is unique about your solution that helps people avoid those mistakes or overcome those obstacles so they can finally solve their problem
Where I feel like I’m an authority is helping people go from being obscure to being like “Wow! I need some of that!”
And what I find is there’s one simple twist we can make or shift we can make to the thing that is most bookable, most hireable, most consumable. And that’s the titles that we give things. Your title is going to make or break whether somebody goes, “Yeah, I’m intrigued. I’m going to take action on this.” And so I find that what is setting me apart right now is I’m really good at helping people title things, and then create a system that’s going to get them discoverable.
I learned through the school of hard knocks. I developed a new muscle. I am a really powerful communicator and have a great way of pulling out the message from my clients.
How did you gain your expertise and turn it into a business?
The truth is hard knocks. I got trained as a coach but that didn’t give me a client attraction system. Piece 1 was to discover that if I changed the way I titled something I would get a steady flow of people coming in.
Piace 2 was collaboration, which you and I talked about when you were a guest on my podcast. Back then it was speaking, now it’s podcast guesting. I found that when you can share a magnetic message and you have a powerful, authoritative person showcasing you, you are borrowing their influence and that builds trust.
What’s one tip that people can use, one valuable free action that you can recommend that people can implement that will help them with their problem?
If you’re in best-kept secret mode and you’re feeling kind of invisible, this will work for you. Or even if you also feel like you’re pretty far along in your game, and you’re looking for a way to get that 1% growth, that next little edge over your competition, I would say, look at where you are being visible to ideal clients. And if you are not yet tapping into the podcasting market, this is your action step. Get a very powerful topic and get on podcasts that are targeted towards your key audience. There are over 2 million podcasts. 60% of those podcasts have some kind of a guest expert conversation. And these people are hungry for great content.
Your job is to get your authority positioning really clear with a great topic and a great pitch and get on podcasts. You reach out to people you know who have podcasts and you start from there.
What is one free valuable resource you can direct people that will further help them solve your problem?
I have a 7-step framework that I fell into and still use. These have proven to give me a minimum of another $125,000 into my business. You do need all 7 steps, you need the whole system really fine-tuned. It’s called:
Download it and audit yourself and pick one to implement immediately.
One of the methods I teach is the ROCS method. This is how you title something to get snapped up by your ideal clients and it will set you apart from the hundreds of people who are pitching to be on podcasts.
Specificity is a magnet. Relevance is a magnet. ROCS stands for Relevance, Outcome-Driven, Credibility-Boosting and Specific.
What’s the one question that I should have asked that would give great value to our audience?
I’ll share a story because seeing how these things work can be really powerful. If podcasts aren’t working for you, that’s because your system isn’t working. When I’m on the right podcast, I easily attract business. I had a topic about being a best-kept secret ago and about 10 days later, someone requested a consult with me and said he heard my interview. He binge-watched my own podcast. 24 hours later, he invested $10,550 and he’s re-enrolled with me 3 times. Podcast guesting works when you have a system that makes it easy to flow from being interested to being intrigued to being invested in the next step.
4 replies to "Interview with Melanie Benson: Amplify Your Authority"
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I’m new in this space. Do you need to be a podcaster in order to guest to a podcast? Thanks!
How does one narrow down his topic? I’m interested in quite a few things and I don’t know which one has more value.
I think being the ‘best-kept secret’ is what a lot of coaches experience. Most coaching schools don’t offer training in business and marketing. Without a system and training in marketing / sales it’s very difficult to build a successful business.