How a Facebook Group Can Change Your Business

Do your customers know, like, and trust you? 

They should. In fact, it’s crucial for the success of your business that they do. 

You may have heard that phrase before: know, like, trust. People often refer to it as “KLT.” In some way or another, most business owners have heard this idea or something similar. 

My concern is that we’ve heard about this idea so much to the point that it’s lost its meaning. I have a feeling it’s become so cliche that people are overlooking the importance of it. 

As business owners, we know that no one is going to purchase something significant from us if they don’t know, like and trust us.

Maybe they buy your book for $7.95 through your free plus shipping funnel, but they’re not going to commit to anything greater without those three things. 

Luckily, this funnel (which I talked about in this blog post last week) is a great first step to establishing “KLT” with a potential customer. When they see that you are literally an author on the subject and that your book is a best seller (which happens easily when you work with us at BSP), they’re going to trust you as the expert. 

Something your book won’t do is help someone get to know you. Depending on how you choose to communicate with your ideal client, whether it’s through videos, podcasts, blog posts, social media posts, etc., you need to figure out how to present yourself in a way that allows potential customers to get to know you. 

It’s not their job to know anything about you, it’s your responsibility to make yourself known to them. When we work with authors here at BSP, the first step of our PR process is to help the author make themselves more known online. 

Once a potential customer/client gets to know you, they make a judgment based on what they’ve seen (i.e. what you’ve given them: in your book, videos, content, etc.) and they’ll determine if they like you. 

Most of our clients at Bestseller Publishing have gotten to know us through Facebook. We currently spend about $50,000 a month in ads on Facebook. That sounds like a scary number but we didn’t obviously didn’t start there. 

We started very, very small and then as we got a return on our investment, we would spend a little more and then a little more and so on. 

At this point, we have the funds to be spending more than $50,000 a month but it would be too difficult for us to handle any more leads than we have now. We would have to hire and train many more people and that’s just not something we’re interested in at the moment. 

Even with the amount of money we’re spending in ads, we’re still massively underutilizing Facebook because we’re not taking advantage of Facebook groups (which are an incredible resource for getting people to know, like and trust you). 

We’re already spending a good deal of money advertising on Facebook, so we have a lot of people going through our various funnels but we’re not driving them into a private group. This is a terrible mistake on our part. 

I want to share some numbers with you…

On a monthly basis we sell about 1500 copies of my book Publish, Promote, Profit and the workbook that goes along with is: The Black Book of Writing, Marketing, PR & Media. Almost all of these sales come through the ads we buy on Facebook. 

Right now, we’re looking for about 20-25 people (out of 1500) who want to commit to book-deals with us. Depending on a client’s needs, a book deal with us can range from $8,000 to $50,000. 

On an average month if we get 15-20 new clients who sign book deals with us, what about the other 1,480ish people who for one reason or another chose not to sign a book deal with us? (Probably because they didn’t know, like or trust us enough). 

How can we serve them? How can we still try to help them?

We could (and should) be utilizing a Facebook Group. So that’s what we’re going to do. 

For every person who goes through our free plus shipping funnel and buys my book for $7.95, we’re not only going to do our normal follow up to try to get people to fill out a strategy session application, we’re also going to put them into a new private Facebook group where we can connect with them, answer their questions, and serve them. This will help them get to know, like, and trust us a little bit more so they’ll be ready to take the next steps. 

To build this group, we’ve created a new campaign where we’re reaching out to everyone on our email list and any new leads moving forward where we’re offering a free training if they join the Facebook group. However, they have to act fast because the offer for the free training is only happening during a period of 12 days. 

Then, I’m going to do Facebook lives in the group where I do a different training in each video. At the end of each training, I’ll offer something specific such as a $1,000 course we’re going to start offering. 

If you’re spending any money on advertising (whether on Facebook or not) you should be driving those leads to a Facebook group. This is the first time I’m talking about this idea because it’s the first time I’m doing it, but I wanted to share this idea with you so you aren’t leaving any opportunities on the table as I have with almost 1,480 potential clients a month. 

Ideally, some of those people each month will become clients of ours, or they don’t but we still have a chance to serve and help them. I believe that when you do positive things, it always comes back to you. 

A Facebook group is an incredibly powerful tool you can use whether or not you’re paying for advertising. It’s a fantastic place for your potential clients/customers to get to know, like, and trust you. 

When you’re finally ready to create your own Facebook Group, you’re faced with the challenge of getting people to join. 

I suggest utilizing your email list if you have one; however, there has to be some type of incentive for people to click through from the email to the group to join it. 

What can you do to spark someone’s interest to join your group? You can share a limited time offer so if they join the group they’ll get a discount, or a free pdf, or something that might help them. 

This may sound broad, and it is, but this “thing” is going to be different based on your business and what your ideal client wants. Regardless of what “thing” you choose, it should serve your ideal client. 

It’s important to figure out how you can incentivize them to join your group. At Bestseller Publishing, we’re incentivizing people by offering to connect with them personally. My team and I will be reaching out to every person who joins the group asking them where they’re at with their book, what they need help with specifically, etc. 

We want to engage with every single person so they will get to know us, start to like us, and build that trust. It doesn’t cost us anything but our time, which is valuable, but I do have a team to help me with this so I don’t have to do it on my own. 

The best part about this Facebook group is that it’s your own community. You control how it’s run, who’s in it, and how you’re involved. 

This idea may not be as fleshed out as some of the other subjects I’ve written about on my blog, but that’s simply because we’re in the midst of launching it. Even though it’s not as detailed as it could be months from now after I have more experience and I can share results, I really wanted to start this conversation because I have a feeling it’s going to massively change Bestseller Publishing and I think it can do the same for your business too.