I’ve hit this revenue ceiling in my business, Marisa and no matter what I do, I can’t seem to break out of it… what do I do?!

I get that question from so many of my students. They tell me that no matter how hard they work and no matter what they try they can’t seem to get more sales, more customers or hit higher income levels.

So today I want to explain exactly what you can do about it if this is you… 

And it has something to do with what I call the Circle of Influence Phenomenon.

It’s Easy Because You Don’t Have to Twist Their Arm

So when you’re first getting started, marketing and sales is actually a whole lot easier because usually, you’re marketing to the innermost sphere in the Circle of Influence which includes family and friends or your associates…

Basically people who know you well or people who kind of know you.

You don’t have to twist their arm to work with you or buy from you because they’ve generally got good feelings about you.

You’ll still see some results even if you have a “so so” message and “so so” marketing 🙂

This is what I call beginner’s luck — the first time you launch a product or program or service, you get a few sales and you think, “Oh, my gosh, I’m in business!”

But the truth is, getting a handful of sales doesn’t mean you have a real business, because you don’t know if you can create money on demand, clients on demand…

And ultimately impact on demand.

So if you want to reach beyond your inner Circle of Influence and truly have a bigger audience, then you’ve got to start to reach out to friends of friends.

Now, this is when you start creating joint venture partnerships, and affiliate partnerships and you have other people promoting you and transferring the trust and credibility they have with their audience to you.

So marketing to friends of friends is a little harder than marketing to friends and associates, but not as hard as marketing to strangers, because when you’re marketing to people who don’t know you from Adam… 

That’s where you’ve got your work cut out for you!

He’s Over 6 Feet and He’s Still Too Short!

Okay, I want to take a little break here and tell you a story (I promise it’s relevant!)

So I have this lemon tree in my backyard and because we pick lemons everyday, I’ve stripped all of the lower branches of lemons — all the low hanging fruit is gone.

The rest of the lemons are way up toward the middle of the tree and all the way at the top. 

So I’m not sure if you know this but I’m short —  four foot eleven and a quarter 🙂

And let me tell you something, I don’t have what it takes to get those lemons midway up the tree (let alone the top of the tree!). My next option to get to those lemons is to have my husband Murray try it and he’s over 6 feet.

But sometimes even Murray’s too short and he’s got to get a stepladder and use a stick to get those lemons.

And that’s what you’ve got to do to if you want to get out to the biggest part of the Circle of Influence which is the outer ring where you start reaching strangers and people all over the world.

You need to do a lot more to reach more people…

And when you get up to that outer ring your messaging and your marketing has to be extraordinary.

It Can Take 200 Touches (and Maybe More!)

So by the time you get to the outer circle, you’ve got to go from single tactics such as posting on social media, sending out emails, and creating a video for YouTube…

To entire integrated marketing campaigns.

In fact, you may need to stack 3 or 4 campaigns strategically to get someone from not knowing who you are, all the way to being ready and willing to pull out their credit card and buy from you.

You may have heard it takes 5 to 7 connections or “touches” with someone to buy and that’s true but it only applies to 1:1 sales with people who know you… 

Basically the innermost sphere on the Circle of Influence.

When you start to get to friends of friends, we’re talking more like 15 to 30 connections or touches, and in the outermost ring where you have total strangers…

It can take 200 touches and maybe even more to turn someone from a prospect into a buyer.

Want a Massive Audience? You Need to Embrace This…

Here’s what I’ve found…

Almost everyone underestimates how they’re going to transform total strangers into paying customers.

They think they can just get someone to opt in for a lead magnet and send them an email that leads to a sales page and people are going to buy.

But the chances of that actually happening is maybe 1 in 1000.

So if you want to increase those chances to 1 in 100, 2 in 100, even 5 in 100, you’ve got to go pro with your sales and marketing.

If you want a bigger business and a much bigger audience, then you need to step up and become a marketing and sales professional and embrace that identity.

From $100,000 to $100 Million in Your Business

The way I see marketing, it’s about creating the attitudes, beliefs and conditions that people need to make a change in their life that they want but can’t attain on their own.

And what a marketing campaign is designed to do is lead people through the process of creating those attitudes, beliefs and conditions through a series of touchpoints.

It’s got to be highly targeted and it’s got to be highly professional if you truly want that huge audience.

So keep in mind that at each stage of business growth, you’ve got to change your strategies to get to the next stage.

There’s a set point at $100,000 dollars and there’s another set point at $1 million dollars, another set point at $10 million dollars and another at $100 million dollars.

And at each of those set points — if you want to try to get to the next set point — you’ve got to actually uplevel your skill set and do things differently.

Because each set point means going out to the next ring on the Circle of Influence and the marketing is going to get way harder.

Just to be clear, harder does not mean impossible! 

It simply means learning how to market to each of these levels and making sure you get the support you need…

You don’t have to reinvent the wheel.. you’ve got this! The world is your oyster and it could open up to you when you learn these essential marketing skills. 

Over to you…

When it comes to marketing, which ring are you at right now, in the Circle of Influence… innermost circle of friends, friends of friends or the outermost circle of total strangers?

Share in the comments… I’d love to know!