If you’re an accountant trying to grow your brand online, you’ve probably seen people like Alex Hormozi, Cody Sanchez and Jason Statts and thought, “How have they done this? How have they built such a big loyal following?”
The answer? They’ve mastered the art of building an online AND offline community.
When these two communities come together, they create a cult-like following for you.
The question is: How can you replicate that?
Today, I’ll break down exactly how, even if you have no following online or in person.
P.S. I have plenty of posts on how to build your online presence, like Use This Personal Brand System to Grow Your Firm on Autopilot, on the blog.
Don’t have time to read? Watch the video instead: https://youtu.be/kOWFBx8SZdw
Why You Need an Online AND Offline Community to Build Trust
Before social media, everything was about proximity. It was all about who you physically knew and maybe who they knew. Connections had to really go from starting from who you knew.
Then, social media opened up a new world of opportunities.
But over time, trust deteriorated. People got scammed. Big promises were made that were never delivered on. Ads are everywhere you turn.
The bar to earn someone’s trust is a lot higher today than it was in the past.
And it requires that we integrate what we used to do: face-to-face interactions. That human-to-human connection matters more than ever.
Here’s what happens:
- Someone meets you in person.
- They like you and get to know you.
- They trust you.
- They follow you online and continue to get to know you.
- That trust grows.
The same is true when people see you online first. They get to know you, trust you, and meet you in person and trust you even more.
I’ve shared plenty of guides on building an online presence, so today, I’m going to focus on building that in-person network.
How?
Through a classic marketing approach: cold calling.
How to Use Live Cold Calling to Grow Your In-Person Network
1. Host an Event Centered on a Topic You’ve Mastered
A great way to build your in-person network is to host an event that people in your niche would value.
Where do you start? Think about a topic that you can present on for about an hour that’s super helpful to your niche.
For the purpose of this guide, I’m going to choose a topic that’s helpful for firms wanting to implement AI: Using Claude Cowork in your firm. We’re going to talk about what it is, give some practical use cases that can really give firms actionable, tangible ideas to get started with.
This is a topic that my business partner and I can both talk about for an hour. It’s something people are really interested in right now.
Once you’ve nailed your topic, you can move on to the next step.
2. Create a List of People in Your Niche You Want to Invite
You have an idea, but is it viable? Is there actual demand for it? There’s only one way to find out: Ask people.
To do that, you first need to generate a list of people to contact. I recommend creating a list of around 100 people in your niche that you want to invite and actually call.
If you don’t know where to get this list, go on to Fiverr or Upwork – someone can source that for you for quickly and affordably.
The goal is to ask these people whether they’re interested in attending the event. In my case, it was my Claude Cowork event.
If no one’s interested, then you know, hey, this isn’t a good idea. Let’s think about something else.
3. Cold Call the Numbers on Your List
Once you have your list of people, it’s time to take the dive and start calling them. It’s helpful if you have the name of someone at the firm or business to ask for.
Here’s an example:
“Hi, my name’s Katie Thomas. I am a CPA calling from down the road in X City, and I’m getting together a group of CPAs to do a workshop on implementing Claude Cowork into firms and wanted to see if Josh or anyone else on the team would be interested in joining.”
Remember that not everyone is going to be a “yes.”
It’s normal to have people decline and say they’re not interested, even when you have a great idea.
The key is to make sure that the people who are interested outweigh those who aren’t.
I would say a good number is 15 to 20 people who say yes. You don’t need a lot of people, but you need enough to show that this is something worth setting up for.
4. Find a Place to Host Your Event
Once you have enough people who are interested, the next step is to start looking for places to hold your event.
Because before you have those “yeses” and you’ve confirmed that there’s interest, there’s no point in going out to look for a place, right?
So, now that we have people who are interested, we can start looking. If you’re not sure where to start, try using Claude or ChatGPT (or some other AI tool) to ask for recommendations for your meeting with X number of people in your location.
It will give you some places that range in affordability, with different options if you want to cater food, or if you don’t.
You can make this as basic or elaborate as you want. You could probably even rent a room at your local library.
There are so many ways to make this event simple and very easy, so don’t stress yourself out about trying to put on a big event.
Once you have your location nailed down, I want you to create that presentation and prepare for your event.
5. Capture Your Event
Now, during the event, I want you to take pictures. Be very engaged, but take photos. Record your session so that afterwards, you can post about it on social media. You can tag people, you can add them, and they can continue to follow along your journey online.
This will help you build that connection between your online and offline presence.
The Takeaway
A strategy like this is so effective at building your in-person network, and it’s SO easy to implement. It doesn’t take a lot of time up front to test your idea. Just come up with it, create a list, and start calling people to see if there’s any interest.
Once enough people have committed, find your place and don’t overcomplicate things.
Remember that people are craving in-person connections more than ever now. Be the one who creates the space for it.
PS – I did this live recently and if you watch the video, you can see me cold calling. 🙂
