If you’re driving yourself crazy trying to get clients to take you seriously and your list is almost non-existent, it can seem like the world’s against you.

You see “overnight successes” pop up that seem to have figured out something you don’t know.

There’s really no secret to getting clients to take you seriously or to making a lot of money through your side hustle.

But… there is something you don’t know…

None of it happens by accident or “dumb luck”.

These guys are creating powerful, compelling opt-ins that generate huge lists, rabid fans, and recurring income.

Instead of throwing their money out there to promote their webinars, sales pages, email signups, podcasts, etc. to cold traffic – spraying their marketing all over the place and getting little to no results anywhere – they’ve put their focus on strategic marketing and building a sales process.

It’s because they’ve created a strategic plan and built up a scalable business platform that they’re having a lot more success.

I’m going to show you some simple list building ideas, my favorite scaling strategy, and the 4 steps for using it to becoming an authority, build your list quickly, and create recurring monthly revenue.

7 Simple Opt-In Strategies to Build Your List

1. Lead Magnet

One of the most common ways to build your list is to offer a free report, ebook, cheatsheet, or something else you can offer that provides value in exchange for someone’s email.

It may be common, but it’s also my least favorite way to bring in leads. It’s often really ineffective, people don’t usually warm up to you beyond what your opt-in offer is or they just opt-out as soon as they get your free resource.

The quality of the leads you get is pretty inconsistent and you’re banking on creating a huge list, so the 2-3% that are converting will make some kind of dent on your revenue.

2. Live Streaming Events

It still involves creating a lead magnet around it, but this is actually a really great way to get some leads.

Part of what makes them great is that they allow you to build custom audiences on Facebook. Check out this great guide on Facebook custom audiences from Adspresso to learn more.

What also makes them so great is because people like them, they share the hell out of them, and there can be a pretty decent virality rate – if done right.

3. Quiz or Assessment

We’ve all seen those “What Harry Potter Character Are You” quizzes Buzzfeed uses to target leads interested in entertaining articles and videos – driving people to their latest content down the road.

Using curiosity to get people to take action is a great way to get signups and you get to learn a lot about your target audience. This data can be useful for marketing.

One of the potential downsides to be aware of is that the quality of your leads isn’t going to be great if the quiz only generates curiosity and not interest. Sometimes you’ll get fake emails you have to comb through as well, because people just want to see the results. They don’t necessarily want to hear from you.

All that said, it’s definitely worth considering if you can figure out how to make it relevant to your business and your audience.

4. Webinars and Masterclasses

They’re essentially the same thing, but the term “Masterclass” is gaining popularity. People often associate “webinar” with a certain format and expectation.

I also find that people expect webinars to be free, but are a bit more open to paying a small fee for a masterclass. Something to keep in mind. In both cases, the goal is to add value and teach people how to overcome some of their challenges while letting them know about your solution.

Webinars are great ways to build your list, gain credibility, increase brand awareness, and start building a following while letting people know about whatever it is you want to promote.

To make your webinar or masterclass as effective as it can be, you need to make sure you have the right tools, platform, and marketing strategy in place before you start promoting.

5. Partnerships and Collaborations

Collaborative partnerships have been around for decades. Take Tim Horton’s and Cold Stone Creamery as an example.

They teamed up at a limited number of locations and offered the items from each other’s menus. Tim Horton’s was able to attract customers in the morning and Cold Stone was able to pull in the afternoon/evening crowd.

Sales increased at these locations, the test run was considered a success, and they expanded their collaboration. In fact, after listening to some of the feedback of their customers, they created collaborative menu items like coffee floats.

Partner with someone who already has a following, a solid reputation, and a decent-sized active list. You’re working together to expand your lists and build that know, like, and trust factor between your two communities.

Keep in mind, if you’re just starting out, this is really only effective if you have a decent list yourself, or something else substantial, that your partner can benefit from as well.

6. Free Training Series

This is one of my personal favorites. You typically put together a 3-4 video series to show subscribers how to get a quick win.

These are basically mini-courses you can use as a teaser for the rest of your course.

You give them some solutions, show them that you know what you’re talking about, then send them a video with social proof, and follow it up with an offer for your program or full training.

That said, focusing on creating these free trainings can lead you astray from building a powerful online business if you’re not careful.

7. Virtual Summits

This is by far my favorite list builder and the one I’ve found to be the most effective – hands down. It stands the test of time and is always effective.

I’m going to dive into virtual summits from here on.

A virtual summit offers your audience a high-value, low-risk opportunity to get answers to a very specific problem they’re dealing with. They get to hear expert advice from industry influencers to solve that problem.

Summits generate highly-qualified, motivated leads. It gets the audience warmed up to you, and allows you to leverage the expertise of your speakers to quickly grow that know, like, and trust factor.

It’s a quick and easy way to generate massive awareness, authority, leads, and profits.

If you want to watch me go over these 7 list builders in-depth, here’s the Facebook Live training I did on my Hustle & Scale page.

What You Need to Know to Start a Virtual Summit

When I first started doing virtual summits, I didn’t know all the techy stuff, I didn’t know everything it was going to take to put one on.

Here’s what I found:

Virtual summits were a real hassle to put together.

You had to have the right plug-ins, the right landing pages, you needed a good web host… spending hours just to set it all up.

Then you had to track down your speakers and keep on top of them for their presentations.

It was just a headache to bring together.

Personally, I now use Virtual Summits Software because it takes care of all those headaches, plus it’s seamless and automated.

Now, I’m not saying that prepping for you virtual summit is going to be super easy – it’s not.

There are a lot of planning steps that go into it.

You need to find the right speakers, you need a strategy to promote it before it goes live, you need to promote the summit while it’s running, and you need a plan to make money with it afterwards.

Make no mistake about it… virtual summits are worth all the effort.

As I mentioned earlier, not only are virtual summits a great way to leverage the authority and influence of your speakers – being regarded as an authority in your own right – but they attract leads that are actively looking for answers. Answers you are providing.

The best part?

Hosting a summit is only the front of your funnel.

You need a plan for what you’re going to do after it ends and how you’re going to use that summit to create recurring revenue.

How do You Use a Virtual Summit Once it Ends?

If you’ve been on one of my free trainings, like my Scale Your Side Hustle Workshop, you know that I throw a lot of information at you in a very short amount of time.

I show you the strategies I use for every summit I run, how I monetize it, and how you can build a business platform for a scalable side hustle that’ll start generating 6 and 7-figures.

While I’m not going to recap the entire live training here, the overall idea is to build a funnel with multiple steps that leads prospects further down the path.

The method I’ve come up with worked for me, personally, and has worked time and time again for the side hustlers I’ve walked through the process.

Here’s how the Hustle Funnel works:

Each step of the Hustle Funnel creates opportunities to build revenue into the next step.

Bear with me, because I’m going to show you how you can use these steps to build authority, create an automated lead generator, and a monthly recurring revenue stream to scale your side hustle.

Step 1: Use Summits to Magnetize Leads

Summits are set up to solve one very specific problem that your audience has. To do this, you’ll be bringing in influencers and experts in your industry to show your audience solutions to their problem.

You want to be sure that the problem you address also fits your Unique Expert Positioning (UEP).  

Your UEP is that sweet spot where your Proficiency (expertise), Profit (what makes you money), and Passion meet.

You want to serve your audience through that lens at every step of your Hustle Funnel, or you’ll lose direction, you’ll lose clarity, and you’ll lose your audience.

Now, as I mentioned before, summits are high-value, low-risk opportunities for prospects to enter your community and get access to advice from leading experts.

Here’s the kicker… You are going to be the one providing those solutions to them.

Providing these solutions is going to turn cold leads that are interested in your summit’s topic into warm leads by the time it’s done.

The summit is also going to allow you to use expert leveraging to quickly grow your own authority, credibility and perceived value because of the influencers on your summit.

In short, summits generate high-quality, motivated leads who are looking for the answers that you can provide and that fit your UEP.

Once the Summit ends…

In most cases, the summit itself can become one of your products. It can become an upsell item. People can pay for lifetime access to the summit and varying levels of membership can give them access to more of the bonuses provided by the speakers.

You can also use a summit to continuously fill your funnel by converting it into an Ever-Summit.

An Ever-Summit is a summit that can be re-used, promoted and launched again and again and still look like a new, live summit every time.

Using Virtual Summits Software, you refresh and automate your summit to run whenever you want – generating new leads every time.

You don’t have to put out extra time and energy to recreate your summit over and over again. Set it up once and automate it as a lead generating machine.

Step 2: Monetize Through Course Creation

In your summit, you addressed one, big problem your audience has. Now you have a bunch of warm leads that are going to be looking for more guidance and tools and resources they need to really overcome their challenges.

It’s time to offer them a course to help them solve the issue.

So what is the biggest problem or challenge that’s standing in the way of their success? What tools and strategies do you need to provide in your course so they can overcome their obstacles?

Keep in mind, the title and theme of your course should be directly related to your summit.

You need to create a course that’s friction-less for what your audience was looking for from your summit.

That means you really have to understand your audience, what their problems are and what motivates them.

Step 3: Maximize Your Offering

Your course is going to address their biggest problem in a guided way that’s kind of one-size fits all.

You need to offer them a bigger solution that’s going to give them specific help and transformation.

This is your high-ticket item.

You might determine that one-on-one coaching, group coaching, a certification program, etc. is what’s going to help them get that shift.

Whatever you decide your high-ticket item is going to be, it needs to give them the tools and means to revolutionize their businesses or lives.

You need to be the one to help them get to the next level, so focus on what you can offer that’s going to get them there.

Step 4: Multiply Your Revenue

By now, you’ve probably covered as many problems as you can on your own.

You’ve been the one that helped them get solutions to their problems and create the transformation they needed.

Now it’s time to create a place for them that’s going to be their “go-to” for success in other areas.

This is where you’ve got the most potential for automated, recurring revenue by building a membership program.

Bring in experts that are going to provide high-level value for your members.

Your members are going to have the most access to you and these experts through this program and in a way that they wouldn’t have otherwise.

Keep in mind that every one of these steps needs to be done through the lens of your Unique Expert Positioning.

Want to See How it Works Right Now?

Join me on my free masterclass: Scale Your Side Hustle Workshop.

I’ll walk you through the whole process for each of the 4 phases in your Hustle Funnel and show you how to use it to start making some serious recurring revenue.

If you’re a side hustler struggling to scale your side business, you aren’t being seen as an industry leader, you need to build your list, and increase your income right now…

This free training is going to set you up to win. Click the link below to hop on the next one.

Join the next Scale Your Side Hustle Workshop.