When it comes to stepping out of being a Commodity Service Provider and into the track to building an Expert Brand, you have three options for “size”: 

• Expert Consultancy
• Expert Business
• Expert Enterprise

Where you stop, though, is up to you. 

Expert Consultancy

At this stage, it’s likely you and lots of tech tools. Maybe you have an executive assistant, VA, or other freelance help but really, it’s just you and one high ticket offer. 

At this stage, there’s usually no NEED to run ads, get an expensive CRM, build a marketing/sales team, or mature some of the other areas of business that you’ll see in an Expert Business or Expert Enterprise. You may not even need much Brand Voice work done, although you’ll want to ensure that your messaging is appropriately aligned with the Awareness Level and Sophistication Stages.

Expected revenue is usually about $300K/year tops, with $150K-$250K/year being the norm.

This is what many call the “Solopreneur” stage. 

Expert Business

The next stage of Expert Brand growth is the Expert Business. At this level, you’re starting to mature in many areas: 

• Ad platform maturation (1-3 platforms)
• Social media platform usage
• CRM usage
• Sales team size
• Marketing team size
• Service team size
• Number of proven offers
• Number of lead magnets
• Knowing your numbers

At this stage, you’ll absolutely need to start defining your 12 Messaging Factors, your Brand Voice, and your Sophistication Stages. You should start noticing trends in your case studies, testimonials, and surveys regarding hooks and buyer language. And your marketing should be getting more effective and more aligned with sales as you hone your niche.

If you want an agency, you should expect to be here for at least a few years as you work on maturing each stage. Your team may be as small at 5 people or as many as 50-70. 

Expect revenue is between $250K – $5M/year, with $1M – $3M being the norm.

Expert Enterprise

The Expert Enterprise stage is where everything you learned about “niching down” really begins to get interesting, because chances are, this is the stage where experts become more generalist. One Expert Brands to look at in this stage is Tony Robbins, who has a large team, many proven offers, many Authority Factors, a lot of advertising sophistication, and so forth.

If you DON’T have your Brand Voice Playbook refined yet, this is definitely the place to do it so that your internal and your external communications are aligned and on point. You’ll have a team doing much of the work – with you as the figurehead – so being able to correctly act on your vision and your message will be critical to your success.  

Expect revenue to surpass $10M/year if you’re doing this right.

And as always, if you want some help with your Brand Voice or optimizing your messaging so your messaging and marketing attracts the RIGHT FIT clients for your Expert Brand… DM me and let’s start the conversation.

📝 Questions to Ask As You Build Your Expert Brand

Knowing where you want to end up is one of the surest ways to ensure it actually happens. Here are some questions to help you determine that end point: 

• How much money do you want to make? If you know you won’t be happy unless it’s $5M/year, then you’ll either need an Expert Business or Enterprise OR you’ll need quite a few smaller businesses– perhaps some not in the Expert space
• How much do you want to be able to delegate? Having the wiggle room in profits to delegate a lot really only happens at Expert Business and beyond. Conversely, you’ll get to see everything if you stay at the Consultantcy level.
• Do you need/want to be able to sell down the road? Having a big “exit” is easier when it’s not just you + your name.  
• Can you see yourself doing everything an Expert Business or Enterprise might require? Can you see yourself writing books, getting on stage, being a guest on podcasts and what-not? If not, then the work of building the brand voice and presence will fall on your team. 

Lynn Swayze is “The Expert’s Copywriter,” helping Experts grow their Expert Brand using more aligned Messaging & Marketing. (She also trains those who work for Experts do the same.) Follow her on all social channels and get the trainings at TheExpertsCopywriter.com.

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