3 Tips to Scale Your Business by Becoming an Industry Expert

November 25, 2019 2 min read

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“Aren’t you worried that you are just training your competition?” That’s a question photographer and entrepreneur Sarah Petty gets all the time.

In this interview at ClickFunnels’ annual Funnel Hacking Live conference, Emily Richett sits down with Petty to learn how she scaled her business by teaching others how to grow their businesses too.

Leverage your expertise

Petty started her entrepreneurial journey with a boutique photography business, and before long, people were asking her how she became successful so quickly. She realized other photographers were hungry for her marketing expertise. So she started teaching. She traveled for speaking engagements and teaching opportunities, equipping others to grow the same way she did.

Get in front of more people

As she continued to establish herself as an expert, Petty realized that teaching a few people at a time wasn’t a sustainable way for her to do business. The travel was taking her away from her three children too often.

“You can’t teach one-on-one, and you can’t go out and speak to a room of 30. You have to be able to help many people at once,” Petty says.

She launched a webinar to share her expertise with more entrepreneurs at the same time, and it provided real-time feedback that allowed her to adjust her material quickly.

Don’t compete based on price

Some might worry that sharing their knowledge will increase competition, but Petty says you can’t let that scare you.

Entrepreneurs must “compete without making the emphasis on price, because all businesses compete with someone who does it cheaper,” Petty says. That’s especially true in the world of photography where everyone is now a photographer thanks to cell phones.

Petty teaches that building a brand and authentic relationships with your clients are ways to rise above the competition without making it about the price.