How to Build an Audience and Sell Without Being Salesy – Cherrington Media Founder Adam Cherrington Explains

As the founder of Cherrington Media, an affiliate marketing company, I’m often asked how I’ve built my audience over the years.

The truth is, it hasn’t happened overnight. I’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way, but I’ve learned that taking a genuine, value-focused approach is key for establishing trust and credibility with your followers.

Provide Value Before Promoting Anything

When I first started out in affiliate marketing, I’ll admit my main goal was to make sales.

I posted affiliate links everywhere I could and was constantly pitching products. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t go so well.

People could recognize I was solely focused on making money from them.

Once I realized you need to establish trust and help people before pitching anything, my approach completely changed.

Now, my number one priority with Cherrington Media’s audience is providing them real value with no strings attached.

That means sharing helpful affiliate marketing tips and recommendations simply to assist others on their entrepreneurial journeys.

I don’t always mention my company or products. I discuss broader industry topics people actually want to learn about.

By establishing myself as a reliable resource, people are now far more receptive when I do share affiliate opportunities. They know I have their best interests in mind.

Adam Cherrington Philosophy: Share Your Experience and Expertise

Part of providing value is leveraging your own expertise.

Through my decade in affiliate marketing with Cherrington Media, I’ve learned a lot about what works when it comes to generating online income.

I share my experience through detailed case studies revealing my wins and failures.

For example, I’m honest about the mistakes I made early on so my audience can avoid them.

I also explain key affiliate marketing strategies step-by-step so anyone can implement them.

By openly sharing my hard-won knowledge, people can tell I genuinely want to help based on real-life lessons.

In turn, they’re much more inclined to support me when I release a new product or recommend one. My experience builds that crucial trust and authority.

Adam Cherrington on Offering Free Content

A question I get a lot is why I give away so much affiliate marketing content for free through my website, videos, social media, and more.

Wouldn’t I make more money keeping some tips to myself? In my opinion, no.

Generous free content is another way to demonstrate you truly care about assisting your audience versus simply making money from them.

Of course, I include some premium paid offerings like my flagship affiliate marketing course.

I invest substantial time into creating these comprehensive products that provide immense value.

However, much of my advice is available for free because I know not everyone has the means to buy something right away.

I want to empower as many people as possible, whether they ever purchase or not.

Overdelivering on free content builds immense goodwill and authority with your followers.

It shows you prioritize their needs ahead of solely maximizing profits. In turn, when they are able to buy, they’ll eagerly support you.

Adam Cherrington on Avoiding a Hard Sell

Even once you’ve built authority and goodwill, I’ve learned strong-arm selling tactics don’t work.

Audiences today expect authentic connections and conversations. They want you to understand their pain points and provide personalized recommendations accordingly.

A generic sales pitch turns them off every time. I always take a nuanced approach sharing affiliate opportunities based on what I know about each audience member already.

For example, when releasing my updated affiliate marketing course recently, I didn’t blast a sales message to my entire email list.

First, I carefully segmented my list based on past behaviors and engagement. For newer subscribers, I shared a special discount on my intro program to start.

For experienced members who’ve been with me awhile, I offered exclusive bonuses and discounts for being a loyal customer.

This tailored outreach performed much better than any general sale announcement could have. It showed I appreciate the unique needs of each follower.

Adam Cherrington’s Tips for Selling Without Being Salesy

Through much testing and refinement, I’ve honed an approach for talking about affiliate products that works extremely well for Cherrington Media. Here are my top four tips:

Lead with education, not promotion. Before mentioning an affiliate product, first create content explaining why someone might benefit from something similar. Meet the knowledge gap rather than jumping straight to the sale.

Connect benefits to the individual. Avoid broad, sweeping claims about how amazing a product is. Tailor your messaging to how it can specifically help each follower based on their unique situation.

Come from a place of service, not selling. You should genuinely believe an affiliate product will help your audience, not that you simply want to make money. Making sales is the natural next step after providing value.

Give people time to learn before asking them to buy. Don’t expect everyone to purchase something right away. Develop their knowledge first so they fully understand the opportunity before you directly promote it.

The Power of Providing Value Without Expectation

The through line in everything I’ve mentioned comes down to one key theme – providing extreme value to your audience without expecting anything immediate in return.

Once you adopt that sincerely helpful mentality, selling becomes much easier.

Trust comes before transactions. As Cherrington Media has grown, remaining dedicated to overdelivering value first has been essential.

I never could have built my business this far through salesy gimmicks or overly promotional tactics.

There are no real shortcuts when establishing authority and credibility in your niche.

But once you do through consistently generous content that shows you truly care, you gain something even more valuable than any individual affiliate sale.

You win the ongoing satisfaction of seeing your content change lives and business for people around the world.

To me, that’s the greatest reward as the founder of an affiliate marketing company focused on service over self.

Conclusion

I hope by sharing principles that have worked well for me like providing value upfront, freely sharing your expertise, avoiding a hard sell, and leading with education has helped explain my approach to building an audience and selling ethically as founder of Cherrington Media.

Remember, quick wins through overly salesy tactics never pay off in the long run. Stay dedicated to overdelivering value without always expecting something in return.

Build trust and authority over time by caring about serving people first. Ultimately, that’s how you create an audience that eagerly supports you while also making a global impact.