#46 – 10 Mar 2023
We all fall for the same trap.
We think we need followers.
More followers
Grow, grow, grow.
Grow at all costs.
Sooner or later, we get tired of the growth hamster wheel and wonder what we are doing and if this is all worth it.
How many followers do we really need to be successful?
1 million
100,000
50,000
20,000
10,000
1,000
Or
100?
Well, not all followers are created equal.
Sure, there all those “followers” look good on paper.
They are numbers on a screen, but they don’t necessarily mean anything concerning business results or how impactful your work is.
What’s to say they even see your content or buy anything from you?
JK Molina famously says:
Likes ain’t cash
All those likes and followers aren’t necessarily moving your business forward.
It reminds me of the amusing story from 2019 of the Instagram influencer with 2.6 million followers who failed to sell 36 t-shirts!
The mega-huge influencer thought they would cash in on their massive audience by selling some t-shirts.
The initial order required from the supplier was 36 t-shirts before they commenced any large-scale production.
“You beauty, we’re about to make it rain $$$.”
There was only one problem:
Nobody cared.
They couldn’t fill that initial order of 36 t-shirts.
They weren’t true fans.
They weren’t the right audience looking to buy t-shirts from this influencer.
It emphasises that we need to build the “right” audience.
We are not just building for the sake of building.
It’s a different story for value creators
On the other end of the scale, I have seen a recent success story from Jay Clouse. He has built a loyal audience in the creator space. Jay started a new community, “The Lab”, and look what he has done in a year:
The right audience makes a huge difference!
You don’t have to have a huge audience or be a celebrity with millions of followers.
When writing this, Jay Clouse has just over 30k followers on Twitter. And from one of his products, he has pulled in $255k. See, you don’t need millions of followers.
You just need some true fans.
True fans
True fans are those loyal people in your audience who adore you and buy everything you put out.
A true fan is defined as a fan that will buy anything you produce.
These diehard fans will drive 200 miles to see you sing; they will buy the hardback and paperback and audible versions of your book; they will purchase your next figurine sight unseen; they will pay for the “best-of” DVD version of your free youtube channel; they will come to your chef’s table once a month.
If you have roughly a thousand of true fans like this (also known as super fans), you can make a living — if you are content to make a living but not a fortune.
Kevin Kelly
I know I am a true fan of some creators.
I literally buy everything they put out, books, courses, movies, and merch.
You name it, and I’ll buy it.
As I am on the journey with them.
Another term thrown around is Superfans.
Pat Flynn says you don’t want followers, subscribers, or customers. No, you want “Superfans”:
Followers may “like” an Instagram post. Customers may buy a product. But “Superfans” will be your biggest supporters.
They will promote you and your products because they know you have made a difference in their lives. They will tell their friends. They will send you encouraging emails. They will connect with you and your other fans.
You might be shocked to hear the economics Kevin Kelly outlines to make a decent living as a creator.
You only need 1,000 true fans who buy $100 worth of your products or services yearly.
The math translates to $100,000 per year.
This is sustainable living.
The caveats are:
- You have to create enough to generate $100 profit per true fan. Kevin says it’s always easier to give your existing fans more than develop new fans.
- You need a direct relationship, so your fans can pay you directly—no intermediary so that you can keep all the $100 profit per true fan.
Also, general fans (outside the true fans) will still buy some things from you, so that profit number may be higher.
But the true fans are your leverage here.
And 1,000 people doesn’t seem like that many. Most consistent value creators will develop an audience of this size or more over time.
It’s liberating to know that you don’t have to reach super-stardom and be the next Kim Kardashian to find success.
No, you only need the 1,000 true fans.
The catch, though, is converting as many as you can into “true fans”.
How the hell does this work?
Well, the internet has democratised the business landscape.
And technology is making production and distribution easier day by day.
In effect, it has removed the middleman.
Creators can create and easily sell directly to their audience without the third-party middleman taking all the profits.
Think in days gone by:
If you wanted to make it in the music industry, you needed a record label. You sign your soul away, and they take on the risk, pay for the recording studio and get your record in stores. But here’s the catch, they take most of the profits.
Now things have changed:
You can record your music at home on your computer with studio quality. You can pay freelancers online at a reasonable cost to tidy up your music production. Then sell it directly to your audience on your website behind a paywall or upload it to Spotify.
One of the biggest opportunities I see now is for writers.
It used to be that if you wanted to be an author, you would have had to get a book deal from a publisher.
This doesn’t sound like a fun process, trying to appease the gatekeepers.
I remember Tim Ferriss saying he famously got rejected by 26 out of 27 book publishers before scoring a deal for The 4-Hour Work Week. The book became a No.1 New York Times Bestseller and influenced a generation looking to escape the 9-5 and join the new rich.
12 different publishers rejected JK Rowling. The Harry Potter novels became the highest-selling book series of all time.
Most people would give up after a few rejections.
Imagine how many other “would have been awesome” books died in the rejection graveyard, as the author could not “choose themselves”. A gatekeeper had to pick them to be successful.
And even if you did land that first deal, it won’t be pretty.
And the chances of success are small without an existing audience.
But now, thanks to the power of the internet and the creator economy, you have more options.
A made-up creator business model example
How bout this for an alternative for the wannabe author who got rejected by every book publisher:
First, let’s assume they are you.
And you happen to be an excellent writer with great potential. Don’t let it go to your head 😉
Instead of wallowing in failure for not being picked by the almighty book publisher, you get to work taking action, armed with the tools of the creator economy.
And you’re a business-savvy creator who doesn’t muck about.
You are determined to get paid for all your hard work, which positively impacts others.
Not because you are greedy but because then it allows you to create sustainably, live a meaningful life and serve your community. Oh, what a feeling!
You start writing a weekly newsletter on Substack (free), promote it on social media, and build an audience over time.
You are effectively writing your book in this newsletter, chapter by chapter, and getting real feedback from your audience. This direct communication with your audience becomes invaluable as you improve each week.
You could even add a paid tier membership to your Substack and earn some revenue while writing your book.
Then once you have enough material for a book, you can package it up and sell it as an e-book to your true fans.
Let’s say you eventually build 5,000 people on your email list and then sell the e-book for $20.
Say you have cultivated 1,000 people in the audience who are true fans who purchase anything you put out.
That’s $20,000 in revenue for something you were doing anyway.
Let’s say the paid tier of the Substack membership was $100 per year, where you send out an extra two monthly newsletters to members with your most juicy content. Your 1,000 true fans also took that up.
There’s $100,000
Now, how about you add a sponsorship to your weekly newsletter? You place a link to the sponsor in each newsletter for $140 per issue.
You do 50 issues yearly, so there’s another $7,000.
Then some readers contact you saying they would love your writing style and how you built a creator business around it. They wonder if you do coaching.
So you offer a group coaching program for 10 people 4 times yearly at $1,000 per head.
There’s another $40,000.
Then you break the core learnings from the coaching program into a self-paced course for $150 and sell 500 courses through your email list.
That’s $75,000.
Finally, you get asked to speak at 4 events annually and charge $2,000 per event.
That’s $8,000
So total annual revenue:
- $20,000 Book
- $100,000 Paid Newsletter
- $7,000 Sponsorship
- $40,000 Group Coaching
- $75,000 Courses
- $8,000 Speaking
- $250,000 Total
$250k for doing what you love.
And no gatekeepers or intermediaries.
That’s awesome!
Isn’t that fascinating to you?
It blows my mind.
I could be doing meaningful creative work that lights me up and making a good living.
What an opportunity we have today to express your creativity online, build an audience, and get paid.
Obviously, that is just an imaginary example. All totally made up.
And in real life, it is much harder to consistently ship great work and build an audience of true fans.
It takes years.
But the sooner you start, the better.
Maybe I was too optimistic there.
Even if only 25% of our true fan audience took up those offers outlined in the example, that’s still just over $60k.
But it goes the other way, too, if you are really, really good.
If you cultivated an even bigger audience of true fans, it could go the other way, $500k+.
Why are you messing with me here?
I am just showing you this to spark possibility in your mind.
I hope some light bulbs are going off.
And some limiting beliefs are being challenged.
But this isn’t for everyone.
The truth is that cultivating a thousand true fans is time-consuming, sometimes nerve racking, and not for everyone.
Done well (and why not do it well?) it can become another full-time job.
At best it will be a consuming and challenging part-time task that requires ongoing skills.
There are many creators who don’t want to deal with fans, and honestly should not.
Kevin Kelly
Yep, it’s fricken painful building an audience.
It’s a lot of work.
Work that most people will never commit themselves to.
Best of both worlds
The truth is that many creatives operate under a hybrid model where they have, for example, a book deal with a traditional publisher but then have an email list with the true fans. They sell additional products and services to the true fans.
This way, they have exposure to the benefits of both worlds.
Maybe we don’t even need 1,000 true fans anyway?
Venture Capitalist, Li Jin, wrote an article in 2020, 100 True Fans.
She outlined how the creator landscape had changed since 2008, when Kevin Kelly wrote his 1,000 True Fans article.
And it was now possible to make more, but from fewer fans, say 100:
Today, that idea is as salient as ever—but I propose taking it a step further.
As the Passion Economy grows, more people are monetizing what they love. The global adoption of social platforms like Facebook and YouTube, the mainstreaming of the influencer model, and the rise of new creator tools has shifted the threshold for success.
I believe that creators need to amass only 100 True Fans—not 1,000—paying them $1,000 a year, not $100.
Today, creators can effectively make more money off fewer fans.
Li Jin
The 100 true fans model is based on value to the user, whereas the 1,000 true fans model was more about a donation to the creator.
This represents a move away from the traditional donation model—in which users pay to benefit the creator—to a value model, in which users are willing to pay more for something that benefits themselves.
What was traditionally dubbed “self-help” now exists under the umbrella of “wellness.”
People are willing to pay more for exclusive, ROI-positive services that are constructive in their lives, whether it’s related to health, finances, education, or work.
Li Jin
Effectively creators under the 100 true fans model understand and monetize their audience’s desire for self-improvement and transformation. So they can charge more. They are just producing some kind of collectable; they are actively transforming lives.
The key to monetizing at $1,000 per fan, per year is tailored offerings priced at tiered levels.
A creator might have a broad follower base on free social platforms, convert some of those followers to one-time purchasers or patrons, then uplevel some of those users to high-paying super-fans.
For founders and operators, that means building products that align monetization with the end user value.
Li Jin
I don’t know about you, but I am very excited by that prospect.
Our grand dream was to leave corporate life and find fulfilment through creating.
People are silently lapping up all your content
Another thing I have noticed is that often the people who mostly appreciate our work and are willing to buy from us rarely “like” our content.
The people who mostly like and comment on your posts are usually other creators looking to get their name in front of your audience.
Those creators aren’t looking to buy from you. It’s all shameless self-promotion from them.
I had an example this week of someone who reached out for my coaching services. I couldn’t remember them ever “liking” any of my stuff.
Still, they said they had been following my content for a while, and it had been hitting home and pushing them to do better in their life and business. They’d greatly benefited from the free content and wanted to dive deeper through a coaching program.
I was shocked.
Well, not totally shocked as I do believe in the power of the message in my content.
But shocked as in, sometimes you feel like you are posting into the void online, and no one is listening.
But that is not true.
People are watching.
Silently.
And they are getting value from their work.
So it’s important to keep showing up.
One day, one of your posts will tip them over the edge, and they will say:
“That’s it. Something’s gotta change, and it’s not happening by myself. I’m in!”
I cannot express how good this feels to validate that you have been silently helping people, even if only in a small way. It brings tremendous purpose to your work.
Keep showing up.
One day, that true fan will reach out, and you will be pleasantly surprised.
Reflection
What are you building an audience for?
Given your future monetisation plans, are you building the “right” audience?
Are you consistently showing up to develop and nurture your true fans?
A quote to ponder
I started watching Game of Thrones after they had released 5 seasons.Pat Flynn had released at least 100 episodes of his podcast before I even knew he existed. I discovered Hard Core History years after Dan Carlin started producing it.
This is such a common experience. There is so much content being produced that we can’t possibly discover it all. So instead we wait for the best content to float to the surface after time.
If step one in building an audience is to create great content, step two is to endure long enough to get noticed.
Nathan Barry
What happened this week
Efficient engagement
I realised I was wasting too much time engaging on social media.
Sure, it’s good for growth and networking.
But I was constantly left feeling burnt out with a fried brain.
It’s not normal for humans to jump frantically from post to post, adding your 2 cents’ worth for hours.
So I’m trying a cap of 20-30 comments daily in a 30-minute block, then STOP.
Go for a walk and feel normal again.
Final thoughts
Today’s writing background playlist was “This is Ludovico Einaudi” on Spotify.
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