Stop Wasting Your Time Building An Audience. Do This Instead

$100,000/year will be the next inevitable byproduct if you focus on this

Everyone's obsessed with the same playbook:

Build an audience → monetize your expertise.

But it’s not that simple.

Vanity metrics are a trap

Over the years, I've had some of my pieces go viral on several platforms:

• Medium

• Substack

• YouTube

You know what happened to my revenue? Not much.

Those viral articles didn't bring what I call "Superbuyers". Fellows who buy almost your entire product catalog.

Instead, they brought in a horde of freebie seekers and tire-kickers who wanted everything for free, or just weren't my target audience.

The problem with chasing audience metrics is that you're optimizing for the wrong thing. You're optimizing for attention, not for getting the right people into your world.

Most people get addicted to these vanity metrics because they feel good. It's instant validation. But that validation doesn't mean anything.

A better way to attract an audience

Instead of building an audience, build a content library.

A content library is at least 100 pieces of content that deeply reflect:

• the way you think

• the way you express yourself

• and the way you solve a specific problem for an audience.

The problem with traditional audience-building is that you’ll unconsciously try to become a people pleaser. When you try to please everyone, you water down your message and end up serving bland, boring content. It’s like adding water to fresh-pressed orange juice. It might stretch the glass, but it destroys the taste.

And that's the formula to stay invisible.

Your dream audience is hungry for:

• new ideas

• new perspectives

• and a fresh way to present them.

And that's only possible when you write without a filter, and let out everything that makes you unique.

Untangle your ideas

Creating a content library forces you to sit down and turn what you have in your head into something people can consume.

There's a massive difference between having your notes scattered in Notion and having 100 published articles on your blog, Medium, or Substack.

And when you make the decision to share your ideas publicly, you have to organize them. You have to make them coherent. You have to turn your messy brain dumps into something that actually makes sense to another human being.

I remember when I first started writing about creating content. I thought I knew what I was talking about. But when I sat down to write my first article, I realized I had no clue how to explain what I actually did.

That's your job as a thought leader: turn the unconscious conscious.

Build credibility with Se*

Building a public library of content also comes with great byproducts.

The first, is that you’ll start getting more traffic thanks to SEO.

I know, I know. SEO gets a lot of hate, and rightly so.

It's slow, competitive, and seems to be in decline against ChatGPT. But a few days ago, I assessed my most profitable traffic sources.

And guess what?

SEO is at the top of the leaderboard.

A well-crafted content library, if done right, improves SEO and establishes credibility.

The most sexy part of SEO? The content works for you 24/7.

While you're sleeping, pooping, or going for a walk, people discover your articles, read your insights, and then opt in to your email list.

Become the King of AI

AI is disrupting content creation. But most writers don't realize it yet.

While SEO search is probably on a decline, AI search isn't.

When someone asks ChatGPT about your niche, you should be popping up as the expert.

How do you do that? Again. By having a public content library.

I get new subscribers every week from ChatGPT and perplexity:

The more content you have published, the more likely AI is to recognize you as an authority.

This is just the beginning.

Write more content in the blink of an eye

I see a lot of hate about writing with AI.

But whether you like it or not, AI is disrupting content creation.

The reason why most AI content stinks like rotten fish is because of one thing: CONTEXT.

Out of the box, AI doesn't know:

• your ideas

• your writing style

• what you want to write about

But the output becomes 1,000% better if you know how to give AI the right context.

The best way to do that? Through your content literally.

Claude and ChatGPT have helped me repurpose my existing content in a way that blew my mind. They can identify the key insights from my articles and help me present them in different formats, under different angles.

This is how you write more content without burning out or feeling bored.

You create the foundational content. Then use AI to amplify it across multiple channels and formats.

AI is an amplifier. A content library gives it something worth amplifying.

Intrinsic > Extrinsinc

To succeed at content creation, you need endurance.

Most people treat it like a sprint. They blast out a few posts, run out of breath, and collapse before the finish line.

The creators who last build lungs. They learn to breathe through the burn. They keep going long after everyone else is gasping on the sidelines.

The best way to build these lungs is by shifting your focus.

Because the problem with building an audience is that you're measuring success by something you can't control – how others react to your content.

But when you focus on building a content library, you're measuring success by something you can control – the quality and consistency of your output.

This hack completely changed my relationship with content creation. Instead of obsessing over likes, shares, and subscriber counts, I started focusing on whether I was proud of what I published and my streak.

Did I learn something new while writing this article?
Did I clarify my thinking on this topic?
Did I create something I'd be happy to reference six months from now?

These are intrinsic motivators that actually matter.

They keep you going when the external validation isn't there. (Spoiler: you'll probably write for months for 0 likes.) They help you build something sustainable instead of chasing the next dopamine hit.

When you enjoy the process, consistency becomes easy.

The future of audience building is already here

Building an audience is the next logical byproduct of creating a content library.

When you focus on creating a valuable content library, the audience builds itself. People discover your content through search, through AI recommendations, through word of mouth.

And it all starts by publishing a piece today.

Not tomorrow.