Why “Grow Your Audience” is the Dumbest Advice on the Internet

You don't need 100,000 followers to make $100,000/year

Most people reading this will NEVER build a large audience.

And you know what? That's okay.

I never had more than 25,000 subscribers on any of my email lists.

Yet, I was consistently able to generate a full-time income with my online businesses for the past decade.

The big dilemma, though, is when you keep chasing a big audience, can’t build one, and don’t make a dime from the small one you have.

Let's change that.

All you need is 100 Superbuyers

I've recently written about the fact that Kevin Kelly was wrong (LOL) and that you don't need 1,000 true fans.

You need 100 Superbuyers.

What do I mean by Superbuyer? People who buy everything that you put out there.

If you have 100 Superbuyers who spend $100 a month with you, you have a $120,000/year business.

Simple.

This won't make you a millionaire by the end of the year, but it's certainly a sufficient income for 90% of people reading this.

Viral content won't attract your Superbuyers

Years back, I thought that going viral would solve my audience's problems.

What I didn't know is that going viral means diluting your message.

Viral by default means broad reach. But you can't build depth with something generic.

As an example, 2 weeks back I had one of my Substack articles go viral. (Not the superviral thing, but still 5 times more views than my average article.)

It's nice for the vanity metrics.

But in terms of qualified audience? This article didn't move me closer to my goal. Because it attracted a lot of writers I don't cater to. It attracted a lot of fiction writers.

But I don't write for fiction writers.

I write for experts who have an expertise and want to monetize it with online content.

Nothing wrong with it.

It's just that it's not the kind of audience I want to attract. In my world, fiction writers are not the Superbuyers who'll buy everything I put out there.

Superbuyers require two things

Nobody wakes up being a Superbuyer.

It's up to you to train them to become one.

For that, you need a strong relationship first. You need to be perceived as an expert in your industry who knows what he's talking about.

That's one of the reasons why I'm a fan of daily content.

Daily content automatically forces you to talk about your expertise every day. When you can talk about something daily, it automatically positions you as a leader.

But it ain't something that'll happen overnight.

It requires them to read dozens -if not hundreds- of your pieces, and maybe even dipping their toes into one of your products to eventually buy your entire catalog.

You need to get them to such a level of engagement that they can't wait to read & buy from you.

Time + Frequency, that's the recipe.

Let's finish here

A larger audience usually comes with larger problems:

• More emails.

• More customer support.

• More comments to reply to.

I'm obsessed with long-term relationships, keeping things simple, and fun to run.

My goal is not to build the biggest audience. But to work with a small group of people who:

• know me

• are aligned with my philosophy

• and are willing to spend money with me in the long term.

It's not something that suits everyone. But it certainly fits my introverted ego like a glove.

That's how you can build a career that lasts.