The Number of Followers you ACTUALLY Need

Welcome, welcome. I'm so happy you're here at the podcast with me. This week, we're going to talk about followers. And we're going to talk about the number of followers, you actually need to succeed in your business. Most of my clients, I'm going to give you this caveat right up front, most of my clients are service providers, they provide a service to a discrete number of people, like they can't serve everyone, they can't be everything to everyone. And so your service provider, this is going to make sense.

 But also, if you sell products, this is going to make sense to a degree, the numbers are a little different. But but a lot of what we're going to talk about here still applies I have most of my clients are service providers, even coaching, but you know, I do have people that sell stuff, as both in partnership with their service business and just in and of itself. The other thing I want to tell you is the reason we're talking about this, if I see one more post in my Facebook feed lately, with the Hey, I'm trying to grow my audience to X number of followers, so that x thing will happen.

 People I it's making me crazy. So what I think is really important to talk about here is you know, what do you actually needs to succeed in business. If you're somebody who thinks a lot about how many followers you have on each platform on tick tock on Instagram, on Facebook, on LinkedIn on whatever. If you think a lot about how to grow your audience, if you're thinking in funnels, if you're worried about what the numbers mean, if you're thinking about monetizing, if you're thinking about all of that this is for you. If you worry that you're not talking to the right people, or enough people or people on the right platforms, and you're not using the right formats, and you're not listen, I get it, I hear you, I see this all day every day, both in my Facebook feed in my tic tock feed on LinkedIn. And I'm not an Instagram, so I can't on Instagram, or else I'm sure I'd be seeing it on Instagram.

 But today we're going to talk about followers and what you actually need to succeed. I think the good news is that it's not as many as you think. Because it's not really it doesn't work like you think it does. The original title from this podcast was unpopular things you can stop stressing about right now. But, you know, here's what I would tell you. I'm not going to give you an actual number here. I'm sorry. Because there isn't one. This is the thing. You can figure out how many followers you actually need to succeed by thinking about the people in front of you. I know it's like it feels a little bait and switch. 

But I promise it's not. Here's the thing. Yes, of course, you need some sort of audience. Okay. Like when I first started my coaching business, I had no one following me anywhere, fine, great, whatever. But the way I built a business, the way I teach people to build a business is by connecting. And every time you connect with someone, you create a follower, honestly, I think the math is more like every time I connect with someone, I create five followers. Because what happens is when I connect to someone, I invite them to the places I am like I had a conversation with someone last week. And I said, Hey, you know, if you're, if you're, you know, interested in kind of work, I'm doing the way we're talking about this, you're more than welcome to my Facebook group, please come hang out with us. 

You don't have to buy anything about anything, anything, you don't even have to stay. But if you feel like it would be a good place for you, you're more than welcome. She came and joined. And then to her friends day. And we're like a week into the process. She is sharing the things I'm doing with her people. They are learning from her coming into my world. So they did. That's the first part of this. You need people in your audience, but you connecting to actual human beings creates your audience for you. You don't have to like all artificially stalk people. And there are so many tools and processes and courses and people out there talking to you about how to gain followers and how to buy followers and how to do all these things. Listen, you don't need to do that. You know people. 

Right? If you listen to this podcast, you are probably a people first business owner. And as a people first business owner as an impact first business owner, I feel like I'm all the hand gestures today. This is really about working with people. So your primary objective isn't followers. It's humans. If you connect to humans, you will have followers. I was just talking to a client about this in the last couple of weeks. You know, I was talking to her about whenever she meets with someone new whenever she connects. She doesn't just create a cloud of followers she creates a fan. That's what you do when you're passionate about your work. When You're passionate about helping people when you're passionate about being doing good out in the world. You create fans, and fans follow you. It matters. So listen, do you need 100? People? Do you need 1000? People? Do you need 10,000? People? I don't know. i It doesn't matter. Actually, the question you should ask is a different one. The questions you should ask is, how many yeses? Do I need? Like for you to reach your goals this year? How many people can you actually help? Like, I know, in my business, my goal this year is to help 75 business owners. 

That's it. And that's not even one on one that's like through a combination of one on one, and group coaching. And the course I have. So like, right now I'm at, I don't know, 30, some, like halfway there. So for me to touch that many people to work with that many individual businesses, you know, I do need more than that number of people in my audience, but I don't need a million, I don't need 10,000, I probably don't even need 1000. Because what happens when I meet people is that we talk about what they're doing, and they become fans, they come into my world, they become a part of group coaching, they become a part of my course, they become a part of one on one coaching. 

So in that process, I get to help more people, your number is probably not 75, it might be 10. So, you know, if you can only serve 10 individual people this year, or 20, or even 30, what you don't need is 3000 people. Right? And yeah, the people that teach you the funnels are like, You need to put 10,000 people into the top of the funnel. At the next stage, you lose 80% of them. So you only have 2000 people left. And then you need 2000 people to move into the next thing, because you'll only take 20% with you and you'll be left with Oh god, I can't do math right now. However, hundreds, many people, and they're going to narrow it down. That's not what you're doing. You're not making a funnel, you're talking to human beings. 

So if you're focused on human beings, then you're focused on connection and connection works different than a funnel. The quote unquote metrics of conversion rates don't work the same. Because you're actually talking to people and you give a crap about what they're doing, and how you're going to be able to help them you're giving to support them, right? Our brains really like to quantify things. So part of our rush to be like, Okay, how many followers is because we want a number, we want somebody to say to us, Hey, if you get to 1500 followers, your business will succeed. But that's not how this works. 

Because how many people do you know, that have 1000s of followers and nothing happens? Right? They don't convert that into anything. Or they have 10,000 followers. And they're all followers they bought, and they don't actually interact or engage with their content and their work. We like to quantify things, but followers doesn't equal money. Connection, creates income, create, connection creates impact. So if you're focusing on followers, you're focusing on the wrong thing. What matters is connection. And I keep saying it over and over again. I haven't like I'm on my soapbox today. Sorry. So the thing to think about here, because this is all about action, and implementation is not just about like you're doing wrong, because you're not doing it wrong.

 You're a person. And we're always going to get into like quantifying things like That's why I don't wear my Apple Watch to sleep. Because if I wear my watch to bed, I start to obsess over how many hours I'm sleeping, and then Adam asleep. It's not good. So instead of focusing on the quantity, the followers focus on the connection. Who are you connecting with? Where are you connecting? Are you creating fans? Are you adding them into your world? Are you helping them when you do? Write one amazing connection can create 10 sales for you. One amazing connection can create three clients 10 amazing connections can be enough to float your business for a whole year. But that's not the same as 100 followers, right? This is about connections, not followers. The other thing to remember and this is the thing I think we forget so easily, particularly if we're in pursuit of followers is that you have people who are fans with you right now.

You have people who are fans with you right now. Talk to them while you were busy worrying that you're You're not talking to the right people or enough people, the people right in front of you are thinking like, Man, I think I'm ready to pay her. I want to be a client of hers, and you are not focused on them. So what if you focused on the people in front of you, that are already with you? What if you said to them, Hey, if you're a fan, feel free to share? What have you said to them? I'm going to focus on you, and helping you get where you need to go. 

Because when you do those people feel seen and heard and loved and supported. And isn't that what you want anyways? Of course it is. So see and hear and love and support the people in front of you connect to new people and treat them the same way. The followers come because they become fans, the numbers, whatever. Like, I've had recently had a Facebook group person tell me that I was doing wrong. 

My Facebook group is somewhere in the neighborhood of like, 375, it's like three or four years old at this point. She's like, I can't believe you haven't grown it more. Listen, I like it being a happy little community. I like that I know, most of the people, at least their first names, and I've connected with them on some level. I like the size of it. I don't need a million people in there. I want people who I can help who will have to be there. You have an audience right now. It's not about followers. It's about connection. So then the final question is this. How are you showing up? Are you showing up thinking about the followers, and how to funnel them? Are you thinking about the people and how to help them. 

Because the real thing here is when you show up and focus on the people and how to help them, the rest of it works itself out. You may not ever have a million followers, you don't need them to create a successful business. I have, I don't know 200, some followers on Tiktok creates business for me. I have 300 some people in my Facebook group, it creates business for me. But it did when there was 101, there was 50. It's always worked for me because I've always focused on the humans in front of me. Because they matter. I focused on building my connections and making them feel welcome. You get to do it like this. You don't have to do it the metric first way, you don't have to make a funnel out of human beings.

 People are not a funnel. Okay, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna stop there. I'm gonna tell you a couple of things. The first is that if you want to coach me, I would love to focus on you. This is what I do. This is what I help people do. I can help you get out of your own way around followers and everything else and really connect to people so that you can create impact and growth in your business and for them. You can coach with me one on one, group coaching launches again in September.

 So if you're thinking about group coaching for the fall, reach out, let's talk about it. There's already people who are on the list, and I'm happy to put you there too. And then selling by giving the launch again in the fall, which is a course all about, you know, learning to sell without the nasty grossness because we don't need the nasty grossness. If you are finding this podcast useful. we'd love if you followed it on whatever platform you listen on, on Apple or whatever.

 And if you love it and you want to share it with love, you'd have to do that too. You can also watch this on YouTube. com find us there. It's so fun to be like playing around on YouTube. So I'm a dork. If you're not in my group you should be it is my favorite corner of the world. It is where we do all the best things and it is a community full of people like you who get it. So come play. And really that's all over the summer. This is every two weeks. So I will see you in two weeks and until then, focus on those connections because the people that love you and need you. They're your fans. They're your business. I'll see you then