What It's About
How to utilize and mobilize your social networks.
Notes from Chris
Episode 1192
Last week’s episode was all about a Side Hustle sprint, essentially a question posed as a thought experiment: what if you had to launch a project in two weeks or less? This week I’d like to discuss a topic that is dear to my heart. It’s highly relevant to the current climate of the world, yet it’s always relevant (timeless!) to those who want to advance a message or sell a product or service without being overly sales-y and in a way that is relationship-focused. I call this The Power of Your Own Small Army, and the best way to talk about it is through a story. Way back in the day, when the cavemen began to emerge from the stone age and I set up my blog on Wordpress, I didn’t know much at all about blogging. I followed people like Gretchen Rubin and Leo Babauta and a few others, but I didn’t have a lot of resources, I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to write about, and I certainly didn’t have a business plan. So what I did was decide to build this movement, one person, at a time. The only business goal I had was getting people on my email list and eventually write a book … I didn’t really have anything to sell them. Well, I set up that blog and people slowly began subscribing, and for every one of them, they got the usual “Thanks for subscribing” message. But then I also sent them another personal note that said “Hey, this is Chris - I saw you joined my blog The Art of Non-Conformity. That’s awesome! Let me know what you think and if I can help you with anything.” I did that for about a year and a half or however long it took to get my first 10,000 subscribers. Finally I stopped, but during that time I had gotten to know at least a little about probably 3,000 or more of that first group … which was very helpful! Then when I went on my first book tour, I adopted a similar strategy by visiting every U.S. state and every Canadian province. I remember those gatherings very well, especially the smaller ones that didn’t have a lot of people. All along the way, I got the chance to have group and individual conversations that then set the path for the next few years of what I did. This is all about a model I call the power of a small army. Why am I telling you this? You may not want to send 10,000 emails and right now most of us shouldn’t be touring - I’m a little sad that I’m not leaving today on what was going to be a big tour. The point is that you can reach people one-by-one too. Not every person can be a customer—but there are other ways they can help. They might be an ambassador, a mentor for specific insight, or a connector. Listen to today's Classroom episode to learn more...THIS WEEK’S ASSIGNMENT:
Who will be in your small army, and how will you recruit them?Inspiration is good; inspiration combined with action is better. Now get back to work! Yours in the revolution,
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To infinity and beyond,
