Starting and growing a business can be hard, and sometimes you might feel stuck. Our weekly newsletter, Unstuck, gets delivered to over 100,000 people each week to help them get unstuck. We'd love to help you, too.
Hi, it’s Pat! 👋
On March 4th, 2008, a man named Kevin Kelly published a blog post titled 1000 True Fans. Less than a year later, that blog post changed my life.
Whether you’ve read that post or not, I’m going to share the biggest takeaways. We (content creators and online entrepreneurs like you) seem to be trapped in many different ways — this article can help us get us back on track, or in other words, unstuck. 😉
Let’s do it.
“A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author — in other words, anyone producing works of art — needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living."
— Kevin Kelly, 1000 True Fans
I first found 1000 True Fans in an online business forum I joined in 2008 after I was laid off. Here’s the idea:
You don’t need to be a huge celebrity or artist to build a real, sustainable business and an amazing life for yourself. You don’t need a blockbuster hit. All you need as a creator is 1000 True Fans.
Imagine a True Fan who supports you with $100 a year in exchange for access to your creations or expertise — it’s the math that makes this whole thing work:
1000 True Fans x $100 = $100,000
That’s a six-figure business serving just a thousand people.
And that’s on the conservative side, because I know a lot of people, myself included, who pay more than $100 per year on stuff I love. That’s less than $10/month.
To break it down in another way, that’s a fan a day for less than three years.
Instead of trying to get millions of views and “tons” of subscribers, we can achieve success by focusing on getting just one fan a day.
This kind of thinking made everything seem more achievable. It ultimately worked so well that after years of practicing this methodology, I built an entire keynote around the how in this approach: How to Convert Your Casual Audience into Raving Superfans. This later evolved into my bestselling book, Superfans, which credits Kevin Kelly for the inspiration, and for changing my life.
When I first started out, I thought I had to have millions of subscribers to succeed. Thanks to this re-focus, I put my energy into the experience of the individual person on the other side of the computer.
In the beginning, it was the reader of my blog. Then it became the listener of my podcast, and soon after, the viewer watching my videos.
And today, more than ever, that personalized touch is so necessary. We live in a world where everything is automated and scaled, especially now with the rise of AI and machine learning.
I don’t want you to just have followers and subscribers, I want you to have Superfans.
True Fans.
And here’s the best part — the real secret of this entire equation…
When you focus on building those Superfans, they will be the ones to help grow your audience from the inside. A fan a day for two years and nine months is a thousand on paper, but in reality, you could have a thousand fans in a year or less if you do the following things…
Here’s a list of ways to build True Fans, fast:
There’s nothing more fulfilling than interacting like this with your people, and you can grow much faster as a result.
Think about how you’re interacting (or not) with your current audience. This is your CTA to step it up!
Unlock the Power of Targeted Influencer Newsletters
Grow your business with the power of targeted influencer newsletters! When you sponsor a newsletter like this one, you get access to engaged and interested audiences ready to learn more about your brand.
The ConvertKit Sponsor Network (CKSN), offers over 100 individual newsletter creators (including Smart Passive Income) that can help give your business the reach it needs. So what are you waiting for? Join the CKSN today.
SPI NEWS AND NOTES |
We work hard at SPI to remain unstuck and consistently provide you with the latest news, trends, and events to support your businesses. Check it out:
Did you hear about the Star Wars fanatic who’s been stealing autograph books and photo albums from other fans at conventions?
They call him the fan-tome menace.
Starting and growing a business can be hard, and sometimes you might feel stuck. Our weekly newsletter, Unstuck, gets delivered to over 100,000 people each week to help them get unstuck. We'd love to help you, too.
Ages ago on the Internet—so like, 5 years ago—my SEO strategy was simple: Put the most information about a topic on a page about that topic, and make sure it’s good enough for others to link to. And for all intents and purposes, it worked! Until it didn’t. Why did it stop working? Because the way people consumed content, and where people consumed content, began to change. More and more people started to consume videos and podcasts, and less read blogs. Stories became more interesting in video...
Hey, it’s Pat! 👋 It took me several years to discover this secret, but once I did, I unlocked more shares and exposure for my brands and businesses online. If you’re feeling stuck, like you can’t grow as fast as you’d like, or like you just keep creating content for the same audience over and over again, then this is for you. If it helps, then you can thank my son, because it was last week at Disneyland that he indirectly reminded me about it. Let’s get unstuck… QUOTE OF THE WEEK “The miracle...
Hey, it’s Pat! 👋 During my time in college, I worked as a waiter for two years, and it was one of the toughest, yet most rewarding experiences of my life. It taught me a ton about customer service, and it’s a job I think every person should try at least once in their life. In today’s email, you won’t have to become a waiter to learn one of the most important lessons I picked up from that experience. I’m going to tell you straight up how it applies to our online businesses, especially in a...