Building Audience through Proof of Work: (thread)

No one cares what you can do, everyone cares what you can do for them.

As evidenced by notorious tweeter @mkobach's PhD research.

Most only focus on scale when building audience, which is a misguided approach if the intent is to build a level of resonance that will translate to income in the long term.

Large audience ≠ viable market for very specific products.

Instead, take @pmarca's advice; "Creativity is a collaborative effort between the creator and the audience."

For example; if you're building a mentorship product, your content should speak to the things you'll be teaching your mentees.

Content is the conduit that connects you to your eventual customers.

"But making content is hard."

No it isn't — content is a byproduct of a product or service that delivers a result, and if you don't have that, you have bigger problems than content strategy.

Go back and figure out how to be useful.

If you do something useful, you can start with an audience of one.

Your first client, your first build, your first project.

With a narrow focus on the problem you're solving, the interest of your audience scales proportionately with your publishing.

To go back to the sawdust metaphor above, content is what you produce while you perfect your product.

Write about what's working, record what you're learning, showcase your client results, share their testimonials.

Proof of work increases trust.

Finally, here's my sawdust, all the content I produce is a byproduct of growing the @visualizevalue brand — and it creates a compounding effect on new business.

This thread is me selling you my sawdust.

The above is a summary of a 60 minute Q&A from the @visualizevalue private community, which you can get involved in here: http://shop.visualizevalue.com/products/daily-manifest