Are You Nurturing Your Followers?

Are you nurturing your followers or spamming them?⁠

I don't know if you think about your followers this way. I know a lot of business owners don't! To some, their audience, followers, email list is a sea of faceless names just sitting in the void waiting to purchase their next offering. So all they do is sell. And sell. And sell.

Unless you're someone who does want to buy right now and has the financial means to make it happen, this strategy is pretty useless. If you're someone who doesn't know, like, or trust them enough to buy, what's even the point of being on their list?

It's careless at best and spam at worst.

Contrast that with a nurturing perspective.

That person consistently give you valuable content that you can engage with for free. They point out resources, share their trials and errors, and help you get closer to where you want to be. You like them, they help you so you trust them, and you stick around long enough to get to know them. Because of all those reasons, when they announce an offer, you are so ready to buy from them. It almost feels like they've done you a favor by offering it.

The second one is how I want my followers to feel. How about you?

Here's what I think you need to do to successfully nurture your audience:

1. Talk to them like people — because they are!⁠
Keeping in mind that your followers are actual real people with their own ideas, struggles, unique perspective, and desires will help you be a better human in general, I think. But more than that, it will help you engage with them in a way that is valuable that prompts them to engage with you, building that know, like, and trust factor.
⁠
2. Be of service.

Jenna Kutcher likes to say "Serve 90%, Sell 10%."

What would it look like to be serving your followers 90% of the time? That's kind of a radical strategy, but I think there's a lot of freedom in it. Instead of constantly trying to drive more and more sales to make more and more money and worrying and stressing, it reduces the pressure. I find it much easier to ask myself "How can I help today?" vs "How can I increase my revenue", personally.

Serve your followers by giving them helpful hints, answers to their questions, and making it fun!⁠
⁠
3. Solve their problems.

Some of you read my intro and thought "Does this mean I can never sell?"

Of course not! You should sell to your audience. I'd even go as far as to say you need to sell to them. But be sure that you serve first, then sell. And be sure that when you sell, you are offering a real solution to a real problem.⁠

Our audiences are real people (see point #1) which means they have real problems. You know your niche inside and out, which means that you've likely encountered all of those problems in some capacity at least once. This means that YOU are uniquely positioned to solve problems for your followers. And when you do, you'll find that they know you better, like you more, and trust you enough to purchase.

Your Turn

• How are you nurturing your followers? your email list? your podcast subscribers?
• Are you serving them genuinely and solving their problems? How do you know?