 Hi everyone, how's it going? I'm George Cao. I hope you're doing well today and So in today's video I'm going to talk about Why we don't need to always be seeking more traffic and rather the importance of Seeking our true fans and we're gonna run a few numbers so that you can see how to build a business without Having that pressure of building a huge email list or Focusing only just on the true fans And by the way, I'm trying out something new and those of you who have Well, whether you were watching me for the first time or or I'd love your feedback on it And I'm of those who will watch for a while. I love your feedback on it up to now What I've done is I've started the video immediately with the topic and kind of some kind of question or problem worse or situation And then kind of gone from there, but I'm just experimenting now Maybe the next couple videos will have a more relaxed opening. So I'll say hi. I'll say my name I'll say how you're doing and just to kind of ease into the topic. So let me know what you think of it Maybe I'll say more about my my personal life a bit like right now I'm on day 13 of my cold You know, I rarely get colds anymore, thankfully but when I do it lasts for like a month and a half or two so I'm only on day 13 and I'm still stuffed up and congested and Bit low energy than usual, but but I'm here right and some something that I talk about all the time is No matter what no matter how we're feeling Show up if at all possible and if we show up we might actually heal ourselves even in some ways and Because when we engage with our purpose it gives us strength it gives us power right so And and yeah, anyway, so that's that's I guess that's what's up right now All right, so The typical advice you're going to get in marketing By the way, this is how I would typically have started the videos right like I do right in the typical advice you would give So how do you feel about this kind of slow start? It's been how many minutes am I maybe two and a half minutes before I getting I'm getting into it Is it too slow? Is it is it okay? I don't know. I mean, I'm honestly open to your feedback on it So let me know what you would prefer Okay, so and if you by the way if you want to give me anonymous feedback, that's possible by going to George cow comm slash feedback I think that's the link George cow comm slash feedback Allows you to give me feedback without mentioning your name without me knowing who you are if you prefer to Share something honestly that you don't want to Be attached to your name. So or you could just comment below. I'm happy to receive your feedback that way, too okay, so There is so much marketing teaching out there That is exhausting first of all, but secondly most of it. It's focused on building a big list You've heard it build an email list, you know, get more fans get more traffic You know get more leads. It's always more isn't it and When we think about getting more traffic or leads, what are we really talking about We're talking about human beings here We're talking about people. What do you mean leads? What do you mean traffic? These are human beings here who are taking their precious time to The thing The thing that they have a limited amount of which is time that they can never get back and they're spending their precious time and energy On your website or on your Facebook page or on your YouTube video or whatever it may be It's not traffic. It's not views. It's not, you know, yes That's what the the metrics sound like and that's what they they're they use for corporate metrics, but for us authentic businesses Let's just talk about people so instead of More traffic more views more likes more shares more comments more leads more profit Let's talk about connecting more with actual human beings Because this the secret you might say the thing that most businesses don't do Because marketers are not teaching us this way The secret is if you do really well for individuals You tend to do well overall in your business But so many of us are focused on the numbers I have been focused on the numbers too much that I Have to keep reminding myself. That's why I write these blog posts and make these videos in part to remind myself To come back to the true fans to you So think of your business as a series of concentric circles Your business is at the center and Then that's you. Okay. Just outside your business are your true fans and And these are the people to focus the most attention and energy and care and understanding on So outside the true fans are the regular fans and that's a bigger circle and You don't have as much energy and time to give to your regular fans and that's perfectly fine And then outside the regular fans may be another circle of people who occasionally see your Content see your newsletter or see your videos or posts or whatever They occasionally hear about you and there are people who I don't know what we would call them They they're not fans yet. They would be more like potential fans. Let's say let's call them potential fans Okay, and that's a bigger circle and obviously you can't engage as much with them and Then outside of the potential fans is everybody else the whole world so the I guess the mistake most Businesses make is they try to reach the whole world. They try to reach the biggest circle possible, which is everybody else and So that's why they think more traffic. Oh, I just got to get more eyeballs, right? Like this language of marketing is so strange It's so well essentially it's corporate so much of the marketing trainings We get is actually people who learned it from corporate marketing and they're trying to apply it to small business But corporate marketing might talk about traffic eyeballs views, you know return on ad spend and all these very non-human words Whereas we small businesses we authentic businesses can talk about individuals can talk about people You know, did I connect with Shreta? Did I connect with Judith? Did I connect with Miriam? Am I connecting with you? Right. I'm just looking at some of the people who are here live with me here. So thank you Are our Krishnan and Andrea and Peter and Claudia. Thank you all for joining me here so if You connect well with your true fans The rest tends to take care of itself your true fans are the people who It's it's just it's a brilliant brilliant dynamic I'll tell you why because your true fans are the people for whom you can do no wrong Your true fans are the people who You can just be yourself However, you are you can have a cold that day You can have messy hair that day They don't care they care about you, but they don't care about the surfaced stuff They don't care that you made a mistake in your addiction. They don't care that you have typos They don't care that you're not as articulate today as you were the other day or as you're not as attractive as you know some celebrity No, your true fans Resonate with your energy signature Which is un Uncorruptible because your energy signature is basically with you your whole life and Doesn't matter what you do or how you do it your energy signature shows up. It just shows up I don't know what it is. I'm just making it up. By the way, I don't not a student of energy signature I kind of it just came to me one day to say it I'm sure I saw it somewhere and I'm sure it probably means something else by the way I probably and I'm not using the term energy signature, right? But that's I like that term it makes sense to me that No matter how I talk sometimes I'm not not fully grounded sometimes. I'm not spiritual sometimes. I'm not You know articulate And sometimes I'm not sharp, but hey if my energy signature resonates with you you're gonna keep coming back Now you might not watch every single video But you're gonna keep coming back somehow over the years. I mean sometimes you might take you might take a break from me And for three six twelve months, but you're all you'll be back I know that sometimes you take a break from me from a few days a few weeks a few months But you'll be back those of you who are true fans. That's what you're that's what your true fans are to you You don't have to worry about losing them. You don't have to be worried about being politically correct Or about being whatever correct grammatically correct Politically spiritually whatever correct you don't have to worry about. Oh, did I say the right thing? No, just be yourself and your energy signature is going to naturally attract your true fans Now of course over time as you get to know your true fans if you serve them you're going to discover what that what do you talk about that you really that are really needed and wanted by them and If you have a connection with your true fans, right? If you feel connected to them, you want to serve them You are happy being with them and that's another characteristic that you know you but you found a true fan is you enjoy them It's not just that they enjoy you You are happy when you get to talk to them and you get to hang out with them. You get to see them. You know you like it and So therefore There is a natural connection Guess what their energy signature is also attractive to you. It's not just you attracting them. They're attracting you to So because there's this natural attraction Of course, if they feel served if they show you that they want and need something You're going to naturally want to do more of it and you will do naturally do more of it And so if you naturally do more of it, you will become more and more useful to your true fans over time You become more and more interesting to your true fans over time if you follow that natural Enjoyment of each other, right? so Here's the great thing once you focus on your true fans and How you are serving and connecting with them now you start with a few true fans Some of them you might even start with just your a few friends a few colleagues who do just really connect with them They really love your your content. They really enjoy your offerings and They might start with your true fans. You might start with two true fans three true fans And then as you start learning Facebook ads as you start learning ways of distributing content You you'll get strangers who become true fans like oh, who's this person? And why do I feel so connected to their to their stuff all to their content and to their energy to their presence and Then you'll grow and grow and grow now this term true fans comes from well it's been popularized by a writer by the name of Kevin Kelly and the article is called one thousand true fans and In my blog post associated with this video I will in that blog post you'll see the link to the thousand article true fan a thousand true fans article and Let me just summarize his article for you if you know basically the article says this Nowadays with the internet It's never been easier To connect with true fans to gather true fans Okay, and if you have a thousand true fans you can have everybody and if everybody with a thousand true fans will have a sustainable business small business and He is really talking about gosh if you if you have a thousand true fans and each true fans spends about a hundred dollars a Year with you That's not very much a hundred dollars a year That's you know one one to one session right a single session one to one or it's several of your online courses or Several you know ten of your books or whatever whatever you have They spend a hundred dollars a year with you and you have a thousand true fans. How much is that? That's a hundred thousand dollars Which is double the medium household income of the United States and Just FYI And I just did some research on this the median so let's talk about them the most expensive cities in the United States New York City and San Francisco. Let's say Manhattan in San Francisco the average individual income in San Francisco Median I think it's like 60,000 or actually I've seen different figures. It goes from or someone from 60,000 to 85,000 to 90,000 60 to 90,000 is the medium median individual personal income in Probably the most expensive city in the country, which is where I live. I live in the most expensive city in the country and I thankfully make slightly north of that but $100,000 is more than I mean come on you can live very what you could you'll live better than the average person in any city in The most expensive country in the world, right? So a thousand true fans is doable You can totally gather a thousand true fans, you know in the next couple of years now. Let's let's run the numbers Even more let's say you have One-on-one services people usually sign up and they have a true fan. They probably do a Package of you know, three months with you or six months with you. Maybe 12 months with you are longer So your true fans might do multiple sessions with you a year and then they buy multiple other products from you per year So let's say a true fan spends a $1,000 with you a year Then you only need a hundred true fans a hundred instead of a thousand true fans You now need only a hundred who spend on average a thousand dollars with you a year That's totally doable completely doable for every single one of you watching this right now completely doable Now it's not great you can just focus on finding those hundred people Who just resonate with your energy signature? They are the right type of person to be your client. They will spend that thousand dollars with you a year. That's it You know, and I think I've also seen somebody I've seen somebody do this where they're like, okay, I have a thousand dollar offering I only offer once a year and the people who buy my thousand dollar offering get everything from me Get all of my best stuff. You get this many sessions from me You basically are one of my inner circle people and I only have a hundred spots for this for this for the thousand, you know, so So just use your imagination to see how you can slice and dice the numbers to get to a hundred thousand dollars a year Whatever, whatever you want to make maybe you only need 75,000. Maybe you only need $50,000 a year from your business $50,000 a year. That's 50 true fans who spend $1,000 with you a year Okay, totally doable. That's a hundred dollars a month Okay, that's that's again if you have a service that they really want need that's completely. Yes, that's that should be an easy yes If they're true fans and they're the right kind of person where I kind of client for you. Yes, that's easy. Yes, so Focus on finding those 50 to 100 Notice them on social media, you know notice who they are and and Get to know them better see what their likes are see what they post on their social media So that you can you can if you enjoy them, okay, you'll you'll naturally want to post more things like that okay Focus on your true fans and what happens is when you have a an online community of true fans, okay? they energize Your regular fans Right they energize your regular fans because You know some of you here are my true fans, right? And you and you comment on my things very quickly, which then energizes other people to comment on it You see this dynamic. That's exactly what's happening. So your true fans will energize your regular fans Which is a larger pool of people you might have 50 true fans and you might my 500 regular fans It's people on your email newsletter people are your Facebook fans or whatever You know 50 true fans 500 regular fans and by the way those numbers to get to a hundred thousand dollars. It can be a mix, right? Maybe your true fans spend on average with you $500 a Year Okay, $500 a year 50 true fans. That's what 25,000 and then the rest of the 75,000 is made up of Smaller spending from your regular fans. So it is going to be a mix and I have a mix for sure, right? so Your true fans energize your regular fans and then your regular fans of course are Tend to be the ones who also spread the word because they're there's more of them So even if a few of them are spreading the word about you and a true fans obviously are spreading the word about you too Just there's just fewer of them So it's like everybody's spreading the word and then you your potential client your penette your potential fan Circle is much larger than your regular fans circle and then your true fans If we focus on this We will care for our people We will create quality things for them because we understand them quality quality is not your own self-judgment Quality is what your true fans are getting the value your true fans are getting from your stuff That's what quality should be defined as So if we're creating things that are that are being appreciated by our true fans That means we're creating quality things and the quality things tend to resonate also with the regular fans Right and then some of that might resonate with the potential fans so you can basically relax about getting lots of traffic and instead focus daily on Coming back to your higher purpose Which is to love right which is to grow in wisdom, right? This isn't at all of our higher purpose More or less to love and to grow in wisdom Well, we do that in our business by loving our true fans and by growing the wisdom of what our true fans want need So that's our daily purpose in our business And if we do that we naturally create things that are going to be loved or liked or be interesting to to the people that are going to Most benefit from what we do And as we build our true fan base, then we'll get to a point where eventually all we need to do is to whisper our offerings We no longer have to shout. We no longer have to promote promote promote We no longer have to be in fear of oh my god Am I gonna fill this program and by gonna have enough people in this class? Am I gonna have enough clients? All we gotta do is whisper. Oh, yeah. Hey, uh, just FYI I have some client openings right now or hey, I've got some openings in this or that program or this I've I've an upcoming class and then our true fans are Probably many of them will buy and then spread the word to our regular fans and then regular fans Well, some of them will buy and spread the word you and that's what that's that's the that's the goal That's the that's the direction that authentic businesses can go and it's really a beautiful thing when we get there And as we get there, it's also enjoyable because we are Being with the people we enjoy and focusing on the people we enjoy so I hope this helps and Thanks for your comments. Let me just kind of read out some of the comments Judas says yes connecting with people absolutely and Shwetha says fans fans hang with the ebbs and flow and various rhythms of life Yeah, so again true fans doesn't necessarily mean that they watch every video They buy everything but but that they always come back and that they they are it's it's only by the It's really only by degrees that somebody is a true fan versus a regular fan versus a potential fan It's just it's just solo degrees. So yes, of course true fans may also leave for a while and then come back and yeah So it's not a It's not a there's no requirement of what a true fan necessarily is actually Kevin Kelly says that true fans buy everything that you create and I think that might be True for like again bigger audiences like musicians Artists, you know kind of more popular authors Yeah, and lower price lower price offerings In those cases true fans tend to buy just about everything and and and so you know thousand true fans a hundred dollars Probably in some cases it might need to be ten thousand true fans and ten dollars a year spending, you know to get to a hundred thousand But the numbers are such that depends on your price range You can you you might need a thousand or you might need fifty right or you might need twenty five, right? So So Peter says well even to connect my true fans I shall not dare to appear on camera without a shirt on I don't know Peter that might attract him even more I Actually have a client that when he does his videos He's he's on the beach and that's part of his message. That's part of his brand his presence is he has a very a very great lifestyle And he has his shirt off when he does his videos on the beach and that makes sense Yeah, if you have your shirt off in a regular setting that might seem a little strange, but on the beach I think it's it's acceptable, right Um Yeah, yeah, Cornelia says yeah, it's better to have true fine fans and hundreds and hundreds of people who don't care. Yeah, absolutely Yeah Yeah, Shreta says it's it's it feels less overwhelming to think about this these numbers like 50 true fans and it's a good financial planning tool Yeah, absolutely. It's very doable Miriam says thank you for not telling us we can do six or seven figures Messages more encouraging. Yeah, and by the way When you focus on true fans and when you care about them You might One day reach six seven eight figures who knows but that's not the daily You know obsession which is what a lot of people do our daily obsession if there is one is love Our daily obsession if there is one is wisdom Applied to the relationship with our true fans. That's it. It's like how can we love them more? How can we understand them better? Right and Laura says a great motivator and a true fan here. Yes, Laura. Thank you Definitely a true fan. You've been with me for a couple years and you keep coming back. So I'm grateful for that so Okay, that's it. That's all that's all for today. Thanks for hanging out and Let me know what you think of of the format should I start, you know Most of my videos like I said start right for the topic and I'm cool with doing that I'm just wondering I'm experimenting here that I'm not saying I like one versus the other So, please let me know What you prefer how I start the how I start the videos and with that? Have a great rest of your day. Take care. Enjoy. Is this spring yet? This is officially spring Anyway, it's it's springtime weather today here. I hope you enjoy the great outdoors today. All right. Take care