It’s easy for us to be taken by the one in a billion websites like Facebook, Youtube and the like and think we need millions to make what we do work. The reality for most of our businesses is that we don’t need huge crowds, just a handful of good loyal people who dig what we do.
Sure some of us do need the zillions, like my business rentoid.com does… but the large majority of us don’t. We don’t need global awareness and brand recognition. What we need is a small group of dedicated fans, much like what Kevin Kelly has espoused in 1000 true fans.
But it’s often hard to get our heads around this, to believe this could really be all we need in the social media millions focus. So here’s what we ought do. This about how long it takes to have a decent conversation with 1, 10 or even 100 people. To imagine lining up 100 people, all of which are interested in what you do. To imagine them all in your living room or backyard at a BBQ. Your house would be very full, very busy, and chatting to all 100 people individually would take a week or so. In the real world it’s a lot of people.
And the internet is ‘the real world’….
The real world we are doing business in, not a virtual one. The real world where each customer matters and is always the start of our journey towards potentially millions.
I think this real world vs. virtual world mindset is a major differentiator in great and good (or bad) companies today. “Virtual” now seems like such an antiquated term. What we all used to think of as virtual ten years ago is normal now.
I too am strong believer in quality not quantity, it’ something I try to instill in everything I do with my business.
Having thousands of contacts will not help my business if only a small percent are actually interested in what I have to offer them.