2175: [Part 2] Don't Build an Empire, Find a Few Friends Who Care by Jeff Goins on Driving User Engagement

[00:00:00] Evening, Buyer's Remorse. Buy a new car? I'll be moving in. Let's get started. Uh, sorry, I think there's been a mistake. I bought it from Carvana. You what? Yeah, great price. I even have seven days to love it or return it. So there's no... No, no Buyer's Remorse. More like Buyer's Rejoice? I guess I'll let myself out. Congratulations! I mean it! Buyer's Rejoice. Buy your car today on Carvana. Limitations and exclusions may apply. See our seven-day return policy at Carvana.com.

[00:00:31] This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome? That's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required, compatibility and availability varies 18+.

[00:00:56] This is Optimal Work Daily. Don't build an empire. Find a few friends who care. Part 2 by Jeff Goins of GoinsWriter.com Paul Young did not write a book for everyone. Instead, he wrote a book for a few people, his children, even printing it on his home printer and distributing it to family members. They kept sharing it, and it ended up becoming a book for a few friends, then a few more.

[00:01:22] And soon, some of these friends started sharing it with their friends, until the book became national and eventually a worldwide phenomenon. This is how you go viral. This is how you hit it big. You start small. You reach the few, and empower them to reach the many. Of course, none of this would have worked if the work itself wasn't compelling. It was not only good, but interesting. So, we must begin with this important principle. Marketing is not creating anything and sharing it with others in hopes of it spreading.

[00:01:52] In fact, that works very rarely. All of us have a friend who's an author, or a multi-level marketer, or some other aspiring vocation that requires them to tap their network. What it takes for work to spread is to create something so compelling that once people hear about it, they can't help but share it. This is why I tell authors that it's not enough to write a book that is good. You have to write one that is interesting.

[00:02:16] Which is to say that you must write something that is counterintuitive. Something that is surprising. Something that attacks the status quo. This is how you get people's attention in an over-marketed world filled with hype and broken promises. You say the very opposite of what they are hearing. You do the unexpected. Granted, The Shack was a well-written book, but what helped the book spread was the idea behind the book. The visual imagery of God being represented as two women and a Middle Eastern carpenter.

[00:02:44] But it took time for such a challenging and counterintuitive message to catch on. Which is why we must be patient. And finding a few people who care is always a smart first strategy. Sometimes our work is so far ahead of its time that we need to wait for the world to catch on. And a great way to do this is to build a network, have a street team, and focus on the few who get it. If they do, maybe other people will eventually. The Love Language Strategy. Keep Going.

[00:03:13] When Dr. Gary Chapman, a pastor in South Carolina, wrote The Five Love Languages, the first year the book sold only a few thousand copies. The next year, it was double that. A few years after publication, it sold over 150,000 copies and kept going, eventually selling over 12 million copies. Today, the book is consistently on the New York Times list week after week and has been that way for years now. It was not an instant success, as is the case for many enduring works in the creative industry.

[00:03:42] It took some time. So, what happened? Was it luck? Sheer hard work? Or some other combination of factors? What did Chapman do? First, he identified a powerful idea. And according to him, it wasn't even his idea, but a term he heard a friend use. Big books always start with big ideas. And often, our job as creatives is not to come up with the idea, but to give a name to something that is already happening in the world. As Victor Hugo once said,

[00:04:10] There is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come. End quote. So, as you consider your big idea the project that you want to launch, learn how to pay attention to trends. See if you can spot something that people are talking about and try giving it a name. If you do this, it will make marketing much easier. After all, the best marketing in the world can't make a bad book idea into a bestseller. Then Chapman began testing the idea.

[00:04:37] As a pastor and marriage counselor, he started bringing up the concept of love languages into his counseling sessions and seeing how it resonated with couples. To his amazement, it caught on quickly. After that, he codified the process and framework into a book and kept testing it on a local radio station. People continued to resonate with it, so he wrote the book and began to promote it. Again, it didn't immediately take off. But at this point, he believed this was a message that deserved to be heard.

[00:05:05] Then, most importantly, when the book didn't become an instant bestseller, he kept going, kept talking about it, kept promoting it, kept speaking on it, and kept spreading the word. Why did it work? As a practicing evangelical Christian, Gary Chapman credits God for the success of his book, which I found to be quite common. At some point, most authors admit that God or luck or magic takes over and turns this idea into a phenomenon.

[00:05:30] This, I think, is a bit of a mystery, but also just what happens when you have a good idea. At this point, the author is not selling the book. The artist is not pushing the project. The work is now selling itself. So, how do we do that for ourselves? In the case of Gary Chapman, he did his part by not giving up on the book, which is an act of faith itself. You have to believe so strongly in the idea that if you don't immediately see it take off, you can keep going.

[00:05:58] More often than not, perseverance is what takes something from struggling to massively successful. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. How did the five love languages catch on? The author intentionally introduced it to small audiences over and over until it grew to astronomical levels. Your job, if you want your work to succeed, is to not optimize it for the masses, but focus on a few. Make friends who will believe in your work and will fight for others to recognize your genius.

[00:06:27] Bring fans together in loosely organized teams to get your next project out into the world. And when in doubt, keep going. If you're lucky, those few just might be enough to carry you to more. But whether they are or they're not, this is the only way I know to do this kind of work. It just might be the only way there is. You always have to find a few and trust that they will carry that work to the many.

[00:06:56] You just listened to part two of the post titled, Don't Build an Empire, Find a Few Friends Who Care. By Jeff Goins of GoinsWriter.com. Best thing that's ever happened to you financially. Go. Easy. Sold my car on Carvana. Amazing offer. Really? I hit 200 on the scratcher. Did the scratcher come to your house and hand you a check? No. How many scratchers did you hit to get that? I hit a button on Carvana.com once. Okay, that's fair. It's like the lottery, except you always win.

[00:07:25] Not like the lottery at all, actually. Exactly! Inexplicably good. Offers worth bragging about. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pickup fees may apply. This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome? That's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web. Like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block. Or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense?

[00:07:54] There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required. Compatibility and availability varies 18 plus. And thank you again to Jeff. And for more of his content, you can check out GoinsWriter.com. That's G-O-I-N-S Writer.com. His writing is featured across a bunch of our shows here on the Optimal Living Daily Podcast Network. So if you want to hear more of his work and hear him cover some other topics like personal development and much more, just check out our other shows.

[00:08:21] You can search for Optimal Living Daily wherever you're hearing this to find all of our podcasts. And that's going to do it for me today. I appreciate you being here as always. And I'll see you back again tomorrow where your optimal life awaits. We'll see you next time. Thank you.