Do You Want Followers or to Help People?

Do you want more followers?

Or do you want to help people?

I see a huge difference between the two intents.  Some bloggers desperately want to reach certain numbers. Desperation bleeds into despair as numbers seem to evade these folks. But those who do reach certain follower counts and celebrate wildly, quickly realize how numbers cannot buy your stuff, hire you, endorse you or invite you to guest post on blogs. Vishwajeet invited me to guest post on his blog. I helped him. He helped me. We helped each other, became close friends, and he invited me to guest post here, helping expand our collective success.

Could I befriend my friend if I obsessed over reaching set, specific follower counts? Could I have bonded with him and could I have received his gracious guest post invite if I obsessed over the number of people who followed my blog? No way. Success finds bloggers who give their attention and energy to helping people. Be all about giving. Stop trying to get so desperately. Getting becomes easier if you give more freely. Getting followers, traffic and blogging profits occurs if you generously help people each day, every day, for a sustained number of hours.

I write these words at about 1 AM on Wednesday morning, NYC time. Why? I want to help Vishwajeet and you, his rocking readers. I intend to help people. Even though I promoted my goal achieving eBook here, my intent is to help you, not to desperately squeeze or get sales out of you. Every blogger has a right to promote self for boosting business profits but if you make blogging mostly about helping people, you succeed. But making blogging about trying to get more followers messes up your journey because focusing on getting pulls away from your energy from giving. Who succeeds online? Givers. Who struggles? Getters.

I often see getters trying hard to reach a specific follower count. Why? Imagine if you give 99% of your energy to helping human beings through blog posts, guest posts, videos, and podcasts? Imagine if you help bloggers by commenting on their blogs, by promoting bloggers on your blog and by promoting bloggers through your social media accounts? Getting followers becomes easy if you generously help people for many thousands of hours because your increased skills and exposure leads to the follower count boost. Nailing down an impressive follower count matters not. Human beings grow your business. Numbers cannot grow your business.

One millionaire blogger often stressed how he has a small list, by internet marketing and blogging standards. Yet he made millions and mentored his followers to make millions, a few of which became millionaires themselves. How? He helped people freely. Naturally, this small but loyal group of people who trusted his generosity, skills, and experience hired him and bought his stuff. Imagine if only 10 people buy your $350 course? $3500 in blogging sales – and likely $3300 in profits – flow to you. Someone with a small but highly engaged, trusting list can inspire 10 or more folks to buy their stuff or to hire them. Think about 10 people hiring you for your $2000 coaching package. During this 8 week stretch, you will coach 10 people once weekly. Do you know your coaching profits will be $20,000? Can you see how you will make a sweet chunk of change by helping humans and building bonds, trust and credibility, versus chasing follower counts and other numbers?

Focus on helping people. People help you build your blogging business.