By Kerry Morrison — May 21, 2024

Fuck Cold Plunges and The Promise of Easy Riches

There’s only one thing you need to do to be successful.

Be boring.

That’s it.

Nothing else will change the direction of your life.

Not waking up at 5 am ( for the sake of it ).

Not taking cold plunges, dosing with psilocybin, eating Keto, mastering meditation, praying to Elon, or joining a mastermind.

Nothing will slow your progress more than filling your days with extra “things.”

Seriously.

We have to stop with this shit.

Just be boring.

Learn to focus. Do the work. Get shit out there.

Better yet, take that focus and that dedicated work and do one thing and one thing only.

Build an audience of people who like, trust, and rely on you.

Do that, and you’ll never have to worry about losing your job, being out of work, or struggling to pay your bills again.

That’s it, that’s the secret.

Why the F$ck Do I Need An Audience

I want to be very specific here.

You don’t just want an audience.

You want an audience of people who trust you.

An audience who looks to you for information and answers.

You want fans.

I’m not talking about being famous, fuck famous.

As a marketer, I’ll take a dedicated audience of one hundred over a disengaged audience of one million every day of the week.

You want an audience of fans.

Why?

Because an audience of people who trust you will buy what you’re selling, no matter what.

That’s power. That’s freedom.

Don’t believe me?

Ok, let’s talk Logan Paul.

A Fan Will Do Absolutely Anything You Ask

"People want leadership. And in the absence of genuine leadership, they'll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They're so thirsty for it, they'll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there's no water, they'll drink the sand." - Michael Douglas in The American President ( words from Mr. Aaron Sorkin )

Logan Paul is an asshole.

Or, at least he plays one on TV ( and in podcasts, in the WWE, and on YouTube ).

( he’s probably really nice in real life, who knows )

But Logan Paul is also a genius.

Clearly, he’s rich as fuck.

Like him or hate him, Logan Paul has built a fan base.

A big one.

However, they came across the man, and his fans followed his moves, listened to his words, and cheered for his matches.

They also, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, buy what is arguably the least healthy and most disgusting energy drink ever concocted.

Prime is garbage water.

But, because they love him because they’ve developed a “relationship” with the man, people are drinking this shit like it’s sand in the desert.

Logan Paul has a massive audience, and every product he gets involved in can now be monetized through that audience.

Can he feed them shit water forever, of course not.

But with an audience comes opportunity.

The same kind you need to cultivate, even if your audience is a fraction of Logan Paul’s.

Quick side note: Logan Paul doesn’t even own Prime; he took none of the risk; he brought his audience to the product and reaped the benefits—Freakin genius.

An Audience of Your Very Own

One thing I refuse to do in all of my writing on this site is leave out the details.

I hate when “experts” or “influencers” gloss over the hard part.

So, as Ben Affleck says in Boiler Room, “Here is what’s required.”

Two things quickly before we lay out an audience-building plan.

1. You need to know something about something

You can only build an audience if you provide knowledge, insight, or a new opinion about a topic people are interested in.

Want to build an audience of plant lovers, you better damn well know about plants.

Ready to grow a following of Etsy sellers? You better have spent serious time inside the Etsy system and made money on your own store.

Do not be the person with minimal expertise who calls themselves an expert.

Just don’t.

There is one caveat to this.

Passion can trump knowledge.

If you love plants and want to bring people along as you learn more about flora and foliage, that’s fantastic. People will join you on your journey.

You have to be honest with yourself and with your audience.

2. You have to commit

Imagine this scenario for me.

You come across a post on, say, LinkedIn, and it’s someone who has something interesting to say about building a pet grooming business.

The article teaches you something, so you go looking for more.

And you find, like, one more post.

Authority ruined.

People trust people who put in the work.

The work can be unpolished and rough around the edges, but if it’s clear you’re dedicated to your subject, people will listen.

You might need to improve the quality before your audience, but demonstrating that you’re in the game fully tells people you are committed to helping.

And it shows you won’t abandon them.

So commit.

Create content for a month or three before ever saying a word about what you’re doing.

Build that body of work.

Building an Audience in 90 Easy Steps

Kidding.

Even I’m too lazy to follow a ninety-step plan.

But I want you to think about this in terms of 90-day stages.

Success doesn’t come overnight, and neither will your audience.

Commit to three months, and I promise you’ll see progress.

Will you be Logan Paul?

Nope.

But let’s make a goal.

Not in audience size, because as I mentioned, the audience size might not ever be massive.

No, I want something tangible and beneficial.

Let’s make it $100. Or a $1000. Or a new iPhone.

Put it on a sticky note, on your monitor, or on your desk, and look at it every morning.

Even if it’s just $100, it’s a stepping stone to more.

Another side note: You might never get rich from your audience. Rich is complex and honestly tricky for most people to quantify. My goal is freedom. I don’t want to have another day job or skip a family vacation because I have to work. I would instead aim for things that can make a real difference in the near future. Maybe it’s making enough money for Friday beers or a nice vacation once a year. I suggest you aim for something like paying your rent or mortgage. Whatever it is, tangible, realistic goals, commensurate with effort, are the key.

What’s our plan?

Let’s start with 45 minutes per day.

That’s it.

An hour would be better. A half-hour is worse.

Don’t tell me you can’t spare 45 minutes before you head to the office.

You can.

How much do you want this?

Here’s what I would do.

Day 1

Pick one platform. Twitter, LinkedIn, Threads, Substack, whatever ( try to go where you think the most significant number of people who will like what you want to talk about are )
Create your profile there ( if it doesn’t exist ). Put a nice photo of yourself, smiling, preferably with a bright color border on the image. Don’t get clever with the profile; tell people precisely what you’re doing, and be specific.
Create your first post, make it boring but very clear, and pin it to the top of your profile.
Now search for whatever you’re talking about ( Logan Paul, Prime, Pet Grooming, Plants, whatever ) and follow the first twenty people you find who are also talking about those things.
For the first ten of those people, find their post and comment on it. Do not sell. Say hi, offer another opinion, ask a question, or be genuine.

That’s day 1.

You’ve started. You’re already ahead of 80% of people.

Pat yourself on the back, then get back to work.

Day 2 ( and on every Tuesday or 2nd day of your work week )

Write a thread or a long post. Make it interesting. Write at a ninth-grade level ( check it in HemingwayApp ) and in a way that lets your personality shine through. It’s okay to swear or use personal stories; just keep thinking to yourself: value, value, value. I’m here to help.
After you post your piece, post it to Medium (it can’t hurt, and it’s free )
Then again follow twenty new accounts
Comment on ten people’s posts.
Like ten posts.

Day 3 ( again repeat this on the 3rd day every week )

Search for more accounts in your space ( like on day 1 ) and follow twenty more people.
Comment on ten people’s posts.
Like ten other posts.
Retweet or Repost ( or whatever mechanism exists ) two other posts.
Email two friends or two family members, tell them what you’re doing, and send them what you wrote. Ask for feedback and likes if they love it.
Write nine short posts ( still thinking value or to drive interest in your topic ) and post three of them ( preferably at different times during the day - use a content scheduling app like Hootsuite or Buffer if you need to. I believe have free accounts for getting started ). Save the other three for the following days.

Day 4

Publish two more of the small posts you’ve written.
Follow 20 more accounts
Make ten comments on posts
Like ten posts
Retweet / Share two posts
Reach out to someone in your space with a big audience. Tell them you love what they do, and if they ever need content, you’d love to create something for them. Even if they say no, you are now connected. Build that network. Be polite. Be deferential.

Day 5

Record a video ( video content kills ). Yes, it will be hard. No, it doesn’t have to be spectacular. Use your phone. Face a window, and put your Airpods in ( even the wired ones ) for better sound. Write an outline of what you want to say; don’t read it. Be you. Be genuine. It’s ok if it doesn’t match Hollywood production levels. Do a basic edit in iMovie or Capcut ( both free ).
Post the video on your primary platform.
Create a YouTube and TikTok account and post the video there as well ( fuck being embarrassed, pride doesn’t pay the bills ). Throw the video on Facebook and Instagram while you’re at it.
Do not promote the video ( at least until you have 20 completed; you won’t be good until 50, but 20 is enough ).
Go watch Ali Abdaal’s course, it’s $1, if you want the basics of how to be better at this ( do not wait until you finish the course to post your first video )

Day 6 and Day 7

Do whatever the hell you want. We don’t work weekends here.

The following week, do it all again.

One long-form piece of content One piece of video content Nine short-form posts Eighty accounts followed Forty post comments Forty posts liked Six to ten posts retweeted/shared

That’s not so bad, is it?

Also, if you feel like or have time to do more, do more.

Spend the time engaging or creating one more piece of valuable, longer-form content.

Do this every week, for twelve weeks and you’ll have the beginning of a quality following.

Notice I said quality.

Because again, we want fans, not followers.

Wait, Wait, Wait. How do I Make Money?

Right.

This isn’t a hobby. This is a business.

This is a more challenging section to go into detail on.

Not because I’m gatekeeping, but because there are so many options.

You could open a Shopify store and offer products inside your space.

Let’s again use the plant example:

You could sell Plant food, watering cans, seeds, or whatever else you can source from a manufacturer. A Shopify store or dropshipping app makes this easy.

But the products should be of good value. You have to vet them for quality, and the price needs to be fair.

You could sell your products to people.

Maybe you paint plant pictures or make plant photos.

Or keep it digital with an expanded ( and highly valuable ) eBook or plant care guide. If you go this route, please also put the book or guide on Amazon ( extra revenue potential ).

Maybe you’re an expert at keeping plants alive and want to offer a course or paid thirty-minute calls to people.

You could open a subscription Skool community and, for, say, $5 a month, let other plant lovers get deeper access to your content and a community of people with whom to share knowledge.

You could start a newsletter and either have some of the content sit behind a paywall or sell ads and promotional space in a free version.

Finally, you could monetize the content by joining an ad network and running ads on your website ( if you went that direction ) or by including affiliate links in any products you mention.

The point here is that there are ways to make money.

Endless ways.

But you need an audience for any of them to work.

The best news?

Once you have an audience, you can do all the things I’ve listed above and make money over and over and over again.

Build your audience people.

It’s the key to everything.