Business Building Strategy – Smaller Is Better

You might suspect this post is about …

Chunking down your bigger projects into smaller, more manageable bite-size tasks for better organization and to help you stay on track.

Or …

Having a smaller number of words in your blog posts than most other bloggers doesn’t mean your message is any less powerful or has any less impact on your readers.

Or …

Instead of trying to accomplish some daunting, humongous goal – having a series of smaller goals leading up to that giant one is a more sensible approach.

But …

It’s none of the above.

Although there are lots of ways smaller is better to build your business, I want to address the issue of creating a viable and lasting community online.

Every online marketer and small business owner wants to make BIG money by having a BIG list of subscribers, friends, and followers, right?  You hear it all the time – “The money is in the list!”

I’m all in favor of making big money (I didn’t crawl out from under a cabbage leaf, ya know!), but I’m NOT in favor of “bigger is better” when it comes to building online relationships and creating community.

There’s been a lot of discussion and some debate over this issue lately on some of the blogs I’ve been following.

Look, I don’t profess to know everything about everything but I know this much …

What possible good does 1000’s of Facebook friends do me, for example, when it’s not humanly possible to have any kind of meaningful relationship with that many people?!

I would much prefer to have a smaller number of subscribers and social media contacts that actually have a genuine desire to get to know me and what I have to offer.

Do you think smaller is a better business building strategy?

  • Good thoughts, Samantha!

    Life (and business) can be complicated making motivation wane overnight. We would all be better served to stick to the KISS principle — Keep It Super Simple. 🙂

  • People want smaller, shorter, simpler or whatever similar term you can ever think of. Personally, just thinking how complicate things are make me feel crazy about so many things. I find myself demotivated so rather prefer small chunks of everything so I can accomplish or appreciate something.

  • I am a firm believer in think BIG. But I think the key here is the fact that you are building a business. You are building a list. You are building followers.

    The way that is done, no matter the medium you are using, give it the value. It is a process and finding a process that works.

    • I’m on that same page with ya, Sheila. When it comes to having lots of folks opt in for your freebie so you can stay forefront in their minds through email marketing — SUPER!

      But 1000’s and 1000’s of Twitter followers? What’s the point if they’re not really interested in what you have to offer AND they’re not even interested in reading your posts or re-tweeting any of your stuff or any kind of interaction with you. Just having big numbers isn’t any benefit at all if your followers are unresponsive.

  • Oh, I thought you were talking about “subscribers” and “the list.” The higher those numbers, the better!

  • It will be interesting to see if your own opinion changes when you have bigger numbers. I like big numbers if they are all buying my products! LOL The truth is, to have a large monthly income from internet marketing, your list has to be in the thousands, not the hundreds!

    • You’re absolutely right, Martha – we MUST have a BIG list of subscribers to market our products and services to in order to realize the profits we desire. Maybe I should have clarified my thoughts a little better …

      I will embrace and celebrate every single person who opts in to stay in touch with me and learn more about what I have to offer. But as far as harvesting 1000’s and 1000’s of fans and followers on social media venues, I don’t see the need or the significance. We’re all aware that the MAJORITY of those folks never respond to anything we post and really could care less. So having big numbers of followers doesn’t mean a hill of beans to me!

  • Thanks so much for your input on this issue, Yvonne. I’ve been reading some downright heated discussions lately and there’s definitely a 50/50 split right now.

    You and I both understand that having a BIG list means more people to market to … and that’s great.

    But as far as making decisions like, “Should I follow everyone with a pulse on Twitter?” I have a strong conviction that the answer is “No”. Not much benefit at all to racking up the numbers. Who cares? If you’re not getting results, it doesn’t matter if you have millions of followers, right?

    Still in all, it’s a personal decision and approach to choosing if you’re in this to tally up a scorecard or market your business effectively.

    Melanie

  • My sentiments exactly. Relationships involve more than just numbers. It’s interaction and communication that keeps relationships alive and it’s impossible to communicate effectively with missive numbers of people.

    I will admit that there could be some advantages to having fairly large numbers, say on Facebook, because when you send out an event notice it can be seen by large numbers of people. On the other hand, only a small percentage of those people may be remotely interested in what you have to offer say on a Teleseminar.

    My personal opinion is that it’s up to each individual marketer and what their goals are. For me, a happy medium is the key.

    Great post, Melanie.