i started with nothing. no audience, no network, no clever hack. just a blank profile and a lot of wrong assumptions. 30M+ impressions later, here's what i'd tell my younger self.
what i thought would work:
1) posting constantly. i believed volume was the answer. it wasn't. i posted into silence for longer than i'd like to admit, because i had quantity and no point of view.
2) chasing trends. jumping on whatever was hot that week. it got me strangers who never came back. trend-chasers build audiences of trend-chasers. that's not a business.
3) being polished. i thought "professional" meant formal and perfect. perfect is forgettable. perfect is what people scroll past on their way to something that feels true.
what actually worked:
3) having one clear belief and saying it a hundred different ways. repetition of a point of view, not a posting schedule. the people who follow me can finish my sentences now. that's the goal.
2) being specific to the point of discomfort. the narrower i went, the faster the right people found me. "for everyone" reaches no one.
1) telling the truth about the hard parts. the post where i admitted i started from nothing did more for my credibility than any list of wins. Entrepreneur Magazine eventually covered the ideas i'd been repeating for years โ but that only happened because i'd said them, clearly, a thousand times first, to a much smaller room.
here's the real lesson, the one that took me years:
an audience isn't built on what you know.
it's built on what you'll stand for, out loud, before anyone is clapping.
i didn't get found because i was the smartest person in my field. i got found because i was willing to say the same true thing, over and over, while it was still quiet.
the quiet part is where it's actually built.
most people quit during the quiet. that's the whole secret.
โ
save this if you're in the quiet part right now. you're not failing. you're in the part where it's actually being built.
P.S. I'm running 15 spots of a one-hour LinkedIn + personal brand sprint this summer. DM "SPRINT" if you want the details.
โป๏ธ ๐๐ง ๐ต๐ฉ๐ช๐ด ๐ณ๐ฆ๐ด๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ข๐ต๐ฆ๐ฅ, ๐ง๐ฐ๐ญ๐ญ๐ฐ๐ธ ๐ฎ๐ฆ, Mariam Gogidze, ๐ง๐ฐ๐ณ ๐ฎ๐ฐ๐ณ๐ฆ ๐ค๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ต๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ต ๐ญ๐ช๐ฌ๐ฆ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ช๐ด.