The Key to Building Your Tribe is Consistency
Whether you reach out to your tribe through blogging, writing Facebook posts, making videos, podcasts or any combination of these, you need consistency.
The “Boss” Bruce Springsteen said, “Getting an audience is hard. Sustaining an audience is hard. It demands a consistency of thought, of purpose and of action over a long period of time.”
If it’s hard for the Boss, then it’s near impossible for us “little people.” Notice I say, “near impossible.” Because with consistency, it’s very, very possible.
First off, why is consistency so important?
You’ve heard the research that says you need eight touchpoints with a prospect before you make a sale. Some research says it takes as many as 33 touchpoints.
This means that — you know that sales email sequence you sent out that hammered your prospects with two emails a day for three days? It wasn’t enough. And 8 touches is just the minimum. Some say it takes as much as 33 touches. You need to show up in your prospect’s social media feed, in her email, in her videos, podcasts, everywhere she is online, and showing up doesn’t happen by accident.
Second, you want to be present when inspiration strikes.
I’ve read about how people can just run with a story, or a post as soon as they get an idea.
Inspiration rarely strikes me, and if and when it does, I’m too busy doing something else to stop and write.
By making a daily content creation habit, you can be ready when inspiration visits
And ready even when it doesn’t.
Just by making a habit of showing up.
You may have heard the story of the two California gold miners who sold their mine just before they struck gold.
You could be sitting on a goldmine. Consistency is key.
It’s well known that the most successful writers got that way through consistency.
According to Charlotte’s Web author E.B. White, “A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper.”
Stephen King tries to get in 8 pages a day.
Maya Angelou would get to her hotel room, which she kept just for writing, and write from 7 am to 2 pm every day.
As it is with successful writers, so it must be with you. Be consistent when you write and when you publish. Is it the same time daily, weekly, monthly? Does your tribe know what to expect from you? Have you become someone they can count on?
If you’ve had some difficulty being consistent in the past, I have a few tricks to help you become more consistent in content creation starting today.
So How Can You Become Consistent?
For me, I wake up every morning at 3 am and show up to write between 3:30 and 5:30 am, six days a week. Sometimes I’m writing for clients, other times for myself. Regardless, I show up between the hours of 3:30 and 5:30 am to write.
I get up at three for a very specific reason. The early hours are not only my most creative, but they’re also the only time I can work uninterrupted. Your time may not be 3 am, but there’s probably a time when you can reduce distractions to a minimum and work on communicating with your tribe.
The key is to set a time and show up every day, or every week, and commit.
Set your commitment to paper
The more specific the commitment you make, the better. Determine the time and location of your commitment, such as: “I will write at my desk tomorrow for 30 minutes between the hours of 8 am and 8:30 am.” Finally, write your commitment down.
Reward yourself for fulfilling the commitment
Promise yourself a reward for fulfilling your commitment, and celebrate when you’re finished. Rewards can be as simple and inexpensive as playing your favorite song, or your favorite game on your phone.
Start small
If you experience a lot of resistance to writing, then start small with a commitment that’s easy to fulfill. Commit to writing for just two minutes. Set a 2-minute timer and write. Stop when the timer goes off. You may find that two minutes are enough to overcome your resistance and you’ll want to write more. If so, write on.
Outline first
I don’t know about you, but I have a fear of the blank screen. So I do whatever I can to avoid it. One of the ways I do this is by having a full list of topics I want to write about. And, before I write a post, I outline what I’m going to say ahead of time, and the sources I plan to include. By the time I write the article, it almost writes itself. Almost.
When you first start posting regularly, especially if you haven’t done so before or for a long time, you’ll get no response, or what I like to refer to as crickets. You’ll keep refreshing your post hoping the view count goes up by one or two or more. The truth is, no one will read your post unless you do the leg work to put it in front of readers. And getting people to visit and read your content is at first a herculean task in itself.
As it will be with the second, third, and maybe even the 10th post.
This is again where consistency is key. Because someone of influence may read the 11th post, and share it with her tribe, and all of a sudden you’re the author of a viral post. And more than likely, you didn’t work any harder on the viral post than you did on your earlier posts — you may not even think it’s your best. The thing is, there’s a certain amount of luck that shows up when YOU show up every day. And that luck only shows up because YOU do.
Picasso created 50,000 works of art. Are all of them great works of art? Well, since Picasso made them, they’re better than most. But the more works he put out, the more consistent he was in his practice, the greater the probability that some of them were masterpieces. And so they were.
Also, expect haters to come out of the woodwork the more you post. Let’s face it. It’s far easier to criticize someone else for putting himself out there, then it is to do it ourselves. We all know how to do something better. But few of us will actually do it. And that makes all the difference. Know that those who criticize you are projecting their self-criticism onto you, the very self-criticism that is keeping them from putting themselves “out there” the way you are. What the haters really are saying is, “I wish I had the courage to do what you’re doing.”
Your greatest obstacle to regularly publishing content is your own self-criticism. We judge our first drafts against the final drafts of writers such as Hemingway, Steinbeck, and Atwood. Is it no surprise we don’t measure up? My advice to you is to let go of needing to be good. Let yourself be the beginner. Take risks. Let yourself fail. Be vulnerable. And the more you write, the better you’ll write.
“The less art there is in painting, the more painting there is,” said Pablo Picasso. Did I mention that he created 50,000 pieces of art?
In other words, just do it. Don’t try to be good. Just do. Competence and excellence grow with practice.
Finally, don’t judge the quality of your content based on how others perceive it. You have no control over that. Rather, celebrate yourself for showing up and doing the work in the first place. When you celebrate what’s in your control, you empower yourself to do more of what’s in your control. When you finish a post, rather than refreshing the page nine or ten times to see if someone’s read or commented, move on to the next.
If you find you just don’t have the time to write and post regularly, consider outsourcing. You may be surprised to find there are great writers out there who can match your style and tone. That’s what we do at ContentNerds.com. We work together with you to internalize your message, match your style and tone, and then do the heavy lifting for you. We write, post and distribute content for our clients across all blog and social media platforms so that they’re seen everywhere.
Remember: building a tribe of followers, leads and clients takes regular content that keeps them engaged and coming back for more day after day, week after week. In this, as in all things, consistency is key. Build a content creation habit that your followers can count on. Don’t wait for inspiration. Rather, choose a regular time and place to show up and write, and you’ll be surprised how frequently inspiration shows up. And you’ll also be surprised to learn how little you need it. If developing a daily or weekly writing practice is too daunting for you, start small. Make it your goal to write for two minutes.
If you’re running a successful business, it’s no big news that you need regular content to build your following and keep them engaged. If writing is just not the best use of your time, then consider outsourcing it. That’s what we do at ContentNerds.com. We do the writing for you, probably better than you can yourself.
So if you’re serious about building your tribe with irresistible content that brings in followers, leads and clients on autopilot, go over to melaniescalendar.com, fill out the form there, and we’ll get on a call to see if we’re a good fit and go from there.
Want me to help build your content machine to get more leads and customers on autopilot? Schedule an appointment with me at melaniescalendar.com.
