✊ What if the real flex is how small an audience you can build?
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Hi friends, One of my favourite reads of the past couple years is a nerdy book called Status & Culture by W. David Marx. His central thesis: The entire history of human innovation, art, and culture has been driven by humans’ innate need for status. It’s a bold claim, but one he makes a great case for. Of all the ideas that have stuck with me, perhaps the stickiest has been the idea that all trends—from the cut of your jeans to art movements, musical styles, and more—are driven by one group or subculture’s attempt to assert its (superior) status over their predecessors. In the process, the group disavows the values and stylistic preferences of the mainstream and asserts their own. We can observe this dynamic everywhere. From the ultrawealthy who embrace quiet luxury as a snub to the neon Lamborghini bros. To the metal and punk kids who hold all pop music in contempt as vapid, empty, and commercialized. To parenting styles (Millennial gentle parenting vs Boomer authoritarianism)... The kind of coffee you drink (and where you get it and how you prepare it)... The water bottle you carry (Hydroflask → Stanley → Owala)... Where you live (house vs apartment, urban vs suburban vs rural)... On and on and on. As status-seeking creatures, whether we realize it or not, many, if not most, of our decisions are subtly driven by our desire to flex. The way we approach content, marketing, and business is no different. Some folks flex the size of the team they’ve built… while others flex their lean, solo status. Some flex the fact that they’ve grown “100% organically”… while others flex their paid funnels. And then of course, there’s the ultimate flex, the size of your audience. Which got me thinking. If the old guard is focused on audience growth as the ultimate status symbol, what would it look like to disavow it, and flex the opposite? To flex by building the biggest business with the smallest audience and the least amount of content. I can already picture it: “Oh, that’s cute; you need to post 12 reels a day and build a million-person audience to hit $100k in revenue?
“I run a $500k business with a 5k person email list that I write to a couple times a week and publish one 12-episode season of my podcast per year”
Ahhhhhh the sweet smell of moral superiority (subjective though it may be). I’m not saying it's the right move for everyone (it’s not). Some business models require you to build a massive audience. And if your business model requires you to build a massive audience, the easiest way to do it is master the algorithmic platforms. But if you’re a coach, consultant, or advisor, chances are you're not one of these people. Chances are you need anywhere from a small handful to a few dozen clients a year to build a very healthy business. Which means—with the right marketing strategy—you can happily turn your back on the hustle, the burnout, the vanity metrics, and the scale-for-scale’s sake. And flex. Flex your revenue per follower. Flex your revenue per episode. Flex how much white space you have on your calendar. It requires you to change the way you think about and design your marketing strategy, system, and content. But to me, time, space, creative freedom—not to mention a steady stream of people who are willing to pay a premium to work with me specifically after binging my stuff… That’s the ultimate status symbol.
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