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How To Build an Audience FAST (4-Step Framework)

How To Build an Audience FAST (4-Step Framework)

Justin Welsh’s Hub & Spoke Content System + 3 Ingredients of Viral Threads.

Lennox Saint
September 06, 2024

1 Meditation
4 Lessons From $100M Offers About Threads Growth
7 Learnings
Miscellaneous

1 Meditation

I'm on the treadmill at the gym, looking out the window at the cars stuck in 5 o'clock traffic.

I see many apathetic faces and can't help but think about how discontented they look.

It's Friday afternoon. They should be happy.

But Monday morning is just 60 hours away, and the misery and monotony will start again soon.

The idea of living the same week over and over like Groundhog Day, without moving towards a meaningful goal, feels unbearable to me.

I can't imagine going through the same week repeatedly without a vision to motivate you.

That's the main difference between a 9-5 and any entrepreneurial endeavour – the vision.

Everything‘s harder, longer and more challenging in entrepreneurship.

You face endless criticism, doubt and judgement – especially at the beginning.

On paper, it’s much worse than a 9-5.

In reality, the vision makes it so much better.

The vision makes life meaningful.

Otherwise you're just living the same day over and over without purpose — waiting to die.

Imagine getting to the end of your life and realising you haven't done anything for yourself or taken any risks.

That thought pains me.

So to make my point abundantly clear: you need a vision.

It doesn't need to be crystal clear.

It just needs to be something to work towards to keep you going.

Why?

Because life is hard.

The only thing that makes it bearable is a vision of something greater.

All the challenges of daily work pale compared to that great vision. It's your source of unlimited energy.

My vision includes growing Saints College and creating a high-ticket version with Björn.

Later on, I'd love to take YouTube more seriously.

And in the meantime, the plan’s to buy a house, pay it off before having kids, and travel.

Not everything will happen exactly as planned.

But I know what I want and I’m putting things in motion every day to get it.

That's what keeps me going through tough times.

Craft your vision so you can too.

Don’t know how to craft your vision? Duplicate this Notion template.

4 Lessons From $100M Offers About Threads Growth

Alex Hormozi's $100M Offers has a cult following for 1 reason:

It’s a 4-step framework so powerful, it’s almost unfair.

Here’s the Value Equation — but for Threads growth:

(Steal it to write posts so good people feel stupid not following you)

1. [increase] Dream Outcome

Don't just post content — sell a vision of success.
Make your content the bridge between where your followers are & where they want to be.
Tap into their desires — they'll be hooked & you'll grow like crazy.

2. [increase] Perceived Likelihood of Achievement

Show proof your advice works.
Make them think, "If they can do it, so can I".
Use basic guarantees like "This will work for you" to boost confidence.
People love your content if they think they'll win by consuming it.

3. [decrease] Time Delay

Build your Threads audience by posting your best content.
Giving instant value before they follow makes them stay after they follow.
People want results NOW!
Share mini success stories to keep your followers hooked.

4. [decrease] Effort and Sacrifice

Show how simple it is to follow & get value from you.
If your posts feel easy to engage with, your audience will grow fast.
People crave less effort & more results. GIVE BOTH!

Example

Increasing the Dream Outcome
- Build Threads audience for time, location & money freedom.
Increasing the Perceived Likelihood of Achievement
- After 1,000+ hours on Threads, I created a 5-step framework.
- It guarantees follower growth & will work for you.
Decreasing the Time Delay
- @rawbinmo used it to gain 700 followers between June 20 & July 15.
Decreasing the Effort and Sacrifice️
- Steal my Threads growth roadmap.
- Joining is easier than drinking your morning coffee + it's 100% FREE!

7 Learnings

Justin Welsh’s Hub & Spoke Content System (310824)

→ Your content ecosystem’s like a bicycle wheel.

The hub of the wheel = one primary long-form piece of content.
The spokes of the wheel = several secondary short-form pieces of content derived from the primary long-form.

E.g.

Hub: newsletter about my 5-step Threads growth formula.
Spokes:
- 1 thread about the 5-step formula
- 1 list focussing on 1 step of the 5-step formula
- 1 list focussing on another step of the 5-step formula
- 1 one-liner about another step
- 1 one-liner about another step

Justin’s content flywheel is created by posting 1 “spoke” a week, with each spoke plugging the newsletter “hub” in subsequent weeks.

Source: Justin Welsh Shares His Secrets to Make $200,000, Add 100k Twitter Followers, & Capture 30k Emails in 5 Months

The 4 Stages of Every Sales Call (010924)

1) Preliminaries

→ Warming-up at the start of the call.

There’s no one best way to do this.
The best salespeople are flexible.

2) Investigating

→ Involves asking SPIN questions (see the last Learning).

Undoubtedly the most important part of any sales call.

3) Demonstrating capability

→ Showing you have something worthwhile to offer.

Best way to do this: show how your product or service meets a need explicitly expressed by the customer.
- PRO TIP: ONLY do this after the customer’s explicitly expressed the need, not before.
  - e.g.
    - Customer: “I need a content calendar with templates telling me exactly what to post every day.”
    - Seller: “We give our specialty Content Calendar as a free bonus to members who sign up on our annual plan.”

4) Obtaining Commitment

Gaining an agreement to proceed to a further stage of the sale
The simplest way to do this is the most effective:
1. Check you’ve covered buyer’s key concerns
2. Summarize the benefits
3. Propose an appropriate level of commitment

Source: SPIN Selling

This Secret Changed the Way I Write (020924)

→ EVERYTHING IS A LIST.

Writing = listing.
e.g.
- Each bullet point in a list post → each heading of a long-form thread post → each section of a newsletter → each section of an article → each section of a YouTube video → each chapter of a book etc…
Everything begins as a list.
- Good writing is good listing.

Source: The Lean Writing Method — the Easiest Way to Start Writing Online in 2023

The 3 Ingredients of Viral Threads (030924)

EMOTION
- Think about the emotion you want readers to feel.
  - e.g. fear
STORYTELLING
- Tell a story to elicit the emotion.
  - e.g. “This fatal mistake cost me 500 hours of wasted time writing on Threads. Chances are you’re making it right now. Read on to get my simple fix:”
  - Notice how I imply I’ll end with a solution or positive emotion.
SIMPLICITY
- Use simple language — no higher than 8th grade reading level.
  - E.g. “A high return on investment maximizes your cash flow” vs “profit is good”

Source: Viral Writing 101 With Shaan Puri

Great Salespeople Don’t Handle Objections (040924)

→ They prevent them.

Features: facts about a product.
Advantages: how a product can help the customer.
Benefit: how a product meets a need explicitly expressed by the customer.

Source: SPIN Selling

The Matthew Principle of Self-Improvement (050924)

The Matthew Principle:
- “For to everyone who has, more will be given, and they will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what they have will be taken away.” (Matthew 25:29)
- ≈ Advantages (or disadvantages) compound over time.
  - This increases inequality in domains like wealth, education, social status, success etc…

→ The Matthew Principle of Self-Improvement:

There are two types of people: those who don't know how to improve their lives and those who don't know when to stop.
- The solution for the second group (🙋🏻‍♂️)?
  - Practice contentment.
    - Learn to view the journey of sef-improvement as the reward.

Source: #800 - 15 Lessons From 800 Episodes

The Proven Framework Created From 35,000 Sales Calls (060924)

Remember the 4 stages of sales calls from above?

Preliminaries
Investigating*
Demonstrating capability
Obtaining Commitment

The “SPIN Selling” framework is used in the Investigating* stage.

Situation questions: about background info and what the buyer’s doing now.
- “What’s your experience on Threads been like so far?”
Problem questions: about the buyer’s problems, difficulties, dissatisfactions…
- “Are you experiencing any challenges with growing on the platform?”
Implication questions: about the consequences of a customer’s problems.
- “If these growth challenges continue, how might that affect your 1-person business goals?”
Need pay-off questions: about the value of a solution as perceived by the buyer.
- “How would it impact your 1-person business if you could 10X your Threads growth?”