What if Your Business Had an Audience of Dedicated Fans Who Can't Wait to Buy Everything You Create?
Yes, it is possible! Serial entrepreneur Shane Melaugh finally reveals the complete system for how to do it:
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The reality lived by 90%+ of online entrepreneurs is different from the dream. VERY different...
When we start building an online business, we dream of how great it will be to have a business that works while we’re sleeping, to be free from a strict work schedule and tyrannical bosses… to be able to work from cozy coffee shops or while sitting on a beach, perhaps.
More importantly: to be free.
To have freedom over our work, over our schedule, over our time. To be free to do meaningful, self-directed work that we actually enjoy doing. To bring something of real value to the world.
It’s a beautiful scenario we paint in our minds, isn’t it?
We don’t dream of staring at a screen all day, every day.
We don’t dream of work that never ends, that creeps into every corner of our lives...
We don’t dream of an endless grind of learning new things, trying new things, putting ourselves out there and being disappointed, over and over again.
But that’s the reality most entrepreneurs face. We didn’t sign up for this, but this is what we got.
If you asked the younger version of yourself, from a few years ago, they’d expect that you should be successful by now. That was the plan, wasn’t it? You should have a thriving online business by now. You should have a website that gets lots of traffic, a growing list of email subscribers, followers, fans…
But somehow, that “figuring things out” phase seems to draw out forever.
Why are you stuck, even though you work so hard?
Why is it that so many online marketers are stuck in a cycle of hard work with disappointing results? Why is it that this same problem is so common, for so many people who try to build a business online?
It’s because most entrepreneurs spend most of their energy chasing the wrong goals.
In the online business space, you’re being shown all these seemingly shining examples and there are all these big, clear targets lined up along the horizon. But they’re a mirage. Paradoxically, moving towards these targets moves you away from your actual goals.
Let me be as clear as possible: most of the things that you care about for your business, most of the goals you’re pursuing… are actually keeping you stuck.
Skeptical?
Keep reading and you’ll see that this isn’t just my opinion. This is fact.
You've Been Sold an Illusion Of Success... Quick Wins, Easy Money, Viral Content...
Let me ask you a question: what does online business success look like?
In your mind’s eye, do you see any of the following:
These, among many others are those “shining examples” that lead millions of wannabe entrepreneurs astray. Trying to emulate these kinds of success stories is a commonly walked path to frustration and failure.
Vanity Metrics: How Big Corporations Get You to Work for them… for Free.
There’s a term for metrics that don’t matter, beyond stroking your ego: vanity metrics.
A vanity metric is data that strokes your ego, but doesn't actually grow your business.
These metrics are easy to measure. Social platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube report these numbers publicly. If you're a creator on such a platform, they rub the vanity metrics in your face every chance they get.
Vanity Metrics Include:
These numbers are like targets that have been lined up for you. They’re the targets most online entrepreneurs frantically scramble towards.
They promise salvation: work hard enough, get enough followers and you too can make lots of money!
To be clear: I’m calling these numbers vanity metrics because they don’t matter.
That’s hard to believe, I know. But you can easily prove it to yourself.
You can have a website with lots of traffic that makes virtually no money.
You can have millions of followers and have a completely failed product launch.
Here's an tragic/amusing example of this problem:
You can be a "success story" in the online world but suffer from burnout & struggle to make ends meet.
At the end of the day, likes, followers, even traffic won’t pay the bills.
If you think about it, this makes sense. After all, where do the vanity metrics come from? They are prominently displayed by social platforms. They’re used by these platforms as a “carrot” to get users/creators to do what’s good for the platform.
The goal of a social media platform is not to help you, the creator/entrepreneur. Their goal is to make money. And if they have loads of people desperately creating loads of content in the hopes of some far-off reward, that’s great for them! Free labour!
The reason so many online entrepreneurs fail is not because something’s wrong. It’s because the system works! The system does what it’s supposed to do. All the struggling creators are just unaware of the system.
The Holy Grail of Email Marketing (?)
While we’re in the process of slaughtering sacred cows, let’s talk about email marketing. Building an email list is the ultimate non-vanity thing to do, right? The money is in the list! How often have you heard that one?
And yes, I’ve preached the importance of building a mailing list as well.
BUT…
You can have a mailing list full of people who don’t open your emails and don’t want to buy anything from you.
There’s nothing wrong with building a mailing list (I recommend it!) but if you’re just chasing that subscriber number, if you’re just trying to get that number to increase, you’re still stuck on the vanity metrics treadmill.
So, what’s the solution? What’s the alternative to the futile pursuit of vanity metrics?
There is a solution to all the problems described above. There is a way to get unstuck - a better way to do things.
In fact, I’ve been following a set of strategies that are way off the beaten track from typical online marketing advice for years. And I’ve been very successful in doing so.
From my vantage point, I can see all the struggling entrepreneurs flailing and failing as they scramble along the well-trodden highway to frustration. It’s clear as day to me why they’re struggling. It’s clear that doing more of the same isn’t going to get them the results they want.
But there’s a problem: the way I’ve done things is so different, it’s hard for some people to believe. I can show you what I do differently (and I will - just keep reading). The question is: can you open your eyes to it? Or will you return your gaze to the shiny mirages and resume your struggle to chase vanity metrics?
The choice is yours.
Alright, enough beating around the bush. The solution to all these problems is this: build an audience.
Ummmm... what?
Isn't that what we're trying to do already?
“Build an audience” means: get more Twitter/Snapchat/TikTok/whatever followers, right?
Get those numbers up and then (somehow) make money. Desperately struggle to get more traffic from more keywords to my blog posts, etc. That’s what we’re already doing!
Yes. But that’s not what I call “audience building”.
Your “audience” is not your followers or subscribers. It’s not your traffic. Building an audience operates on a whole different level from building a following or generating traffic.
Definition of “Audience”
Your audience are the people who know and care about you and your brand. They’re the people who don’t just stumble across one of your posts from a random search or social post, only to leave and never be seen again. They’re the people who actively seek you out want to learn more from you.
Here’s a simple test to illustrate the (massive) difference between vanity numbers and an audience. Think of all the online content you have personally come across in the last 10 days. Check your browser history if you want a really detailed view.
In all likelihood, you’ve visited hundreds of different pages over the last 10 days. You’ve visited dozens of different websites and scrolled past posts made by hundreds of different creators, companies and brands on different social media platforms.
For each one of those, you were “traffic”. You showed up in their vanity metrics.
Now: how many of them can you still remember? How many of those websites can you name and remember the URL of? How many social media or YouTube creators can you name, off the top of your head? How many of them do you actively want to come back to and learn more from?
My guess is that it’s nowhere near hundreds. Maybe not even dozens.
In other words, you consume content by hundreds of brands and creators. But you only remember and deliberately return to a small handful of them.
THAT is the difference between traffic and audience.
Small Scale, Big Results: Why All This Matters
Why is it so important to define what an “audience” is, anyway?
Here’s why: what keeps most online entrepreneurs stuck is that they don’t realize how much success is possible at a small scale. They’re chasing big numbers because they don’t know there’s a better way.
My own business journey is proof of this. If you looked at the vanity metrics for my brands, you’d guess that I’m a broke wantrepreneur. Here’s a sampling (numbers as of my writing):
One of my brands is ActiveGrowth. Here’s the sad picture the vanity metrics paint:
A measly 2,169 followers on Twitter
2,169 followers
The YouTube channel has only 8K subscribers
8k subscribers
The now abandoned FB page: 2,000 followers
2,000 followers
Even traffic numbers for the website don’t look very impressive, with fewer than 10,000/month.
> 10,000 visitors/Mo
For a brand that has operated for many years, surely this doesn’t look like a success story… or does it?
Even Thrive Themes (my primary business) doesn’t look all that impressive, when we look at the vanity metrics. Thrive Themes has:
Fewer than 2,000 Instagram followers
>2K followers
Only about 3,500 followers on Twitter
3.5K followers
And around 23,000 subscribers on YouTube - decent, but nowhere near a success story on YT.
23K followers
And yet, Thrive Themes is a 7-figure business...
These are not strange exceptions or outlier results - building businesses like this is my MO.
I have many more stories of building such businesses in my past.
I turned tiny audiences into thriving businesses before social media even existed. I co-founded a SaaS company that had no social media presence at all, but made more than $1M in annual recurring revenue, just from webinars…
The point is this: very early in my career, I got the precious advice not to focus on vanity metrics and I took that advice to heart.
Then, social media burst onto the scene and the online business world has descended into vanity-metric-obsessed madness around me, as I’ve been calmly working away at my small-but-successful businesses.
Meet the Man Who Had it Right All Along
Maybe you’re wondering: who gave me this sage advice about vanity metrics and set me on a path to unconventional success, all those years ago?
It was someone who has an extraordinary track record of making accurate predictions about future developments in tech and culture.
Someone who, incidentally, really looks the part of a wise old guide, too - white beard and kind eyes included.
And it’s someone whom I’ve never met personally.
The man who had it right all along is Kevin Kelly, a futurist and best-selling author. Over a decade ago, he wrote the most important essay for becoming a self-made entrepreneur under the new paradigm of the Internet… and it has since been ignored by almost everyone.
Kevin Kelly presented the concept of 1,000 true fans. The idea is simple: if you have 1,000 true fans, that’s enough for a thriving business.
What 1,000 True Fans Can Do for Your Business:
1,000 people
who support a creator on Patreon for an average of $5/month = $5,000/month income.
1,000 people
who pay a $90 annual subscription for your software or membership site = $90K per year.
1,000 people
who buy your $200 online course = $200K revenue (pretty good deal if you launch a course every year or even every other year)
Across many business models and price points, you’ll see that a group of just 1,000 core fans is enough to make a full time income.
1,000 fans. Not 100,000 followers. Not 1,000,000 subscribers.Just 1,000 people who really know you, love what you do and want more from you.
Get Off the Treadmill
If you’ve ever wondered why I just don’t care about social media, why I’m perfectly happy with a small number of YouTube subscribers and why I don’t have or pursue huge traffic numbers, this is it.
I don’t care because I’ve never had to care. I got off that treadmill a long time ago.
Following the 1,000 true fans principle changes the focus of a business entirely. It’s not about volume and grasping for more and ever more. Instead, it’s about creating something that can build a core group of fans and then investing heavily in serving that core group as best you can!
This is what I’ve been doing since 2010 and it has served me well all along.
Many things have changed in online marketing, since 2010. But if your focus is to build a core group of fans and serve them well, many things have stayed the same.
The things I did in 2010 in niche forums to grow a small fan base are fundamentally the same things I did in 2015 on my blog and the same things I’m doing now on my websites and on YouTube.
If you want to quit the online business rat race and use a better approach, now is the perfect time.
How to Build an Audience from Scratch: The Unconventional Way to Grow a Small-Scale, Big-Results Business
For the first time ever, I’m teaching the approach that I’ve practiced and refined for over a decade, for building an audience online.
This is the exact approach I’ve taken to build up thriving businesses without needing to chase huge numbers of social media followers and without needing to get floods of traffic to my website.
I’ve created a course that teaches you exactly how to create a brand and message that resonates with people, how to create content that reaches the right people (without having to spend $$$$ on ads) and how to turn visitors into followers, fans and customers.
How to Build an Audience from Scratch is an online course consisting of videos and worksheets that you can go through at your own pace.
What You’ll Discover in the Course
Some of the modules in the course:
The 3 Components of Audience Building
There are 3 components that must be in place for an audience to grow. Miss any one of these and you’ll be perpetually struggling.
The Treadmill & The Power Curve
Discover why most online entrepreneurs are stuck on “the treadmill” and learn how to use power curves to escape this predicament. Once you understand this principle, you’ll see it everywhere!
The Manifesto Method
How exactly can you create something that people will want to rally around - something that generates fans, not just followers? The Manifesto Method is your step-by-step recipe to do it!
The Story Challenge
Looking for a way to kick-start your audience growth? The Story Challenge is a method you can use to generate buzz around your brand and find your first group of fans.
Content Deconstruction
The Internet is full of good content that no one’s ever heard about. In the course, you’ll learn a framework to help you create content that actually gets noticed and gets results.
The 8 Content Dimensions
Develop x-ray vision for online content. Once you go through the module with the 8-dimensions framework, you’ll finally understand why some content succeeds, while most content fails.
Authentic Audience Interaction
Learn why “engagement” is overrated and how you can open an authentic, value-driven dialogue with your audience.
Serial Interactive Content
Discover the most powerful recipe for creating content that boosts your reach, turns people into fans & builds meaningful relationships between a creator and their audience.
Putting it All Together: The Audience Building Master-Plan
The Audience from Scratch course is chock-full of valuable strategies for reaching more people and turning visitors into die-hard fans. But it's not just a collection of tips or strategies. The course is topped off with a step-by-step system that you can follow. It gives you a clear roadmap, telling you exactly what to do and in what order, to build your audience - even if you're starting from literally zero!
The Content Recipes
At the core of audience building lies content. The only way to build a real audience is to have a message, to tell stories and to create content that will resonate with people.
In the course, you’ll discover that all content that grows an audience falls into one of 5 categories.
We provide recipes for all these "growth content" strategies:
The Upstage Method
Borrowed Authority
The Beast Method
The Superfan Method
Trend Hopping
+1 Bonus Recipe
The Seed Audience Challenge
What’s the fastest way to implement the Audience from Scratch principles while also growing your mailing list?
Glad you asked!
The course includes the Seed Audience Challenge which is perfect for anyone with a mailing list of under 100 subscribers. This challenge helps you validate a business idea and get that first set of subscribers as quickly as possible.
And we’re not talking about the usual “list building” stuff here. This isn’t about getting your subscriber number to go up, only to discover that most of those subscribers don’t even open your emails.
In the Audience from Scratch course, we’re using email to stay in touch with highly engaged “true fans” and that’s a whole different ballgame.
Challenge44: The Shortest Path to Excellence
“Challenge44” sounds pretty strange, right? To explain what this is, I need to tell a story:
In 2015 I was faced with a problem.
My business was growing fast and I needed to hire a marketing team, so that I could offload some of the marketing work I’d been doing on my own.
But hiring was a frustrating experience. I found that the candidates I interviewed lacked the kinds of skills and mindset I was looking for. They were all operating in the “treadmill” paradigm. They were from within the system and I couldn’t see how I could get them to fit my unconventional approach.
So, I decided to run an apprenticeship program. For 3 months, I worked intensely with a small group of people to teach them my way of marketing an online business.
It worked!
In fact, it worked so well that I used this apprenticeship model several times more, to get people’s skills upgraded in record time. By now, I have a lot of hands on experience in turning someone from an average content creator into an excellent content creator.
Challenge44 is distilled out of all my experience teaching marketing skills in intense learning environments.
Challenge44 is:
- 1My answer to the question: “how can I learn to make outstanding content?”
- 2The fastest way to go from “meh” content that no one cares about to “OMG” content that grows an audience of fans.
If you want to seriously level up your content creation game or you want someone on your team to level up their content creation game, have them do Challenge44, following the Audience from Scratch principles.
Why am I telling you all this?
Because Challenge44 is included in the Audience from Scratch course, at no extra cost.
What Makes the Audience from Scratch Course Different?
The Audience from Scratch course is not your average online course.
Here are 3 reasons why:
1) Use the Power for Mental Models
This course utilizes mental models to change the way you think and make decisions about your online business. You can think of mental models as thinking tools or as “software for your brain”. The course is structured in a way that doesn’t simply aim to add more information on top of what you already know. Instead, it aims to give you the thinking and decision making tools as well as the lenses through which you view the world that the highest skilled experts in the field use.
2) Pragmatic & Implementation Focused
It’s nice to learn new things, but just learning won’t get you better results for your business. That’s why this course is all about implementation. That’s why we provide loads of real-world examples, deconstruct everything to the most basic building blocks and then give you practical recipes for implementing what you learn. The value of this course comes from what you’ll do differently, not just from watching a bunch of video lectures.
3) Growth & Leverage - Get the Best of Both Worlds
By now, you know that the entire Audience from Scratch system is built around the principles of finding 1,000 true fans. That means you don’t have to reach millions of people in order to be successful. But what if you learnt the best techniques and tactics used by brands that do reach millions? What if you combined the best of rapid-growth strategies with a model that doesn’t require that much growth? That’s what we call leverage and it’s a major focus in this course.
I take pride in making extremely high quality courses. Here's what some of my previous customers have had to say:
Conny Graf
The quality of this course is outstanding and Shane really over delivers but does not overwhelm. It's very well structured and encourages to take action. Shane's teaching style is very personal and engaging.
Mark Coster
Shane has a great teaching style. He's a refreshing change from the ra-ra, adrenaline-fuelled psychopaths who tend to dominate this area. The content is focused and the delivery is clear and to the point.
Daniel Sjöstedt
Shane is direct and no bullshit, which I like a lot. The content is of very high quality.
Shane is not fooled by the newness of concepts and strategies. His only concern is if it works or not.
If you’re ready to jump off the treadmill
of frustration and start building your audience of 1,000 true fans, now is the time to sign up!
Warning: This is Not a Get-Rich-Quick Business Opportunity
Unfortunately, in the online marketing space, there are always people selling the idea of quick riches, hacks and shortcuts. There’s always some douchebag promising you the easy way to big riches, right after you max out your credit card on his or her latest bullshit product.
This nice red icon and this part of the page you’re looking at right now exists to make one statement as clearly as possible: THIS. IS. NOT. A. “BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY”.
This is not a shortcut. None of the numbers I’ve used in the examples above are to be construed as any kind of guarantee for income or results.
I don’t do get-rich-quick. What I’m offering here is actual, real-life, battle-tested business skill & knowledge. If you want to succeed, you have to be the entrepreneur. What you make of the course material is entirely up to you.
If you don’t like that this sounds like you have to do actual work, now is a great time to leave this page.
Content is the Key to Shockingly Effective Audience Building
The Audience from Scratch course is all about content. In the course, you’ll learn exactly what it takes to make content that gets results.
In fact, this is one of those “mental model” things. Once you’ve gone through the course, you’ll never see content the same way again. You’ll have x-ray vision whenever you read an article, watch a video or even see a social post. And you’ll understand exactly why one content piece gets loads of shares, comments and engagements and another gets ignored.
Why this focus on content?
Because the simple truth is: only content can build an audience.
You can get “traffic” without much content. Mostly by paying for it. And for some business models, that’s all you need. If you’re a locksmith and you need people to find your phone number when they accidentally lock themselves out of their home or car, paying to get those eyeballs from a Google search to your phone number may be all you need.
People have a problem ("I’m locked out!"), they find you, you fix the problem and they pay you. End of story.
That’s traffic, but it will never build an audience.
To build an audience, we have to create something that resonates with people. Something that they want to come back to, something that makes them feel: “I want more of this”.
And there’s a science to creating this kind of content.
This is the science that the Audience from Scratch course teaches. And the reward for building an audience is that you have a real, growing asset. If you’ve ever dreamed of being able to send out a single email to generate loads of sales, an audience is what you really wanted…
Website, YouTube & Beyond
Audience from Scratch is a course for content creators & for businesses that employ content creators.
The course focuses primarily on 2 channels: growing an audience on a website or blog and growing an audience using video content on YouTube. Almost all the examples used in the course are either website or YouTube examples.
That’s because these are the 2 channels that I have focused on the most. This is where my experience lies.
BUT the course teaches fundamental principles of audience growth. I have used these tactics to grow an audience on online forums (back when those were big), then used the same tactics to grow an audience of fans for a blog and later used the same content creation strategies to create videos that attract an audience.
These tactics have worked for forum content, website content and video content. These tactics have a proven track record - they worked 10 years ago, they worked 5 years ago and they still work today. There’s no reason to think they won’t work for your podcast, for social media or for whatever other channels pop up in the coming years. Ultimately, this is about understanding human psychology.
Having said that, I highly recommend that you focus your growth efforts on a website and a mailing list. And in the course, you’ll see why (and learn how).
Does this mean you have to be “on stage” and parade around the Internet like a wannabe celebrity?
Maybe you're thinking: sure, having an audience of fans would be nice. Sounds great to have loads of people who keep wanting to buy more stuff, after all.
But that's not you. You don't want to be on video. You don't want to do the whole personal branding thing and parade around trying to get people's attention. Your name and face everywhere? No thanks.
I've got good news for you! Showing your face is entirely optional.
Check this out:
Doesn't immediately make sense what that's about, I know.
This is a post I made on a forum, publishing my findings from testing some different radiator types. This was years ago, when I was still active in the computer hardware market.
Now, notice what isn't featured: my face. Or even my real name.
When I started with online audience building, I did it all with usernames and forum posts. Completely anonymous. I built an audience for my brand, not for me, the person.
Since then I've done a lot of personal branding and these days I work a lot with video. But what I teach in the Audience from Scratch course is not "personal branding". It's not dependent on video work and you can do it entirely anonymously. This is about a more effective way to build a business, not about putting your face out there and becoming a celebrity.
Although, if that's what you want, you can certainly use these strategies to do it.
Here's how some of my previous course students feel about their purchase:
Victoria Hopkins
Shane’s is a calm voice of reason in the overhyped, jargon-heavy world of online business. His advice is always based on sound evidence and experience.
Thank you for a really well-crafted course!
Luca L
Shane, I had such a wonderful experience with your products in my online business that I purchased this course without even minimal hesitation. I expect a lot from all you do and I can say you always over-deliver by many folds.
Peter W
Frankly, in the beginning I doubted if the training would be able to teach much after Shane’s free videos. They were already so valuable.
I have now done the first 6 lessons and I must say that this is really valuable!
Dennis W
I bought because Thrive Themes was such a first class product and Shane’s teaching style was very user friendly. This is one of the best courses I have ever taken with practical hands-on information. I can't recommend it enough.
Mica G
If this module was the only module in the course, it was already worth everything I paid for.
Thank you, Shane and Thrive Themes team! This is a dream come true.
Nicholas K
I’d like to state two things:
1 – the course is outstanding in both content and delivery
2 – Shane, I think you need to add an extra zero on to the pricing of this course.
Kick-Start Your Audience Growth Now: Join the Course Today
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30 Day Guarantee: Love it or Get Your Money Back
30 day Guarantee
I have a simple guarantee for you: this course delivers what it promises. If you don’t like this course or you don’t feel like you’re getting significantly more value out of it than the money you invested, just let us know within 30 days of your purchase date and we’ll send you a refund, no questions asked. I’d much rather have one customer less than an unhappy customer.
FAQ
Yes, absolutely. Think of “from scratch” not as an imperative, as in: “you must start from zero” but as a statement about how thorough the course is. “Even if you start from zero, this will work”. Even if you already have an audience, but you want to grow a stronger fan base, get more of the right people into your audience and get better results, this course is perfect for you.
No, this course is not focused on building a social media following. You can probably apply at least half of what you learn in the course to build up a social media following, but that’s not the approach we teach. The reason for this is simple: building and trying to monetize a social media following is a highly inefficient, low leverage and fragile way to generate income online. Once you understand the principles of The Treadmill & The Power Curve, you’ll understand why trying to get social media famous is a terrible idea.
You can’t fully resurrect a cold mailing list, but creating Audience from Scratch style content is probably one of the best things you can do to revive an old list as much as possible.
All of the core content is ready for you to access immediately after your purchase. You can go through the course at your own pace. There are several bonus modules that will be released over the coming weeks and some of these will be held as live webinar events.
I'm forever grateful that I came across ideas and teachers who led me down the path I've taken as an entrepreneur. I've been lucky enough to do things very differently and be rewarded for it.
Not only have I avoided a lot of the stress and frustration I see among people running businesses, I've also had the priviledge of communicating directly and honestly with my audience and getting paid handsomely for delivering useful products and information to them.
This course is no exception. I'm looking forward to doing my very best to teach you everything I know on this topic. And I'm excited about the idea that you too could experience this positive and rewarding side of entrepreneurship.
Disclaimer: Nothing on this page, our website, or any of our content or courses is a promise or guarantee of results. All the material within ThriveThemes.com is provided for information purposes only and we are not implying you'll duplicate any results. Your results will vary and depend on many factors. All business entails risk and no action should be taken solely based on the information in ThriveThemes.com. The publisher is not entering into any kind of practitioner/client relationship with its readers. The publisher is not responsible for errors or omissions.
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