I held a live training recently to celebrate the launch of Magnetic Emails.

One question came up:

What would you do if you were starting again?

I see a lot of people take a stab at this. Their answers usually suck. They rehash what they did without realising the game has changed.

There are new rules.

And to play well, I gave three tips on the call.

Let me run you through them.

To set the scene:

We’re starting fresh.

I have no audience, authority, or connections. I just know what I know about the Internet now.

First things first. Here’s what I wouldn’t do:

Play the audience growth game.

It worked 4 years ago. Posting generic content was fine because there was little competition.

But now it’s a death sentence.

And I see many early accounts tying their own noose.

You cannot afford to sound like the crowd. You don’t rise above the noise by adding to it. Today, how you grow is 100x more important than how fast.

Which leads us to what I would do.

And that’s focus on two things:

Skills and specificity.

Because the fastest way to get noticed (and paid) is to get good.

Few people commit to their craft. Find a skill you enjoy and take it seriously.

Live and breathe it.

You can beat 90% of your competition with 6 months of focus.

Then, to compete with the 10%, the secret is specificity.

Because specificity creates authority.

You must zoom in on who, what, how, and why.

‘Who’ is your One True Fan—the person you can serve best.

What problem you solve is their bleeding neck. Everyone has one. And they’ve tried solutions before. Which is why the next point is important:

How you solve the problem is your unique mechanism, which proves why your solution is different—essential in a saturated market.

Why they should listen to you is your unique philosophy (because we trust people who share similar worldviews).

Every layer of specificity increases your appeal.

So when your One True Fan finds you, they say:

Finally! This is what I was looking for. This person gets me. This is the solution I’ve been missing.

And that is damn powerful.

But there’s a missing ingredient:

Good writing.

Because specificity is pointless if you can’t communicate it.

You must know how to reach your readers in a noisy world.

You must be able to show you understand their struggles and that you are the solution.

And you must be able to entertain, inspire, and educate through content or you’ll never attract the people you can serve most.

Zoom in. Get good at expressing yourself.

Kieran