From Counting to Connecting
Your small account isn’t what’s holding you back. It’s your unfair advantage. You just haven’t been using it.
I know that’s hard to believe when you’re on her profile again, doing the math on how long it would take to get to 47,000 followers. And somewhere in that scroll, a little voice asks: who am I to sell anything with 1,400?
That voice is wrong. The number you’re chasing was never the thing that builds a business.
I started at zero
When I started over on Instagram, I had zero followers and a content strategy I’d spent six weeks building before I posted a thing. And the heart of it was community. I wasn’t trying to get followers. I was trying to get to know the people who showed up.
When someone replied to my story, I sent her a voice memo back. A real answer, a couple of minutes long, helping with whatever she was stuck on. I did that constantly.
Around 500 followers, women started showing up in my DMs asking how they could work with me. I didn’t have an offer yet. They were asking to buy anyway.
I have about 50,000 followers now, so I know how this might sound. But those first women didn’t find me at 50,000. They found me at 500. It’s depth, not breadth. It’s not how many people follow you. It’s how many of them feel like they know you.
The number is what you can see, not what matters
Your follower count sits at the top of your profile, bold, every time you open the app. So of course it became your scoreboard.
But it only measures how many people tapped a button once. It doesn’t tell you who’s paying attention, who trusts you, or who would buy tomorrow.
I had a client with a big following who really struggled to sell. The bigger she got, the more her engagement dropped, because it’s harder for people to relate to someone with a big account. The bigger the number, the further away you feel.
Small is your advantage
At 1,400 followers you can reply to every comment, remember her name, and know she just launched her first offer. Big accounts can’t do that anymore.
People buy from people they feel known by. One of my clients, a life coach, had just over 1,000 followers and a six figure launch. Not because her audience was big. Because the audience she had felt like they actually knew her.
Talk to one person
Not just in your DMs. In your content.
She’s not a crowd. She’s one woman on her couch at ten o’clock at night, alone with her phone. Content written to everyone reads like an announcement. Content written to one person reads like a message, and people reply to messages.
Yes, it feels more exposing. That’s exactly why it works.
Help for real
Not value posts. Real help. When someone asks you something, answer it like she’s paying you. Find out, in her own words, what she’s struggling with and what she wants, then make content that helps her get there.
When someone genuinely helps us, we want to give something back. At 500 followers, I wasn’t selling. I was helping. And the women I helped went looking for a way to pay me.
Let them know you
Show up as a real person. Your opinions, your kid moments, the week that didn’t go to plan. You decide what you share, but share enough that she knows the human behind the business.
We trust what feels familiar. And buying from someone you know feels safe.
✨ Your Move this week:
1. Go to her first. Comment on five of your followers’ posts. Real comments, not “love this!”
2. Open a door. Ask one easy question in your Stories.
3. Answer with your voice. When someone replies, send her a voice memo back. No pitch. Just help.
4. Write down her words. Exactly how she describes what she’s stuck on and what she wants.
5. Write one post just for her. Not for your audience. For her.
Want to know what your content is giving the women who already found you? [Take the Vibe Check Quiz] and find out what your content is really giving, and why it’s not turning into sales.
Prefer to listen? Episode 37 of the From Scratch Podcast tells the whole story.
Kary ♡
