Why Your Brilliant Idea Isn't Making You Any Money

Even though you've got decades of experience and something genuinely valuable to sell

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks on back to back strategy calls with my new cohort members. (Thanks to all who joined!)

I’ve been blown away with the depth of experience people have. The creativity, talent, ideas and products already created waiting to be presented to the world!

Almost everyone I’ve spoken to is sitting on a super successful business waiting to happen.

But across all my calls, there is one thing that’s really stood out, and that’s the lack of understanding (and action) around building an audience.

The most important part of growing your online business seems to be the very thing most people shy away from and yet it’s the very foundation upon which your success will be built.

Let me give you an example.

Imagine you open a beautiful shop. You’ve sourced the perfect products, designed the space with care, priced everything thoughtfully, but you’ve built it on a Welsh mountainside, where 5 people walk past each year (if you’re lucky).

Created by ‘Bob’ my trusty GPT - hence the very odd looking sheep!

It doesn’t matter how good the product is. It doesn’t matter how talented you are. If no one knows you exist, the chances that you make any sales at all are extremely slim.

Now imagine you open that same shop in Times Square. Same products, same owner, same quality, but thousands of people popping in to have a look!

There’s that sheep again! 😂

Audience building isn’t a marketing “extra,” or a nice to do. It’s the difference between being invisible and being viable.

What An Audience Actually Is

I know you know this, but it’s worth repeating as so many people get caught up in followers or ‘likes’.

An audience is a group of people who:

• Recognise you

• Hear from you repeatedly

• And have given you permission to stay in their world

Read that last bullet again.

An audience isn’t one-off buyers. It isn’t a viral post that disappears by Thursday, or followers who scrolled past once and forgot you existed.

An audience is made up of people who are saving your posts, sharing your stuff with people they know, commenting repeatedly, bookmarking your content, and most importantly have exchanged their email address to get your information directly to their inbox.

An audience is built through repetition, familiarity, and trust, and unfortunately there are very few shortcuts.

So here are the 4 main routes to building an audience and how to use them to grow yours.

The 4 Routes to Building an Audience

1. Organic content (earned attention)

This is the route most of us are following, and is actually by far the best route to growing a trusted and engaged audience.

Unfortunately it’s also the route that takes the longest, and requires the commitment and tenacity to keep going even when you think no one is listening, plus consistency with no guarantee of results.

The flow:

Content → attention → familiarity → trust → permission

Where it shows up:

• Writing (Substack, blogs, Medium)

• Social content

• Podcasting / YouTube

• Anywhere you can publish content and attract subscribers

How it works:

You show up consistently with something that’s entertaining, educational, informative or useful. Over time, people choose to stay.

Pros/Cons:

The upside is that you build real relationships with people who genuinely want to hear from you. Trust compounds quietly over time. You control the message, the tone, the direction, and no one can take it away from you.

The downside is that it takes time, patience, and emotional energy. You have to keep going even when it feels like you’re posting into the void and this is the part where most people give up.

However, if you can push through that tough silent part, this route is the foundation to all the other routes listed below.

How to do it:

1. Pick one platform that plays to your strengths (writing? video? audio?)

2. Commit to a consistent publishing schedule - weekly minimum & what the platform requires (example Substack daily notes)

3. Focus on solving problems your audience actually has - (Hot tip - write out their top 30 questions and set about answering them!)

4. Always include a call to action that drives people to your email list (Substack makes this easy)

This route strongly favours people with experience, perspective, and something real to say, which is exactly what most of us over 50 have in spades.

2. Paid traffic (rented attention)

This is the route where you pay to appear in front of people, essentially buying visibility instead of earning it.

It’s tempting because it’s fast. You can put your offer in front of thousands of people today if you have the budget.

But it comes with a catch. The moment you stop spending, the attention stops too. So unless you’re converting that traffic into email subscribers, you’re paying to fill a leaky bucket.

The flow:

Money → visibility → click

Where it shows up:

• Meta ads

• Google ads

• YouTube ads

• Newsletter sponsorships

How it works:

You pay to get your content, lead magnet, or offer in front of people who don’t know you yet. They click, and if you’ve set things up right, they join your email list or buy your stuff.

Pros/Cons:

The upside is speed & predictability. Once you’ve dialled in what works, you know roughly what you’ll get for what you spend. You’re also in control of the pace. No waiting around hoping an algorithm notices you.

The downside is that costs rise over time as more people compete for the same eyeballs. And you’re always renting, never owning. The audience belongs to Meta or Google until they’re on your email list.

Paid traffic builds visits. It only becomes an audience if you convert that attention into email subscribers or customers.

How to do it:

1. Get your email funnel working first (lead magnet, welcome sequence), no point paying for traffic with nowhere to send it

2. Start small, test with £10-20/day

3. Track everything, cost per lead, cost per click, cost per sale

4. Scale what works, cut what doesn’t

Think of paid traffic as a lever, not a foundation. It can accelerate growth once you’ve got the basics in place, but it won’t build the relationships for you.

3. Platform-led discovery (built-in demand)

This is where the platform introduces you to people. You’re not building the audience from scratch, you’re tapping into demand that already exists.

It’s appealing because the hard work of attracting buyers has already been done. People are on Amazon ready to buy, on Etsy looking for gifts, on Substack hunting for new writers to follow. You just need to show up where they’re already looking.

The flow:

Platform demand → exposure → partial relationship

Where it shows up:

• Amazon (books, products)

• Etsy

• Other marketplaces

• Substack recommendations

• App stores

• SEO (Google decides who to show - you can influence it, but you never control it)

How it works:

You create a product, listing, or piece of content, and the platform’s algorithm decides whether to show it to people. Get it right and you can reach thousands of buyers without spending a penny on ads.

Pros/Cons:

The upside is that buyers are already in motion. There’s built-in demand, faster feedback, and in some cases lower upfront effort than building everything yourself.

The downside is that you have no control. Rules change. Algorithms shift. Income and reach can vanish overnight with no warning and no explanation. I’ve seen it happen and experienced it myself: accounts suspended, listings buried, years of work wiped out.

How to do it:

1. Learn the platform’s rules inside out

2. Optimise your listings/content for their algorithm

3. Build your own email list alongside - this is critical*

4. Treat it as an entry point, not a long-term home

You don’t own this audience. You borrow it - briefly.

*NB: This is why I love Substack so much. It's the first platform I've seen that genuinely merges Route 1 with Route 3. You're creating organic content and building real relationships, but the platform is also actively helping people discover you through recommendations and the network.

And unlike every other platform in this category, your subscribers are your email list. You're not borrowing the audience , you're building it and owning it at the same time. That's a game changer.

4. Collaborations & partnerships (borrowed trust)

This is the most misunderstood, and underused, route.

Instead of building an audience from scratch or paying to reach one, you tap into someone else’s. They introduce you to their people, and because their audience already trusts them, some of that trust transfers to you.

It’s a shortcut to credibility, but only if you do it right.

The flow:

Someone else’s audience → endorsement → accelerated trust

Where it shows up:

• Guest newsletters

• Podcast interviews

• Joint workshops

• Affiliate partnerships

• Email swaps

• Bundles

How it works:

Someone with an established audience shares you with their people, through an interview, a recommendation, a collaboration. Their endorsement does the heavy lifting. You skip the “who is this person?” phase entirely and land in front of people who are already warmed up.

But it goes deeper than just getting featured. True partnerships happen when you have the product and they have the audience, and you build something together. Shared upside, shared incentive.

Pros/Cons:

The upside is that leads are warmer from the start. No ad spend required. And it works even when your own audience is tiny because you’re leveraging theirs.

The downside is that it requires genuine alignment and clarity about what you’re offering. It also doesn’t scale endlessly. Each partnership takes real time and energy to build and maintain.

How to do it:

1. Make a list of 10-20 people whose audience overlaps with yours

2. Engage with their content genuinely first - don’t pitch cold

3. Offer value before asking for anything

4. Propose something that benefits them, not just you

5. Start small with a quote swap, a newsletter mention, or a joint live

This route strongly favours people with experience, credibility, and good judgement. People who know how to build real relationships.

That’s a genuine edge at this stage of life.

AI is About to Change Everything

As we all know, (as it’s being shoved down our throats everyday), we’re at the start of a massive shift.

AI is going to disrupt how content gets made, how businesses operate, and how people find information online. I haven’t got my crystal ball out when I say that, it’s already happening.

But rather than be anxious about it, you can use this to your advantage in two distinct ways:

1. First, as a tool. AI can help you produce more, clarify your thinking, repurpose your ideas across platforms, and stay consistent even when life gets busy. It lowers the barrier to getting started and keeps the barrier low once you’re going.

   If you’ve ever stared at a blank page wondering what to write, AI can get you unstuck. If you’ve got a great newsletter but no time to turn it into social posts, AI can do that in minutes.

But the second advantage is more interesting.

2. As AI floods the internet with generic content, authenticity becomes rarer. And rarer means more valuable. The same technology that makes it easier for anyone to produce content also makes it harder for that content to stand out.

   Most of what AI creates is average by definition, trained on the middle of everything. Your lived experience isn’t average. Your perspective isn’t generic. Your voice, developed over decades, can’t be replicated by a prompt.

   In a world filling up with AI-generated noise, real human connection becomes the thing people are actively searching for. They want to feel like someone actually understands their situation. They want familiar voices, smaller communities, trusted guides.

And that’s the real opportunity. AI helps you show up. Your humanity is what makes people stay.

Start With the Foundations

You have ideas. You have experience. You know how to help people. Maybe, like so many of my cohort members, you’ve already got products ready to go.

But you can’t sell to an empty room.

It doesn’t matter how good your offer is. It doesn’t matter how much you know or how many years you’ve spent honing your craft. Without an audience, you’re standing on that Welsh mountainside waiting for customers who’ll never come.

The foundation of your online business is your audience. Start there.

1. Pick one platform that plays to your strengths and commit to it.

2. Show up consistently, even when it feels like no one’s watching.

3. Engage with the people who do show up. Build relationships.

4. Pay attention to what your audience is actively clicking on, engaging with, and asking questions around.

5. Stick with it for longer than feels comfortable!

If you want to supplement with ads later, fine. If you want to pursue partnerships, great. But get the basics right first. Grow your email list, create content that solves real problems, and let people get to know you.

And make patience your greatest virtue. This is going to take time. There are no shortcuts to trust.

But please trust me. Build the audience. Everything else will follow.

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