this coach has 350k followers and he's afraid he'll end up driving uber

I was talking to a weight loss coach the other day who's in a rough spot.

This guy has over 100k followers on Instagram.

Over 250k on TikTok.

And for the last few years, business was great.

He was pulling in 30-40k months almost entirely off organic content.

No ads.

No fancy funnel.

Just posting consistently, building an audience, and converting them into clients.

It worked like gangbusters... until it didn't.

Over the last 6 months, his reach has completely tanked.

The algorithm changed (or whatever else happened behind the curtain)...

And his content just stopped getting seen.

Retention is fine... his existing clients love him.

But acquisition has fallen off a cliff.

He can't replace the clients who naturally churn out.

So revenue is shrinking month after month.

He's tried running paid ads to fill the gap...

But hasn't had much luck.

It's the point where he admitted he's afraid he'll end up driving Uber if he can't figure it out soon.

Which was brutal to hear.

All he can think about is making the next sale...

Which has made it basically impossible to think strategically about the business.

(This is what survival mode does to you... it shrinks your field of vision down to the next 48 hours.)

Here's the thing:

He's been sitting on an email list of 6,000 subscribers that he's neglected for years.

YEARS!

6,000 people who raised their hand at some point and said "I want to hear from you."

Yet he never made time to invest into built that relationship.

Never mailed them consistently.

Never built up 'know, like & trust'...

And therefore, never conditioned them to buy.

Because social was working so well, there was no urgency to.

This is the real danger of building your business on rented attention.

It's not just that the platform can pull the rug...

It's that when it does, it exposes the gaping holes in the rest of your business that often take time to patch up.

An email list shouldn’t be your backup plan.

It's supposed to be the main plan.

The channel you own, control, and can reach your audience on whenever you want...

Without asking an algorithm for permission.

Something to chew on if you've been leaning heavily on organic social and treating your list as an afterthought.

The best time to build it was before you needed it…

The second best time is today.

Jim Hamilton