Quality Over Quantity

Your follower count can go up while your life and business stay stuck. I’ve lived that gap, and it finally forced a simple realization: quality matters more than quantity, especially for content creators trying to turn attention into income. If you’ve ever felt trapped by the illusion of numbers, this conversation is a reset.

I walk through what “dilution of numbers” looks like in real life, including my own experience with thousands of followers and a painfully low paid conversion rate. Then we get practical with the idea of warm audiences vs cold audiences. The matcha shop example sounds simple, but it explains why random reach often fails and why targeted communities, clear positioning, and genuine audience engagement create better outcomes for newsletters, Substack, podcasts, and any online business.

We also talk about the part nobody can skip: trial and error. From ads that get views but no sales to offers that need sharper messaging, mistakes are the path, not the problem. I share why “selling without selling” works long term: build trust, provide value, and treat the person in front of you like a human, not a metric.

If you’re ready to stop chasing vanity metrics and start building real relationships that support your goals, subscribe, share this with a creator friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What number are you ready to stop obsessing over?

Transcript

The Illusion Of Big Numbers

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Did you know that most content creators, guys, think that the more numbers they achieve, the more they can translate those numbers into success in their work, reaching the illusion of achieving something for themselves? We often focus on growth, growth, growth, and more growth, right? Believing that the more we expand our numbers, subscribers, clients, customers, the more we can achieve. The reality is actually quite different. And I'm here to share a bit of true with you. Hi guys, my name is Fabio from Journey to Success and Welcome. As you know, I am on this journey with you. I make mistakes alongside you and learn from those experiences. And you might think that I read a lot probably and collect knowledge from everywhere, right? But that's very far from the truth. The reality is that I mostly make missteps. Go through trial and error and then learn from those experiences to share with you. Okay, so I indirectly take the long path and uh I'm more than delighted to offer you a shortcut every time. Of course, if we focus on uh understanding concepts from books, we could get certain things more quickly, I think. But talking from your own experience, guys, I mean, cannot how can I say uh many more layers in my opinion and hidden knowledge that I don't think you can grasp from books. Anyway, uh long story short, recently, after years of setbacks, I realized that quality matters more than quantity. I know that sounds obvious. It is obvious. You might say, okay, Fabio, great, you discovered the hot water, you know. But you have no idea how true that really is. Truly. But before we move forward, as always, please subscribe so I know this is the right direction to lead you guys, to drive you and to guide you towards your journey to success. And let's get started. Alright, as always. So, quality versus quantity. First point, dilution of numbers. Alright, as I mentioned before, it's a common misconception among content creators that simply accumulating more followers, subscribers, clients means they've achieved success. However, the reality is is often more complicated. For example, right, in my case, I currently have thousands of followers and around 2,000 subscribers, I would say around 1008. And while they may be familiar with my content and what I offer, the truth is that the conversation the conversion, sorry, the conversion rate to paid subscribers is just 0.23%. It's very low. Why is that the case? There are several reasons, of course, for this number. It could be related to positioning, authority, authoring style, you know, or simply that people are not fully aligned with what I offer or how it motivates them to make a purchase. But there is one significant factor to understand. How warm or cold your audience is toward what you want to propose. Okay. This principle applies not just in the online space, but in all types of business, guys. Consider the I'm gonna make an example. Yeah, consider to open a matcha shop. So, you know, you like matcha. I don't know why you like matcha, I don't like matcha, but hey, you like matcha. So you are walking around the city giving out matcha samples, alright. But the truth is that don't expect most people to want to try your product right away, okay? Because you are dealing with a cold audience, and of course, matcha was just an example, but could be also anything else, you know. Anything else pretty targeted, you know. Like, I don't know, a Brie shop, a Bria shop, you know, uh like uh a goat shop, I don't know, just something very targeted, you know. So of course it wouldn't work. It wouldn't instead consider joining, for example, Facebook groups focused on matcha or attending events where people discuss work workshops or hotel demonstrations, you know, related to your product. And by doing this, you can give your samples at targeted events. Do you know what I mean? So while you might interact with fewer people, not so many, but the truth is that those people are likely to be more interested and open-minded to the idea of visiting your shop. And this example, guys, applies to any shop or business, online or offline. An example that I want to give. A few weeks ago on Soupstack, I connected with someone who was already interested in grow and had made several paid subscriptions, all right. And during our conversation, which flow naturally, we discussed strategies for growing her Supstack. Without any pressure to sell, honestly, she decided to upgrade to my tier like easily. This experience taught me an important lesson. We don't need hundreds or of thousands of subscribers to be successful, you know, artificially or mechanically, because that's what happened at the end of the story. We just need to connect to connect with the right people, and uh of course everything else will follow naturally, okay? Another point, second point I would say, is the shifting focus. So instead of being obsessed with growth for growth's sake, we should prioritize the quality of our content and the quality of our engagement, all right, as well as the type of people we want to join our ecosystem. When we talk about the quality of engagement, it is important to adopt a structure approach and clearly communicate what we offer, okay? Whether it's a matcha drink or an online course. However, the real question is what is your focus when engaging with people? Because listen, it's important to have a structure, it's important to, you know, to have a to know what you want to communicate to them, all right? But if your focus is solely on money, that's not a good approach. Following blindly what you want to communicate without a genuine connection is not good either. So that's what you have to understand. You it's important to have a good structure, it's important to know what you want to offer to them to sell, but it's more important the quality of engagement uh you are gonna give to them, all right. You need to truly care about helping the people you interact with, guys. Again, while it's important to have a structure and understand what comes next, you must also be yourself and truly connect with the person you want to collaborate with, whether they become a client, a collaborator, a paid customer, you know, it doesn't matter. Number three, learning through mistakes. Sharing your journey involves recognizing that learning often comes from trial and error. Okay that is not escape. It's trial and error is very important when you when you want to achieve your dream. And it is important to highlight that making mistakes is not only normal, but also a crucial part of the learning process, okay? This is where true growth happens, guys. I'm thinking about I'm thinking about my my Facebook ads right now. I've had hundreds of views, but I haven't converted a single visitor yet. Why? What is the reason? Maybe the text is not good, maybe I need to choose more powerful titles, I don't know. Maybe I need to make an A B test, or maybe yeah, I should test more variations, I don't know. There is so much to learn and so many skills to develop, you know. Most of us build something, make it run, and expect the right outcome, you know. But that's not how it works, trust me. It took me more than a decade to understand that. If it were that simple, a lot of people would have achieved their dreams by now, right? So it doesn't work like that. It's you need to go forward, you need to try over and over again, okay? That's part of the process. So remember, learning through mistakes means learning via trial and error, okay? And that is an essential part of the process, guys. The more you acknowledge your mistakes, the faster you progress. And when you recognize a misstep, especially, you understand how to fix it and move forward, okay? Again and again. Number four, value over volume. We've already discussed this, but it is important to emphasize that quality, quality always beats quantity. It's not about how many people are curious about your podcast, for example, my my example, or how many orders are following your reels on Instagram, or how many orders are looking at your shops from the street, you know. Rather, it's about how much value they bring to your goal. Remember, everyone is valuable, everyone is valuable, right? Every human being, but you need to choose the right valuable client for what for what you propose, for what you propose and for your purpose. Okay. The key question is uh how a person's goal aligns with what you want to achieve. Okay, for example, if you own the best meat shop in town, but the majority of your community is vegan, I mean close the shop. It is better. However, if your shop is, let's say, near 10 families who want quality meat, the best meat ever, you're golden. You'll be you'll be like super rich, you know. And this is an extreme example, of course, but it shows that having a smaller targeted audience uh can be more rewarding than having a large disengaged one because evidently they have more different interests. Okay. Number five, keep it personal, let your audience know that you are on this journey together with them. Okay, they are not alone. I was amazed by this uh subscriber who became a paid member of my TR at the end, the one I mentioned before. With just one article, guys, and fewer than 200 subscribers, she received around 70 likes. Like it's about 30, 40 percent, like it's amazing. It's 35, uh 35%, I don't know, but it's it's great, you know. And she didn't know how. And I explained what might work. So she she was learning from my knowledge. But the truth is that in turn I was learning from her creativity, even if she didn't know she knew how to express this this creativity, but she didn't know what really worked, guys, you know. So it's just fascinating because because of this creativity, help her reach this milestone, and something that I I didn't reach personally. So I was really learning, I was very curious. So to take the next step in transforming your passion and dreams into your work, basically, it's important for others to see you as a leader and an outhoritate, um like an important figure, like a proper leader, you know. Sorry guys, I'm still Italian, I'm not gonna cut this. But uh, however, authoritative authoritative figure. Okay, I think so. But anyway, it is important. It is important that people see you as a leader, okay? It's very important. However, always remember that you're still a human being. Okay, embrace the the awareness to to learn from your experiences, guys. And and never forget to remain humble, because in the end of the story, we're just dust, you know, everyone is the same. With some having more skills than others, sure, but also less than uh than some. And you need to understand that. You need to understand that because the moment you you get that is the moment where you don't only become more humble, but also at the same time uh you learn from others, so you become teacher and student at the same time, you know. The last point that I want to mention is selling without selling, emphasizes the importance of building relationships and providing value. So instead of using traditional sales tactics, focus on engaging your audience through meaningful content and interactions, guys. Okay, so by positioning yourself as a trusted resource and you know, addressing their needs, potential people are more likely to see the value in what you offer without feeling pressure to buy. Okay, and this approach is great. This approach is great because it can enhance trust and loyalty, you know, and at the end it can lead to more successful sales in the long run, naturally, without pressure. So, as I mentioned before, it is essential to follow a structure and have a clear aim, a clear goal in mind. Okay, of course it's important, of course it's important. However, that doesn't mean the person in front of you is just a number, you know, that a unique individual who has a problem that needs to be solved. Okay, so your job is to make them understand that you you are the one who can solve their problem. The moment they understand, you both can achieve the same dream, okay? Now, before we wrap up, as always, what we what did we talk about today? Today we explore the distinction between quality and quantity in uh content creation and engagement. So we understood the challenge of delusion that accumulating large numbers of followers or subscribers correlates to genuine success. We did some examples, I highlighted, I highlighted how connecting with the right audience can lead to more meaningful outcomes than simply chasing after numbers, you know. We discussed the importance of shifting our focus from growth to promoting quality interactions. It's not just about creating more content, guys, or gaining more followers. Okay, you need to know that. It's more about the depth of those connections, okay? The depth of engagement. So emphasizing personal engagement allows creators to build connections and better understand their audience needs, but understand also their credibility and of course the influence. Mistakes, mistakes, what are mistakes? Mistakes are inevitable part of our life, a part of this journey. And we recognize that learning through trial and error is essential for growth. Embracing failures as opportunities to learn accelerates our progress and refines our approach. That's the truth. And when it comes to value, we noted that you know that quality factor always speeds quantity, always. A smaller engaged audience can deliver better results than larger big audience filled with different types of followers, different types of subscribers, different types of clients who don't really align with your shop, for example, you know. Lastly, we wrote that up with the idea of selling without selling. So by providing value and building trust, we can cultivate meaningful relationships with our audience rather than using traditional sales tactics. Okay, it's about seeing individuals as unique supporters of a shared dream, not just numbers, not just numbers in a marketing phone, okay? It doesn't work like that. In a sense, in a few words, success in content creation is not measured by how many people follow you, but by the impact and connection you create with your audience. Remember, guys, it's the quality of relationships and value you bring that truly drive success. Okay, that's it. It's the quality, the quality of relationships, the the the quality of the engagement that you deliver. So let's commit to this journey together, focusing on what truly matters and uh prioritizing connection over numbers.

unknown 20:15

Ah now.

Listener Reflection And Final CTA

SPEAKER_00 20:16

As always, I would love to hear from you. Have you ever felt trapped by the illusion of numbers? Believing that more followers, more subscribers, more clients automatically meant more success? Or have you experienced the power of focusing on the right people instead of just more people, you know? Um, I mean, maybe you were the lucky one, you know, that you understood this before me. I hope so. Send me a message, share your story, or connect with me on Soupstack. I would truly love to know your perspective and your journey. And if you enjoyed today's episode, guys, you know how important it is to subscribe so you never miss an update. But what's even more important is sharing this episode with a friend, with a creator, an entrepreneur, a dreamer, a general dreamer, you know, who might need the reminder that quality always builds quality, okay? Thank you so much for being here on a journey to success. Remember, success is not about how many people are watching, okay? But about how deeply you impact the right ones. Together, we keep building something meaningful. Remember that. I'll see you in the next episode. Cheers.