Lists are in our everyday lives, but in the business space, a list is essential and non-negotiable. You need to have a list of followers, email addresses, and business strategies. However, my good friend Jasmine Star says “burn that list!”
It’s utterly shocking to hear someone who’s an expert in her field dish out such an unpopular opinion. But hey, Jasmine is like no other, and she doesn’t believe in conformity. When it comes to business and branding, you want to listen to Jasmine because she knows exactly what she’s talking about. Check out the rest of this post or the video below for her thoughts on burning lists.
Burn That List
“Burn the list” is business advice from Jasmine Star that you probably don’t want to hear. Now, I’ve known Jasmine for a few years. She was an internationally known wedding photographer that has turned into an Instagram and branding expert. You probably see her all over YouTube and Facebook and she was a speaker at Angie Lee’s Pays to Be Brave event. Jasmine and I have been friends for a long time and I respect her as a business person. When I listened to her presentation, I was shocked. I didn’t think I heard what I just heard – she was telling somebody to burn their list.
Jasmine tells everybody to come with her and points out that she’s going somewhere and making a shift. She knows that when you make the shift, your old followers may or may not like your new direction. People will start unfollowing, and that’s okay. It doesn’t matter if you have a small following because if they believe in you it’s great, rather than having a massive base who doesn’t engage. She tells everybody to burn that list so that people who are supposed to see your posts, are those who care, and not the people who don’t want to see them.
It was shocking to me because we build businesses online to build our lists, whether that’s your list of followers or email addresses. Your list is your business. If you’ve been in business in the online space for any amount of time, you hear your list is your business and the first thing I hear Jasmine say is to burn your list.
When It’s Time to Shift, Burn the List
To put it into context, Jasmine was talking about people who are in one area and shifting, whether that’s merely going from just being a public person with a normal Instagram account that is stepping into some kind of business, or someone moving from one business to another. You’re worried about people unfollowing, what others are doing and what their opinions are, but Jasmine says to brush your shoulders off.
Jasmine is a great example of an individual who made that shift and burned the list. She was a photographer who had a huge influence in the space and she decided that it was time for her to shift. It was time for her to step into something else and to teach a different audience. What she was saying in the whole scheme of burning is that when it’s time for you to shift, some people are going to follow and some people aren’t and that’s okay.
She compares it to a friendship: when a friendship ends, it’s just when the friendship no longer serves both people and it has served its time. It isn’t necessarily an ugly breakup, but it’s just a process many people go through when they want to move ahead with their lives. When you make the shift as a human, brand or business, you also realize that you have a new audience to serve.
The Beauty of Following the Unpopular Opinion
When you make the shift, you receive mixed reactions from people. As for me, I’ve spent so much time in the health and fitness space, but now I’m going into the storytelling and high-performance space. There are certain people that are going to say “well, Jimmy, I thought you were the fitness guy.”
I’ll tell them, “cool. I still work out. I still think fitness is a really big part of my story and high performance, but I’m stepping into this other space.” Am I going to lose some people along the way? Maybe. But, am I going to gain a whole new audience of people that I can absolutely serve? Yes.
Jasmine elaborates on following the unpopular opinion. As an Instagram expert, Jasmine knew that it was important to let go of the followers who are not serving you. It may be against normal conventions to try to lose people on social media because most of us are hooked into building a following, but you need to let people know where you’re going. If they don’t want to join the ride, it’s totally okay. Remember, you will go farther on Instagram with a thousand highly engaged people than ten thousand people who are just passively scrolling by.
So, I would like to thank Jasmine for her unconventional wisdom and being just a huge reminder of stepping into that next thing. Whatever you’re excited about, whatever you’re passionate about, the right people will follow you. Those that decide not to follow, bless them and release. Remember, you want to serve not just any audience, but the right type of audience, and Jasmine tells us that it’s perfectly okay to burn that list!