The problem with your platform; the trouble with your tribe…

It seems my inbox this weekend is inundated with offers that will help me “build and expand my platform” or “create a tribe of followers and buyers” that will make the coming year better than this one.

Naturally, the promised result is that I will be able to sell more of whatever I’m promoting…IF I can just persuade more people to follow me.

Therein lies the fundamental flaw with much of what I’m seeing about creating platforms, tribes, and disciples: it’s almost always based upon someone trying to promote himself/herself instead of truly helping others.

(Please note that I said almost always…not in every case.)

Unlike ever before, we now have a universally available — and immediately accessible — delivery system of our thoughts, ideas, and promotions.

When I was a kid in junior high school, I approached the owner of a local newspaper — “The Giveaway” (because it is published weekly and then “given away” for free to every resident over an area of several towns in southern Indiana) — to ask if I could write a column on sports for my home community.

To my surprise, he agreed — and the column started appearing in the newspaper every week. (It was called “Pot Shots by Scotty McKain.”) I asked for the opportunity because the newspaper was the only way I could think of that would enable me to express my viewpoints about our hometown teams to the general public. Today…I’d just post it on Facebook or start a blog. There’s no barrier to entry.

Now, we have a multitude of people trying to become the next Zig Ziglar or Tony Robbins. They’re thrashing in the waters of hyperbole, hoping that their viewpoints will be uniquely recognized in a sea of shameless self-promotion. They are unencombered by any gate-keeper like a newspaper editor who can say, “No, your approach needs work and refinement in order to become more interesting to our target market.”

That’s good — there’s a free-flow of unrestricted ideas. That’s bad — there is more delusional crap in the “business growth” and “personal development” markets than ever before.

Which returns us to the fundamental problem stated earlier. For many, their approach is based upon a belief that building their personal recognition and “fame” will make the difference. In fact, it’s the opposite — creating something of value to others is the only way to have a lasting impact on the marketplace and grow your platform.

It’s not about promoting yourself — it’s about building up other people.

Did Zig Ziglar say, “You can have everything you want, if you only become famous enough?” The Kardashians notwithstanding, the answer is a resounding NO!!

• Zig famously said, “You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”

Want to grow your platform and become perceived as more distinctive in 2016? Begin by using this week before the New Year to seriously plan how you can be of more service to some one — or some business — in a more dynamic manner than ever before.

One last thought: The irony doesn’t escape me that I’m trying to get you to read my blog and share this post about helping others — which would, in turn, obviously help expand my platform’s reach.

However, you’ll never share this post unless it provides an insight that impacts you. That’s the key.

The primary benefit has to be for someone else. There’s no reason you shouldn’t receive a residual benefit. That’s the essence of Ziglar’s approach.

And, no matter how big of a platform we build, how large of a tribe we amass, it may not be enduring.

For example: know the name Henryk Sienkiewicz? Probably not — but he was, by many accounts, the biggest selling author of the 19th Century. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature. The Pope wrote his eulogy. The President of his country spoke at his funeral. Not a bad “platform.” Yet, obviously, not a lasting one from an individual fame standpoint, either.

Yet, the impact of his insight continues whenever someone reads — or views one of the several film adaptations of — his book, “Quo Vadis.”

Don’t do this because of what it will mean to YOU.

Do it because of what it can inspire in SOMEONE ELSE.