I feel like Waldo. I’m wearing my striped shirt, my goofy stocking cap and my horned-rims and I’m still nearly invisible, even if you’re looking for me.

Have you ever seen the movie A Face in the Crowd? Radio producer Marcia Jeffries (Patricia Neal) encounters hobo Larry ‘Lonesome’ Rhodes (Andy Griffith) in a jail cell. When she puts him on her program ‘Lonesome’s’ homespun wisdom and folksy ways catch on. The word spreads, his audience multiplies and his influence grows. Spoiler–things turn out badly for ‘Lonesome.’

In today’s parlance, one would say that Marcia provided ‘Lonesome’ a platform–a place above the crowd, a spot from which he could be seen and heard.

That’s the paradigm I’m adopting for promotion of The Girlfriend Experience–build a platform.

First I have to figure out just what that means.

A good friend brought the work of Michael Hyatt to my attention. Here’s the money quote:

…today’s platforms are built of:

• Contacts
• Customers
• Prospects
• Followers
• Fans

In other words, a platform is your tribe. People who share your passion and want to hear from like-minded people.

Also:

It’s really not as complicated as it sounds.

It looks a lot like what I’ve already been doing, just more of it. Remember Rule 6: Work like a draft mule.

Ken, a friend from the forum, shared a link showing the progress of Colleen Hoover’s book Slammed from its obscure, self-published beginnings to the New York Times best seller list and a movie deal. I can’t tell you how inspiring this graph is. The message is: it can happen, but not by itself.

I don’t know if Colleen Hoover consciously built her platform from a plan. To read her posts on the forum, she seems genuinely humble and totally blown away by her success. I’m guessing it came naturally to her.

I’m happy to profit from her example, one plank at a time.