Yesterday, I shared the best strategy I’ve learned to build an audience (see here). It’s timeless and builds credibility. It’s the strategy Warren Buffett and Paul Graham use. The strategy is this: share what you learn with others. Said differently, if you learn or figure something out, don’t hoard that wisdom. Share it with the world.

The strategy is simple enough, but it’s not easy. Lots of people share what they learn, but most of them haven’t accrued the credibility that Buffett and Graham have. What gives?

Executing this audience-building strategy and achieving the outsize results that Buffett and Graham are underlain by some critical fundamentals. Many people skimp on them, and their efforts don’t pay off as well as they could. Here are some that I’ve noticed Buffett, Graham, and others have embraced that made all the difference:

• Prioritize learning – This is the key element that most miss. Heck, I missed it when I first started this blog. Everyone has a reservoir of wisdom they’ve accumulated from living and working that they can share. You can start by sharing your reservoir, but it will drain if you’re not refilling it by learning faster than you’re sharing. When it’s empty, you no longer have anything of value to share with your audience, you lose their attention, and your audience shrinks. To keep adding value to your audience by sharing what you learn, you must learn at an accelerated pace. This means you can’t be haphazard about learning; you have to make it a priority. You must seek out resources around topics you’re interested in and consume them regularly. It’s no coincidence that people who’ve built audiences by sharing what they learn are also avid daily readers. Buffet reads 500 pages a day (see here).
• Writing – You don’t have to think clearly to speak “well,” but you do have to think clearly to write “well.” Writing down what you’ve learned forces you to think clearly and understand a topic deeply. It also forces you to figure out the best way to communicate it to others. Once you’ve written it down in a way that others can understand, you’ve cemented your understanding of the topic in your brain and made it easier for you to speak “well” about the topic with extreme confidence. Someone who speaks well will be liked, but someone who writes well (and by extension speaks well) is always held in much higher regard.
• Consistency – The point of building an audience is to get people’s attention. Once you get their attention, your job isn’t done. You must keep their attention going forward. The best way to keep their attention is to have them coming back for more. If they know you’ll share thoughts on a regular schedule, you’re more likely to keep their attention. The best audience builders who share their learnings pick a schedule and stick to it. Warrant Buffett only releases an annual letter, but people know when to expect it, and they eagerly anticipate it. He keeps their attention and maintains their interest by consistently dropping that letter once a year in the same month. Pick a frequency, communicate it, and stick to it to keep your audience’s attention.
• Perseverance – Building an audience around sharing in writing what you learn isn’t a sprint. It’s a marathon. It takes time for people to find what you’ve shared. So, don’t expect results or praise to come quickly. Howard Marks is a billionaire distressed-debt investor who is the founder of Oaktree Capital. He writes two or so long-form “memos” every year that explain investing concepts and current market conditions. He started writing these memos and sending them to his clients in 1990. He wrote them into a void for a decade. A decade! It wasn’t until 2000 that anyone acknowledged receiving or reading his memos. His 2000 memo went the equivalent of viral in the investing world. See more here and here. Now, his memos are eagerly anticipated, widely read, and praised by the smartest minds in the world. I read or listen to each memo the week it drops.

To sum up, building an audience by sharing what you’re learning is simple but not easy. To execute the strategy effectively and achieve outsize results, you must accelerate your learning (about things you’re interested in), write down what you’ve learned, be consistent with your sharing, and commit to sharing for a long period, regardless of feedback.

If you embrace these fundamentals, sharing what you learn can help build an audience in a timeless manner that enhances your credibility in the minds of your audience and engenders immense loyalty.

If you don’t believe me, look at the sharing journeys of Warren Buffett, Howard Marks, Paul Graham, and others.