The Effect of Collective Help

The cumulative effect of helpful friends and collaborative partners providing small amounts of help and support once, twice, or multiple times can be massive. Putting the onerous burden of necessary support onto only one or two people is destined for failure and resentment, whereas asking many helpers for a relatively small amount of help can have a substantial impact.

Relying on one person to help you fix all your problems is challenging because the amount of time and effort required from that person to be truly effective is unreasonable. They have their own lives, jobs, work, family and careers to look after without having to babysit for you and your needs. Asking one person to share 15 articles 15 blog posts 15 whatever it is, is not manageable.

Contrast that with having multiple sources of people providing small amounts of help over a sustained period andthe impact can be huge. However, therein lies the challenge, asking multiple people for support personally makes me feel needy, high maintenance or even a bit of a scrounger. When people demand my help repeatedly I tend to want to spend less time with them because they are always seem to asking for help and support.

How then can we cover both sides of this equation without missing opportunities and not over asking? Simple, by asking people for small amounts of help, and being very specific about what that help looks like and entails. As a result it becomes less of a burden and a chore to them, and they’re happier to do it. By being specific with your helpers and the task in hand you can very quickly create a support group of 17 people doing small tasks all at the same time.

This support might be in the world of promotion for you by sharing your social media support and marketing, helping to promote your new book launch or sharing information about the course you have developed or your new product range.

There is a LinkedIn technique called pods, where people create groups consisting of 40 to 50 people, all sharing everyone else’s posts, promotions and articles. This is completed at a particular time of the week, every week, following the LinkedIn rules of saying at least five words in the comments about the article. The person who posted then responds in kind, and as a result the algorithms are fed and more exposure is created. Be cautious here as LinkedIn is wise to these tactics and when people get found out using it there is is a risk of it backfiring and all positive momemntum can be lost.

However, the theory behind it is still sound, because it’s that mentality of having multiple people that you are helping and they are helping you. It almost feels like a peer support group for your online marketing exposure, an ambassadorial mastermind group designed to help you to get the exposure that you’re looking for.

Specifically, this has been brought home to me recently with the new book launch. I have asked multiple people from various sectors, countries and backgrounds to provide a small amount of support: nothing too demanding, just a little something over a period of time. As a result, this tactic has created a groundswell of exposure and promotional media opportunities that I would not have been able to do independently or without a substantial corporate-sized marketing budget.

So, when you need assistance and support, remember to ask for help, and better still, ask your support team that you already have positive relationships with to do small specific things repeatedly over a short precise amount of time. Then watch what happens!