I have 27,000 followers on LinkedIn. I don't own a single one of them. I rent th
By John Aspinall ✱ · June 2, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
I have 27,000 followers on LinkedIn.
I don't own a single one of them.
I rent them.
And that's a problem.
Tomorrow LinkedIn could change the algorithm.
Tomorrow my reach could get cut in half.
Tomorrow my account could disappear.
The audience isn't mine.
The platform is.
That's the uncomfortable truth a lot of creators avoid.
You've spent years building on land you don't control.
For the longest time, I resisted email.
I hated it.
I would open my inbox and see endless campaigns.
Everything felt targeted.
Everything felt automated.
Everything felt annoying.
So I avoided building a list.
That was a mistake.
Because followers are rented.
Email subscribers are owned.
The list moves with you.
The platform doesn't.
Once I accepted that, I stopped focusing on collecting followers and started focusing on building systems.
Now when someone attends a webinar:
→ They get pulled into the system automatically
→ The audience gets segmented automatically
→ Different people get different messaging automatically
Someone who attended two webinars gets different follow-up than someone who attended one.
The same thing happens after calls.
The recording gets analyzed.
Action items get assigned.
Each participant receives a personalized recap based on what they actually talked about.
Not generic.
⤷ Specific.
Because the transcript already knows what mattered to them.
The biggest asset in my business isn't content.
It isn't followers.
It isn't reach.
It's the systems that turn rented attention into owned relationships.
Stop chasing reach you rent.
Start building assets you own.
The followers are borrowed.
The process is the asset.
Own the process.