Mycorrhizal fungi are choosy. They don’t connect with every tree in the forest. They seek out compatible species — specific root chemistries, specific signals — and form partnerships that last decades. The wrong match, they ignore entirely. With no hostility. They simply pass it by.
Your audience works the same way.
Early days of Eatweeds, I printed 5,000 leaflets. Professional design, good paper, coded by postcode. Dropped them through letterboxes across Exeter.
Zero sales. Not one.
Same period, I ran a small ad to a specific audience — people who already cared about wild plants, self-reliance, growing their own food — and the course sold out.
The leaflets failed because they were aimed at everyone. When you speak to everyone, you speak to no one.
Then came the Restore Britain incident. I opened a foraging course and members of a far-right group turned up. Same demographics as my real audience — outdoorsy, heritage-minded, self-sufficient. A completely different worldview.
That forced me to get precise. I added one line to my customer profile: They believe nature is a shared, universal home that connects all humans, regardless of background.
One sentence changed who showed up.
King Charles and Ozzy Osbourne — born the same year, both British, both wealthy, both famous, both married twice. Identical demographics. Completely different people.
Demographics tell you what’s written on someone’s driving licence. What actually matters is the worldview they carry — the cluster of beliefs they’ve worn like a coat for years.
Your job is to find the people whose worldview already matches — the compatible species — and speak to them so clearly that they feel seen. Maybe for the first time.
Like mycorrhizal fungi, the connection is specific. And the wrong match is the system working.
When I stopped trying to reach more people and started trying to reach the right people, courses sold out. Events filled within weeks. The flagship book hit 65,000 copies. Not because I got louder. Because I got clearer.
That’s comfrey. Growing deeper, not taller.