I think that the people who followed him really believed in his message about
personal success, and I think that they were people who earnestly pursued that goal.

Here's a good quote, from SRS's link above,--
"He was helping draw the consciousness of the African American community, that we were not disenfranchised, and we didn't have to be poor and dispossessed, that we can own our own selves and our lives and that we could create money."

I think that a lot of people who followed him have benefitted from his ideas. Whether they could have achieved the same things without handing over large sums of money to his church is another question again--