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You have to continually run missions to level them. Some reward armor tokens that you can use to upgrade them. You can also get the Dwarven Bunker/War Mill buildings and put in work orders for resources that you can get armor upgrade tokens from. There is also an npc (Trader Darakk for the Horde) that will be a random visitor to your garrison that sells very expensive upgrade tokens. Their max item level is 675.
If you have a barracks, your follower count goes up to 25 from 20. You will only be able to deactivate followers when you reach the maximum number allowed. You can recruit followers in the world, through achievements and by having the Tavern/Inn buildings you can choose one follower per week to recruit.
As this content is all very old, if you’re just after the Gronnling mount, I would recommend just checking the auction house. On my server they are usually pretty plentiful and cheap - around 700-1500g.
I have like 10 of these sitting in a guild bank. Wish I could just give you one.
Incidentally, Destromath was my old pre-BC server where I started the game… but on alliance. 
Edit: Heck, if you want to come make a character on Emerald Dream, I can just give you one; if it’s only the mount you’re after.
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Two things you can do to optimize your followers in the garrison.
One is the war mill. You can use Iron Horde Scraps to produce the weapon and armor enhancements for your followers.
The second is the salvage yard. When you scrap your Large Crates of Salvage, you can get get the armor and weapons enhancements for your followers.
But as the previous poster mentioned, if all you want is the Coalfist Gronning, just buy it on the AH. You shouldn’t have to pay more than 400g on most servers. Just wait until ‘harvest time’ when the garrison quest comes up and everyone still running their garrison gets the mount reward and puts it on the AH.
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Trader Darakk (H) & Trader Araanda (A) are always up that I have seen and they sell armor & weapon upgrades to take you to 645 level. From there tokens from war mill, scrap yard & missions will have to get them to 675. I’m not sure what the price is now with all the nerfs to gold in prepatch but the upgrades were 500 gold a piece.
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If you’re planning on leveling a bunch of followers, be sure to get and level Harrison Jones. He has an ability that lends his level and iLvl to those with whom he runs missions.
So, for instance, I can recruit a level 90 at the inn, and one mission with Jones gets the new follower to level 98.
I’m trying to make an edgy-themed garrison, with death Knights, assassination rogues, warlocks, and so on. 
By the way, roll up a Horde on Dragonblight or Fenris. I think I have a few Gronnling still, cluttering up my banks. Probably the other pets and toys, too. (Don’t think the flame corgi is BoE, but most of the rest are.) And the void tentacles heirloom trinket.
The naval mission table is worth going after for the three primary stat heirloom rings, a mount or two, and I think some toys and pets.
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This. Though the last time I looked on my server they were only like 2-300 gold on the AH.
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Ugh Naval missions, I thought I was never going to get all them dang rings. Finally got a 2nd shipyard up and running on an alt and my main got the last 2 back to back in a week. Figured lol.
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I still do the naval missions for the armor tokens and sorcerous earth (for bags).
Not much else.
I know off topic but going through WoD on new alt… getting Garrison up… makes me wish they’d do something like that again. Feels like such a neat idea. I get Covenants will have you upgrade them etc but Garrisons felt personal. Garden, mine, traders, town hall etc… feels like something they could of done in BFA thematically.
Probably will at some point with how many people are begging for housing.
I do agree about Garrisons. I still visit my garrisons for the convenience of having everything pretty much at hand. Plus if I am not actively playing but just AH browsing or just taking a break I like to go back and relax (especially Alliance - Shadowmoon setting is so much better than Frostfire) with the jukebox set to Darnassus or Grizzly Hills. I even sent all my toons back to garrisons for prepatch because I knew I would be adjusting talents/abilities and its more pleasant there than cities.
That alliance garrison is really something else … never really liked the horde side of things. And yeah it’s nice even that it is still a little relevant for certain crafts (server dependent of course). It’s the one reason why I wish I’d have wanted to experience WoD when current.