0:00

Long hours, small teams, uninspiring content.

0:02

Marketing for a startup is hard

0:04

work, but it doesn't have to

0:07

be. Their

0:12

all-in-one platform connects your sales,

0:14

marketing, and support all together

0:16

so you can increase leads,

0:19

fast-track deals, smooth out support,

0:21

and join a platform that

0:23

more than 190,000 top brands

0:25

trust. Plus, they have a

0:27

constantly evolving collection of resources

0:29

to help startups scale. HubSpot

0:32

also offers discounts for startups on their top-rated

0:34

customer platform, and not the kind of discounts

0:36

that barely make a dent. I'm talking about

0:38

meaningful savings of up to 90%. So

0:42

if you're ready to crush your

0:44

marketing, look no further than HubSpot

0:47

for startups. To see how much

0:49

you can save, visit hubspot.com/startups. Hello,

0:52

my friend. Welcome

1:07

back to another episode of Creator Science. I'm

1:09

excited to spend some time here with you

1:11

today. I went back out to

1:13

the Creator Science universe, all the

1:15

channels, YouTube, the lab, Instagram, threads,

1:17

LinkedIn, Twitter, and I asked for

1:19

some more listener questions. These

1:21

episodes tend to be some of our most popular, and I

1:23

love doing them, so we're going to keep rocking. Now

1:26

this is actually a part two. The

1:28

first half of these questions I recorded in video

1:31

format with my producer, Connor. We took a

1:33

lot of the questions from YouTube and the

1:35

questions about YouTube, and we prioritized those for

1:37

a video episode on the channel. So if

1:39

you have not listened to the part one

1:41

and you want the part one, it doesn't

1:43

really matter what order you listen to these

1:45

in. There is just more

1:47

questions for you to learn about, predominantly

1:50

related to YouTube or things that a

1:52

YouTuber would care about over

1:54

in the feed before this episode or on

1:56

the YouTube channel as the most recent video,

1:58

depending on when you're listening. listening to this.

2:00

But for this audio episode, we are going

2:02

to dive into questions that I got from

2:05

the lab from Instagram from LinkedIn, Twitter and

2:07

threads. But before we get into that, I

2:09

have a couple things that I want to

2:11

tell you. Thing number one, if

2:13

you are not already subscribed to the Creator Science

2:15

newsletter, please do so you will like it almost

2:19

60,000 creators subscribed to it already. It's at

2:21

Creator science.com. It will help you become a

2:23

professional creator in 10 minutes per week. So

2:25

if you don't already get that, I'm telling

2:28

you, if you like the podcast, you're gonna

2:30

like the newsletter, just go to Creator science.com.

2:32

Thing number two, I've spent the last couple

2:34

of months building a new product called Creator

2:37

HQ. And this is a

2:39

templatized version of my personal notion setup

2:41

that is how we run the entire

2:43

Creator Science business. It's what

2:46

we use for task management,

2:48

content preparation, content publishing, content

2:50

repurposing. It's what I use

2:53

to manage sponsorship campaigns and all

2:55

of my relationships. It's

2:57

my lightweight CRM. All

2:59

of this I have prettied up, cleaned

3:01

up, put together for you to implement

3:03

in your business as well. I've

3:05

shown it to a bunch of creators and they've always asked me,

3:07

can I have this? And the

3:09

answer for a long time was no. But I

3:11

have done the work now of turning it into

3:13

a set of templates that you can

3:16

implement in the course of an afternoon, get up

3:18

and running and run your entire business out of.

3:20

It will give you the peace of mind that

3:22

everything is in one place. It makes

3:24

tracking and managing everything just easy.

3:26

It is your second brain,

3:28

I guess you'd call it, but built

3:30

specifically for creators. Again, this is exactly

3:32

what I am using in my business

3:34

and it manages this half million dollar

3:36

growing empire that we have here at

3:38

Creator Science. So if you're interested in

3:41

that, if you want to have everything

3:43

in one place and make managing

3:45

all of the work easier, if you feel

3:47

like you're dropping the ball or things are

3:49

slipping through the cracks, go

3:51

to creator HQ.co.

3:54

Get on the waitlist if you're getting this before

3:56

it's available or once it's available to purchase, you

3:58

can get that at creator HQ. It's

4:01

probably the best thing I've ever made. We'll

4:03

see. Results are coming in now. Folks in the lab, we

4:05

got this early and they are loving it and

4:08

I'm personally using it, so I'm loving it, obviously.

4:11

But if you're interested, creatorhq.co. So

4:14

let's start with questions from the lab. The

4:17

lab is my private membership community for professional

4:19

creators. If you're a professional creator

4:21

and you lack community or want to be

4:23

around other folks who are operating at a

4:25

high level, that is a good place to

4:27

be. You can apply at creatorscience.com/lab. The first

4:29

question is from Joanna Parsons. She says, how

4:31

do you sell to your audience without feeling

4:34

salesy? I struggle with this sometimes and as

4:36

a result, I probably don't talk enough about

4:38

my products or services. This is

4:40

something I relate to strongly. We talked about it

4:42

in my recent episode with Amy Porterfield, especially

4:44

on webinars I find it's really hard for me

4:47

to stay in the sale if I'm talking about

4:49

the product. I just talked about creatorhq and I

4:51

probably could have talked about it for two or

4:53

three times as long to show

4:55

you just how much I believe in that product.

4:58

But I think the key is belief in

5:00

your own product. That really is the thing.

5:03

When you walk into a Starbucks, you're

5:05

there for a reason. The people

5:07

at Starbucks know what you want. They have

5:10

a menu, they have products and they have prices.

5:12

They say, if you want this, here's what it

5:14

costs. We should think about our products

5:16

the same way. People come to us for a

5:18

reason. They know more or less what

5:20

types of things we offer and we

5:23

should have no shame in saying, this is how I

5:25

can help you. This is the price of that. I'm

5:27

not here to convince you, but if

5:30

you want it, it's here. If you

5:32

believe that your product is worth

5:34

the trade of cash that it requires,

5:36

you should feel compelled to get that

5:38

in front of as many people as possible.

5:41

Think of it more as an offer than a pitch. It's

5:44

more about saying, this is here if you want it

5:47

and not about, hey, take this. I want you to

5:49

take this. No, it's, hey,

5:51

I know a lot of people like you have this problem. I

5:54

have a solution for that. It's over here. It

5:57

costs this much. If you want it, you can have

5:59

it. No pressure. That's the way

6:01

I like to think about my work and maybe that will

6:03

help you as well. Do

6:06

you want to also ask are there any parts of the job

6:08

you really dislike? Yeah, I

6:10

mean I am perpetually

6:12

on the journey of trying to do less of

6:15

the things I dislike and more of the things

6:17

that I do like. The

6:19

thing that I dislike the most is the stress

6:21

that comes with running a business to be honest

6:23

and when I break this down it comes from

6:26

financial stress. Is there enough revenue coming in

6:28

to cover the expenses that we put out?

6:31

It comes from deadline stress. Do

6:33

we have something prepared to publish on the dates that

6:35

we want to publish? So that's the thing that bothers

6:38

me the most is just the stress that comes with

6:40

those and this year my one goal is reducing

6:42

the stress in the business and my

6:44

life and that looks like

6:46

getting ahead of publishing. It looks like increasing

6:49

our net income or our margins and

6:53

yeah, that's like the number one thing outside

6:55

of that like the tasks that I don't

6:57

enjoy. You

6:59

know administrative things take up time. They're

7:01

not the most fun things. They're not the

7:04

most high leverage things, but I'm getting

7:06

better at delegating those things. I certainly

7:08

have a long way to go. Editing

7:10

isn't really my zone of genius either.

7:12

So editing isn't my favorite thing

7:14

to do. Engaging quote-unquote

7:16

for the sake of engagement and getting in

7:19

front of new audience members. That's not my

7:21

favorite thing to do. I really

7:23

like tinkering and I like making things.

7:25

So outside of the creation of

7:28

things that I'm excited about or outside

7:31

of conversations with people that I enjoy

7:33

talking to, everything else pales by comparison.

7:36

But you know, I'm spending less and less time

7:38

doing anything. I dislike. I found last year that

7:40

speaking isn't one of my favorite things. So

7:43

I've really changed my approach to speaking or

7:45

collaboration. So I do less guest

7:48

presentations, I would call it. I like

7:50

speaking from a stage and going to events,

7:52

but I don't like guest

7:55

presentations as much. So I've just

7:57

stopped doing that. The

7:59

next question comes from Chanel Vasilio. Chanel

8:01

writes a fantastic newsletter called Growth in

8:04

Reverse. It breaks down how people

8:06

got to 50,000 email newsletter subscribers, so if you

8:08

don't subscribe, you should check it out. But she

8:10

asks, where do your most valuable email subscribers

8:12

come from? And I like this question. I

8:15

hadn't really put enough thought into this before.

8:17

But something that I found in researching my responses

8:20

question is the subscribers

8:22

that I get from ConvertKit's Creator

8:24

Network have a 42% open

8:26

rate to my emails. And

8:28

all other subscribers average about 40%. This

8:31

surprised me because people often,

8:33

when they think about recommendations or

8:35

referral programs in newsletters, they assume

8:37

that the quality of subscribers is

8:40

lower than your

8:42

typical. And I found that

8:44

actually the subscribers I get from ConvertKit's Creator

8:46

Network is not only

8:48

on par, but a little bit higher. So

8:51

that's just one metric though, right? That's open rates.

8:54

I do find that when

8:56

we talk about most valuable subscribers, these

8:59

subscribers that become customers typically are

9:02

drawn in from some other platform first.

9:04

Like if somebody goes from podcast listener

9:07

to email subscriber, that person is

9:09

going to know me a lot better, trust me a

9:11

lot more out of the box and are more likely

9:13

to join the lab or purchase a course or something

9:15

like that. So if we're talking about

9:17

value in terms of monetary

9:20

return, probably from the

9:22

podcast, maybe from YouTube, maybe

9:24

social media. I do find that the folks that

9:27

I connect with on Twitter tend

9:29

to be more likely

9:31

to become customers than folks on

9:33

Instagram or threads. I

9:35

think it beats out LinkedIn as well. So

9:38

typically, if people come from one of my other

9:40

platforms, Twitter, podcast,

9:43

YouTube, if they

9:45

join my free email course on becoming

9:47

a professional creator, that also

9:49

tees them up to really appreciate

9:51

my writing style and trust me. So

9:54

yeah, as much as I

9:56

want to say like the ConvertKit creator network subscribers have

9:58

a higher open rate than other subscribers. when

10:00

I also query that list by customers, they

10:03

don't become customers as quickly because they don't know

10:05

me yet. So

10:07

anytime they come from somewhere where

10:09

they've already interacted with my content, the better

10:12

off. Next we have

10:14

a question from John Meese that actually inspired

10:16

my latest essay. He says, I

10:18

built a really great high paying job for myself as

10:20

an entrepreneur, but I'm thinking more and more about how

10:22

to build my business as an asset rather than a

10:24

job. What's your take on this? I'd love to know.

10:27

So I actually refer to this problem as platinum

10:29

handcuffs. It's like a step above your typical golden

10:31

handcuffs that a lot of us have heard of.

10:34

And if you haven't, the idea of golden handcuffs is

10:37

you're working a job that you don't

10:39

really love, but they pay you so well that

10:41

you can't imagine quitting and giving up that compensation

10:43

and starting from zero. So we

10:45

see this a lot with creators as well because as a

10:48

creator, publishing content brings

10:50

more attention to you, more awareness

10:52

to you than the typical person.

10:55

And so you're gonna have your

10:57

supply and demand equation for your time gets

10:59

even more skewed than the average person. You

11:02

have more demand for your time, but the

11:04

same amount of supply as anybody else. So

11:07

very quickly you realize as a creator

11:09

that you can charge high hourly rates

11:11

for your time. And

11:13

you probably indulge in doing that. You

11:15

start selling some of it, either as

11:17

one-on-one time or a group program, something

11:20

where there's direct access to you, you can

11:23

charge pretty high prices. And

11:26

after a while your lifestyle escalates, so you

11:28

start selling more of your time. And

11:30

soon you've tapped out all of your time, you're selling all of

11:32

it, you're making a lot of money, but you may

11:34

have lifestyle creeps, so you're both time

11:37

poor and cash poor. It's

11:39

hard because a lot of people get into the

11:41

creator game because they want to decouple their time

11:43

from money, but the money for their time is

11:45

so good that it's hard to

11:48

turn down, especially as your cost

11:50

of living grows. And especially if

11:52

that cost of living is in things like a

11:54

mortgage or schooling for your kids. So

11:57

to try and get out of this, you

11:59

have to... invest in yourself and

12:01

your ability to create generative

12:04

assets that can be leveraged. Digital

12:07

products, content generally, you

12:09

know, your revenue model needs

12:12

to provide value to

12:14

the end user with

12:16

an input that is not your time. You're

12:19

always going to involve your time in creating

12:21

the asset, but the asset itself should be

12:23

generative so that your time is not involved.

12:25

For some creators, this is all sponsorship. They

12:28

create content, they get a lot of eyeballs,

12:31

and they monetize that attention with

12:33

a third party's product or service. But

12:36

I really like, if possible, creating

12:38

your own direct lines of revenue with

12:40

your own product. And I recognize not

12:42

all creators are in the education space.

12:44

We're not all teaching or providing transformation.

12:47

So it's harder for someone who's more on

12:49

the entertainment side to create especially

12:52

a high priced direct product.

12:55

But if you can, that's a great way to go.

12:57

If you can't, you can get more creative. You

12:59

know, we had Sarah Renee Clark

13:01

on an episode of the podcast. Her

13:04

YouTube channel is all about helping

13:06

adults learn and appreciate

13:08

coloring. And not only

13:10

does she create coloring books, she

13:12

created this physical product called the Color Cube

13:14

that provides a bunch of color palettes and

13:17

inspiration. And that's a fairly high priced thing. I

13:19

think it's $100 or $200.

13:22

And her audience loves it. Because

13:24

not only is it practical and

13:27

provide utility, but it gives them a way

13:30

to support the channel in a way that

13:32

also is not just like pure charity. So

13:35

I think you have to start buying back

13:37

some of your time if you find yourself

13:39

wearing platinum handcuffs. And

13:41

depending on how tight your expenses

13:44

are, how much margin you have, you

13:47

can go fast or slow in this direction. In the

13:50

beginning, it might start as like working with

13:52

one fewer one on one client, and

13:54

being really disciplined to say that time that I'm saving from that

13:57

one on one client, I'm going to funnel into creating a new product.

13:59

So I think that's a great way to start. creating my own asset

14:01

that can be leveraged over and over again.

14:03

Books are another great example. I

14:06

know books take a lot of investment of

14:08

time and they're not guaranteed to be successful. And

14:11

if they are successful, it might take a lot of time. But

14:13

you don't need to have a traditional publisher. Oftentimes,

14:16

if you want a financial return, self-publishing

14:19

may be the better path for the

14:21

majority of people. But

14:23

you've got to produce assets that do not

14:25

require your time. But once

14:28

you build an audience, you can

14:30

introduce that asset to that audience and

14:33

they purchase it. And then the

14:35

law of big numbers kind of comes into play where the more

14:37

people you reach, the more people buy, you start

14:40

gaining the freedom to buy back more and more of your time.

14:43

Ironically, the more time of yours that you buy back, the

14:45

less time you have available for

14:47

sale, your supply and demand

14:49

equation moves again. You have the opportunity

14:52

to charge even higher prices for your

14:54

time. So you have to be brave.

14:56

It's hard. And depending

14:58

on your requirements, your

15:00

situation, it might be a slower

15:02

shift than others. But the

15:04

best thing is to avoid the platinum handcuffs in

15:07

the first place. Make sure that

15:09

you're reserving enough of your time to invest

15:11

in the building systems and generative assets. Next,

15:14

we have a question from Susan Bowles. And

15:17

actually, we had related questions from Kavan and

15:19

Brett on Twitter as well. Susan

15:21

asks, I'd love to hear your thought process on developing

15:23

Creator HQ. This notion template I was just telling you

15:26

about a little bit ago. Why that

15:28

product? How you approach thinking about what should be included

15:30

or not included, etc. So

15:33

for me, I've been really interested

15:35

in changing my business from being

15:37

so reliant on memberships to being

15:39

more reliant on digital products. Again,

15:41

both are what I would call

15:44

leveraged assets. Memberships

15:46

aren't totally passive. You know, like

15:48

there's a lot of involvement that both my wife and

15:50

I have in the lab. But

15:52

digital products, those are

15:54

just feel magical, you know, you invest the

15:57

time in creating these things, but you can

15:59

sell them. over and over and over again,

16:02

generate revenue from them and there's no fulfillment on

16:04

the back end. And for a

16:06

long time, digital products in my business was

16:08

synonymous with like self-paced

16:10

course. And I

16:12

think self-paced courses are great. I'm super proud

16:14

of Build a Beloved Membership, my membership course

16:17

in particular, and I

16:19

love selling that product. But I

16:21

was asking myself, what are digital products that I

16:23

can create that don't require

16:26

the effort of education

16:29

on the part of the user?

16:31

What is something I can promise that is out

16:34

of the box, more utility? And

16:36

I started thinking about this

16:38

notion template idea because every time

16:40

I showed another creator what

16:43

my notion setup looked like, it

16:45

just blew their mind. They're like, I need this. And

16:48

I didn't even really have it in the format where I

16:50

could give it to people at the time. It would take

16:52

time to templatize it, make it

16:54

more broadly useful than my

16:56

specific use case. So

16:59

it just took time, but a lot of people asked for it. It

17:02

seemed like something that could provide a lot of value out

17:04

of the box without teaching somebody a skill

17:06

and then requiring them to go put that skill into

17:08

action to see the result. I just

17:10

wanted to sell something that people could implement

17:13

and get a result super quickly. Because

17:16

I think the speed at which you

17:18

can provide a result to somebody and

17:20

have that result seen by somebody else is

17:23

where you unlock a lot of word of mouth referral. I

17:26

was talking to Charlie Hone recently

17:29

about writing books. And

17:31

he said, the greatest thing a book can do can

17:34

create a result for somebody else so

17:36

quickly that people around them ask

17:38

about it. And they can say, well,

17:40

I read this book and it really helped me

17:42

do this thing. But I think that's such

17:44

a great insight for any product.

17:46

If you can create an outcome for somebody

17:49

so quickly that other people notice, you're

17:51

gonna unlock so much word of mouth. So

17:53

I wanted to give it a shot. And it

17:56

took several months to build this the way that

17:58

I wanted. And

18:00

there are a lot of things that are in my

18:02

Notion setup that I had to change or remove or

18:04

make more clear. Because the

18:07

thing with Notion templates generally is that

18:10

they don't do a very good job of explaining how

18:12

it works or how to make changes. So

18:14

people buy it, they're excited about it, but

18:16

then they feel underprepared and implementing

18:19

it or changing it. Their

18:21

word, they're gonna break it. It's too

18:23

heavy duty. It requires too much Notion

18:25

knowledge. So my thing was I

18:27

really wanted to integrate

18:29

a lot of training and tutorials right

18:32

into the tool itself. So

18:34

that as you're using it, it becomes really

18:36

obvious how to use that how to make changes.

18:38

If you're not sure how something works, there's like

18:41

information right there on the page or a video

18:43

that explains it. So it took a lot

18:45

of time to do that. And so far, the

18:47

people that are trying it out in the lab, they're having really

18:49

good experiences of getting a lot of great feedback. And I haven't

18:51

had to change much, which is awesome. Brett

18:54

says that, hey, people get it

18:56

and they like it. And

18:58

they aren't asking for anything additional because

19:01

I think if anything, it's probably too

19:03

big. But I wanted to

19:05

be thorough. And everything that I

19:07

use, I think is going to be

19:09

useful to somebody. Maybe not all of it will be useful

19:11

to everybody. But everyone

19:14

who uses it should find multiple things

19:16

there that are helpful. So

19:18

to tack on to that, both Kavan and Brett

19:20

basically asked, how do you figure

19:23

out what to build or sell next? And

19:25

how much do you listen to your customers or

19:27

your instinct? And what to sell next? So

19:30

in the beginning, a lot of people will tell you, hey, you've

19:33

got to validate your ideas before

19:35

you build them. And I

19:37

did that for a while, like the way

19:39

I would validate course ideas would be that

19:41

I'd think about the benefits of

19:43

the course, the outcome of it. And

19:46

I would stand up a sales page that promises

19:48

that outcome and kind of acts

19:51

as if the course exists and

19:53

say this is on presale, it will launch by this

19:55

time. And I'd tell people if

19:57

10 people buy, then I will make it. the

20:00

way I'd validate ideas. But as

20:02

I've gotten older and I know my customer better,

20:04

the ideas kind of

20:06

become obvious. Like my problem isn't

20:09

what should I build in terms of like

20:11

I need ideas. I have lots of

20:14

ideas. The problem is what do I pick? And

20:17

increasingly, what I wish I would have

20:19

done sooner was make fewer

20:21

things. I think really what

20:23

you need is one signature product that

20:25

is aligned with the overall goal and promise

20:28

of your business. And

20:30

you can just do that

20:32

really well and make it better and make it better

20:34

and make it better. If you have a signature product

20:36

that is super aligned with the goal of your business,

20:39

then actually that product itself can grow top

20:41

of funnel not only that sitting bottom of

20:43

funnel, but making it so good

20:45

that it grows top of funnel creates this beautiful

20:47

flyable for the whole business. If you think about

20:49

build a second brain, if you

20:52

think about right of passage ship 30

20:54

for 30, those products were like

20:56

the only product in those suites for a long

20:58

time and it just made it better and better

21:00

and better. And the brand itself grew

21:03

top of funnel for the business. So

21:05

over the last six, 12

21:07

months, I've been looking at

21:10

the business as a whole, the creator science business and

21:12

saying, what is the optimal

21:15

product suite? I have all

21:17

these digital products that exist. But

21:19

really, I want a smaller product

21:21

suite that applies to the average

21:24

creator who enters my ecosystem. Because

21:27

my best selling course right now is called build a

21:29

beloved membership. It's only relevant if you

21:31

want to build a membership. That's not the

21:33

majority of my subscribers. And I don't

21:36

have a product that applies to the majority of my

21:38

subscribers. The lab is another example. That's

21:40

for like the highest tier of creator

21:42

in my audience, which is

21:45

the smallest segment. So

21:47

I was really annoyed with myself that I didn't

21:49

build a product

21:51

that served the majority of

21:53

my audience. And creator

21:55

HQ now does that. I'm building another

21:57

membership called creator school, which I mentioned on the

22:00

podcast. before, that is coming after

22:02

Creator HQ and that's an educational product

22:04

that will take people from, I want

22:07

to be a creator to I'm

22:09

making money as a creator and at that

22:11

point they're eligible for the lab. So the

22:14

product is Creator HQ, Creator School,

22:16

the lab, and then I want to stop

22:18

making products. Anything else that I

22:20

make outside of that will live

22:22

within Creator School and

22:25

or the lab, but I

22:27

really don't want to have a ton of

22:29

different paid products because then becomes

22:31

difficult to market all of them. You

22:34

kind of get to a point where they're

22:36

competing with each other in your own

22:38

content for what do you talk about and

22:41

I just think it's too complicated. So

22:43

I'm really trying to simplify the product suite as a whole

22:45

and so everything that I'm making

22:47

is really on the journey of how

22:50

do I make something that serves

22:52

somebody at every step of the journey.

22:54

I wanted the product that serves the

22:56

average listener, viewer, subscriber,

22:58

that's Creator HQ. I wanted

23:01

a product that could educate people to go from

23:04

point A to point B, point B being I'm

23:06

making money as a creator now and

23:08

then at that point they could graduate to the

23:10

lab if there's space. Okay,

23:13

I'm gonna catch my breath. We're gonna take a

23:15

minute to hear from our sponsors but when we

23:17

come back I'm going to talk about some of

23:19

the future vision of Creator Science. Then we're gonna

23:21

move into my Instagram questions so don't go anywhere.

23:23

We'll be right back. D2C

23:26

Pod hosted by Ramon Barrios and Blaine

23:28

Bolas is brought to you by the

23:30

HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for

23:32

business professionals. D2C Pod is

23:34

a podcast about all things direct

23:36

to consumer. Ramon and Blaine cover

23:38

everything for starting, growing, and optimizing

23:40

ecommerce stores and D2C brands. They

23:42

talk with founders, marketers, and creators

23:44

and cover topics like brand building,

23:46

social media, influencer marketing, website conversion,

23:49

paid media, consumer trends, email marketing,

23:51

and more. So if you're interested

23:53

in the stories behind your favorite

23:55

consumer brands, listen to D2C Pod

23:57

wherever you get your podcasts. If

24:00

you know me, you know how much I

24:02

believe in memberships. My membership is the core

24:04

of my business and earning an income directly

24:06

from your audience is one of the most

24:08

sustainable ways for you to become a professional

24:10

creator too. So I want to tell you

24:13

about today's sponsor, UScreen. UScreen is

24:15

a beautiful all-in-one platform that helps content

24:17

creators earn a living from their videos

24:19

by unlocking predictable recurring revenue. You can

24:21

host private live streams to your members,

24:23

build an on-demand catalog of premium content

24:26

and UScreen gives you a community hub

24:28

to interact with your members too. They

24:30

can access your community from their mobile phone

24:32

so your membership is right there in their

24:34

pocket. With a UScreen account, you

24:37

get video hosting, an out-of-the-box website, full

24:39

payment and subscription management, and plenty of

24:41

third-party integrations too. And UScreen

24:43

makes it easy to get set up.

24:45

You get access to powerful website themes

24:48

that are fully brandable with no coding

24:50

skills required. UScreen will even provide

24:52

a dedicated success manager for you. Just

24:54

about anyone that wants to make money from

24:57

their content can do it with UScreen. It's

24:59

perfect for coaches, authors, influencers, and entrepreneurs in

25:01

just about any niche. Right

25:03

now, UScreen is used by creators

25:06

in fitness, education, news, kids entertainment,

25:08

and more. That includes yoga

25:10

with Adrienne and CreatorNow just to name

25:12

a couple. UScreen is the platform for

25:14

building a video membership site that is

25:16

great for generating a sustainable income for

25:18

professional creators. If you create video content

25:20

for your audience, I highly recommend checking

25:22

it out. If you're interested in

25:25

learning more about UScreen, visit uscreen.link.com. Welcome

25:36

back. We're still answering questions from the

25:38

lab right now. We've got a couple more. We have one

25:40

again from Joanna who asks, where do

25:42

you see the lab in five to 10 years

25:45

time? Do you have a long-term vision for the

25:47

business? The good thing about the

25:49

Creator Science brand is I think there's a future where

25:51

I actually build this as a sellable

25:53

asset if I wanted to. That's

25:57

why I wanted to build a brand name outside

25:59

of my own name. even though right

26:01

now you could probably argue that creator science and

26:03

Jay Klaus is pretty synonymous. But

26:05

I wanted to have the ability of

26:07

building a media company that could

26:09

actually be available for sale one day. And right

26:11

now I don't really see that as the

26:13

path, but I am still leaving that door

26:15

open. 10 years from now,

26:18

I want my career to be built

26:20

on books. I

26:22

see myself living the life of an author. And

26:24

that should be true. Definitely 10 years from

26:27

now. Five years might be a stretch. I'm

26:30

thinking all the time about the first book that

26:32

I will be writing. And

26:34

I can see that being published in the next

26:37

couple of years. And if that goes well, maybe

26:39

it accelerates my timeline towards being an author. That

26:42

book will serve you,

26:44

you know, it'll serve people listening to the show,

26:46

it'll serve people who read the newsletter, but it

26:48

might also start to bridge

26:50

into a larger audience. The

26:53

thing about being a creator, especially in

26:55

the way that I serve creators, we're

26:57

talking about entrepreneurs here, we're talking about

26:59

entrepreneurship. And entrepreneurship is a

27:02

small market in terms

27:04

of people, like number of people, it's

27:06

pretty small. Not a lot of people are cut out

27:08

for this, not a lot of people will stick with

27:10

it and find success doing it. And

27:13

I have strong

27:15

belief in myself,

27:17

my potential, what I

27:19

can contribute to the world. And

27:21

I think I could serve more people if I

27:24

applied myself to a more broad challenge.

27:27

So in the future, I

27:29

think my audience will be more broad. And

27:32

I think books will be the vessel that get

27:34

me there. But I don't know what

27:36

that looks like quite yet. The question I ask myself a

27:38

lot is, do I write a book

27:40

that is squarely serving my existing audience?

27:44

Or do I write a book that is kind of a bridge

27:46

to the future that serves my existing audience,

27:48

but also opens up to a larger audience? And

27:50

I think that's probably the route that I will

27:52

go. We Don't know

27:54

where this content world will go. Like

27:56

I Still believe that this is the

27:58

best way. To build

28:01

it. Personal agency and the world

28:03

and a lot of optionality for your

28:05

future. I think we're really

28:07

innings of the creator economy and create

28:09

a science has a leading role in

28:11

that. So. I want to maintain

28:13

that position. that momentum keep serving this audience

28:16

because the people that I me who come

28:18

in contact with me through my work Awesome

28:20

people. The people who I want to be

28:22

spending time with. But. Personally, I

28:25

want to be. An. Author:

28:27

Spending. More time and see

28:30

where. But. Bigger projects

28:32

most likely books. And.

28:34

That will be through ten years from now. We'll see about

28:37

five. Last. Question from

28:39

the lab and loan from Susan She says i

28:41

love to hear about how you're planning for parental

28:43

leave. Flash balancing the baby and the

28:45

business for you in Mallory, especially now that

28:47

you're both and business. So. He

28:49

don't now. My wife Mallory join the

28:51

business full time in January. And

28:54

she's also pregnant and we're having a

28:56

kid. Or first kid. The Center. And.

28:59

It's really, really important to me. That.

29:02

She has. As. Much.

29:05

Maternity. Leave as you would want, As

29:07

also important me that I take some paternity leave.

29:09

By being the two biggest drivers in the

29:12

business. In the business thriving on

29:14

content that is usually behind my

29:16

name is not my face. And

29:18

voice. There's. A lot

29:20

of ongoing stuff that needs to

29:22

happen. After. Birth That

29:25

includes me. And

29:27

so. Really? My. Timeline

29:29

looks like. Getting. Creed or his

29:31

Q Out because I think it's one of the best things I've

29:33

ever made of. Not do that thing as mean. I.

29:36

Know that it is going

29:38

to be broadly helpful to

29:40

any creator. I think if

29:42

I do my job right, Greater it's Que

29:45

becomes a product that when you enter the

29:47

creator science ecosystem is is a no brainer

29:49

to purchase and make part of your business.

29:52

If. I do that well. That I

29:54

think it will have a good financial outcome and

29:56

over leave a lot of financial pressure that are

29:58

talking about earlier. And. be like

30:01

probably our biggest revenue generator is

30:03

what I'm hoping. After

30:05

Creator HQ comes Creator School,

30:08

that's a content first membership, that's a membership where I

30:10

am doing a lot of teaching. There

30:12

is not a cap the way the lab has had

30:14

a cap historically. And it's

30:16

going to be designed in such a way that no

30:18

matter how many people are in there, it's

30:21

not really taking more of my time. Like

30:23

whether I have 100 members or 300 members,

30:26

the amount of time that I put into Creator School will

30:28

be the same. So those are

30:30

the revenue generating activities that I'm putting in

30:32

place, I think will give us a lot

30:35

more financial breathing room. Because

30:37

if we have products that can

30:40

be sold infinitely at

30:42

no incremental cost, then

30:44

the game is just getting more

30:46

attention. It's really a world

30:48

where I just focus on creating great content,

30:51

publishing it, having the systems on

30:53

the back end that introduce

30:55

these paid products to people consuming

30:57

the content. And that

30:59

grows the business. If I

31:01

do that, my time is really just dedicated in

31:04

content and relationships, and that's what I want. I

31:06

want the products to exist on the

31:08

back end to serve people, but I

31:10

really want to focus on the front end of

31:13

getting in front of more people. And that's

31:15

where a lot of my time is spent because the

31:17

back end is built. That's the goal, it's

31:19

gonna be tough since we both spend a

31:21

lot of time in the business now as is, but

31:24

up until January, it was really just

31:26

me outside of the contractors who helped

31:28

produce and edit. And

31:30

after birth, it will return to

31:32

that for a period of time. And

31:35

hopefully I've set things up by then to

31:38

be even more systematized. We're gonna leverage my

31:40

wonderful assistant, Izzy, some more as

31:43

well. We're elevating our

31:45

audio engineer from just an audio

31:47

engineering role into a producer role.

31:49

So I'm trying to get the

31:52

team even more involved and incentivized,

31:54

and these products do well. We'll have

31:56

the financial means to make it worth

31:58

everybody's while. Moving

32:01

on to Instagram, first question comes from YesRoots.

32:03

They say, I'm at the beginning of my

32:05

creator journey still figuring out what my offering

32:07

will be. I've heard you talk about how

32:09

earlier in your journey you put together mastermind

32:12

groups aka micro communities. How did you go

32:14

about getting your first couple of groups together

32:17

and how did what you were offering

32:19

to those groups change over time? So

32:21

this is good research. Back in 2017 when I started my business,

32:25

I was facilitating mastermind groups as my first

32:27

offering. You can think about this as group

32:29

coaching. We had five people per group

32:31

and I'd usually work with three to four groups at a

32:33

time. So 15 to 20 people at a time. The

32:37

challenging thing with any group program is

32:40

that you have this time-bound nature which

32:42

is nice because you have like built-in

32:45

urgency saying the group takes off on

32:47

this time and ends on this time. But

32:49

that means that you also have to

32:51

herd all the cats to

32:54

being ready on the same time frame. You know,

32:56

hey we're getting started a month from now. I

32:59

need your commitment now. And

33:01

in the meanwhile, you're like playing this puzzle

33:03

of these five people fit together. Do the

33:05

time zones work? Do the projects make sense?

33:08

A lot of people before they commit to a group

33:10

program are also asking who else is involved and

33:13

it's kind of a staring contest where you have to get one person

33:15

to commit and then you can say, well this person's involved. Now two

33:17

people commit. You say, well these two people are involved. So

33:20

it was very manual. It was a lot

33:22

of direct communication. It was

33:24

a lot of outreach. You know, it wasn't

33:27

sending an email and saying I've got five

33:30

spots or 15 spots. I

33:32

didn't have an audience at that time. It

33:34

was really having conversations, spending a lot of

33:36

time meeting people and if they felt like

33:38

they were a fit for the program, I would make a note. And

33:41

then the two or three times the program was available throughout the

33:43

year, I'd reach out and say, hey how are you doing? Last

33:45

time we talked, I made a note that you were trying to

33:47

do this thing. Is that still true? If

33:50

so, I'm starting this program and it might make sense to

33:52

have a conversation. Just get them on the phone. I was

33:55

much better at selling them In conversation,

33:57

whether it's on the phone or video or in

33:59

person. And I was an email. This.

34:02

Is meaning people ahead of time

34:04

keeping good records, having a conversation

34:06

over the phone, And.

34:09

Yeah, that was. There is very manual

34:11

I remember. I did the

34:13

mass. I literally had to sell these

34:15

groups in order to make rents and

34:17

afford. Being self employed,

34:19

I knew that like okay as the

34:22

twelve week program. It. Costs four

34:24

hundred dollars per person. And.

34:26

It takes a month to market their so have

34:29

to think about four months of expenses. Paid.

34:31

By. This. Team People. At.

34:34

Four hundred dollars is very, very tight

34:36

and it also meant that I couldn't

34:38

sale. So. I'd have a whiteboard in my

34:40

room. For. The studio apartment time. But.

34:43

I would see it all time outright. The

34:45

numbers one through fifteen on the board. And.

34:48

When I had somebody dies Thought was a good.

34:51

Lead some of the at I thought would join

34:53

the group. I would write their name underneath

34:55

one of those numbers. And once

34:57

they committed what they paid, I would

34:59

circle the number. So I basically had

35:01

three or four weeks. Two.

35:04

Or three times per year. When. I

35:06

would do this board exercise. And

35:09

I had the circle fifteen numbers in order

35:11

to make rent. And

35:13

this is why did failure wasn't an

35:15

option. So as I wasn't getting fifteen

35:17

people. Are have more conversations.

35:20

At it was tough, it was. It was

35:22

rough. The timing was hard, selling was hard.

35:24

It didn't have an audience. The.

35:26

Program itself stayed relatively. The.

35:29

Same. Was the mastermind programs

35:31

that wasn't be teaching it with me tear

35:33

eating. Good groups of people. I can

35:35

learn from each other and hold each other accountable.

35:38

Towards the end this is rising of

35:40

cove it i did one cohort were

35:42

it was very educational is me presenting

35:44

things and it was about being a

35:46

creator. And that was received

35:48

really well because. It. Just

35:50

felt like I had more structure. add more to offer.

35:53

it was more obvious what i was offering

35:55

it wasn't just hey trust me you're going

35:57

to enjoy learning from these their five people

36:00

It was, hey, I'm going to teach you this skill in

36:03

a small group. And that worked well,

36:05

but then COVID happened. And I don't know if you actually

36:07

remember the beginning of COVID, but people didn't know what the

36:09

heck was going on. And they

36:11

didn't want to spend anything on anything. So

36:14

at that point, I started consulting more.

36:18

And that led to working with Pat Flynn at

36:20

Smart Passive Income. He acquired the

36:23

mastermind program and community that went with it. So

36:25

I worked with Pat for a year. And

36:27

then that was really a year of

36:30

me building the audience more

36:32

broadly. And that gave me

36:34

a lot of optionality coming out of that first year

36:36

at SPI. The

36:38

next question comes from Katie Macon on Instagram.

36:40

Katie was actually an early member of Unreal

36:42

Collective. So it's great to hear from you,

36:44

Katie. And she says, I got a book

36:46

deal. Huzzah! I'm going to

36:48

start an adjacent podcast where the writing is

36:51

done later this spring. Do you have any

36:53

tips? And will I be lampooning platform growth

36:55

if I start audio only for the podcast?

36:57

Or is that fine to start? First

37:00

of all, Katie, congrats on the book deal. When

37:02

I first met Katie, she was making this

37:04

great deck of cards called Compass Cards. Very

37:07

fun projects. It's very fun to see you grow

37:09

and make new things. I'm excited for your book

37:11

deal. An audio only podcast does

37:14

not build an audience. That's the thing that

37:16

you need to know. Audio

37:18

only podcasts are not new

37:20

audience acquisition. They

37:22

are relationship builders. So

37:24

if your goal is to deepen your relationships

37:27

with the people that you're already reaching, audio

37:29

podcast is fine. It's a great way to do it.

37:31

The people who do listen to it spend a lot

37:33

of time with you. At this point in this episode,

37:36

if you're listening to this right now, which you are,

37:38

you've now spent 35 minutes with me,

37:40

which is like watching 35 consecutive

37:43

reels. It's much

37:45

longer, much more in depth, much more nuanced.

37:48

So audio is a great way to build relationships,

37:50

but if you're trying to

37:52

build an audience or reach new audience so

37:55

that you can promote the book, audio

37:57

is not the way. YouTube would be better.

38:00

But long form video podcasts

38:02

are also a difficult format

38:04

on YouTube. So if

38:07

you really want to grow audience and

38:09

you message me on Instagram about this,

38:11

Instagram is a better place to be

38:13

probably because it's a huge overall

38:15

audience in terms of users on that platform

38:18

and reels can get a lot of reach. So

38:21

in terms of tips, if you are going to do an

38:24

audio podcast, spend a

38:26

lot of time making the art

38:28

good. People underestimate the importance

38:30

of cover art for a show. Think

38:34

about what makes the premise of your show

38:36

unique and referable. Like the

38:38

format is typically not the

38:40

most unique part of the show. It's

38:42

really the premise. Like hot ones is

38:44

an interesting premise. It's a celebrity interview, but they're

38:47

doing it while eating chicken wings or song exploder

38:49

is a great premise because it's

38:51

not just interviewing an artist. It's actually breaking down

38:53

one of their songs piece by piece. So

38:56

what is the unique premise of your podcast that

38:58

just the idea of it gets people excited to

39:00

listen to it. And it's also something that people

39:03

can feel special for discovering and want

39:05

to recommend to other people. That's

39:07

the best way to grow an audio show is to have a

39:09

unique premise. You got to make sure

39:11

that the audio is good. And

39:13

I mean like the quality of the audio, but also the

39:15

edit, you know, don't just

39:18

assume because people do listen to podcasts that

39:20

people will want to listen to 60 minutes

39:22

of unedited audio. So if

39:24

you respect people's attention and do a

39:27

good job of editing it, making it sound good, I

39:30

think that kind of covers it. I found

39:32

some research recently that said that people need

39:35

to listen to three of your

39:37

podcast episodes before they become a regular listener.

39:40

And so make your first three episodes good,

39:43

make them really good. Realize

39:45

that the first couple of episodes you record

39:48

might be so bad that you're better off scrapping

39:50

them than publishing them. A lot of

39:52

people still go back to episode one of this show

39:54

and they hear about it. And I'm so glad that

39:56

I took a lot of time to make episode one

39:58

good. It's with Seth Godin. Episode two is with James

40:01

Clear. I feel like I really put

40:03

a good foot forward, but a lot of

40:05

people will be like, I'm just gonna put the first one I

40:07

record as episode one, and it's not

40:09

a great audition. So think

40:11

about that if you're gonna go audio only, but the biggest

40:13

thing I would stress is audio only is

40:15

a relationship builder, not an audience builder.

40:19

After one more quick break for our sponsors,

40:21

we're gonna get to the rest of my

40:23

questions from Instagram and LinkedIn. The next question

40:25

is about creating a good lead magnet. I

40:27

have some opinions there, so don't go anywhere,

40:29

we'll be right back. If

40:33

you work with clients and you

40:35

want to grow your top line

40:37

revenue without growing a big payroll

40:39

at the same time, then consider

40:41

attending the Solopreneur Summit, a VIP

40:43

event hosted by my friend, Ken

40:45

Yarmish. Ken has personally closed over

40:47

$50 million in his

40:49

career as a solopreneur, all in professional

40:52

services. I've learned a lot from Ken,

40:54

and he's worked with some of the

40:56

biggest names today. People like Matt Barker,

40:58

Naxin Chen, Laura Acosta, and Jake Ward

41:01

trust Ken to get clearer offers and

41:03

scale their business with systems. Now,

41:06

Ken is running a two-day in-person summit

41:08

on May 9th and 10th to help

41:10

you build systems across marketing, sales, and

41:13

client delivery. So now you too can

41:15

grow without hiring. This'll be a workshop

41:17

setting. It's the anti-loud obnoxious conference with

41:19

no more than 50 people who will

41:22

go deep with Ken and other experts

41:24

that he's brought in to solve actual

41:26

problems in your business. Ken and his

41:29

invited experts will show you their proven

41:31

systems across personal branding, driving inbound leads,

41:33

social selling, crafting scalable offers, using

41:36

AI to automate client delivery, and

41:38

more. Stop guessing and start learning

41:40

from those who are three to

41:42

five steps ahead of you. Get

41:44

actionable tactics and proven systems to

41:46

accelerate your pipeline, close more deals,

41:48

and get out of client delivery

41:50

hell. Head to trs.club.summit to

41:52

learn more and register for the

41:54

Solo Prenure Summit today. At that

41:57

website, you'll see some of the

41:59

other experts. that are coming in that will

42:01

allow you to go behind the scenes and look

42:03

at their actual businesses. Again,

42:05

that URL is trs.club.summit.

42:10

One last time, that's trs.club.summit.

42:15

You may or may not know that I have

42:17

a bit of a domain buying obsession. Whether it's

42:19

a new project idea or domains related to my

42:21

existing projects, I'm buying them all. I

42:24

have creatorscience.tv, creatorscience.fm. But let me

42:26

tell you about my newest purchase,

42:28

it's jclouse.bio. Connection

42:31

with your audience is everything. We make all

42:33

this content and then we want to direct

42:35

our audience somewhere. Well, a great new option

42:37

is with a .bio domain. Instead of some

42:39

long link tree or third party URL that

42:41

people can't understand and it's hard to say

42:44

out loud, using your .bio domain for your

42:46

link in bio lets you manage all your

42:48

links in one spot with a custom domain

42:50

that tells people exactly who you are. It's

42:53

short, it's memorable, it's professional. Your .bio

42:55

domain name is your way to share

42:57

yourself with the world. Right now,

42:59

you can get your own .bio domain name for less

43:01

than $3 at porkbun. Yes,

43:04

it's a real website and a real registrar. Just

43:07

visit porkbun.com/creator. That's

43:12

porkbun.com/creator. Let

43:15

me tell you about one of my favorite podcasts that

43:17

I've been listening to for years. It's called the $100

43:19

MBA Show. Wherever

43:22

you are on your business journey, the

43:24

$100 MBA Show has lessons that can

43:26

help you take the next step forward.

43:28

The $100 MBA Show is a Best

43:31

of Apple Podcast winner, literally one of

43:33

the top Apple Podcasts of all time.

43:35

It's hosted by my friend and former

43:37

guest, Omar Zenholm. Omar is a business

43:39

school dropout turned successful entrepreneur and he

43:41

shares real world lessons on starting, growing,

43:44

and scaling your business. You may

43:46

even know his software product, Webinar Ninja.

43:48

What I love about the $100 MBA

43:50

Show is that these are well-produced, bite-sized

43:53

episodes on everything from creating a product,

43:55

connecting with your market, sales, building a

43:57

team, and more. This show is

44:00

legit. It does over 2 million downloads

44:02

every month. Whether you're a

44:04

small-time solopreneur or scaling your startup to

44:06

investor level, there's valuable real-world advice for

44:09

you in the $100 MBAs

44:11

archive of thousands of episodes with new

44:13

episodes three days a week. If that

44:16

sounds interesting to you and it should,

44:18

just search for $100 MBA show wherever

44:20

you get your podcasts. Welcome

44:23

back. Our next question is from Janas

44:26

Ozilins. He says, what are the ingredients

44:28

for a good lead magnet? For

44:30

context, I don't create content about explaining ideas

44:32

visually, but that is what I teach in

44:34

my course. Some percentage of my followers find

44:37

that randomly on my website, newsletter, or from

44:39

affiliates, but it's a hard sell without any

44:41

warm up in email sequence or blog post.

44:43

I'm unsure what to deliver in a lead

44:45

magnet that would give value, build trust, and

44:48

convert well. So let me

44:50

restate this another way. Janas, you should

44:52

follow him on Instagram. Janas has wonderful

44:55

visuals on Instagram that are just

44:58

like candy in your feed. They candy

45:00

visually, but like they have some good,

45:03

deep thought to them. And

45:05

Janas is paid product is a course that

45:07

teaches people how to make visuals. So there's,

45:10

it's not direct alignment between who would enjoy

45:12

the work and who

45:14

would want the course because people can enjoy the

45:16

work without wanting to create visuals

45:18

themselves. So I see the problem here in

45:21

terms of lead magnets that are good. Quote

45:23

unquote, a good lead magnet, as you've kind

45:25

of already pointed out, gives

45:27

value, builds trust, and is

45:29

in alignment with your paid

45:31

product. So the

45:34

line to tow here is

45:36

how do I provide value

45:38

without also making it overwhelming?

45:40

Because some people will think I'm

45:43

going to make the best lead magnet ever.

45:45

And they make some giant thing that is

45:47

actually difficult to consume or get the outcome

45:49

from. And that's not a good

45:51

first experience. We don't want to just be overwhelmed and

45:53

think, Oh, this guy must be smart. We

45:56

want to get an outcome

45:58

from the lead magnet. So

46:00

where I see a lot of people screw up is either

46:03

they over engineer the thing so

46:05

that people don't actually consume it because what

46:07

you want is momentum. You want people to

46:10

download the thing, get the thing, use

46:12

the thing, find value in it, and then feel

46:14

smart or accomplished and

46:16

just want more from you. But if

46:18

I can't consume the whole thing then I'm gonna get stuck.

46:21

I'm gonna feel frustrated with myself and I probably won't

46:23

come back. So there are

46:25

a lot of different lead magnets that could work. That could be

46:27

a free resource. It could be

46:29

an email course. You know, the

46:31

best lead magnets are things that are

46:33

so useful that you could charge for them but

46:35

you make them free. I know this is all vague but

46:38

like there are so many possibilities I

46:40

don't want to tie you into a corner. I would

46:42

just think of what is something that

46:44

can provide value

46:46

that is easily consumable,

46:48

easily achievable, and it's aligned

46:51

with the course itself so

46:53

that once I do consume

46:56

or experience the lead magnet

46:59

the obvious next step is to

47:01

enroll in the course to get more. So

47:03

it might even be like, hey what's the

47:05

fastest result piece of the course that

47:07

I can make free? And then

47:09

people can use that they can get something out of it. You can

47:12

say, by the way, this is one lesson from my course where

47:14

I teach you this. Here's more about it.

47:16

Here's the benefits from the course. It

47:19

becomes kind of this layup but

47:21

you know the way that you're set up right

47:23

now there's going

47:25

to be some of inefficiency between the people who

47:27

see and enjoy your content and

47:30

the people who want to purchase this particular course.

47:33

For you, Giannis, or anyone in this situation, what

47:35

I would look at is how do I

47:37

frame Giannis the person so

47:40

that everyone coming in there's a

47:42

consistency behind what they want? You

47:44

know, right now it kind

47:46

of feels like you're you're framing everything behind

47:48

the idea of visuals but

47:51

visuals could cover any subject matter, any

47:53

problem, any whatever. I would

47:56

try to create some cohesion behind what's

47:58

the core theme behind it. everything

48:00

Yannis visualizes because

48:03

that will start to standardize the people that are

48:05

coming in. And then you can develop

48:08

a new paid offering that is

48:10

aligned with that standardized audience

48:13

avatar. Next,

48:15

we have a question from Ola Yemi. He says,

48:17

I'm close to launching my first podcast ever and

48:19

wanted to see if you had any advice on

48:21

finding new and exciting guests week to week. I've

48:23

gotten some really exciting people so far, but what

48:25

do I do when I run out of the

48:27

people in my immediate circle? Well,

48:29

Yemi, what I would think about is, do

48:32

I want to make this

48:34

an interview show only? I

48:36

think that interview podcasts are hard

48:38

to differentiate and therefore hard to

48:41

grow because so

48:44

many of them are so similar. What

48:46

makes your interview podcast different besides

48:48

the fact that you're hosting? Because

48:50

if you're trying to get the same guests that are on

48:52

a bunch of other shows and talk to them about the

48:54

same subject matter they're talking about on other shows, why

48:57

listen to your show versus the

49:00

person who already has a large following or

49:02

better access to these people or a pre-existing

49:04

relationship to these people. So

49:07

increasingly, if I were to start a

49:09

new podcast today, I would not predicated

49:11

on being an interview show

49:14

because I think it's harder to differentiate. I

49:17

would think about what is the unique premise that I can bring to

49:19

the table that is different than what other

49:21

people are doing. So

49:24

that's like my first advice. If you wanted to find

49:27

new and exciting guests, I think you have

49:29

to be a consumer. You have to curate

49:32

the information you're bringing in

49:34

and who you are hearing from and like

49:37

almost like a hunter. Who can

49:39

I find that is interesting

49:42

and different and speaks to this subject

49:44

matter that we're covering exploring on

49:47

the podcast that may not be

49:49

a big guest elsewhere? The

49:51

hard thing is when you're a hunter and you're finding

49:53

people who aren't like

49:55

career guests, they

49:58

typically don't have good

50:00

recording equipment, which makes the

50:02

audio product itself worse. So

50:04

I'm really lucky in this podcast in

50:07

that the people that I interview or

50:09

talk to, they typically have excellent recording

50:11

equipment and experience speaking. So

50:13

again, another reason why a great

50:15

way to build a podcast is not

50:18

by doing guest interviews, but

50:20

by figuring out what can I deliver

50:22

as an individual, just me. Like

50:24

how can I make people come to the show just for me?

50:27

And that might take research. It

50:29

might take a lot more

50:32

and unique consumption, but I think that's actually

50:34

the most differentiated way to go right now

50:36

is to build a podcast that's not based

50:38

on guests, but built on you. If

50:42

you have a good friend, the rapport

50:44

that you bring to a show when you have a

50:46

co-host who you already know and like, that

50:49

rapport is felt by the end

50:51

consumer. And it's a great way to

50:54

build a show more quickly than

50:56

guest interviews or even solo shows sometimes.

50:59

Elliot Zelinkis asks, how do I get my

51:01

name out there more specifically on Instagram? You

51:04

know, I'm not great at Instagram, so I'm probably not

51:06

the best person to ask this question. Ironically,

51:09

the best way that I've been growing my

51:11

Instagram account lately is just by growing my

51:13

YouTube account. The people who are following me

51:15

on Instagram seem to be finding me

51:18

on YouTube first, because I'm not even posting that

51:20

much on Instagram right now. This is the first

51:22

listener Q&A episode that I posted about on Instagram,

51:24

and I was surprised at how many responses I

51:26

got, and I was happy about that. But

51:29

Instagram is hard because it seems like

51:31

Instagram has really prioritized reels

51:33

above all else, and it's not even close.

51:35

So you're trying to get your name out

51:37

there on Instagram. It seems like you have

51:39

to be playing the game of reels right

51:41

now. And if you're playing the game of reels, you're

51:44

looking at trending audio,

51:47

trending memes and conversation.

51:49

You got to be

51:52

really good at hooking people's attention in the first

51:54

like three seconds. So you

51:56

know, this is true for Instagram. It's true for any platform.

51:58

If you want to see figure out how to play the

52:00

game, find the players that are

52:02

playing it really well, and study

52:04

their style. Break it down. Understand what they're doing that

52:07

makes it so good. Our most popular episode on the

52:09

YouTube channel is with Jenny Hoyos, and

52:11

she studied literally hundreds

52:14

of YouTube Shorts creators and thousands

52:16

of Shorts and broke down, okay,

52:18

what's working here? It

52:21

told her the format of how to make a good

52:23

Short. It told her the length of a good

52:25

Short. So studying the players who

52:27

are getting outside results is really the way to

52:29

go, but then you have to innovate. You have

52:32

to do something different. I mean, in the beginning,

52:34

you can model after what other people are doing

52:36

and kind of emulate them, but to

52:38

really stand out long term, you have to

52:41

innovate. And it takes courage,

52:43

and a lot of times it doesn't pay off. A

52:45

lot of times innovating doesn't work. And you

52:47

have to recognize that's part of the game. But

52:49

for Instagram specifically right now, it

52:51

really feels like you have to be using

52:55

Reels as a strategy. Moving

52:58

on to LinkedIn, we had a great

53:00

set of questions on LinkedIn. A

53:02

lot of them I already moved into our

53:05

YouTube video, but we're going to start with

53:07

Oscar Sanchez. Oscar, it's great to hear from you. He

53:09

says, what is the first step that new creators should

53:11

take to start seeing their effort as a business instead

53:13

of just a hobby? Well, the thing

53:15

about a business is it has to create

53:17

value for the end consumer and capture value

53:20

for the business. So you

53:22

have to ask yourself, okay, I can create

53:24

value. I can create value through the means

53:26

of content and sharing

53:29

things that I know will help people. What

53:31

is the mechanism for the business capturing value though? I

53:34

see a lot of people who create content, they

53:37

engage viewers, they get attention,

53:40

but they don't have any model for capturing

53:42

value for the business. And if you don't

53:44

do that, then you don't have a business.

53:46

You have probably an ego. And

53:49

I've been there, I get it. So the thing

53:51

that's made me different, I think, is

53:54

early, early, early on, I

53:56

was focused on how does this generate revenue for

53:58

me because I need it. I

54:01

went all in too early, I had

54:03

to pay rent, and so I had to

54:06

come up with a business model, a business

54:08

model that allowed me to generate revenue. So

54:10

if you're a creator, you have to be thinking, what

54:13

is the business model here? What's the revenue model? How

54:15

am I going to turn the attention that I'm able

54:17

to get, assuming I'm able to get attention, how am

54:20

I going to leverage that to

54:23

capture value for the business? Am

54:25

I selling my own product? Am

54:27

I selling my own service? Am

54:30

I redirecting that attention to a third party

54:32

product or service through the form of advertising

54:34

or affiliates? You have to nail

54:36

down your revenue model and make sure that it makes

54:38

sense. And literally model

54:40

it out, spread sheet it out, create projections.

54:43

How would this model work to

54:46

support me and maybe even

54:48

support a team someday? You have to

54:50

do that modeling to come up

54:52

with how this will work. Next

54:56

we have Ray McFerrin. Ray asks, you studied

54:58

creators of all types. What

55:00

have you found to be, if any,

55:03

the underlying skills or characteristics or experiences

55:05

or philosophies of the ones who are

55:07

able to build and sustain their business?

55:10

Well, Ray, I think the biggest thing is they've

55:13

been doing it for a long time. Like

55:15

we really underestimate the length of time that

55:17

some of our favorite creators have been at

55:20

this. I think about this a lot

55:22

with my interview with Vanessa Van Edwards, which was

55:24

super early on. I think it's like episode 21

55:26

or something. Vanessa has

55:28

a business called the Science of People, and

55:31

it's been really successful. But before she did

55:33

that, she spent like 10 years building an

55:35

entirely different business that was kind of similar,

55:38

but no one knows about it. So

55:40

even the stuff that isn't what we're known

55:43

for paves the way for

55:45

the things that we're known for. A lot of times

55:47

we spend so much time on both. So

55:49

time is a big one. The amount

55:52

of time that someone spends leading up to

55:54

their business or in building their business. The

55:56

second would be picking a subject

55:59

that they remain. curious about for a

56:01

long time. A lot of people think

56:03

they're burning out, but what they're actually doing is losing interest

56:05

in the thing that they're talking about, and

56:07

they fail to rekindle that or find

56:10

parts of it that remain interesting to them. And

56:12

if you don't retain interest in the thing that

56:14

you're talking about, then you're not gonna enjoy

56:17

doing it. It's inherently not sustainable. And

56:20

I think the last thing that I'll point out is people

56:23

who have been doing this for a long time are

56:26

relentless in making small

56:28

improvements that seem imperceptible, that

56:30

seem really micro,

56:33

but all these micro improvements,

56:35

these micro changes, these micro

56:37

experiments in the aggregate, they

56:40

add up to such a huge difference.

56:42

Like just small things that you push the

56:45

ball forward on every day, make

56:47

actual progress, not just maintain, but

56:50

small incremental progress every day really

56:53

adds up over these long time

56:55

spans that I'm talking about. My

56:57

friend Joe Gannon asked, how do you pick your podcast

56:59

guest? Do you have any secret sauce or are you

57:01

just winging it? In the beginning, I

57:03

was probably doing a little bit of

57:05

clout chasing. Like I was just trying to get

57:08

big names on the show because I thought

57:10

that's what would make the show legitimate and

57:12

grow the show. And that's what I think

57:14

a lot of people do. They become like

57:17

this collection of guests. But

57:19

what we try to do on the show is build a body

57:21

of work where each

57:24

episode is a contribution, teaching a

57:26

very specific and particular skill. And

57:29

so what we look at is where

57:31

are the gaps? What skill have

57:33

we not taught in depth? Because a lot

57:36

of interview podcasts are like

57:39

a profile of the guests saying this guest is

57:41

awesome. Let's talk about why this guest is awesome.

57:44

We are really doing like guest

57:47

workshops almost. I think about

57:49

it as conversational education. And

57:53

we're looking at this body of work as a whole and saying

57:56

what gaps have we not taught? And

57:59

who is the expert to build? bring in and present on

58:01

that, essentially. And I really personally

58:03

get a kick out of finding people who are

58:05

a little bit under

58:09

known, I don't wanna say unknown,

58:11

but like not as known as others, because

58:14

that's really fun to surface people early, shine

58:16

a light, shine a spotlight, give them the

58:19

platform. And also it

58:21

makes the episode inherently more unique to

58:23

bring someone in that isn't already doing

58:25

a ton of interviews. So we're looking

58:27

at what are the holes and

58:30

our syllabus and who's the best teacher to

58:32

bring in to fill that hole. Kieran

58:35

Drew asks, where do you see the

58:38

attention economy evolving with regard to quality

58:40

and quantity? Kieran has a lot

58:42

of success online. If you're not familiar with his name, you

58:44

should check out his work. And

58:46

what I've noticed in Kieran recently

58:48

is that he's really taken a step back

58:51

and being thoughtful and intentional about what he's

58:53

building and what he's publishing,

58:55

which I admire because I've

58:57

gone through this cycle as well. There's

59:01

this great video on YouTube. It's

59:03

a talk by Paul Safo at

59:05

something called the Long Now Foundation. It's

59:07

a group of futurists who try to

59:09

predict and look forward. And

59:12

Paul Safo talks about the evolution

59:14

of industry and how

59:17

every new evolution of industry takes

59:20

what used to be a scarcity and

59:22

makes it abundant. And every time there's

59:24

a new abundance, there's a new adjacent

59:26

scarcity. So right now, we're

59:29

moving from a world where the

59:32

ability to publish on every platform

59:34

was scarce because

59:36

it's just hard to produce that

59:38

much, but the tooling gets better and better.

59:41

And the examples and the templatizing

59:43

of things, it's gotten easier and

59:45

easier to publish more. Volume

59:48

or quantity that is no longer

59:50

as scarce as it used to be. And

59:52

as it becomes less scarce, there

59:55

will be a new adjacent scarcity. And that scarcity

59:57

will be, I think, content

59:59

that is needed. that really emotionally connects with

1:00:02

people because we're gonna get

1:00:05

really good at spotting things that

1:00:07

we don't trust. For better or for worse, we're gonna

1:00:09

get good at spotting things that we suspect our AI

1:00:12

or just kind of mass produced.

1:00:15

And I think we're gonna get a little bit jaded, a

1:00:17

little bit bored of it. And we'll want something that feels

1:00:19

real. And so

1:00:21

you could call that quality, but I do think

1:00:24

our humanity and our ability to connect with

1:00:27

people on an emotional level, I think our

1:00:29

ability to share our personal experience and tell

1:00:31

stories that are unique to us, I

1:00:34

think that becomes more and more scarce. And

1:00:37

what is ultimately like

1:00:39

the moat. I've listened to a

1:00:41

lot of Tim Ferriss stuff lately. I mean, I've

1:00:43

been following Tim Ferriss for a long time. He's what got me into

1:00:45

podcasting. But he is

1:00:47

laser focused on integrity and

1:00:50

trust with his audience and has been for a long

1:00:52

time. To the point where I've really

1:00:54

changed my own approach to sponsorship to work

1:00:56

with fewer people and really

1:00:58

dial in on brands that I know

1:01:01

and trust personally and want to vouch

1:01:03

for, not just promote but endorse. Because

1:01:06

trust and your ability

1:01:08

to retain integrity, I think is

1:01:10

also going to be scarce

1:01:13

and what really brings people in and

1:01:15

keeps them around. So you can call

1:01:17

it quality if you want, but I would say connection

1:01:20

is what's gonna be rare. Jacob

1:01:23

Bischoff asked, what's the best way to earn on

1:01:26

a regular basis as a creator? How do you

1:01:28

have a steady and predictable income? It's

1:01:30

definitely what people want and it's definitely hard, right?

1:01:33

Having a steady or reliable income

1:01:36

means that either you have

1:01:39

like literally recurring revenue or

1:01:41

you have a system that you've

1:01:44

seen works reliably over time.

1:01:46

And as long as you continue the

1:01:48

inputs, you'll get the same outputs. So

1:01:51

in terms of recurring subscriptions, could

1:01:53

be software, could be a membership. But

1:01:55

the thing you have to think about is a recurring

1:01:59

subscription. requires recurring

1:02:01

value being delivered to the

1:02:03

person who's paying the subscription. So

1:02:05

we're seeing a lot of noise right now

1:02:07

about memberships because of Hormozi's

1:02:09

investment in school. I don't even think schools

1:02:12

that good of a platform. I think it's

1:02:14

definitely not as good as Circle as far

1:02:17

as a forum tool goes, but we're seeing a

1:02:19

lot of people get into the subscription membership game

1:02:22

because it's recurring revenue and people think that's just amazing

1:02:24

and it is. But if you do not

1:02:27

really prove how you're creating recurring value

1:02:29

for the members of the community, you'll

1:02:32

turn a lot of people out really really

1:02:34

quickly. And I don't think the world needs more bad

1:02:37

memberships that exist for the purpose of

1:02:39

generating revenue for the creator. I

1:02:41

think we need more transformative

1:02:44

experiences which may be delivered in

1:02:46

the form of a membership. So

1:02:49

if you're high conviction on

1:02:51

your ability to create a space that

1:02:53

provides real value to people on an ongoing basis, then

1:02:55

a membership is a great way to do it. Being

1:02:58

able to create software is also really really powerful

1:03:01

because software, by contrast,

1:03:04

you know that if somebody purchases your software and

1:03:06

it solves their problem for them, that's

1:03:08

the same value that can keep recurring. The

1:03:11

utility that's in the software doesn't have

1:03:13

to be re-proven as much

1:03:15

as like a membership does. So

1:03:18

if you can do software, that's fantastic. If

1:03:20

you can do membership and have high conviction

1:03:22

interest, that's fantastic. Otherwise, you know,

1:03:24

the fastest way to revenue for anybody

1:03:27

is selling your time in some form. It

1:03:29

could be one-to-one, could be services, could be

1:03:31

group coaching, group programs, things like that. And

1:03:34

typically anything involving your time is also valued

1:03:36

more highly by the market than something that

1:03:38

does not value your time. So

1:03:41

the fastest way to revenue, either one on one

1:03:43

or a group program that has your time involved,

1:03:46

that can help you see meaningful

1:03:49

revenue pretty quickly. And that's what

1:03:51

I recommend to most people to get started. Next

1:03:54

we have Brian Kofsky asking when does your

1:03:56

Notion template come out? Well Brian, April 11th

1:03:59

is that date. I shared about that

1:04:01

in the beginning. I'm really excited about it. If you're excited

1:04:03

about Creator HQ and using the exact

1:04:05

same notion system that I use in your

1:04:07

business, go to creatorhq.co to find out more.

1:04:09

Thank you, Brian, for the question. It's a

1:04:12

nice little layup there. Tanya

1:04:14

asks, what's the one thing new or emerging

1:04:16

creators should be doing every day to grow

1:04:19

their audience? To be honest, Tanya,

1:04:21

I think the one thing you should be doing every day is innovating

1:04:24

in some way, experimenting in some

1:04:26

way, because everything changes. Changes all the

1:04:28

time. I just saw a message in our

1:04:30

community, the lab, about a

1:04:33

decrease in impressions on LinkedIn that a

1:04:35

lot of members are experiencing. So

1:04:37

what does that mean? It means that the status

1:04:39

quo has changed and you can't do

1:04:41

the same things and expect the same results anymore. Any

1:04:44

time there's something like that happening,

1:04:46

anytime there's a change or the status quo

1:04:49

has been interrupted, that means there's some

1:04:51

new innovation ready to be discovered

1:04:53

or created that will deliver

1:04:55

outsized results. Any change

1:04:58

for the negative means that there is some potential

1:05:00

for a positive change. And you're

1:05:02

only going to recognize that if

1:05:04

you innovate and try things and experiment, someone's

1:05:07

going to find it and they're going to get a first mover

1:05:09

advantage because of it. So

1:05:11

you need to be innovating,

1:05:13

be trying, be experimenting. And

1:05:16

most of the time that won't work. But over time, you'll

1:05:18

find something that really, really does. Alan

1:05:22

Ngo asks, what's one question you wish creators

1:05:24

would ask you and why? And

1:05:27

I don't know. I get a lot of good questions here.

1:05:30

I think a lot of people may

1:05:32

be surprised to hear that. I don't think

1:05:34

the strategy that I've taken at a lot

1:05:36

of points in my business was the smart

1:05:38

strategy. I think that I try to do

1:05:40

too many platforms too quickly. I

1:05:42

think that my niche of creators isn't very

1:05:45

niche at all. It's actually very broad, which

1:05:47

makes it challenging. I think I've tried

1:05:49

to create too many products all at once. So

1:05:51

if you're looking at my

1:05:53

example and trying to model after me,

1:05:56

I don't think it's a smart idea because

1:05:58

I bit off a lot. and

1:06:00

I struggled for a long time because of it. I

1:06:03

often think that you get six

1:06:05

kicks of the ball per day. You

1:06:07

can either kick six balls one

1:06:09

time or one ball six times. What's

1:06:12

gonna get you further? A lot of the people who grow

1:06:14

the fastest, they have very

1:06:16

simple, elegant businesses to start where

1:06:18

they get really good at LinkedIn, great,

1:06:21

now I have an audience there. I also have the

1:06:23

asset of the attention that I can command on LinkedIn.

1:06:25

I'm gonna go to somebody who's really big on Twitter

1:06:27

and say, hey, if you help me grow on Twitter,

1:06:29

I will help you grow on LinkedIn. It's

1:06:31

a much faster way to grow, to dominate

1:06:33

one place and then kind of land and

1:06:36

expand elsewhere. I don't know

1:06:38

why I've chosen to do everything at once, but it's

1:06:40

been really hard for a long time and it's still

1:06:42

really hard. So I

1:06:44

just want you to know that if you're looking up to somebody

1:06:46

and modeling after them, one, you

1:06:48

should remember that this is probably their version 10 that

1:06:51

you're comparing to your version one, and

1:06:53

two, they probably have

1:06:55

more resources than you do. And

1:06:58

three, what was their actual strategy

1:07:00

to get there? Just because they have all

1:07:02

of these things now doesn't mean that they

1:07:04

started by creating all of them. It was

1:07:06

probably an incremental process where they added a

1:07:08

little bit at a time, and

1:07:11

that's a smarter way to go. I wish

1:07:13

I would have exercised more restraint in the

1:07:15

beginning. Next, we have

1:07:17

a question from my friends at ConvertKit saying

1:07:20

predictions on what changes are coming to the

1:07:22

newsletter space in the next one to three

1:07:24

years. Fun question, I'm really,

1:07:26

really excited that right now the players

1:07:28

in the newsletter space have created a

1:07:31

discovery mechanism within email. For a long

1:07:33

time, I would have called email a

1:07:35

relationship platform where there is no built-in

1:07:37

discovery. The best way to build discovery

1:07:39

towards your newsletter is on social

1:07:41

media. But with ConvertKit's Creator

1:07:43

Network, Beehive has

1:07:46

recommendations, Substack has recommendations,

1:07:49

it is now more possible than ever

1:07:51

to grow your newsletter by building relationships

1:07:53

with other newsletter writers and getting recommendations

1:07:56

from other people's newsletters. And I'm seeing

1:07:59

huge growth because of that. I think

1:08:01

that also represents a little bit of a threat

1:08:04

long term for the newsletter space. I think this

1:08:07

will lead to a little bit of newsletter fatigue. A

1:08:09

lot of people speculate that it's happening now. I don't

1:08:11

think it's necessarily happening now. I don't see that data,

1:08:13

but I do think it's possible that we see newsletter

1:08:15

fatigue. I think it will inflate

1:08:17

the typical benchmarks that have

1:08:20

historically been impressive in the subscriber space and

1:08:22

that will have an effect on advertisers and

1:08:25

what they're looking for in terms

1:08:27

of engagement rates and prices for your

1:08:29

newsletter. I think that these

1:08:32

referral programs are at risk of

1:08:34

abuse from spammy activity. I've seen

1:08:36

it happen in my account where

1:08:39

somebody's getting spam signups

1:08:41

and they're recommending my newsletter. So now

1:08:43

I'm getting spam signups, which

1:08:46

is a real threat. So

1:08:48

that's a little bit doomsday, but

1:08:50

it's on the tails of what I think is really

1:08:53

exciting, which is this faster growth that we can see

1:08:55

in email, which is especially important

1:08:57

in a time where it feels like social

1:08:59

media impressions are down across

1:09:01

the board. Email becomes even more

1:09:04

important. This is where you're fostering

1:09:06

relationships. If you're not building an email

1:09:08

right now, I do have an email masterclass you can

1:09:10

check out over at creator

1:09:12

science.com. But I think all

1:09:15

of the numbers that have historically been impressive are

1:09:17

going to get inflated. I think

1:09:19

attention will be harder to grab an email

1:09:22

because of that. I think we'll probably

1:09:24

see people start to get even more

1:09:26

YouTube-y with their subject lines, trying to

1:09:29

optimize for the click. And that'll work

1:09:31

for some people. We'll see some big winners

1:09:33

because of that. But I also think that

1:09:35

ultimately the relationship you want with subscribers in

1:09:37

their inbox is that they open you because who

1:09:39

it's coming from, not because of

1:09:41

the subject line. So we'll see

1:09:43

a new wave of great writers. We'll

1:09:45

continue to see newsletters pop up,

1:09:48

grow quickly, get acquired. I think we'll see more

1:09:50

consolidation in the space because

1:09:52

we've seen a lot of newsletters start up with the

1:09:54

goal of getting a lot of subscribers and getting acquired.

1:09:56

I don't know what will happen with the cost

1:09:59

per acquisition. rates that we're seeing an email

1:10:01

right now, which are super low, that'll

1:10:03

probably stay fairly

1:10:06

low. But again, I think

1:10:08

this does have an impact on downward

1:10:10

pricing pressure for typical newsletter

1:10:13

advertising. We're gonna

1:10:16

round this episode out with a question from

1:10:18

my friend Dan Bennett, it's a little

1:10:20

bit of a spicy question. I want

1:10:22

to spend some time unpacking it. He

1:10:24

says, do larger creators feel pressure to only

1:10:27

highlight or work with other large creators

1:10:29

because of the recognition factor? Would it

1:10:31

negatively impact large creators that highlight small fries

1:10:33

when the information provided is just as

1:10:35

credible and impactful? I

1:10:37

think in this sense,

1:10:41

we often have a narrow lens. Like

1:10:43

I think Dan, you and I actually

1:10:46

are in a very small

1:10:48

circle. And so we look at

1:10:51

the same small number of, you know,

1:10:53

like meta creators the way that I am and

1:10:56

think, I can see the networks

1:10:58

that these people are working within. And they're

1:11:01

not supporting me or highlighting me.

1:11:03

The majority of the creator economy, the people

1:11:05

who are making livings as creators,

1:11:07

they're serving an audience that doesn't even recognize them

1:11:09

as a creator, they just recognize them as someone

1:11:11

that's doing something helpful for them. And

1:11:14

they will highlight anything that

1:11:16

supports their audience. But I do think

1:11:18

in this smaller bubble of meta creators,

1:11:21

where we have creators, serving

1:11:23

creators or entrepreneurs, serving entrepreneurs, there

1:11:26

is a little bit of a scarcity mindset that

1:11:28

I've noticed, I've had at

1:11:31

times, where you

1:11:33

think that the people you associate with

1:11:36

are a signal for your

1:11:38

credibility, a signal for your status,

1:11:41

your trustworthiness, your

1:11:45

legitimacy. I do see that.

1:11:47

I also think that as you experience

1:11:49

more success, you start to become more

1:11:52

aware of what you have to lose.

1:11:54

I think people become more risk averse,

1:11:56

the more successful they are. And

1:11:58

it feels risky. to make

1:12:01

our own judgment decisions when

1:12:03

the world is telling us you're awesome, we

1:12:05

love you, we also think that

1:12:08

this person over here is awesome and we love them

1:12:10

and we can see that in their numbers. It

1:12:13

becomes safe to engage with

1:12:15

other people at your scale and

1:12:17

size because they have been publicly

1:12:20

in aggregate recognized as good. I

1:12:24

genuinely believe that as you get more successful,

1:12:26

if you're not really thoughtful

1:12:28

and intentional, your taste

1:12:30

gets worse, your viewpoints get

1:12:33

a little bit less relevant and

1:12:35

it's because things are easy

1:12:37

and you don't recognize that

1:12:39

your own taste or helpfulness

1:12:41

is declining. There's like this

1:12:44

lag of when you start

1:12:46

becoming a little bit stale and

1:12:48

when you notice your

1:12:51

engagement decline. All this

1:12:53

to say, I think that there's

1:12:55

this natural evolution a lot of times

1:12:57

where somebody does great work,

1:13:00

they're recognized, they grow because of

1:13:02

it. But then they

1:13:04

get complacent because they don't

1:13:06

see a difference in their engagement or

1:13:09

results based on the quality

1:13:11

of their work because everything kind

1:13:13

of has a halo effect. And

1:13:15

so they engage with other people at that size because that's what

1:13:17

they see as getting more attention on

1:13:19

their stuff and maintaining

1:13:21

their relevancy. But at

1:13:23

some point, they become a little bit out of touch and

1:13:26

people start to lose interest because it's not

1:13:28

actually helping them and it creates

1:13:30

this like vacuum in the market and new people

1:13:33

rise and fill that space. So Dan, to

1:13:35

that point, I don't know if it's, that

1:13:38

creators feel pressure to only work with

1:13:40

larger creators. I think

1:13:42

that the aperture of what we're looking

1:13:44

at and thinking about gets narrower and

1:13:47

we get more scarcity minded than we used

1:13:49

to be. And we

1:13:52

focus on what feels like the

1:13:54

higher leverage engagement,

1:13:57

which is people with larger audiences because

1:13:59

it just... It feels like, well, if I

1:14:01

support them, they'll support me and they reach more people.

1:14:03

So it's good for me. I think people

1:14:05

actually get more selfish as they grow sometimes. And

1:14:08

I've been guilty of it. I've been guilty

1:14:10

of guarding my own reputation, my own resources,

1:14:13

and trying to play up versus

1:14:15

reaching down. All

1:14:26

right. I think we'll wrap it up there. Thank you

1:14:28

for listening. If you enjoyed this Q&A episode, of course,

1:14:30

we'd love to hear. If you enjoyed this or you

1:14:32

want more of them, if there's anything that I missed

1:14:35

or anything you want to follow up on, you can

1:14:37

tweet at me at jcliles. Or find me on Instagram

1:14:39

at jcliles. I'm doing more over there, including

1:14:41

threads. If you enjoyed this, I'd love for

1:14:44

you to leave a rating or review on

1:14:46

Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And

1:14:48

as I said, if you're interested in Creator HQ,

1:14:50

get on the wait list at creatorhq.co. Thanks

1:14:53

for listening and I'll talk to you next week. Bye.