i made content for about 10 months without making any money when I started.
and it was entirely my fault.
Not the algorithm. not my content being wack, but me. And my mindset at the time.
And I’m writing this email because so many people are still stuck in this way of thinking.
i know this because i myself believed this to be true
i saw some marketing gurus say this and i accepted it to be true
i wrote. i designed. i recorded videos. all with the hope of one day being noticed by my dream client somewhere on the interwebs.
But today i’m telling you, straight up, that it’s a lie. It’s simply not true.
It may be been true for a number of people, myself included, but it’s not the way things are supposed to be
I know this now because I’ve helped people do same.
A friend of mine had one conversation with me, made one post on LinkedIn and immediately had people reaching out to do business with her
what was different?
was she special?
was I simply just too awkward?
or was I just unlucky.
I wondered if I had wasted my time all those months burning money creating and publishing think pieces on the internet with little to nothing in return
But there were three problems with my social media outlook when I started that I think will help someone reading this looking to monetise as soon as possible while making content they love.
I didn't accept where I was and what I needed
At the time I started making content, I had a business running and was on the hunt for clients to sell my services to. I had no job and no other form of income except the occasional parlay hit inserts smirk
But what I didn’t know at the time was that making content, especially when you’re starting out, is time-consuming as hell.
You’d think it’s easy. I thought it was.
I severely underrated how much work goes into the pieces of content I see online and mostly just ignore.
And so I had to decide to either spend my time creating content or spend time finding clients. As unhealthy as it sounds, I ended up splitting my time and doing both.
Can you imagine?
Spending 4 hours a day on content.
And extra 2-3 hours a day on relationship building.
On top of running projects in the company. For months, I struggled to grow my audience online, I struggled to improve my content, and also struggled to make new relationships that could end up being clients I work with.
Don’t do that.
Decide right now, whether you have to make a livelihood as soon as possible. Or you are just flirting with the idea of one day owning something.
One or the other.
It will help you tremendously. And that’s because they both require different sets of actions and behaviours you’d need to learn.
If you want, I can talk more about what it would look like if you just want to do content and don't need to make money from it asap. Just hit reply and let me know.
2. I had no offer but if I was to start from scratch, I'd have an offer on day 1!
And no I don’t mean a product or re-hash your service to the point our eyes bleed from all the repetitiveness. An offer
All you need is to buss out a paper and pen (it can be digital) and just ask yourself these four questions.
Who do I want to help?
What do I want to help them with?
How am I going to help them do this?
What will it cost?
Answering these as specific as you can, creates an offer you can start pitching asap.
You don’t need a website. You don’t need to have clients, and you definitely don’t need to build this product first before you start pitching.
Here’s an example of a random offer I made while writing this specific post
Who do I want to help? → students
What do I want to help them with? → never get caught for plagiarism on their assignments
How am I going to help them do this? → by providing a tool that automatically checks their documents for plagiarism before they print/submit
What will it cost? → $150 for a lifetime purchase
This probably sounds familiar and already exists in the market but that doesn't matter yet. That’s your offer.
A bare-bones offer that you can start mentioning to people in your content and conversations.
An offer that will peak interest and get you some people who need this fixed in their lives!
I didn’t do this before starting content and just ended up creating free content endlessly and my business suffered as a result.
You can make as many of these as you can, and if you start talking about it to people and they don’t like it, you can always readjust. You can do this because you haven’t made the product yet. All you did was write your offer out and tell people that this is what you can do.
I’ll be talking more about offer creation in my upcoming digital workbook and you can join the waitlist here before it closes on the 4th of July.
3. Understand that having conversations will save your business.
When you’re starting out and trying to build an audience for yourself, people always think it’s the content that gets you where you want to be.
Believe me, I tried. As introverted as I was, I wanted to spend all my time cranking out content and hoping for the best. And to be honest, it helped.
Content helps people see you, recognize your value, and decide whether they like you or not.
But the real audience kickstarter happens from conversations.
People started caring about me Mike when we started talking, and they find out that I love movies, I enjoy parties and I hate the sound of my own voice.
it’s through conversations like this that I was able to meet people from all of the world. They cared for me and I cared for them.
And it doesn’t have to be complicated. It could be in the comments section, it could be in DMs or even in the random in-person conversations you have.
I believe strongly that all of you reading this will have no idea who I am if I didn’t initially start talking to people. Some of you have bought products from me, attended workshops and everything. And it all started with conversations.
I love the quote that says you’re always one person away from changing your life completely. Whether that’s a new job, a new client, or a lifelong partner, it’s just one person.
Making content changed my life. It’s changed all my clients’ lives. It will change yours.
And you don’t have to go broke at the start making it happen for you.
I’m open to chatting with anyone who has a peculiar case over coffee sometime this summer (virtually or in-person) but if you read to this point, I appreciate you.
I hope this helps you start thinking of your starting journey a bit differently.
I appreciate all the support!
See you on social
-Love, Mike.