You Need To Monetize (Now)

Tell me if this sounds familiar...

You entered the game (creator economy) with the goal of building an income, maybe so you can quit your 9-5 and do something that *cough* is actually fun & meaningful. You've been on the road for quite a while now. Maybe you've already built a sizeable audience (300-500+), maybe not.

You managed to gain some clarity on your journey as a creator, and you're starting to get the hang of Twitter. But you don't think you're ready to monetize yet. You think you need tons of experience, a bigger audience, or better conditions. You say to yourself: "It can wait".

 But deep down, you know it makes you unhappy. You know you would rather be making money. This is what you came here for after all! Wouldn't you like to have that certainty?

You think you're being reasonable... Realistic. But the actual reality is, that you're letting your limiting beliefs win. You don't lack talent or experience, you lack courage, focus, and determination. It's time to leave tutorial island so you can make some money.

If you haven't monetized yet, you're missing out. But here's where it gets interesting: I'm not even talking about the money here (although it is a nice bonus). No, I'm talking about the tremendous mindset shift you will experience as a result. You get access to an entirely new world that unfolds itself in front of you, a whole new way of thinking. It's like your brain unlocks a whole new part. And that is immensely powerful. Before we dive in, I'd like to make something very clear...

I'm no different than you.

When I started my journey in July, I was still working a shitty cashier's job. When I discovered all of this, it was love at first sight. My goal was to build a steady income from doing the things that I love doing instead of having to work some stupid job.

But as time went on, I found myself stuck in the tutorial phase. I used to think that it can wait. I told myself that it's not that important, that I have time. As time went on, I started getting frustrated. Yeah, things were going well. But what good is any of this if I'm not making money? Seeing the metrics is fun and all, and it's a nice little boost for you ego... But it means nothing without the most central element.

That frustration started turning into anger. That anger turned into furiousness, to the point where I couldn't ignore it anymore. I thought to myself... If I don't start making money soon, I'm going to let everyone down. My parents, my friends, my brothers, and most importantly: Myself.

I know I had to make a change. How hard can it be after all? Not so much if everyone else can do it! So I started researching the topic. And eventually, after a lot of deep thinking and contemplation, I sat down and I came up with a game plan.

After countless weeks of hard work, I held the finished product in my hands: Creator Bootcamp. I signed a client on the first day, and I have got 2 more that are hopping on board soon. But enough said. This is about you, not about me. In this article, I will show you how to do it yourself...

First zero'th (?) step:

0. Get results

Why is this "step 0"? Because it serves as the crucial foundation for what you build on top. If you build a house on sand, it will eventually collapse. It doesn't matter how good the house is if the ground below it isn't stable. If no one needs your results, no one will buy your offer.

Remember: Business is nothing more than a transaction of value. Money is a currency, just like time & energy are. It's a representation of these two. If someone can pay you with their precious time & attention, they can pay you with money. Period.

"I don't know what to sell."

You might now even realize the things that make you valuable to other people. Usually, we suck at gaging our own skills & level of talent. Go ask people about it. Everyone (including you) is good at something, and this is a fact.

Making money is a skill that you can (and have to) learn, not an activity. You learn how to make money by learning how to make yourself valuable. And you do that by solving problems. The more painful & burning they are perceived as, the more profitable.

We humans need to have goals, we need to feel like we're here for a reason. Problems are not just "problems". Flip it upside down: Anything that stands between you and achieving a goal is a problem. And your objective is to solve them and to sell your unique solution.

Let me give you an example...

My younger brother has been making memes and funny video for a long time. And now he's using that knowledge to stand out, and to educate & entertain his audience on Twitter. That is something interesting & unique, and he could literally sell that if he packaged it up in the right way.

Are you good at talking to people? Boom. Do you have a uniquely poetic way of writing? Boom. Are you a deep thinker that does a lot of reflecting? Boom. There is no way in hell that you're not good at something. It's actually impossible given how much time you've already spent on this planet.

Leverage your strenghts. Keep an eye out for what people compliment you about. That's a good indicator of what you can sell. Most of the time, you don't even consider your best weapons because the work feels like play to you! That's exactly what you can (and should) sell.

For me, the result in question is the "audience" (I'd rather call it a tribe) + personal brand that I've built. I developed my own unique system that got me massive amounts of growth & positive feedback. Check out Creator Bootcamp if you're interested in learning about it.

Remember: The first step is arguably the most important one. If you nail this down, you will have a very strong foundation to build your house on. If not, it's all going to collapse at some point. Got it? Perfect. Now you're ready to...

1. Do your research

You achieved something desirable or solved a painful problem. Next thing you need to do: Confirm the demand for your product or service before you create an offer around it. Otherwise you run a severe risk for creating an offer that no one will buy.

Talk to your audience. Find some people in your target group that you can help. Offer them some help for free. Get them on a call and figure out what they struggle with. This is a literal information goldmine that gives you plenty material to work with when it's time to create your offer.

When I was preparing to build Creator Bootcamp, I did ~30 free consultations. That gave me more than enough material to work with, and I also made some great friends along the way. Shoutout to you if you're reading ;) Next stop...

2. Create your offer

Offer creation is all about packaging your services up in an attractive way. For that, you need to get clear on who you're trying to help. You need to understand their wants & needs, and you need to communicate your value clearly.

Offer creation is a whole science in itself. But luckily, this (free!) book exists:

If you haven't already, you can get it here.

Mr. Hormozi already said it best, so I'll keep this one to the basics.

An offer, essentially, is this: People pay you a certain sum of money, and they get something (a result) that they want in return. It could be a dream that they want to come true. It could be eliminating a burning problem from their lives. It could be anything!

Whatever the case may be: Look for strong emotional attachment. The more desperately someone needs a solution to a problem... The more intense their desire for fulfilling a dream is... The more likely they are to want your offer!

Now that that's been said...

3. Build a landing page (optional)

This step is a little more advanced. It does help, but I don't recommend doing this if you haven't signed a client yet. It's not a necessity. It takes a lot of time & energy because it adds not just one, but two new elements into the mix: Copywriting & web design.

And trust me, that stuff is a real pain in the ass to learn without prior experience. If you haven't made money yet, you run the risk of getting discouraged & wanting to quit. Though I guess this one depends on you as a person...

You can try it out if you want. It might be worth it if you already have experience with stuff like this. If not, don't feel bad about skipping this step for now. What's much more important is that you...

4. Learn marketing & sales

Let's start this section off with the magical money-making equation:

[Offer] + [Traffic] = [$$$$]

Once you've created an offer (and perhaps even a landing page), you only need people to see it. That's what marketing is for. If your offer is enticing (which it should be), they will want to buy it.

Now, there are many different ways of going about this. You can promote on social media or in your newsletter (hehe). You can do cold DMs. You can reach out to people that interact with your content a lot. The cool thing about it? All of this can be learned, and there's plenty of free content available.

Warning: You may have a wrong definition of learning. Learning is not reading books, watching YouTube videos, or listening to podcast. That's consuming. Learning is not looking for an answer to a specific question or problem. Thats's doing research.

Learning is behavior change. If you read through this article and don't change your behavior... You haven't learned anything. If you want to learn effectively, don't start with doing research. Pick a goal and start a project. Solve the problems that arise along the way by researching specific topics and questions that you need to solve those problems.

For example: You have an offer ready, but you don't know how to get clients. Go look up "how to get clients" and execute on what you find immediately. You learn by applying, not by reading. Speaking of that...

What will you do?

You do want to make money, right? So go for it. The question isn't if you can do it, it's if you will. Signing that first client or making that first sale gives you access to a whole new mindset. A whole new stage in your evolution as a creator.

Set the goal. Figure out which stage of the process you're in currently, and start working on moving up to the next one. I promise that you will succeed if you trust the process. That's about it for this one...

-Tym