Branding Byte #013

Most content creators have one thing in mind:

How the heck am I supposed to make money out of this? contradictory information present online is endless.

I had been through that whole process 1 month ago and it was very hard to figure out what type of service/product I wanted to propose.

To give you a bit more context, in the last 2 months I received 5 Inbound leads that were interested in copywriting/ghostwriting services, but I said no.

That may correspond to 3000-5000$ per month if I decided to work with all of them, and before you ask, no I am not crazy.

I just took the time to reflect on the monetization question. I personally don’t believe in ghostwriting, the asymmetry of information between you and your client is too high.

Add to that the timeframe needed to get results and the conflictual relationship between you and your client and you are doomed.

How did I come up with this conclusion? How do I intend to ultimately make some money out of this?

Oh and how can you apply my method to you?

That’s the goal of today’s newsletter so let’s get straight to it.

The Market is saturated, differentiate yourself.

The Content Creator Solopreneur vibe spread like shrooms in moist environments.

No wonder, it’s so appealing, when you see posts like that:

• Choose a problem

• Create content about it

• Target a specific audience

• Propose a service

• Make millions

False. Most content creators will never make a living out of it this way, which is why you need to rethink monetization.

You should take into consideration the following:

• What do you despise in your professional life?

• What type of business do you want to build?

• How to build and distribute?

Answering those questions is super essential when thinking about monetization, I break down this reflection into three steps to help you find the best way to monetize your content.

Step 1: Who are you and what do you despise?

Jumping on the content creator side of entrepreneurship is the best way to get back power over what you’ll build. It’s really an exciting feeling, you can define yourself as you wish.

No one will get to tell you you can’t do this or that, so make sure you’re maximizing this new opportunity.

Sit down, and write all the aspects of your professional life you don’t like, but also those that you enjoy and make you do wonders.

It’s super easy to propose a service-based business, but do you want to deal with 1-to-1 client interactions?

Isn’t the reason you decided to jump on this adventure to be your own boss? Because sorry to break it, but once you provide services you’re back to the employees box.

You have an authority figure above you, that decides what they want, and you can just advice. You’re limited in your ability to perform on your vision, and even if it may be the right thing to do, you’ll have to conform…

As you know: ‘The client is king’.

This configuration of business might not suit everyone so ask yourself the following questions when thinking about your offer:

• Do I appreciate social interactions?

• Is authority something I can deal with?

• Do I want to have full control over my output?

Don’t follow blindly money, it may give you a little dopamine rush in the short term, but if you’re trading it with inflexible rules that were set to keep your happiness and peace, you’re losing that trade.

I know, some service providers are not suffering from this, but they reached the stage of ‘F**ck You’ Money. They can say no to whomever they want because they choose the clients to work with.

Again, there are only a few people that will reach that stage, and it’s not even a guarantee of success…

My answers to the questions:

I am an introvert extravert, I am super social but too much of it kills my energy. I like my peace and freedom, and having to jump into outbound calls, and client nurturing will not be sustainable.

This will kill my creativity and productivity.

I hate authority I can’t deal with it, If a client just once thinks I am an employee and he got power over me, I’ll stop the mission give the money back, and ciao, which is not sustainable too if you want to build a good reputation.

This is why, as long as I don’t find the solution to this equation:

Keep my peace and freedom while providing a service, I won’t propose copywriting/ghostwriting services.

Step 2: Think about the type of Business you want to build

Let me break it down for you, as a content creator you got two choices of business, you either build an Agency or a Startup.

The main difference? Scalability features.

While one requires task delegation to take in more clients and make more money, the other needs technology.

An agency will always need your presence, it’s mentally and physically intense.

You either delegate or automate value creation.

If you automate, you need a clear value proposition, a defined transformation for your clients, and no room for doubts and post-consumption questioning.

What options do you have?

• Write a differentiable e-book

• Build a blog to re-sell

• Build a SaaS to answer your audience's needs

• Create an online training course

Those are digital products that maximize your impact, your freedom, and your creativity. They’re hard to sell, but if your offer is a no-brainer, and your authority real, you’ll succeed.

This is the road I decided to take, building my authority on Growth acquisition topics:

• How to grow and become a credible figure on Linkedin

• How to craft content that attracts attention

• How to use storytelling to become a thought leader

• How to use systems to scale your content creation

I want to build a scalable business, one that fits my personality, aspirations, and inflexible rules.

I know that the product market is saturated for content creators, but I didn’t find yet one single complete product that could help a complete beginner become an independent creator.

Step 3: How to Build and Distribute?

Once you figured out the pillars of your monetization, you need to think it through.

How to streamline your product/service distribution and actually convert readers to clients?

Content.

That’s your answer, but before you need to build the necessary authority that matches your value proposition.

Imagine if tomorrow I decided to provide an SEO-paid guide….

I currently have zero legitimacy on that topic, even if I’ve built a full campaign and learned a lot about this topic people wouldn’t believe I am the best suited to sell a full guide.

Why? Because my content didn’t mention SEO even once.

This might be the single thing you need to remember for this newsletter:

Match your content strategy with your monetization ambition.

Think about it now. Don’t wait till you have 10 000 followers, I personally spent 2 full weeks thinking about it and building a concrete product structure.

The content I create fits perfectly the product structure I want to provide, so that the day I decide to talk about it and launch it, people will not be shocked.

I hope you enjoyed reading this newsletter as much as I enjoyed writing it.

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If you found that useful, follow me on Linkedin, I help 4200+ people daily leverage growth through content creation.

Till next week for a new Branding Byte!