The Difference Between Broke Creators and Wealthy Creators
Why are some creators astronomically rich while others are dirt poor?
Is it talent? Is it effort? Or is it just dumb luck?
The answers might surprise you…
Today, we’re going to discuss some key differences between creators who rake in piles of cash and creators who struggle to make any money online, ever.
Broke Creators Try to Reinvent the Wheel, Wealthy Creators Follow Proven Roadmaps,
“Making money online is like an open book test. Most people are too lazy to copy the answers.” — JK Molina
Of course, there are different variables involved and there’s more nuance involved than the quote suggests, but it’s mostly true.
There are tons of proven strategies for:
Business models to choose
Products to sell
Ways to get traffic to your offers
You just have to follow them, be patient, and give them enough time to work.
There’s an interesting phenomenon that happens with some creators. They are broke, have no audience, and have little to no results, yet they are unwilling to listen to and follow the advice of people who have what they want.
I’m not going to share the entire blueprint to online business success in a single newsletter, but just know that they’re out there, you can follow them, and they will work on a long enough time scale.
Speaking of time…
Broke Creators Think in Days, Weeks, and Months, Wealthy Creators Think in Years and Decades
If you’re new to the content creation world or just started your career as a creative service provider, expect to have to eat shit for three years before you get solid results.
Measure your progress year over year. Understand that the work you put in now will pay off a year from now. As you stack years of effort on top of each other your results will compound.
Everybody wants to be an influencer like Gary Vee, nobody wants to do multiple decades of work like he did to reach the level of net worth and notoriety he has today.
The misguided attitude of some creators is the product of the age we live in. You can jump on a platform and go viral very fast. It does happen. There are ways to engineer those results.
But you should never count on lightning in a bottle to build your creative career. If you look at the archives of some of your favorite creators, you’ll notice they are 5 to 10 years deep, minimum.
Broke Creators Want to be Creators, Wealthy Creators Create for the Sake of Creating
“Lots of people want to be the noun without doing the verb. They want the job title without the work.” - Austin Kleon
The idea of being a content creator sounds good in theory, but takes a lot of effort to pull off in practice.
Speaking for myself and most of the other successful creators I know, we were all intrinsically motivated—meaning it came from within.
Yes, we like attention and money, too, but we realize that getting both is the byproduct of doing the work. Also, we enjoy the work itself.
I love to write. It is not a chore for me. Getting better at my craft has been the one thing in my life that has compelled me to work hard—nothing else has.
That’s why it’s important for you to question your motivations.
I’m not like these other gurus. I’m not going to encourage you to jump on the content creation bandwagon to fill my own coffers. You should do it because you want to do it.
I aim to provide clarity, direction, and guidance for people who want to do the work, but just need their heads sorted out a bit.
If your only goal is to “be the noun” then this isn’t the right path for you.
Broke Creators Chase Vanity Metrics, Wealthy Creators Know How to Monetize
You should create from a place of love and joy, but, of course, you want to make money.
So with the thought process that money will come as a byproduct of the work in the back of your mind, you also must simultaneously do the work of making the money appear in your bank account.
This means focusing on activities that will make you money.
This seems obvious, but many creators make the mistake of growing in a way that makes it difficult to monetize their work, like the woman with [xxxxx] followers on Instagram who couldn’t sell more than a few dozen T-shirts when she launched her brand.
There is such a thing as growing a huge following on content platforms yet making little to no money. Happens all the time.
If you want to make money as a content creator, focus on:
Becoming an authority at something people are interested in enough to pay money for in the future—random IG pics, bad. Content about growing a sustainable garden, good.
Find a way to communicate with your audience outside of platforms. The best way to do this is to build an email list.
Take the time to figure out what your audience actually wants from you — conduct surveys, get on zoom calls, and get people to buy pre-sale versions of your products before you ever make them
Say you’re a service provider like a freelancer. Your path to money is actually much simpler and faster.
You need to:
Develop a portfolio and create enough content to appear competent
Do manual outreach to get new clients
As your audience grows, you will get people to come to you instead of having to reach out to them
There are a lot of freelancers out there though who seem to be doing everything they can possibly do in their careers except the things that make them money.
Why are you overly worried about likes on Twitter when you can send an email to a company doing $10m a month in revenue?
Broke Creators Observe, Wealthy Creators Get in the Arena
It doesn’t matter how many guides you read, videos you watch, or podcasts you listen to.
You can take all the online courses in the world and hire the best mentors.
Nobody can force you to step inside the arena.
I see so many would-be content creators who sit on the sideline and observe other people doing the work, for years at a time, without ever making the leap themselves.
More information isn’t going to help you.
Neither is thinking.
You’ve been thinking about building this content empire for years. Meanwhile, time keeps passing you by.
You have to stop letting fear run your life.
The things you are afraid of will happen.
You will get rejected.
You will feel embarrassed.
You will get heckled, hassled, and criticized.
Some of the people in your life won’t understand what you’re doing and will talk behind your back and wish failure on you.
Comes with the territory.
You just have to decide which type of pain you want to suffer.
Sitting on the sidelines and letting that well of regret and resentment build is painful. Knowing that you could be out there doing the work, yet fail to out of cowardice, is painful.
It’s going to hurt either way…
Why not choose the path that has an upside?
Links to other cool stuff you might enjoy
Watch this webinar replay I co-hosted with Self-Publishing School to learn how to write a best-selling book
Take my free 5-day course that teaches you how to make a living writing on Medium
Buy my best-selling book - Real Help: An Honest Guide to Self-Improvement
Follow me on Twitter and Instagram because I create unique content on each platform