I've been obsessed with building a Creator Business for the last 8 months.

At the start, I had no idea what I was doing.

I had just taken 2 Hour Writer from Dan Koe and as soon as I finished it for some reason I didn't implement almost anything from it.

I tried some of it and then stopped and wasn't consistent.

Because of this, I was lost with no direction.

I tried educational email courses, ghostwriting, and more.

I got caught up in short-term games with 100 comments a day and more.

Because of all this, it took me 7 months to make my first dollar. And I could have done it 1-2 had I known what I know now.

But I'm glad I did or else I wouldn't be able to help you avoid the same mistakes.

I like the word creator business better than a personal brand because it has the word “business” which emphasizes the reason we all came here to make money. The word creator emphasizes a unique method, of talking about your interests and making an impact.

A creator business is the skill stack of audience building and direct response marketing

The goal for me when I started building my audience was: to make an income online working on what I love and not being forced to do work I hate.

You likely have a similar goal.

But you might struggle to build an audience, get leads, create an offer, or believe that you even have something worth sharing.

Believe me, I was in the same situation.

But through what I'm about to share in this newsletter I've:

• Signed 3 clients

• Made $1150 online

• Reached 1000 followers

All at 16 years old.

So if I can do it starting as a teenager with almost no skills then you can do it too.

What most people do...

Most people are doing work they hate delivering results for someone they don't even like. They go to their 9-5 work for a boss who doesn't like them and then go home to escape from their meaningless work(that's not all 9-5's but if you are reading this is probably you).

If you're not in a 9-5 you might be freelancing and have to send countless Cold DMs a day just to get hardly any responses.

I was doing this just a couple of months ago. I was searching on X for productivity coaches that I could create educational email courses for. Even when I did sign a free client they were difficult to work with and the service I offered them couldn't help them because they had a traffic problem. So there was no one to sign up for the email course anyway.

You might have a brand and a decent-sized audience and still be struggling to get leads. I know I did, I was at around 800 followers and still hadn't made my first $ online. I thought that it would eventually just come as long as I kept building but I was missing a crucial thing(more on that later). You're probably creating content and gaining followers but don't have any clients. You might be waiting to get inbound DMs from people who want to pay thousands of dollars to work with you. But you're still waiting...

To keep making money and sustain yourself you are forced to do cold outreach that you hate. You have to do it or else you won't be able to pay the bills.

Why this blueprint works

For most people, they hate the work they do. Both at a 9-5 and in online business. The creator business blueprint allows you to intertwine business and your interests. So you never burn out.

This means that you will be in the game longer than other people causing you to be ahead of 99% because consistency is half the game.

Intertwining business and your interests mean that you never will have work that you need to escape from instead it will fuel you.

You will become irreplaceable

Most people specialize in one skill:

• Audience Building

• Copywriting

• Email Marketing

In a Creator Business, you are forced to learn all the skills of audience building along with direct response marketing. This makes you irreplaceable because you build specific knowledge by being at the intersection of many skills, interests, and concepts.

It makes you a better communicator, a better writer, and in turn better at making money.

There's a lot of debate between doing personal branding/audience building or direct response marketing.

I don't see why you can't do both. It takes more time, practice, and work but that's what makes it worth it.

Doing what other people aren't willing to do is what makes you stand out.

Rather than posturing why one is better than the other on the timeline. Spend that time to learn both and you will become irreplaceable.

Lead Generation

Most people struggle to get leads or hate the process they have to use to get leads. This is because they do direct response where they do ads and cold outreach. Or you build an audience and don't know how to convert people.

The solution is the combine the two. Use audience building to attract organic traffic instead of ads (you can still do ads if you want to). Then use direct response marketing tactics such as warm outreach to sign clients.

Since you're doing warm outreach your outreach is not salesly or awkward. Instead, it is you just testing to see if you can help out other people. Since you're targeting people who are warm(engaging with your content) you won't need to send as many DMs to sign clients.

Freedom

With this blueprint, I plan to scale to $8,333/mo(100k a year) with 3 clients in the next 6 months and launch something every quarter. All at 16.

I know it's more than possible the only thing stopping me is my:

• Skills

• Beliefs

• Commitment

And those are all in my control. It's the same for you. You can achieve freedom with this model. The beauty of this model(as you will see more later) is that you can always pivot. You can monetize Direct Response Marketing, Audience Building, or some other skill/interest.

You are never stuck with one skill because you are learning all of them. And you can't be successful with this model unless you learn all of them.

Now let's get into exactly how I would do this in 5 steps...

The Creator Business Blueprint

This will give you a blueprint for how you can build a creator business step by step.

Step 1) Picking what you will talk about

This step will consist of determining what you will be talking about and what you want people to buy. I recommend being nicheless as it's what's worked for me and resonates the most with how I want to build a business.

If you want to dive deeper into becoming nicheless I've talked about it here.

The general idea comes from 2 Hour Writer from Dan Koe. The basic overview is that you pick 3 interests you want to talk about.

For me, that's:

• Spirituality

• Creator Business

• Human Potential

One of these interests is the one that you will build an offer around.

Also, a useful thought experiment is to think about your definition of the good life.

That's what you're leading people towards. Pick the interests that seem most important to you on that path to reaching your definition of the good life.

Step 2) Creating an Offer

At this step, you must be clear about the transformation you will create for people.

If you have created results for your productivity, you can create an offer to help people complete two hours of work in one hour.

Or whatever it is.

The key is to focus on a transformation.

For my first offer, I targeted beginner creators.

Create an offer for the person two steps behind you.

I highly recommend that you have an offer when you start or create it soon into your journey.

The reason?

It helps you to know where you are leading people. It gives your brand a direction. Otherwise, you will be unsure of where you are leading people which can make your brand chaotic.

Having an offer gives your brand purpose (it also helps you make money haha).

Questions you can ask when creating an offer

1. What type of product/service would you sell? (be as specific as possible):

2. Promise/Outcome: (what transformation do you plan to provide to your clients)?

3. What’s the timeline for this outcome?

4. How do you plan to create scarcity?

5. What is the Pricing/Payment plan?

6. What are the bonuses?

7. Who is the ideal person for your product or service? Describe Your Ideal Follower for your product(age, gender, interests, pains, fears, dreams etc. - get as specific as you can):

8. What is your authority on this offer’s transformation?

Step 3) Content Creation

Now that you know what you're talking about and at least an idea of what you are selling. It's time to create content.

I recommend being nicheless.

However, this doesn't mean you can't create targeted content for your offer.

Create high-quality content that is related to the topic of your offer.

You might be saying...

"But Christian, I have no client results or experience, so I have nothing to write about."

If you are writing about a topic in which you have had a transformation, you have a client result.

Yourself.

Write about your transformation in the topic related to your offer.

If you're selling brand coaching, write posts about how you grew your brand.

If your offer is productivity, write about your transformation from distracted to hyper-focused.

Remember...

You have a skill.

A skill is your ability to solve a problem. You've solved lots of problems in your life.

But, creating content doesn't matter if you don't do this next step...

Step 4) Build a network and distribution

I've seen this with my clients. The quality of your content doesn't matter if you don't have a network to get distribution on it.

And relying on the algorithm is not a sustainable to way to build a business.

Instead you need to put in the work:

• Send DMs

• Hop on calls

• Leave Comments

The bottom line: Be a valuable person in your network

Now you have traffic for your business.

Step 5) Getting Leads

Everyone who comments or likes your posts related to the topic of your offer is a lead.

Reach out to all of them.

Everyone who:

• Likes

• Comments

• Follows you

Is a potential client.

Don't waste the leads that are coming right to your doorstep.

Step 6) Do Free Work/Study Your Audience

Once you find your leads, it's time to analyze their pain points and help them find solutions.

The key to this is to be patient.

Your goal is to help, not to sell.

Give them consulting in the DMs and calls.

Begin to note down their pain points and desires.

This will help you refine your offer and also help you know the areas where you have knowledge gaps.

Step 7) Getting your first paid client

Once you've gotten to the point where you have an offer and understand your audience's pain points...

It's time to get your first paid client.

You might already have people asking to work with you by this point.

If you've already done free consulting for 15 - 30 people and you're improving each time, it would be hard not to have someone ask to work with you 1-1.

At this point, you can land your first paid client.

Do whatever you can to land your first paid client as just having one boosts your authority and confidence.

When you start and build your creator business if people don’t engage, buy, or follow, you’re doing something wrong, and you probably need to educate yourself on how to build an audience.

Here are a few places to start:

• How to grow a brand(9 lessons on building a creator business)

• How to position yourself online

• Work with me 1-1

That’s it for this letter.

Thanks for reading.

– Christian