How to Make Money as a Content Creator Without "Selling Out" - 30

This is Law and Wit, Episode 30: How to Make Money as a Content Creator Without Selling Out. Welcome to Law and Wit, Creative Counsel for Entrepreneurs. I'm your host, Brittany Rettell, mother of 4, entrepreneur, naptime lawyer, and attorney for creative entrepreneurs. I'm here to share inspiration and action so that you can tackle your business blocks and confidently own your business in every sense of the word. Thank you so much for being here. Hello listeners, and welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here. I know you you guys have a choice in your content and what you're listening to. And I know every day that there are more and more podcasts out there. I think that's amazing, that's awesome. Um, I love this medium so much personally. I'm a huge podcast junkie, so I'm glad that there's so much great stuff coming out. Um, I also understand that that means that I have competition every day for your ears. Um, and I, you know, I try to live in, you know, the abundant mindset, so I don't, um, think that it's true competition in that like winners and losers, and that every time someone else comes out with something even in my same space that means that it's taken away from me, um, but just that I, I recognize the reality that you guys have a lot of choices, and I'm just grateful for you to be here. So thank you so much to be here. Um, so welcome to 2019. If you're not listening to this at the beginning of the new year, sorry not sorry hashtag. Um, but it's the beginning of the new year. There's a lot of energy, and I'm really hopeful there's a lot of energy about your business and about what you're going to do with it this year. Um, whether you consider yourself a creative entrepreneur or a content creator or a blogger or influencer, or you have e-commerce shop, or you're a maker or service provider, or some combination thereof, um, thanks for being here. And I hope that this podcast is serving you well, is giving you content that helps in your business, helps you be more informed, more empowered, and make the decisions that will move the needle forward, um, that it's not leaving you, oh, you know, feeling overwhelmed or underprepared in any way, um, to kind of, you know, face the challenges and the opportunities that are before you, um, in this really exciting time to be an entrepreneur and to be working for yourself. So with that, um, let's jump into the episode today, um, after I give a shout out to a review. I'm going to try to keep doing this, um, and jump on the bandwagon. I used to do this a while ago and then I kind of forgot about it, um, but I do— reviews are so important and I do read every single one of these, um, and I know that it's, you know, it's, it's an old drum to beat, um, to leave a review for a podcast, but it really is really helpful to me, um, and it allows me to share my message, um, and motivates me and to be working on this when there are other things that I could be on my business. And this is one of the things that's, um, that's free, that doesn't make me any money, but I, I know it's so important. So anyway, long story long, um, the reviews are really important to me. Okay, so this one is from, um, DBYIG123. So, um, you know, very shout out for the creative password-esque username. Um, but it says Brittany is funny and really helps to explain legal jargon. The podcasts don't take up a lot of your time. She keeps it brief and concise. It's like Listening to a legal friend, so genuine and honest. Thank you so much, DBY. I really appreciate that. And that's exactly, exactly what I'm trying to do, is to keep it concise and brief. So, um, in fact, my goal with this podcast this year is, um, kind of two goals: to be more consistent. I really want to be good about every single week getting something out to you guys, um, even if it's not as polished, even if I don't have all the other supporting materials that I'd like to. Sometimes I have the recording done, but I'm waiting on myself for the show notes or the graphics or other stuff. Um, you know, the transcript, all those other pieces, the editing— that's what takes a lot of time. Um, the recording is actually really easy for me, and I really enjoy it. It's kind of all the other stuff that are not as strong a forte. And no, I have not been savvy enough yet to hire that all out, but I will. Um, but, um, also to be brief and concise and to the point. So I'm gonna say my first goal is consistency. My second goal this year, um, is brevity. So I really want to try to dial it in and make sure that I'm using your time wisely and not wasting it in any way. So with that, let's get to the episode right after I do my quick disclaimer. Okay, while I am a licensed attorney, I am not your attorney unless you want me to be, and we work that out. You sign an engagement letter, you give me money, and then, hey, I'm your attorney, buddy buddy. And that's what that looks like. That's not what this is. This is information and educational purposes only today. All right, gotcha. All right, let's go. Okay, um, so today we are talking about how to make money as a content creator without selling out. Okay, and I put this in big air quotes because first of all I don't think it's possible for you to sell out when it's part of your business, okay? So let's just, you know, tackle that mindset right from the get-go. You're in business, you know, for a lot of reasons, but a business by definition is here to make money, okay? That's what it does. That's, that's the whole thing. That's the whole shtick. There's obviously a lot of underlies underneath why you're choosing that particular business and what that serves you, your talents and your time and your energy and what you want to contribute to the world, but it to make money. Otherwise, um, it's just a hobby. And sometimes, as my husband points out, when I'm not good about, um, tracking my time when I'm working on client work— sometimes I'm not good about putting my client timer on my hours tracker, um, and he's like, are you billing for that? Because if not, that's just a really crappy hobby. And you're right, because writing a contract or, um, getting back to an email about a negotiation on something or a demand letter, that's a pretty crummy hobby. Like, there, there's a lot of other hobbies in the world that I should be doing if I'm not getting paid. So there's no selling out, okay? Not really, and not how we're going to talk about today especially, okay? So let's talk about how to make money as a content creator, okay? The first is kind of the easiest— advertising, okay? Ads. And obviously we've come a long way from the banner ads and even the sidebar ads that used to be really prolific on, on blogs, okay? There's, um, you know, there's media networks that are— you get paid every time someone clicks on something, every time someone buys something. There's banners that are responsive, obviously, that target consumers and what they're already looking at and shopping. And you've noticed this because you see something on ModCloth and you click on it, you add it as a favorite, and then you're browsing around on Huffington Post, you know, a couple hours later, and the exact same thing pops up. In fact, this is a software tool that my husband used to sell when he worked at Adobe, and he's like, oh yeah, no, no, they're completely tracking you, and that's why they retarget you. So, um, so these ads can be super savvy or not. There's lots of different media networks you can work with. I know a lot of people have had a good experience with Mediavine. As being one of them. Um, but you can basically run ads, um, and you can make money that way. So that's kind of first, easy, off the table. The second way, um, is you can do sponsored posts. Okay, and so this is— I'm sure you've seen it, um, and I know I might be preaching to the choir here, that if you are in the business of blogging or influence or content creation full-time, I know some of this might seem like old hat, and even some of the mindset work, you're like, no, Debra, you don't have to tell me that this stuff is important, this is how I pay my mortgage. Um, but I think it's a useful tool for us to just be reminded of the other options out there, um, and for us to hear the advice, for example, that we need to diversify our income. Because if we're relying on just one way that we make our money and one way that people see our stuff and then monetize it, um, we are giving up a lot of power in possibly networks, platforms, algorithms, systems that we do not control and we are at the mercy of, okay? Which, um, if you're a type A person like me, should make you a little nervous, okay? All right, so sponsored posts. So this is the kind of classic blogger work where you are working with a brand and you are creating some sort of content, and you are doing it in combination and collaboration with someone else, and you get paid for that work. It's pure content creation. And then, you know, you work out some sort of arrangement and a deal, an agreement with them that it's a certain number of blog posts or one blog post, and maybe it's going to be on some certain platforms or on maybe Instagram and maybe some stories, and then maybe something on your blog or a combination thereof. There are a lot of different ways obviously to slice and dice it, and it changes versus on what's popular and what platforms are doing well and where this brand's audience is. If they're being savvy about their marketing budget, that they're going to be wherever their people are and asking you, hey, um, you know, what can you service? What can you add value and reach out and tell our story to our followers, to people who are trying to find us and engage with our brand? Okay, um, and I want— kind of want to add as I go through all of these are some kind of legal tidbits that you have to— that you need to be thinking about. Because I'm— some of you, you know, might have heard a lot of these tips before, but maybe someone didn't talk about some of the business admin/legal things you should be thinking about if you are making money this way or wanting to be making money this way. So a sponsored post, the clear one is that the FTC, which I've talked about before, Federal Trade Commission, has made it very clear that you need to make it clear that when you're doing sponsored work that it is sponsored and people know that there is relationship between you and the brand, okay? And you can do this in— there's a couple different sanctioned ways, but the biggest thing is that you need to make it clear, you know, it needs to pass the grandma test. If your grandma can understand that when you have a blog post that's talking all about Hefty trash bags, that Hefty paid you for that, you just didn't wake up that morning, you're like, you know what, you know what would be great? I'm gonna talk about trash bags today. Like, come on. Um, and the thing is, is like, don't be quiet about this or be embarrassed or shameful about it or anything else. This is how you make money, okay? And that's totally fine. You should embrace that. And, um, it's okay for you to get paid for your amazing work, and having sponsored work is part of that. Um, so don't be upfront. FTC says you need— you can use the word sponsored, or you could do a natural language equivalent. So I usually recommend with my clients just say sponsored, just because I think that's shorter and sweeter. You don't have to put the hashtag in front of it. That is a myth. Um, some people like doing that and they think that's clear and searchable, but you don't have to. Um, what you do have to do is it needs to be clear and concise. It needs to be above the fold or before the jump. And so on Instagram, you know, that shortens your blog, that shortens your caption, it needs to be in the first 3 lines. Okay. Um, and it needs to be clear that this is sponsored. So I usually say, recommend using the words sponsored or ad. Okay, those are the 2 that have complete blessing from the FTC Other ones that people like to use, like brand ambassador or collaboration or, you know, enthusiast or SP— not as clear. Okay, not as clear. SP in fact sounds like that you're working for like a sunblock commercial. Okay, it sounds like an SPF rating to me. So don't use those ones. Okay, use the ones that are kosher, that have the blessing, um, and those are sponsored and ad. All right, um, and again, you can use a hashtag symbol or not, your, your call on that. Okay, um, so that's sponsored posts. The next way you can make money. Number 3 is you can do affiliate sales. Um, and this one is another one that a lot of people are familiar with. A lot of people are successfully monetizing and have built a great sound business around this. Um, and obviously this works well especially if you are, you know, have a lengthy Amazon affiliate shop and you're, you know, either that or you have something else that you're, you are getting a big affiliate commission on every time people purchase. Um, and that's a good alignment with your brand. So obviously that's the kind of the test as you're going through all of these, which what will work is, um, what makes sense with what you're talking about. You know, if you're a fly fisherman and that's what your blog is all about, well, what do fly fishermen need? Well, they probably need poles, and they probably need waders, and they probably need some good, you know, a good hat, and they need some flies and maps, and maybe they need, um, you know, travel booking arrangements. I mean, you know, you just kind of got to put yourself in the shoes of your readers, um, and if they're really into this thing, then what else do they need, and what are they probably looking for recommendations? You know, start with that, or, and, or start with stuff that you're familiar with, okay? The brands and products that you already use and love, and it would be a natural fit for you to talk about that, for you to recommend that, for you to have that present in your content. Now affiliate is the same thing as sponsored in that there needs to be a disclosure, okay? And so what this means is that if you're going to have affiliate links and it's in a— either in a social media post or it's on your blog, it needs to be— there needs to be a disclosure close to where you're putting the affiliate link, Okay, not buried in some— your privacy policy or your website terms and conditions that's in your footer, that's on a page that no one clicks on except for maybe me because I'm a huge nerd like that, and I sometimes do click on and I'm curious about what— how people are updating their legal documents on their website. Um, so it needs to be— and that's why you've seen people put the little asterisk comment at the top of their page of this page does contain affiliate links. So, which is, um, good. I'd say the best practice is to put it close, you know, if you have a whole page with all kinds of stuff going on. And it might be unclear which of those is links, then you can even put a little sign there or say like affiliate link parentheses and then put the link. So you don't have to disclose how much of a commission you're making, you know, you don't have to go that in-depth, but you do need to disclose that you're an affiliate if you're talking about something. If the reason that you are representing or having communication about a brand is because there is a relationship there that you think think that people would want to know, that would make a difference in their buying decision and they're weighing out your information that you're sharing, then you need to share. Okay, so put yourself in the shoes of a person reading your stuff. If you'd want to know that the whole reason this person is talking about this Disneyland Resort is because they're getting an affiliate link, then you need to disclose. Okay, if it would make a difference in how you're weighing out pros and cons— should we stay here, should we then you need to disclose. Okay, so when in doubt, disclose. All right, I wish there was a cuter phrase than that, but that, that's where we're at. Okay, so again, remember those FTC disclosures. So, okay, the next one, um, is, um, number 4 is online education. Um, and so this is one that, um, has developed, obviously exploded, honestly, in the last few years that we've seen. You know, it used to be there was a couple people who had courses and, oh, you can learn like watercolor or photography. And there were some spaces obviously in the creative fields is what they were more popular. But now there's courses, you can learn everything from everyone, and your people kind of hold your nose at you if you don't have an online course at this point. So online education is a way that you can add a revenue stream, that you can make money from something that you're an expert in or that you're good at teaching other people in. Again, recognizing that it doesn't mean that you have to be the best at what you do, or even, you know, I guess expert is a little bit of a misnomer in your area. In fact, there's some research to show and some, you know, anecdotal evidence that people who are good teachers in something are people who are only, you know, only a few steps ahead in that they're— they still remember what it was like not to have the knowledge that they have. Okay, I would put an asterisk on that. Someone like an attorney, I don't know if it would be the greatest, you know, it'd be great for a person who's taking a first semester of law school to be teaching teaching about this stuff. So, um, maybe that, that's not true in all subject matters, um, but certainly if someone is so, so far down the path of expertise in their art that they forget what it's like not, you know, to be teaching it, um, if they're not a good teacher, then probably online education is not a good fit for you. Okay, so online education, and obviously there's a million platforms you can get into, um, but that's a great way to diversify your income. Um, the next one, so I think that's— we're on number 6 is service-based business. So this is your classic, you know, one-on-one or one-to-many service base that you're making money. And obviously a lot of these things can be booked online or completely done online. There doesn't have to be an in-person element so that you're not restricted geographically to where you are or where you might be located. So this is your coaches and your consultants, your people who run masterminds or people who run small group coaching. All of that I would into, or any other service-based business that you can do online. So being a social media manager, or a VA, or, um, you know, brand manager, or brand consulting, or, you know, interior e-design, all of that kind of stuff, a service-based business. So, um, you know, try to be creative there in terms of what is something that you can do for clients, or are doing for clients, or what are ways you can spin that, that you maybe move that to a digital platform, or you move that from a one-to-one to a one-to-many, um, that you can scale a little bit and make a little more bang for your buck. Okay, our next one is in-person events. So this is another way that people monetize. And I think most people are— a lot of these are most successful, again, when they diversify, when they couple a couple of these. Not saying that they have to do all of them, start at once. I don't know if I'd recommend that. But certainly, like we talked about, it's good not to have all your eggs in one basket, okay? Because in-person events can be tricky, and they're really time-consuming, and they're really stressful, honestly. As someone who has had a couple, a few clients who they do a lot of in-person events, and that's their big shtick. Um, and you know, they're amazing, and it's cool to have all that energy there, but there's so much work on the back end if you've never had to run an event and do all the planning. And then there's always something that goes wrong. There's, um, people who cancel or get late, or the food's not there on time, or you didn't have enough vegan options, or whatever, ever. It happens, okay? So And so, oh, and I was gonna— I forgot to— let's talk about the legal things from the last few. So online education, the legal aspect that I want you to think about there is that we need to have— you need to protect your content, okay? So I know I've done— I've talked about that in a few other episodes about what to do if people rip off your content. That's obviously a huge concern with online education because your content is your whole shtick. So make sure if you're doing that that you have some really solid terms of for your— for people when people are taking your course. So you have course terms and outline what people can do with their information and what they can't. Make sure you let people know that they can't share their login if that's not cool with you, which I'm assuming it's not, um, and what they can do with the information in the course. You know, are there parts that they can share, which parts, um, and what are the ramifications if they break that contract? Okay, for service-based business, um, what you're going to want there is probably some a really solid client contract, okay? And these are ones that, because I do it so often, I actually sell these in my shop, creativecontracts.co. So for that, you're probably going to be hired as an independent contractor providing some sort of service for someone. So a good client service agreement will be your best friend and will keep you out of a lot of headaches. In-person events, the most common legal issues are you want to have a good solid event waiver. So when people sign up to buy their tickets. You want to make sure that that's something that's part of the checkout process and/or printed on the physical ticket. Um, I'd say for most people, since you're probably using a third-party software service that's, you know, checking people in or doing e-tickets or something, um, having that part of the checkout procedure and letting people know, um, that, you know, especially if you're having any kind of health or wellness, if people are eating, if they're doing games, if they're doing outdoorsy activities that higher, you know, that elevate your risk risk and exposure to things going wrong and people getting upset, then you definitely want to make sure you have some solid waivers for that. Um, and then the other thing is that if you are going to be recording at the event, if you want to have, you know, photography and videography going on, and we're going to want to use that for marketing, um, then make sure you have as part of the checkout process as well a waiver that people have said it's okay for you to be taking pictures that identify them. Okay, if you're doing a big picture where you can't really see who it like if it's the back of someone's head, you know, you're looking up at a speaker, that's fine. But if you can personally identify someone, then you need to have their permission. You need to have like that model likeness, you know, photography waiver form that's signed by them that says it's okay for you to use their picture before you put like front and center HD, you know, 4K of their photo on your webpage. You know, say so-and-so went to our sexual dysfunction clinic. You know, you can imagine, especially if you're in a more sensitive sensitive area of some sort of event where you think people might have a problem having it publicly known that they were attending or getting that kind of help, especially, especially make sure that that is locked down, that that is not left up to chance. Okay, so that's for in-person events. Okay, the next one is digital products. Um, so this is our ebooks, our stock content, music or photos or graphics, or these are our templates or swipe files. These are things that help people do what they do, and you just provide a completely online digital product. And it's great because there's no fulfillment, no shipping, no warehouse and inventory and all that ruckus. You just get to do it purely online. So again, similar to the online education piece, your probably big issue here that you're concerned about is want to make sure that your stuff is protected. So here you're going to want to explore copyright registration and what of your stuff might be eligible for registration and what should you probably register so that if and when— because it's probably gonna be when, I'm sorry— someone takes it, that you can actually do something about it, that your threats have some meat and you can go after and say, hey, knock that off, please stop stealing my stuff, and here's why, and here's my lovely little demand letter telling you why you need to stop that. So, so having a good, you know, exploring copyright registration. Again, having that website terms of use or terms of service is really important here. Wherever people are accessing this, make it very clear clear how they can use these files. This is really important if you're providing some sort of stock content, like I said, like stock photos or stock music. You're going to want a good user license agreement, so you're going to want to make it really clear what people can do with their stuff and what's the difference between downloading and using it for personal use versus commercial use. Is there a limit to downloads, or in what formats they can use it for, or for broadcast or synchronization? You know, you can get down the rabbit hole there with user licenses. But if any of you have, you know, wandered on a stock website and tried to read over those licenses and try to figure out what you need, it can sometimes be a little tricky. So this is one definitely worth hiring an attorney, someone like me or someone else, that will give you some guidance there about what, what to make sure that people are downloading, that they're doing the right thing. So, um, and that's kind of goes the same with templates and swipe files. So those are probably the main issues that I see, or the most common ones that you want to make sure that you're taking care of in protecting your stuff. The last one is physical products, okay? And with physical products, your main, your main legal issues that you're probably dealing with there are product liability, which you just want to make sure that you know where your stuff is made and what it purports to do, that it's safe, that if it's claiming to be free of something or, you know, health or organic or anything, especially anything in the health and wellness here, um, that you can back up those claims. Um, you want to be careful about results. You know, if you're saying that your product does something or cures something, um, that you're making it very clear that, um, it's not a statement that's been evaluated by the FDA, that this is not medicine, that you're not diagnosing anything. Um, you know, all of that legal mumbo-jumbo you see, that's, you know, CYA, which, you know, when it's your turn, you want— you want way, you know, covered, guys. You really do. Um, so look out for product liability, um, and also look out for trademark issues. So, um, here, if you have developed a product that you love and the name is meaningful to you, um, and it's a big part of the brand and you've put money and are planning on building money around this brand, then you probably need to want to look at trademark. Um, and this is something you can look at at some of the other, um, areas too. Certainly you could still do it in online education or digital courses or service-based business. And I've done trademarks for people in all those categories. But I think especially in physical products, people, you know, really want to develop a product name or, you know, either that's a particular product line or the name of the whole brand that has physical products and make sure that that's something they can really protect and lock down and they don't want to see it be used by someone in the same space, okay? And what's great is once you've registered and have a successful, a real legit trademark, you can register with the Amazon Brand Registry. You can stop people from selling it on Amazon. You can register it at US Customs and Trade at the border, and you can actually have them search and seize goods and stop them from getting into the country at the border, which is awesome to think that there's some minions at the border working for you. And again, you can stop people, you can, you know, sue them for infringement and say, stop, cease, desist, all the things, and they actually have to listen to you or pay a buttload of money. So it really gives you a lot of really cool perks and powers that allow you to stop people from doing bad things and ripping you off. So trademarks is definitely one you want to put on your list for physical products. So, and then again, making sure that as— if you're— especially if you're selling online, that you have your privacy policy, you have your website terms, those two legal docs, that website bundle that I talk about all the time, because guys, you just need it, okay? It's 2019, you need it, okay? If you don't have one one, or if you think yours is total crap and you're not sure who put it up or what it says or was copied and pasted from another website and you're not sure if it's up to snuff, then, um, go on creativecontracts.co and buy it. Buy it now, buy it yesterday, put it on your site, be done. Okay, check that off your list. All right. Okay, um, so now we've kind of walked through, um, these 10 different ways to make money as a content creator. Um, so let's talk about the mindset behind this stuff. Okay, so, you know, how do you— if you are looking to monetize, if you started monetizing but you still have some blocks about it, you still feel slimy, you still feel like you're selling out, um, how are we going to address that? And my big advice here, um, is to look for balance. Okay, um, so a lot of people in the industry, a lot of experts say that kind of look for somewhere between like an 80/20, at most a 70/30 split in your content, meaning 80% of your stuff is valuable, is free, you're not shilling anything, you are just solving your people's problems, okay? Or whatever it is that you do and that's why people show up and hopefully you should know what that is or you've delved and done the work to figure out what that is, what value you're providing, that's what you're 80% of the time you should be doing. 20% of the time you could be selling, okay? You could be doing sponsored work or selling, either selling your stuff or selling for someone else, okay? Maybe at most 30%, but I would not go more than that, okay? And the other reality that you need to— that you really need to wrap your head around is that if you are planning on building your content creation from scratch knowing that you want to monetize, okay? And in this day and age, I would probably say if you're starting now, um, not that blogging is dead, but it's a different game now than if you just happen to have a cute, you know, the Boy and Me blog, you know, the purple fritter and crayon from 10 years ago, and it and to monetize. If you're starting today, you know what the game is now, and you should be careful that you are providing and over-providing and surprising, delighting with value and value and more value, and then start asking for people to support and buy and do other things. Okay, if you start out right from the gate and are just trying to sell stuff and shill stuff, people are not going to like that. Okay, because we have a, we have a savvier audience. Okay, it's a different landscape now than it was before., and you need to be aware of that. And you need to be aware that people have a lot of choices and where to get stuff, and they've wisened up and they know how the system works. Um, and so you need to make sure that you are delivering value, um, and then they will keep coming up and they'll— you'll have that trust built up. And so then when you ask them to support some other stuff or check something out or to follow a swipe up, then they'll trust you and they'll do it. Okay, um, know that this stuff takes time, you know, building up that trust with an audience. And So be— have good sustainable content, keep on showing up, be consistent, and, you know, make sure that when you do work with someone else, when you make and reach out, do that kind of partnership, make sure that it makes sense for your brand. You know, if you're a vegan blogger, then you probably don't want to be selling leather bags, okay? I know that seems like a dumb one to say, of like, of course not, but, um, but, you know, you see really funny, odd partnerships sometimes. You're online and you're like, "Really? You talk about sending your kids to Montessori and you're like grounding up beets in your home apothecary jar and then I see an ad for McDonald's." And guess what? I like McDonald's fries. I'm with Jim Gaffigan on this. I will not be shamed for liking McDonald's because I have a hard time believing that you can make a fry as good as McDonald's does. But if it's not a good fit for your brand, um, and you know, if it feels weird from the get-go, then you should probably listen to your gut, even if they're paying you a lot of money. Now, now, you know, I understand everyone's got to keep the lights on and pay a mortgage, and you know, uh, flattery don't charge these battery civilians, um, as they say in Wreck-It Ralph. But, um, just be careful and thoughtful about that. And again, when you've diversified your income and put other little floaters out in terms of where you're making your money, you won't find yourself in a spot where you need to depend on one brand or one gig coming through or one collaboration. Okay, if you're not so hungry and so desperate, not only will you not have, you know, quota breath, desperation breath, which people can smell— it's a real thing and it doesn't smell good— um, but you'll have the power to be like, you know what, this is not a good fit. Thanks for reaching out, but, um, it's, it's not going to work right now. I just don't think it's, it's a natural fit for me. Okay, you don't have to be biatchy about it, um, just be real. So, okay, my other tip here, um, is that, um, you know, like I said, be honest and upfront when you are working with other brands, especially if it's, you know, more in the advertising, sponsored post, affiliate sales. Um, don't be coy, don't be cute, don't— about that this is sponsored work. I love what Live Free Miranda, my friend Miranda Anderson, has written about this, and she has a really great blog post that's all about sponsored content where she kind of explains, kind of takes people up behind the curtain because she does this kind of work. Work. And I'll link it in the show notes. But she says, you know, she always asks, what value does this add to my reader when she's doing sponsored work? And she says, so if you never buy that herbal tea dress or new rug, that you still shared something else of importance in the post for someone to enjoy. And her example she gives is like, you know, she'll talk about something, but then she'll give a recipe that uses it. You know, she'll ask for what other value can I add to my people. And to make sure that they're still getting something out of it, that I'm not just, oh, here we go, here's a pretty picture, doesn't that change your day? Because honestly, maybe it does, but maybe it doesn't. Maybe you can delve, dig deeper for a little bit more than that. And the other thing she talked about here was how do you get that fear of selling out? And I love this. She says try to flip the narrative, pretend that you are at some swanky art exhibition exhibition, okay? You know, like really cool lighting and fancy hors d'oeuvres that you're not even sure if they taste good, but like, man, do they look amazing. You know, it's probably like some of those really great vertical food that, you know, that you're not sure exactly how you're supposed to eat it or topple it over, but you're really impressed. I always think of David Sedaris here. So, um, and you see all this cool artwork plastered around the studio, and then across a couple of these pieces you see some sold stickers on them. That's amazing. You should be so glad, okay? And pretend like this is, you know, this is the analogy here, that this is your friend who's a content creator or someone that you follow, and these are all of her work. And on, yeah, a couple of them, they have sold stickers. You know, the great response for you to be would be for you to be happy for her. You should support her. You should be excited that she has found a way to make some money from something that she likes, from her art, from her stuff, from her talents and gifts, whatever those may be. Okay, um, what's kind of a crappy thing to do is for you to turn up your nose at it and be like, oh my gosh, I can't believe she is selling that. Like, I can't believe she's out there like actually like making money and putting like, you know, exchanging it. You know, she's getting dollars and they're getting artwork. How lowbrow. I mean, come on, people, you know, we all have to eat. Okay, yeah, we— compliments don't pay our bills. And so It's, you know, we got to accept the realities that as much as it's cool to be authentic and share value and, you know, be real, we also need to find ways that we can make money. And especially when people have invested so much time and energy into putting out good content. And if you're a content creator, I know I'm preaching to the choir that you know exactly how much time and energy it is. You know, YouTube videos and blog posts and styled gigs, and they all take an incredible amount of time and work, okay, especially because we know time is money, that you should support your stuff. A, you shouldn't be afraid of your own stuff and putting that out into the world, and B, you shouldn't be a stickler and holding your nose about other people's good work. And when they have the confidence and when they've researched and find that it's a good fit for them and they put that out into the world, good for them, okay? That's what I say. Hashtag good for for them. You should support it. You should like their post. You should comment, okay? Because we all know how much of a bummer it is when you do a sponsored post and your engagement plummets because people don't answer the question or they don't want to talk about it. Or worse— here's the worst— all they do is rag on the brand or put some negative, you know, comment in there of like, "Yeah, I tried one of their things. It was awful." Okay, would you say that, you know, if someone was wearing a t-shirt and just, you know, you didn't like the t-shirt, would you come up to be like, "I hate that t-shirt. That t-shirt sucks." That's just poor taste. It may be that that t-shirt sucks. That's fine. That's your opinion. That might be your truth. But I'm just saying, is this a great forum? Is that a really emotionally mature reaction for you to do? Is it just go on someone's post and to say that? If you really have a problem or some legitimate questions for somebody, then you can DM them. Make them private. But please don't lambast them. Don't embarrass or shame or flame people or go on Reddit Reddit, or are there those awful groups where they talk about bloggers and that's what they do with their life is to just rag on other people because they don't have anything going on. I mean, it's just pathetic. Honestly, it's pathetic. Okay, all right, um, so those are my thoughts on this. I know that was a lot of thoughts, um, but I'm just gonna quickly go down my list again so that if you, um, are somewhere else and you're going to be like, wait, what was Brittany talking about? What was the point here? Here are some of the ways, and I know this is not an exhaustive list, I will give that disclaimer, but these are the ones that I see most often in my clients. I see them in friends who are in this space, and a lot of them, like I said, are doing a healthy combination or have started out in one and then diversified their brand into a few of them, which I think is a really great move because we all know that things change quickly, okay? Platforms and algorithms and systems and user tastes and what people are buying and wearing. And you know what, it's not all chalkboard and chevron print like was 10 years ago, and in 10 years it's gonna be something else. There are people who are gonna be talking and clamoring for something else, and when you're nimble and when you've got feelers out in a couple different baskets, you're in a better position to pivot the way that you want to and keep your brand alive and thriving and making you money, honey. Okay, all right, so let's go through our 10 again. 1, advertising. 2, sponsored posts. 3, affiliate sales. 4, online education. 5, service-based business. That's coaching and consulting and other one-on-one or one-to-many work. 6, in-person events. 7, digital products. And 8 are physical products. Okay, so those are the ones that I came up with, and obviously there's some that kind of go and back and forth in between it. So I hope this list has helped you think about some ways that either you want to expand your business or or ways in which you want to develop and think about, you know, increasing your income and increasing your opportunities to monetize and build the business that you want, including, you know, like a spoonful of sugar, some legal tips that you may want to keep in the back of your mind as you're considering this. Um, overarching, I want to remind you guys that as you're building your brand, to think about copyrights and trademarks and your intellectual property, because those are ones really could go with pretty much all of this, can be used in some form or another to protect your brand, protect what you've made, and especially when it's now bringing you money to make sure that it's locked down and as protected as it can be from people taking it and then using it against you or cutting into your bottom line. So hopefully that's been helpful to you. I'm going to remind you of some other free resources is that if you are not on my newsletter, you can subscribe to that by going to brittanyratel.com/newsletter, and I have a free legal checklist for you. So if you haven't looked that over, or if 2019 is the year for you that you want to get some of this stuff taken care of with your business, if you want to lock some stuff down and really make progress on some of those legal tasks which, you know, have been gnawing at you, you know that it's time for you to get legit, you feel that, you hear that Jiminy Cricket voice, then let's take some action and make it happen. Okay, go get that checklist, read it over, and then if you'd like some help with it, make and set a phone call appointment with me. Okay, you'll find my calendars at my website, brittanyratelle.com. I do 20-minute free phone calls, so it's okay, you jump on the phone with me, you talk about business, we talk about where you're at and where we— where you want to go and what things we need to do, um, so that legal is supporting you and helping you get there. Okay, and not getting in your way. All right. And that's what I'm about is I don't want to burst your bubble. I don't want to be a fun sucker. I don't want to be a drain on your bottom line. And so I don't believe in surprise bills. I don't believe in charging you for things you don't need. I will give it to you straight. And I also won't shame you if you haven't taken the steps that you probably should have. Okay. A lot of times I get on the phone with people and they're like, I know I didn't do it right, or I know I should have done better. You're going to be mad at me. You're going to be mad at me. You're gonna be mad at me. Okay, I hear that a lot. Guess what? I have never been mad at anyone I've talked to on the phone. Okay, not a one. And I'm not gonna be mad because I understand that this stuff is hard and it can seem overwhelming. I get it. I totally get it. Okay, and I have been in your shoes. I have been starting out in a new business. And guess what? Law school did not prepare me to open up my own LLC and to run an online business. It didn't. I had to learn that stuff all on my own. So, you know, I knew some of the legal stuff, but you know how it applies to modern business, that is all brand new. You know, how do you set up legal documents on your website? I didn't learn that in law school, guys, okay? I had to learn that all afterwards. So I totally get it. So, and I want to help you so that you can get this stuff done, okay? I'm not gonna shame you or judge you or think that you're stupid or that you're just not good at this stuff because you didn't get it already, because we don't know what we don't know, all All right? And if legal and the business side of your business is not what you've been doing, but you've been making money, guess what? That's amazing because we all need to make money. Okay? If you're not making money in your business, then it doesn't really matter what all the other things that have happened and taken in place. Okay? So that's, that's your plug to not be afraid. Okay? And don't let that be the reason why you're not moving forward with things that you want to move forward with is because you don't know how, or you think that someone's going to take your stuff or take your idea, okay? Because the worst thing that can happen is that you're so afraid that you don't put your great thing out into the world, and then the world suffers and we don't get to see it and we don't get to have it to solve our problems and to give us value. So don't, don't do that, please don't do that, okay? And the other free resource that I want to talk about is, besides talking with me, phone consult, and getting a newsletter, is to join me on Instagram. So if you're not following me there, I'm Brittany Ratelle, and I'm always giving out great tips, funny tips. And then I'm also starting up my legal lives again. So I try to do those on Tuesday nights, barring, you know, family activities or whatnot, but I try to hop on around 8:30 Pacific time. And if you haven't been on one of those before, they're super fun, and I open those up to question. And so people can send in questions beforehand, or if not, if I don't have any beforehand, then it's completely open mic night. So whoever jumps on and has a question about their business, then I will answer it for you if I can. So those are a lot of fun and a great way to get a quick question and answer to something that maybe has been bugging you about your creative business. So okay, those are some tools for you. Um, please go forth, use them, abuse them. Um, not, not like abuse, but you know what I mean. It's, it's pithy, so I had to say it. Um, and I wish you all the best, and please join me next week, um, and we'll talk about— I've got some amazing interviews that are in my library, that are in my can, um, that I was able to do, and, um, we're going to get those out to you so that you've got the stories that you have, uh, founder stories that go along with all this great business tools that you're building in your business. So thanks so much for being here and have a fantastic week.