Should You Start With Clients, Content, or Community? (What I’d Do Differently)

So if you looked at my business from the outside, you would probably think that I'm distracted and doing too much. 3 different revenue streams, 2 distinct audiences. This isn't what I talk about to early stage creators and even to a lot of successful creators. And honestly, if you said that to me, you wouldn't be wrong. But here's the thing, there is a strategy behind the chaos and the seeming confusion. And if you're watching this and you're pretty early on in your creator journey, this is actually probably an example of a strategy that you should not do, at least not yet. In this video, I'm going to show you how I'm connecting client work, community, and content into a single long-term flywheel, and why that flywheel wouldn't even be spinning if I hadn't built my first business past 6 figures. Also talk to you about the sacrifices that I've made and continue to make, like slower growth for more creative fulfillment, and how I'm using high-ticket client work to fund the future of my YouTube channel and the creator community. Here's the flywheel that I'm building between my content, my community, and my clients. The YouTube channel is the top of funnel, biggest audience, most interest, most sponsorship revenue comes through the YouTube channel. It's a way for me to build my platform and get the most eyeballs on the work that I'm doing. Now this is where things do— like, I have to be really careful with this next part because people who watch the YouTube channel are not necessarily looking for creator advice. That's not the point of the channel. Now I am using what I learn in the main productivity YouTube channel to also grow the Hey Creator YouTube channel for videos like this. But people aren't coming to the main YouTube channel to learn about creator content. That's what the Hey Creator channel and community is for. Now, the way that I draw people in to the Hey Creator community is through the Hey Creator Summit, the newsletter, and also what the reason that I— the way that I see these two things connecting is that what I'm learning on my YouTube channel with my newsletter, everything that I'm learning and doing as a creator, The Hey Creator Community is the behind the scenes, the direct access to me and my, you know, expert friends to teach what we are learning and doing in our creator businesses. But what I want the Hey Creator Community to be and where it fits best into my workflow and content is that what I'm doing with my own stuff now I get to share with the members directly. So we, we go live in the community twice a week. There's a guest expert teaching Tuesday, and then there's Founder Friday with me, which is like Q&A, show and tell, a little bit of teaching, a little bit of coworking. I even think that it's a little bit less about like the sheer volume of content that's in the community and the community and the members and the teaching and the hangout, ask questions, quality of the people and the content that's already in there. So because of what I'm doing and learning for my own YouTube channel and own newsletter, is a way that I feel inspired to teach and coach members of the Hey Creator community based on what I'm doing. It also attracts other experts and professional creators who then do two things. They come on to the Hey Creator community as guest experts and they lead members-only workshops. They're amazing. And, you know, range of different topics. Daniel's come in from Funnel Ninjas and talked about his viral lead magnet strategy. You know, Angel Marie has come on and talked about short-form video. John Meese has come on and talked about high-ticket coaching. There are so many like good sessions in there that are available right now, but that exists because I'm inspired to teach it. And guest experts come on because they see what I'm doing on YouTube. They see what I'm doing with my own, with my own content. So to me, my work is what powers Hey Community, like from a content, from an inspiration standpoint. The third piece of this is client work. And client work, like I said, is something that has been very profitable for me, but it's something that right now probably is about 60 to 70% of my revenue, which is down from 80 to 90% of my revenue. And I want to continually kind of flip that over the next 12 to 18 months. Big caveat for those of you watching: if you haven't built one of your revenue streams, if you don't have a dedicated revenue stream that's doing at least $50,000, I would say probably more like closer to $100,000 or say like maybe $30,000 to $50,000 as a part-time thing, then you should not diversify your interest and your revenue stream, your topic as much as I am. And I fully understand that what I'm doing may not— probably isn't the best short to mid-term revenue building strategy. The reason that I'm doing that is the reason I'm doing what I'm doing is because I see how the pieces fit together for me, for me. And I also, like I said, over the next 18 months, I want to shift my business model and my revenue diversification from being so reliant on clients to doing something where like I'm doing the creator business and then I'm teaching other people how to do their creator business as well. So I see like the flywheel, you know, the yin and the yang between my YouTube channel and newsletter and then helping other people with their YouTube channel, newsletter, creator business, high-ticket coaching. Because I'm doing the thing, I feel more inspired and more informed to show you how to also do the thing. Along with, you know, experts and friends and other folks who are also doing the thing. They're out there doing the thing. The only part of this that I would say you could replicate is if you're going for high-ticket services. And I've said over and over again in the Hey Creator community, we have videos about this on the channel, that starting with a high-ticket service or coaching is the best way to start your, like, revenue growth. It's whether you believe this or not right now, I'm telling you, it's easier to find one person to sell a $1,000 thing to or a $5,000 or a $10,000 service to than it is to grow an audience to try and find 100 people to give you $100. It's much easier to find one person to give you $10,000 than to find 100 people who will give you $100. Now, over time, it can be a much more sustainable business model to build an audience, and it doesn't have to be a big audience, but, you know, an audience of people who want to buy your things, then, you know, it's nice to have 1,000 customers instead of just trying to find 10 customers. But these are two different ways of thinking about creator businesses. And Brian Harris and Jon Meese both have really, really good podcasts on the Hey Creator Show talking about high-ticket services where you don't need as big of an audience. So I definitely encourage you to check those two things out. But the thing that you can do even on high-ticket services is you can kind of show behind the scenes, not behind the scenes of your client's content, how you work, how you think. Like one of the reasons I continue to get clients with email marketing and funnels and even some with video work is that I have on X mainly and LinkedIn been talking about creator content and newsletters for years now. And even though I might be working on, you know, a funnel or a sales series for a client, then I'm not going to like show, hey, here's this person's like sales emails. I am still going to say like, hey, when I'm doing a sales sequence, here's how I put things together. Here's how I write the emails. Here are some of the topics. Here are some of the things that I'm making sure that I'm doing about link triggers. You can still build an audience of people who are interested in your thing. And then over time, Give them the value ladder. Say like, hey, you can join this course that I have that will show you everything that I do about email marketing for $300, $500, or you can hire me to do the thing for you for $5,000. And that's kind of, kind of where I'm at right now. You can either hire me for $5,000 or you can buy the course for $500. And anything less than that, read the newsletter, watch the YouTube channel, join the community. So you can see there are all these different levels to how you monetize the different types of offers that you have. And as I said, what I'm doing, the way that I think about this, and even though it's not the most money I could make in the short term, the most money I could make in the short term is with more clients. But I want to build something that's more sustainable, that is more diverse in the types of monetization. And so that's why I'm focusing on the YouTube channel, my newsletter, funneling those systems and those learnings and what I'm working on into the Hey Creator community. Still working with a select group of clients that I really like and respect and enjoy the work that we do together, but flipping more and more of the revenue instead of it being 70% clients, I want it to be 70% courses and sponsorships and some coaching in there as well, flipping all that around and taking the maybe not even necessarily the longer path, but something that I see You know, after doing this for, you know, 5, 5 years now, this is year 5 of, you know, non, non-W-2 income and, you know, making, making money as I go along. And I see like I see what I enjoy, I see what I'm good at, I see how I can serve people. And so building a business that's based on what I'm good at and what I like doing and how I like helping people, that's what I'm focusing on. I mean, not just for the next 12 to 12 to 18 months. It's something that I want to do for a really long time. And that's how I'm piecing everything together. I just wanted to give a big kind of breakdown of how I think about these businesses, these 3 businesses, how they kind of fit together. Maybe not 3 businesses, these 3 revenue streams, how they fit together, how they inform each other, and how I see them working together in the years to come. If you enjoy this video, make sure that you give it a like. If you're listening to the show, please subscribe, rate, and review. And if you want to have conversations like this and you want to ask me more about it, the best place to do that is in the Hey Creator community. So go to heycreator.com/community. You can sign up just for a month, come in, see how you like it. There are expert sessions every week. There are Founder Friday Q&A, show and tell, teaching every single Friday. This is a place where you can come grow your business, ask questions,, get feedback, get support, get motivated. I'd love to see you in there. Come on in, send me a DM, say hey, I'll get right back to you. Thank you for watching. I'll see you again soon.