 Do you ever long for the ability to create without worrying about the money? Well, join the club. I think a lot of us who are here in my community have that desire. And you know what? It is completely worthy. And it's possible. If you just do it step by step. Now, let's first talk about how a lot of us we are especially heart based service providers. We start creating a new business, you know, or or a new offering. And it comes out of the abundance of our desire to serve to connect to create. And yet we also require that it needs to make a certain amount of money or to get a certain number of clients. And that attachment of requirement to make money, or to enroll a certain number of clients. And you can tell that it pollutes the purity of the service, the creation, or the connection project. Right. So, it's important to understand that there we're really talking about two different sides of this one is hobby and one is business. Okay, you need to understand this because if you don't, you require your hobby to make money, and you perhaps don't realize you can put more of your hobby in your business so let's let me explain. The yearning to just create without thoughts of money is essentially what a hobby is about. Right. You can, you know, practice, you know, enjoying playing music or creating art or, or writing or any kind of creative project where you're like this is just for me. This is something that inspires my, you know, a different side of me than I usually do at work. And that's a wonderful and necessary, I think it's a necessary aspect of life to carve out at least some time to do our hobbies without thinking about whether this is going to make money. The thing about a hobby is that we don't even care if it's purely a hobby we don't care if anybody likes it or not. It's done because we enjoy it. We love it. We love the activity itself we're not doing it as a performance in front of others now some hobbies. You know, such as music or, or even some art. We do enjoy performing in front of sharing it with others and having them be delighted, but from that at that point, it starts to go into the territory of business. Now, when I say business, I don't really mean that has to make money, but what what a business is. Where does money income come from in a business. It comes from other people spending your income comes from your clients spending your clients decision to spend with you. Right. And so a business requires that other people are on the same page and would be excited and interested willing to pay money for a product. So, you know, on the one hand you're doing it for yourself. And on the other hand for business you are doing it for others. If you want to business to survive. If you're not doing it for others it's a hobby, you're doing it for yourself we don't care if anybody likes you don't care of anybody ever spends a single dollar on your hobby. Right. So these are the two ends of the spectrum that we need to respect and understand. And so many of us heart based people. We started business or we create an offer, a new program, a new service, a new package, a new offering, a new course. And we just think my God this things I love this thing so much. And I'm going to I love this thing so much that there's a hobby part of it, and it must make this much money it must enroll this many clients. So, we often find that it doesn't, because it came out of the hobby stage it came out of our abundant love for that skill or that area of life with for that particular subject of study or whatever it is, it came out of that. And then yet, we expect that people will pay us for it. And we get disappointed. And we might even have expected that it would make us enough money so we spend all this time and effort, maybe even money on the hobby. And we realize, oh wait, I've been in hobby mode, rather than in business mode. And now I can't make a living, because it's so how can we eventually create a life where we can be in hobby mode and still people want to pay us for it. And this is why I always talk about the importance of growing a true fan base, right, a community and audience of true fans means the people that you've shown up in front of again and again and again and again, year after year it takes several years. I'm not sad enough. It's, it's often. I mean, I've seen thousands of solopreneurs, you know, operate over the years. And usually you don't make a, you don't make a living wage until at least a second or third, or 10th year. I know some people take them 10 years. And yet, a lot of you are expecting that's going to happen in three or six months I don't know where that came from. Well I know I do know where that came from it's a lot of the people in my industry are selling you that you can make six figures or even five figures in what three, six or 12 months. I'm going to tell you that having seen a lot of these have seen a lot of solopreneurs of all of all types. It usually takes at least a year or two to start making $5,000 a month. And I'm sorry that no one else told you this but I'm not trying to plant a limiting belief either. Who knows it might take you three months, but to expect that it will take you three or six months without having built a successful business before is expecting a lot of your hobby especially if it's especially if it's something that came comes out of your love of creating and service and exploration and your dreams, you know, your pure enjoyment, and then to expect it to make $5,000 $7,000 a month in six months, a year or 18 months. I recently heard another very experienced content creator, Joe Pulizzi he had created the content marketing Institute, and he says that content creators should expect to take 12 to 18 months of building an audience before they can monetize it. And content marketing expert who has built a whole Institute around and has consulted and taught many, many people he's one of the, you know, true experts in the industry says 12 to 18 months of consistent content before you can expect to monetize it. And this is why he actually sometimes recommends that people buy content properties like buy buy someone's blog which can take 10s of thousands of dollars to be able to start monetizing it right but it's like if you don't have the 10s of thousands to buy someone's blog and plug probably you'll find someone who's blog you respect enough to be able to buy it, or that you align with enough. Then we we build our own audience. That's how I do it that's how most of my clients do it most of my students do it. And instead of spending 10s of thousands in you know anyone fell swoop, you spend, you know, probably several thousand but gradually over time with ads, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn ads to build an audience of true fans. Once you have an audience of fans. Again, it probably takes 12 to 18 months. Once you have an audience of true fans. You are then able to sell almost anything that they want, and that they will buy it. So, alright, let me, let me, again, big picture and then we'll talk a bit more detail. The next picture, again, is to understand that when you are just creating from a love of creation and exploration, you are in the hobby mode. And to require that other people must enjoy your hobby require the other people must enjoy your art enough to pay you for it is asking a whole lot. How do you grow in an audience of true fans. And how do you grow an audience of true fans 12 to 18 months of consistent content now how consistent Joe Pulizzi when you know he's, he has at least one or two quality blog posts every single week. Right, and probably several short videos I mean you know someone like that is a professional and that and he expects 12 to 18 months. So for those of you who are creating a quality blog post once a month or once every two weeks, probably going to take two or three years before you can start to expect. And I'm sorry, I don't mean to discourage you. I don't mean to praise place learning beliefs. I'm just telling you what we are seeing in the industry. Now, again, you might be a miraculous person and do it in three or six months. You know, but but the more you focus on building a true fan audience. The more you are willing and able to show up authentically in an interesting way. And consistently, and using ads enough add dollars a couple hundred dollars a month ideally to run ads to bring enough people couple hundred a month. Yeah, three to 500 a month ideally. But even if you started 30 to 100 a month, it's okay. It's just again how fast you want to do it. You want to do a faster several hundred bucks a month slower through you know again 12 to 18 months. That's 30 to $100 a month. So you build an audience of true fans how why are they true fans how how how did they come to you well, you need to learn how to run ads again. So you have to just post stuff on Instagram and YouTube and suddenly your audience keeps growing hashtags don't work hashtags don't work. Not in the way that you're expecting Oh my God hashtag now I can make money doing it hashtags obviously work in subtle ways and over a long, long period of time, but ads work much faster if you said hashtags come on are you serious. I discovered with hashtags. Really. How's it going. Have you tried it. Of course I've tried of course I have tried it. Instagram linked in YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, I've tried hashtags everywhere. I've tested them with my marketing mind and my marketing instinct I've tested them, you know, they're not a reliable strategy that I would recommend to anybody. They're reliable ads. You've got to spend at least $30 to $100 a month if you want to build a true fan audience with ads you either you know ideally use ads and use collaborations. Those two are reliable. Those two I bank on and I use and I bank on all the time and I recommend strongly to my clients all the time hashtags are you kidding me and just being hopefully word of mouth being discovered. No, it's not reliable you can't expect that you have word of mouth comes from ads or collaborations where the mouth comes from your work. Okay, either your work being so damn good that it starts but how do you how does your work become so damn good you think your work is already so damn good in your mind it is, but not if no one else thinks that or not no one, not enough people yet as you've noticed think your work is so damn good. A few people might, but that's the start of your true fan audience, you've got to get your work out in front of tens of thousands of people for a few dozen of them to think you're so damn good. You see what I mean. So like, and you get so damn good by putting out tons and tons of content. I mean, like, even you notice how often that put content out there I'm so consistent. And by by doing it consistently and noticing what works, what is making an impact, then I can adjust myself in that direction again, I put out a lot of stuff kind of like like in hobby mode I just put out a bunch of stuff. I noticed what mixing it makes an impact, and I do more in that direction which is more in the business mode I do more content in those directions because I know that that's what people want. And if people want that they will tend to share it more often or like or engage in the algorithms help with that. And then I pushed along much much faster with ads, and with collaborations, meaning other people interviewing me and meet any of you other people in return. Similar sized audience similar sized audiences me. And so you build a true fan audience by doing just a whole lot of content you've got to do more than you probably are doing and I know you don't want to hear that. I know you're exhausted, which means if you're exhausted means you have to keep better boundaries about your work. I keep very good I take four naps a day. I've said, people who are my program notice and then we often joke about it. You have to keep really good boundaries of your work, how many hours you work at each stretch, how you work, you work, I work lightly, right so I don't make anything so serious. I don't have a lot of light for me everything so casual. But that's how I can I can be so consistent showing up a year day after day month after month year after year and I'm still very happy and healthy. You got to work lightly, you guys said a lot of boundaries with yourself with yourself, besides with the people in your in your notice the doors closed and I'll let my family members just barge in and say whatever they want. Boundaries with others boundaries with yourself, and a whole lot of content like just every day if you can get put out content. If you can't do it every day. Do it three times a week if you can't do it three times a week do it twice a week, you can't do it twice a week you got to do it at least once a week. Once a week you're slowing down it's going to be three to five years now, rather than two to three years every day. 12 to 18 months, you're now monetizing your your your business right. So, creativity and money making must understand that people won't pay you for your creativity because you think your creativity so great. Nobody else does until you show up day after day after day after 12 or 18 months, and then you have with ads hopefully to get it out in front of 10s of thousands of people. And then you have enough people couple dozen people maybe a couple hundred people who think your creativity is pretty great too. And then, once you have those couple hundred people ideally, then move into. So first of all, build an audience of true fans. Step two, move into the space of curiosity and alignment. Well you're you're in that curiosity and alignment the whole time hopefully when you're when you're testing content for for two three years. Your curiosity and alignment meaning, I wonder what's going to work. Let me go and test this out I don't know if it's going to work I'm going to test it out. Am I going to be interesting to watch on video I don't know. Let me play let me test it out let me show up consistently for six months as a test, consistently every day for six months to see if I really like it to see if yes you don't just go three times a week and you're like no I don't like it. Six months daily. Right, that's what I did. Right, I did six. When I was first starting to make videos six months daily money through Friday I can, you can take the weekends off if you want to. But six months daily to like figure out if this video thing is really for me or not. If you can't do daily, like I said, can't do daily, three times a week if you can't do three times, twice a week if you can't do twice a week, once a week is a bare minimum. So six months to test something out because only after six months when you have built in just enough skill just enough skill where you're comfortable, you're confident. And now you can really express yourself and I mean notice I'm able to really express myself on video right took a lot of practice to be comfortable at this it doesn't come naturally I wasn't natural on. So you build a true fan audience in curiosity and alignment alignment meaning you're curious to test a lot of different things and your alignment means you're wondering which ones make the most impact. And then you align yourself more and more in that direction. Oh, I've talked about 10 different topics, and two of these make the most impact so let me align myself more with those two topics and create more in those two topics. Let me see. Once you built a true fan audience, then a couple hundred people who follow you on a consistent basis and many of them comment or at least like your stuff. Then you can talk to them again in curiosity and alignment to say, What would you buy from me. Now, if you're too shy of asking that at least at least try to ask, What have you purchased in my field in the field of whatever it is you do personal growth, spiritual growth, relationship, career, you know health, whatever it is you do what what have you bought in this area have you bought any coaching have you bought any workshops courses, programs, what have you bought, you know, or what could I sell that maybe you think my audience would would would would sign up for. So, you ask your true fans, what they would buy and what they happen buying. So that with curiosity and with alignment, you put those offers out. Now you're in business mode, because you've been in hobby hobby mode testing different things you're kind of moving gradually towards a business mode because now you're building true fan audience. Now you're in business mode where you can say, Let me give you what you want, rather than me coming out of my own creativity and love of creating and exploring and, but then I'm still in myself. I'm still in my own head. Too many of us are in our own heads and we wonder why people aren't buying it. Because number one we don't even have a true fan base yeah. Right, not enough people anyway. And number two, we haven't asked them in the business mode what would you buy from me, because then I will make it. And if I buy that, I will make it. And then you make it. Now, of course, you might give them several options like out of these three things which one would you most likely buy will tell you one out of these three I'd buy number two. Okay, great. Now, you, you make number two. And then you, again, you pull them hey I made number two which title do you think sounds best or what should I name the program what should I name the service you know, but you always keep aligning yourself with the audience your true fans along the way of creating something you create, you create with their feedback all the time. So that that's how you make money through your creativity. You see that's the whole journey. You first test out a lot of things from your love from your create, knowing that it takes 12. It takes a year to five years to build enough fans who actually want to spend money with you. You can ask them what would they spend, and then you can make for them, and then now you're making money now. I'm not saying you don't make a single dollar in those five years or three years or one year. You know, because you already have a skill set and a service, probably a lot of you watching this already have, and you already can go to your network and ask them to, to, to share the spread the word or to buy something. So starting from scratch if you had nothing, it would take that time so I hope you would please give your, your creativity, some more patience, some more generosity of space, spaciousness, so that, and, and to be really with gusto test a lot of different things from from the hobby place, trying a lot of different things out not not caring if anyone likes it, because you don't know if they'll like it or not. Stay in curiosity and alignment. Give yourself the spaciousness of time of years, and you will be able to make money from your authentic creativity. I hope this is helpful. I hope this is inspiring, and a little bit of a pep talk and a reality check perhaps. I look forward to your comments below. Thanks for joining me.