Lessons - The Hidden Metrics That Predict Creator Success | Gary Lipovetsky - Influencer Content Strategist

In this lessons episode, explore the three main reasons people become creators, passion, independence, or wealth, and how each path demands a different mindset. Learn why defining your goal shapes your strategy. How creator income can become more reliable than a traditional job through diverse revenue sources, and why early success depends on creating consistently rather than chasing quick results. Why do people want to become famous? You built an entire community around people wanting to build audiences. So what is the average, what is the average person? You're talking about creator method. Looking to achieve when they want to become famous. So there's three buckets. I just talked about this with our community. I have weekly calls with them and I do some one-on-ones with them. So there's three buckets. One is a hobbyist and typically it's a hobbyist who has who's just independently financially stable. They may have a spouse who's wealthy or they may come from a wealthy, multi-generation wealthy family. They want to create a outlet and money is no longer a currency for them because they have money. Their family has money. They don't need for anything. So for them, it's just like they want to contribute to the world. They want to create a outlet. They want to build a community. It's a pretty virtuous pursuit because they really have no intention to make money. They don't care if they do. If they do in this, you know, the people kind of in this first bucket, if they do it so bonus, they'll be able to go show their family. Hey, look, is this kind of the same avatar as somebody who sold a company? No, because somebody who sold a company went through a real hardship to get that done. I'm talking about like somebody who married well and they just want to build an audience. Yeah, they just want to, it's a hobby. They just want to have a hobby. They don't even have anything to prove. They just want to build a community. They want to have, I see it all the time. Like I see it, people who join us, they, and I don't say it in a negative way. I mean, they, they're financially sound. They have no need for money, but they want to make a difference in the world. They want to have a voice. They want to, they want to help. They have a cause. They have an art that they want to share with the world. So that's kind of one group. A second group are people who want to replace traditional employment income. So somebody who can make, let's say, I don't know, like on a very basic level, let's say an esthetician who would make $60,000 a year wants to make $100,000 a year being a creator who can set her own hours. I was going to say his own hours, but I don't know any male estheticians, but you know, she could set her own hours and she could have the independence of being an entrepreneur, being a creator, doing brand deals while creating community and, you know, having the benefits of the experiences that she's going to get, the fame, it's nice, it's pleasant, right? So that's kind of the second people who are just trying to replace employment income. And also how, and that's more stable than employment income because you don't know when you're going to get fired. It's so funny that you say that so casually. Like in your mind, because you live in this world, you just said creator income, which is really just solo, inertia in my mind, I think being a creator is a solo printer. You just said that creator income is more, is more steady, more reliable than employment income. But that is, that is such a flip from what most people believe. I mean, like most people will leave that they're in their nine to five and they have a branch out into a solo apprenticeship, creating, trying to monetize what they know, trying to monetize a brand because they feel like I tell you why, but remember that I have to tell you about bucket three. Yeah, because otherwise I'll forget about bucket three. Okay, do bucket three, but they're going to just telling you the first. Yes, no, I'll come back. It's a bucket two. Yes. So in bucket three, are the people who want to hit the grand slams. Those are the people who want like they, it's they want fame, but they want the money that comes with it. They want to make millions of dollars a year. They want to have they want to be celebrities. They want the experiences. They want the cloud. They want the respect. They want the fans. They want it all. They want they want to build generational wealth, becoming a creator or an influencer or celebrity, whatever you want to call it. So those are the three buckets, right? The hobbyist who is already financially sound and they don't need the money, but they want to share their love of whatever with the world. Okay, and that's great. Number two are people who want to, you know, replace employment income with to your point solo apprenticeship. And then there's bucket three, which are people who they want to go for it. They want it all, right? And it's a lot of the times when I have my like, so what we do with like with creator method, we also have like consulting clients. So they come to last when they kind of go aside and we do consulting with them. And I start the conversation like these are the three buckets, which one are you? Tell me which one you are because the advice that I'm going to be giving you and the processes and the mindset that I'm going to build in you is going to be based on your desired outcome. It needs to, so your actions need to map to your desired outcome. Otherwise, it makes no sense. So if you want to go, if you're in bucket three, okay, then here's your strategy. I have a question just between that. I understand that. But does bucket it people going to bucket three? Most of them do not feel like they should just reevaluate their north star and actually end up in bucket two. Like do you feel like it's actually viable for most creators to say, I want to build a hundred million dollar creator brand. I believe that anyone can get to bucket two. Yes, that's bucket, but the hundred million dollar bucket three bucket three requires. It requires. I want to say talent, but it just requires like a lot of sacrifice, a lot of sacrifice. It really does. It requires like endless amounts of work, dedication, being able to sacrifice, being able to say, you know what, I love my kids, and it hurts my heart every time I have to like be away from them. But in order to achieve it, I want to achieve that I have to do it. And that's like a constant struggle that Valeria has where it's like, Valeria could literally be gone all the time. If she said yes to the things that she could say, you know, she could potentially say yes to the would drive her career even further. But she has to say no to most things because she doesn't want to be away from the kids. And so it's this constant Valeria, you should go to this me telling her and she says, no, I want to be at home with the kids because at the end of the day, she's still just a mom. She's a normal mom. Not when I say just a mom. I don't mean that in a derogatory way. I mean, she's a mom. That's a priority. Yeah, she's down as a priority. And I always have this like debate with her and I say to her Valeria, you will do more for our children by continuing to achieve and setting the example for them. Then you will by sitting home with them. You're not gonna, but then she's like, I'm gonna miss it. I'm gonna miss. They're gonna be older. I'm gonna miss it. And she's right to a certain degree. So it's a matter of finding the balance. But like going back to this whole bucket three thing is I believe people can achieve it. But the amount of sacrifice they need to to make is is off the charts. But I think bucket two is very very attainable. You said something about how you thought I said it casually how it's like I said that, you know, creator income is more stable than employment income. Because with employment income, you're relying on essentially you're one client, right? You're employer. But with creator income, you are, you're essentially, you have multiple sources of revenue, whether it's, you know, brand deals, whether you have a subscription plan, like a subscription that you offer, whether you have a book, whether you have a podcast, there are a number of ways that a podcast is still it's still advertisers, right? It's just a different kind of medium and a different cohort. But yeah, I mean, so yeah, so like bucket two, I believe that it is it is more stable. I believe the income is far more stable because it just takes a little bit of time like to become an employee, you don't have to build the asset of a personal brand. You don't have to build a community and audience. So you can go directly from whatever it is you've learned how to do into being an employee and the the distance between knowledge acquisition, right? And employment, it's fairly small. You can get your diploma or degree, you get a little bit of experience, you can go and monetize that in the form of employment right away, which is great. And I'm not knocking that. But then in order to get the equivalent of employment income, you have to go through this period of time where you're being both an employee and in the evenings, you're trying to get scale as a creator until you hit that inflection point where you can say, okay, now I can switch over into being a full time creator. It's that pain that people don't want. And so that's what stops a lot of people. It's that pain. The other thing that stops a lot of people from pursuing this is their own uncertainty. One of the reasons that Valeria succeeded. And I don't like taking credit for my wife's accomplishments. But I'll take credit in this case because when she started, I told her you're a star. I told her that your bucket three, I hadn't established buckets in my mind yet at the time, but I said that you are going to be a household name. You have the ability to do it. You have the talent to do it. And you, you know, you're, I said, or I said, your life documenting your life will be your art. And she, she calls me on that every now and then she reminds me, remember you said that shit to me. Yeah. And so like that, and I said to her, you don't have to do it. You don't have to do it. But when I saw that first $10,000 check come in. And then we're kind of, I'm weaving, right? That first $10,000 check came in. That was unexpected. And I can get that story in a second. But when that first brand deal came in and it woke me up to what she was doing and I looked into it and I was like, listen, if you want to do this as a business, we can do this and you can go all the way. And I'm here for you. And I'm going to support you. And we're going to build a business. And you know, I said, or you don't have to, you really don't have to. Because when I met Valeria, it never crossed my mind what she would do for a living. Like it, I didn't even think about it. Like looking back now is probably responsible with me. I just, I met a, I met a girl. She was amazing. And you'd already, when you met her, you'd already had a ton of career success. You had, I wasn't dead out of deal find by that time. Yeah. It was right. It was, I met her at the same time. I literally, on our first date, I was taking calls with the buyers, the people who bought the equity in that company. Yeah. On our first date. So I had to step away and deal with that. So it was like happening right at the same time. But, but yeah, like I basically told her, I said, like, you don't have to do this. You don't, like you don't. But if you do this, like, you know, I just, I gave her that confidence. And what I'm seeing right now is that a lot of people who are, a lot of people want this more people want this now than they did back in 2017. When Larry started, I mean, it's really exploded. But, you know, I tell, I can see that what's holding people back is the fact that they don't have that support. They don't have that person or group of people or peer group telling them, no, no, no. Well, because most people, I mean, like, if we're going to be candid, most people that are, are looking to be creators, cannot just not worry about income, like they have to worry about it. Valeria had that advantage. He didn't have to worry about it. Come here. So that, I think that, that is a huge factor. So I'm just curious, if you could, if you could even help a creator set benchmarks in their journey, so that when they start to create and they start to see some traction, what should they look for as like a positive KPI that they're on the right track to eventually quit? So because they'll be doing this, you know, from five to nine after the job, they'll be doing it on the weekends. And I think that the biggest question mark that they'll have, like you mentioned this is, and, and the biggest pain that they'll have is, I don't know when I should make the jump into full-time creator because I still have to pay rent or my mortgage or feed my family at the end of the month. Okay. So, okay. Remind, what's the first question? I want to ask the first question. The first question is, what markers or KPI's should a creator look for that they're on the right track? So when they're first starting, their KPI is creating content and posting it. So here's what happens. They go in, they'll do three posts on the start analyzing data. Well, the algorithm didn't like this one or this didn't perform as well, so I shouldn't do this for a minute. No, no, no, none of that. If you haven't started yet, first thing you need to do, okay, the first thing you need to do is you need to establish, what am I interested in? What am I good at? And what is there a demand for? And then you take those three things, okay, you you figure out what your content buckets are, you do research, you figure out what your formats are going to be, okay, we could be one format, it could be two or three to begin with. You look at other successful creators in, again, once you've done the cross, once you've done the cross reference analysis of what you're good at, what you're interested in, and what there's market demand for, you then go, you set up your content plan, you start executing it, executing on it. The KPI to look for is the creation of the content, make 300 posts because you have to do the reps, you have to build a muscle, you have to get confident in front of the camera, whatever format you're doing, if you're doing fashion, you have to be comfortable showing what you're wearing, you have to be comfortable talking, you have to be comfortable if you're making food content, making your food, doing whatever, whatever it is you're doing, really the achievement is the creation and deployment of the content, and that's what a lot of creators they don't do. It's like going to university and on day one, sitting in class after an hour, saying, where's my degree? Well, I don't have a degree. You haven't done the work. So that's really what it is. The first thing is like your first several hundred pieces. So what do they do instead? Because that to me is like when you're saying that, it makes so much sense because this is what I did with the show. Yeah. So now I have a nice little set, I'm recording with nice little cameras, this took me six years and about almost now I was looking, we're almost at 700, they published podcasts. I'm short one, some interviews. Yeah, but so a lot of people make the mistake of expecting what you have in a month after making 10 reels. So I've never seen any other industry like that where people are looking at it and saying, you know, I've had creators tell me I've been doing this for two weeks. You laugh as somebody who does this yourself. Yeah, but that's, but that's to a novice at the beginning, who's never done this, that's their expectation because they're looking at your day 5,000 or whatever, day 3000. Yeah. That's what they're looking at. Thanks for tuning in. If you found this valuable, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you want to dive deeper into this conversation, check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in the next one.