You all know that I’ve fallen in love with the asynchronous messaging app, Volley. (It’s awesome, has totally changed our business, blah, blah, blah.) Well, I’ve created a space in there called Volley for Creators and I’m doing a “weekly-ish” chat in a channel I created called Creator Thoughts with Tim. Here, I’m going to regularly share thoughts about how to grow more successful businesses & YouTube Channels, grow our audiences, reach more people and change more lives with our creative efforts.
The first thing I shared in there is all about clarity. When I look back on what got me from $100,000 in revenue to $1 million in revenue, the key thing is clarity.
People think you need to have tons of streams of income and to be moving in a million different directions, but most of my mistakes can be boiled down to a lack of clarity on these 3 levels.
1) Brand Level
Who is my business for and what is the value that I’m giving them?
You want people to feel like “Oh! This person knows exactly how I feel. They are talking directly to me!” If you lack clarity in who you are targeting, this is never going to happen. At Video Creators, we are trying to do this ourselves. On a brand level, we have figured out who we serve best and where do we do our best work.- Not just who is the largest audience. This has been a game changer for us.
2) Sales Funnel
What is the process someone takes to go from step 1 to step 2 to step 3 to make a transaction or subscribe to your channel, etc?
Most of us don’t have a lot of clarity on this. We think if we just make good content, someone will probably get to the next step. But, it just doesn’t work that way. You can get to $100,000 in revenue by having a pretty good following and sell 13 different things to them. But, that’s not going to get you to $1 million.
People get overwhelmed with options. When people have to slow down and figure out which is the right choice for them, they will hesitate or decide to figure it out later. We don’t want that. We need them to think, “This looks amazing, how do I buy?” People who have $1 million revenue streams come from being the best at one thing. At video creators, we have eliminated a lot of services that did well, but just added confusion on where to start and where to move next. We want to make it as clear as possible on where to start. (Which is almost always with a consultation.)
3) Objectives
How will your business grow and take new ground?
Once a quarter, we all have a 2 day meeting over zoom and figure out what our main objectives are for the next 3 months. Then, together we plan very specific action steps to get to that objective. What do you need to focus on this quarter? And then, what do you need to do to get there?
4) Communication
How much clarity is there around how you communicate and the tools you use to do so?
Communication can be a huge source of frustration and wasted time. Maybe you need to make a checklist so there’s no room for misinterpretation or show examples. If you feel like you’re over-communication, then you’re probably right where you need to be with your communication. We have started doing a lot of checklists and SOPs at Video Creators and it makes everything so much easier. We can ensure that all the bases are covered and nothing is getting dropped.
If you have questions or comments on how to apply this to your business, go join us in that creator space in Volley and join in the after-show. I’d love to hear from you and maybe even use your audio in a future podcast.
Keep Changing Lives!
Tim Schmoyer