11 learnings from 15 top creators

It’s been a tough week this week.

And I feel like I’ve been running on fumes when it comes to creativity.

The thought of writing my 15th newsletter all week was daunting.

So instead of coming up with a structure beforehand and writing down a list of my ideas, I thought this Sunday, as I sit here drinking this beautiful Ethiopian Pour Over with Teddy on my lap, I’d simply write what comes to mind, and I’ll come up with the hook later.

So let’s get into it.

Actually, now that I’m typing this into my notes, I know what I’m going to talk about. 😊

Over the past two weeks, Steve and I (Steve is the guy who works in the shadows with me) have interviewed 15 of LinkedIn’s top creators. (These are all people that you would know btw.)

We interviewed them for the new brand and program we are about to launch — Seven Figure Creators — which will do what it says on the tin: Help creators get from 6 to 7 figures.

We chatted with 15 different creators to make sure, before potentially working together, that we aligned on a few things:

A) Align with our values for long-term collaboration

B) Align on the vision they have for their business and how they want to build it

C) Willingness to contribute and add value to others in a group setting

D) Someone we feel we could help take from 6 to 7 figures

Because once we do it with a few, the flywheel effect and marketing will pretty much take care of itself…

All the one-hour chats were quite interesting, tbh. There were quite a few things I expected and quite a few that I didn’t expect at all.

I’m very happy we conducted them though.

If anything, it helped cement that our landing page copy was on point. 😂 (Steve was quite chuffed about that.)

And that we are going in the right direction of the business.

Because working with talented and aspiring creators every day—now that right there is my forever business.

Thinking about this, I thought it would be helpful for any creator looking to build their business.

And it will also be helpful for myself to reflect on the chats and the learnings as we get closer to launch.

So let’s go through them now.

(And remember, I’m literally writing what’s coming to mind here, so I hope it makes sense.)

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1 - Creators are severely under monetizing

Steve and I both already suspected this, but it was blatantly obvious during the chats.

To set the frame: we are currently doing $100k every 4 weeks in the biz. If you stretch that to a year, it’s $1,300,000, and if you divide that by my follower count of approx. 35,000, it means I make around $37 per follower per year.

Most creators we chatted with are nowhere near this level. And, tbh → they are much better at the creator thing than me.

(Side note: Justin Welsh only makes $3 per follower per year, which is why I do not think ANYONE should emulate his model unless you have 1,000,000 followers.)

There are many reasons for this:

— Many creators don’t know what to sell — Many creators are selling time for money — Many creators are not milking their leads dry — All creators didn’t have a proper sales process — All creators were not optimized digitally for conversions

(And quite a few other reasons)

But overall, it was obvious that no one was making the money they should be — especially with how strong their brands are.

And being upfront about it — I should also be able to 3x my revenue with what we have currently.

I’m not even close to optimized.

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2 - They have an insane amount of trust and attention

(This is what gets me excited.)

— The stories they told about how clients were so excited to work with them — How they had been following them for such a long time — And how much they had impacted their lives.

These creators have all built crazy good social equity with their audiences. Their content is positively affecting people’s lives in such an amazing way.

When you have this, all you need to do is roll out a proper funnel system, a sales process, and a delivery model that can scale. And you’ll have a thriving business, Because the foundation of trust has already been built.

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3 - Creators value freedom over everything

(Even over money.)

This seems obvious, as most people became creators to escape the wage cage, and for nearly everyone we spoke to, the thought of going back to one terrified them.

It’s why one of the questions we were asked over and over was, “Will this lock me into a certain number of hours where I need to be there and in a routine and schedule?”

Tbh, I can totally resonate with this. I NEVER sell time for money and literally live with my phone on DND all day long…

Freedom was at the root of nearly all their core values. The ones stuck in agency and delivery hell were not having a good time, tbh. They wanted a way out.

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4 - The magic income number is $50k a month

It was like deja vu every single conversation.

No matter who we talked to, whenever we asked about income, they’d always come back with: “If I could make $50k a month, honestly, I would be happy.”

Hearing this over and over actually made me feel pretty good about launching, lol.

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5 - All were confused about which biz model to build

How do you create something that you can sell that:

A) Delivers tons of value

B) Doesn’t trade time for money

C) Can pay you via an MRR model?

(MRR = Monthly Recurring Revenue)

Luckily, this is one of the 3 main pillars that we’ll help creators with: launching and building their model.

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6 - They all have strong personal brands, but not necessarily strong business brands

This is something Steve’s been hammering into me for months now: “If we want to do $10M in the business, we need to make sure we look like a $10M business.”

It took me months to catch on, lol.

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7 - Most didn’t have a sales process

(And if they did have one, it wasn’t optimized.)

Sales is one of those things like content: Everyone can get in there and start doing it. But until you study it and put in the reps, you’ll never know the gap between good and great.

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8 - All were not milking their leads

“I started creating content so I didn’t have to sell. I wanted to create the best content so people would come to me.”

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9 - Funnels seemed like a foreign word

One of the simplest ways to increase lead flow is to optimize your LinkedIn profile into a communication piece that leads people down your funnel, optimized for conversions.

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10 - They all need help with the core 3: Sales, Systems, and Delivery model

These are the 3 major things we will cover at Seven Figure Creators.

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11 - Most have the LinkedIn bubble blinders on

Many creators are chasing a limited total addressable market. Instead, they should be selling to people who want to be them—the version of them from 12-36 months ago.

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And that’s it → our 11 learnings from chatting with 15 top LinkedIn creators.

If you’re a 6-figure creator right now and want to take your business to 7 figures, you can apply here: https://sevenfigurecreators.com

Our full launch will be coming in a couple of weeks, so stay tuned.

Happy Sunday Everyone!

Cheers,

Matt