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How to monetize your audience

I've built info products, agencies, SaaS products, and others off the backs of small & large audiences. Here's how to monetize your audience.

Who is this for?

Define term: Creator

Someone who creates publicly viewable content via newsletter, podcast, Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok, or any other social platform. NOTE: Even if it’s not your primary job, you’re still a creator.

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Monetizing is the wrong word.

The reason it’s the wrong word is because there are ways to leverage your audience without monetizing it.

This is critical to understand ⬇

Why an audience is valuable

An audience is valuable because you have instant distribution.

Launching a product? → Instant customers

Building a community? → Instant members

Running a service business? → Automatic leads

An example of leverage that doesn’t involve monetization

But there are other examples of leveraging your audience that don’t involve monetization.

The best example is deal flow.

If you run a private equity firm or a holding company, inbound leads are your best friend.

And even though acquisition leads don’t provide direct cashflow, they’re still valuable to you.

The real purpose of an audience

The purpose of an audience: to make it easier and faster to achieve your goal — whatever it is.

You have 500,000 followers? You don’t need to sell sponsorships.

You can, but you don’t need to.

Leverage your audience to achieve the goal that you set.

If you don’t know what your ultimate goal is, keep reading.

If you do know your goal, also keep reading. I’ll show you how to get there.

Ultimate Goal

How to determine your ultimate goal

If you already know your goal, skip this section.

There are 3 types of goals:

Cashflow goals

Net worth goals

Goals unrelated to wealth or money

For the purpose of growing an audience to build leverage, those are your options.

We’re not going to discuss #3 (because very few people build an audience for this reason).

That leaves us with cashflow goals and net worth goals.

The difference between Cashflow goals and Net Worth goals

Cashflow prioritizes money coming in now.

Net Worth prioritizes bigger money coming in later.

The actions to accomplish each of these tasks often clash.

For instance, if you’re reinvesting cashflow into the business to make it bigger & better, you’ll sacrifice cash now. And if you want to collect cash now, you’ll find it harder to make your business bigger & better.

Make sense?

What if I want to do both at the same time?

Doing both requires leveraging an entire ecosystem of products, services, offers, and funnels.

This is only recommended for someone who:

Has lots of experience building & managing multiple businesses

And even then, it often doesn’t make sense.

Which should I prioritize now?

General Guidelines:

If you have lots of cash in the bank, prioritize net worth.

If you don’t have lots of cash in the bank, prioritize cashflow.

Having said that, remember — use your audience to achieve your goals.

It’s impossible for me to make recommendations without knowing your specific situation.

5 ways to monetize

Courses, Coaching, Community

Sponsorship

Hybrid of 1 & 2

Lead Generation

Ecommerce or SaaS product (from scratch or through acquisition)

Courses, Coaching, Community

Courses

The best courses in the world generate millions of dollars.

Don’t let anyone tell you that “courses” are for “gurus.”

They’re not. They’re for creators who like to help people and make money.

But the most important thing to know about courses:

They’re not effective for every audience or industry.

Example:

A course for Twitter growth makes sense.

A course for buying & eating insects does not.

Are there ways to monetize buying & eating insects?

Yes — but a course isn’t the best way.

Pros of courses:

Create once, sell thousands of times

Great margins

Limited customer service

Flexible hours and lifestyle

Cons of courses:

Harder to deliver results for customers

Low equity value

Don’t make sense for all industries

Significant time investment before getting your first customer

Coaching

Coaching is often, but not always, paired with courses.

The reason why is simple:

You can charge 5-10x what you’d be able to charge for a course.

That sounds great! Why wouldn’t I just do that?

Well, the time investment is significant — and your workload will be much higher.

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