Most creators overlook this skill when building their business

One of the biggest lies I’ve been told is:

If you’re good enough people will notice you.

And the people who told me that also said it applies to business.

If you’re product is good enough then you don’t need to do any marketing. People will buy from you regardless.

I listened to their advice and spent weeks writing an eBook and when it finally came to launch it (the eBook about fitness and getting your dream body) sales came rushing.

My phone went off every few minutes, notifications wouldn’t stop, and it got so annoying that I had to put it on DND.

A few days went by and I told my parents they could retire. Their 21-year-old son just made it in business.

Sike. That didn’t happen…

I made 0 sales in the first 3 months. The only sale I made was after making it free because of how much of a disaster the launch was and the person who got it was a friend of mine (still celebrated for my first sale lol).

I’m telling you this story because I want to tell you something that most creators (including myself at first) here overlook, marketing.

We’ve all been told similar lies to the one I just mentioned by people who never tried running a business and pursuing their dreams.

They think just because they read 143,023 books about business and marketing they know it all — surprise, surprise they don’t know anything about business and marketing.

But after making more than 200 sales in the last 3 months I learned a thing or two about marketing (and I’ll help you how to do marketing the right way).

What is Marketing?

Marketing is just applied psychology and perception.

You are marketing how your way of doing things is better than other people’s ways.

You are showing people how the product that you’re selling (skill, interest, and expertise) can help improve their lives — you want to target the eternal markets (health, wealth, relationships, and happiness).

I started working out because I hated how I looked (I was super skinny and it made me self-conscious) and thought to myself that adding some muscle to my physique would give me more confidence and stop wearing long-sleeve shirts and baggy clothes (and I’d get more girls).

In essence, I wanted to have better relationships.

If someone told me that carrying bricks all day would make me look better and his arguments were persuasive enough — I’d be breathing, eating, and sleeping with bricks.

“But marketing is unethical.”

Do you realize how surface-level your thinking is?

• Is it unethical to educate people on problems they have and raise their awareness level?

• Is it unethical to help guide someone and make their lives better?

• Is it unethical to let another creator (who is less competent than you) capture your audience’s attention, make money off of them, and ruin their lives?

The people who say marketing is unethical are the same people who think making money because you helped someone is unethical and evil.

Those people think the world is evil and is out to get them. Money is evil. Businesses are evil. Doctors are evil (but when they get sick the first person they go see is a doctor, make it make sense lol).

Do you want to be a grumpy 60-year-old grandpa who thinks the world is out to get you?

Do yourself a favor and cut those people off from your world — they’re only killing your dreams and bringing you down to their level.

The Old Way Of Marketing:

In traditional marketing you start off by doing market research, creating a customer avatar, and basing your entire marketing off of the market research you made.

You’re basically guessing people’s awareness level.

 The problem with old marketing and guessing people’s awareness level: 

You’re trying to make an immediate sale so you end up missing out on 97% of the market.

Audience building Is The New Marketing:

When building an audience you use yourself as the customer avatar and ideal customer profile (ICP).

You control your audience’s awareness level and increase the effectiveness of your marketing by 2,333% (we’ll go over the math in a bit).

A common mistake I see most creators do:

They don’t question why traditional marketers are doing it and if it’s even smart to do it.

So what do they do with their marketing?

They try to make an immediate sale from the content they’re posting.

I don’t blame them, because most traditional marketers are hunter-gatherers.

Here’s what hunter-gatherers do:

They wake up, gather their weapons, and go out to hunt. Some days they come back with a kill (a sale) and they have a feast that day. But some days they fail and they go to bed hungry. The pressure is on every single day to hunt successfully.

Here’s what most hunter-gatherer creators do:

They spend all of their time doing manual outreach (cold DMs, emails, etc) trying to make an immediate sale then they don’t have any time to practice the skill they’re selling and end up reaching a limit of how much they can earn.

The harsh truth about cold outreach:

• Out of the 100 people you contact, 70 of them tell you to fuck off, 20 of them ghost you (just like what my ex did to me :< ), 5 of them aren’t interested, 4 show some sign of interest but won’t buy now, and only 1 will buy from you.

• If your monetization strategy depends on doing manual outreach then you’ll be in this constant hamster wheel of sending DMs, hopping on calls, and answering prospect’s objections just to maintain the income you want.

• You’ll always have this fear of running out of clients in the back of your head.

• But the biggest problem with it is they’re still only targeting 3% of the total potential market (i.e. they’re leaving a lot of money on the table)

A much better approach is to be a farmer.

As a farmer, you plant your seeds, nurture them, water the crops, and wait for them to be ready for harvest.

That’s the approach all the big creators took.

• Dan Koe

• Kieran Drew

• Justin Welsh

• Hussain Ibarra ;)

The key to being a successful creator (farmer) is knowing your audience’s awareness level.

In general, you have 5 awareness levels:

• Problem Unaware

• Problem Aware

• Solution Aware

• Product Aware

• Most Aware

Your marketing and funnel start with your content.

For your top funnel (X, IG, LinkedIn, and TikTok) keep your content broad and target Problem Unaware, Problem Aware, and Solution Aware.

This is so you can grow an audience and a following.

For deeper and longer forms of content (newsletters, blog posts, podcasts, etc) you can target all 5 awareness levels—but try to focus on the people who have higher awareness levels (Product Aware and Most Aware).

What you’re doing is that you’re creating a lead-generating machine.

When you create beginner-friendly and broad content, a newsletter, lead magnets, and a paid product, and deliver value to your reader you go from a 3% addressable market to 70%.

In other words, you’re increasing the effectiveness of your marketing (content) by 2,333%.

Not bad eh?

But this also has a side-effect that goes unnoticed.

It shows people who are ready to buy that you’re not desperate. They see you’re interested in building a relationship first rather than going for their wallets.

How To Do Marketing As A Content Creator:

There are 1,000s of creators posting the same “valuable” advice that you can get from 1 Google search.

There are 1,000s of creators selling the same “how to write online” or “how to grow your personal brand” and 90% of them are struggling to sell.

They’re struggling to sell because they don’t have a unique angle.

Your unique angle is YOUR way of doing things.

I’ll use myself as an example.

My writing process looks something like this:

• Pick a topic I’m interested in

• Find a problem most people are struggling with (or a problem I’m struggling with).

• See how the problem affects and relates to my daily life.

• Figure out why people should solve the problem (the big benefit)

• Make “unrelated” connections (by studying everything. History, math, engineering, psychology, etc) to create a persuasive argument

• Start writing an outline

• Go for a run, gym, or take a shower (this is how I make those “unrelated” connections)

• Keep filling the outline until I drive the point home

90% of my process looks the same as most people's but almost NOBODY has the same ideation process (going to the gym, a run, or taking hot showers to generate ideas and create a persuasive argument using “unrelated” connections).

When I first started writing I didn’t train 2x a day and I tried to stay on the topic at hand only—not using those unrelated connections and topics to make my writing more persuasive.

It affected my creativity and made me feel like I was chained.

But after training 2x a day I became more creative.

The more creative I got, the more persuasive my writing became.

The more persuasive my writing became, I grew faster, sold more, and started enjoying life.

Training 2x a day and making “unrelated” connections became my unique angles.

All that is left is to figure out how that unique angle plays into everything.

I train 2x a day for many reasons—being healthy, staying shredded, a creative outlet, etc (I can go on for hours about why I everyone should run and go to the gym daily but I’ll leave that for another day).

Being a polymath and studying everything raises your consciousness and you start viewing things differently.

As a creator, your job is to be creative.

The best way to be creative is to absorb everything around you and notice things that the average Joe doesn’t notice.

Now we made a full circle back to the eternal markets (health, wealth, relationships, and happiness).

How?

Let me explain.

Everyone has the same goals and desires (more money, looking better, better relationships, getting more shit done, happiness, etc).

If you can create a persuasive argument on how training 2x a day and being a polymath will make you a better writer, entrepreneur, and creator then 90% of your marketing is done.

 In essence, what you’re doing is you’re showing people a transformation. The transformation they’ll make if they start doing the things you tell them.

Side Note:

Your product and your marketing don’t need to cover all aspects of the transformation you only need 1.

In my case, I’m not selling a running course (yes I talk about running a lot and that is to appeal to a broader audience which then I can sell to).

But rather I’m selling a product that allows you to make those “unrelated” connections and how to write persuasively online so you can monetize your interests.

Every time you write content, emails, etc. You’re trying to help people make a transformation you’ve made.

The transformation doesn’t have to be something complex. It can be something as simple as waking up at 5 a.m. and feeling energized.

So how do you find your transformation?

(This is part of my upcoming course on writing online and monetization. Let me know what you think of it at the end):

1) What Did Hell Look Like?

• How did your life look and feel used to feel like related to your topic, skill, or interest you plan to monetize?

• Start listing things you hated (long working hours, thoughts of being miserable, being unhealthy and fat, being underpaid, feeling like your work is pointless, having bad thoughts and energy all day, etc)

2) What Made You Want To Change?
The transformation you made didn’t happen overnight.

It took months of sub-conscious conditioning for you to start taking the first step (you need to be aware of what were consuming during that time)

• What was your mindset then?

• What were you doing on a daily basis?

• Where would your life end up if you kept doing the same things?

• What made you interested in your main topic or interest?

• What problems did you struggle with and try to solve?

• What were the “Aha!” moments?

• Did you have any objections before you decided to start?

You need to know that transformations with content happen over months. Content creation is a long-term game.

3) What does Heaven Look Like?

• Your perfect day, what does it look like?

• How much are you earning?

• If you had all of the money in the world, what would your average day look like?

• How long are you working each day?

• If you could do anything for work, what would it be?

4) Why Should Other People Care About Your Product?

This is what will make or break your marketing

People don’t care about what you talk about. They care about how it can impact their lives (in a positive way)

Write the benefits of your product, service, topic, idea, or interest so you’re able to amplify your marketing

All of your emails, tweets, posts, visuals, sales pages, etc will be written through the lens of these 4 questions.

Why you should become a farmer:

When you know how to market and nurture your audience through tweets, threads, and emails you become in control of your business. You are the one who is calling the shots.

• Who you work with

• How much you earn

• What do you work on

• Who gets to buy your products (if that’s the route you want to take)

You no longer become a starving artist. You’re no longer desperate for a sale. You’re no longer scared of running out of customers because you’ve developed a marketing system that nurtures your audience and makes sales even when you’re asleep.

That’s all for today. Thank you for reading.

PS:

Let me know what you think of this email and if you’re interested in a product that is about online writing and monetization.

I’ll see you next week :)

Much love,

Hussain most