My Tog Blog About Awesome Content Creation

The Path to Full-Time Content Creator, with Andrew Warner

• Tim (Mytogblog) • Season 1 • Episode 12

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Imagine trying to lay the foundation for full-time content creation, while still working a full-time job unrelated to content creation. That's the path that Andrew Warner, my guest for this episode, is currently on. And since the start of this year, he has been making some steady progress toward this goal and has some great advice to share that's relevant to all types of content creators. Check it out!

Music and sound effects are licensed under Storyblocks. Opening track: Disco Danger, by Jon Presstone.

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[00:00:00] Tim: Time, probably our most precious commodity as a content creator. Research and planning, content production and editing, marketing, social media management, and the list goes on. There are always more things that need to be done than the time we have to do them in, and that's doubly true if you're a part-time content creator.

[00:00:20] Whether you're doing this as a hobby, a side hustle, or for making the transition to full-time, you've gotta find a way to squeeze the most out of that precious amount of time you have to work on your content creation. That's why in this episode, I was very interested to have an opportunity to speak with Andrew Warner.

[00:00:36] Right now, Andrew is on the path of trying to make the transition from part-time to full-time content creator. And in following his account on Twitter over the past several months, I've seen that he's been making some solid strides toward the goals of building his audience and creating a number of digital products, both of which are necessary steps in making that transition to full-time.

[00:00:56] And as someone who's on this path, I think he has a lot of great advice to share for all types of content creators about how to make the most of that one resource we never seem to have enough of: time. So let's get into it.

[00:01:09] Tim: Hey, Andrew, welcome to the show. 

[00:01:14] Andrew: Hey, thank you so much for having me, Tim. 

[00:01:16] Tim: Great to see you! I remember we connected on Twitter a while back. I saw you posted that photo of yourself working on your content in your car on your lunch hour, and it resonated with me. Because you know, I thought there's a guy who's committed. He's working hard trying to get his content creation business off the ground.

[00:01:35] And yeah, so we, we connected on Twitter, been communicating there for a while, and glad to have you on the show. 

[00:01:41] I was saying before, you're a part-time content creator right now, but you're in the process of working towards becoming a full-time creator. And I just wanted to start out with a question of, like, what do you think are the biggest challenges of people who are, you know, for people who are part-time creators trying to go full?

[00:01:58] Andrew: I think one of the biggest challenges that a lot of creators face that are in like the position that I'm in, you're in, a lot of people that are in that position. I think the biggest challenge would be, I guess, time management. You know, trying to find the time. 

[00:02:12] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:02:13] Andrew: Most of the time, especially with the full-time job. Or any job, really, trying to find the time to create is difficult. 

[00:02:22] Tim: For sure. 

[00:02:22] Andrew: You really have to try to prioritize your time, prioritize the days, accordingly, to make sure that even, even after you finish your nine-to-five job, you still make time to work on the projects you have to work on. So it's something that a lot of creators that I feel really struggle with, myself included, but it's something that, you know, we all have to overcome at some point.

[00:02:48] Tim: Absolutely. I think that's why you see so many posts out there about time management and social media overwhelm, and things like that. It's just people trying to figure out: how do I find the time to keep this going, in addition to, you know, a full-time job or even a part-time job, like you said, family responsibilities, and all the other things that, that go along with life.

[00:03:08] How do you find the time to keep, you know, keep your content business going to the point where you can make it sufficient enough to transition to full-time? That's definitely a challenge. So, what, what's the biggest challenge outside of time management? Because I'm sure that's just the tip of the iceberg.

[00:03:26] Andrew: I think it's a tie for me. It's consistency. It's a big one. And it's also discipline. I feel that in terms of creating any type of content, you want to be as consistent as possible, but sometimes, you know, life happens, and things happen. 

[00:03:40] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:03:40] Andrew: There's a lot of situations where a lot of people can't be as consistent as possible. The key thing to try to maintain that consistency, or to develop consistency, for the most part, is to have discipline to be disciplined.

[00:03:56] And discipline is, is something that, that takes a long time to, I guess, master or to really build a habit on. It's something that I'm working on constantly, every single day, just to build small habits to build up my own discipline in my day-to-day life. And hoping that those small habits that I'm building then transfer over to the, the content creation side. 

[00:04:19] So I think, I think it's something that a lot of other creators really struggle with as well. You know, the whole discipline part of the creation process. 

[00:04:27] Tim: Yeah, for sure. It's tough sometimes to figure out what to work on next, right? You've got like a whole list of different things that we could be doing. What are the things that really move the needle forward? Do you have like a system, or a suggestion about how people can sort through that? Or how, how do you approach it?

[00:04:46] Andrew: Well, one of the things I've been doing lately is I started a habit of journaling every single day. And one of the things that I've done is created a dedicated journal just for prioritizing my path. 

[00:04:59] Tim: Right. 

[00:05:00] Andrew: So, every single night, I write down two questions. First question is: what did I accomplish today? 

[00:05:06] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:05:06] Andrew: And then the second question is: what do I plan to accomplish tomorrow? And under the second question, I write down a list of all the things that I think is important to tackle for the next day.

[00:05:17] Tim: Right. 

[00:05:18] Andrew: So then when I go and look back at the next day, I know, okay, it's, instead of being all scatterbrained, then having to say, okay, I'm gonna work on this. I have like a set checklist of things that I would focus on for that particular day. So just doing little things like that, really helped me out, and really has kept me a lot more focused than I've actually been in the last couple of months or years.

[00:05:40] Tim: Yeah, that's great. I've started doing a similar thing, like, I've always kind of kept a, a journal of what to work on, but I've gotten a lot better as I've got more experience, about just, okay, what are the key tasks and what is actually going to make more of a longer-term impact? 

[00:05:56] Cuz I think sometimes it's easy to get kind of sucked into just posting social content repetitively and not thinking about those longer-term things. Like, you know, website content, products, all of those things that'll really have the longer-term impact. But with social media, you get that immediate reward. You create something, you post it, you get feedback. And it's, it's kind of easy to just focus on that. And you've really gotta have something that separates the, the longer term important tasks from that stuff. 

[00:06:28] Andrew: Yeah, you definitely have to have something to separate that because having the instant gratification of social media posts and stuff like that isn't gonna be sustainable over time. Like you still have to commit to your own business, and your own products, and emails, and your own content. It's good to separate those things. 

[00:06:46] Tim: Yeah, I think some people have the idea, like, I'll build a huge audience first and then I'll create products to sell to them. But I think the problem with that is once you create that audience, it becomes a bigger thing to keep going. Right? And so you have, in a way, even less time. If you wanna sustain it at that level, you have even less time to create the products. So you're, you're better to do it in parallel, as you're growing your audience. Also grow like a suite of products or, you know, affiliate relationships or, or whatever your business model is. You know, keep growing that at the same time that you're growing your audience. You don't have to do one first and then do the other. 

[00:07:25] Andrew: Yeah, because also the problem that you can run into is if you try to build your audience first and try to create a product later, your audience may be all scattered. You may be interested in different things. 

[00:07:37] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:07:37] Andrew: So then you're stuck with trying to build multiple things for multiple audiences within your audience, and it gets, it gets too confusing. 

[00:07:45] Tim: True, yeah. And they're not used to seeing products from you yet. They're like, okay, why is this guy trying to sell me something now?

[00:07:52] So, given all the challenges, what made you decide you wanted to get into this business of content creation?

[00:07:57] Andrew: Well, I'll give back a little backstory. So I started to get into this game in 2018. I happened to be scrolling Instagram. Randomly scrolling, one day, I came across this awesome video from Jesse Driftwood, and fell in love with all the videos that he did. I basically got into a rabbit hole of scrolling through all the content that he did. 

[00:08:17] And through finding his content, I found other creators like Peter McKinnon. And then consumed all those, all of their content as well. So I, I had a little bit of an interest in content creation at that time. But I never actually wanted to pursue it fully yet.

[00:08:35] Tim: Right. 

[00:08:36] Andrew: Later in the year, in November, my mom passed away. Mm-hmm. And it was from that moment that I made the push to get into content creation because I didn't have any videos of my mom or a lot of photos. So one of the main reasons that I decided to get fully into it is because I wanted to start to document stuff and document my life. 

[00:09:00] Tim: Right.

[00:09:00] Andrew: So I'd have something to show my family down the road, right? 

[00:09:05] Tim: Mm-hmm. 

[00:09:05] Andrew: So that's pretty much the, the main story as the reason I got into it. Went fully fledged into creating fully in 2019. I had a, had a little bit of imposter syndrome, or a lot of self-doubt, a good 10 months from 2019. But yeah, I published my first video on YouTube in September 2019. And yeah, the rest is history. So, I'm really fully involved in this whole thing right now. 

[00:09:33] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:09:33] Andrew: It may not be necessarily, going to be video. Like I'm, I'm more trying to expand on the business side of things, but yeah, it, it's been one heck of a journey and I hope to continue on.

[00:09:45] Tim: Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry to hear about your mom. 

[00:09:46] So you got into video initially are you doing any other kinds of creation?

[00:09:52] Andrew: I got into video initially. So, in terms of the creation, I do write. I'm trying to do blogs. I'm doing emails. I'm just trying to do as much as I can to build up my, my brand. 

[00:10:04] Tim: Do you have a business model in mind that you're aiming to create in terms of, of how you're gonna monetize the content? For example, is it, is it digital products, is it affiliate marketing? Is it a combination of, of a bunch of different things? 

[00:10:17] Andrew: Yeah, so I'm working on digital products right now. I'm working on trying to focus on creating digital products and then creating courses as well. I have no issues with affiliate marketing. I haven't really given it my, my full efforts as yet. But for the most part, most of the stuff I've been focused on is strictly digital products and trying to create courses. 

[00:10:41] Tim: Yep. 

[00:10:41] Andrew: Down the road, I may decide to try affiliate marketing at some point.

[00:10:46] Tim: Mm-hmm. 

[00:10:47] Andrew: Or even try to do some joint venture partnerships with other creators or something along those lines. 

[00:10:54] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:10:54] Andrew: But, like right now, the primary focus is Creating digital products, creating a couple of courses, and go that route. 

[00:11:03] Tim: Yeah, I think it's smart to just start somewhere and focus on that. It's kind of like social media platforms, right? It, it, it helps if you focus on one or two things. 

[00:11:12] Andrew: Yeah. 

[00:11:12] Tim: Get that going and then you can either decide do you want to keep going more in that line or do you wanna diversify, broaden out into other things. Like, I know a lot of creators start out with digital product, course, and then maybe some coaching or service, affiliate marketing, you know, all the different channels. Have you, have you considered a possibility of like a coaching kind of service down the road?

[00:11:36] Andrew: Yeah. Well, I, I have a lot of conversations with some other creative friends when we get on calls and they always say, I should probably get into that.

[00:11:43] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:11:43] Andrew: So, it may be something that I would consider down the road. It, it's definitely something to think about, but one of my biggest issues that I faced, for just any type of moneymaking situation, is focusing on too many things at once. 

[00:11:57] Yeah. 

[00:11:58] So I, I think I, right now focusing on digital products, trying to get that done. 

[00:12:05] Tim: Definitely! 

[00:12:06] Andrew: Then trying to get the product out. And then after, I'll try to see what else I could do down the road. But yeah, definitely coaching, consulting any type of, I guess some services maybe down the road. But, those are for down the road. And I'm just focus on just getting this done. 

[00:12:22] Tim: That's the way to do it, I think. 

[00:12:24] Andrew: Yeah. 

[00:12:24] Tim: Because if you get a suite of digital products created, often those can become like the gateway to people wanting to work with you. Cuz they get like a lot of benefit from your products and then they're like, okay, like I want to work with this person one-on-one or join a community, like a group coaching kind of situation.

[00:12:41] So yeah, lots of opportunities down the road. 

[00:12:44] Andrew: Yeah. 

[00:12:44] Tim: So what do you think's gonna be the biggest magnet for, you know, creating that audience or the, the market for your products? Is it gonna be through freebies, like social media posts, or kind of what's, what's the plan to create the, the market for, for Andrew Warner products?

[00:13:02] Andrew: Yeah. So it, it's probably gonna be some freebies here and there. Like I, I'm very active on Twitter. So one, one of my biggest things I'm trying to do is social media. 

[00:13:11] Tim: Yep. 

[00:13:12] So, that includes Twitter. That includes whenever I create YouTube videos, sometimes I'm on LinkedIn. Sometimes I'm on Instagram. 

[00:13:20] Yeah. 

[00:13:20] Andrew: So, all of those social platforms. I want to use those and, and create and provide value on each of those, and then use those as traffic sources to then funnel back to my, my product. So I figured that would be a better route for now as opposed to trying to pay for ads. 

[00:13:41] Tim: For sure, yeah. You know, create the organic traffic first. Cuz I think you have to have the ability to do that anyways. Even if you're willing to pay for ads, it's gonna be hard to have a, a good monetization model if, if the money's always going out for ads. Cuz once, once the ad money's spent, the traffic is gone, right? So if you can't sustain it on your own, it's, it's gonna be hard to keep it going. 

[00:14:05] But you need to bring it up a good point. Like, ads are an option at some point. I think sometimes that is overlooked by creators, that they're focusing entirely on organic content, but forgetting that ads can also be, at some point, like you say, a viable channel for traffic. Especially once you have a lot of good critical mass of content on a site, you know, why, why not pay to bring some traffic there and hopefully, you know, if, if it converts well, you can you can use that to help, help grow your following.

[00:14:35] Andrew: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. 

[00:14:37] Tim: You know, what I struggle with a little bit is like, how do you make the distinction between what you're gonna offer as a free product versus what's gonna be a paid product? How do you, what kind of process are you using to determine, okay, this is a freebie, this one is I'm gonna, I'm gonna set it as a paid product. And then determining pricing. That's a whole other story.

[00:14:58] Andrew: To be honest, I think there's nothing wrong with having, and giving away a bunch of stuff for free. 

[00:15:04] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:15:04] Andrew: It could be fine. But at some point, you have to actually charge or sell something.

[00:15:12] Tim: Yeah.

[00:15:12] Andrew: Otherwise, I think the audience that you build, and that you have spent time building, won't buy from you. 

[00:15:20] Tim: Mm-hmm. 

[00:15:20] Andrew: If, if you just constantly give away products for free, when it comes around time that you wanna to actually sell something and get paid for it, your audience is like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What are you doing charging us for, for something? 

[00:15:34] Tim: I totally agree, yeah. 

[00:15:35] Andrew: So I think that you actually have to go and put something out for like a paid product. It could be, in terms of the pricing, you have flexibility on the pricing. Charge $10, $50, $150, depending on the product. You, you even have the option of having them pay, on certain sites,, like having to pay what they deem is valuable for the product. 

[00:15:58] Tim: Mm-hmm. 

[00:15:58] Andrew: You know, so I think especially if you are building an audience, you should not constantly try to put out free products. You should just try to have something paid every once in a while. 

[00:16:11] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:16:11] Andrew: Otherwise, your audience will just be expecting free content. 

[00:16:18] Tim: Exactly, so I've been thinking about in terms of like how much of, of your time as the creator is going into creating a product. If it's something really quick and easy, and it'll just maybe save someone some time, or it's a more general tip, you know, I think those are fine as freebies. But I try and think about, okay, if this took me like half a day or something like that, or maybe one, maybe you put it together over two or three days, then it's, something that's probably worth charging for.

[00:16:47] Unless you have those ones, sometimes people create that one high- value freebie that becomes kind of like a way to, I guess, build the audience. And then people think, okay, if that's what value I got for free, imagine what the paid products offer? But the trick is you gotta be able to deliver on the even higher value with the paid.

[00:17:05] So you have to take that into account in the equation too. 

[00:17:08] Yeah. Yeah. And also you have the option to use something that you spent a lot of time working on to use that as, as a lead generator, right? 

[00:17:18] Yeah. 

[00:17:18] Andrew: To build the audience like you said. So, technically, nothing is free.

[00:17:22] Tim: Right. 

[00:17:23] Andrew: Because we can either make money off of it or use it to build the audience. 

[00:17:26] Tim: Yeah. If it's free, at least get the email address. Or if it's, if it's paid, you know, like you say, it can be different tiers of paid. And, I would think, kind of like the more time, the more expertise you've put into it, the higher the price -- taking into account, of course, I guess what other folks are charging for similar kinds of products.

[00:17:45] Andrew: Yeah. And, and then you can also have layers to it as well. Because it can be like an entry-level product you may charge, like, $20 for. 

[00:17:53] Tim: Mm-hmm. 

[00:17:53] Andrew: But then you can go around and turn, turn that product around into something much more. So, so say, for instance, it was like a, like an ebook or something.

[00:18:02] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:18:02] Andrew: You charge $20 for it. You can turn that ebook around and have like the entire video course, and you can charge $300 for it. You go more in-depth. 

[00:18:11] Tim: Exactly. 

[00:18:12] Andrew: So, things like that. So you can have the ebook for free, but then you go more in-depth with the visual, with the video product, and then it's a premium. The premium core. 

[00:18:21] Tim: Yeah, yeah. Some, something smart I've seen people do is like they'll have a workbook that they charge, I don't know, 9.99 for, or whatever. And they'll take one page or one section of that workbook and say it's a freebie. So you get the freebie and then that leads to the paid product, stuff like that. Or, like you're saying, you know, the ebook leads to the video course that's more in-depth, so yeah. 

[00:18:45] But it takes so long to put all that stuff together. That's the challenge. But it's it's like you say one step at a time, right? 

[00:18:54] Andrew: Yeah, yeah. 

[00:18:56] Tim: So how do you stay motivated working on all this stuff over time?

[00:19:02] Andrew: My motivation comes in two parts. One, my family. And then the second part is just my desire to leave the grind. 

[00:19:11] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:19:12] Leave the rat race. You know, I have been an employee for quite a long time and I don't really want to be in control of my own destiny and my own future. 

[00:19:26] Mm-hmm. 

[00:19:26] Andrew: I want to not have to ask for permission for, for vacation time, and stuff like that. 

[00:19:31] Tim: Right. 

[00:19:32] Andrew: Getting in doctor notes for sick days, you know. So, basically, that's my motivation. Just to escape that grind. And my family. 

[00:19:41] Tim: Yeah, I think that's the attraction that a lot of a lot of folks have with, with content creation. It's same as like any kind of entrepreneurial activity. The opportunity to be your own boss and, and as you say, determine your own destiny. 

[00:19:54] So how you get to that point where, where you make the transition. Like, do you have a threshold in mind of where like you're gonna be able to say, okay, I'm comfortable now to leave the nine to five to go full-time. And you don't, you don't have to say but like a level or anything, but is it like, you know, is it, is it income? Is it, you know, is it a number of clients? Is it like, how, how do you, how do you think about where you're at that comfort level, I guess? 

[00:20:24] Andrew: How I think about it is it's two things. It's financially and it's also mentally. And I'll explain both. So, financially it's having at least one year of salary or income, just as that emergency fund. 

[00:20:41] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:20:42] Andrew: And just have that there, just so I can feel secure. But also when it comes to mentally, in the past, there's been a lot of situations where I faced a lot of self doubt. And I think as a creator, or as creatives, that's something that we always, that we all face and we all deal with. 

[00:21:02] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:21:03] Andrew: We all deal with self-doubt and doubting ourselves, and not having that much confidence in ourselves and our abilities. And I'm, I'm no stranger to that as well. Because there are a lot of times that I doubt my own self, and my own ability and doing that and then doubting myself, I've had a lot of opportunities pass me by or I didn't take chances on particular things. 

[00:21:26] So I've been working on that aspect for the last couple of months or so. Just working on the mindset and then getting, trying to get over the imposter syndrome and trying to build up my, my own self-confidence and self belief in myself and my work because I see a lot of other creators and a lot of other creative friends who started after me, or maybe the same time as me as well, and they're doing amazing things. And then I say to myself, oh, why not me? 

[00:21:53] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:21:54] Andrew: So it, it's something, it's something that I, I've been working on a lot in, in the last couple of months. And I've gotten a lot better. But there's still a lot more room to improve. So I feel that when I am at that point that I'm fully confident in myself, and my abilities, and the work that I can provide as well as having the finances secure, then I'll be fully ready to be like, okay, I fully believe in myself and I know that I can make it. I know that I can do this, and I know that I'll be successful, and I'll be making it no matter what. So when I reach that point, and that point I feel is gonna be coming, but when I reach that point, then I'll know that's the time, you know, to exit the rat race. 

[00:22:35] That's, that's great. And I'm glad you mentioned mindset because that is such an important element. A lot of times, people just think about the financial aspect. But being an entrepreneur is, is mentally it's a tough thing, right? So you really do have to be prepared for it. And I also wanted to mention, you know, in, in your content, you know, I, I, I have enjoyed the part that you've been sharing about how you've worked through that. And I think that's the kind of thing that is gonna help to build your audience. That, I guess, you know, transparency about struggles as well as wins.

[00:23:07] Tim: And it's always a balance, right? And you can, you can share wins, but it's, it's good once in a while, to talk about challenges.

[00:23:14] Andrew: Yeah. Well, it only proves that you're, you're human. Because we all have, we all face a lot of challenges and, and we, we faced like a lot of failures and setbacks in life. And it would be, it wouldn't be, it wouldn't be authentic and natural to not share those as part of anybody's journey. right? I think transparency is important just to share everything that you are comfortable sharing.

[00:23:38] Tim: Definitely, yeah. And I think that's what builds the connection with the audience, is that they see that, oh yeah, here's someone who has struggled with the same kind of things that I'm struggling with. And therefore, you know, they understand that you're, you're someone who can help them work through that, especially as you become successful. You see, okay, there's somebody who's faced the same challenges and now they can show me the way through. 

[00:24:02] Andrew: Exactly. 

[00:24:04] Tim: So what advice would you give to people who are trying to become full-time creators? Just in, in general, based on what you've based on what you've been doing so far.

[00:24:12] Andrew: The one, the number one piece of advice that I would give is to accept failure. 

[00:24:22] Tim: Hmm. 

[00:24:23] Andrew: What I mean by that is a lot of people, they, they fail at something and then they think that's the end of the world. They want to give up. A lot of people don't realize and understand that failure, and going through failures, is only a lesson that you learn to do better the next time. 

[00:24:42] Tim: Right.

[00:24:43] Andrew: Every failure that you experience is a learning opportunity for the next time you go out and try it, and then next time you try it, it's gonna be a little bit better. 

[00:24:51] Tim: Right. 

[00:24:52] Andrew: You may fail again, but then each time you're gonna get better and better, every single time. So I encourage any creator to go out there and, and accept failure. It's, it's gonna happen. Don't try to avoid it. 

[00:25:04] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:25:05] Andrew: But use it as a learning opportunity to get better. Because the last thing that you want to do is fail something quickly and then live with regrets. 

[00:25:14] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:25:15] Andrew: Regrets, there's no coming back. 

[00:25:17] That's right. 

[00:25:17] Failure, you have the opportunity to try again.

[00:25:20] Tim: That's right. And I think that's the number one success characteristic you often hear about entrepreneurs is that they've all gone through some kind of period of where they were failing at what they're trying to do or, or trying to do something else, not being successful at it, and then they come through that, they learn from it, and they, they advanced to that next stage. 

[00:25:40] Andrew: Yeah, yeah. They have a setback. You have to work through it. It's a stepping stone to get to the next point. You have to fail in order to succeed. 

[00:25:48] Tim: Absolutely. It's too bad it works that way, but it, it just does.

[00:25:54] Andrew: Yeah, I think that it does. 

[00:25:57] Tim: Yeah. So, could tell us a little bit more about some of the stuff that you're working on.

[00:26:03] Andrew: Yeah, no problem. Oh, just the other day, I rebranded my newsletter. 

[00:26:08] Tim: Mm-hmm. 

[00:26:08] Andrew: I really had it as being nothing for the most part. But I figured that I wanted to actually rebrand the brand. So my website is The Creative Impulse. 

[00:26:18] Tim: Mm-hmm. 

[00:26:19] Andrew: I have digital products that I'm working on right now. So it's basically a guide to help creators to actually have the confidence to create. 

[00:26:29] Mm-hmm. 

[00:26:29] I have another course that I'm going to be working on later on in the year. I'm not sure exactly what the name of the course is gonna be. But like I said earlier, I'm just trying to work on this a couple steps at a time. So yeah, the digital product that I'm focused on, that's the only thing on the on the table for right now. 

[00:26:48] Tim: That's great. You, you got a couple of freebies right now for people too, right?

[00:26:51] Andrew: Yes, I have a couple of freebies that's on my website theandrewwarner.com. And those freebies are a couple of checklists to help further along growth as creators. 

[00:27:04] Tim: Yeah. People should check 'em out. I found them helpful.

[00:27:06] Andrew: Thank you. Thank you. 

[00:27:07] Tim: And, and do you have a podcast as well that you launched? 

[00:27:11] Oh, yes. Thank you. So, I did launch a podcast recently. It's actually a personal podcast. It's the Journey to Escape podcast, where I just document my journey, and the things that I'm going through on my journey, what I'm working on next, and things that I've learned around the journey in trying create these digital products and trying to create this business.

[00:27:33] Andrew: And yeah, I want to mention to people that you are on Twitter of course, as well as YouTube, and you're putting up some pretty good numbers on Twitter and, and YouTube, and I know that's not easy to do. So congratulations on that. 

[00:27:46] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And, and it's been, it's been a Yeah, it, well those numbers, it, it's been a long time to get to that point and I feel that there's still a lot more to go. 

[00:27:58] Well, keep on pushing. I see great things ahead for you in the future. And, and I want thank you again for being on the show, Andrew. 

[00:28:04] Thank you so much for having me. 

[00:28:06] Tim: So talking to Andrew and following his content over the past several months, there's one theme that becomes really clear in terms of the progress that he's been making since the new year, and that's the focus that he's brought to what he's been doing. 

[00:28:19] This applies to a couple of areas. Firstly, there's audience building. Like myself and many other creators, Andrew has a presence across several social media platforms, including Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram. Recently, however, he's poured most of his focus on social media into Twitter with the result that his Twitter audience has been growing while still having time to work on his digital products. Within the space of a few months, that's allowed him to finish two freebies, get close to completing his first paid product, and start planning for his second product. And I don't think he'd be where he is at right now with his digital products as a part-time creator if he had been trying to grow on a bunch of other social platforms at the same time. 

[00:28:59] That brings us to my second observation, which relates to focus in monetization models. Reflecting on my conversation with Andrew got me thinking about the whole range of different monetization models that are out there. There are content creators who are focused on affiliate marketing, digital products, coaching and consulting servicer, product based businesses, and so on. And I would say that none of these models are right or wrong as an approach. Each has their own distinct advantages and drawbacks, and there are creators who have had success or not with any number of these models.

[00:29:31] But for me, the key takeaway is focusing on a particular model, at least at first, and building that up before moving on and diversifying into other things. And again, Andrew has provided a good example of how to do this by focusing exclusively on digital products right now. 

[00:29:47] He's first concentrated on creating a couple of freebie lead magnets, then he's gone on to his first paid product, and then he's going to create a second more in depth product. And he's not trying to dabble in like 10 other things at the same time. 

[00:29:59] So in closing, my challenge to you as a creator is to try and find that same focus that Andrew has had since the beginning of the new year. Pick one long-term project, focus on it until it's done, promote it with a full launch strategy, and then see what happens. 

[00:30:13] And to help you with that, I've got my own freebie that you can access on my website or through the link here in the description. It's a project management tool called a work breakdown structure, which will help you take one of your projects and break it down into manageable work packages, so you can do a little each day until you get it done. 

[00:30:30] And I think the result is that you're gonna start feeling more like you're getting somewhere rather than just spinning your wheels as that wheel of time keeps on ticking. 

[00:30:38] If you found this helpful consider subscribing, drop me alike for the