I’m convinced of two things in this life:
- I will someday be a sheep farmer in Scotland.
- Just because something is popular, doesn’t mean it’s good: it just means it’s popular. ✨
What am I referring to, cryptic little minx that I am? Oh, MOSTLY EVERYTHING, since marketing is the real force behind anything that’s popular. (It’s rarely a democratic consensus gone wild.) But, in particular, I think of social media this way: one of the most popular ways to spend time, under the false pretense that doing so is marketing. That being there everyday is the job.
But you are not marketing. You are being marketed to.
You are the product.
However, the makers of social media have done a brilliant job positioning their platforms so it doesn’t feel that way. It feels like you’re using it.
I’m obsessed with time. Not in a “MUST! BE! PRODUCTIVE!” kind of sense, but in the “I want to experience so much pleasure in this world, I don’t have time to suffer fools.” I am remarkably callous when it comes to selecting where I spend my time; perhaps from a lifetime in advertising, I have grown too accustomed to thinking in terms of ROI.
But, I get results.
I love results. I love testing the ways in which I can take a simple hour and turn it into money, or love, or influence, power, loyalty, respect, depending on what you need that hour to do. And that, perhaps, is one of the most important questions I ask myself every day:
What do I need this next hour to do?
It’s a different way of looking at time; one that respects the fact that it’s limited. It is easy to fall into a hole of TikToks, Instagram, emails, texts, the world’s demands for attention, when you don’t have any standards for your time.
If you don’t care how you need your time to perform, it becomes a free for all, doesn’t it?
When creators struggle to make money, one of the first questions I ask is: how are they spending their hours? And is that the best use of those hours?
Most often, the marketing giants behind the social media rat race have won. It’s not much different from the corporate giants who convinced the world to join the 1.0 version of the rat race.
Oh, what a cynical shit, I am! I know. But sometimes, being a cynical shit is good for you.
There is no such thing as success without indifference.
The 2022 State of the Creator Economy Report shows this mind-blowing statistic:
“Female creators outnumber male creators by nearly 2:1—however, men were more than twice as likely to earn over $150,000 annually.”
Pay gap shows up everywhere. Except in the creator space, I often wonder how much of a contributing factor it is that females experience more pressure to show up and do cute videos, while their male counterparts have the luxury of spending more time in places that actually move the needle.
I also wasn’t surprised even one Swedish fish that this was also true:
“Full-time creators ranked the importance of email to their business at 8.3/10.”
Whew, mama! And, YUP, that’s 100% in line with my views on the subject. Email is god. If you’ve got a different religion, you’d better switch. It’s the key revenue driver of all creator businesses. (If you need help with this, Tarzan is great.)
The report went on to state the following:
“This rating means professional creators think email is more important to their business than social media or paid ads.”
Yes. Yes, we do.
Just like the pay gap, I suspect there’s also a gap in understanding of how the creator economy works. This is why I get endless messages reaching out to me with, “How do I start a blog?” instead of “How do I start a business?”
New creators are trying to mimic only what they can see, i.e. a pretty social media feed and a blog to match, because they can’t see the engine that really runs it: a business, powered by email, with smart, scalable offers in place. (If you're doing it well, anyway.)
But you know who is focused there? Men.
That’s the invisible advantage that no one’s talking about.
Men have the luxury of getting taken seriously without having thousands of vanity followers.
Men can spend more time doing the things that actually make a business money—so they can get it done and go enjoy their lives.
(As an aside, I’d actually be curious how many book deals are offered to men without large social media followings, despite the modern publishing industry making this a near-requirement for female writers.)
Regardless, creators overall need a new strategy. The income reporting as a whole shows that there is WAY too high a percentage of creators earning $10,000 or less, both male and female. The second highest category is $25,000 or less.
While every single thing creators put out there is admirable as hell, I KNOW this is representative of:
- Creators lovingly trying to do what they see other creators doing
- Without realizing that most of those creators aren’t making any money
- And therefore focusing on all the incorrect levers
- Until the end of time, amen
So, I wanted to work on this problem. ?
And—I’ve been developing something I view as critical for the next generation of creators and digital nomads. ??
Something that’s designed to get creators, females, and historically resilient groups to the $250K mark in 24 months or less by focusing on the things most people don’t, while working 4-hour half-days so you can leverage your hours AND have a life…and do so from anywhere in the world. ?
This is really, really important to me, specifically as a digital nomad who views travel and pleasure as a form of income. What’s the point in working for yourself if you’re stuck to your computer and can never leave the house?
Here’s the kind of income I want for you:
- $250K and….take your family for an entire summer in Ireland. ?? ? ?
- $250K and…let’s rent you a design-forward apartment in Florence, surrounded by incredible wine bars, ateliers, & art galleries. ? ? ?
- $250K and…let’s send you to Scandinavia in the spring to write, photograph, or draw from the hazy shores of a little red summer house. ✍️ ? ⛵️
- $250K and…let’s give you the ability to worldschool your kids in a walkable and friendly neighborhood in Portugal, France, or Scotland, surrounded by luscious parks and green space and incredible schools. ??? ? ✏️
You can have it all—as a female (YES.) As a professional. As a creator. As a family. As someone who wants to soak up the pleasures of the entire world.
Sound like a breath of fresh air?
It’s invitation-only to begin.
Make sure you're on the email list to get an invite when we're ready.
XOXO,
Ash