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Welcome to 1% Better. A weekly newsletter where I provide simple playbooks to grow your following, earn more revenue, and live a more fulfilling life.

Today at a Glance:

• How to turn your online presence into a $ making business

• Steps you need to take NOW to prepare

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A few weeks ago I started a Youtube and have been making weekly videos! I’ve long said videos are the future, so I’m putting my money where my mouth is.

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How to Monetize Yourself Online

If you’re reading this newsletter, odds are you’re looking to build a brand or business with your online presence. Whether that’s through selling a product or making money off X ad revenue, you have an end goal with your online brand that probably has something to do with generating revenue.

Over the past 3 years of building my brand, I’ve been lucky enough to turn it into a business and start generating income. Here are all the lessons I’ve learned along the way that have been impactful for me when it comes to maximizing revenue from my X presence and newsletter.

Think about how you want to monetize early, then reverse engineer

From day 1, I wanted to build a business around a newsletter.

Morning Brew was a newsletter built by a couple of guys in college who later sold it for 75 million dollars. I knew with my life and career, a newsletter would be something I’d be able to build in my spare time and eventually monetize. With that in mind, I started my newsletter day 1 of building my brand.

The day I created my X account is the day I started writing my newsletter. Starting my newsletter early on was instrumental in my success.

Here’s what you need to do: no matter how early you are in your journey, think about how you want to monetize. What kind of business do you want to build? Start putting the pieces into place NOW for that goal.

If you want to do consulting, start building consulting materials. If you want to build a course or write a book, start writing those courses and books now. What will happen is the moment you are ready to monetize, you’ll already be prepared to strike in a big way.

Wait way too long

First piece of advice was to start planning early. My next piece of advice is to wait way too long.

I didn’t make a penny of revenue until I was about 50,000 followers and 7,000 subscribers. It took me a full year to take in my first revenue. I wanted to give value away as long as possible before taking any value.

After 10 months of giving value for free, I took my first penny of value by offering a sponsorship spot in my newsletter.

Taking money early can slow your growth, depending on your goals. I wanted to be known as the guy who relentlessly gave value away for free, and I truly believe that helped my growth tremendously. Now that I am monetizing, my goal is to be the guy that gives 100 dollars of value for every 1 dollar I take.

Wait a little too long to monetize. Be patient. It’ll be so much better for your brand, growth, and image.

Don’t damage your brand with bad deals

This is the most difficult part for most people. When you start growing, a lot of really shady companies and projects will offer you money for sponsorships.

There’s cash freely flowing, and it can be tempting to take some of it.

I promise you this: your brand is way more valuable than any quick payday you can take from a shady project. Don’t damage your brand by doing undisclosed advertising or associating yourself with bad companies.

Build an email list

Email is the cockroach of the internet. It’ll never go away. Build an email list early and often. It is one of the most powerful distribution channels on the entire internet.

You own the list and you always go straight to their inbox. Having an email list of your most loyal community members will make it so much easier to launch new products or start on new platforms. As I expand onto Youtube, it is way easier for me to gain a following because I can share my content on this newsletter.

Build your email list early, it’ll be the most valuable asset you have.

Build products that scale

The internet has unlocked the ability for you to create products once then sell it an infinite amount of times. If I write an ebook or create a course, I can create it once then sell it over and over again with no additional work.

As you grow, think about digital products you could build along the way that scale infinitely like ebooks and courses. Start planning them early. These are the highest-leverage products you can offer to your community.

Ideate relentlessly from day 1

Lastly, ideate relentlessly from the moment you begin. Get a note app (I use Notion), and any time an idea pops into your head, put it in the app. Whether it’s for an ebook, course, consulting session, or anything at all, be ready to ideate at a moment’s notice.

What will happen is months later, when you’re finally ready to monetize, you won’t be starting from scratch. You’ll have an entire bank of ideas ready. I started monetizing a couple years ago, but I already had pages and pages of ideas for products I could execute on. Ideate early and often.

These are the core rules and lessons I’ve learned over the last 3 years of building this brand. It doesn’t matter how large your following is; start planning for monetization NOW. It’ll make it much easier to turn your passions into a career in the future.

Helpful? Here’s some other ways I can help you out:

The single greatest course on X growth ever: The X Growth Master Class

The best community of online creators/builders on the internet (plus weekly calls with me: The 1% Club

60 minute coaching session that will totally change the way you create content: Alex Finn 1 on 1 coaching session

Have a great weekend everyone!

-Alex