https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqzgOJdE5DI

Welcome back to my channel. This is going to sound strange, but I've been creating content on this YouTube channel intentionally since 2015. Even though I have done that for so many years, I hesitate and have always hesitated calling myself a content creator. It's going to make more sense as to why that is as I get through this video. But when I was in the early stages of my business, I really was confused and overwhelmed because I felt like everyone was telling me, "You're not creating content every single day. You don't have a business and no one's going to buy from you and your clients won't care and no one's going to find you." And it really messed with my head, until I ultimately hit burnout in 2017.

That was for a lot of reasons, but a big piece of it was that I felt solely responsible for creating all of my content, for running the business and for doing everything all by myself. And since then, my new motto has been what is the bare minimum that I can do to get the same results. And to add onto that, that's become what is the bare minimum I can do to grow my impact and my income. And over the last couple of years, since I've hit that burnout, I have discovered that if I create less content, it's actually led us to growing exponentially. And that will be explained further as I get through the core concepts of this strategy. If you want to see the full behind the scenes journey of how I went from stressed out, burnt out solopreneur to thriving 8-figure business owner, there's a whole playlist below that you can check out for the behind the scenes of my entrepreneurial journey.

So the core concepts I want to go over today of how you can decrease the amount of output and effort you're putting into content creation, while increasing your impact and your income are: number one, know your baseline and key levers. Number two, play to people, not the algorithm. Number three, determine the value of your content. Number four, identify the opportunity cost. Number five, promote impact over influence. And number six, the ugly content secret. Because of my journey, my sole mission and purpose is to help people create peaceful, purposeful, and profitable businesses. And if you don't know what I do, I help people patch their expertise and their unique genius and turn it into a highly scalable online course business. If that sounds exciting to you or interesting, be sure to hit that like button so I can reach more people in the algorithm and be sure to subscribe for new videos every single week.

Before I get into the strategy, I want to remind you because it's very easy to forget when you start a business, that you probably got into this to be your own boss and to create freedom on your own terms. And ironically, that's one of the first things to go when you get caught up in trying to figure out how to make your business work and you end up working way more than you ever did when you had a job. And so the purpose of this is to really help you understand that you can detach your time from your income. And if you constantly have to be creating content in order to stay relevant, in order to attract clients, you have built yourself a job and you have become an employee versus an entrepreneur. And your boss just happens to be the algorithm at this point.

So let's get you out of that cycle and dig into these concepts. Number one, know your baseline and key levers. What do I mean by this? There is a misconception when you have a business that the more reach, reach, reach, reach; that's a metric that we measure on every single social media platform. The more reach you have, the more successful you are. But in reality, if you know the numbers that you actually need in your business, you don't need to reach a million people or even thousands of people. It could be a lot less. So I know in our business on a yearly basis, generally, we're taking on about 700 clients a year. And that is not a lot of human beings when you really think about it in the grand scheme of things. And so I don't need to worry about my content going viral.

I don't need to worry about reaching millions of people. I need to worry about reaching the right people. We're going to talk about that more in detail in just a minute. But you need to do the math for yourself so you can create a baseline of what is required in terms of hitting your business benchmarks and goals. So the first question you want to ask yourself is how many clients do I want to take on in the next year? Once you have that number you want to break down by month and then a very simple sort of baseline equation that you can use is if you want to bring on five clients a month in your business, and that's going to get you to your revenue goals. You want to multiply that number by five. And that presents to you how many leads you need to get in order to achieve five new clients based on converting 20% of them.

So if you want five clients in the door per month, that means you need to have 25 conversations and 25 new leads per month in order to hit that five clients per month. That's not a lot of humans. 25 people a month, that is totally doable and allows you to focus going deep with the people that you network with, meet, create a following with online, instead of going wide and trying to reach everyone. And to follow up on that, know your key levers. And what I mean by this is what are the activities that you are doing that are generating the most clients for you? What kind of content generates the most clients and which platforms generate the most clients. You should know what your top platform is and what your top kind of content is. And if you don't, you have lost power in your business because you don't know how to repeat your success.

When you know what works, business is very simple. You just do more of what works. So I've identified one YouTube video a week, sometimes I miss weeks. And one to three emails a week, but sometimes we don't even send any depending on what our lead flow looks like. That's what works. So YouTube and email, I barely use the rest of my platforms. So instead of creating content all the time and in all these different formats, I know it works. I keep my focus on that and that allows me to be my best and be of service from a place of total abundance, everywhere else that I needed, whether that's personally or professionally. Because I'm not constantly thinking about what do I post next, what do I need to do today in terms of content creation, being on my phone all the time. And that's just not how I want to live.

So knowing your numbers empowers you to do less, but achieve more. Number two, play to people, not the algorithm. This is a hard one. I'm going to admit it because it's mainly difficult from a mindset perspective. But the thing to really understand and based on knowing your baseline, you know and only need to care about reaching the right people. And so vanity metrics start to mean absolutely nothing to you and you start to focus on more on qualitative feedback and data as opposed to quantitative. So qualitative feedback are things like comments that you're getting, the response that you're getting from your content, messages that you're receiving. The reaction that you're getting, as opposed to the number of views or followers or likes that you're receiving. Because ultimately those don't mean a lot if people aren't actually resonating with the content and taking action because of it.

And when you know how many clients you actually need and how many human beings you need to serve on a monthly basis, vanity metrics just don't matter so much. So it's about redefining success for you in terms of the content you create. From let me rack up a bunch of likes and views to let me rack up the right comments, messages, and views and followers to ensure that I'm reaching a targeted audience. And the reality is, playing to the algorithm means that it's constantly fluctuating. You can only control what you can control. Ultimately, you create the best piece of content you've ever made, you're so proud of it and it can fall flat. I've been doing this long enough to know that just happens. And it can feel soul crushing if you're only determining your success based on external factors. So in order to really crack that code for myself and determine my success in a different way, I created this flywheel or this engine that really runs and fuels me and my content.

So it's really cracking the code on creating content that actually converts. And it looks like this. You have to start with who am I actually trying to reach? Who is my ideal viewer, follower, subscriber, et cetera, client? And then, what's the most relevant content I can make to that individual person? Not the masses, that person. And from there, the algorithm then starts to categorize you based on who you're trying to reach and what you want to be known for. And then it uses its traffic sources to reach more people just like that. But if you confuse the algorithm by not knowing who you're trying to reach, then you lose control of the content and oftentimes it's either going to be seen by nobody or you may randomly go viral and have the wrong audience all of a sudden that is seeing your content. And the beauty of this is that you start making content with such true intention.

The equation that I've figured out to succeed on social media is intention plus relevancy plus you showing up as you authentically equals success. And when you use those factors to your advantage and you know who you're speaking to, you cut through all the noise and you reduce the friction in being able to serve the people who need you most. When you aren't focused on those factors and you aren't creating content specifically for the people who need you most, you are missing the mark and ultimately decreasing the impact you can have, if that makes sense. So if you go wide and try to reach a massive audience, you're ultimately doing yourself and the humans who need you a disservice. And it starts to switch something in your brain where you're creating less content with a higher intention. So the right people are seeing it, meaning that you're actually bringing in more of your dream clients and the dream humans you want to work with.

And one of the things that I have learned through executing on this strategy over the years is that if I have to constantly be on and constantly be in people's faces and constantly creating content in order for them to want to work with me, they're probably not the right people. I want people who see the value, listen, truly understand what I'm saying and find it relevant to them and take action from there. Not because I'm constantly hammering them and showing up everywhere they look. Number three, determine the value of your content. This puts so much in perspective. And when I dug into these numbers, I realize the value of not spreading myself thin and not trying to create content every single day, because it actually decreased the value of my content. Let me explain. So essentially, I wrote out all the numbers and I figured, "Okay, how much content am I creating on a yearly basis? And if I divide that by the amount of revenue that I'm taking in, what is each of those pieces of content actually worth?"

And the more content you create, the less it's worth. The less content you create, the more it's worth. It also forced me to understand that I had to be hyper, hyper clear and you guessed it, intentional, with every piece of content and the value I wanted to provide in that content and make it as value packed as possible because I didn't have the luxury of creating a piece of content every single day. And I didn't want that luxury. I wanted to do less, impact more. So let me run you through some numbers. So what you want to do is look at your core platform or the platform that's generating the most clients for you and divide the number of content pieces by the amount of revenue you've brought in.

So when I looked at this, YouTube is my core pillar platform and I've made 25 videos to date this year. And if I break down the numbers on that, and I'm going to be very conservative here because we do run paid advertising at this point, but you don't want to do that until you have a proven offer. We are a very organic business for a long time. And over 50% of our revenue to date still comes from organic or free traffic, not from paid ads. So I'm going to cut our revenue in half for the year to date. So when I do that and I have 25 videos that I've made on YouTube. So 25 videos, take that and I take our revenue thus far and I divide our revenue by those 25 videos. It tells me that each of the videos that I have created is worth about a $100,000.

If I had made 365 videos this year, and I've made a piece of content every single day, each of those videos would then be worth $6,000. That is a big difference. So as I said, the less content I created, the more valuable, just on a financial aspect that content became. And the more intentional I was about the content I created, because I didn't feel like I had to constantly be coming up with new ideas, which is honestly exhausting and kind of impossible. So this same thing applies for Instagram posts, if that's your platform of choice, stories, reels, TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn, whatever you're using. Number four, identify the opportunity cost. Now this isn't necessarily about the financials, but knowing the numbers that we just went over is very helpful. It puts you in a head space and a mindset of knowing that the more content you're creating, the more you're actually decreasing the value of that content in terms of the overall bottom line of the business.

And so that's why you always want to bring it back to the very first thing we discussed, which is what actually matters in terms of how many human beings you need to reach and serve in terms of being clients on a yearly basis. And what is your revenue target and how can we create the least amount of content strategically and intentionally to hit that number. And I said earlier that I have always hesitated calling myself a content creator because what I really feel aligned with and what I feel like I am is a business owner who uses content to create a deeper impact and to serve the people who need me. As opposed to creating content for the sole purpose of reaching as many people as possible. There's nothing wrong with that at all. It's just never been how I've operated when it came to creating content and it made me have to define my growth and my success in a very different way.

And because of that as well, when I say opportunity costs, I also mean if I am so consumed by content creation, what is that costing me? And for me, it costs my attention and my energy, which are really valuable resources as an entrepreneur to serve the people who are actually in my program and our clients. And to be there for my team and to be a leader. And also on a personal level, it costs my presence around my family and my friends and the people who matter most. I actually got to a place after I hit burnout where I almost felt this physical aversion to being on my phone and to creating posts, which sounds so strange. But I just recognized that the more time I spent on my phone and my computer, the more time I was taking away from the things that really needed me and also served my higher purpose.

So you, at a certain point, have to recognize, is the activity that you're doing, serving your highest purpose and serving your clients at the deepest level? Or is it consuming you around things that don't truly matter, like reaching the masses, like vanity metrics, like things that are out of your control. Number five, promote impact over influence. This has been one of the most fascinating parts of this experiment I've been doing for the last couple of years. It's hard to describe it until you start to experience for yourself, but let me give it a shot. I used to share a lot more sort of lifestyle content, and let's say, quote, unquote, brand content of like who I am and what I do and my family, behind the scenes and all this stuff. And I do think there's a place for that. And I do think that it matters for people to know who you are and what you stand for, but there's also sort of a tipping point.

And I feel like you're going to understand this when I say this, but if you have to work really, really hard to present yourself a certain way and present your lifestyle a certain way on social media to feel validated and to feel relevant to people, you are going to attract people who are bought into the idea of who you are and you as an influencer. As opposed to people who are bought into getting results and the process that you have laid out to create the transformation that they truly need. And there is a big difference there. If people are bought into you as a human and your lifestyle and the external factors of what that life looks like, they aren't necessarily at a place where they're ready to actually get results from what you do. So that's why my strategy has changed a lot and a lot of my content is focused on my clients and their impact.

We created an entire YouTube channel for it. You can check that out, I put the link in the description. That's the most rewarding content for me to make as well, because it's not about me. It's about what I've actually been able to do for other people, how I've been able to serve other people. And their legacy and the success ripple that they're creating in their lives, through my work. As opposed to seeing my lifestyle, wanting to emulate it, and then getting frustrated when it doesn't happen overnight, because I'm not selling overnight success. That's just not real life. Have my clients become millionaires? Absolutely. Have my clients seen exponential growth and success? Absolutely. But it takes work. It's a process. It's a formula. It's a method. If you're not bought into getting those results and you're only bought into the end game of looking cool and having shiny things, you're probably not going to be the best person for me to work with.

And the last part of this that I want to touch on is it really took me switching from a scarcity to an abundance mentality, which allowed me to recognize that I don't have to constantly be creating for the right people to see me. I know the right people will find me because I am intentional about what I create. That's all I can be in control of. Whereas in a scarcity mindset, it's like, "Oh, I constantly have to be working in order to feel like I'm valuable." And that's just not the place I operate from anymore and it's much more sustainable and it's how I haven't hit burnout again since 2017. Because I recognize the value of doing less while still maintaining and growing results. Number six, the ugly content secret. This is probably the weirdest one and the weirdest strategy that I've implemented, but it works really well.

So what I have come to realize is that, kind of goes to my last point, authenticity is everything. It has become probably the most valuable currency that you can have in anything that you do. But let's be honest, especially on social media. The more authentic you show up, the more real you show up. The more you're going to attract the right people who care about the things that actually matter versus the things that don't matter. So my mentality is if you have something valuable to say, and to share, get it out there, don't wait for it to look perfect. My lighting's not perfect in this video. My sound's probably not perfect. I get comments all the time on this channel from videographers and editors and all these people being like, "You might want to fix your exposure." And I'm like, "I don't care." So just being honest, cause this is not my job.

I am not super concerned with how my videos look. I'm concerned with them reaching the right people and people actually listening and getting value from it. That's what I care about. I don't really care about how fancy my videos look. I went through a phase of my life where I did and shockingly, when I did that and I cared too much about what these looked like. No one wanted to watch my content. That's the irony, people want real. They want authentic and they want value at the end of the day. People only care about you on YouTube until you make them care because you've actually helped them in some way and you've added value to their lives or their businesses or who they are as a person in some way. So another factor of this ugly content secret is you may have noticed that my videos have actually gotten longer and it's ironic because there's such an emphasis on short content.

But what I recognized in testing, I believe in testing everything and trying everything, is that short content was leading to attracting sort of drive by followers and more reach. But the people that I was reaching weren't really invested because they were watching a 30 second video instead of really sitting down and focusing. So to me, the length of your video, it does matter in terms of the quality of the people that you're attracting. I have found that the longer my video is, and I'm not saying I want to make some sort of three hour video by any means, but the more in depth and the more value driven my video is, and the less fluff, less filler, the more committed the viewers actually are. It's less viewers, but they're more committed, more in tune and the more of the right people. Which is ultimately what, as we talked about earlier, is my metric for success.

And I think this brings me back again to the concept of friction. So let's just say you're here as the entrepreneur and your ideal client is right here. And you're sitting here going, "Oh my gosh, I got to perfect my lighting. I got to get somebody professional in to do this. I got to pay them. I got to do all of this stuff in order to make this one piece of content that I know is going to be really valuable to this ideal client." Look at how much friction you're creating between you and your ideal client. If you just know that you have something important to say, and it's going to be helpful to the right person, create it and really focus on the costs that you're incurring that don't matter. Your time, your energy, your resources, your finances that are going into only adding more friction between you reaching the person who needs you most.

We don't want to do that. I really hope this was helpful and it shed some light on why I create a lot less content. I'm sure you've noticed if you followed me for a long time, you've probably seen that on a lot of my platforms I'm not nearly as active as I used to be. I wanted to share this to tell you, you can do this and it can work and it can lead to a lot of reward on the other side, not just on the business financial level, but also just on your inner peace. Which for me is my biggest metric to success and your happiness and joy and being present for the things that actually really matter. So if this resonated with you, give a like, be sure to subscribe for new videos every single week.

And if this is something that you feel really empowered by, and that it really resonated with you and you want to learn more about what I do and how I do it. And how I can help you take your unique genius and package it into a highly scalable, online course business with a lot of intention and allowing you to detach your time from income, I put a free masterclass and click the link below to access it. Thank you so much for watching. My love language is comments, you know this. So please leave your biggest takeaway or light bulb moment in the comments because I really do love reading them. And I like to see what hits home for you, because again, that's why I do this. So thank you so much. I have a whole playlist right here so you have more context about my story and how I've been able to grow while doing a lot less. So thanks so much and I'll see you in the next video.

If this was helpful, I encourage you to apply to our application-only program, The Authority Accelerator (where we help experts, coaches and consultants go from unknown and stuck to the go-to authority by packaging your expertise into a highly scalable online program so that you can elevate your income, impact and audience on autopilot) today: https://sunnylenarduzzi.com/apply