Turn Content Creation Into Your Most Powerful Tool for Business Growth | Marketing | YAPCreator Replay | E4

Social media is a powerful marketing tool, but most entrepreneurs still struggle to leverage it and build a brand that stands out. In this episode of the YAPCreator Series Replay, Hala Taha shares how to use content creation as a strategic tool to grow your personal brand. Featuring insights from top creator-entrepreneurs like GaryVee, Jenna Kutcher, and Kat Norton, you'll learn social media marketing tips to grow your business and unlock your potential as a content creator. In this episode, Hala will discuss: (00:00) Introduction (01:14) Growing a Business with YouTube Content (07:54) Jenna Kutcher on Authentic Personal Branding (11:57) Creative Idea Generation and Content Scaling (19:00) Energy and Magnetism in Content Creation (24:13) Mastery and the 10,000-Hour Rule (29:40) Kelly Roach’s Conviction Marketing Pyramid (40:13) What’s the Best Time to Be a Content Creator? Hala Taha is the host of Young and Profiting, a top 10 business and entrepreneurship podcast on Apple and Spotify. She’s the founder and CEO of YAP Media, an award-winning social media and podcast production agency, as well as the YAP Media Network, where she helps renowned podcasters like Russell Brunson, Jenna Kutcher, and Neil Patel grow and monetize their shows. Through her work, Hala has become one of the most influential creator entrepreneurs in podcasting. Sponsored By: Indeed - Get a $75 sponsored job credit to boost your job's visibility at Indeed.com/profiting Shopify - Start your $1/month trial at Shopify.com/profiting. Quo - Run your business communications the smart way. Try Quo for free, plus get 20% off your first 6 months when you go to quo.com/profiting Experian - Manage and cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reduce your bills. Get started now with the Experian App and let your Big Financial Friend do the work for you. See experian.com for details. Intuit - Start paying bills the smart way, not the hard way. Learn more at QuickBooks.com/billpay Huel - Grab nutritionally complete meals you can drink. Get 15% off with code PROFITING at huel.com/PROFITING AT&T Business - Power your small business with reliable connectivity from AT&T. Switch today at business.att.com. Fabric - Protect your family with term life insurance from Fabric by Gerber Life. Apply today in just minutes at meetfabric.com/profiting ZocDoc - Stop putting off those doctors' appointments. Find and instantly book a doctor you love today at Zocdoc.com/PROFITING Blinkist - Turn the world’s best nonfiction books into quick 15-minute reads or listens. Grab your free trial plus an exclusive 30% discount at blinkist.com/profiting Resources Mentioned: YAP E278 with Sean Cannell: youngandprofiting.co/40GYZCy YAP E316 with Kat Norton: youngandprofiting.co/40I34q4 YAP E291 with Gary Vee: youngandprofiting.co/41DRxcd YAP E295 with Jenna Kutcher: youngandprofiting.co/40FzNw6 YAP E275 with James Altucher: youngandprofiting.co/4h2d2bG YAP E155 with Kelly Roach: youngandprofiting.co/4h1LfrD YAPCreator Replay E1: youngandprofiting.co/YCR-E1 YAPCreator Replay E2: youngandprofiting.co/YCR-E2 YAPCreator Replay E3: youngandprofiting.co/YCR-E3 Active Deals - youngandprofiting.com/deals Key YAP Links Reviews - ratethispodcast.com/yap YouTube - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting Newsletter - youngandprofiting.co/newsletter LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala/ Social + Podcast Services: yapmedia.com Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com/episodes-new Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship Podcast, Business, Business Podcast, Self Improvement, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Starting a Business, Strategy, Investing, Sales, Selling, Psychology, Productivity, Entrepreneurs, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Marketing, Negotiation, Money, Finance, Side Hustle, Startup, Mental Health, Career, Leadership, Mindset, Health, Growth Mindset, SEO, E-commerce, LinkedIn, Instagram, Digital Marketing, Content Creator, Storytelling, Advertising, Communication, Video Marketing, Social Proof, Marketing Trends, Influencers, Influencer Marketing, Digital Trends, Online Marketing, Marketing Podcast

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Hala Taha?

  Today's episode is sponsored in part by Northwest Registered Agent, Whatnot, Mod, and AG1. Northwest Registered Agent gives you the tools and guidance to build a complete business identity. Start using free resources at northwestregisteredagent.com/yanpfree. Whatnot helps sellers grow through live shopping, community, and real-time connections with buyers. Search Whatnot, W-H-A-T-N-O-T, in the App Store, download, and you can start selling right away. Mod connects qualifying patients with licensed medical providers for modafinil to support sustained energy, focus, and alertness throughout the day. Visit mod.com for a free consultation and get 10% off your first order plus free shipping

• 0:43Hala Taha?

  with promo code PROFITING. See their website for important safety information. AG1 Next Gen supports your nutritional foundation with vitamins, minerals, pre- and probiotics, and superfoods. Go to drinkag1.com/profitting and get a free immune support bundle with your first subscription order. As always, you can find all of our incredible deals in the show notes or at youngandprofiting.com/deals.

• 1:20Hala Taha?

  Young and profiteers, welcome back to the Yap Creator Series Replay. We're all living in a time where opportunities to express yourself and build a real audience online are truly limitless. But I also know that it can feel really overwhelming, especially when you're just starting out. Where do you even begin? How do you figure out what makes you different and why people should tune into you over everyone else? Well, that's exactly what we're tackling today with the help of some all-time great Yap guests. We're going to break down how you can get your footing as a creator. We'll get into the power of experimentation because content creation isn't about cracking one formula and then repeating it forever. It's about trying new things, learning as

• 2:01Hala Taha?

  you go, and growing into your own voice over time. There's so much value packed into this one, so sit back, take notes, and enjoy. Content creation is truly at the heart of being an entrepreneur today. You may not have ever imagined yourself as a content creator, but to succeed in today's online marketplace, you need to be willing and able to market yourself and your business. Compelling content is a powerful tool to demonstrate value, connect with target audiences and differentiate yourself from competitors. And it's no longer an option, quite frankly. It's a must have. Here's Sean Cannell, who built his massive YouTube channel from scratch, explaining why it's so important to be in the content game and why getting started is easier than you might expect.

• 2:44Speaker 01

  Why is Gary Vaynerchuk and Grant Cardone and Leila Hormozzi and Noah Kagan and Alex Hormozi investing so heavily in content? Why, when they have other businesses and other things to do? I think it's because they understand that personal brand is the most valuable asset you can possibly have. And by building out in content, the wave of the creator economy itself, you tapping into being a creator, publishing content, basically the next three years are going to be the best three years in the creator economy. And Mr. Beast himself, the biggest independent YouTuber, also mentioned that YouTube's algorithm is one of the most generous algorithms as we speak. That new creators are being suggested on people's homepages and getting a shot in people's suggested feeds. That if you start a brand new channel right now

• 3:28Speaker 01

  and you make the right video around the right topics with the right content, you can grow from scratch right now in 2024. So I think that when you think, oh, the platform has aged out or whatever, or it's just already saturated. Saturation is actually impossible by the dictionary definition if it's still increasing. If the total addressable market's increasing, if consumption of content is increasing, which it is, if more users are appearing there, which they are, and if these users are more individual and unique, speaking to you finding your niche and your 1,000 true fans, it's not saturated. It's not too late. And the next three years are actually going to be double of what's happened in the last 17. So we're actually in a crazy strategic time for YouTube.

• 4:12Speaker 01

  And so I think that's actually data-backed good news for business owners listening to this right now for really tapping into the power and the wave that's happening.

• 4:21Hala Taha?

  It's really good news that you're saying that we can all still grow on YouTube. And I know for myself, when I started podcasting six years ago, everyone told me that it's too late. Look at me now, I'm top of the charts podcast princess. So it's never too late to start on your dreams. So if somebody is looking to start a YouTube channel and you know, they're an entrepreneur, which is most of my listeners, they've got to ask themselves some key questions even before they start creating videos. What are the key questions and considerations people should think through before they actually start a YouTube channel for their business?

• 4:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think number one is why do you want to start a YouTube channel? And that answer to that might not be super obvious. It's a general good problem or a good question to ask is what are we solving for? We're solving for X. Do we need more revenue? Are we using it as lead gen? And we could get into some granular questions. What is the potential of YouTube for my particular business? Is there a good alignment there? And then also, how much time do I have to invest and what am I trying to achieve? Another interesting question is to say, do you have any desire to create content that you're in yourself? Or how committed do you think you could be to creating content? Because sometimes we get ahead of ourselves.

• 5:39Speaker 01

  We've seen brands, this is an interesting opportunity where you could hire talent. It happens. Moment Lenses did it. Kensington Memory has Tersha Hirschberger, who's a solo influencer that also is like talent hired for the channel. So at the early stage, do you want to build your personal brand? Do you want to have your own show? Are you interested in creating content? Who are five to 10 YouTube channels that you maybe watch and inspire you? And would you like to have a YouTube channel like theirs? If you haven't spent some time on YouTube, I would encourage that to be a first step. Do some reconnaissance and research to see what else is out there in your niche. Do you want to build? Your business leads in clients?

• 6:23Speaker 01

  Or do you want to build your next business? AKA maybe your personal brand? Because what you've already accomplished and built, you're thinking about speaking, writing, getting your name out there, getting your intellectual property, your frameworks, your processes, your teachings captured so you can make an impact and a difference in people's lives, as well as get booked to speak in invited places. And I could get granular on case studies and use cases for how you could use YouTube for all kinds of different niches. A friend of mine just acquired a like real estate education business. And then he bought a YouTube channel, which was owned by an exam YouTube channel, 35,000 subscribers. So he can start putting like these real estate exams

• 7:07Speaker 01

  and lead Jen over to his real estate education business. He won't be in videos. He can outsource these, they could be AI. So I would say that YouTube is an asset, no matter what we're talking about. And there's a way to do it, whether you're on camera, whether it's faceless, whether it's another talent. But these self-awareness questions are some really good foundational questions. And usually the people who like come to our event and watch our stuff, a lot of times say, okay, I want to create content. I want to create a video podcast. I want to be a talking head on video. I maybe want to teach or do cooking. We get into creator side DIY or cooking, or we have auto repair shops. All kinds of business owners too that use it. But where a lot of times clicks best

• 7:52Speaker 01

  is even thinking through, do you see yourself as a personality? And do you want to put yourself out there? So like a auto repair and modification shop, the owner has got a big YouTube channel, part of our podcast community. But like, he's discovered that he loves it. Now, listening to this, you're not going to know if you could discover that yet. And I would encourage you why you probably don't love it yet. And you probably are intimidated a little and you're probably a little bit nervous to get on camera. But I would challenge you, one of the best experiments you could ever do is start before you're ready. Start messy, make 50 to 100 videos. That might sound like a lot, but the reason, because it's going to transform you. I promise you, it will improve your life. It'll just make you a better communicator. It'll help you grow.

• 8:35Speaker 01

  But what you might uncover is you might uncover. Like, I love this and I'm actually good at this. And it would be the wrong signal to think that day one, oh, I'm not good on this. This must not be for them. No, we're all terrible day one. So sometimes it's like uncovering and appealing away the layers of the onion, if you will, to kind of discover that.

• 8:56Hala Taha?

  Like Sean said, we're all terrible on day one. You have to let go of the idea that you're going to be perfect or even good. Jenna Kutcher, one of the most successful podcasters in the world, was once a wedding photographer who had no idea how to present herself or her brand on social media. So she started experimenting and she quickly learned that sometimes what connects with other people is not at all what you expected.

• 9:21Speaker 03

  It all grew super organically until it didn't. When I was a wedding photographer, I realized really quickly that there were a million wedding photographers in my area that were really talented. And the only thing that made me different was me. Because we were all delivering a very similar finished product. And so even in the early days, and I mean, this is like, oh gee, Instagram we're talking here. Like when we used to use those weird like Valencia filters. I would just share my life, like, and I would just share who I was and what I was struggling with. I would share working from home with no makeup on. Like, this is the reality of it. And it was so interesting because when I first began wedding photographer, I just hid behind my work. It was like the safe spot.

• 10:04Speaker 03

  I figured surely everyone only wants to see my work. And I remember years and years and years ago, polling my audience of like, what are your favorite posts? And it was all personal. And I was like, what is this? And so, fast forward a few years, we went to Hawaii and I wanted to do an experiment and I love experimenting. And so I said, for 30 days, I'm going to only post me. And this is at a time when I'd been hiding behind my work for years. And my engagement skyrocketed. My confidence in myself grew. My connection to my audience grew. And I was like so fascinated by it because I was like, this seems like the least interesting thing of like what I'm doing. I was just sharing my life. And it really made me realize like people need to connect with people.

• 10:50Speaker 03

  And I never set out to be an influencer. I really wanted to just like continue to grow and share. And I really have realized over the last few years of like, my dream is to like help women build businesses they don't hate and build lives that they love. And I have been taking people on this journey, not as like, I have figured this all out, but like I am still learning. I am still growing. I'm still figuring this out. And so when I started doing like social media collaborations and social media promotions and different things like that, it just felt so natural because I am the kind of person where I'm like, oh my God, have you tried this new lip gloss? Or like this skin like cleanser is life changing. Like I am naturally like when I go on a girl's date with my girlfriends,

• 11:34Speaker 03

  by the end of the day, I've dropped like 10 links of things that I'm just telling them about because I'm like, if this works for me, this could work for you. Like I just love not gatekeeping, whether it's business or like beauty products or whatever that is. And so that was just such an interesting like facet for me to realize like people care about the business, yes, but they also care about like what's happening behind the business and like what's fueling it. And so that was interesting. We did have a viral moment. So I grew very organically. I, I felt like I knew every single follower. Like I just, it felt that way. And we had a moment go viral and it was a photo of me and my husband on the beach in Hawaii. And I was talking about body image. It was the funniest post because I just, I never expected to go viral. I think that's what happens with viral posts.

• 12:17Speaker 03

  And I was clapping back at someone who had said, how can a woman like you get a man like him? And my husband is very fit. He's very in shape. At the time I was curvier. I had been going through miscarriages and loss. My body had been through so much. And I was just angry and I was like, who are you to say this? Like we have been together for a decade. He has loved me through every pound, every pimple, like everything. And that post like blew up and overnight we got hundreds of thousands of followers. And blessing and a curse, right? Double edged sword because wow, this is amazing. But also like, who are these people and why are they here?

• 12:51Hala Taha?

  Jenna is now one of the top female business influencers in the world. And to this day, she still shares details of her personal life as well as her business tips with her devoted audience. There are many ways to experiment when it comes to content creation. One of my favorites is a practice that was shared with me by James Altucher, a prolific writer and serial entrepreneur. And well, it's a little sexual in nature.

• 13:17Hala Taha?

  So let's dig into this. Coming up with good ideas or bad ideas, I guess, just like this idea creativity. We talked about intersections a bit, but we didn't talk about something related, which you call purpose sex. Can you talk to us about that?

• 13:30Speaker 04

  I also call it idea sex. I call it a couple of things. And the idea is you want to come up with two things that you're either interested in or know about and explore what the intersection of those things are. For instance, Apple does this quite a bit. So they were a computer company for 30 years. And then suddenly they wanted to combine the radio with computers. And the idea sex that resulted was the iPod, the first iPod. Oh, let's combine the iPod with phones. And the result was the smartphone, the iPhone. Oh, let's combine computers with this flat surface we've been doing with our phones. Oh, so now they have the iPad.

• 14:12Speaker 04

  So idea sex could create completely new industries. Let's say you're making a restaurant. Okay, there's a million Mexican restaurants on this street. But there's people who might, in the next town over, there's a lot of sushi restaurants. So let's make the sushi rito restaurant. We're going to make burritos of raw fish or whatever. This might be a bad idea, but you always can combine two concepts to find something creative. Let's say you love guitars and you love history. Well, how about looking at the history of the world in terms of the evolution of guitars? Because obviously they went from very primitive guitars to all the way up to electric guitars. And in a weird way, that describes the history of technology, the history of music, the history

• 14:57Speaker 04

  of civilization as we know it. So idea sex is a very powerful tool when coming up with ideas.

• 15:04Hala Taha?

  And something else that you have a whole chapter about is called idea calculus. And apparently you can subtract, divide, multiply ideas. I'd love to get an overview of that.

• 15:14Speaker 04

  Well, let's say you have a podcast. What are ways to multiply this podcast? Well, by multiplying, it means kind of taking the podcast and scaling it in ways that you wouldn't be able to do individually. So you could start a podcast network, for instance, and you bring on other podcasts and your job is now to place the ads and you get a cut of all those ads. So now you not only have the business of your podcast, but you have this network where you already were placing ads on your podcast, but now you get to spread around to more podcasts and place those ads. You've now multiplied your podcast. Or here's another way. You do your podcast and you release it on all the platforms like Spotify, Apple, iHeartRadio, Sirius, and on and on.

• 15:59Speaker 04

  But what about putting your podcast on TikTok or YouTube? Or guess what? If you upload your podcast to Amazon Prime, your video version of your podcast to Amazon Prime, it would actually become an Apple Prime TV show and it'll be right next to all the other Apple Prime TV shows when you search for your podcast. Most people don't realize that. So there's all sorts of things you can do. A with experimenting and B with this idea of manipulating, you know, the math of ideas. So idea subtraction. What if you had your podcast and, oh, for TikTok, they only allow 60 seconds. So let's take the concept of a podcast, figure out how to do an episode with what's the most important thing in this episode with James?

• 16:43Speaker 04

  Okay, we're going to make a TikTok 60 second podcast with James. So that's like idea subtraction. So if you take one concept, a podcast, and apply all these different ideas to it, then you'll suddenly be everywhere and you'll have lots of different formats. One of them might hit and be super popular. And earlier I said, success requires luck. In order to have luck, you need to basically expand the area of luck in your life. So. Yes, your podcast on Spotify could get lucky and go viral. But imagine if you also had a 60 second podcast on TikTok and a show on Amazon Prime that you uploaded yourself and a podcast network where you're just trying to make

• 17:28Speaker 04

  money, but one of the other podcasts becomes huge and viral. And suddenly you're making like great money now with the podcast concept by having a podcast network. You've expanded basically the surface area of your luck and that often results in great success.

• 17:44Hala Taha?

  So good. And so let's say we come up with, you know, an idea that we think is great. How do we stress test it to make sure that there's actually people who would want this idea from us?

• 17:55Speaker 04

  Very important question because people often say ideas are a dime a dozen, execution is everything. And this is just totally not true because execution doesn't mean one thing. You have to have execution ideas on how to execute. There are good execution ideas and bad execution ideas. So let's say you and I came up with a business idea and we said, oh, this is so good. We're going to make, you know, an AI that figures out what everybody should order in a restaurant. I don't know, whatever it is. We're going to raise $2 million. We're going to hire a bunch of programmers. We're going to program this up over the next year and then we're going to start selling it to restaurants, our new software package to restaurants. Well, that's a horrible execution idea.

• 18:39Speaker 04

  How about instead you go, a friend of yours has a restaurant. We go to that friend and say, listen, can we go from table to table this night and see if we can help everybody with their orders? And we'll see, oh, everybody already had their preferences even before they got to the restaurant. They knew what they wanted to order. So this is a bad idea. So we shouldn't waste a year of our lives and $2 million of people's money and trying to raise the money to do this idea. It's a bad idea. So. Often, when you try to break things down and do things manually, maybe it might not be the exact product, but you could usually test, do people even want this? The hard thing about business is people already know, they've already filled up their 24 hours a day.

• 19:24Speaker 04

  You and I and everybody listening, we already have things to do all 24 hours of the day. When you start a new business, that means you're saying some people are gonna do something new in part of those 24 hours. And that new includes a product that I create or service I invent or whatever. And most people don't want anything new. They're fine with their 24 hours a day. I'm fine mostly with my 24 hours a day. Do I really want the Apple Vision Pro to change my 24 hours? Maybe. It's gotta be great, though. And so, most ideas are pretty bad. That's why most ideas are pretty bad and won't work. So it's good to execute as cheaply and quickly as possible.

• 20:05Hala Taha?

  Let's hold that thought and take a quick break with our sponsors.

• 20:10Hala Taha?

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• 20:54Hala Taha?

  go to drinkag1.com/profitting and for a limited time, get a free immune support bundle, including a bottle of Omega 3 Fish Oil and a bottle of vitamin D3 K2 with your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro. That's drinkag1.com/profitting. Drinkag1.com/profitting.

• 21:18Hala Taha?

  Hey, young improfitters. You know, hiring reminds me a little bit of dating. You can get a lot of potential candidates, but you still might not find your right match. And when I'm hiring at Yap Media, I don't have time to just hope the right person sees our job posts. And Indeed Sponsor Jobs helps me get in front of the right people. Sponsor Jobs boosts your job posts in the search results, so you can reach the people who actually help your business thrive. Plus, you only pay for results. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all of your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is a job for Indeed Sponsor Jobs. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit

• 22:02Hala Taha?

  to help give your job the premium status it deserves at indeed.com/podcast. Just go to indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast, Young and Profiting. That's indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need the right hire fast? Then this is a job for Indeed Sponsor Jobs.

• 22:28Hala Taha?

  What's up, Yap fam? You guys know we love reading on this show, so I'm always excited when I find a book I genuinely think is worth sharing. "Life at the Speed of Play: Launch Products People Love" by Mark Pincus is one of those books. Mark is a legendary Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor, and this fast-paced 170-page book is his playbook for testing ideas quickly, navigating uncertainty, and figuring out what's actually worth pursuing. One of my favorite concepts is what he calls "the abyss," those moments when you feel stuck or unsure of what's next. Instead of fearing uncertainty, he shows you how to use it as a tool for discovery. Right now, Mark is doing a buy-one-get-one offer for Yap listeners.

• 23:12Hala Taha?

  Go to getmarksbook.com/yap, buy one copy for $32 and get a second copy free, so you can keep one for yourself and give the second to a friend, future co-founder, or someone who needs a little push. It's not enough, though, just to have a good approach and good ideas when it comes to content creation. You need to have the energy to execute them. When it comes to growing on social media and getting attention online, you've got to be ready to receive it and you've got to bring the right energy. First off, you need to believe in yourself as a person who is worthy of a following. And second, you need to be consistent in the vibes that you put off and what people can expect from your account.

• 23:51Hala Taha?

  Nobody knows this better than TikTok and Instagram influencer Kat Norton, AKA Miss XL.

• 24:00Hala Taha?

  So how soon did things take off for you? Like, did you go viral right away? Did it take months, years? Like, what was it like for you?

• 24:08Speaker 05

  So the whole thing happened pretty quickly. And I do attribute a lot of that to the energetics that happened behind the scene, where I was able to actually show up fully authentically in what I wanted to create and was ready to receive the attention back. Where normally, I grew up with an anxiety disorder. I hated having any attention on me. Like, I had to do a lot of overhauling to get to a spot where I wasn't going to subconsciously limit what was able to come into my field. So it was by the fourth video to that DMX song, "X Gon' Give It To Ya", I did the X lookup function. And that one, it was so good. That one got 100,000 views right away. And I was like, oh my gosh. Because this at the time was my secret TikTok account, because I still had a corporate job.

• 24:53Speaker 05

  I wasn't really sure what I was allowed to do. So for me, I wasn't like, hey, everybody, you know, like my video. Only my mother and my boyfriend knew about this secret account, Miss XL. So for me, when that video hit, it got shown to all these people I work with. It got shown to all these people I know. I'm getting all these messages, like, is this you? And I'm like, oh, maybe, maybe it's me. And then, within three weeks of that, I had my first video go viral on TikTok. And next thing you know, I looked down at my phone and within a couple of days, I had 100,000 followers. And that's where I was like, whoa, now what do I do? Because everything was going on in the news too at this time. This was like June, July of 2020.

• 25:36Speaker 05

  That TikTok's getting banned, you know, all the things. So I was like, wow, I gotta hedge my risk out here. I'm gonna create an Instagram account. So I created an Instagram, started posting on there. And then, within a few months, both accounts had gone viral various times. And we had a few hundred thousand followers across the different platforms.

• 25:54Hala Taha?

  That's so amazing. Like, it's so rare to have somebody who just kind of skyrockets on social media right away. Why don't we stick on why you think that happened? You just alluded to the fact that you came on with really good energy. And energy is really magnetic. So can you talk to us about the importance of ensuring that you have the right type of energy when you go film your videos?

• 26:17Speaker 05

  Absolutely, because it's one of those things where I view content as simply an energy exchange. My energy is coming through to you on your phone, or vice versa, and you are the recipient of that energy, right? So my job as a creator is I want my energy through the roof. I want it in its most heightened, sparkly, magnetic state. Because, one, that's what's going to stop someone, right? Like, think about a bunch of people walking down the street. If there is someone that is magnetic and like, fully just, you know, pure joy and like happiness, and that was something I worked on myself too, to get myself to that place, where like, that's the type of person, and that's the type of energy where you're gonna stop and be like, whoa, what's that person doing? Like, oh, why do I feel like attracted to them? Not in like a sexual way, but in like a, you know, like an energetic way.

• 27:02Speaker 05

  It's magnetism. And that's something I was learning early on, is practices I can do behind the scenes. And a lot of that was where the Kundalini Yoga came into play, doing like different yogic technologies and breathwork and things, where my aura would become bigger, my energy would become bigger. And that way, it would kind of stop you on the phone. So whether it was like the polarity of the video, like, I'm looking at Excel, undergirl dancing at once, what is this? Or just the energy behind it, right? Like, if I looked really bored, or like I was having a bad time, I wouldn't want to hang out. It's kind of like creating a little room with someone. When you're watching a piece of content, and you're like entering their room. It's like, do I want to go in that person's room? Like, hmm, you know, you want to make sure the energy's there. You're inviting, and you're actually providing value.

• 27:44Speaker 05

  So that was something too, where I spent a lot of time researching the tips and tricks, making sure that, one, people were learning, but two, also that we were having that entertainment factor. Because each video too, can bring someone's energy up or down. So if you're watching dark things that are going to bring down your frequency, bring down your vibration, that's something that's, you know, going to create more negative feelings in the body. My job is- I'm trying to lift that up on the planet, right? Like, I want to make you smile. I want to make you laugh. I want to brighten your day in any possible way that I can. So that's where with my content, I need to make sure that I'm in a good spot before I go and actually make that piece because that energy translates every single time.

• 28:28Hala Taha?

  Of course, the tricky thing is figuring out the areas where you can add the most value. Somebody like Kat Norton had a clear expertise that she could share, her knowledge of Excel. But what if you don't already have such a large storehouse of knowledge on a particular topic or subject area? How much time and effort are actually required to develop meaningful competence in a field? Well, the road to mastery is not as long and hard as you may think, and it certainly doesn't take 10,000 hours. Here's James Altucher again explaining why.

• 28:59Speaker 04

  What does it mean to master something and to get good at something? Well, a lot of people think you have to be the best in the world, or you have to be rich and famous at what you're doing to say that you've mastered it. So, yes, I'm not a top 10 comedian or a top 10 chess player, and I think that's very hard to do. That's where the whole 10,000 hours or whatever comes in. But whatever I like to pursue, I like to think that I get into the top 1%. So I'll just use chess as an example. There's 600 million people around the world who know the rules to chess. Arguably, the top 1% means you have to be in the top 6 million of those. Arguably, I'm in the top 1 million of those, or even better. But I consider myself not so good because looking at it from my perspective, there's a lot of people I know who are much better.

• 29:44Speaker 04

  Same things with business, with investing, with everything that I've pursued. But I do think it's relatively easy to get into the top 1% of what you pursue. And there's a lot of benefits to that. One is... Every area of life worth pursuing has a strong and fun subculture. So you get to experiment being in all these different subcultures. There's like a comedy subculture, a writing subculture, a TV subculture, investing subculture. You get to kind of communicate with different people across the spectrum of all your various interests and you get some status in those subcultures if you're in the top 1%. So I think it is relatively easy, and this is what I wrote the book Skip the Line about,

• 30:27Speaker 04

  is that it's not like cheating, but there are learning techniques you can use to be in the top 1%. Let's say you're interested in cooking. To be in the top 1% of cooking, I mean, a billion people around the world or more know how to cook. To be in the top 1% means to be in the top 10 million of those. That's very easy to do. It's not trivial. You have to work at it, but if you just use these methods, you can do it.

• 30:51Hala Taha?

  Totally. This book, Skip the Line, gives so many great gems for entrepreneurs of how they can skip this line and get to the top 1% of their field. And one of the first things that you talk about is you debunk the 10,000-hour rule. Now, all of us listening to this podcast, you've probably heard this rule a million times. It's from Malcolm Gladwell. But for those of us who maybe don't know about it, what is the 10,000-hour rule and why don't you like it?

• 31:17Speaker 04

  Sure. 10,000-hour rule is this idea, it originally comes from this guy Anders Ericsson, who was a professor who did all the research for it. And basically, he says, with 10,000 hours of what he calls deliberate practice, you could be the best, among the best in the world at anything. And he describes like how the Beatles had their 10,000 hours and he describes various experiments. You know, Malcolm Gladwell wrote about this afterwards. And Anders Ericsson wrote a book called Peak that I highly recommend. But my view is, is that he's just, so deliberate practice means do something, then study it, like what did you do wrong? And then repeat. Do, study, repeat. Do, study, repeat. And you just do that for 10,000 hours. So that's really good for repetitive tasks,

• 32:01Speaker 04

  like maybe a golf swing or memorizing lists of numbers or, you know, very repetitive, to some extent, music, musical performance. Not that you perform the same way every time, but if you're playing the piano, you play the same notes for the Moonlight Sonata every single time. You don't change. So that's the 10,000-hour rule. But I much prefer what I call the 10,000 experiments rule, but it's really more like 100 or 200 experiments. And the whole point is, is that you should try to think of ways almost every day to experiment in your life. You know, I mentioned one, which was the, you know, running for president. The question was, can anyone run for president?

• 32:43Speaker 04

  The theory was yes, and the proof is that I was able to do it. So that's like a scientific experiment. You have, you're curious about something, you come up with a theory, and then you test that theory. All the time I'm doing experiments. When I was doing comedy, I would experiment all the time on the stage, different things I can do to get people to laugh. In business, you want to be able to experiment. Well, a lot of times you go into business, you think you're going to make money a certain way. But what if we, you know, charged as a service instead of as a product, or as a product instead of a service? There's all sorts of things you can do to experiment in business to find the right combination of things that will make you a lot of money. So I view experiments as a really quick and valuable way to learn incredible amounts

• 33:27Speaker 04

  of information relatively quickly.

• 33:32Hala Taha?

  It's so true what James had to say about mastery, and again, the importance of experimentation. You may not have to spend 10,000 hours to become a content expert, but you do need to spend some serious time experimenting with different ideas to figure out what actually works. Of course, it's one thing to be an expert, and it's a whole other thing to know how to deliver that expertise to your potential audience. Kat Norton went viral, not just because she could provide useful Excel tips, but also because she figured out how to get her audience's attention and keep it. And this is where good marketing comes in. Kelly Roach, the world-class performance coach, changed my whole approach to marketing when she shared with me her framework for building a conviction-based content brand.

• 34:17Hala Taha?

  Let's move into your pyramid, if you wouldn't mind, because I feel like it's a good place to talk about it. So your pyramid is made up of three levels. The first level is how to marketing, and then it's hope marketing and conviction marketing. So from my understanding, the how to marketing is really the foundational piece that you got to start with to command credibility and authority. Talk to us about this how to marketing and how to do it effectively.

• 34:41Speaker 06

  Yeah, absolutely. So how to marketing is the most basic element of marketing, and it's typically the way that people enter your ecosystem. It's simple, it's easy to do, anyone can do it, costs you nothing. Record a quick video on your iPhone, pop it on your stories, pop it on your page, share it across different profiles. You're doing how to marketing. This is literally a transfer of knowledge. It's where I'm showing you, hey, Hala, I know how to do something that I know you're interested in doing. I'm going to be your teacher. So all of a sudden, Hala watches my video. She spent two minutes with me. She's like, damn, I like this girl. She just taught me how to do something I didn't know how to do. All of a sudden, she's like, cool, okay, this is someone that I like, this is someone I trust, you know, whatever the case. So how to marketing serves a really important purpose because when people are scanning the airwaves

• 35:26Speaker 06

  and when they're looking for new accounts to follow and they're looking for new people to learn from, they want quick, digestible incentives. The problem is that's where most people stop. Now, the problem with this is just like people are scanning the airwaves, looking for a quick, easy, actionable tip, they're doing that all day, every day. It's called escapism, right? That's why people go online and scroll and scroll and scroll. It's escapism. So it's kind of like, you got the girl, she said yes to the date, and now you're like, cool, I already had a date with that girl. Let me see, oh, she's really cute over there, right? And then someone, right? So the problem with how to marketing is it's a great way to get people in your ecosystem. It's not a great way to keep them. And we have to remember, what's the purpose of marketing? The purpose of marketing is to attract

• 36:11Speaker 06

  so that you can nurture and finally convert people into paying customers. Well, if you miss this middle section of nurture, they never make it over here to conversion. And that's what's happening to a lot of marketers. They pump out this how to marketing. And this is, you know, a lot of people are doing their pointing and their dancing and, you know, their lip syncing and all of those things. And that's fine. Do you have a way to then bring them through that process and finally get them to convert? Okay. So how to get some in? It doesn't keep them there. We want you to not just do how to, but we want to elevate from, okay, I see you as a credible teacher. I see you as an authority, wonderful. Now let's elevate.

• 36:54Speaker 06

  Let's figure out how are we going to get people to keep coming back? Well, if you notice in the conversation that we're having here today, Hala, we talked a lot about stories, right? We talked a lot about experiences that I had experiences that you had ways that we resonate with each other. We talked about failure. We talked about setbacks. We talked about patience and sacrifice. What did we just do? Bring out emotion. Exactly. So the people that are experiencing this show are going to say, you know what? I've only been working at that goal for a year. I think I can keep going. Kelly kept going. Paula kept going. They both won these wildly successful companies now. Maybe there's nothing wrong with me that I wasn't an overnight success in six months. Maybe if I stick with it, I am

• 37:39Speaker 06

  going to achieve my goals after all. Okay, now we're on to something. And this is why, of course, podcasting is so powerful. It's such an amazing medium for hope marketing. So hope marketing is the biggest chunk of your parent. And this is where you really connect with your audience in an emotional and a sensitive way where people are like, you're not just a teacher, you're not just an authority figure. You're my friend. You're my compadre. You're my cheerleader. You are the person that has been in my shoes. You understand everything that I've gone through. You understand everything I'm going through now. And you cross the bridge to the other side. So hope marketing is really about reaching down, grabbing your audience and like wrapping your arms around them and saying like, no, you're not quitting.

• 38:24Speaker 06

  You're coming with me on this journey. I'm going to support you every step of the way. I've been there. You can get there too. And hope marketing is really what's going to keep people coming. I call it like the needness factor of your brand. It's the thing that really makes people feel deeply connected to you as a person. Not just as a marketer that can give instruction, but as a human being that has feelings, that has emotion, that's been through some things.

• 38:50Hala Taha?

  Oh, my gosh, totally makes sense. And I can attest to this. I mean, when I go on a podcast, for example, and share my story, that's when I get all these people like, you know, hitting me up, asking to do business with me and things like that because they feel so emotionally connected. They could see any sort of PowerPoint slides about my results or whatever, but that wouldn't seal the deal. It's about liking the person and feeling connected with the person that you want to work with, which is so key. So what are some other actionable ways that we can bring this emotion to our branding, aside from the obvious ones, which is like social media posts and, you know, having a podcast where you tell your personal stories?

• 39:26Speaker 06

  For me, a lot of times, even when I do like Instagram stories or Facebook stories, like I'm literally just getting like encouragement. It's encouragement. It's, you know, it's sharing mistakes. It's sharing setbacks that you work through. I think one of the things that's most endearing when you're a teacher that, you know, wants people to want to work with you is not when you just show your highlight reel of all of your greatness and all of your wonderful accomplishments, but instead when you say, listen, I failed at this, and I failed at this, and I failed at this, and this is what I learned from it, and this is who I became, and this is why I'm successful today. And these are all the things that you can skip over that you don't have to go through because I did, and I'm going to tell you what to do instead. So I think it can be in podcasts, it can be in live streams, it can be in videos,

• 40:11Speaker 06

  it can be in emails, it can be in posts on social media stories, right? It can be from the stage, it can be from behind the microphone, anywhere that you connect with your audience. But the bottom line is it's going from transaction, which is non-emotional, and it doesn't have staying power, to relational, which now is what once creates that desire, that stickiness factor in the brand for people to want to stay with you.

• 40:37Hala Taha?

  And then I think there's another mistake that people make in all this is just focusing on hope marketing alone and not doing any of the informational how to stuff.

• 40:47Speaker 06

  Amen. And that's why I wanted to actually give the illustration and the exercises in the book about the pyramid, because it's not about swinging the pendulum from one side to the other. It's about understanding how these things work together. There's so many people that it's like their entire brand is just fluff. And it's like, what do you even do? Like, get out of my feet. Like, why are you even here? Like, what is this? I don't understand what the context of this soft, like, just fluff is all the time. So I agree with you. Like, there has to be an intelligence to your brand. Like, what is it that you teach? What is it that you do? There's a lot of people that go so deep in the wrong direction that literally you don't even know what their business is,

• 41:31Speaker 06

  right? If I go to your social media and I don't even understand what your offer is, what your business is, what it is that you do, like, that's a problem. So, again, the pyramid is about, you know, think about it like Maslow's hierarchy of needs. You work your way through the pyramid. You don't say, oh, I'm going to pull out this one piece of the pyramid and that's going to make me happy and fulfilled. No. Each of the pieces of the pyramid go together.

• 41:57Hala Taha?

  Let's hold that thought and take a quick break with our sponsors.

• 42:03Hala Taha?

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• 42:47Hala Taha?

  Go to GetMark'sBook.com/ YAP, buy one copy for $32 and get a second copy free. So you can keep one for yourself and give the second to a friend, future co-founder, or someone who needs a little push. What's up, Yap fam? If you're building a personal brand, you already know how hard it is to stay consistent with content when you're also trying to actually run your business. I love creating content, but realistically, I'm not trying to sit in front of the camera every single day. I need time to work on my business. But the problem is consistency matters. The more people see your face and hear your voice, the more familiar you become. That's why HeyGen has been such a great tool for me. You can record just 15 seconds of footage, create an AI avatar of yourself,

• 43:31Hala Taha?

  and use it to make videos on demand. So instead of constantly filming from scratch, you can create more content, stay visible, and keep showing up without making your entire life be about generating content. And you guys know I'm always looking for tools that give entrepreneurs more leverage. HeyGen is definitely one of those tools. 30 million people already use it, from solo founders to 85% of the Fortune 100. Your first three videos are free at HeyGen.com/Profiting. That's H-E-Y-G-E-N.com/ P-R-O-F-I-T-I-N-G. HeyGen.com/Profiting.

• 44:12Hala Taha?

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• 44:57Hala Taha?

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• 45:09Hala Taha?

  One more thing about how-to marketing that I think is important. If you're gonna do how-to marketing, isn't it true that you should really focus on a couple things and not just do like how-tos about everything in your industry? Because then nobody's gonna know what you're really about.

• 45:24Speaker 06

  Yeah, thank you for bringing that up. I mean, this lack of patience is the number one saboteur for small business owners. I see so many businesses that one day they're marketing this, and then the next day you see them marketing something that has nothing to do with that other thing. And you're like, now you're expert of nothing. You're literally expert of nothing. The more that you keep changing your messaging over and over and over, and I will talk about this also with the conviction, the top of the pyramid, but you keep changing what you're talking about all the time, and you're doing how-to marketing on things that have nothing to do with the core anchors of your brand, of course, that's gonna create a confused mind, and a confused mind always says no.

• 46:08Hala Taha?

  Kelly Roach emphasized the importance of emotion when it comes to creating content that resonates with an audience. Now, not every part of your content is gonna evoke an emotional reaction, and that's totally okay. The key is to find those moments that naturally hold an emotional pull. This might be a story about a challenge you faced, a moment of vulnerability, or even a small victory. At Yap, some of our best performing clips are the ones that highlight these emotionally charged moments, whether I share or my guests share something deeply personal. These are moments that stick with people and prompt them to engage. So how can we get better at identifying these key emotional moments in our content? Well, you can start by looking for universal human experiences within your content.

• 46:51Hala Taha?

  The challenges, the personal victories, the authentic struggles. Sometimes, it's not even the words themselves, but the way that these words are expressed. A genuine laugh, a reflective pause, a sigh, a tear. These seemingly small cues can carry a lot of emotional weight. They're signals to your audience that they're witnessing something real. One exercise to help identify these moments is to watch your content without sound or read the transcript without any preconceived notions. Look for parts that convey genuine emotion. Pay attention to body language, facial expressions, or tone shifts. These are often the unscripted, real moments that connect most deeply with your audience. All right, guys, we're almost at the end of another Yap Creator episode.

• 47:35Hala Taha?

  So far, we've talked about how experimentation, energy, and the right tools can help you establish your expertise and launch yourself as a content creator and online presence. But I wanted to leave you on an even higher note, which I hope will light a fire under you to get started, and here it is. You're living at one of the best moments in history to be an entrepreneur and a content creator. New technologies and platforms have completely democratized content creation and distribution as never before, allowing individuals and small businesses to build powerful online presences and without a massive corporate budget. Well, I'll get off my soapbox and let Gary Vee take it from here.

• 48:16Hala Taha?

  In terms of entrepreneurs and your marketing advertising framework, your day trading attention, how can they use this to compete with the big dogs, the Fortune 500 companies?

• 48:26Speaker 07

  It's the first time we can. You know, because for the first time ever, the creative is the variable of the reach, and that's marketing jargon, so let me say it again. For the first time ever, how good your picture or video is can lead to millions of people seeing it that never existed before. In the history of time, you'd have to be on television or on the biggest magazine or newspaper to ever get a million people in America or the world to know anything, and you'd have to spend millions of dollars for that. Now, every day, we all know, every day that happens to somebody. Now, what we've also learned is just because you go viral once doesn't mean you're going to be a billionaire. It usually means that you're going to have this moment that you refer to your whole life, and you're actually actually be sad six months later because you weren't able to capitalize it.

• 49:09Speaker 07

  That goes into being a real entrepreneur. But for the first time ever, entrepreneurs, you have a fighting chance. Amber Chamberlain's coffee can compete with Folgers. Charlie D'Amelio's popcorn can compete. Logan Paul and KSI's energy drink is really competing. Mr. Beast's chocolate is really competing, and they're the preview, not the anomaly. I started a wine brand. And sold it to Constellation for tens and tens of millions of dollars because I made organic content on the internet about wine and then started a wine brand. That will be a very normal occurrence for a long time.

• 49:44Hala Taha?

  Now, if that doesn't get you fired up about content creation, I don't know what will. Thanks for joining me for episode four of the Yap Creator Series, and I hope you found some useful tips to apply to your own content journey. And I can't wait for episode five, where we continue to unlock the secrets of content creation. Until next time, this is your host, Halataha, aka The Podcast Princess, signing off.