Great interview on the discipline and strategies needed for creator success. There are many great lessons here.

With 1.3 million followers, Austin Belcak has one of the biggest audiences of all creators on LinkedIn.

After sending out hundreds of resumes and failing to get a job, Austin set out to discover what he was doing wrong.

The best advice he got was to ask people who succeeded before him. He discovered two key factors of those that received good job offers:

1.  Getting a referral
2.  Having a portfolio of projects that proved his talents.

After changing his approach he was able to get a dream job at Microsoft.

He later went on to build a thriving business teaching people how to get good jobs without applying online.

Big Ideas:
► Don’t take advice from the wrong people. Talk to people who already have what you want to get.
► You need to create a lot of content to maximize your chances of success on the platforms.
► Systematically track what is working and figure out why so you can replicate it.

The Copyblogger podcast with Tim Stoddart and Ethan Brooks has become one of my favorite podcasts. They break down interesting business ideas with a focus on independent content creators.

In this episode, they talk how great copywriting is the best way for creators to stand out from bigger competitors.

They look at Mediocre, a family of product drop companies created by Matt Rutledge.

Big Idea: Creators can win with ecommerce by standing out with interesting content. Community is a moat that the giants can’t touch.

Related link: Another company doing cool things with product drops is MSCHF.

Steven Pressfield is a bestselling author of The Legend of Bagger Vance, The War of Art and Turning Pro.  In this interview, he talks to Chase Jarvis about his latest book Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants to Be.

Great insights here for all creators struggling to make a career with their passion.

“To follow your dreams you need to put your body where your soul really wants to be. In other words, if you dream of being a writer, you need to start writing. If your dream is to be a photographer, become a photographer’s assistant and learn from a mentor. For some, it can even mean physically moving your home to a place where you will be surrounded by the talent you aspire to develop.”

Nicolas Cole of Ship30for30 shares his framework for writing long-form content.

Simplifying your content to frameworks like this can greatly speed up the writing process. There is a lot to learn here.

Big Ideas:
► Try this Title Formula:
How to [OUTCOME] without [OBSTACTLE]
“How to become a digital writer without spending $120k on an English degree.”
► Outline first. Your job is not to sit down and write. Your job is to come up with the most valuable ideas for the reader.
► Validate the ideas on Twitter before creating the full content. Only invest in the good ideas.

“Most of us are hoping to get to a point of exponential growth – a place where the magic of compounding takes over. And we think that one piece of content, one viral hit will get us there.

But I think the path looks much more like that of comedians and musicians…

Most days you’re on the road grinding it out. You’re playing for a small room that hardly feels like it’s worth the time, trouble, and price of gas.

But that’s the job.”

Big Idea: Sometimes creating can feel like a grind, but that grind is how you get good. Invest in that process.

“How a referral program helped The Pour Over unlock rapid, cost-effective newsletter growth — and become one of the fastest-growing media brands in the US.”

via @unemployable

Great breakdown of what makes a high-performing landing page.

“If you have an idea that you’ve wanted to pursue for years but can’t find the time or are paralyzed by fear, a minimum viable project is a good first step.”

Srinivas Rao shares some examples of how he started smaller test projects to gauge interest before investing time and money into the ideas.

Related Link:
Failure in public is better than failure in your own mind. via @creativerly

Ayush Chaturvedi publishes the Indie Creator Newsletter full of great tips and resources to succeed as a creator-entrepreneur.

I love how Ayush openly shares the products he’s making and how much money he has made. Creating in public is a great way to build an engaged audience of fans!

I also highly recommend following him on Twitter. He is a great supporter of the creator community and definitely a person to get to know.

Here is a selection of the best links I’ve found this week to level up your creator skills.

Perfecting on-page SEO, what “good” content is, how EAT works – nichewebsitebuilders

How to Write a Blog Post Introduction That Grabs and Holds Attention – brianclark

15 Easy (And Free) Ways to Promote Your Website in 2022 – ahrefs

Digital PR: The Beginner’s Guide to Making Your Brand Unmissable – ahrefs

Become a better writer by avoiding these 12 common mistakes – kierandrew

How to automate your Twitter audience growth with Hypefury – publiclab