I was a director who had too much time to spare in 2020 during the lockdown.

This forced me to do what I avoided doing for years— build an online course.

On the 4th of July that year, I laid on a beach and made $1,000 that day without lifting a finger.

I don’t say this to brag. I tell this story because that day, I learned how important leverage is.

Once I did this, it was crazy how many people asked me how I did it and how they might do it, too.

Then, I had people like my current business partners, Paul and Anthony, reach out to me to build a mastermind to help people do this exact thing.

As a literal nobody with zero followers:

• You can create something of value (no matter how small)

• Put that value out into the world

• Have people want to pay you

• Have people want to work for you

• Have people want to partner with you

In this email, I’ll show you how you can do the same and scale your leverage faster.

The process I used to join the content creator economy

Leverage is detaching the value you create from your time.

Most focus on improving their intrinsic value to an employer versus building an asset that provides value to society.

Your goal should be to create an asset like a business or intellectual property or invest in an asset like real estate or dividend-paying stocks. Since you need cash flow to buy an asset, creating a business and other valuable works is the place to start.

To fund my early movies, I helped businesses scale with video. Then, I switched to packaging my knowledge of filmmaking for others. This allowed me to make money while I slept or produced my next project. 

We have everyone from painters to actual NASA engineers in Content Creator Machine learning how to build leverage to create more creative freedom, time freedom, and financial freedom.

My partner Anthony and I have created an entire series of free tutorials on this topic. If you're interested, you can watch this one right here.

Otherwise, here's how you can get started today by joining the content creator economy now...

Step 1: Choose your path(s)

Path 1: Consider “building an audience”

A hard truth that I had to face was this:

When you exist online, everything you do is easier. People come to you.

If you want to make your goals 10x easier, the world needs to know you exist.

This fact can be life-changing, and it's not as much of a nightmare as I thought.

You don’t need a billion followers. Most people think that.

I know a guy making $15,000 a month with 2000 followers.

I know someone with 100,000 followers who can barely make $3,000 out of that following.

So it’s about having a handful of people who are the right people get exposed to you.

Path 2: Course Creation

This is my favorite because it's fun for me to talk about and teach my interests all day.

With course creation, you’re creating an asset that you can make once and make money on forever.

When people buy from you once, they become lifelong fans and will most likely buy your future products and feed you forever (as long as your product isn't garbage.)

One of my biggest regrets was not joining the content creator economy sooner, even though the evidence was right in front of me.

• Online education is going up and traditional education is going down (Forbes).

• Society used to be structured in a way where you learn and continuously teach what you learn to people slightly below you.

It’s natural for humans to grow through mentor-apprentice systems.

Think of the pre-industrial era or even the old Hollywood mentor-apprentice system.

Path 3: Freelance Content Creation Business

This is where I started, using my artistic and technical skills around film to create ads and campaigns for businesses.

This is where I first learned a lot of the business skills I have now because I had to make these businesses money with my art rather than just making art.

But it doesn't have to be video. You can build and manage websites, SEO, paid ads, or a combination of these. 

One of a thousand ways to build leverage online:

For example, I could go look up my dentist right now on Google and see that they are not the top 5-star dentists in my area.

I could show this to my dentist and ask them if they wanted me to get them hundreds of 5-star reviews and get them to the top online.

Then, I could build a simple site and email it to all their clients, asking them to review their dental experience on the site.

If they give 5 stars, those reviews can be submitted to Google.

This is better than just sending them all to Google...

If they give less than 5 stars, you can keep those bad reviews, which can be used to help the dentist create a better experience, reach out to the customer, and help the customer be more satisfied, and thus get more 5-star reviews.

Doing this would immediately give them a TON of 5-star reviews and I would show them that.

How insanely valuable would this dentist find that service? Would they not beg you to pay you on a retainer every month?

You could then set it to automatically text the dentist's clients after every visit, sending them to this review page you built.

There’s your first passive income using systems.

Now, go use that money and time to create whatever you want next!

Step 2: Get Started (before you feel ready)

How you can get started now:

What stopped me from getting started were thoughts like:

• "Who am I to teach?"

• "I hate social media. I don't want to have to post stuff all the time."

• "I don't even know what to teach or post about."

Doing something new will feel clunky and awkward.

Successful people always push themselves to the point where they feel clunky and awkward because they know that insane growth and life-changing results await them on the other side of that. 

The best thing to do is get started before you feel ready.

If you feel ready, it's already too late.

If I were starting today, I'd do this:

First, you have to decide on a "niche".

This can change anytime, so don't worry about it too much.

If you already have something to sell, build your niche around that.

If you don't, think about what business you would like to own.

You could be a business where you help film directors, or maybe your business is you as the film director. 

Then, do a simple social media post every day for 30 days, providing something valuable to your ideal client.

And maybe that's value is your unique perspective.

Treat yourself as a philosopher. 

Aristotle was just a guy posting his ideas publicly, and then people paid him to coach them. 

But the main purpose of posting every day is to see what people react to, chat with them in the comments, and learn more about how you can help or who you enjoy helping.

Then, you feed this knowledge into shaping what you create online. Before you know it, people are coming to you as an expert to hire, partner with, or work for. 

When I started, I did that for 30 days. This helped me figure out what my course should be. I was selling 10 people a day with nearly zero following.

I hope this gives you something to chew on!

How To Join The Creator Economy FAST

3 Proven Models & How To Make Money With Each

If you want to dive deeper into this topic, check out this video where we:

• Review the three paths more in-depth

• Which one is right for you

• And how to get started building your dream life

Your biggest fan,

Dan

P.S. Whenever you're ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

#1: You can join Content Creator Machine, where you not only get the only app you need to monetize yourself, establish yourself online, scale your business, and make a difference. We also give you the knowledge and skills to build your empire with our course, community, and live training, all included with your membership. You can join here now before the price goes up.

#2: Get a content creator strategy session with us! We'll jump on a 30-minute Zoom call and give you some insight on how you can build more leverage with your skills.