How to Monetize Any Skill (5 Steps!)

This is a bit of different way to start, but I wanted to make sure before we dive into the five steps to monetize anything that you know, that this video is driven by supporting you and creating an income for yourself. But also it’s driven by impact. I wanted to share just two of hundreds of comments and stories and direct messages that I’ve received over the past couple of years, to really give you context as to why this is so important to me. And I’m sure that you can relate on some level. But, despite the devastation that entrepreneurs and business owners have faced over the last couple of years, there’s a lot, a lot to look forward to. And there are so many creative ways to pivot and to monetize and to build your own business on your own terms.

And I’ve had a front row seat to helping so many people take their skills, their hobbies, their interests, their experience, their passions, and turn them into full-time, thriving businesses. And that’s why I’m making this for you today. From dancers, to artists, painters, DJs, dog trainers, boat builders, and everything in between. I’ve seen it happen. So if you think that your idea is maybe a little strange or out there, I assure you, it’s not. The entire mission of this channel is to make entrepreneurship available to everyone. 

Number one, how to uncover what you can monetize. And I need to share the backstory behind this and how I got really good at figuring out what anybody could monetize. And it all goes back to my roots as a journalist. If you don’t know, that’s where I started my career. It’s where I thought I’d be for the rest of my life. But I quickly learned, and you might have experienced this for yourself, when you are in the information space and when you are solely relying on sharing content and sharing information, as you do in news, you are relying on having an audience to monetize. Which is a tricky game to play because vanity metrics, viewers, they ebb and flow.

What I realized was, if you are in the transformation space, if you’re in the value driven, service space, you are able to monetize based on the value of the outcome you are providing and creating, which I’m going to get into in a second. But I wanted to plant that seed so you can understand and why you’re able to truly monetize anything when you separate your income from your views and your vanity metrics. And why it makes it a lot easier on you to stay sane through the process.

So the first thing you’re going to do to uncover what you can monetize is your hero story. I talk about this all the time, because it is the biggest differentiating factor in truly being able to stand out. If you just focus on what’s already done and already out there, you’re going to blend in and not be able to stand out amongst the crowded space.

So your own hero story really starts with what’s something that you’ve overcome? And another big clue for you is what is something that people always come to you and ask for help with? There are so many things that you have a genius around that you probably are taking for granted. What are your skillsets? What is your career expertise or experience? What is your story? When you think about where you are at, when you’re at your most challenged state and how you’re able to overcome that, that’s a big clue as to who your ideal client is as well. They are you at your most challenged state. And the biggest thing to know is you have to, you have to focus on what you know. I talked about this in a recent video, the secret sauce behind Rihanna’s business success. And it’s all about focusing on the things that you actually have an interest in.

Because if you focus on things that you don’t have experience or interest in, you’re creating way more friction than is necessary for you to meet your end goal of actually monetizing what it is that you’re good at. So it all starts with your own story. That’s, what’s going to make you stand out. That’s what’s going to be your unique take on whatever it is that you want to bring to the market.

Now, I focus obviously on online courses and I help people create super scalable, super profitable online courses. A few examples of hero story is Monica, the dancer who I’ve talked about on my channel before as well. She was able to take her experience as an awkward teenager, feeling super uncomfortable in social settings and at parties and build a business that is now scaled to $50,000 a month. And her course focuses on helping adults dance in social settings. But it’s about so much more than dancing. It’s all about confidence. And it’s a reflection of her own journey.

Bob the boat builder, he helps people build wooden boats of all things. And he’s been doing this his entire life. He made $9,000 in 30 days with his online program.

Chelsea, amazingly talented oil painter. She helps artists uncover and define their unique voice as an artist. And she’s scaled to $30,000 a month with her online course. Anything is possible. But the key differentiator with all of these people is they started with their own unique experience and their own unique story. So they weren’t just blending in with every other or dancer, boat builder, and artist in the world.

Second thing is market research. I’m going to say this bluntly ,don’t be a special snowflake. You are not a special snowflake. You are unique, but what you’re going to do and how you’re going to serve people is not unique. And it probably shouldn’t be. If you don’t see any proof of a business around your idea, you got a problem. Competition is a good thing. Competition proves that it’s been done and there’s an audience and there’s demand for it. So seek out what is on the market currently. I can guarantee you, I know this for a fact, there is something out there for everyone. Look up on Amazon, Google, across social media platforms, find groups dedicated to that thing. Find Reddit forums dedicated to that thing. Find people who are talking about the thing that you are interested in. If you are interested in it, there are at least another thousand people out there who are as well.

And the last piece of uncovering what you can monetize, which so many people miss and it’s something that is mandatory in creating a truly successful business. It’s not that complicated. You got to talk to people. You have to find these people, which you’ve already done through the market research, online, reach out to them and ask them, what are they looking for? What would they love to have? What is the outcome that they’re seeking when it comes to that thing? Why is it important to them? And think about yourself, again you are your ideal client. Why is this thing important to you? What do you wish existed about it? What do you think is missing in the market? What’s the gap in the market? That’s going to give you some solid clues as to how to create a business and not just a hobby around what it is that you’re interested in.

The next thing is, identifying the value of the outcome. Because remember, people are not paying for information. They’re not paying for tactics. They can get that for free. They’re paying for the value of the outcome that you are providing. When it comes down to this, it’s actually quite simple. There’s something called Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. And this is something that I have been teaching for a long time in terms of what to base your business around. Because truly every business in the world is based on one of these five pieces. And if you think of all of the businesses that survived during the last two years, generally they satisfied one of these basic human needs. So what are they? Self actualization, esteem, love and belonging, safety needs, and physiological needs. If you look at it from that lens, your business and your idea needs to satisfy at least one of those basic human needs. That’s what makes people pay. And it separates you from being a vitamin business to being a prescription business.

Now what do I mean by that? A vitamin business is a nice to have. You should take your vitamins every day, but do we forget? Absolutely. A prescription business is, you know you have to take that thing in order to get better. So you need to be a prescription business. And the only way to do that is to truly understand what you’re relating to in terms of what people need. Now in order to truly determine the value of the outcome of what you’re providing, I want you to do a little exercise. And you can do this now, you can pause the video and come back to it, you’d better come back to it. Or you can do it later. Just write this down.

I want you to identify what it costs you, or someone else, to not have the outcome you’re providing. What is it costing them mentally, financially, spiritually, and emotionally? What is the toll that it’s taking? Because oftentimes what you’re charging and how you’re pricing your program is a direct reflection of the cost of not having it. Which is a lot bigger than most people give it credit for. You think you’re supposed to price based on what’s already out there. What’s on the market, the books, the eBooks, the courses, the workshops, all of those things. That is good information. And when you do your market research in step one, you want to find out what are people charging. But just because someone is charging $15 for a book on the topic does not mean that’s all people are willing to pay. If you are truly creating the transformative outcome these people are seeking or these businesses are seeking, they are going to be willing to pay a premium because it’s a premium offer and solution. So breakdown, what is it costing them?

I want to give you a quick example of how this works. So let’s talk about Chelsea, who is an artist and she is an oil painter. She kind of thought that she’d have to charge super low, like $15 for a print in order to build any sort of monetization strategy around her interest. Today, she’s charging far more than that. Thousands of dollars for people to work with her and she’s getting consistent clients. The reason is because she is very aware of what it costs people to not work with her. Going to other workshops and seminars, losing out on income because they’re not able to sell their art. There’s so many costs equated to that. Self-esteem, feeling like they’re not good enough, having to work crappy part-time jobs that are sucking up all their time and energy. So again, really dig into what the cost is in order to evaluate the price. And I did create a whole other video on pricing. You may want to check that out next.

Number three, laser focus on that thing. This is hands down the best business advice I think I could ever give you. Marketing does not solve problems. Social media does not solve problems. A really good YouTube channel does not solve problems, views don’t solve problems. None of that solves problems. And none of that is built to stand the test of time. What solves problems and gets people to come back to you as the go-to expert, the go-to authority and the only business they want to work with is a good, great quality product, period end of story. Businesses don’t really need my marketing if their product sells itself because it works. So you need to focus on that one thing, that one transformation. Your niche is not your idea. Your niche is not your hobby. Your niche is not your interest. Your niche is the transformation you’re providing, which is a reflection of your own transformation that you’ve generally been through.

So what is that one thing? And how can you continue to be the best at it? It doesn’t matter if you have an audience or not. I’ve seen lots of people without an audience be able to build from scratch and scale from scratch, because they focused on creating the most transformative program they could. So your focus should be, be the best on that thing. And don’t diversify. Don’t get shiny object syndrome and think, well, now I want to create a physical product and now I want to create an eCommerce store and now I want to do X, Y, and Z. Because what does that do? It diversifies your attention. And if your attention’s diversified, it dilutes the power of the transformation you’re able to provide to people and the focus and the attention that you can serve your clients and your customers with. Which ultimately will always hurt your business.

Number four, decode the algorithm to be seen. And again, doesn’t matter if you have zero or a hundred thousand people following you. There are really two simple factors to being seen in the algorithm on any platform. I’ve been doing this long enough to know. Who are you trying to reach and what do you want to be known for? Once you figure out the transformation, this part is pretty easy. Who is your ideal client and viewer and follower and subscriber? And what do you want them to know you for? When you figure out those two pieces, it feeds any algorithm with the right information of how that algorithm can then support you in reaching more of those people, using its internal traffic sources. Goes for YouTube, goes for Instagram, goes for Facebook, goes for every single platform out there. So figure that out by really understanding who you’re trying to serve and what you’re serving them with.

And the most important piece of decoding the algorithm is yes, those two factors, but also being yourself and bringing your unique take and perspective and vibe and style to the table. If you do that, you are built to stand out.

Now the secret sauce to long term success as an entrepreneur, this is the fifth thing, is a motto I live by and you might know it. “Test, fail, learn, grow, repeat.” Put your scientist hat on. Unfortunately we live in a time where perfection is expected right off the bat. News flash, that ain’t real. You are going to suck at anything that you want to get good at. That is just the reality of it. It is the nature of it. And if you’re expecting to be perfect out of the gate and for everything that you do to succeed right off the bat, you probably shouldn’t do it.

You have to be open to testing, failing and evolving with time. The worst thing that could happen is that your idea doesn’t land the way that you want it to, that’s okay. If you can lean into the feedback behind that and what’s not working and how to make it better, and you continue to grow over time and become the best, you’re going to be able to stand the test of time and succeed no matter what happens externally. And how vital is that after the last couple of years that we’ve been through? If you’re able to pivot, if you’re able to adapt, that is what keeps you alive. So the secret sauce is being the scientist. Being the scientist behind your business and the scientist behind your success. And instead of having expectations go for experience. Because as Albert Einstein said, “The only source of knowledge is experience.”

So if you don’t have a degree or you don’t have a certification, if you have experience you’re very much so still able to monetize what it is that you’re good at. And we all have something, we all have a unique genius that we are meant to share with others. And keeping it hidden or ignoring it or trying to be somebody else is doing not only a disservice to you and your potential, but to everybody else who needs you.

Those are the five steps to monetize anything. And if you want to help me out, you can do a small thing and just hit the like button so more people can see this in the algorithm and we can support even more people with this channel to make entrepreneurship available to everyone. Now I know that there is more to this of course, that I couldn’t cover in today’s video, but I have created a free masterclass below with examples and real time case studies of how this can be implemented to truly create a successful business. So click that link below to grab the masterclass.

I want you to know, you have an important, unique genius to share with the world. So please use what I’ve shared today and start doing it. Start messy. That’s all you can do. Test, fail, learn to repeat, are you with me?