Back in August of 2021, I surpassed 10,000 followers on LinkedIn.

I got excited and figured it was time to break out on my own and become a full-time creator. I built out a strategy document and booked time with Justin Welsh, the expert in helping creators build and monetize their audience on LinkedIn.

I got some good news and some bad news

We walked through my plan, and Justin was very helpful in providing sound advice and giving me solid takeaways from the conversation - in fact, 10 very specific ones.

The biggest takeaway however, was what I didn't want to hear...I wasn't yet ready to make the leap to full-time creator.

I had the mindset most to-be creators have, which is the classic "if I build it they will come" (or more appropriately, "if I share it, they will buy it."). A lot of the flawed thinking I had in my plan was assuming I could command a high-dollar service offering. The hard truth is - no one would care! (or too few for the numbers I needed).

The biggest lesson: STAY PATIENT!

The big transformation in my thinking was to stay the course with a long-term plan and keep delivering free value to grow my tribe.

Had I launched too early with a big ticket coaching offering, I would have been met with a lot of disappointment and would have abandoned my content strategy too early before I even had a fighting chance.

Here were four golden nuggets I walked away with:

• Entertainment gets you found

• Education hooks the audience

• Consistency keeps you relevant

• Good products get you paid (a lot)

I stayed consistent with posting quality content focused on the top things I learned were important to my audience (those comments and DMs are a goldmine).

9 months later, I launched my first product (an ebook) and confidently made the leap to full-time creator with a larger audience (30K+ followers) and a system I can leverage for growth.

🐝