Happy Wednesday or Tuesday, depending on where you are in the world, or whatever day of the week it is when you're listening to this in the future? How about time zones. Unless you are in New Zealand with me, I'm always running in the future compared to every other time zone in the world. And it's just kind of crazy. Like, I'll be wrapping up my week on a Friday, and I'm like, happy weekend and my clients are like, it's Thursday morning. But yeah, wherever you are, wherever you're at. I hope that this episode is finding you well.
It’s a beautiful sunny day here in Wellington and I have just taken a big sip of water and a big breath because this episode has the chance to get me riled up. This is a subject that is close to my heart because it's something that I struggled with myself for a really long time. And it's something that I say, hold a lot of people back when it comes to starting their online business, because a lot of people want to become an online business owner or content creator, but they do not want to be considered an influencer. And they think in order to do one you have to have the other.
So, I hear things like, oh, I don't want my friends and family to think that I'm some kind of try hard online influencer. It's so cringe, or privacy is really important to me and I don't want to share my private life. I don't want to talk about my kids, my family, or show my home, that's just not something that appeals to me. Or they'll say, I'm not pretty enough, or I'm not fit enough, or I'm not fashionable enough or my life isn't luxurious, and my house isn't beautiful enough to be an influencer. Or, you know, I do want to make money online but I don't want to have to do brand deals.
And so I can tell that there are a lot of people out there who very much associate one with the other. And you know, before you go out worrying about having to promote your 10% off code for apple cider vinegar gummies you need to realise that the influencer versus expertise-based entrepreneur model are two inherently very different things, they’re very different energies and very different business models. I have personally grown social media accounts now to over a combined 400,000 followers through Not Even French, through Badass Careers. YouTube channels, Instagram, TikTok, you name it but I have never considered myself to be an influencer because that's not what I am. And it can be really, hard again for people to differentiate, well, what is a content creator versus an influencer versus an entrepreneur, an online business owner. And of course, there's always going to be some overlap. But there are some significant differences. Which means that how you think you might have to do business or who you think you might have to become to do business just isn't true.
So, let's compare the influencer to the expertise-based entrepreneur and a couple of different categories.
I want to get started with, what are you creating around? What are you talking about? Where is your content seen? Where is it coming from? Where is that creative source sitting? So for an influencer, they're very likely to be creating around who they are, and their lifestyle, their content, currency, their social currency - it's inspiration. So you want their skin, you want their hair, you want their house, you want their booty, like you name it, you want it right. They represent #goals. Essentially, if you compare that to the expertise-based entrepreneur, you're going to be creating around what you know, and you're going to be packaging up that knowledge and that expertise, and using that to educate and activate people in your community into action. See your content, currency, your social currency is education and empowerment. My goal isn't to make you want to be like me, it's to make you become the best version of you. I want to help you to achieve your dream life, not replicate mine. So there's a very, very big difference already, and the philosophy and the energy of those two models.
Next up, let's compare the content itself. So in the influencer category content is typically pretty high-level. It is often either funny, lots of skits, and memes. Or it's relatable, or high-level inspirational like goals content. And it's the content that gets a lot of likes and shares. You know that moment where your manager invites you to a meeting and doesn't say why, and you're scared that you're gonna get fired. 1 Million likes, right? It's popular, and it makes you feel attached to the person's image or personality in some way. Like, that's so true, they get me and their content often goes quite well. They might talk about productivity, makeup routine, do some meal prepping, showing off their new GymShark outfit and giving you a discount code for that. It's usually quite broad and lifestyle-infused.
An example of you know, a classic piece of influencer content might be the lazy girl morning routine. It might be interesting, it might be inspirational, but it's not really teaching anyone anything. Now, if we compare that to the expertise-based entrepreneur and online business owner - they're creating content too. They're putting out videos and using hashtags and captions. It might look the same on the surface but the content is inherently different. It's usually around education. So tips and strategies and tools. It might be a bit deeper sort of activating those deeper level conversations, it might be more informative, it might be a deep dive, it might be more polarising and opinionated. Right, it's not about being liked, it's about getting your convictions and your beliefs and your knowledge out there. And it tends to have a lot less engagement. Because, you know, a funny meme by corporate Natalie is going to do so much better because it’s ay funny a skit around, you know, having to give feedback to your Gen Z employee and they are using language that you don't understand. That's gonna get so many more likes, and be so much more popular than a more stale topic like “five tips to enhance your resume”. But it doesn't matter because it's not about the likes for the expertise-based entrepreneur. It's about helping people to get results. And this is where we start to see a bit of a divide around the vanity metrics because a lot of people think that likes and followers equals sales and money and that’s just not the case at all. I have career coach peers who have many more followers than Badass Careers and they're not even making a quarter of our annual revenue because they're focused on the likeable, funny, relatable influencer content. And that's not actually what builds the know, like and trust and actually builds the kind of content that converts into sales and converts into you being seen as a trusted expert.
So there's content as well that you know, as an entrepreneur that you're putting out there, you can't be fueled by vanity metrics, like likes and shares. It's really interesting information. And it's nice to know which of your content works better than others. But you would never be able to compare yourself to a quote unquote “influencer” in this way. Your contents is often very niche. So rather than going wide and doing productivity and green smoothies and careers and everything at once, you're usually helping people on one very, very niche topic. So you are helping a specific kind of person to solve a specific kind of problem with a specific kind of set of tools and methodologies. The goal of your content is to help people feel more attached not to your personality as such, or not to how relatable and funny you are or whatever it is, but more attached to things like your teaching style, and the value of your content, and how you enable your audience to get micro wins in their life or sharing your value system and attracting and people who think similarly to you in that way and share those values. You're kind of people who believe in the same thing, for example, in Badass Careers, people who believe in not settling for mediocre jobs, they don't even like when they're going to be spending 40 hours a week of their lifetime, there are people who want a fulfilling career, there are people who want to love what they do for work, people whose careers are very important to them. So the goal is more so attracting those kinds of people into your world and your community. And so an example of this content, the lazy go morning routine, might be “five language swaps to empower rather than criticise your partner”. If you are a relationship coach, for example.
So again, yes, it has the potential to go viral. Yes, it has the potential to do really well and get lots of likes and shares and that kind of thing. But most of the time, it won't, and that's okay. It's very, very much okay. Because even with a small audience, if you have got compelling high converting content, and a really sexy no brainer offer, you'll be making a lot more money online than the influencer, I promise you.
And speaking of making money, let's talk about the difference between these two.
So influences typically, they would make most of their money relying on external platforms are things external to them. What I mean by that are things like brand deals, for example. So companies and brands that want to work with the influencer and sponsor them in order to create content. For example, they may give the influencer 5000 US dollars, and they will create two TikTok videos for them at a certain level of followers. Another big thing that influencers often do is affiliate marketing. So they might show off their outfit and link to the items of their outfit, they may show off something in their home and link to that object within their home, or whatever it is. Something that they are using maybe a productivity and lifestyle tool. So they have something they own something or they're using something, and they get an affiliate link. And then their community, whoever clicks on that link then goes on to purchase that thing, they'll get a cut. They'll get a commission flowing back to them. These are very much external sources of revenue. And they're quite risky because neither of these sources of revenue are ultimately within their control, or something that they own. I can tell you as soon as the economy gets tough, brand deals dry up, my enquiries suddenly dry up. I get a lot of brand deal enquiries which I say no to but they go pretty quiet when times are tough, right? It's one of the first things to get cut in the marketing budget and on affiliate marketing platforms. Yeah, that can be great. Like, I've always view it as a bit of a why not own a source of revenue but the platform can disappear. They can change their payouts and commissions at the drop of a hat. You really don't have any ownership of that.
And if you compare how you make money with the expertise-based entrepreneur, it's very different. You make money by being of service to people either through coaching, through consulting, or selling a product like an online course, that uses your own intellectual property, or your signature methodology to get people specific results. What's different here is that you're creating these assets as products or services for your business, you own them entirely, and they are your income streams that are highly profitable. You can sell them all the time, year round on your terms. So if I were to build, you know, a million person following on Careers and do lots of skits, and memes and empowering quotes, about micromanagers, and all that kind of stuff, that got me lots of followers and lots of shares, I could 100% do that but then I would be relying on maybe job boards, or you know, companies like that two fingers crossed sponsor me for my income. In contrast, I could start an education expertise-based business and only have a few 1000 followers but they're highly engaged. They love my stuff. They share my values, they share my convictions. When I launched my $500 course on how to overhaul your resume and LinkedIn profile, for example, and 100 of them purchased. I'd much rather have that as a sustainable and more predictable income model and business model than the influence one any day, right? You can already start making a a lot more money than a brand deal would give you with 2000 followers, you probably wouldn't even have one versus being able to own your stuff and being able to get people really interested in what you're providing and what you're selling because you've created that community around it.
And then I think another major difference between the influencer versus the expertise-based entrepreneur is around the privacy and transparency thing. So when it comes to the more influencer model, transparency is very much valued to a point where people can become quite parasocial. Alright, they get quite invested in like your nail colour, or how do you take your coffee, or your kids are so cute and I've been watching them grow up for the last five years, I know their names, I know their faces, I know their outfits, I know their quirks like you really do put a lot of yourself out there. What are you wearing today? Are you dating someone - all of that information sort of becomes an important part of your brand. Whereas when you're an entrepreneur, you do not have to share any aspect of your private life to create content for your business. Of course, in your Instagram Stories if you want to share a little bit of your personality, like on Badass Careers, I share my daily jam, like what is my music that I'm listening to that day, my favourite song of the day. It gives people an insight into my music taste, or I show people that I do pole, or I go for walks in New Zealand for fun from time to time. But you do not have to share anything that you don't want to. And when I have my baby later this year, no one will know aside from my friends and family, their exact birthdate or even month, their gender, or their name. That's really important to me. So, you know, you get to draw the line about what gets shared and what doesn't get shared because there's just no way a career coach has to share that kind of information.
If we zoom out a little bit, and we compare the two models, obviously, these are some major differences. But there are also areas of overlap. And I'd be I'd be lying to you to deny that. Like, does my business have a personal brand component to it? Of course it does. I'm not the only person in the world with my knowledge. I'm not the only Career Coach out there and people will choose to work with the coach that they relate to most. They might relate to me because I'm a New Zealander, and they want to move to New Zealand and get a career here. They might work with me because I've had a very international global career and that's something that they want to create, too.
There are going to be parts of your story that people resonate with. Maybe they like the fact that I worked for major Fortune 500’s, or that I worked for the world's number one luxury group. I also worked for the world's number one beauty group, maybe those industries appeal to them. So they'll choose me. There's always going to be aspects of who you are in your story that appeal to people and inherently are relatable or not to people. Some people will like my accent, some people will hate my accent. Some people will love my global career, some people will be like, that doesn't relate to me. I'm born and bred in Texas and I want to work with a coach who is from Texas and knows the market right here andd this is the only place I want to draw upon ever. And that's completely fine. So there will always be an element of the human and the brand, of course, but I don't have to give anything away. I don't have to sell my privacy for that to be working in my favour. Right? That's a whole other topic around personal branding.
And then, does my business have a degree of influence to it? Of course. People build up that know, like, and trust with me. They get to know me. They get to like me, and they get to trust me. Whether they're a client or not, if they're just a member of the community following along, a lot of people end up following my advice and implementing what I share. And, hey, on the odd occasion, they may want to even take up pole dancing too because I've shown it in my stories and they think oh, that looks really cool! But that's not the point, right? Of course, my influence that I want to hold as in helping people get results. So if they can apply my knowledge and apply my teachings and get wins and results in their life and land, their dream job, the I'm really happy and so of course inherently there's a degree of influence, but again, it's targeted towards them getting their desired results, not becoming more like me. So, no, I don't think I'm an influencer. I'm an educator. I'm an expert. I'm a curator of knowledge. Some might call me a coach. I might call me a mentor. But it's a very, very different thing, ultimately, a little bit of overlap, but mostly differences.
So if you've ever wondered if you need to become an influencer, quote unquote, to “make millions of dollars online”, the answer is no. If you've ever wondered if you need to become an influencer to put out content online, the answer is no. In fact, that's probably the riskier business model I could imagine. Because again, it's reliant on so many things outside of you.
So, hope this has clarified for you. You know, even though you do need to create content for both models, one does not mean the other and you do not have to become what you see online in terms of air quote, unquote, “influencer: and putting up cute photos of your family or thirst traps by the pool or anything like that. You don't have to be this cool, edgy influencer with style and charisma and all this kind of stuff to become an expertised-based entrepreneur.
I would love to hear your thoughts and perspective on this. Send me a DM over on Instagram at @badassempires_ and let's have a chat. I'd love to hear if you had any major insights, lightbulb moments, all of that jazz. And if you are listening to this, feel free to take a screenshot share it to your Instagram stories and tag me so that I can see where in the world you're tuning in from and let me know of any major takeaways that you have from this episode. Otherwise badass, with all that said and done until next week, right on and keep building that empire of yours. See ya!
