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Let’s be honest. Who wants a job? Do you want to wake up early to go to work for the man for a fixed salary? Would you be happy doing that for years for someone else? All your life?
No, because you are different. Something in you have changed, because you have seen how thousands of people on social media show and demonstrate alternative ways to earn an income.
You can be one of those people. The real solopreneurs, who have a sustainable business strategically built around their content and online presence. Then you can direct your own life, live wherever you want and decide who you want to work with.
Beyond work you can earn enough money to make a change in the world, doing whatever suits you.
Maybe you can relate to my story. Listen till the end to see why this is relevant.
I’m originally from Finland, but I have lived over 10 years abroad.
I was never satisfied with the average, the norm, never feeling to really fit in.
I moved to Malta in 2012 after losing my driving license the second time. I had enough of my home country.
There I worked 3 years in an office, getting promoted and leading a team of a dozen people.
Then I read the famous 4-Hour Workweek, quit my job, started a blog on how to avoid being scammed on online marketplaces and wrote an eBook about it. This was in 2015.
I didn’t know how to monetize my brand properly, so it wasn’t enough to sustain me, and I had to find another job.
Next, I became a copywriter for a gaming affiliate business, where I wrote articles, reviews, and guides for the next two years, learning also a lot about SEO.
During that time I negotiated a deal, where I worked 4 days a week and took every Friday off.
On the side, I also started doing web design and SEO as a side-hustle and got my first client. I really wanted freedom and just travel the world.
Then I saved up some money, sold or gave away everything I owned and moved to Portugal, switching over to being a freelance writer and web designer.
This sustained me for the next three years, allowing me to do volunteering and travel around.
In January 2020, while in Thailand, I told my single copywriting client that I had enough of writing gaming content and effectively cut my income to almost nothing.
The timing was worst possible as the global flu started, and I had to move back to Finland to live with my parents. I didn’t have any savings or a backup plan, and had to start over.
In 2020, I registered my business in Finland and bought a new PC with government subsidy for new businesses.
I created a new website, business profiles, and started also posting on my YouTube channel.
However, I didn’t have direction or motivation to take it seriously, and instead wasted time playing games.
This was mainly a mindset issue. I didn’t believe I can get anywhere. The walls were slowly caving in. But slowly I was learning how to create content, edit videos and kept posting videos online.
In 2021 I had enough of Finland again and I decided it’s time to get out. My friend suggested Mexico, and off I went.
In couple of months I met a Mexican woman and started a relationship. In 2022 I came back to Finland for a visa run and after we got married in Mexico City.
Back to Mexico, we moved to Monterrey, near the border of US, and lived there for a year. I had my home studio for videos and work, and I made some videos and started learning Blender and game marketing.
I was still unfocused and lacking direction, spinning like a weather vane doing random things and work from one day to another.
In 2023 we had enough of Monterrey’s hot weather and moved first to Finland for few months, and then we came to Spain by car.
Currently I’m living in North of Spain, and I’m tired of having work that is just enough to sustain me, but not enough to take the next steps. Last Christmas was especially stressful as some payments were late and I was so worried that I couldn’t sleep. It’s time to take this seriously.
During these last few months, I’ve been writing a lot of plans, reading, watching videos, thinking, and preparing me mentally to start really pushing my business brand SCRIIV forward.
Now, instead of posting random content and waiting to get lucky, I developed a strategy that is going to grow my personal brand in the next 12 months by thousands. You can copy this strategy and I can guarantee that you will see some growth.
Your content needs 3 components in order to make money.
Let’s go over each step to explain how you can create your own storytelling funnels.
What is a hook and how to create them?
Hook is a psychological trigger that makes your target audience stop and click.
Great hook has a promise. Something your target audience wants.
For example, I could create a title hook called:
“How I got 130K views on YouTube… so far”
And go onto sharing my best learning experiences for people who want to get their first 100K views and to avoid the mistakes I did to grow faster.
I chose this example because I don’t want to lie or exaggerate. It’s better to be honest where you are right now and speak authentically from your experience.
Remember, you’re never doing content for people who are ahead of you, but for people who are behind you.
And THAT, helps you to define who you are talking to. We are best suited to talk to “ourselves” two years ago.
You two years ago is your target audience. Don’t overcomplicate it.
Your content will resonate most with people like you, and as you get more views, the algorithm starts to suggest your content to a bigger audience outside of your specific avatar. Start from the core where you can speak with authenticity and let the social media platforms do the rest.
Implementing this system right and keeping consistent over time can earn you more money than any regular job in two lifetimes.
Now, I hope you got an idea what a hook is and how to define your target audience.
Next, keep people hooked to your content by telling a story.
Storytelling is incredibly important. In my feature video on the channel page I talk more about this.
Story connects emotions to things, creating meaning.
Let’s show an example: Here’s a stone. That’s all. A stone is a stone. Millions like it.
What if I told you that this is the stone Cain used to kill Abel in Genesis?
Suddenly it’s shrouded with mythical importance simply by tying a story around it.
Ok, to make it more relevant to modern day world, let’s create a more sophisticated example:
No story: “On-page SEO for WordPress” Again a stone is a stone.
Story: “This is how I raised a business website to 2nd place on Google search with a simple hack”
You see how the hook and story are intertwined?
Now, instead of telling in theory how to do on-page SEO, you are sharing an actual story people can relate to and understand and remember much better.
OK, I hope you got the idea. How to tell the story? Here’s a simple formula:
“This link” is the last part of Hook, Story and Convert:
If you are new to marketing lingo, converting means turning cold audience from social media to your clients. And that process can have many conversion points.
Let’s draw a diagram to explain this visually:
Here’s a piece of content you post online.
Inside the content you mention that you have something for the viewers.
A cheat sheet, a Notion template, a self-assessment tool, a custom ChatGPT prompt – something useful for free.
This diagram is called a sales funnel.
This completes the Storytelling funnel, which allows any creator to turn their personal brand into an automatic client generator.
Hook and storytelling by themselves don’t make any money to you, except maybe in ad revenue or brand deals if your channel grown big enough.
Sales funnel by itself produces nothing if you’re are not actively driving people to the funnel with Great hooks and storytelling. Otherwise you have to buy the traffic by running ads.
It’s much better to understand and apply Hook, Story and Convert to all your content, and once you get that working organically, you can amplify the growth with ads and reap the extra benefits of ad revenue and brand deals.
What is missing?
You also need to answer the question Convert to what?
What is the problem you solve?
Can you optimize LinkedIn profiles and create content that gives the company authority and a professional look?
Or can you optimize YouTube thumbnails to double the click-through-rate?
Can you create motion graphics for TikTok ads for businesses and other creators?
Can you create converting landing pages?
Whatever your offer is, make all your content relevant to it, offer something for free for people to use, and get them on your newsletter or join your community on Discord or Facebook.
Once you have your community, tell them about your offer.
Many people on your list will probably not buy from you, but there will be people who do.
Just keep it clear from the beginning what you are good at – then the offer at the end makes sense to them.
The opposite would be that I would make videos about Blender on this channel, and offer a lead magnet for SEO and then try to sell mindset coaching subscriptions for people on my newsletter. This would only confuse people, because every part in the funnel would be disconnected making it impossible to convert viewers into leads or clients.
And if this sounds like a lot on the first time, just keep it simple. You’ll get it fast enough.
You can download all my templates for Notion from my website by following the link in the description that helps you get started.
At the start of this video I promised a foolproof system that you can use to grow your audience and evolve your personal brand into a sustainable business, so let’s recap everything from a bird’s eye view:
Story funnel is how you connect social media audience to your wallet
First part is the Hook and Story to get people see you and hear your message:
Second part is the Funnel which is divided to parts:
This might seem like a lot of work, writing and creating content, but what we are really talking about is financial freedom, getting to a place where you can lead your life on own terms, help your family and friends and make good in this world. Would you rather work for yourself to build this, or for someone else?
Let’s illustrate this with some example numbers:
This is just an illustration, but possible. Can you commit to get it?
You can download a worksheet to clarify all this for yourself from here.
One thing is to read a long article like this, another one is to apply it. Send me an email to maru@scriiv.com to share how you put it in action.
Written by
Creator – Scriiv
My advice: “Leverage your digital skills and leap into new adventures”
I’m self-employed marketer and creator, enthusiastic about YouTube, copywriting, and conversion rate optimization to name a few. Unstoppable visionary.
→ Join the journey to elevate your online presence and grow your brand!
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Sastamala, Finland, FI31541758
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Designer & Writer