EP 247 How to Automate Your Content Strategy for Passive Income Success

And welcome to another episode of stuck in my mind podcast. I am your host, w I z e, and I'm excited. My next guest, I'm interested in what she's what she has to talk about because me being a podcaster, affiliate marketing is something that I would love to learn about a little bit more. So I'm excited to bring on the show. So let's just bring on Tina Lopez. Hi. Hello. Hi. Happy New Year. Good. It's the nice weather in Chicago. Haven't gone outside yet, but I need to. Yeah. I just came inside.

It's, about almost 80 degrees here, so it's just it's nice up here in the mountains. Oh, I wish I was in the mountains. I just live in the city, so we don't get mountains. Pretty fun. I'm a city boy. I was born in in Brooklyn and raised in New York City, but, I've been in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania for the last, let's see, 11 years now. Wow. I actually was in the I was actually in New York, last weekend. So I visited

your hometown, Brooklyn. I went there, so it was nice. Oh, alright. Alright. So so what inspired you just what inspired you to to do the transition from online coaching to content creating? And but you're still doing coaching in a way as well. Yeah. So I think I'm gonna give you, like, somewhat of the rough story here. So I actually came from the coaching space, and so it's interesting. Most content creators nowadays, they usually transition

into coaching, but I did the complete opposite. Right? And so when it comes to coaching, like, it was great. I got really great clients. I was able to get them results, get them their first clients, their first $10,000. It was just such a great experience in terms of being able to help the clients

from a business level, but I got super burned out. I think the one thing that they don't talk a lot about in the coaching space is burnout from the perspective of, like, you know, if you are a one person team or even if you have a team, like, it can still be somewhat overwhelming in the sense of you have to do the sales calls, you have to do the coaching calls, you actually have to do

the marketing and actually posting and all those things. And I just kind of realized, you know, it was actually ironic when I had my largest income month in my business. That was within within that time frame is actually when I burnt out in the business. And it's interesting because when I made the most amount of money, I thought to myself, oh, okay. Like, I should just do more of this. And I didn't

credit the reason why I made more money was actually because I work less. And for some reason, I got it in my mind that in order to make more money, I need to work more. That's kind of like, you know, growing up, this is what they teach you, work harder. And, I did that, and then I ended up having, like, 20 plus sales calls, and every single one of them had said no. And I was like, what? Like, that doesn't make sense. I know how to close sales.

I've done I've closed multiple 6 figures in sales. Like, I know what this looks like. And I realized after speaking with a coach at the time, and she was like, well, do you think maybe you're burnt out? And I was like, what is that? Like, I didn't even know what that was. And after she explained it to me, I was like, I I think is that what I'm experiencing? Like, I didn't even know that that was a term. Right? And I kind of realized I was

like, oh, shit. Like, I am, like, really burnt out. And I decided to take a mental health sabbatical for 4 months, finish the contracts that I have with my clients, but I didn't accept any new clients at that time. And, you know, it just it was a journey. It was a journey of healing, a journey of self care, a journey of realizing what is it that I want. And, you know, when I came back in the business, I kind of thought to myself, like, I wanna come back, but I

don't wanna do the same thing anymore. And so that's when I realized, like, what are my values in terms of what is it that I want the business to look like. And what that looks like for me is daily passive income versus client cash injections. Right? Like, I don't wanna make money if I sign a client. I wanna make money every single day whether

I'm a lot, like, awake, sleeping, all those things. Right? Yeah. The second thing was I didn't wanna have a huge team. Like, I did come in from the background of, like, managing team members. And it's great, but, like, I don't wanna be a manager. I'm totally okay with just having me and my current, like, one virtual assistant. She helps me. But that leads me to my third thing of, like, it needs to be completely automated. I don't want to be a bottleneck in my

business. I wanna be able to take a month off from my business and still be able to make money, and I did that last year. I did a whole month of trip in Asia. And to my surprise, like, I barely checked in, not even at all. I was spending time with my family, and we made the most amount of money that entire month. And I literally did nothing, and that was that was a true, like, icing on the cake of, like, wow. I actually did that. Awesome.

Awesome. Because you because you're right. Because even with me being doing the podcast and everything, and I've and I've wanted to go into coaching and and stuff like that, but I just I'm I don't I I don't think I really wanna it's a lot of a lot of time and energy. And what I'm trying to figure out now is what you're doing less time working and and having income in and more time being able to spend with my family. Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah.

I think that's the goal. Right? And it's interesting because a lot of creators or big gurus, they'll they'll tell you or they'll, like, romanticize their level of freedom or whatever. And I'll ask them, like, show me your calendar. Show me your overhead expenses. Like, do you truly, like,

walk the talk? Right? Because majority of the time, these gurus, when they say, oh, I have a completely automated business, like, when you look at their calendar, it's a lot of probably team calls or team management. And, you know, labor is the highest expense in any business, and, like, I just don't want that. Right? Like, I don't want I wanna automate a business, but I don't want to have the team to do all the work. I would come from a tech background, and so I leverage

no code automations, those things to really run the business day to day. But it's also, like, automations are so much cheaper than, like, hiring labor. Right? And so I think it's from this perspective of, like, when I actually started this business and I had those 3 nonnegotiables, like, it's hard. Like, it's really hard to find

people who are actually doing it, who are actually walking the talk. And I'll be honest, it took me 3 plus years to get to this pay like, the space where I'm actually telling people that I actually have this, because now I actually feel confident that it can be done because I've done it. But if you look through anyone else in the space, they say, oh, you can have all those things, but it's gonna cost you a shit ton of overhead or it's

gonna cost you a ton of your time. And I don't want any of those things. So it is possible is what I'm trying to say. Alright. So can you can you explain the concept of content automation and how it benefits content creators? Yeah. So this really came from my second, experience of burnout. So the first one, like I mentioned earlier, was from coaching tons of sales calls. The second one is, you

know, within my 1st year of content creation and going into that space, it's kind of like the Internet has a way of humbling you. Right? And so when you're starting from 0, like, every creator starts from 0. Like, I started from 0. Your big guru started from 0. Right? And so, you know, in order for you to build up an audience, you usually listen to traditional advice of, like, post every day, do all the things, and I did that. I did a lot of that. Right? I posted, you know, tons

of blog articles. I wrote it to, like, TikTok or create a video of content for TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, all these different types of things. And then it just got to a point where it was, like, super overwhelming, where it's like, why am I doing all this? Like, I'm doing this, like, to grow those social media following, but what was the purpose behind growing a social media following? And I've realized most creators don't really

think beyond, oh, I just need to post social media. They just think, like, you know, I need to post on social media and then magically, someday you'll go viral, and I did go viral once, and you'll make a ton of money. And the interesting thing is, like, virality is not a strategy. And a lot of people will tell you, like, oh, you need to do x y z in order to go viral. But in my opinion, I think virality is unsustainable, and it's not really the best position from a business perspective. And

so I kind of need to realize, like, quick, quick. Like, how can I, you know, get my time back as a creator? Because I'll be honest, like, the money that I make for my business doesn't really come from content creation for in the sense of posting on social media and things like that. Like, my time is honestly better focused on creating either digital products or, you know, implementing, like, funnels on the back end, writing email sequences, not posting on social

media. So my question is, like, how do you automate your content repurposing so that you can get time back in your business to focus on the areas that actually grow the business. Right? And so for me, I kind of, like, laid out in, like, 3 steps. Right? So the biggest thing that will take the most amount of time in your content business is the actual content itself. And instead of writing every day, posting every day, things like that, you

know, I created something like an automation. We do sell it. It's our daily content generator. It's literally $9, and I'll give you a reason why we did that. But, basically, what this daily content generator does is because I have an automation background, I created this template, this workflow where I have this whole, like, 2 years' worth of content library. Right? Tons of creators have content. It's a damn shame that it goes stale and people can't see it anymore. Right?

And so what this automation does is it automatically takes a random piece of content within the library, repurposes it to 5 plus social media platforms every single day without the creator lifting a finger. And so that was the first thing that I did in terms of, like, taking off my plate is I need to automate my content repurposing because what led to burnout from a creative perspective is you're literally trying to go on every single platform, and you're getting minimal results

at best. And it's probably sloppy results, to be honest, because you're so exhausted. Right? And so what that content repurposing automation allows me to do is it allows me to be on social media every single day without actually me being on social media. So what am I doing? I'm creating content for the social media algorithm. I'm still getting traffic to my content pieces, and I'm still growing my audience even though I'm not on social media. Right? That's the

first thing. The second thing is, you know, when you think about a business, like, you have really 3 areas of you have, like, traffic, you have nurturing, and then you have conversions. The nurturing piece for me when I think about automation, it really comes down to emailing. Right? So, like, email marketing, people will tell you day in, day out, like, oh, email marketing said, like, I honestly highly disagree that email marketing is said. And the reason

why I say that is because majority of my sales come through email marketing. And the better part of email marketing over social media is that you can automate your selling. You can automate your promotion. You can automate your nurturing. Right? Like, if I, you know, created an email sequence, ran it for an entire year, I can see that people pursue like, have gone out of their way to purchase my digital products, my affiliate products through my

emails. Right? And it only took me maybe an hour to write that email sequence, but it was an hour well spent. Put it all together. That's the second automation of email marketing. Right? The 3rd automation when we talk about, you know, the 3rd step of conversions is really taking advantage and maximizing your order value. Right? For me, I make my money through digital products. Even if you're a coach, you can

leverage this. But, like, if a person checks out and, like, buys one of your products, like, take advantage of that opportunity, leverage upsells, leverage downsells, leverage order bumps, all those types of thing where you can take advantage of the sale to make more money and less time and automate the entire thing. So that is pretty much, like when I say automation, I mean, like, the whole a to z concept is really important. Okay. What what are some of the common misconceptions about

generating passive income online? I think the biggest one is that it's not passive. Like, the first I think the better term is leveraged content or leveraged, income. Right? And so when I say leverage is that you're getting more than what you put in. Right? And so passive income always is requires an upfront cost of time. Right? Like, you need to build the email sequence. You need to build the funnels, all those things. And

so, you know, you're taking the time to build an asset. Like, that's what an asset is. Like, an asset is something that gives you, you know, dividends or lifetime returns. Right? And so if you take the time to build it, then it will become passive where it doesn't require as much of your time. A perfect example that I can give is with affiliate marketing. Right? I write content on an affiliate product. It took me maybe an

hour, 2 hours to write all those content pieces. But a year later, I'm still generating affiliate commissions off of something that I wrote a year ago. Right? That was leveraging my time, so now it is passive for me. Now it is a sustainable, like, resource or source of income that I can have in my business. Right? And so that's one misconception. The other misconception that I have that people have is, like, you can set it and forget it to an extent. Right? Like,

you know, things change. It's always important to optimize. Like, for example, right now, like, a project I'm working on is optimizing my email flows, my email automations so that I can bring in more conversions, bring in more sales into my business. Right? But, like, in order for you to optimize, you do need to somewhat set it and forget it so you can look at the data. You can see what's working and what's not working in your business. So I would say those are the 2

common misconceptions. So how how did you develop your fur how did how did you develop your strategy for creating evergreen traffic? So for me, evergreen traffic comes from a couple different areas. Right? So, like, I leverage search, and so people, like, would also say blogging is dead. I don't think it's dead. However, I will say you don't necessarily need a website to do a

blog. Like, I personally write on Medium, for example, which is kind of like a blogging social media hybrid where you can leverage search by being like, have your own blog on the platform, but you can also leverage a social media because they have their own internal audience that you can drive traffic to. Right? And so when I say evergreen traffic, there's kind of like 2 layers of that. Right? Like, again, I'm leveraging search from Google, from YouTube, all these different

platforms and or search based platforms. And then I'm also leveraging algorithmic traffic in the sense of because Medium has this internal social media audience at play, or even YouTube has its own internal social media audience at play. Like, my articles can pick up at any point in time, but I'm leveraging the best of both worlds of social media plus search in one. So if I were to start over from the very beginning, I would tell people, like, leverage YouTube, leverage medium, leverage

Pinterest. Any platform that has a search functionality to it will truly serve you in the long term. Okay. Awesome. Because I just started, with Finlay last year. I add I added a blog to my podcast, and and and it was okay. So within the last year and a half, 2 years, I've, I've been introduced to tools like Cast Magic. There's other tools that I use that they create blogs. They I upload my MP 3 into into the system into the Cast Magic, and they'll create a blog for

me. Mhmm. And then they'll also create email also, if you would create emails, threads, all these different things that I can that I would spend hours on trying to create. And now it's it's after 5 minutes, it's done. Mhmm. Absolutely. Like, I think the biggest thing that you're mentioning as well is that you're choosing platforms that give you the highest return on time. And, like, if you I think that's also another, like, thing that creators don't

take advantage of is, like, their time. And so I think the the reason why, you know, I think about, you know, leveraging, like, these search platforms or leveraging automations is because time is the one asset you can never get back. I'd rather spend, I'd rather focus on something that gives me more time or buy something that gives me more time. And if it costs more money, I'm

okay with that. Right? Because money, you can make again. If you're truly from the perspective of an abundant mindset, you will know that money will come back to you. Right? The time is one of those things that Don't get back. Come back to you. Yeah. Exactly. So Fran was a guest last week. She said good info. Use any platform for search functionality to search optimization for search optimization. Yeah. So yeah. Thank you, Fran. Harris return on time. She says that she likes that.

Thanks. Alright. So what are the biggest challenges content creators face when they're trying to scale their content? I think that really comes down to a couple things. When I think about the biggest challenges that they

have, there's there's this very real truth of, like, you're probably really freaking burnt out. Like, seriously, like, you can't scale your content business if you're burnt out, and that's why I created the daily content trainer generator at $9. And this is not trying to be sales y whatsoever. It's just, like, I truly created it because I'm so sick and tired of creators being burnt out in the industry. And when you listen to bigger creators, right, like Trisha Gurus,

they'll tell you, like, oh, sorry. You're burnt out. Essentially, the consensus is, sorry. You're burnt out. Doesn't matter. Still post. Still be consistent. And I think the thing is is, like, that's bullshit. Right? Like, consistency, in my opinion, can be automated. Right? You can leverage automations for consistency, but you cannot leverage automations for creativity. Right? Where you make money as a creator is from your creativity. You

cannot do that on an empty tank of being burnt out. Right? So the first thing the first challenge I would say is create some system, whether it's a content system or some workflow that actually benefits you. And the reason why I say that is because a lot of people will say, just write every single day or, like, go at the whim of your creativity. But in my opinion, that's not sustainable, and it's not scalable. Right? When I think about a writing system, I'm thinking

about, you know, leveraging 2 things. My creativity comes literally at the webinar. I could, like, be working out and an idea will come in my head. Doesn't mean I'm gonna sit down, pull out a notebook, and write an article. Right? I have an idea management system where I will upload the idea into a database, and then once a month, I will go review my content ideas and pick

which one I like. Outline them, have a day for outlining, have a day for content creation, and then what ends up happening is I will create the foundational content, and I'll leverage automations to do the posting social media, everything for me to take advantage of my time. The second challenge that I see a lot with creators as well is that there there's this big thing where it's

almost like you wait to be monetized. Like, you have to reach a certain follower account or a certain threshold in order for you to ask for money. And I think that is not sound advice in my opinion because at the end of the day, like, you are running a business. And I say, like, sell from the beginning. Right? Like, do you if you truly are solving a problem, then sell the solution. You don't need to wait and for you to have 10,000 in order for you to sell something to actually

solve your client's problem. Right? And it doesn't need to be this big whole thing. Like, it could just be like a checklist. Right? I recently just purchased an interior design checklist because I'm renovating my house right now, And thank god that person created that. It was $25. I bought it. It was great. Right? And so that's my example. Sell early and sell fast. So remember you had remember you said you had a remember one of your questions earlier before you got on

was, do they ask questions? Well, we do have one for you. Okay. What what do you suggest for virtual assistant or an AI option to maximize time? Cool. Okay. So my first thing is that leverage AI and automations. You don't need to leverage your virtual assistant yet. Actually, as an example, it took me 3 years before I decided to hire a virtual assistant. I hired her last month. It's been great. But you can automate 80% of your business truthfully with no

code and AI. Let me kinda dive deeper. When I think about no code, I'm thinking about platforms like Zapier, Make, Pabbly Connect. If you're not familiar with these platforms, these are basically like think of these as workflow platforms that connect different softwares to talk to each other. Yeah. So an example is if I create content off of my database in Notion or Airtable, for example, I can use Zapier to take that connected connect Notion or Airtable to post to Instagram or

Facebook. And so when you leverage those platforms, you can probably get 80% of your business automated truthfully just off of no code. And because we've integrated AI into the mix, there is this, I love Zapier, for example. So there is something called OpenAI, which is the owner of ChatGbt. ChatGbt. Yep. And, basically, they have an integration or they have a connection with Zapier where, say, for

example for example, Cast Magic. Right? They use AI, but I kinda see it as, like, why would I use AI when I use Zapier and OpenAI? It's cheaper in my opinion. It just is a side tangent thing. But what you can do is I can take let me let me finish. I can take a podcast recording.

Take that podcast recording, send it to from Zapier, send it to OpenAI to create the transcript, have OpenAI take that transcript, create a blog thread, create or create a Twitter thread, create a social media post, and then in that same automation, I can have it post directly to social media for me. That's gonna take 80% of the automation just because you're using that code. So No. No. Yeah. It's reason I use Cashback, like, I love AppSumo. Yes. Yes. I love

AppSumo. I I have so many different stuff on app. I use SendFox, so many different things from AppSumo. Mhmm. And so I make sure I buy the lifetime licenses. I keep all the time that that some of these, like, some of these programs that people are paying $34 a month for now, I got lifetime license. Me too. Me too. So so, okay. So Fran Fran goes idea management system, like having a digital idea bucket. Yeah. An example of that is I

do have this freebie, and I do find it very valuable. It's exactly what I use. We have our content database, which is basically an Airtable. So I see that you're familiar with Airtable already. So, basically, this is a a base, meaning a database, where, basically, if you are someone who wants to organize and structure your content, I usually give people this freebie, which is the content database. And, essentially, what it does is it does a couple of things.

It works really well with our daily content generator if you decide to get it layered on their own, but it also allows you to organize your content. And what I really love about Airtable is it has a mobile app. Like, literally, like, if I have an idea come to me, I pull out my Airtable database, and I just type the idea.

And then once when I'm ready, I can log on my laptop, and I can look at all my ideas with that I wrote on the app, and I could just outline my content, write my content, and Airtable integrates perfectly with Zapier, so I can trigger a bunch of automations through my Airtable base. So, yes, it's like a bucket. She goes, Airtable. I'm familiar with that. Alright. So how do you approach affiliate marketing to maximize to maximize leverage income, not passive, leveraging? Yeah. So I think there's a

couple things. Like, a lot of people say you know, it's funny. I was actually writing an email sequence because I do affiliate marketing. I have a course on affiliate marketing. But one of the things that I've realized with affiliate marketing, because I I scroll through Reddit all the time, is that people think that you need a large audience, you need a big social media following, and you need a website. To be honest, when I made money from affiliate

marketing, I didn't have any of those things. I leveraged 3 things to really be able to make money through affiliate marketing. The first thing is parasite SEO. Right? And so that's what we were mentioning earlier about leveraging platforms that have search functionality. The best platforms that have that is Medium and YouTube. Right? If I looked up, like, I'm an affiliate for specific products. If I Typed in the product on Google, my Medium articles will pop up, like, literally

within the first page because I'm leveraging Parasite SEO. And, basically, Parasite SEO is a strategy where you are able to take advantage of another person like, of a platform to help you boost in search versus if you were to create your own WordPress

site. Right? Now there's advantages and disadvantages of this, but if you're looking at, like, the short term and even long term, right, like, so long as you do good things on the platform and you don't abuse it, you should be good in terms of leveraging those platforms for search functionality. Right? Now when we think about passive income, it really comes down to creating content that is evergreen. And when I mean

evergreen, meaning it's applicable, like, year round. So examples of things that are not evergreen is, like, trends or, like, quarterly reports or anything that is just, like, has a time base. Like, that's not evergreen. And so when I say evergreen content, I what really is evergreen content is problems, pain points, things like that, things that people have challenges with every day. And if you can create content that solves that problem,

then it doesn't matter what time period. It's still gonna be helpful. So for example, I am an affiliate for these two courses, and a lot of the questions that I had even when I bought the course was, like, what is the difference between the 2? And I created a YouTube video. I created a blog article explaining those differences, and I solved my audience's problem. And it got to a point where people, like, said, thank you so much for giving that feedback. I went out of my way to purchase from

your affiliate link. Right? And so there's this element of you need to remember that in order for you to leverage affiliate marketing, who is your end customer? Your end customer is the buyer. So if you make it easier for your content to help them make a decision, doesn't mean they buy or don't buy. At least they come to a decision. You're coming and operating out of service to help them make that decision. And when I say passive income, it's passive income

because I solve problems. That is truthfully what makes it passive is I create a concept that solve problems at that time. So, Fran goes parasite SEO question mark. So what what is parasite SEO? So, basically, like what I mentioned earlier, it's like leveraging search based platforms that allow you to rank easier. So, for example, Medium, like I mentioned, is a platform that has both blogging component and social media

component. Like, medium.com has high authority, meaning it's Google's already established that this is a legitimate domain and that it works well, things like that. So it's easier for that domain or any articles that go on that domain to rank on Google faster than if you had your own blog that is like you just started last week. Google hasn't checked to see if it's a good blog or whatever.

Parasite SEO lets you to take advantage of those platforms that have, you know, good authority for them to be ranked on Google. Oh, okay. Awesome. Awesome. Alright. What tips do you have for content creators struggling to manage multiple platforms? My biggest tip is let automation handle the multiple platforms. Like, seriously, like, I

I don't even think about content from, like, a from, like, a platform perspective. Like, for me, I love writing, so I my my biggest social media following is through Medium. So I write a ton of long form content when it comes to blog articles. Right? But I leverage our daily content generator. I leverage automations to repurpose to Twitter, to YouTube, to Instagram, to Facebook, all those things. So I'm live on those channels, but I actually just I don't sit down to create

content for all those channels. I only created content once, and I let the automations do the rest of me. Okay. Can you share an example of a successful content automation strategy you have implemented? I mean, I'll give you the insight of a daily content generator. Like, seriously, I'll I think it's good to walk through the background of it, actually. So it is a course. It is $9,

and there's a reason for that. I mentioned earlier my biggest thing is solving, like, I want for context, I have, like, 2 goals in life. The first one is to help creator or help entrepreneurs create generational wealth. The second goal is to help the creators have the time to enjoy that wealth. Right? And so when I I created the daily content generator truly out of necessity, like, I was burnt out from content creation. I was like, screw this. I can't do this anymore.

Right? And so I created it for me. Like, I didn't want anybody to use it. Like, it was just truly for me. And a lot of my friends in the creator industry, they kept saying they're like, Tina, like, how the hell do you do it? Like, you're posting on social. You're posting on Twitter, Facebook, all these different platforms. Like, how do you have the time to write and repurpose? And I always said to them, like, oh, I just let automation do it or

whatever, or sometimes I just brushed over. Right? And it got to a point where a lot of my, like, internal friend group, they kept saying, like, Tina, can you please, like, just give it to us? Can you please let us use what you want to use?

And there is a very big mindset block for me where I just I said no because not because of scarcity, not because I didn't wanna give it to them, but because I was scared that, you know, people will not, know how to use the technology, or I was scared that I didn't know how to explain it in a way that makes sense. Like, I'm a very I can be somewhat very technical, but if I, you know, ask the average Joe to implement this, how would I explain it to to them?

Right? Yeah. And so I was afraid that I couldn't do that. And it got to a point where one of my friends, she came to me, and she was like, I'm so burned out. Like, can you, like, please, like, actually, like, help me? And I am not the type of person where, like, if I see someone down, like, I'm not gonna say, like, no. I can't help you. Like, I'm the person where I was like, okay. Like, it's not about me. Like and that's I think that's where it comes from. Like, it's truly not about me.

It's about, like, solving the problem and, like, helping my friend like, people like my friend who are struggling be able to get time back. And so I decided to do it, and I was, like, $9, no brainer. We'll see what happens. And I am a big believer in, like, pre selling, meaning that I will not create something if people don't buy it. Right? And I was like, okay. Let me just create it. I literally sent an email. I think, like, on a Friday night. I

was like, hey. I have this idea. This is what you're gonna get. I haven't created this yet. I really wanna create it, though, because I it solves this problem. Are you interested? And, my goal was 10 presales, and it's, like, $90. Right? It's it's not life changing money, but it's, like, pretty cool. Like, I was just, like, I just wanted to validate the idea. And I usually give my presale period about a 2 month time frame just to see if it's actually something people want.

And within that weekend, we got 10 sales, and I was like, oh, shit. Okay. Like, people want it. And I was like, this is an accident. Let me try to, like, shoot for 20 in my mind. This is internally. Right? A week later, 20 sales came through, and I was like, oh, fuck. Like, people really want this. And then I didn't even make the 2 month time period because by the time, like, we were, like, 3 weeks into it, like, over 40 people have bought the presale. I was

like, oh, shit. Like, people really want this. Like, now I need to figure out this question of how I'm gonna speak to the average Joe and explain how I'm gonna do this. Now this is a good problem to have, but at least I know that I'm creating something that people want. And so, it took me about a month to create the course to, like, really, like, break it down. I literally, like, filmed every single thing I possibly could. I even filmed, like, we're gonna do it together.

Like, start from scratch. Like, we're gonna do this video together. It's like a 30 minute video. And, yeah, like, over a 130 plus students have now since bought that course, and people are buying it still every day. And it just really validated, like, wow, this truly solves a problem. Like, it solves the problem of creator burnout because, as an example, I had a writer who came to me, who wrote me this beautiful testimonial, and she's like, Tina, like, I'm so happy that you created this because

it does 2 things for her. First of all, she doesn't have to hire a virtual assistant or a content team to actually repurpose her content. So it saves her probably, like, $2,000 a month in content creation services. That's the first thing. The second thing is that it gives her so much of her time back. Right? And she said to me, she's like, thank

god we implemented this because now I can actually have time. She travels the world or whatever, and she's like, now I can travel the world and not have to worry about, like, posting to some social media platform. And, like, the fact that she's like, the fact that it was $9 was kinda crazy to me, and I was like, I know. It is crazy, but it's not about

the money for me, truthfully. Like, money is great. I love money, but, like, it's really, like, solving the problem of, like, creator burnt out because I can't see my friends burnt out, and I will not allow it. So this is my happy medium. Oh, listen. It it it you found a service you can provide and a solution, and and, like you said, yes, money is, yes, money is a necessity. But like you said, it's not the end or before you. It's making sure not to see your friends burn

out. That's that's it. Not to see the ones you care for burn out and and waste in the and be able to get their time back, something that's very precious. So it's it's not always about the money. It's about how you feel about yourself, and you're like, I I don't care about the money. I care about people. And that should be one priority. That should be anyone's priority. It's caring about the people. And when you do care about the people, it it resonates. So

you're gonna it the 9 now, it's just just gonna keep growing. You're gonna keep

getting more sales and more sales and more it's it'll it'll it's gonna it's gonna be worth it at the end of the day because you care about the people. Absolutely. I think I think that's also another thing is that it's people first. Like, I'm reading or I just finished this book. It's a great book. It's called Millionaire Fastlane. Highly recommend it. But if you wanna make a $1,000,000, the better question is not how do I make a $1,000,000. The question is how do

I still serve million a 1000000 people? And if you can answer that question and solve that problem, it's natural that that's gonna be the outcome. Yeah. Because if you you serve a 1000000 people, right, at a dollar each, that's $1,000,000. Yeah. And imagine $9. You know? $9,000,000. There you go. Hey. So alright. How do you stay motivated and consistent in your content creation process? Yeah. That's a good question, actually. I don't have the problem of consistency

because I let the automations take care of it. The challenge that I have is actually realizing that the business is not is not everything to me. And so that that's really hard. Right? Because people, especially big gurus, they say you gotta invest thousands of hours in your business. And I think to an extent, like, I've I've come from that perspective. I used to do all those things, and it hasn't served me. I think the the challenge that I have now is what the hell do I do

with my time. Right? Because everybody wants automation. Everybody wants more time in their business. Right? Or more time for life. Sorry. And nobody thinks about what happens after you get all those things. They're always, like, chasing the goal. It's always like this carrot that you're trying to chase, but you never realize what happens afterwards. And so for me, it's like, okay. Like, I I need to take this business,

like, outside of myself. Like, who am I outside of my business? I'm a daughter. I'm a homeowner. I am a partner to someone. Like, I'm a sister. Like, how can I really show up for those people in my life? Because now I have the time to actually show up for those people. Right? And so when it comes to staying motivated, it's not just, like, the money piece. Like, don't get me wrong. Like, I love

money. I came from a finance background. It's truly, like, how can I serve people in the fastest way possible without it requiring tons of my time? And so this is why I love, like, digital products, affiliate marketing, you know, courses, membership, things like that because I'm able to help people, but I am not sacrificing my soul or sacrificing my, mental sanity to help them. Like, I am able to still show up, provide value, teach I'm a big teacher. Like, I love teaching

and, like, letting it go. But, like, I'm allowed to teach people, but still get my time for me so I can actually have the tank to show up for all those individuals. Awesome. Awesome. Okay. What let's see. We you answered that one. Okay. So how do you measure the success of your content and adjust your strategy strategies accordingly? Success of my content and adjust the strategies

accordingly. Okay. So that's actually a question that I'm actually trying to figure out right now, and so I can't say I have the full answer to it. Right? I think the the the thing is is, like, how do I determine success? For me, I don't I determine success as, like, dollars. Some people determine success as, like, you know, having, you know, followers. It really comes down to what is your metrics for success. Right? Some people, you know, think one way or

the other. For me, I always like to think about if, like, if I implement a content strategy, right, or if I implement this, how many leads did I get in? And when I say leads, I'm not saying followers. I'm saying email subscribers. And when I think about the sex of content, I'm thinking about how many dollars did it drive to, like, my bottom line. Right? And so the way that I measure it is, like, thinking through that. An example of that actually is, and it's ironic,

but podcasting. Right? I have a goal of 30 podcasts for this year. Met my goal. I'm done. Right? One of the things that I'm trying to see is, does podcasting bring more leads into my business? I don't know that answer yet, but so far, it's it's the lowest return in terms of subscribers. But I love building the brand element. But if my goal were to build, like, a brand, I would go podcasting all the way. But if my goal is to drive subscribers, maybe that's not the best toolkit that I've

that I would use. Right? And so I really like to give it a time period of, like, what am I looking at? I look at my data quarterly. And when I look at my data quarterly, I pivot. Right? So this past quarter, I looked at my podcasting and, like, see the strategy. It's it's not where I wanna be in terms of, like, the leads and subscribers. I've learned my lesson. Now I'm pivoting to

a different strategy, so I can do that. And so, like, leveraging data. Don't I think so many creators, they just like to point, like, create and post, but they never take the time to reflect and look at the data to see if it actually hit the success metrics that you're looking at. Well, if it you you've you've you've gotten a, a client. It looks like you got someone in France. She's, she's asking, what's the difference between a 90 the 90 not $90 package versus your $9 a month package? So I

don't have a 90 I mean, I have a $97 course. I don't have any recurring offers at the moment. That's something that I'm trying to figure out what to create right now, doing some market research at the moment. But I think when it comes to differences between, like, $9 product versus a $90 product, it really comes down to value. Right? Like, usually, as you get higher in the price points, there is some level of, like, either 1 on 1 or community or things

like that. So it really comes down to value and giving that. Right? Another thing that I would say is that for the $9 daily content generator, it has an insane amount of value. Like, time is the insane amount of value, and people get so much more time back. But the thing is is that you can leverage pricing to do a couple of things. Pricing pricing is not only, like, a reflection of value, but it can also be used as a way for you to generate leads

in your business. So, for example, like, I have the $9, you know, daily content generate. It really, like, insane value. It drives a ton of, like, sales and things like that. But it also validates for me and allows me to segment who are the people that I'm gonna promote to more versus the people that I'm not gonna promote to more. Right? Because, you know, a

buyer emotion stays in motion. Right? So if you are able to segment in the quickest way possible, paid versus nonpaid from your email list, then you can see and identify how many people on your email list take action versus don't take action. And so that is another benefit that I've realized since releasing that $9 offer, but pricing is in some ways a reflection of value. So the higher the pricing, the more value.

Yeah. And and people tend to, they tend to really invest more time when they are paying for a product. Yeah. That's something that that I've I'm I'm taking a course now that I I'm I'm paying some good money into it. And but it it's to make sure that you you're gonna spend time you you're not wasting that person's time, and you're not wasting your time. Because people tend to do when it's free, they tend to like, oh, they'll do it a couple of days, and

then they disappear. And so when you're able to invest your money and see where it's going and and see that it's has value, then it's it's it's a it's it's a win win. Yeah. Absolutely. I think, like, a good example of that is, there's this membership that I recently joined that on the front end, I saw that it was a $197 a month. And I was like, holy shit. Like, that is that is a membership. And

then I was like, let me just buy one of her digital products. And she I bought one of her digital products, and then she had a upsell where you can get 3 months for 1.97. And I was like, well, because I had the context that it's actually 1.97 a month and I get 3 months now for 1.97, I immediately bought it because I knew that it was beneficial. And because to me, like, I see it as like to some, it's not a lot of money to me. I was like, oh, I really want to,

like, get this and I see the value in this. I'm every day looking in that course, doing the work, and now I'm seeing the results because price is an indicator, like you said, of, like, how much effort you put into the product as well. Yeah. So what advice would you give someone just starting their content creation journey? The advice that I would give is sell early and sell often. And one thing I would say is don't focus on your social media followings.

Focus on your email list. Like, truthfully, like, it's great to have 10,000 followers. It's also great to have 10,000 email subscribers that pay you money. Right. And so those two things, like, I wish somebody would have told me, like, email us is so much more important than social media following. It would save me so much hours of content creation. And so those are the things I would really focus on. That's something that I've learned in the when I first started was, oh, I gotta do the my file.

And, 2 years later, I'm like, I need to build up my email list. Mhmm. Mhmm. I need to build I I I need to work on that and build that up. And and I it's a friend of mine, Phil Better, who he's the one who actually got me into into building an email list, into using SendFAX, and and different other automation tools to help me to help life make things easier for me, being that I'm an independent podcaster that

that I I don't have a team. Mhmm. It's just me. So with him showing me these tools to make life easier for me, which it has, and it and it's and it it has helped me grow my podcast in these past 2 years from, I don't know, 8,000 downloads in my 1st year and a half, 2 years, to now I just eclipsed 30,030,000 downloads. Congrats. And so so it's it's really you see the you see me you see me you see the effort that I put into it

is paying off. And so and it and it again, it goes back into me learning about automation and and learning about building a email list. And I'm getting response from email list and people wanting to ask me questions, and so it's really helped me in the last few years really, bro. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that's the thing.

Right? Like, if you find something that's working, I'm a big believer in automating what's working, set it and forget it so that you could focus on the next strategy that's gonna help you, and then you just stack up what's working, and that will help you in the long term. So how do you keep keep up with trends and challenges changes? I'm sorry. How do you keep up with trends and changes in the digital marketing landscape? I don't really keep on touch with, like, trends, to be

honest, because it's like, yeah, it's great. I could do a trend, and I could do a video on, like, the trend and get my commentary. Right? But, like, that's not the type of business that I wanna run. Like, I don't wanna run a business that's based on trends. Like, I wanna run a business that is based on, like,

legitimate strategy and actually solving problems. Right? Like, I another layer is, like, I love building an automated content business, but the other aspect of it is, like, how do you build a content business that doesn't rely on social media? That's the big question. Right? Because when you think about social media, social media is very risky to put your traffic efforts to grow your email list, like or to generate sales. Like, it is a risky

business, in my opinion. And I'll give you an example. It's like a couple days ago, one of my accounts, for some reason, got flagged for some unknown reason, and I had to reach out to support, and they said, oh, it was an accident. I'm sorry. What do you mean it was an accident? Like, I spent 3 years on the social media platform. You're gonna tell me it's an accident? No. That doesn't apply. Right? And so it's really revalidated the importance of

having my own audience, which is my email list. And Mhmm. You know, although it was, like, scary, like, because this happened to me last year's ago. I feel like it's, like, a recurring theme of, like, have your own audience. But this happened last year to me as well. Like, my account got flagged, and it was an accident as well. And last year was a very different period of commitment. I had no email list. I had nothing. And now I was like, well, you know, that

sucks that my account got flagged by accident. But if things did go hit the fam, like, I I won't My business won't die. Like, I have an email list. I have a way to contact my people, and that's that's the key thing. And so, like, if I relied on trends, if I relied on vi virality, that is not a good that's not good enough for me in terms of strategy. Like, I genuinely care if shit

hits the fan, what are you gonna do to build your business? That is the question that most creators, most big gurus will not answer you because they haven't had the time to think about that or it hasn't happened to

them. But for small creators like myself and other people, if you don't have the capacity to answer or to capacity to build up a social media following in the quickest way possible, then you need to find figure out a different way to grow your your business without relying on social media. Awesome. Awesome. Alright. So this wow. This time is wow. Time has listen. This conversation has been amazing because time has has just flown by.

So one final question before I let you get the the solo screen and you get to plug away and and promote everything. What what do you see is the future of content the the content creation industry, and how are you preparing for it? The future that I see is, actually two things. I see an owned audience is gonna be way more valuable than social media. I feel like I'm seeing, like, this trend of, like, people are leaving social media because it's exhausting and

people are burnt out. And now they're really thinking about, like, how do I grow my own audience so that they don't have to post. Right? That is one thing I'm seeing. Another thing that I'm seeing is community has become increasingly more important. So the platforms that are really gonna do well, in my opinion, is Reddit as an example or any, like, school as another example of, like, community based platforms is because as you you can

consume information. You could pretty much find everything on YouTube nowadays. Right? And so courses are gonna be great, but they're what's what's gonna be even better is if you have a course plus community. Right? And so for me, how I'm preparing for it is, first thing, I'm building my email list. All my channels are going to my email list or troughing into my email list.

If they don't, then, like, that's a bigger problem. Right? The second thing is when I think about community, I'm thinking about, you know, kind of right now, I'm in the process of figuring out, like, what is a recurring offer that I can create that allows me to dive deeper with my clients or with my students without having, like, a ton of time, like, being involved.

And so I would like to do a community, but I am hesitant to do it because, you know, one of my things is I wanna be able to take a month off my business, and communities can be quite difficult. Right? And so I don't have a clear answer to that, but I am thinking about ways where I'm able to provide valuable the benefits of a community in terms of an asynchronous channel being able to answer questions in a timely manner.

Maybe it's a community, maybe it's not a community for me, but having connection to the creator who created the course, I think, is the is the bigger trend I'm seeing. Like, it's easy to sell a course, but to ask questions, people use a community. For me, I might use something else that caters to that. Fran, I wanted to know what's an owned audience? An owned audience is an example of, like I mentioned, an email list, meaning that you own

the actual audience. So, for example, like, if you look at, Instagram, Facebook, or whatever, that's rented audience. Right? Meaning that, like, you're barring the audience, but, ultimately, the people that can connect contact them is Facebook and those platforms, not you, the creator. Right? And so if you can contact your people without using a third party, that is you having an own audience. It it can be in the form of an email list. It can be in the form of a text message list, things

like that. And she goes, I go to Reddit when I don't feel like dealing with the Google or Bing search answers. I feel like they're too corporate sponsored. Yeah. This is why I love Reddit, and I'm doubling down on my strategy for Reddit. So we'll see how that goes. Awesome. Oh, man. This has been, I'm I'm looking forward to me to actually getting the the clips from this show because you have dropped some gems on this episode. This has turned out

to be one of my favorite episodes, seriously. Thank you so much. You dropped some real real jewels here, and I I'm excited to start to to go check out your, your 9 the $9 pro $9 program. But,

now it's time where you get the solo screen and you get the plug away and let everyone know where they can find you, social media, everything. Yeah. So the best way for you to be able to find me is actually through my newsletter, create content creators club. You can go to creatorsclub.tinalopez.com. That is our one newsletter that we send out per week that gives you a collaboration opportunity, a blog article, a YouTube video being to allow you to scale your content traffic and

income as a creator. So I heard a lot of good things from the people who are on that newsletter, and I hope to see you there. And that's where you can find everything pretty much on the daily content, things like that. So I hope to see you in there. Awesome. Thank you so much. This is like I said, this has actually turned out to be one of my favorite episodes because Thank you. You you were just dropping gems. And, Fran, thank you for for your part participation

as well. You you've asked some great questions. You asked some great comments. Greatly appreciate you stopping by and showing love. But this is why I like going live is like, you asked, like, do the do people interact, and Fran came through. Thank you, Fran. Appreciate that. It was she's awesome. Fran is awesome, but we had a great conversation last week. She's she's a wonderful person.

Love to love to be able to connect. She's she's she's in a male dominated industry of freight trucking and all that stuff. And, so yeah. But it would Fran, reach out to her, see how see how she can help you grow your your brand and stuff like that. It it's this is why I love doing my show. Absolutely. It's these these moments. Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you so much. I'm happy to be here. It was it was a great episode, truthfully. Thank oh, you you made it a great

episode. I appreciate it. Thank you. Like I said, this has been this has turned this turned out to be one of my favorite episodes because you just dropped so many gems, like, so many tools that people can just be like, oh, man. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So I'm looking forward to really clipping this and and and just sharing those clips. Absolutely. But, don't leave the shit. Let me close out the show, and we'll chat a little bit and

off the air. But, thank you so much. This has been wonderful. Absolutely. Thank you. Have a good day, everyone. Alright. Oh, what a wonderful show. Oh, man. I love it. I love this is I can't I've got I'm just smiling because it was just such a great show. I amazing show. Big shout out to Fran for coming through and and showing love and and being a part of the show. You made a you made this your show as well, Fran. Thank you for coming by. Shout out to my

RealWise fan, Poppy j, Brandy j. Love you guys. Shout out to the boss lady. Love you and appreciate you, baby. And as always, a big, big shout out to all the essential workers out there. God bless you. Be safe. You know how your boy wise does it? Peace out.