I've made 1067 short form videos, here's what actually makes money

All right, today we are going to hit a subject near and dear to my heart.

Making money on social media and how to run a successful personal brand account.

Everything that's changed so far in 2026. This week marks my 3year

2026. This week marks my 3year anniversary on Instagram, about 3 and a half, making content total. And I have made a video every single day for over

a,000 days now. In the event I didn't post for a day, I made up with it for two the same week. And although it was a rough start for any of you that were there at the beginning, it has significantly changed my life. But in

this video, I'm going talk about what's different going into 2026, the commodization of Faceless and Carousels, with so many new creators, what's still working, and we're going to go through some specific formats and creators that are standing out. Then we're going to

talk about how to zone in on a niche. If

you have a niche that you want to go in on, what are the different content types, and how do you position yourself to design an offer that makes you money if you are selling a service to position yourself to get more work? If you do want to set yourself up to get brand

deals, what does that look like? And I'm

going talk about the traps that people fall into. What's happening with high

fall into. What's happening with high production right now and where that's going? What happens to people that just

going? What happens to people that just copy and look the same as others? Talk

about the three levels of social media in 2026 for personal brands. And we're

going to have a lot of fun along the way. I am hosting a monthly community

way. I am hosting a monthly community call as always. This Sunday, February 22nd, I believe the link is down below, is all about workshopping creative strategy and creative direction to be

able to provide guidance on whether it's brands or personalities to get better at content. So, if you want to join us and

content. So, if you want to join us and workshop live on Sunday, the link to that is below. Let's lock in. What's

really interesting to me right now is just how adopted the short form really is. We have had a rash of new students

is. We have had a rash of new students in Cut 30 who got the program recommended to them by their teachers.

There are teachers in business school are saying if you want to start a business you need to go out there and learn how to make content and start learning now. That's the level of

learning now. That's the level of adoption we're seeing. We have

journalists at major publications from around the world who join. Everyone's

realizing that all the traditional structure we had around attention is shifting. And whether or not you want to

shifting. And whether or not you want to have a personal brand or not, understanding it is crucial. I've been

in the middle of this for a while. It's

interesting to watch. But one of the reasons I feel equipped to make a lot of these videos and why I dislike watching a lot of other gurus videos is they don't have enough data points to really look at it. So we've had 2,000 people

plus through Cut 30, the 30-day boot camp we do. And Colin Lanfor, shout out to the god, has all of them categorized in a video database that we've built. It

tracks every person by cohort. It tracks

every graduate and what outlier videos they have. Does it do 1.2x or 1.5x or

they have. Does it do 1.2x or 1.5x or higher of performance? It also tracks all of the accounts that I'm using for my creative strategy work. all the other accounts that we want to track around the web in one centralized location that

we can query and see trends from. In

addition, I'm obviously working with brands heard me talk about my work with Morphe, but I did prior at Gel Blaster or Lift Boils or any of these brands that are out there where we are still doing active creative strategy and reviewing tons of briefs and competitive

analysis each week. And I'm creating videos still every day in my own right.

And as many of you know, I am partnered in the firm that manages me, DMG, that manages a bunch of influencers in different niches. And one of the biggest

different niches. And one of the biggest superpowers from this is the ability to see exactly what's happening. I know

every single month from the hundreds of creators that are in cut 30 exactly what being posted works and then we have data to back it up from the aggregator. This

allows us to actually have a finger on the pulse and then see when we introduce new strategies or types, does it work?

What's the adoption like? It's been

critical for my work as a strategist.

But in addition to this, in the first time in December, we ran this thing called Cut 30 Legends which was for grads or large accounts only where we were working specifically with people that had bigger social media accounts.

And this was really interesting because a lot of the conversation was around how are you monetizing? What does your funnel look like? What do your offers look like? Are you getting brand deals?

look like? Are you getting brand deals?

How do you position yourself? How do you plan your content as a successful personal brand? And it was interesting

personal brand? And it was interesting to hear those questions and hear what those people are dealing with. I'm going

to talk about a lot of it in this video.

First, let's talk about what's changing.

So, at this point, as of about 3 weeks ago, it's pretty official that the Instagram and Tik Tok algorithms, especially once US control took over Tik Tok, are now radically different. The

same things very rarely work on both. We

still encourage people to cross post, but you will find it is a very different network to grow on. But one of the key differences is how big carousels are, especially designed carousels on

Instagram and how much spam there is for simple carousels on Tik Tok. Basically,

all these software apps are spamming hundreds or thousands of carousels each day with AI in the default Tik Tok fonts. And there is just so much default

fonts. And there is just so much default carousel content on Tik Tok that it's really invalidated the formula if you want to grow a carousel account for anything but getting the cheapest of attention. Basically eliminating a

attention. Basically eliminating a pretty powerful segment of the market there from being able to succeed. It

only works for personal brand accounts now if it's in conjunction and tying into everything else you have going on as a personal brand. And then on Instagram, so many people are dropping design carousels and these accounts blow up and they get tons of followers. But

all of them I talked to a group of these accounts like how can I monetize? how

can I make money? And for the most part, most of them can't because the content is so commodified. Brands don't want to pay for it and they don't have enough personality built up that people want to buy their offers. So, they do monetize, but it's really hard. And at the same

time, faceless content has gotten taken over by all the AI accounts. There are

awesome AI aggregator accounts who are making really beautiful looking stuff.

Whether you agree with it or not, the content is impactful. But what this means is there's so many of them. People

are doing it from around the globe that again those views show up in the feed, but they don't build affinity. And what

that has done is taken a lot of people who are able to build faceless accounts over the last few years and really made it very hard for anyone to get actual money at the end of the rainbow from doing it. But what's good is the

doing it. But what's good is the personality still reigns supreme in all of this. In a world where AI can

of this. In a world where AI can manufacture a fake influencer that looks mediocre or a fake carousel or whatever it is, actual stories, actual tea, actual affinity, having real conversations with your audience is the

separator. And you will see the people

separator. And you will see the people that are doing really well on TikTok, especially newer accounts, it's a conversation. They respond in every

conversation. They respond in every comment. They're doing reply videos from

comment. They're doing reply videos from those comments. They are sharing the

those comments. They are sharing the parts of their life. They are building that gauge, particularly on that social network, on personality. But one thing that's happening that's crucial right now on Instagram is the proliferation of

intelligent content. I want to call out

intelligent content. I want to call out Zoe here. She makes intelligent content.

Zoe here. She makes intelligent content.

I believe she either works for or did work for a VC and she's doing a format that we call graphic YAP. I'll talk

about in a second, but she is doing intellectual content, videos about real technology, hot startup rounds, AI agent, social networks, Apple's acquisition, startup matrix. Far gone

are the days of like joke accounts or thinking social media is unserious.

People are putting up major views talking about real things and businesses are doing this too, right? Doing design

history of a really specific stool or design format, walking through the particular choices of an item or the news that happened. Educational content

is at an all-time high. She's doing like an obsidian tutorial. We are getting obscure here, but people do not want surface level stuff, the same stuff everyone knows. They want to go indepth.

everyone knows. They want to go indepth.

And you're seeing content like how to be disgustingly educated pop off. Even this

this design talk series that she has.

She's going into the manufacturing processes to work on metal and putting up serious views, right? It says 10,000 likes, right? Six figure views. We are

likes, right? Six figure views. We are

in a hyperintellectualized world where people who consume online, if you do want to reach an intelligent consumer, they are there waiting for you and they want to be rewarded with really interesting stuff. So the format that

interesting stuff. So the format that appeals most is what you see here, almost all these examples I've had, what we call a graphic yap. A lot of people, including myself, came up in the green screen era. You would talk over graphics

screen era. You would talk over graphics on a green screen. That still works well, but a lot of people have found it effective and easier, especially now, to do this. Position yourself halfway on

do this. Position yourself halfway on screen, eyes slightly above level in whatever setup you want, and put graphics over you while you talk relatively rapidly to help make your points aesthetically while you're

talking over them. This is a format that I do as well. Doesn't matter if you do it on an iPhone or you do it on a Pro Cam, but for instance, this is me talking about couches in the same exact way in format. I'm talking about what they mean from a luxury perspective. I'm

literally putting images over me while I talk in that same exact way. But there's

never been a better time to do intellectual content on the internet because the algorithms reward it. And

you know what's nice is when you follow or like content like that shows you tons of other creators and there's huge conversations right now going on around taste, going on around design, about startups and technology and about

hospitality, which we'll get to in a minute. They're just waiting for more

minute. They're just waiting for more experts and interesting people to join with algorithm support. But one of the biggest changes around this is this idea that I cannot state enough that personality is everything. We are in a

copycat world of content. A lot of content looks alike. It sounds alike.

People literally put my scripts into chat GPT and then put the output on the other end out and call it their own content with the same hooks. In a world of this where that stuff can put up views, what do you do that actually resonates? How do you get that bottom

resonates? How do you get that bottom line of what makes you money? And

personality based content is the strongest point of this. When I look back at that thousand videos I made, what's the biggest regret I have? is

that at several points during that on Tik Tok, I started making more candid videos where I'm talking about the vacation I went on or how I made money in this or why I married an extroverted spouse as an introvert and begin to talk more and more about my life, build

rapport with the audience, have them learn more from me than rather just value and advice. And every time I made a few and then just got caught up on my normal content flow cuz it just makes a lot of money. And my biggest regret is I just did not continue that continually

so people have more affinity with me in particular versus just the value I provide. And you'll see the creators

provide. And you'll see the creators that are succeeding now from day one are having a combination of those, right?

You can put up a lot of views that intellectual content, but if no one cares about you, it's just views unless you have a great offer for them. But if

you add that personality on top of it where you're actually explaining a bit of what happens in your life, where people really feel like they get to know you, you can do really well with I want to call out uh Rye, who I met at a cash app event, who does an amazing job of

this on TikTok. So, he talks a lot about his financial life as a younger person, credit cards he's using, financial decisions he's made, how he's investing, but in the same time, he takes you along on his life, on every vlog, on every decision, on going shopping to replace

an iPad. And you really feel like you

an iPad. And you really feel like you know him. He's done an excellent job at

know him. He's done an excellent job at his core niche, which is basically educating you on financial products that I'm sure makes him a lot of money. And

then also on the back half of that, making you really feel like he's a friend that you have in your life from the content that goes on screen. If you

are developing a plan for personal brand in 2026, that split I just outlined is extra crucial. The graphic YAP format

extra crucial. The graphic YAP format where you are talking about true intellectual stuff, not just some low-grade and you're doing your research and you're putting real work in to make a video or two a week in that style, and you are backing it up on

the other half with actual content where people can get to know you in different ways is what is going to make creators who actually generate money from social media. So, next up, we're actually going

media. So, next up, we're actually going to talk about finding your niche and doing that and the exact content types you should work on. And so, I want to call my guy Brody here. Bernie is a videographer and editor. He's been with me on my China trips. He was with me at Premier Vision last year. He shot some

of the videos you see on this YouTube.

And he started making content maybe a year ago. He did cut 30. He was making

year ago. He did cut 30. He was making content about content, giving advice for making better videos. I remember at the time being like, "Hey, there's a lot of people who do that." And I don't really think this is going to be that amazing.

You need to find something you're interested in or your niche. And it's

funny is uh at some point a few weeks ago, he started making videos about a thing that he's passionate about, gaming. and his gaming videos have way

gaming. and his gaming videos have way more views than the content videos ever did because you can tell he's really interested in it. It's compelling and it's more of a niche than more people talking about content on the internet.

But then it's also led to people reaching out to him in that niche to do the work that he is already good at.

There is a superpower in talking about the thing you're passionate about. There

is also a superpower in locality. This

is Sam. He's a friend of mine who was in cut 30 recently where he's following the easiest way to success right now where he is talking about the area he lives.

He's talking about the South Bay, Roondo Beach, Manhattan Beach. and he's

providing recommendations and starting conversations there around simple things. The best sushi events that are

things. The best sushi events that are happening, the best dumpling spot, what homes cost. Algorithms are built for

homes cost. Algorithms are built for localized content. You've heard me talk

localized content. You've heard me talk about this before, but that doesn't mean that you need to just be a OC food account or a Athens, Georgia tour guide.

That's a leverage point to bring in your expertise, right? So, I've known Sam

expertise, right? So, I've known Sam from the internet for a long time. He's

built tons of businesses. He had a really cool website business. He's done

a lot of interesting stuff in tech. He's

built apps. And so he has an interesting perspective as a business person, as someone who knows how businesses work, who knows how technology can impact them to be able to take something like a localized audience, build an expertise

and have something interesting there.

But if I was any person starting on social media right now who didn't know what I actually wanted to do, I would start as a local tour guide. So for

instance, if I tomorrow could no longer make content about marketing, I want to grow as big as possible, I would be a design tour guide for LA. Go from a tasteful perspective. What should people

tasteful perspective. What should people do in LA? I would be critiquing the actual design and production of the stuff that's there. Going to the expensive shops saying, "Are these jeans worth $2,000 going to the new place that

opened and critiquing the interiors or saying this or that?" Or doing tasteful person's guides to ice cream, sushi, coffee boba museums bookstores relentlessly until I figured out what I

wanted to build on top of that because I would get an audience of people that live there and people that are traveling there interested in that niche. and the

algorithm is excellent at showing that to people. And so for those of you that

to people. And so for those of you that don't know where you want to build, that is 100% the place that I would start.

And this ties really well into why hospitality content goes so well currently. I'm going to break down two

currently. I'm going to break down two of my favorite accounts in hospitality in the video formats that any expert can use here in a sec. But first, if you work in marketing or run content for a brand, then this free report from

HubSpot is actually one you need to read. It's called the 2026 state of

read. It's called the 2026 state of marketing report, and it breaks down where marketing is actually headed right now. specifically, how to scale with AI

now. specifically, how to scale with AI without turning into a content farm, and how to build real brand trust when everyone's fighting for the same attention. Inside the report, they cover

attention. Inside the report, they cover three big shifts. One, brand point of view is becoming a real growth engine, similar to what I'm talking about here with personalities. As AI floods the

with personalities. As AI floods the market with content, brands with a clear perspective are standing out, and ones without a clear perspective are getting buried. And the report shows which

buried. And the report shows which branding investments are actually delivering ROI right now and examples of what that perspective means. Second, AI

is a baseline now, not the differentiator. 81% of marketers say

differentiator. 81% of marketers say this is the biggest disruption in 20 years and 80% are already using AI for content creation. So the question isn't

content creation. So the question isn't whether you're using it, it's how well.

And third, humanled marketing is still what wins trust and revenue. The data

shows that audiences reward brands that feel real and authentic that are actually helpful, not just automated and optimized. And we see this play out on

optimized. And we see this play out on social every day. And my favorite part is the section on brand POV. It lines up with everything I talk about on this channel. Having a sharp, distinctive

channel. Having a sharp, distinctive perspective is what separates you from a sea of AI generated noise. This report

backs it up with real data on what's actually working. If you want to

actually working. If you want to understand the shifts happening in marketing right now and make smarter decisions about where to put your energy, you can get this report for free at the link in the description. And

thank you so much to HubSpot for sponsoring this video. All right, so I want to call out one of my personal favorite accounts right now, which is first class jerk. Uh Adam Love is his name on Tik Tok. And he is a travel and

hospitality content creator. Why I like his content so much is that he doesn't just play one note. He does multiple things that interest me and engage me around the niche of travel and hospitality in general. And one of them

is he shares news, right? Virgin just

brought back this specific thing. He's

using the carousel format to share announcements and things that have been happening. This is where I love

happening. This is where I love carousels. Carousels are a great content

carousels. Carousels are a great content pillar if you're doing a lot of other types of content already. They can help you reach your existing audience well tap into new localized audiences and they're easy to create. He does these

compilations of rules. He actually

intersects them their favorite hotel location. He

will put that into videos and carousels as well. There's a community aspect to

as well. There's a community aspect to what he's doing. Probably my favorite part of that is the fact that he's seeing who follows him, engaging them immediately, and then putting that content on the timeline, and it makes it feel like there's a flywheel in the community happening there. We DM

celebrities who follow FCJ, here are their favorite hotel stays, part five.

Shout out Bear Grills. Absolute legend.

But in addition to opinion pieces and curation, he's building credibility by going to these places, putting his face in front of them. And this is a key thing. You will see on my channel, I

thing. You will see on my channel, I review products now physically in hand because I've talked about enough stuff on green screen. Anyone can do that.

Anyone can make up those things. But if

you have something tactile in your hands or you go to a real place, the way I was going to China to talk about clothing production back when that was something I was really interested in, gives you a layer of credibility that other accounts can't have. When you look at all of the

can't have. When you look at all of the massgenerated stuff, everyone's making the same carousels. Everyone's copying

each other's videos. What they can't copy is having the personality, the resources, and the connections to actually go show that you're in the streets, for lack of a better term, cuz or inside the castle in this case. Now,

he does an excellent job with that balanced with his other content. day

four of touring the best hotels in New York. In addition to the more timely

York. In addition to the more timely stuff, this is a perfect example of the content pillar system I preach all the time where he has multiple formats that he repeats from news-based carousels to curating from his audience to talking

about concepts and ideas in the niche to actually going and doing physical tours of places. And so there's always

of places. And so there's always something new and exciting there and you might get reeled in with one format then learn a lot from the others. And so

another accountant in the same niche and uh cut 30 grad want to shout out Ryan who does in hospitality. He does this and I want to break down what he does here and how that kind of leads to his offer flow as well. So he is a

hospitality consultant. He is helping

hospitality consultant. He is helping hospitality brands. So he has a lot of

hospitality brands. So he has a lot of green screen takes but following a similar formula right where he is doing versus videos. One of my favorite

versus videos. One of my favorite techniques where you compare two things against each other. He's doing videos about how things are dying and he's also doing videos about the future. This is a three tiered strategy. I'll break it down again in a second for coming up

with video concepts. That is amazing.

He's also breaking down history. So, he

will go into a history of the Fairmont hotels. Then he'll go into what their

hotels. Then he'll go into what their future looks like in the next video. So,

almost like a miniseries carousels on what trends look like. This is how you position yourself well as an expert.

He's done an excellent job doing it. And

I like to call it for everybody. You

scroll down on his account. He's only

been doing this for a few months, but he's been on a grind posting lots of videos. And you'll see these. This is 60

videos. And you'll see these. This is 60 days ago, 90 days ago, and he's getting 20 likes, couple hundred views, and he's just yapping in front of the bookshelf.

And then he's moving into the green screen. Still not putting up great

screen. Still not putting up great numbers, but he's staying consistent.

Okay, now we're starting to hit. And

then he starts getting thousands of likes. And then that stays consistent

likes. And then that stays consistent from there where his views and his interest are doing really well. And the

playbook I want to call out, this isn't about hospitality. There's plenty of

about hospitality. There's plenty of hospitality content. If you're not

hospitality content. If you're not already an expert, I wouldn't go back hop into that niche. But in any other niche you're talking about, if you're in design, if you're in creativity, if you're in marketing, if you're in legal, you're in accounting, whatever it is, when you're setting yourself up as a

personal brand, this is the formula to work at versus content. Comparing one

thing versus another. Old school versus new school, cheap versus luxury, gap versus acrruel, comparison beats explanation almost every time. Number

two is history. Like those deep dives and graphic gaps I presented before go into interesting things in the niche.

I'm doing a video like this in like two weeks about truffles. I'm giving the whole history of how truffles turn synthetic, China's production of truffles, how the impacted truffle supply chain, and why that means that most people have never actually really tasted truffle. It's a history video,

tasted truffle. It's a history video, right? You're giving context. You're

right? You're giving context. You're

getting people in by showing them what you're passionate about. You can do this in any niche. Inerson review, you'll notice Ryan's reviewing spots in Toronto. He's going to hotels where he

Toronto. He's going to hotels where he lives and giving feedback. You know,

Toronto is not the most glamorous market, right? It doesn't matter where

market, right? It doesn't matter where you are, but where can you show that expertise in person? What can you have in hand is a crucial differentiator as more and more people make review and and content where they're giving opinion.

How can you tactically show that you really do it? And then there's the future. Ryan's killer at this. He's

future. Ryan's killer at this. He's

always putting out what is this future of this type of hospitality? What is the future of this hotel group? What is the future of bar consumption? If Gen Z is doing X or Y, giving predictions of what things look like is a way to establish expertise and more importantly stimulate

conversation because people will have opinions on it. The thing I want to add on for anyone following this formula is to have a relentless CTA. So you will see Ryan in stories a lot being like, "Hey, I'm taking on a new project of this type or that type. I'm trying to

learn about X, so I'm looking for a client in Y." And he's always asking for people that are looking for help restoring their bar, working on their hotel. I know a lot of people who are

hotel. I know a lot of people who are running this run the email funnel, right? It's saying, "Hey, get on my

right? It's saying, "Hey, get on my email list, join the Substack, and then they will begin to pitch their offers inside of there." When you're talking about making money, get this making money section. Now, there's really two

money section. Now, there's really two key angles to do this. Brand deals,

that's number one. That is a much harder road, not what I recommend for most people, but we'll still walk through it.

Second is creating content for other people. Easy media money. And then the

people. Easy media money. And then the third is having an offer. I'm going

explain what an offer is. So, first

let's talk about brand deals. The bottom

tier of where brand deals are accepted is growing, right? 200,000 followers is the new 50,000 followers. If you want to get considered looking for brand deals, you have to be pretty big now. It's cuz

there's a lot of creators that are getting pretty big. But if you want to circumvent that, the number one way to do it is provide content that brands will want to whitelist and run ads for and also get on those brands radar. So,

for instance, I was hit up. There's a

huge Airwong collab launching this week.

It's function and air1. They hit me up.

Function did because I've already made content about air1 smoothies. And

they've seen, oh, successful content about an air1 smoothie launch. That's

someone we should work with. When I

bought my human scale chair, human scale was like, "Hey, we'd love to run an ad on this content." Same thing that happened when I reviewed the board, the game for my kids stuff. They hit me up being like, "Hey, let's make another version of this we can run as an ad."

You have to already be making content and be on the radar for this. If you

make a lot of content about Adobe Illustrator, guess who's going to be looking at getting an Adobe sponsorship?

Cuz those brands, look at those people first. at one of the makeup brands I

first. at one of the makeup brands I work with. That is the requirement. They

work with. That is the requirement. They

have to have posted about that brand organically prior or they don't understand it enough and they're a big enough brand where that's feasible. So,

it's the number one easiest way to get on the radar to do that. You have to be doing that kind of review and overview and showcase videos before you're getting paid for it. And you'll see a lot of those brands begin to hit you up and all of a sudden you have an asset or two that does well. You do a couple

cheap at first, those ads start running.

It becomes a flywheel because the more ads you do, the more showcases you have, the more they come in. Brand deals is a hard game as one of the biggest certainly the biggest in my niche doing that. It is an absolute grind. You have

that. It is an absolute grind. You have

to post a lot of content. It's actually

hard to make good content for the brands as well. There's a lot of factors to

as well. There's a lot of factors to consider, but obviously there's great money at the end of it. Number two, this is the best one, is being able to use that to be a creator for brands in your niche. When I was on tour the other

niche. When I was on tour the other week, I had a lot of people who had made that exact jump. There's a woman who had made content on medical devices who got hired by medical device firm to be their creator. I am constantly hit up by

creator. I am constantly hit up by brands who are looking for creators, especially in intellectual niches. And

if you are marketing creators who are looking for that kind of stuff, DM me on Instagram.

>> The hard part about this is there's no real aggregation for it. It's not like there's a platform you can go on. Brands

know how to ask. Creators know how to show themselves, but everyone wants it.

And so with that, that's one of the things that you have to put out there on your email list or on your stories or on your CTA like, hey, looking for a brand or two, just like Ryan saying, looking for a hospital hospitality client or two. You need to make the ask, hey, I'm

two. You need to make the ask, hey, I'm looking for a brand or two where I can make content for you on your feed.

putting that out on stories, mentioning it inside some of the content that you do, putting it in your newsletter.

That's a worthwhile call to action to have. And what most creative people miss

have. And what most creative people miss is they just never ask for the sale and then wonder why they don't get it.

Should run that back. Every creative

person should just run that back. And I

want you to glaze over that point. And

the third, we're going to talk about offers. So, first, what is an offer? If

offers. So, first, what is an offer? If

you're a creative person who's who says, "Oh, I'm a designer. I saw all types of design. This this is for you." Most

design. This this is for you." Most

people do not know how to package and sell their expertise. And so, what they do is they say, "I'm a consultant for X or Y, or I'm a designer. I'm a

videographer. I'm an editor. That's not

what people want to buy. They don't want to buy a big default thing. Is way

easier to say, I sell X. I do brand sprints where I will develop a brand for you within 14 days. And every offer has to be based on one of the principles of sales, which is, are you selling speed?

Is it going to be faster than the competition? Are you selling price? Is

competition? Are you selling price? Is

going to be cheaper than the competition? Or are you selling skill?

competition? Or are you selling skill?

Am I better than the competition? And

you can't have all three. You need to choose at least one you're going to market on. I'm going to give you the

market on. I'm going to give you the best brand identity possible on the same timeline as everyone else. I'm going to give you a brand identity in two weeks and it's going to be solid. That's an

amazing value proposition. Then look at what people are actually buying, right?

If you are a designing carousels for social media like we talked about, that's a niche people are buying in.

Right now, you need to decide what is that offer that I have. I I help hotels do X and Y in a workshop and actually package that offer. And every single expert, you're either looking for one of two things. You want to move up in your

two things. You want to move up in your career at some point and leverage your social media to move up in your career.

We'll talk about that in a minute. Or

you are selling some type of consultation or service and you should package that, not have that be be default. Now, how to make this good? At

default. Now, how to make this good? At

least you have alignment with your niche. I know a couple creators who sell

niche. I know a couple creators who sell something totally different. There's a

lot of creators have video editing services, right? That's a a thing that

services, right? That's a a thing that tons of people market and they upsell people from the Philippines. But if your content is about restaurants, it has a little bit of alignment. You could be like social media editing for restaurants, but it's like not quite there. You need actual alignment. Ryan

there. You need actual alignment. Ryan

has alignment. He makes content about hospitality in the future of hospitality and he will help bars, hotels, and restaurants who are trying to change their trajectory. So, offer alignment is

their trajectory. So, offer alignment is crucial to match to the content that you have. If you are selling content about

have. If you are selling content about AI graphic design but you have photography services again it's not aligned then specificity get to I am selling you a specific thing you have this package of these assets right I no longer do consultation I just do

programs but before it was like I will give you creative strategy for your campaign or for your social content and you will get the ideas and the briefs and all the connections needed to execute them and that was the offer and then what I also see is most people need

two tiers if you are selling a higher ticket thing or an expensive thing you should give people away to try with a $1,000 hey we do a workshop again something cheaper or something smaller that can get people in the door that then you can then use to validate if

they're the right client to have for something larger. That is the 120 second

something larger. That is the 120 second version of what offers are and what that offer stack matters. That's how every expert needs to think about what they sell. And if you make content, you don't

sell. And if you make content, you don't know what to sell from it because it's a niche that doesn't have alignment with something you can sell. You probably

have a a gap there. You need to think about what am I really doing on social media? Why am I making content like

media? Why am I making content like this? And then think about do I need a

this? And then think about do I need a new account or a new approach that allows me to align an offer I can deliver with the content I'm making that's popular. Next, we're going to get

that's popular. Next, we're going to get into the two biggest traps that are happening right now. Probably three, two and a half. We're talk about the three levels of making content for a personal brand in 26. We'll wrap it up. So, the

traps you need to avoid. First is the sameness trap. You will see now someone

sameness trap. You will see now someone makes a popular format. People hop on it. They make the exact same thing

it. They make the exact same thing extremely quick and you can pull up views that way. But, as you'll notice, there's a lot of people that knock off the product versus brand content I do.

There are 11 people I have a list who have made multiple versions of this video. One of them at least asked and

video. One of them at least asked and had a conversation about it and were friendly and so that was fun. Some

tagged me a few times, great, whatever.

But one thing that's noticed about basically all of them is that they don't get the same level of sponsorship or flow that I do because at the end of the day, it's someone else's idea. People

don't want the second person on the idea. They want the originator of the

idea. They want the originator of the idea. Now, if you have your own ideas to

idea. Now, if you have your own ideas to supplement that, that's a different thing. And people may want to check in

thing. And people may want to check in and clock into that. But you are not going to get to the monetization as well from someone else's thing. And so

instead of copying, look at how do you put your unique spin on any of these?

And it's really not that hard. But with

that sameness trap comes everyone being like, how can I do this with AI? Can I

use claw to write my scripts? Can I just put their content in chatbt and make a new version of it? Can I automate these carousels with X or Y? If you are flooding spam onto the timeline, the only money you get, if you get any money

at all, is going to be money that goes away quick because everyone else who wants a cheap and easy version is doing the same thing and that gets commodified first and commodified the fastest. It's

why you don't see nearly any people that are actually using AI generated content to have any form of success beyond maybe driving some leads to a SAS product. And

as more and more of it rises, the only thing that stands out is what I mentioned before, personality, connection with the audience. The last

one is the high production trap. I know

a lot of people that are in this right now because high production content had a huge moment in 2025. We're talking

about social shows, all those like vignettes of different carousels that were popping. Everyone's making

were popping. Everyone's making beautiful looking films. Brands are show all these things off. But now when you actually watch people scroll and consume that content, you begin to realize it was exciting at the start. People really

like it. They find it funny. They'd

engage with it. They go to the brand.

Now it's noise. Now, there's so many high production brands doing their version of that that it doesn't perform as well. And if it does put up the likes

as well. And if it does put up the likes and views, you're not getting that click-through and that connection. It's

basically looking at like, okay, they're watching Hulu and they never get to the ad. They never click through and go to

ad. They never click through and go to the call to action. And there's a lot of people who specialize in that who are struggling right now cuz they're like, these things that we're launching don't work. When they do work, we're not

work. When they do work, we're not getting the results and the sales that come on the other end. And it's funny cuz I remember when Adam Oseri from Instagram mentioned this and he was like, "Hey, we've seen in AI generated content. It's actually easier for us to

content. It's actually easier for us to call out real generated content and is AI and actually believe it's going to lead to lowerfi content overall or more natural candid conversations." I

remember at the time being like, I don't really know if that's right necessarily.

And then now I'm like, oh, he was actually 100% right. Where whatever you were doing to form that personal connection is the only thing that matters and everything else is this wide expansive noise. We're going to end with

expansive noise. We're going to end with the three levels of personal brand here.

The first that everyone watching this should do is create to escape. And there

are tons of people doing this. When I

launched my video, I think it was the art of the personal brand maybe four or five months ago. I've never had as many people DM me within a few months saying I started to make content and were successful. It was 50 plus. A lot of

successful. It was 50 plus. A lot of them have really popping accounts. It

was kind of crazy to see. If you've not watched that, go back and watch that video if you need exact road map. You

don't have the tools you have from this.

But that video is about creating to escape. Once you start doing it and you

escape. Once you start doing it and you get your first couple thousand followers and you now it's a skill that you have.

You never have to worry about where you're going to work again. You are

going to be able to when you need to turn it on and put your foot down is going to get to level two in a second.

You can >> you can do it.

>> You now have the power cuz you began to build an audience and you have the skill set that whenever you need to turn it on, you can. That's where we're going to go to for level two is turning it on. If

you are actually selling something right now and you want to generate business right now or if you're at level one where you created and you're at a current job, you didn't really have a goal but now you're like, "Oh I lost my job." Or, "You know what? I'm

tired of this." Hey, I want to take a change. Then you put the foot on the gas

change. Then you put the foot on the gas and you have the ability to because you started. You can generate affinity for

started. You can generate affinity for your service. You can generate leads.

your service. You can generate leads.

You can tell people you're open for employment. You can put it down. That's

employment. You can put it down. That's

level two of content. You're doing it with a reason. I encourage everyone to get into level one. Everyone thinks

they're like, "Oh, there's so many creators. How come there be room for

creators. How come there be room for more?" We're still battling against the

more?" We're still battling against the worst news media ever. Terrible

television experiences. There's more

consumption happening here and there's only more to go. And you don't need a bunch. You need a couple thousand

bunch. You need a couple thousand followers and the ability to know you have a video that can get 20,000 50,000 views. And then you have that ability

views. And then you have that ability again whenever you want to turn on and be like, I need leads for my consulting business. I want to find a new job. I'm

business. I want to find a new job. I'm

going to X place and I want to meet people. All these objectives you have in

people. All these objectives you have in your life, it is a tool to achieve those objectives. And it is the biggest

objectives. And it is the biggest superpower you can tap into in our modern time. And level three, if you

modern time. And level three, if you want to scale that, you want to go beyond this. Okay, you got your first

beyond this. Okay, you got your first 10, 20,000 followers or you got a couple hundred thousand followers and it's kind of scaling but you don't have that affinity. You're like, okay, people like

affinity. You're like, okay, people like the content, but it's not doing anything for me. That's all about personality.

for me. That's all about personality.

People have to get to know you. They

have to like and love you. There needs

to be story lines and plot lines and things that come with that. And that's

not for everybody. It totally doesn't have to be. But that's the third level if you want to get to there. So, quick

housekeeping. I'm doing another community call. It's going to be this

community call. It's going to be this Sunday where we're just going to be live workshopping. I'm going be teaching a

workshopping. I'm going be teaching a bunch about creative strategy. You can

find that in the description down below.

We don't have another new cut 30 until March. You can get on the wait list for

March. You can get on the wait list for that on the link below as well if you want to do short form content with people over 30 days. and we have our state of content report where we break down all the trends and stuff in the written version. I'm going to link down

written version. I'm going to link down there below. There are a whole bunch uh

there below. There are a whole bunch uh of things happening. We're going to keep these community calls going every month.

I love chatting with y'all. You have

questions, you're trying to decide what kind of content to make. You want to know what you would want to yap about.

Comment your niche, comment what you have down below. We can workshop some.

Once they'll start to get to like 500 comments, I usually give up. I try to hit as many as I can getting into it.

So, if you have that, drop them below and I will get to them. Thank you'all so much for watching.