Authenticity Over Aesthetics: Real Creator Growth in 2025

0:00 Welcome back to the Create Podcast. I'm the JumpCutKing. And in today's podcast, we're going to talk about creativity and authenticity. Most importantly, being your authentic, real self. So a lot of times when you jump in being a content creator, you feel the need to exaggerate who you are and your role to the creators, to other creators and your role in your industry, or your role to the audience.

1:03 build an app, as you become a content creator, as you become a pioneer in your field, as you begin to make connections with your audience, they're going to be looking to see how real you are and how easy it is for them to connect with you. One of the number one ways to disconnect someone in today's world is to overproduce your content. And by overproduce, I simply mean by adding way too many lower thirds, by adding way too much B-roll, by adding a professional quality to things when your audience isn't there.

2:11 someone build a podcast literally on the phone there in another city, almost halfway across the state. And you know, they're like, okay, what do we do? And how do I do this? And the first one they shot pretty bad, but the content was good. And I said, you know what? Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater saying mean don't give up or don't not share the content you started, even though in the future you want to look better.

3:12 oh, they shouldn't say this. Like they're in a studio space. And believe it or not, sometimes he'll find a space, right? There's a tattoo artist that he found a space for. He's going to film this next episode of the podcast called Classic Man. I encourage you to subscribe on all platforms. That's real authentic conversations about how men, modern classic men should live in this world. And it's great content.

4:15 some stuff at that space. And I'm looking forward to looking over the content and being able to, you know, give some advice. But one of the advice I gave him was not actually use the word sponsor. So that podcast quote unquote is sponsored by the universe. That's my company. And to be honest, it's not really sponsored by the universe is so much using my music library. He's using my licenses.

5:20 close to releasing this public product, which I honestly am probably going to share a little bit of that story with you in just about 10 minutes. So don't go anywhere. And you're going to find that the experience that you're experiencing as a content creator, whether you're an entrepreneur, whether you're building a new business, whether you own a small business, whether you own a medium size business, whether you own a large business, whether you just have an idea and you're running with it, or whether you're doing an indie film or whether you're working nine to five and have a passion project.

6:22 relevant today, but I told him, just don't use that word. Instead, tell them that they're allowing you to use a space, that they're building a local community, that they're supporting you as a local content creator. And they're supporting your type of content and they have a great space and then talk about their services. That's no problem because they're offering you a free space. I'm not saying don't talk about their services.

7:23 lavish lifestyle. They tend to, it's like the pyramid schemes of old. Someone was selling you something. And if you sold this thing to other people, you'd raise in the ranks and they'd have conferences and they'd say, hey, we're here on my luxury yacht and we're here in my mansion. We're here with my Lamborghini and everything. And it's like showcasing kind of a false facade of what they want to say.

8:24 are going to show, you know, if you use this, you're going to make $10 million. If you use this and I've done this, and if you do this, you're going to be running around in a luxury yacht. And the reality is they're either new, just starting, or their techniques only work for a specialized group. And I'm talking about the legit ones. Now there's a whole host of unlegit ones that will lie to you and blatantly say, we're giving you the opportunity to make millions of dollars.

9:27 about, think about the user experience, me walking in on the floor, seeing where everything is, seeing if it's retail, seeing, you know, where things are going, if it's a store, seeing where products are sold, like I'm talking outside of clothing retail, or if it's an online website, what's the experience? What's the pain points? What are your customers saying? We hate. And what, honestly, I'm telling you, I hate.

10:27 him. And he's launching a book, right? And on Instagram, TikTok, and all of the big social media companies, he's been blasting his content, probably because I, at one point in time, wanted to see what he was doing. And I registered for a course. And then apparently my email got added and Instagram and TikTok and use all that information to promote you. And apparently he's doing a launch, right?

11:29 else. But the language was ambiguous enough for you to think that in order for you to get all the bonus features that you thought you were going to get, you had to share this. It didn't exactly say that, but it made you kind of believe it, for lack of a better word. Now, the reality is you'll still get all those bonus features, whether or not you do that.

12:31 When they spend that on Instagram, stop. TikTok, stop. Google, stop. If you're not, if you don't know how to hone your advertising campaign, if you don't, do A-B testing with small amounts. And I mean really trivial small, like 10, 15, 25, 50 bucks. Trivial amounts. A-B testing. At A-B-C to E-F-G, test your campaigns. Is this one working? Is that one working? Which one's performing? And you find out which one's performing, and then you ramp those up with your budget slightly a little bit to see and confirm.

13:32 and your ROI for an advertisement should be, if it's $240 a click, that click should equal a hundred bucks. Like immediately they should buy and be a hundred bucks. So if I was 15 clicks and one person buys a $500 product, okay, that's an ROI. That's great. If I'm spending 50 bucks or again, 50 clicks and one person's going and they're buying one thing and they're leaving, that's bad.

14:35 in the brand. I'm buying something because I know they have a track record of success buying something. Cause I know that they're releasing something that's going to disturb the market and they have a track record of success. Can't negate that. Like when I first started the stock market, no, I'm not a stock market genius. Please know my portfolio is probably worse than other people in my situation.

15:37 component, if you're a very, very small business, got a few people on payroll and your sales are barely making payroll and you're barely being able to process information, not just talking about one particular client, talking about a lot of people that I know, I will advise and say, Hey, I don't recommend you do this. You want to do this. I don't recommend it, but I recommend you do this.

16:39 No one is seeing what purchases go through. And they're just told social media is the only way people will get to you. And I agree. So it's like a mall, the old school mall, right? You're in social media, right? Okay. Imagine a giant mall and you're getting seen, you know, people's usernames and their profiles and posts, except here's one problem. You're in a mall of 1.5 billion other users and you're surrounded by too much.

17:39 that I'm trying to give you, like there's no script. Again, this is the second podcast I've done with no teleprompter, no script. Uh, it's just me having a conversation with you. And we've been going for about 20 minutes and I promised you probably about 15 minutes ago, to be honest, I promised you that I would tell you a little bit of my, my creator story. And you're probably like, well, I don't really don't care about you because you have a low amount of subscribers and you have a low amount of action.

18:42 I did not. It took me two weeks and I finally put it together to record. And I discovered I did not have the right mic, had to buy a mic, did not have the right interface, had to buy an interface to record from the right mic. Cause this is XLR. And if you're wondering, you cannot plug an XLR into your computer, you can try. There is no place for it to go.

19:49 a little bit more work and wasn't ready. And it wasn't ready for a couple of months later. And then I finally upgraded here. And then I moved from kind of a corner shot to more of this kind of shot, which has a little bit of depth. I mean, I'm pretty sure people think that I have a lot of experience with this wonderful looking, it's actually just, it's just a trademark, but it has an official seal and it looks all official.

20:50 in the corner, and then it's flipped. So I can't like adjust the beard properly because I want to adjust the beard here, but it cameras flipped. And so I'm just, hmm. As a content creator, I experience a lot, a lot of fight, not just as a Christian, you know, dealing with a lot of spiritual chaos. Please pray for my family. There's a lot going on. It's pretty intense.

21:55 decision. My car was in the shop. And then I had to contend getting the boxing ring with the insurance company and the auto body shop that I had chosen because of they were well referred to word of mouth advertising. But my insurance company and them kept battling over stuff. And eventually I had to pull out the Ohio reserve code and put on my civic hat, for lack of a better word, since I'm not an official lawyer.

23:01 None of it. Me and you were created in the image of God and in the likeness of God were created. It's called a imago Dei. The likeness of God. He looked in all of heaven and was like, let's create man in our image. I really do not like hot button topics. And, you know, as a content creator, one of the best things you can do, find something that goes viral and just be negative about it and just flip it and do all those kinds of things.

24:02 content creator are a few fold. I told you I'd tell you about these. So I'm just going to jump into them. First, finding that content. So you know your why, you know your story. I hope by now you're paying attention to this podcast. You know your why, you know your story. If not, jump back. If you don't know your why, you got to find your why. The reason you do what you do.

25:04 you know, traditionally good entertainment, good family entertainment, but something that's still challenges the mind and challenges you'd live, walk by faith. And then in every single industry and part of this overarching plan is the universe platform, which is designed to do twofold, to help people solve a lot of problems, things that have plagued developers, things that have plagued small businesses, things that have plagued medium business, large businesses alike, and to give you the ability to use this branded cohesive experience that larger brands pay a lot of money for, that you can use and build using this platform and using this service I have yet to launch that I'm really close to and looking forward to, um, that lets you replace things like, um, the struggles with, you know, using other service providers who may be, you know, allow plugins and extensions and they're on a date, or you have experience, you're, you're not having a modern thing and you have to go buy a style and to go buy this. And so I, I think, I think of those as Androids, you can do whatever

26:05 you want, however you want. And I'm creating more of an iPhone kind of lockdown experience, but with features that I know you need to excel your business and that people have asked for that have never really truly been baked into an experience and then into a platform without additional extensions and plugins. And I can create in such a way that it solves those problems and does so, I think brilliantly, but to be honest, I'm not, you know, impartial.

27:11 a lot, there used to be a world where you could go instantly viral. And that was five, 10 years ago when the algorithms relatively new and you could exploit them with certain tactics, which you can't do now. And it's harder for an unknown person, intentionally harder for an unknown person to get into that blast with two exceptions. If you continuously release content, continuously let the content out and if you're authentic, but it's a long game.

28:13 And then you have a bus that drives by or you have someone who's banging on your door because they think they're trying to deliver a door dash to you. And that's completely wrong address. And you're like, bro, use your map like, and that's just the small things. But when I'm coding and someone wants to update a library that I'm dependent on that I now have to replace because I was dependent on it and it wrecked everything.

29:19 the server out. And I did all those kinds of things. It was, I mean, I was able to fix it in four to six hours, but that's four to six hours spending on support tickets, finding out chat and calls, finding out they can't do anything. And then I have to do it myself. I was really upset, but those things happen when you buy a product and the product gets delivered and you're going to put it on your shelves and it's destroyed.

30:20 stored in the battery or those kinds of things. And so we had to wait six months for a new one to come in. And then, so we had, they had sent us again, the wrong connectors and the wrong pieces. So we had to run a new electric wire, had to get an electrician to run a new wire to connect it to here. And while we wait for them to fix it, so we could have the actual right amount of electricity that the studio really needed when it was all full, ready to go.

31:20 blow up when a power outage happens or lightning strikes, which has happened before, because you haven't given us the right specs or haven't installed it. So when I get involved in installation, I kind of make it happen. Plenty of walls, et cetera, whatever have you, because I just, I can't stand spending a hundred thousand dollars on something and having something not being installed properly. There's a lack of knowledge.

32:25 years and years to build the framework that I have. And even then, you know, we find new things I can do better and things I can do to improve, et cetera. But it's all a part of the process. If you don't have thick skin, so to speak, if you're not willing to fight for the right to be an entrepreneur or the right to control your schedule, the right to have a future, if you're not going to do the hard work up front.

33:34 and help you take that next step and leap. So I'm saying we walk by faith, not by sight. I'm not saying it's going to be easy. Never have I ever said that in a day of my life. I wanted it to be easy. I wanted there to be an easy button. I've wanted to help clients. He had that magic easy button somewhere that exists to churn millions and millions of dollars.

34:38 put their boss's phone number in TikTok and they get calls all the time. Hey, can I get this private jet? I don't have any money, but I would like this. And this conversation spark and a social media kind of storm happened. They got instantly viral, but they got connections to the clients and they've been able to tell the client story. And they have this format where they're on the phone with clients or their employees come in.

35:46 I mean, we've all had these experiences with clients and experiences building and experiences failing and experience succeeding. And it's about being authentic. So there's no easy button. There never has been, never will be, but with faith and hard work and everyone that you see becomes an instant success. Look at their success rate. They had 10, 20 years of YouTube videos before they got successful. They had tens, 20 years of going into the stock market before they hit gold.

36:49 and you do it true to the moral center that you have into the ethics that God has put in your heart and you pursue that purpose, whatever it is, we'll succeed. But you have to be okay with the process. Like this camera right here, I'm using portrait mode. So that way it kind of moves if I move and such. But every time I move my hands down, it's deciding it's going to go show my desk and, you know, I'm wearing shorts instead of pants.

37:52 hey, you need to do your skincare and this is what you need to do. Great. Someone's telling me to improve. I'll improve all the time. But it's okay to embrace the flaws and embrace the process. You will never get it perfect on day one. It will hurt on day 22. It'll hurt on day, month three. And what will happen is you'll have temporary pain. Arguments with the cameras, arguments with editing software, fighting with this, fighting with that.

38:53 world. Of course, when I build the software as a service, then the bottom line will change because the software as a service is going to be mostly automatic and you do what you need to do. You pay for it and it grows and expands with you. It has access to the cloud infrastructure, can automatically spool servers. I shouldn't say will. I haven't run that part yet, but it can.

39:53 okay, I'm going to find them. They're going to come to me. Word of mouth advertising, preferably same. I'm using the same, I'll use the same kind of strategies that Alex Hormozi, Hormozi I used to first book, but for the platform, but I'm probably going to do a little bit differently, but a little more ethically. It personal opinion, ethically, I'm not saying you're unethical. I just don't like leaving customers with a negative experience because all the customers that, and my success story is this.

40:58 and I parked it where I shouldn't have parked in and it was stuck. And it was like, I'll do that after the meeting, walked in great meeting showcase. I didn't even have to do much showcasing. We just had a conversation. I'm asking the right questions. All I did literally was on my iPad. Okay. Yes. And a little bit about you. Okay. What did you, when you were founded, when did you start?

42:03 I think bare minimum, you need X, but I think that you need X, Y, and Z. And I'll be able to take these two packages, meet them in the middle. You won't have X, Y, and Z from the package, which will have X from this package, X from this package, Y from this package. And I built them, kind of a custom pricing schedule because, you know, I own the business.

43:04 And I'm like, but I'm doing it. And it's usually, you know, giving nonprofits, big discounts. It's I don't give them big discounts. There's, there's one nonprofit I give a big discount to, but their family. And cause I worked with them before I went on my own and kind of love being around them. I mean, people say they're not great. There are podcasts about them, all those kinds of things.

44:08 things and I've, I've not done the marketing university things. I have taken clients from marketing universities that they've paid, you know, hundreds of dollars a month for a marketing university website that they desperately need a new page. And I've, I've heard people get, so there's a stigmatism to me because a lot of the clients that I've had that have invested in these things have lost thousands of dollars.

45:09 launch. That's like Saturday or whatever. And I'll be on live because I'll take notes and learn what you're doing. And I'll pay very much attention to his advertising. I'll pay very much attention. I'll learn and I'll grow because I don't know everything. And I told you that when I first started this podcast, I don't know everything. In fact, I want to say, I don't know almost nothing in comparison to what God knows, but I do know what I do know.

46:12 if I could have learned what investment is, learned what it takes to register a chairman. This is on my wall because I did that. I don't like telling people that because if they're a lawyer, they're like, oh my God, I can see if you've done something wrong there. And I'm like, I'm not a lawyer, no. But that took two and a half years since filing and one fight with them because I didn't understand their application.

47:14 people try to say they're in a, yeah, find me investors and they just want $8,000 up front. And I had sales guys and had all this experiences negative and you know, just not knowing. And I don't want you to not know. So if someone calls you, I'm like, we're going to give you an email list of investors for $8,000. Don't do it. Don't do it. There's no guarantee that's going to happen.

48:18 at least from what I hear, a person that says, just put the content out there. They're right. I'm just starting a conversation and helping you make wiser decisions in your business from a marketing, from a brand and from a purpose driven respect. And as I grow and I begin to learn what works in the sales world and what works in the advertising world and what works in marketing world as in far as executing campaigns, I'll share that information with you.

49:20 that friction and friction like in law of physics, right? An object in motion stays in motion unless it's encountering an equal or opposite force, a brick wall. The devil knows that if you were left to keep going forward and to keep pursuing and to keep moving and to keep striving and keep going, that you would be immovable. And so he wants to just jump in front, kind of like an old school jump scare from a horror film and just jump in front and be like, ah, stop.

50:24 And I pray that grace and mercy, grace applying over everything that you may have done and erasing it and mercy, removing the just punishment that you may deserve. That if you go into business and you make a mistake, that your client helps you out with it, that you have grace and mercy, grace and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

51:26 hey, you need to calm down. Stop slamming the keyboard. You paid a lot of money for that keyboard. That's your computer. Don't just calm down. And you know, internal anger management, so to speak. But more than that, a friend, a partner in life, and I don't know, the greatest trick in the whole world is to have the Holy Spirit involved in your life. And I hope that you get to experience that.

52:29 that means don't quit. Have boldness. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, meekness, self-control. By that inner Holy Spirit and boldness to accomplish what God has destined for you to accomplish. I'm Justin Kazmierczak, the JumpCutKing. If you think I was mispronouncing Alex or Hormozi's last name, just think how long it took me to pronounce my last name, Kazmierczak. Polish lady had to tell me, no, no, no, I tell you how you pronounce her name.

53:30 Bye. Bye. Bye.