Creators: Stop Building on Rented Land (Before It's Too Late)

0:00 If you're a content creator and you have a million followers or even 10,000 followers, even a thousand or more, and you have people regularly commenting, and you don't have a website, it's a missed opportunity. And we're talking a little bit about that right here, right now, on JumpCutKing's Create podcast. Wow, I've never said that like that before. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, content creators.

1:01 It's going to make them feel that you're either new or you don't care. When people see the website online, they click on Facebook, A, it's locked, so you're going to get a big nag screen to log in. If they're not logged in on that device, sometimes it's not a great experience, whether you use Instagram, Facebook, and social media. So if you're a small business or you know a small business owner right now, tell them to stop using Facebook and Instagram as your profile.

2:20 On social media, as a content creator, you'll begin to know, this is what we need to do, this is how we reach, this is what works, this isn't what works as you scale up. One of the biggest mistakes people make in any industry is when they start small, they don't test patterns, and they don't create processes. So when they grow and expand, which you can in social media, you can expand like that overnight, if you don't have processes in place, you are not going to scale effectively or worse.

3:27 So, hey, if you're going to scale up, now's the time to start. This is why you need a website. Now, we talked a little bit about social media trap from a business perspective, but you as a content creator, if you rely solely on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, your podcast platform, what happens is if your podcast goes offline, let's say you get a copyright flag on a podcast episode on Spotify, or you get a, you know, YouTube takes you down because they think you're stealing something and you're not, and you're in the appeal process, but they're hiding your videos right now.

4:32 And if you get flagged, if comparisonly speak to them, you are a customer. If a million customers are going to see content that they don't like, they're going to block the one offending person, and that could be you. Where if you have your website, you can direct people and begin building a website that directs and funnels all those social media people over, you get their emails, and you're going to be able to start interacting with them and have a backup plan.

5:34 Well, it helps you control your brand content, it helps you tell your story. You can tell your story in 30, 60-second blocks on Reels, you can tell your story on social media posts, but sometimes you have to go into some of those trends, and if you look at the social media grid, you, okay, I have to hide that, I have to hide that, I have to hide that, I have to hide that, and it's not really an authentic experience, and if you're looking for people who are like, "Oh, I just saw this wonderful video," and they go, "Oh, it's off your grid." Your website is a controlled experience.

6:34 they don't buy it on Etsy, where you have to pay all these huge percentages. Now, with TikTok, you might integrate it with their store, or you might not, whatever it is, the best scenario is, here's my website, links in bio, and you're directing and funneling your traffic to a place you control, but you can still control your email list, you can still export a CSV of all of your emails, you can back them up on a weekly basis, and you can always have contact, a way to interact with that customer one-to-one, so to speak, because DMs only do so much, and after so many DMs, you get blocked, and they go into one of the seven different folders.

7:38 dish, right? I want to see you on a plate. Your website is you on a plate. Your social media is kind of like what's trending now, what works, what doesn't work. It's sort of you, but it's not really you, it's pretend you, but your website is your focal point to control your story.

8:40 I have to push this button, I have to, you know, put the transcript here, upload this, all those kinds of steps, that if you're not used to, when you scale up, and it's like, okay, now I'm doing too much, and I have to hire people, you're not going to know how to direct them. You're going to be like, "Here, take my website," or "Here, take this," and they're going to be like, "I'll do the best I can, but I don't know how your brand works, I don't know how your customers work." You do.

9:43 worried about content, worried about how do I get people there, and they start looking at analytics early, and like, stop. You're going to grow, you're growing right now, you're learning what works on social media, why not add a website? If nothing else, let it be a central location that talks about you, but put a video about you up, put a paragraph or two about you, let it be your resume, if let it be a place where, okay, you can see me on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and here's my podcast links, and here's where you can see, and at least the very base, you're going to be able to encourage people to find out more about you quickly, concisely, and take the next step, whatever that next engagement step is, get that email, or take them to your podcast, or whatever that is. You're going to be able to control that experience, as opposed to social media, where someone swipes up and sees you, oh great, I liked it, oh great, I commented, great, did that go to a follow, did they go to your podcast to watch it, did they actually buy something, did they send your email, is there something tangible that makes your content creation a feasible business plan? Because if you want to content

10:46 create, and maybe you're just sitting on multi-millions of dollars, and you're okay, great, and this podcast isn't for you, even though if you have those millions, you should be a good steward of those millions, and so maybe this podcast is for you. But if you're starting as a content creator, and you don't have a path, an onboarding step, a way to turn interactions and engagement that you're currently getting, and growing it, and growing your social media engagement, and growing those followers, and be able to turn them into something tangible, that helps you grow, that helps you succeed, so you can break out this nine-to-five, if you don't do that, you don't have a website, you can't do that, and you're no longer in control of your experience, you're beholden to these social media places, and to be honest, you're doing all this extra work without seeing a return.

11:50 you're in control of your life, you're in control of your story, as opposed to someone else. I'm not saying that no one else is bad, or I'm not saying any of those things, but what I am saying is if you don't have a website, you can't tell your own story, you're beholden to social media, and you're not having a way of tangibility. And if you start now, a thousand followers, ten thousand followers, a hundred thousand followers, or a million, if you don't already have a website by a million, you need to pause this podcast right now, and go do it. Just click the button, put your card information, and just go do it, just right now, pick one on the platform.

12:54 going to tell someone on a business card, you're going to still want it to be legible English, so if it's a phrase, maybe you have a slogan that you want to use, or maybe it's your name, or maybe it's your Instagram tag, or something, just something simple. It doesn't have to be perfect, you can add some letters to it, who cares, because mostly you're going to use that in your social media platforms, anywhere, you're going to put in your link tree, or you can now control and funnel when you do upgrade your website, and it doesn't have to be a recognizable domain, because people can type it from your business card, or you put a QR code on your business card, put a QR code on your merch, well, maybe don't do that, but put a QR code on your postcards, put a QR code on your mailings, when people click on your, like an email, so your domain names might be hard to find, and you may not be able to find the perfect one, but you don't need to anymore.

13:56 xyz.squarespace.com. Buy a domain. Buy xyz stores, storeonline.com, or something, maybe not that, that's a little wordy, but you know what I mean. Buy a domain, that's usually 20 bucks a year, and then you point it to a website. What you should do is you should host your domain somewhere separate from your website, and this is for when you scale up. So if you're buying a Squarespace, don't transfer your website to Squarespace, because if you lose that Squarespace, or Squarespace dies, they block you, or Google, something happens, you're going to lose access.

15:00 it's locked. Once it's in Shopify, it's locked. Once the domain is locked by these hosting companies, you can't get access to it, which is why I'm working on a way for you, when you log into The Universe platform, you're going to be able to either move your domain name and all your DNS records over, but you'll still have control. And if you turn off, you know, hosting or the website creation software by The Universe, you can still have access to your domain. You just pay the yearly amount. It's not hard, but some people try to lock you in and I get it. And you do want to make things easier, adding Google, all those kinds of things.

16:05 I was like, "Don't use a template. We'll design it for you." We don't know. But now I've designed so many websites. I have templates now that I use and I tailor it to the individual client, I tailor it to the individual customer and they get a great experience because the brand, it's on brand for them. It makes sense for them as opposed to, well, here's just my template and I'm just adding my logo and just adding text. No, go in there, dig in a little bit. There's a lot of tutorials, a lot of helpful tips out there. You want to tell your story, but you don't have to worry about paying a developer or designer. Maybe pay for a little bit of an expensive template if you really want those extra frizzy things.

17:10 Basic pages to include. If you have clients, let's say you're fitness training. Okay, great. You're going to want a portfolio. So you're going to want a before and after pictures of some of your successful clients. Or maybe it's you and you have records. Okay, great. Then list the records you broke and list your before and after pictures because maybe your body is the biggest selling point if you're a fitness trainer. I don't mean that nefariously, but I mean that if you're ripped or you're bodybuilding and you're built or you're a power lifter and you lift five billion pounds or whatever it is, showing that it's called social proof. Showing that you've worked with other people and showing what you do helps. And that's very simple. You just upload the photos, tell a story. It's not as difficult as you may seem.

18:11 turning profit, turning content creation into profit so that you can focus on your passion. That's all that it is. Like other people want to use the American dream, abusing it and using it for greed. I'm not telling you to do that. I'm telling you to turn your passion into a revenue stream that allows you to continue to pursue your passion. So it's every, including cycles. I want you to pursue it. And having a website helps you do that.

19:16 built around a central person. When you're first starting off, okay, you're telling them who the owner is. You're telling them why you created that business, why you care. And then as you grow and you expand, people naturally understand that you're going to go from a small business to medium side business. They're going to less care about you. A larger business, maybe they still care about you personally, but your business is now bigger. And so it's changed. Its values have grown and it has diverse lines of business. It's not just you anymore. It's a whole team of people. Okay, great. That's good. But start off, tell people about you. Okay, not your brand, not you. Okay, you're the story people care about. You're the face people care about. And it will help build that brand connection, but they're establishing a relationship with a person to person.

20:19 Or we can, if we've detected there's a lot of spam coming from a particular IP address, we can ask them to log in with their email address. They enter their email address and they get a code back. It's just, okay, you're confirming you're you. And it's a very simple process because most bots can't actually do that. So reCAPTCHA can also work for you. That's that terrible thing that you click on. You have to click on the little squares. Or sometimes you're just clicking it once and it circles and it tests if you're human based off of your cursor movements and tracking and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, you have to exchange some data with Google for them to do that. But it's very helpful. That way you reduce the amount of spam or just embrace the spam.

21:21 They'll get people, "Hey, I want this service. I like to buy this, but I have this question and I have this." And some people are just ignoring their contacts. And I'm calling them, "Hey, I just wanted you to know that you've got a hundred contacts on your page. And I was just wondering if you're getting those messages and you're following through." "Oh, we didn't know. No, we need to check. Oh my God." That's a revenue stream. It's like, okay, put a contact page. Don't put your email.

22:23 your eating. And here, here's a quick tip. And oh, here are some supplements that work for you. That kind of thing. You don't want to blast your email as a promotional billboard for your products. Here are all the products I'm selling. You want to build a relationship with them so they don't hit the unsubscribe button. So hey, here's this wonderful tip. And also associated with a tip is these products that will work great for you. Or if, of course, if it's Black Friday or something, they really love your brand and you're giving them a huge promotion, that's different. Black Friday, Valentine's Day. Great. Maybe four times a year you do pure promotional, pure product showcase, pure discount showcase emails.

23:26 better than anyone else on the entire planet. Congratulations. Those people want those email messages. So honor those contacts. Give them value and give them the content they want. And they'll buy from you, especially loyal customers that will literally buy anything you do because they believe in you. They believe in you. They'll have debates about it and all those kinds of things. Like that's the kind of attraction you really, really, really want. It doesn't be complicated.

24:29 it seems like it's impossible. Anyway, I'm JumpCutKing. It's been a pleasure to encourage you and empower you with the information you need to be successful. Again, if you're a content creator, now is the time to build a website. Just use whatever platform you want. It doesn't matter. Some are more expensive than others. Some are not. It doesn't matter. It just takes time. Put the work in. You know you're worth it. You already put the work in on your content. You're already delivering your content. If you have more than 1,000 followers, now is the time to make that leap and get your content out there. Because again, you want to turn that passion into a revenue stream so you never are locked out of your passion. You never have to have regrets in your life. I want you to live. Turn that passion into a revenue stream early on so that way you continue to pursue the plans that God has for you.

25:35 he has given you for your life. I pray that in Jesus' mighty name, pursue your destiny. In Jesus' name, I pray that he gives you creative brilliance in all you do. And may you be at peace during this holiday season. Be at peace. I pray that God blesses you and your family. And when you're doing traveling and all the arrangements and all the hustle and bustle of the season, I pray that the Lord reminds you the reason for the season is that he gave his son for you so that you may live in eternity with him. I pray that in Jesus' mighty name. This is the reason for the season.