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I can predict how frustrated you are as the creator with one question.
This question reveals your publishing cadence, your motivation, and how you feel about your business.
It even signals how well you handle platform and algorithm changes and how much
resistance.
Frustration
and anxiety
you carry. Now, if you're worried you can't pass this one question test today changes that. The question is,
what is your AAM in one sentence?
That's your audience, their aspiration and your method to help them transform. The quicker and clearer you answer, the more successful you likely are.
Now quick and clear shows the work you've put in to understand who you serve, what they want, and how you help them achieve it. When your AAM is [00:01:00] crystal clear, new advice, platforms and tech does not throw you off. You stand out, creating gets easier, and you don't need high pressure tactics to win clients or students.
If we solve your AAM, we solve most creator struggles.
My challenge to you today is to say your AAM in 10 seconds or less with no notes.
Welcome to Creators That Crush
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Welcome to the Creators That Crush Podcast, the show for professional creators who want self-sufficient businesses that provide a freedom of time and money through daily habits, collaborations, and audience impact.
I am your coach and host, Shawn Buttner. In today's episode, we'll cover examples of creators with Clear AAM, why Every Creator needs a Clear Process to Progress and Succeed, the Five Step Creator, clarity Sprint, or [00:02:00] Your Path to 10 Seconds, and where most people get tripped up on am. So let's take a closer look.
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Creators That Use AAM
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So creators that crush are clear about who they help, what their audiences want in the world, and how they help them achieve it. And working on this episode, I went through all of the different types of clarity work I've done and boiled it down to a M for creators because this is what the show is focused on, and I'll get to that.
Here in a few seconds. But if we take a look at a couple of big creators out there, or creators that I admire, maybe is a better way to say it, you know, we have Jay Klaus of Creator Science. Now Jay helps professional creators build the careers that they want through observation, experimentation, and iteration.
And there's a clear audience aspiration and method there. You know, we'll break that down here in a second, [00:03:00] Jay's audience is professional creators, and we can get into what that means, but that means a very specific, clear thing that's not just demographics, it's aspirations.
it's a set of struggles that they're trying to solve. the aspiration for this group is. They want to build careers. they want to love what they're doing. And the method is observation, experimentation, and iteration. So that's a very clear way to say it in one sentence. Susan Bowles, another favorite.
Person of mine has a really great podcast called Calm is the new KPI. she helps business owners intentionally design businesses they love by focusing on calm through HER four levels of a calm business. So the audience is business owners. The aspiration is a calm business that they love, and the method is the four Levers to a business, and you can check that out in episode 21 of the [00:04:00] show, which I'll have linked in the show notes.
and then, we have, Brendan Burchard, who has a software platform now called Growth Day, which is for entrepreneurs, professionals, students, or other growth-minded people who want to stay motivated, achieve goals, and become more all through daily growth practices. So the audience here is a little bit bigger.
It's entrepreneurs, professionals, students, and growth-minded people. The aspiration is to stay motivated, achieve goals, and become more, and the method is daily growth practices. you can see how this really gives you a sense what each of these folks are doing in their own unique way, in a way that stands out.
the work that I've been doing this year has been chasing my a a on for this show, creators that crush. at the top of the show, you heard me say that creators that Crush is the podcast for professional creators who want self-sufficient businesses that provide freedom of time and interest.
Through daily habits, [00:05:00] collaborations, and audience impacts. So it's professional creators, self-sufficient businesses that provide freedom and the ability to do and follow what they want through daily habits and audience impact, right? So this is still a work in progress from me. So you know, the host of creators that crush is not crushing it in this particular way, so that's fine.
But this got me thinking about how important it is to get clear on your audience aspiration and method. And going through this process myself
Before I did the AAM work I was creating without a sense of purpose, without connecting with people or with an intention of who I wanted to work with. So it felt really disconnected from me and it showed up in the things that I created. And
my business. During that time, all my clients came from word of mouth and people I knew and not my content.
In frustration, I ask the question what [00:06:00] gives and. I did a lot of journaling. I started to research how people grew, YouTube channels, podcasts, how people worked in creative businesses, and around a lot of other coaches that were like me trying to figure this out too.
And it turned out that there's a whole list of clarity work that we can do, which is probably why they say that those without vision perish. The vision is just clarity for the future and where you're bringing people. So there are a ton of things that we can do and should do as people and creators and professionals to help play life on easy mode.
But. Is specific to creators and I, after doing a lot of iterations of this episode, wanted to focus on something tactical and not broad. part of my personal journaling has been maybe not [00:07:00] being clear. So why every creator needs more clarity, right? is specific to.
Creators, but clarity also covers your values and your values are going to show up in your content if you are going to like doing it. If you shut that off or you're so buttoned up and having worked in corporations for over, 11 or 12 years, I felt like after. Leaving corporate America and starting my creative career that I still felt like I needed to be buttoned down.
And that caused a lot of resistance and a lot of self doubt because I just wasn't feeling like myself. And so defining the values that I have and. You know, putting them intentionally into the things that I create is a way to help feel more connected and to resonate with your audience. [00:08:00] Right? People know that I am someone who wants you to take action, right?
That is something I'll come up over and over and over again. It's in the, you know, my a am at the top of the show, and maybe not explicitly, but. I want you to learn by doing, and that comes up a lot in the things that I talk about. So there's a lot of power in defining your values and explicitly and implicitly putting 'em into the things you create, but it also covers fears and blind spots
because these are the things that we tend to avoid in our creative careers. And the things that we avoid generally are the things we need to do in order to progress. And for me, it has been being more pushy online and saying like, Hey, I have something cool.
Here's my idea. What do you think about it? And I resisted that because I'm a bit introverted [00:09:00] and I have some beliefs about the internet that I won't go into now, but I wasn't doing the reach out to potential collaborators, to peers, to people that would actually be helped by the show and the work that I do.
And so I didn't see the growth that I wanted. I had to journal. I didn't know what was going on. I just wasn't reaching out to people online. Did some journaling, got some coaching, realized that this is a process that I need to have in my business in order to grow. And after implementing it, it was very, you know, a couple of emails showed me how it works and helped and directly grow my show.
And so. Now that's a thing that I am paying more attention to. I'm still not great at, but at least I am attempting to do it every week, you know? Um, so that's another area that need to get clarity on, but we also need to get clear on our promise, our promise and delivery. So each of our creative products or YouTube [00:10:00] channels, books, podcasts.
Need to have a clear overall premise, a promise for each episode, and a delivery on that. So in the opening of this, I listed a couple things we're gonna learn today. One of them is why every creator needs more clarity, and that's what we're working on in this section. So, but the premise of the show is to help creators move from crushed to crushing it.
So we're doing that by clarity, work and delivery is this episode hopefully not too rambly. Um, so we need to be clear on our products. We need to be clear on our processes and processes. So I mentioned that outreach of like-minded people earlier is a process I didn't have at the beginning of this year that I have now, even if it's rough.
But that's also how do you source information and ideas, right? It's my opinion that creative businesses are just information systems and the inputs are us, our stories, our [00:11:00] values, our experiences, and our aspirations for each other. That's the inputs and the outputs, our transformations for the people we talk to and hopefully inspire to action.
So that's just one big process. So if you are a creator, you have one process you probably are not paying attention to. And when you're not clear on your processes, you try to shortcut stuff with like AI and it makes it tougher or you fall out of love of the things that you're creating 'cause it's lost its heart.
So there's different ways we can define that. That's a whole another episode for a whole other day. the last thing that most creators need more clarity on is their brand and messaging.
How are you showing up in the world? How is that you and how are you taking your ideas and packaging it in ways that people love and people resonate with. And people will follow you for. And these are just broad strokes. Like I said we could probably go deep dive into [00:12:00] these for hours on each of these topics.
but we don't have that time on this show. if you're struggling with that or you're AAM. I had something I'd like to invite you to, and that's a 30 minute creator clarity call or creator strategy call where we take your aspiration, we take something you're struggling with, and we deep dive on it for 30 minutes to figure out our path forward.
And this is applying some of the methods I know of for my certified high performance coaching process. But literally at the end of the call, we will have a plan or some steps for you to move forward and break through on whatever you're working on. And I do these calls now to help me refine my a a n, right?
I want to know who's listening. So I want to know you. I want to know what you're aspiring to. I wanna know what you're struggling with, and I want to validate or verify that I can help you. So that's what these 30 minute calls are all about. [00:13:00] And. It's free. So just, you know, go into the show notes or www.shawnbuttner.com/30 and schedule your 30 minute call with me.
linked in the show notes.ā
All right, we're gonna get into the four steps to be able to speak your a a m in less than 10 seconds,
first step is who is your audience? This could be an identity, like a, a professional creator, a parent, or a writer. So that's one way to look at this. This could also be a demographic, which a demographic would be a person of this age, you know, man or woman with a fixed income of this and you know, lives in this area, right?
So that's a demographic. A psychographic might be a person who. For the first time has a [00:14:00] puppy and needs to know how to train it so they're in a particular novel situation, uh, that you can address and, and help them out. And so I. You know, write down, you know, what are some of the psychographics or identities of your particular audience.
So I'd set a timer for five minutes and I would jot down everything that came to me and then I would edit that later if I was advising you, uh, if we were doing coaching together. So I suggest you do this exercise. You know when you can. I won't wait here for five minutes 'cause that's kind of boring, but.
That's the first habit to do really identify this first part of your a a m. The second thing then to do is to know and ask the question, what is their aspiration? So it's parents. My aspiration is to stay connected even though they are not sleeping well because of their [00:15:00] new kid or content creators to support themselves through the things that they create.
And again, set a timer for like five minutes and write down at least 10 of these, as many as come to mind, and then edit afterwards. But brainstorm here. I think for me in particular, going through this exercise, I didn't do enough. Really like focused journaling and reflection on what the aspiration for my audience is.
And I still, again, it's a work in process, but uh, it's a good exercise to revisit over and over again so we know the identity or we know the audience, we know their aspiration, and then we need to know the method. Right. And how do you. Figure that out. You ask, what is the audience's transformation? And you can think of this as what is the status quo and where will they be after they go through your whole catalog, your episode, that article, that [00:16:00] book, or when they listen to your show.
So for creators that crush, you know, the status quo would be, you'll want to be a professional creator, but maybe even working at it and you don't know how to. Breakthrough to be profitable or to be able to support yourself. And so through episodes like this, you're going to find clarity in your audience and their, you know, their aspirations and their transformation.
So you can make more tailored content that will build authority for you. That'll help you get sales and clients if you need, or help you build your audience out so that people think that you're a cool person. 'cause you actually help them, you know? So. That's the status quo, is they want this thing after the show.
They will then get all those benefits I listed out. So spend another five minutes brainstorming and writing these out. Then look over that list and add it and refine as you will. And then at the [00:17:00] end of 15 minutes of reflection, you'll have the first draft of your, a a m.
So audience ambition and method. So with, you know, one section of audience from that first question, one ambition from that second list and the method you figured out from the transformation, can you say it out loud and under 10 seconds? So that's the first measure to see if you got it. Nailed in, or you got it locked in.
And if so, if you got it in 10 seconds, great. If not, then you probably need to get a little bit more clearer, but you have a version to work with to move forward. Uh, the second thing to look out for as you speak this out and you're timing yourself is does it feel like it flows concisely? You know, when I say creators that crush movie from crushed to crushing it as a creator.
That might be a little bit too many of, you [00:18:00] know, CS in that, but it flows and it's memorable. 'cause that's the third measure. Is it memorable? So you are, you're gonna be saying this a bajillion times, so say it a bajillion times to yourself to make sure you get the wording right and it just as, as you need it, share it with people, and reflect with others on how it goes.
I think it'll be really dialed in.
So let's get into where people get tripped up.
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Where do people get tripped up?
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People get tripped up because their audience is too broad, right? And so. One way to do this is pick one person that you've actually helped, or one person you'd like to help as the primary persona for the show, for the offer, for the course, for the thing. Uh, what this helps you do is get more specific and how you help people, and so.
Forget this a lot myself, but [00:19:00] when I do it, things are much better. Uh, it feels like I'm speaking to a person versus just speaking to the ether. Right. Um, second thing is
Aspirations are features or goals that people want. So it translates to an outcome to book clients, to work fewer hours, to, um, have a certain level of financial success. You know, triple your revenue, which I'm not saying that I do that, but it's, it's things, those tangible results that people want.
People will get tripped off in overthinking things. And I know I constantly am struggling on this and one of the ways I've gotten around it is to have a consistent publishing schedule, which has been not great this past year. Um, but it's been a lot of behind the scenes journaling and. Talking things out and analyzing 'em and, and trying to figure [00:20:00] out the best way, the best process to take these ideas that I have and put it into things that are actionable and helpful and impactful for you.
So. Don't use clarity work as an excuse for procrastination or an excuse that it must be perfect before you proceed Again. One of my values is you got to do to learn, so make sure you are putting things out, you're shipping things or hitting publish, uh, when you think it's as good as you can get it in your timeframe, in your ability or, or whatnot.
I think. Research shows that the more you publish the better, right? So you might be thinking to yourself, but I already know my audience. And so the thing that I say to that is prove it. Say you're a am in 10 seconds or less, and then have a stranger repeat it back to you, right? If it's very clear, if your AM's very clear and [00:21:00] concise and you can do it in 10 seconds, other people should be able to remember it to repeat it right again.
Also, clarity is not. Procrastination. You need to be shipping stuff. You need to be publishing a post. You need to have some type of content rhythm, um, and it's going to feel uncomfortable, but it's getting in the reps, so we need you to get reps in in order to proceed. And then you also might think, Hey, I serve multiple audiences on my YouTube channel.
I have the people that love notion. I love the people that love high performance. I love the people that love. Um, music, right? Those are completely different audiences. Well, each, so huge playlist. Each product has its own AAM. So sequence 'em, like, see if there's a common thread between all of 'em. You know, there's a lot of like, fun, creative things you could do if you have a lot of interests, a lot of creators do, in figuring out which each [00:22:00] of parts of the things that you're doing, you know, what the AI is and then how they relate.
You'll be surprised how it's probably more connected than you think. So if we solve your a m, we solve most crater's struggles. So the challenge for you this week is to write out your a m Post it somewhere where you see it daily and uh, script it in this week's piece of work from it. And if you want help pressure testing your Am book, a free 30 minute strategy session at sean button com slash 30.
And if you like this episode, you'll love the episode I did with Susan Boles uh, call was the new KPI. So you can hear her talk about her four levers and that's in the show notes. Or here if you're watching on YouTube, take care.
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