Build A Billion Dollar Business With Insights From Gary Vaynerchuk

The “creator economy” is now a $24B business in North America. By 2030, it’s expected to be 6 times bigger, growing to almost $143B.

Many creators have built massive businesses based simply on their work and their ideas by building big, engaged audiences. Gary Vaynerchuk, for example, is a serial entrepreneur who just released a new book on the subject of creating, called Day Trading Attention. Nathan Barry, founder of ConvertKit, which helps creators reach their audiences through email, started a podcast called Billion Dollar Creator. He and his guests unpack strategies that dissect what works for creators building big business.

If you’re a creator, or want to be, here are 6 strategies from them and other top experts that you can use to build your own billion dollar business.

Get ready to get dirty

The starting point is to get great at the craft. You have to be a master at the thing you want to do before you’ll be able to get the recognition and the credibility to build a big business around it.

Mastery doesn’t happen overnight. It takes years of practice. “We decided to release episodes 5 times per week to give us the opportunity to practice,” said Sal Di Stefano, co-host and co-founder of MindPump, the most downloaded fitness podcast in the world. “Our first 500 episodes were terrible but now we’re much better.

Vaynerchuk agrees. “What people don’t understand is that unless you actually have the skills, nothing is going to keep a business successful. Your success is going to be predicated on playing in the dirt, which comes from two things: (1) the work ethic to get your hands dirty and (2) the experience you get from doing it.” He adds: “I love working on my craft because you can’t cheat the work ethic required and there’s no substitution for it.”

Let them see you learn

Attention is the lifeblood of any creator business. “Attention is the only asset that leads to action,” Vaynerchuk said. “There’s nothing that happens on earth that doesn’t start with attention.”

Attention comes from the audience you can build around you. Your audience forms the pool of potential customers, fans, and advocates who will engage with and support your work. And ultimately who will buy from you.

Social media has made it more accessible than ever to build fans around you.

But if you’re just getting started, you may not feel comfortable putting yourself out there as an expert.

According to Barry, a great way to get a head start on building an audience is to document while you learn. “Essentially, develop your skills in public and share the journey,” he advises. “By sharing your journey publicly—and inviting friends, family, and complete strangers along for the ride—you will create your own fan club who are actively rooting for your success.” Barry said.

Once you get more skilled at building an audience, you’ll want to make more conscious decisions about who to target, how, and on what platforms. Vaynerchuk’s book Day Trading Attention, serves as a textbook to think this through. According to Vaynerchuk, it’s important to target who you want to reach and be thoughtful about the best ways to engage them organically.

He shares dozens of examples in Day Trading Attention, including why an influencer putting on makeup is so interesting and why companies who call out their flaws in a creative way makes them more relatable.

Do what you love and attention will follow

You don’t need a traditional media strategy – or budget – to gain attention. You and everyone else have full permission and power to reach people directly via social media. But it’s a noisy world.

One way to reach people is to be useful. “The best way to be interesting on the internet,” Barry said, “is to be interesting off the internet first.” People will be attracted to your content because you’ve built a skill and you have something to teach.

Vaynerchuk recommends telling stories. “A great story will find its way.” Often people don’t know what to tell stories about. Vaynerchuk recommends talking about what you know and authentically like. “I think too many people talk about things they don’t know about or they’re not passionate about, and I think that makes them vulnerable to being bad storytellers.”

Create stories about the things you’re passionate about and your enthusiasm will attract the right audience for you.

Build a scalable business

Building an audience is essential but in itself is not enough for a business. You also need a business model.

Most creators learn this the slow way–by making mistakes.

Observing this, Barry has codified his key principles to build a bigger business:

1) Build more than a personal brand

Becoming well known typically consists of building a personal brand. But that should be considered the starting point. If you want to build a big business, your name ultimately becomes a hindrance since it can’t extend beyond you.

An example that Barry sites is Mark Sisson, an endurance athlete and fitness buff whose daily blog led to advertising and sponsorships. It wasn’t until Michael turned the attention he was getting from that blog to Primal Kitchen, a company he created that sold paleo-friendly condiments, that he was able to build a massive business which he ultimately sold for $200M.

2) Sell products (or services) not attention

As a creator, you’ll initially focus on getting attention and selling it through advertising and sponsorships. But over time you’ll have to evolve to selling products or services. VaynerMedia, for example, capitalizes on all the attention Vaynerchuk has garnered over the years to sell marketing services.

3) Drive higher customer value through recurring or repeat business

When you go to the trouble of getting customers, you then want to find ways to make them repeat customers. This might be with a subscription model, with different products, or with consumables that people buy over and over again like the Primal Kitchen condiments.

When you follow these rules you’ll have a much higher likelihood of successfully building a business rather than just a hobby.

Lean in when it gets hard

A creator business never grows in a straight line. In addition to dealing with the inevitable hiccups in the business, you have to be honest with the current trends in marketing and what’s getting in your own way.

“You need to know what’s happening on these algorithms, on these social media platforms, what’s happening in pop culture,” Vaynerchuk said. He himself had to accept that channels are changing. He’d figured out direct marketing, email marketing and all the other prior channels. But now marketing has evolved, and he accepts it. “I didn’t want [the old models] to move either. It’s hard when it moves, but tough luck. This is business.”

Another common challenge is your own discomfort in seeking attention. Get over it. You have to figure out ways to put yourself out there. Otherwise nobody will know about you.

Dorie Clark, strategist and author of four books including Stand Out and The Long Game, frames it like this: “We live in a noisy world, where people are often too distracted to really pay attention to you or the work you’re doing. It’s wishful – or entitled – thinking to assume they’ll take notice on their own. Instead, we have to find thoughtful ways to draw their attention to what we’re doing. That doesn’t mean chest-thumping or bragging, but it does mean we need to be intentional about how and what we communicate.”

Be patient

Building a big business takes time. You have to have patience and stick with it for the long term.

According to Clark: “If you’re putting in consistent effort, business growth might seem slow at first – but that effort compounds over time. It’s annoying to be patient, because we’d all like fast results. But being strategically patient, and putting in effort now because you recognize that it pays off exponentially over time, is one of the best ways to ensure your business thrives in the long run.”

Vaynerchuk agrees. “Patience is not complacency. Patience is one of the most important ingredients in building something meaningful.” He adds: “It’s not a hokey thing to say you need to enjoy the journey. It’s the only sustainable thing.”

There are many ways to build your capacity for patience. Recognize in advance that building your business will take longer than you think. Learn to enjoy the process. Find ways to pace yourself and manage your stress. Celebrate small victories, like landing a big new customer or hitting a certain revenue target. Maintain perspective by reminding yourself of the bigger picture.

One way or the other, find a way to build your patience. It’s essential. As Vaynerchuk puts it: “If patience is not one of your partners, you’re dead.”