The AI Creator REVEALS How To Quit Your Job & Make $20,000 Per Month As A Content Creator | Zita

1. 0:00 – 1:50

   Intro

   1. ZIZita0:00

      What people don't know is I was thinking about quitting content like a week before that video popped off. 'Cause like the very first day I think the video s- got like 2,000 views and that was more than my average so I was very happy with it. And then the views started climbing. It started hitting like 10K, 50K, 100K and then just in a day it went from like 100K to 300K. So it got over a million views in total. And then when that happened I started getting a bunch of people DM'ing me. I started getting p- a bunch of people messaging me, wanting to work with me, learn more about my services and all that. And that's when I was just like holy shit.

   2. CJCalum Johnson0:31

      Today's guest is Zita. I found out about him a little over 12 months ago on Instagram. He only had a couple thousand followers back then, but over a six-month period I watch him grow to over 100,000 followers. And let me tell you this, in recording with Zita the story behind that growth is so much deeper than I expected. At one point Zita was feeling so stuck and so isolated in trying to grow his business and social media that he actually considered quitting everything and just getting a normal traditional nine-to-five. Well, he overcame all of that and in this episode you learn how you can go from being a complete beginner, no trace of you on social media, to easily making $30,000 a month with content. And we cover everything in so much detail. And one thing I'll tell you, in terms of practical tips and step-by-step frameworks I don't know if we've had a guest as good as Zita. He even mentions so many AI tools that at one point I even have to stop him. I'm like, "I think they've heard enough." And so I'm not gonna say anything more. We're just gonna get into it. So without further ado, you're listening to The Calum Johnson Show. Let's get into it.

2. 1:50 – 6:28

   Why everyone MUST become creators

   1. CJCalum Johnson1:50

      Here's where I want to begin. I'm gonna start by reading some numbers from Forbes' top creator list. So this was at the end of 2023. MrBeast made $82 million doing content. KSI made 24 million. Jake Paul 34 million. Kai Cenat over five million.

   2. ZIZita2:07

      Yeah.

   3. CJCalum Johnson2:07

      Emma Chamberlain $20 million. Now, these are all people obviously that are, they're professional creators, right?

   4. ZIZita2:14

      Yeah.

   5. CJCalum Johnson2:15

      But for the everyday person that's sitting at home, maybe they're going to their nine-to-five, what is the value of content creation and building a personal brand?

   6. ZIZita2:26

      I think it's leverage at the end of the day. When you can grow a following and you can have people that follow, like, and trust you, you can really do anything you want. You could sell anything you want and you can basically build a business off your passions which I think is much different than the other business models you've seen out there in the world. Like if you can build a following you can truly sell something that you're truly passionate in. I know a kid who [laughs] is making, I think he made over like 30K a month teaching people how to be better at the, uh, racing game Rocket League. He, he was in love with that game [laughs] and he taught other kids and other people how to be better at it and he was able to make it to a 30K-a-month business which is insane.

   7. CJCalum Johnson3:08

      Mm.

   8. ZIZita3:08

      I think that's just the dream of content. It's if you have a passion, right, there's most likely other people that are also passionate about what you're passionate about. And if you just have a little bit of a higher level of knowledge than they do you can turn that into a business. And what's better than turning your passion into a business? I don't think anything, right?

   9. CJCalum Johnson3:26

      Mm-hmm.

   10. ZIZita3:26

       'Cause you know there's t- people out there making millions of dollars but they're not passionate in what they're doing at all. And I'd rather be someone making maybe $10,000 $20,000 a month being super passionate in what I'm doing versus someone's making maybe 100K a month but hating their business, one out of it, and they're just dying inside of it.

   11. CJCalum Johnson3:43

       Hmm. It's actually a beautiful thing 'cause you can essentially, it's almost like you're productizing yourself. You're like making yourself-

   12. ZIZita3:49

       Exactly

   13. CJCalum Johnson3:49

       ... a business and you never get sick of that, right? Like there's never a day when you're like, "Oh, I don't like this anymore." Like it's what you're interested in doing.

   14. ZIZita3:56

       Yeah. No, because it's you at the end of the day, right? You're basically building yourself up into a business. You're sharing what you're doing throughout the day. You're sharing your likes. You're sharing your interests or hobbies. People relate to that. They see what you're doing and they want to learn from you or they want to buy from you. They just want to support you.

   15. CJCalum Johnson4:10

       Mm-hmm.

   16. ZIZita4:10

       And at the end of the day is when you have a personal brand, and if it's a big enough personal brand you'll be kind- you're not really s- you're almost set for life almost I would say.

   17. CJCalum Johnson4:20

       Mm.

   18. ZIZita4:21

       'Cause you keep having to create content to build it up a little bit. But once you have it it's very hard I would say not to make money with it.

   19. CJCalum Johnson4:28

       Mm.

   20. ZIZita4:28

       As long as you have a good personal brand that people like and trust. And it's not, doesn't mean you need to have millions of followers. Even 5,000 followers is enough for you to make a successful content business.

   21. CJCalum Johnson4:38

       Mm. What would you say have been some of the results in your life of kind of mastering content creation? Like what have been some of those kind of like tangible, uh, just outcomes that it's given you?

   22. ZIZita4:52

       Yeah. So through content I was able to move into my dream apartment in Toronto which is a massive apartment that I never thought I would live in my entire life. I've been able to, well, travel across the world. Like this year I lived for a month in France just because I was able to, right? Brought my camera, can film there, take calls there and do all that. Um, in New York, I usually live in Toronto so here I am just enjoying New York with my family and then gonna go see like a foot- football game of my favorite team later on. And then even in a month from now I'm going to go and see my girlfriend who's in Ireland for 14 days and I was able to do that 'cause I built this content creation business from scratch that is able to support my life and my lifestyle. And it's really given me everything I've kind of wanted out of life. Something, a business that I'm passionate about. It's I've met so many cool people and networked with so many cool entrepreneurs and have so many friends in this industry now. Um, intangible-wise for like monetary things, for like things you can buy I really have everything that I want. Like I don't need like a Lamborghini. I don't need a Ferrari. I don't need any of that stuff. I have enough and I'm kind of just really at this point just happy in life, set in life, and just want to continue just to build the business.

   23. CJCalum Johnson6:00

       Hmm. I think for, I think for most people listening it's like- The, the thing that you speak to is freedom.

   24. ZIZita6:06

       Yeah.

   25. CJCalum Johnson6:06

       And most people don't have freedom over their own time. They can't do the things that they want. It was like even we were joking about this before, like going to see, see your girlfriend this year, you never would've been able to do it with a 9:00 to 5:00-

   26. ZIZita6:17

       Yeah

   27. CJCalum Johnson6:17

       ... 'cause you, you don't have the days off that are needed, the PTO. Um, and it's really like the power of kind of owning your own business and, and having that. You know what? Here's where

3. 6:28 – 13:26

   How to overcome social media FEAR.

   1. CJCalum Johnson6:28

      I, here's where I wanna go. I took one of your captions from Instagram, and I wanted to read it to you.

   2. ZIZita6:32

      [laughs] Okay.

   3. CJCalum Johnson6:34

      So you said, "When I first started posting content, I was terrified. I hated how my voice sounded. Watching myself in videos made me cringe. However, I knew the power of social media, and I s- so I did the only thing I could and kept going. The result is that I scaled my following from zero to 150,000 followers in less than a year and made $30,000 a month in the laziest way you can think of. You don't need 150,000 followers to do the same thing. You only need 1,000 true fans." And so here's where I wanna begin. I kinda wanna get the early context, the Zita that you spoke about in the beginning of this caption-

   4. ZIZita7:18

      Yeah

   5. CJCalum Johnson7:18

      ... that was terrified of posting, thought it was cringe, his voice sounded corny. What even made you start posting content in the first place?

   6. ZIZita7:29

      So the reason I started posting content was because before that, I had an agency at the time just selling different services to different business owners, and I do really consider myself, like, an introvert. Like, I don't like talking and trying to convince people to buy my product if I don't think it really does suit them. So for an agency, you know, to scale an agency, usually what you have to do is send cold emails, go on these calls with people that have no idea who you are, and I was doing, like, five of those a day, and I absolutely hated them. I hated jumping on these calls. I hated telling people, like, who I was 'cause they had no idea who I am. I'm just someone who wrote them an email they wanna hop on a call with. They know that I'm gonna sell them something, obviously. And these calls were very, they weren't enjoyable. Like, I hated doing sales calls. I remember I'd be on the Zoom meeting, like five minutes before, I'd be like, "Oh, I wi- really wish I could just cancel this call," but that might be, like, a $3,000, you know, client coming through if I don't. So obviously, I had to jump on these calls. So it got to a point where I just hated the sales calls. I hated going after cold prospects, and I was like, "Well, I'm not enjoying my business." Even though it was making me good money, I wasn't enjoying it at all. So I was like, "Okay, something needs to change." And that's when, obviously, I think Instagram Reel started to come around at this time too, and I started looking at content. I started looking at how many people you can actually reach through content. And I was watching these videos of these people who are reaching millions of people, and I was like, "I can create a better video than this." Like, I actually thought some of the videos, like, were terrible, but they were getting millions of views. So I was like, "Okay, well, if I can create a video that can reach a million people, let's say, of my ideal prospects, well, of course, I'm gonna convert some of them to clients," and then it reduces that. Well, they know who I am. I don't really have to jump on these sales calls, so they're co- 'cause they're coming to me, applying to me, and that reduces, like, the things I hated about my business. So that's when I decided to just say, kind of just say, "Fuck it," and just try it anyway. Now, I will say, yeah, those first couple pieces of content created, I hated. I didn't watch them back. When I did, I hated hearing my own voice 'cause I really was never a social media person. When I, even for, like, when I was in high school, when, like, Instagram was, like, up and coming and all that, I was maybe the last person in my entire grade to even get Instagram. I got it, like, the very end of grade 12. I only ever posted two times on social media. Like, I did not like social media at all. I didn't like being active on social media. I never posted a thing. I didn't want nobody to know anything about me.

   7. CJCalum Johnson9:50

      Hmm.

   8. ZIZita9:50

      So here I am now going from that to, like, okay, let's try to create content and put myself out there. So it was very scary. I had massive imposter s- poster syndrome. I thought nobody would watch my content. I did not like how I looked or sounded on camera. But I knew that, I knew the power of it, and I knew that even, like, the first post I posted up, it got like 200 or 300 views. I was like, "Holy shit, 200, 300 people watched this?" And that just, like, it made me just keep going and not quit. And basically, I kinda went for almost a full month without seeing, like, any, like, viral video, and then finally, after, like, a month or two months in, I finally had one video pop off, and that kind of just snowballed everything, and that's kind of led to, like, where I am today, where I am more confident in front of the camera. I don't really have this imposter syndrome. Um, I think I am good at talking in front of the camera and creating content. But me a year and a half ago would have never thought that. It would never thought I would come to basically just sitting here with you too. Like, I never thought this would happen either. [laughs] Like, truly. Like, I had not imagined this at all for me when I first started in the beginning.

   9. CJCalum Johnson10:55

      Yeah. You know what? You know what's funny? There's, like, um, and this is what I found in my journey, there's levels to belief, right? So, like, when you first start doing something new, so in your case it was content, you're like, "Okay, I think this can help, uh, solve a problem that I have. I think it can help bring people to my business, and, like, they already have affinity for me, so I don't need to sell them as hard." But that's just, like, it's a theory in your mind.

   10. ZIZita11:22

       It's a theory.

   11. CJCalum Johnson11:22

       And then there's actually the point where you, like, you get enough real evidence from the world that you're like, "Wait, this is actually a thing." And so from your experience, it sounds like when it was that first video that kind of started to go viral-

   12. ZIZita11:37

       Yeah

   13. CJCalum Johnson11:37

       ... can you just take us a bit deeper into that? Like, the Zita in that moment, like, on the day-to-day, like, just take us into that whole experience. Okay, quick break. Two months ago, we had an entrepreneur called Rob Oliver come on the show, and he broke down how there's 20-year-old kids right now that are making thousands of dollars a month as TikTok shop affiliates. Well, so many of you were interested in that episode, we got such a good reception, that we wanted to share more practical advice from Rob on how you can get started, and that's introducing our friends at Your First Dollar. Your First Dollar is a community that teaches you how to go from zero to $10,000 a month as a TikTok shop Affiliate. And the special part about it is they don't just teach you how to go viral or sell products, they do both. I was actually just watching their video on how you can use controversy to go viral, and then how you can structure your CTA to make sure the views convert to sales, and it's so good. And right now, they actually have hundreds of members that have gone from complete e-commerce newbies, they've never sold anything online, to earning $10,000 a month on TikTok Shop. And when you join the community, you're not just getting lessons. You're getting access to top coaches, daily live calls, and the supportive community element. Plus, they offer a best-selling range of products that you can start promoting right away for instant commissions. And so if you're ready to get started on TikTok Shop, head to the link in the description and join your first dollar today. Your future self will thank you. Now back to the show.

   14. ZIZita13:25

       Yeah, so I

4. 13:26 – 18:46

   Get disciples, not followers!

   1. ZIZita13:26

      still remember the video. So the video was on just an AI tool that would help you find the email addresses of people on LinkedIn. Like, that's what the video was about. It was just showcasing this tool. And I remember posting up the video. Now, what people don't know is I was thinking about quitting content, like, a week before that video popped off, 'cause like nothing was getting views. I was like, "Okay, maybe this wasn't as easy as I thought. Maybe it's not working." So I truly did think, "Okay, maybe I'm gonna stop posting content here." 'Cause at the time it was like I wasn't making any money from the content. I was paying an editor a decent amount of money, so I was just losing money at the ve- at the beginning of it. So if it wasn't for that video, I don't think I would've kept going, but because that video popped off, um, basically what happened was the very first day, I think the video s- got like 2,000 views, and that was more than my average, so I was very happy with it. And then the views started climbing. It started hitting like 10K, 50K, 100K, and then just in a day it went from like 100K to 300K, and I think it topped off... It went viral on both platforms. It went viral on TikTok and Instagram. So Instagram it hit 800,000. I think TikTok it hit 400,000. So it got over a million views in total, and that just made, number one, my following just go from like almost like zero to a couple hundred followers to like 5, 10K followers just like that. And same on both platforms, TikTok and Instagram. And then when that happened, I started getting a bunch of people DM-ing me. Um, I started getting p- a bunch of people messaging me, wanting to work with me, learn more about my services and all that, and that's when I was just like, "Holy shit." Like, "This is crazy. I'm getting thousands of people watching my content. They're coming to my profile, seeing what I s- what I offer, like what I, what I'm basically selling to people, and they're interested and they're booking calls with me, too." So from that moment I was like, "Okay, I'm gonna double down on this." And so I kind of had a streak. After that video, I had a streak where for the next 10 videos, I think three or four of them got like over 100K. And like my following just started to just grow, grow, grow, grow, grow. And then there was a direct correlation with the amount of money I was making as well.

   2. CJCalum Johnson15:32

      Mm.

   3. ZIZita15:32

      So obviously you make that, you know, two connections. You're like, "Well, if I post more, I'm gonna make more money."

   4. CJCalum Johnson15:37

      Mm.

   5. ZIZita15:37

      Now, I would learn later on that that actually would not be true, because at the very beginning I was chasing this vanity metric of views and followers, and I only learned later on in my content creation journey and with h- how social media changed that it's not really so much about the views and followers. It's more about the pe- the people that trust you. Do they buy into you? Do they... Can they relate to you? Do they buy into your philosophy? Um, which I go into more later if you want.

   6. CJCalum Johnson16:04

      Mm.

   7. ZIZita16:05

      But yeah, that first viral video, that saved me creating content, 'cause I truly think I would've quit if that video didn't pop off maybe like two weeks afterwards.

   8. CJCalum Johnson16:14

      Yeah. No, w- w- we're gonna get into it later how people can, can monetize and start to make five figures, six figures maybe even a month doing content. But take me into what was your emotion at that time? And, and here's what I mean, right? You even mentioned in the beginning, like you had this imposter syndrome. Uh, you're like an introvert by nature.

   9. ZIZita16:38

      Yeah.

   10. CJCalum Johnson16:38

       So what is the emotion when you put out this video and all of a sudden, like the kid that never like even wanted to post really on social media is getting hundreds of thousands of views? Like, is it just pure excitement? Is that like an anxiety to it? Like what... Like, take me deeper into that.

   11. ZIZita16:56

       There was both. Number one, excitement for sure, because I didn't know that more views would correlate to, um, more of a following, more people interested in the business. So just seeing those views go up, you're like, "Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. I cannot believe this." Like even with you, right? You have your own podcast. When you probably see your first podcast start getting those views start going up and up, you're like, "Holy shit, I can't believe this is taking off."

   12. CJCalum Johnson17:16

       Mm.

   13. ZIZita17:16

       Right? 'Cause it was a video I never thought would do good. Like, I thought it was okay video. I thought it would get an average amount of views. I didn't think it was gonna take off like that.

   14. CJCalum Johnson17:23

       Mm.

   15. ZIZita17:24

       And then there was a bit of anxiety, too, 'cause sometimes you read the comments. Comments sometimes weren't as nice, right? And then I was scared, oh, maybe, um, family members or friends are gonna see this video, 'cause now it's popped off. Um, and they did. I know later that they did see that video. [laughs] But it was just... It was such a mix of emotions. It was kind of more like, okay, this happened, the views kept growing, and then my immediately thought, my immediate thought was, "Okay, I gotta go and create more content. I gotta build on this momentum. I gotta keep going." And that's kind of just what I've been every time I've had like a viral video. It's kind of like take a second to appreciate the video, then go work on the next one.

   16. CJCalum Johnson18:04

       Mm.

   17. ZIZita18:04

       Right? 'Cause I can't just build off a business off that one video. I gotta create another one. I gotta create another one, another one, another one after that.

   18. CJCalum Johnson18:10

       Mm.

   19. ZIZita18:11

       So def excitement and anxiety, but it was more of just, "Okay, this thing I think is gonna work. Let's stick with content and let's double down and just put more effort and more money into it."

   20. CJCalum Johnson18:22

       Mm. No, that's good. That's good. Okay. You know, I wanna, I wanna rewind for a second, which is, um- So you mentioned that because I think when people think about business and entrepreneurship, the word that's typically used is, like, freedom. Like, we're typically, we're told, um, and, and I agree with it. There's, like, this optimistic outlook

5. 18:46 – 27:58

   The necessary loneliness before progress.

   1. CJCalum Johnson18:46

      on what it means to be an entrepreneur.

   2. ZIZita18:47

      Yeah.

   3. CJCalum Johnson18:47

      Like, you control your schedule. You have all your own time. But I think to your point about even running an agency, uh, previously and, like, hating the sales calls, there are a lot of people that are basically, like, slaves to their business. Like, there's a lot of thing-- the thing that they're doing-

   4. ZIZita19:06

      Yeah

   5. CJCalum Johnson19:06

      ... they kinda hate, and they're working all the time, so they don't even have the time freedom. And so I'm curious. In that stage, so before the content, were there experiences for you in being an entrepreneur when you thought about quitting, where you thought about just getting a regular nine-to-five?

   6. ZIZita19:24

      Yeah. No, absolutely. I remember this one distinctive time where... Now, a few months back, before I started creating content, I was-- I didn't have an office really. I was going to a WeWork every single day to work, which is, like, a shared office space, and basically you could buy a pass for, like, $400 a month. You could just work in there, and basically it would be me and all these other companies that have also bought office spaces there. So, like, FanDuel was there. I think Amazon was even there too. Um, so I would go and work-- Basically, I would wake up in the morning around 7:30, 8:00. I would take my lunch and dinner that I made the day before to the WeWork, and I would set up shop in this small little triangular room with, like, one, uh, circular table in the middle that basically is, like, the width of the room that can only fit, like, three people. And then there was also, like, a whiteboard there too, and that would be, like, my shop or my office for the next, like, 12, 15 hours. Like, I would literally sit in that WeWork from 8:30 in the morning to 10 to maybe 11 o'clock at night, and it was crazy because you have all these people who are working nine-to-fives there. So they would all leave around 5:00 or 6:00, and I would be the only one in the building from, like, six o'clock on. In fact, I made friends, like, almost all the janitors there 'cause it would just be them and me. [laughs] So literally, I remember just-- We would just talk. We would just chat. I would even take naps there 'cause I was so tired sometimes. But one particular time, I was in this WeWork on a Friday night, and the business wasn't doing so well. I wasn't happy with it. I didn't think it was as efficient as it could be. There was a lot of problems with it. So it's Friday night, and I'm on the fourth floor, and I'm in downtown Toronto. So on a Friday night in downtown Toronto around nine o'clock, everybody's getting ready. Everybody's going out. You know, everyone's got the fits on and everything. Everyone's gonna go party and drink. And I remember I could very clearly see everybody out there, and all I'm thinking is, like, "Damn, everybody's out there about to have such a fun night, you know, drink, have fun, go out. I'm stuck here in this WeWork. I'm working on my business, which is good, but it's also not doing as good as I thought it would." And in that moment, I just started thinking, like, "Would I be happier if I was them than me right now?" So I started thinking, "Well, they get to go out. They finish their day at 5:00. They get to go out, have fun, meet friends, and all of that." And I just started go- getting into that mindset of, like, I really do think in this moment I would be happier if I was them than me, so why am I even doing this?

   7. CJCalum Johnson21:50

      Mm.

   8. ZIZita21:50

      Like, why am I even creating this business if I'm not happy with it right now? So I remember that night searching up jobs for data scientists 'cause I graduated university in math and stats. I did some internships as a data science. So I was looking for jobs, and I was just like-- I was looking at them. I was looking at what jobs were available. I would say that was probably the lowest point in my entrepreneurial journey, and that's probably the one time I've really thought about quitting 'cause I was like, I had-- I already ha- I still had the knowledge in all of data science. I could-- I think I could still easily get a job in it, and it would've paid very well. Like, it's a tech job. It's one of those lucrative jobs where you could work for maybe three or four hours a day and get paid a shit-ton of money.

   9. CJCalum Johnson22:30

      Mm.

   10. ZIZita22:30

       Right? It's a pretty nice job to have. So I kept thinking, like-- I, I kept thinking, like, "Do I want to just quit this, get a nine-to-five, and just be like one of those people?" And so I basically just stayed up all night just thinking about, like, how my life would be different if I stayed with the business versus if I, um, if I was one of them, right? The people on the street going out at night, right? Having those weekends off. Eventually, I came to the decision of I'm just gonna stick it out for another couple months, and if, number one, my mental health se- severely deteriorates because maybe the business isn't doing good or I just keep failing, then I would maybe quit. But in that moment, that was probably the closest I did. Thankfully, a couple months later, the business started to pick up. Content came around. Got that viral video. Everything started going well. But that was, like, the moment in my life where I was really considering just going back to, like, that nine-to-five life.

   11. CJCalum Johnson23:28

       Mm.

   12. ZIZita23:28

       'Cause I just thought in that moment I would be happier there than I-- where I was now in that WeWork alone on a Friday night with literally no one around me.

   13. CJCalum Johnson23:37

       Yeah. You know what? It's crazy when I even, um, hear the story, and I even think about my own journey. It's crazy to think that, like, our life and the trajectory it takes can come down to these, like, one or two decisions.

   14. ZIZita23:52

       Yeah.

   15. CJCalum Johnson23:52

       Right? Like, if you had just decided, okay, fuck, fuck the business; I'm just going in on this data scientist or data analyst role, your life would be in a completely different direction than it is now. I remember for me, I had a very similar experience. It was last year as I was building the podcast. So I had quit my job, like, 18 months ago. I'd moved from Manhattan back to New Jersey, which is where my mom lives, and at the time, I thought it would only take me, like, a few months to get whatever I was doing. I was doing an agency and the podcast, and I was like, "A few months." I was watching your videos, funny enough.

   16. ZIZita24:24

       [laughs]

   17. CJCalum Johnson24:24

       I was watching your agency videos. I was like-

   18. ZIZita24:26

       Yeah

   19. CJCalum Johnson24:26

       ... "Oh, the agency gonna take off any moment now." And we just couldn't close clients. And I remember, like- A few months had turned into like six or seven months-

   20. ZIZita24:35

       Mm

   21. CJCalum Johnson24:36

       ... in like the suburbs of New Jersey, like the middle of nowhere it felt like to me. And I remember, um, it was Halloween last year. I remember my friends' group chat, 'cause my friends all lived in New York, and I'm just seeing it going off. Like, people are talking about, like, their outfits-

   22. ZIZita24:51

       Yeah

   23. CJCalum Johnson24:51

       ... talking about when they're gonna meet for the pre-drinks. Like, everything is just going off in this group chat, and I'm just sitting there in the guest bedroom of my, uh, mom's house, and I'm like, "Why the fuck am I... Like, why am I doing this?" And I think in those moments your mind goes somewhere, and ultimately where your mind goes is what either makes you keep going-

   24. ZIZita25:18

       Yeah

   25. CJCalum Johnson25:18

       ... or it makes you quit in that moment. And so I'm curious, like, when you're in that WeWork in downtown Toronto and you're looking out, and your mind is kinda racing and you're starting to consider maybe just getting the traditional nine-to-five, where is your mind going that ultimately you make the decision to keep going for just a couple more months? Okay, quick break. Tell me if you know that feeling when your work life is just in complete chaos. That was me a year ago. I had Google Docs over here. I had random notes over there. I had files scattered and PDFs in just different places on my MacBook. I was losing things all of the time, and it was a nightmare. My productivity was tanking. Then my friend told me about Notion, the sponsor of today's episode, and everything changed. And to be honest, the first time he told me about it, I was skeptical. I was like, "Great, another tool that I have to juggle." But since I started using Notion, it's become a complete game changer for me. It's now our digital command center. I have everything in there: my documents, my calendar, templates, you name it. Now I've even gotten my whole team to use it, and there's more. They just released this new feature called Notion AI. Funnily enough, Zita actually mentions it in this episode. That was not planned. But it's basically like having a personal AI assistant built right into your workspace. So an interesting example, when we were planning our clothing launch, the clothing company is coming at the end of this month, we actually asked Notion AI for marketing ideas, and it went through all of my documents that related to the clothing brand, and it used that information to come up with five specific marketing ideas that we could use to promote the T-shirts. And so you guys are actually gonna see some of this play out, but Notion and the new features that they're constantly releasing have been a game changer for my productivity. And so if you're someone that wants to be more productive, you want to get more stuff done, you wanna feel organized and calm about your work, then Notion is for you. So here's what you're gonna do. Go to the link in my description, notion.com/calumjohnson. That's all lower case. And when you use that link in the description, you are actually supporting the show. It's like a beautiful double whammy. So that's notion.com/calumjohnson. Thank you so much, and back to the show.

   26. ZIZita27:56

       I think it was two major things

6. 27:58 – 33:49

   Why you MUST create your own business

   1. ZIZita27:58

      I was thinking about. The first one was I always considered myself like a smart individual. I had very good grades in school. I was-- I graduated at a, a, in a, in a pretty difficult program. And so I remember you would just scroll. Remember-- You probably did this too. You scroll on, like, TikTok or Instagram, you see these 17 or 18-year-olds saying they're making all this money. And I'm like, "Well, if these guys can figure it out, I think I can figure it out." [laughs]

   2. CJCalum Johnson28:24

      Mm.

   3. ZIZita28:24

      So that was the one thing. It was just like the refusal of failure. It was like I can only fail if I actually quit. So that was number one. I just, I truly believed I would just figure it out in the end. I thought I was smart enough just to figure it out and just get things organized and eventually have success. The second one was because I would think about my dad. Now, my dad was someone who worked a nine-to-five his entire life. He's been at the same company for almost 40 years, and he's had the same routine my entire life, um, since I've been born. It was go to work from like, uh, he'd usually get up around 6:00, go to work from like 7:00 to maybe 3:00 or 4:00. He would come home, make dinner for me and my sister and my mom, and then he would actually just, like, probably just watch a show for the rest of the night, and that's what he did for almost, like, 20 years. Well, ever since I've, like, lived in that house with them. And I kept thinking about that, and I was like, "Do I really want that to be my life?" And I did not, right? I didn't wanna have that routine. I didn't want to kinda have that bland of a life where you're only really working for the weekends. Like, that's the one time you have off. That's the one time where you can really enjoy to yourself. I didn't wanna have that life where I just work for a paycheck. Most people, I don't think, are super passionate about their work. I don't think I would've been passionate about my work if I was working for someone else. And then you go home, you eat dinner, and then most likely, well, what else are you doing? You're not building your own business. Maybe you're going to the gym, but you're either going to gym or usually probably watching a show.

   4. CJCalum Johnson29:54

      Mm.

   5. ZIZita29:54

      That's what most people are doing, and that's what I think I would've been doing, too. So I just saw myself in that life, and I was like, "That is not the life I want. I don't want that." Even though my dad had that life, I didn't see that for myself, and I didn't want that for myself, 'cause I saw what 40 years of that was. And I was like, "There's no hell- there's no way in hell I'm doing that." [laughs]

   6. CJCalum Johnson30:14

      Mm.

   7. ZIZita30:15

      So that just made me wanna stick it out further, just my dad and just the thinking of, "I can figure this out. I truly believe I have all the tools to my disposal to just figure this out and be successful."

   8. CJCalum Johnson30:28

      Mm. It's an important mindset, and I think the, the question you ask just sets, like, such a great perspective of, like, what do I want my life to look like?

   9. ZIZita30:38

      Yeah.

   10. CJCalum Johnson30:38

       And it's funny because I remember even- I remember kind of like toiling with the decision of like do I quit my job to do a podcast? Like most people will tell you, especially in content creation, that like podcasting is like the hardest, like doing long form interviews.

   11. ZIZita30:53

       Yeah.

   12. CJCalum Johnson30:54

       Like that is not the way, like no one grows off that.

   13. ZIZita30:56

       [laughs]

   14. CJCalum Johnson30:56

       Like no one really makes money off that. And so, but I felt it. Like I felt that it was the right thing. And I remember, this was before I left my job, I remember, um, I had taken a bit of time off in Florida and typically at the time, like I would live in New York, um, the office where I was working at was in New York, in Manhattan, and I remember I'd go through the week and it would come to like Thursday or Friday and I'd just have this urge to like drink.

   15. ZIZita31:24

       [laughs]

   16. CJCalum Johnson31:25

       Like I would just want to like go out.

   17. ZIZita31:27

       Yeah.

   18. CJCalum Johnson31:27

       You know you start feeling it on like a Thursday night. You're like, "Can't wait for the..."

   19. ZIZita31:30

       Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   20. CJCalum Johnson31:31

       You're just like living for like that Friday night, Saturday night. You're like, you even s- sometimes like even early in the week, like Monday, Tuesday, you're thinking about-

   21. ZIZita31:38

       Dude, after that Monday, like Tuesday you're like, "Oh, I can't wait till Friday."

   22. CJCalum Johnson31:41

       Yeah. [laughs]

   23. ZIZita31:41

       "Oh, we're gonna go out to the club. All the boys are going out tonight."

   24. CJCalum Johnson31:45

       Yeah. [laughs] Oh, it's-

   25. ZIZita31:46

       Oh my God.

   26. CJCalum Johnson31:47

       [laughs]

   27. ZIZita31:47

       I know exactly what you're talking about.

   28. CJCalum Johnson31:47

       And it was, and it was like when I took that break in Florida I was like it's not normal or really healthy that you just like living your day-to-day life is causing this urge to like drink or-

   29. ZIZita32:05

       Yeah

   30. CJCalum Johnson32:05

       ... it's almost like you're trying to numb whatever you're experiencing. Like you need something to like make it feel like you're living again.
7. 33:49 – 45:58

   How to make $20k/month doing content

   1. CJCalum Johnson33:49

      What is step one on that journey of getting $20,000 a month through content creation?

   2. ZIZita33:55

      Yeah. If you have to first figure out kind of what you wanna sell and how you wanna make money through content. Now, there's three distinctive ways to do it. Number one, you can go about and just go down the route of just making money through sponsorships. Like I have a friend who, um, is in Toronto who does like street interviews, so he's entertainment content, right? So he's not gonna make any money really from selling his own products, but he's gonna make money from sponsorship 'cause he gets views. And that's what a lot of these people do. Like if you ever seen the- the guys who like, actually he was famous down here, Caleb Simpson, for like how much is a rent in, uh, New York.

   3. CJCalum Johnson34:28

      Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

   4. ZIZita34:29

      You seen him?

   5. CJCalum Johnson34:29

      Yeah.

   6. ZIZita34:30

      Yeah. Think about how much money he's made now, but he's not making it from selling his own products. He's making it through collaborations, partnerships. Uh, a lot of these entrepreneurs that you see on his TikTok, they're probably paying him so then they can just be seen to more people, right? So he's making money through that. So you have to first figure out, well, what- what kind of content do I wanna make and what do I want to make money from? So if you are just more in the entertainment aspect, like you wanna make entertainment content, you want people to watch your videos, then you wanna go down the route of making money through sponsorships. If you wanna go down the route of selling something, well, then you need to first ask yourself, well, number one, do I have a particular knowledge or skillset that someone would pay for? Now, I believe everybody does, right? Even though you're not an expert in whatever you're doing, I truly believe you can grow a $20,000 a month content business just teaching people how to go from level zero, like which is like no knowledge in anything, to level four, right? Out of like a, let's say a level 10 scale, right? You don't have to teach someone to go from zero to 10, an expert. Just teach them to go from lev- level from zero to three or four and people will pay you to learn that. So I believe everyone has a knowledge or skillset. Some people, they don't, some people believe they have no knowledge in anything.

   7. CJCalum Johnson35:44

      Mm.

   8. ZIZita35:44

      So let's say you don't have no knowledge in anything, right? Then what you can do is you can actually partner up with, uh, creators out there, coaches, companies, and products and just help sell their product. It's basically almost like affiliate marketing. Uh, but what you would be doing is partnering up with these products. Now, I recommend digital products because usually for digital products they'll have a higher percentage fee. So for example, I know a company that sells their program for $2,000, and if you help sell their program, they'll give you a 50% commission fee, which basically means every sale you make, you make $1,000 out of that $2,000, which is pretty good money. So you can go ahead and start creating content just to sell this person's product, and they take care of everything. They do the sales. They do the fulfillment. They do most of the marketing. They're just gonna, they're just gonna kinda tell you what to post about. So that's the first way you go about it. If you have no knowledge or skills, go ahead, sell someone else's product, find a product with a high commission fee, and then just make content on it. That's really all you have to do. Now, if you do have a knowledge or a skillset- And again, a knowledge or skillset could be something very even niche. Like I had a student who just signed on with us who she wants to help companies just improve their customer experience. That's her area of expertise and skillset and that's a very like that's a very like niche thing, right? Improving customer s- experience. But a lot of companies will want that 'cause that means clients are retained longer, it's more lifetime value, and they'll just make more money in the end. So if you have a knowledge or skillset, then you need to go ahead and start figuring out, okay, well, how do I wanna make money from this? Now, for most people, I recommend doing different levels of access to you. So I call this basically what's called the product ladder, where you first start by selling probably a low, a low-ticket product, maybe something between the range of $20 to $150, like a course, right? Where you're basically teaching people your knowledge. Now, when people buy this course, that requires no time from you, right? You just make the course, people buy it, whatever, you're kind of just moving on. Then what you do is and I have the belief that when someone buys from you once, they're more likely to buy from you again. So then what you wanna do is you wanna sell, well, higher ticket access to you, which is maybe a group community, like a school community. Like you've probably seen school communities.

   9. SPSpeaker38:08

      Mm.

   10. ZIZita38:09

       So you sell this, um, let's say a group coaching for let's say $500 a month, $100 a month, whatever, and then that's more direct access to you where you're answering people's questions and maybe you're doing weekly calls, you are just giving them more templates, more reser- resources. The group is just more access to you rather than the course. And then you sell an even higher level, which is one-on-one direct access to you where someone works with you directly to help them learn that skillset or knowledge, and that you could charge anywhere from like 3,000 to like $5,000.

   11. SPSpeaker38:41

       Mm.

   12. ZIZita38:42

       So I believe when you create this product ladder, really you just create one product and then you just sell different access to you. And then once you have an idea of then what you wanna sell, then it becomes, okay, content creation, right? How do I get eyeballs on this? Now, I believe in creating what I call the content funnel because there's a lot of creators out there who have a lot of followers. In fact, I had a, um, creator reach out to me a few weeks ago who was-- who had over 400,000 followers, and she asked me if she needed help making more money from her content. And I was curious. With over 400K, I was like, "Well, how much money are you making?" And she told me she was o- she was only making like $4,000 a month out, out of 400,000 people, and I was like, "How is that even possible? You're telling me you can't sell a $1,000 product to like five people or more?" But then I took a look at her content and everything became clear. She was creating the content where she-- it didn't show any expertise or trust from her. It was just like broad, dumb level content that will just get views and get you followers.

   13. SPSpeaker39:45

       Mm.

   14. ZIZita39:45

       And that's the problem with a lot of creators today, is that they're focusing on this vanity metric of followers and views, and really vol- followers and views don't mean anything. It's not gonna-- If you don't know how to correlate that and create true fans and all that, you're not gonna make any money from it. 'Cause we're now living in a day and age where I think anyone can go viral on Instagram. It's now more about, well, can you establish trust really? Views and followers isn't gonna equate to sales anymore. So when you create this content funnel, there's three types of content you wanna create to turn your followers into, let's say, ready to buy customers. The first piece of content you wanna create is that engagement style content that is broad, dumbed down level content. Usually for this type of content, it's like listicles, it's like, um, giving out a hack, giving out tips. Like to give you an example, it'd be like, "Here are five tools that will help you create better content." Right? That is like an engagement piece of content where it's very dumbed down. You don't have to, you know, be in my space. You don't really have to know much about content to like know the tools and all that. And those posts goes extremely viral. And the goal-- the reason you wanna create those, uh, piece of content is 'cause you want followers in this ecosystem because it doesn't matter. You shouldn't be creating the other two pieces I'm about to mention if you're not creating that first one because then you have no followers. So the goal is first try to get a viral video, try to get views so you have people in this ecosystem through this engagement style content. Then you wanna create what I call authority style content, which is the goal of authority style content is to turn those followers from the engagement content into actual true fans. And to do that, you're showcasing your expertise, you're giving insights, you're giving your hot takes on things in your industry, you're giving out custom frameworks, you're giving out step-by-steps for desired results. You're just giving more like intermediate value and talking about your story and just making people more relate to you. And that gets people to more buy into you, buy into your character, and be like, "Okay, this guy knows what he's talking about. Let me start watching more of his content, more of his content, more of his content." And that's gonna create true fans. Then lastly, you have what I call sales content, which is more just showing off results, so showing any testimonials, showcasing your own social proof, if you have any clients or student social proof, showcasing that. And when you showcase social proof, it just helps convert those true fans into people that are now ready to buy your product. Now, to actually get them to buy your product, there's multiple different ways you could do it. I like creating what I call an automated sales funnel, which is basically setting things up in the backend where you're taking this viewer who is interested in what you're selling and you're nurturing them. You're showca- you're showing them that they have a problem that should be solved right now, and the way to solve that problem is through what you're offering, your product, your solution. And the automated sales funnel could be multiple different things. Usually for most people on Instagram, it's like a lead magnet to an email sequence to a sales page, but there's many different ways that you can, um, do this funnel. So that would be kind of a little like five minutes, I would say, overview of how you could do from 0 to 20k a month. It's just figure out your product ladder, right? How you can sell different levels of access to you, that way you're not creating a bunch of different courses or different products. You're creating one product, you're consistently improving that product, and then just selling more access. You're creating this content funnel with a mix of engagement, authority, and sale style type of content to turn those followers into ready-to-buy customers, and then you're creating this automated sales funnel on the backend to turn these people that are interested in your product into actual customers, um, for your product.

   15. CJCalum Johnson43:31

       No, that's a, that's a great overview. You know, I wanna, I wanna go deeper. So one of the things, um, that I noticed when I was listening to you where your approach is kind of different, I think a lot of people... We obviously, we all have like an iPhone, we all have a phone now, right? We all have access to Instagram, TikTok, all of these things, and so I think people pick it up, and their first and only goal is just to get followers.

   16. ZIZita43:55

       Yeah.

   17. CJCalum Johnson43:56

       In your approach, what you shared, it's like you're actually thinking about the business model first, right? And then it's like, okay, so this is the way that it's gonna make money, and then it's like, okay, how do we get followers with- within this, um, business model? Which I, I wanna point it out to people because it's an important distinction, and you even mention it with the, the creator that reached out to you that has 400,000 followers, uh, but is making 4,000 a month, which is like, just because-- and I think it's a common misconception. Your favorite creator that you see that has hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions of followers-

   18. ZIZita44:34

       Yep

   19. CJCalum Johnson44:34

       ... is not rich necessarily.

   20. ZIZita44:37

       Yep.

   21. CJCalum Johnson44:37

       They're not nec- even like, I think it's even the case, um, I've heard like big music artists talk about it. Like they have millions of followers on Instagram, but when they try and push you to sell a product or buy their album or nothing is happening. And so I think that's the-- it's an important thing to kind of understand, like what's the way that you're gonna get money in the first place? Unless your goal is just to be a celebrity, basically.

   22. ZIZita45:05

       Yeah.

   23. CJCalum Johnson45:05

       It's just to be known. Um, you know what? So, so let's assume that someone has, they've chosen the business model. I wanna get into some of the limiting beliefs.

   24. ZIZita45:19

       Okay.

   25. CJCalum Johnson45:19

       'Cause I think in the beginning, that's probably like the thing that holds people back the most.

   26. ZIZita45:23

       Yeah.

   27. CJCalum Johnson45:23

       It's like all of the limiting beliefs. One of the things you even mentioned with, um, someone who's essentially monetizing their knowledge is they don't feel-- and I remember thinking this to myself, I'm like, "If I was gonna sell something, like what would I even sell?" Because we take our own skills for granted.

   28. ZIZita45:43

       Yeah.

   29. CJCalum Johnson45:44

       Can, can you, can you speak to that? Like, for the person-- and I don't even know if you have these sort of conversations with people where you literally sit down and you help them figure out like what is the knowledge? Because

8. 45:58 – 50:05

   How to turn your skillset into a HOT product.

   1. CJCalum Johnson45:58

      sometimes it's like, okay, I work in marketing, so I know marketing. Then it's difficult to think about, how do I take what I do for eight hours a day and position that into something I could sell to a group of people? Like what is that pro-

   2. ZIZita46:13

      Yeah. I've had a lot of these conversations 'cause funny enough, the people that usually reach out to us for help are those, I would say above 30 years old, even 40 years old. You know, they've been working for a very long time at, you know, a certain company, and it's kind of like they wanna branch out now. They know they have this specific set of knowledge, they know they wanna monetize it, they know they wanna make their own business 'cause they're tired of working their 9:00 to 5:00. So we go ahead and we try to help them figure out, okay, well how can we turn the skill set you have into a product that people wanna buy? And it's not typically too hard, honestly. Like even for the, the woman who's now working with us who wants to teach people how to improve their customer experience, right? It's like, okay, well what results did you achieve at your company during this, um, and why are they paying you like so much money? Well, it's like, okay, well I help with customer experience which retains, um, more clients, more customers, which improves, uh, lifetime value of them. It increases our revenue numbers. I was like, "Perfect. That's exactly how you're gonna market it." Do you know how many like coaching programs, how many course creators, how many even group communities now need help with that, improving their customer experience? So at the end of the day, it's just figuring out what is the value to some-- what is your skill or knowledge worth to someone else? And it doesn't have to be-- usually the two biggest factors are either make more money or save them time, but it could be like that kid who just, um, is selling like h- teaching people how to get better at Rocket League, you know? It's just like people have a desire, you just have to figure out how you can position your skillset to fulfill that desire for them and to teach them that. And usually it does come down to just, again, a lot of people, like you said, a lot of people take their skills for granted. A lot of time I take my own skills for granted. I'm just like, "I just create content, you know? I help people with their business." I think it's just a whatever thing.

   3. CJCalum Johnson48:02

      Mm.

   4. ZIZita48:03

      But obviously it's not. You kind of just have to dig deeper and you have to realize that people will spend a lot of money just to make their life like 1% better. People will. You just have to find those people and you have to market to those people who will be interested in your skillset and will, will spend a good amount of money with you as long as they can see the return, as long as they can see, "Okay, I'm gonna get this out of it." And that's the hard part, hardest part for most people, is that they don't know how to market themselves at the end of the day. So that's what we try to do. We go in, we help them figure out how can they market themselves. Can we-- for example, can we even niche down your skillset? Let's say you're a copywriter, right? You write copy. Well, let's say we wanna-- let's say you've only worked with mostly, uh, trainers, like people at the gym, like personal trainers. Okay, well, let's only market to those people then. Right? 'Cause people want specific industry knowledge typically, and they'll pay for that. So if you market to only personal trainers, that puts you into a competition of your own versus all the other people selling the service, and that's how we can market your actual skill better.

   5. CJCalum Johnson49:09

      Mm.

   6. ZIZita49:09

      So it's all just figuring out the different ways you can market yourself, be competitive in the industry, stand out, and just figure out, okay, what's the main result we are trying to get someone that buys into your skillset, buys your product, or buys into you, like for a one-on-one, one-on-one mentorship. At the end of the day, it's just all marketing. That's all it is. We're all just figuring out how we can market ourselves to the best of, uh, the capabilities.

   7. CJCalum Johnson49:33

      Yeah. And it's, it's, it's, um... I like what you said, and I actually, I learnt that initially from Alex Hormozi, like reading his books. This idea of like the more specific you go, you can actually charge-

   8. ZIZita49:47

      Yeah

   9. CJCalum Johnson49:47

      ... higher prices because people wanna buy things that feel like it was made for them. Like it's made for ... Like, and the more specific you go, the more specialized it is. Um, you know what? Here's where I, I wanna, here's where I wanna go next, because you even

9. 50:05 – 54:59

   Is TikTok still the best platform for growth?

   1. CJCalum Johnson50:05

      mentioned it in that post that I read in the beginning that you went from zero, uh, to over 100,000 followers in under six months or in six months.

   2. ZIZita50:14

      Yep.

   3. CJCalum Johnson50:14

      Um, I think one of the things when I started out or started thinking about content creation, building a personal brand, there's so many social media platforms, right?

   4. ZIZita50:25

      Yeah.

   5. CJCalum Johnson50:25

      We got TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube. Uh, like there's Facebook. Like we have so many platforms. You do most of your work on TikTok and Instagram. What goes into that decision of deciding, "Okay, I'm gonna post on Instagram, TikTok, and focus there"?

   6. ZIZita50:45

      It's actually very strategical, I would say. So first of all, TikTok and Instagram, number one, if you wanna go for business, post on Instagram. TikTok is usually more entertainment style content. The educational content doesn't do so well on TikTok than it does on Instagram. So that's number one. And if you're gonna create a piece of content for Instagram, why not just post it on TikTok? So that's kind of why I'm primarily TikTok and Instagram, and that's why I encourage everyone else to be TikTok and Instagram, 'cause I haven't seen too many people be successful with like Facebook Reels or whatever they call it at this point. YouTube Shorts, Pinterest even has their own thing now too. LinkedIn. I really haven't seen anyone be successful posting shorts on those platforms. The main two is Instagram and TikTok, and the reason that is is because you can get the most amount of traffic that way and the most amount of eyeballs, right? The fastest way to go viral is on Instagram or TikTok than, let's say, a more longer platform than YouTube.

   7. CJCalum Johnson51:42

      Mm.

   8. ZIZita51:42

      Now, I do recommend people to post on YouTube once they become good at actually creating content on these platforms like TikTok and Instagram, and that's because with TikTok and Instagram, your goal is just to get new people to know who you are, know what you sell, and all that. Then what you wanna do is once you have a system where you're creating content every single week, it's pretty easy, you got it dialed down, then move over to YouTube. 'Cause what YouTube is gonna do is it's gonna help nurture those people from TikTok and Instagram further on you and further on your product. So that's exactly what I do, and that's what a lot of these big entrepreneurs are doing as well. They're starting off on TikTok and Instagram to just gain the following, and then they're pushing them to YouTube because that's where they're gonna get more nurture. They spend more time with you. They're watching 10, 20, even 30-minute videos. They get to know who you are. They get to see your frameworks, what you're talking about. And you don't need a lot of views to make the same amount of money on Instagram than, than, than on YouTube. Like Instagram, you can get millions of views and make, let's say, let's say you're making like $10,000 a month, while on YouTube you only maybe need, you maybe only need like 1,000 to even 10,000 and you could still make the same amount of money.

   9. CJCalum Johnson52:53

      Mm.

   10. ZIZita52:54

       So the views on YouTube are worth way more than the views on Instagram. So basically what we do is use TikTok and Instagram to attract that traffic, get those followers, use, u- use YouTube to then nurture them.

   11. CJCalum Johnson53:07

       Mm.

   12. ZIZita53:08

       That's kind of like my philosophy. So only once you get good at TikTok and Instagram, move to YouTube, 'cause YouTube is so much of a harder platform. So much more goes into it. Creating a 10-minute video that's consistently engaging is not easy, right? So it just takes a lot longer for you to kind of learn how to do YouTube properly, and that's why I always recommend to do it after once you get TikTok and Instagram down.

   13. CJCalum Johnson53:32

       Mm. You know what's funny? So obviously, uh, like my story and my journey, we blew up on YouTube and doing long form.

   14. ZIZita53:39

       Yeah.

   15. CJCalum Johnson53:39

       But if I was gonna advise someone, I would say what you did is the better way to go about it, and the reason why, like even if you just, we just think back to some of the names I mentioned in the beginning, so like MrBeast, Jake Paul, Kai Cenat, like all of these people who are, uh, the biggest creators in the world, they're just the people that are the best at content creation.

   16. ZIZita54:00

       Yeah.

   17. CJCalum Johnson54:00

       They're like the most entertaining. They come up with the best ideas. They script. Like they do every part of the process the best. So the question is is like, okay, you need to become really good. How do you become really good? And I think it takes a ton. There's some people I think that are naturally, like their personality and charisma is just good on camera, but that is a very small percentage. I think for most people you get good through the reps.

   18. ZIZita54:26

       Yeah.

   19. CJCalum Johnson54:26

       And so when you're doing short form, it's like you can just get out way more reps than someone like me who does one podcast a week, right? Like YouTube or like longer form content just takes a lot of time. Like the, the time it takes me to make one of these, you could probably make like 10, 15 shorts or 10, 15 reels, whatever it is. And so the learning curve, you're kind of just, you can experiment more.

   20. ZIZita54:52

       Yeah.

   21. CJCalum Johnson54:52

       And that's kind of what it is in the beginning. It's about like- Trying different things. It's what you were doing in the beginning. It's like

10. 54:59 – 1:05:05

    How to create a good content schedule.

    1. CJCalum Johnson54:59

       try this video, doesn't really work. Okay, change the hookup, change the idea, do this. It went viral, then keep doubling down on this. It's a quicker feedback loop on short-form content.

    2. ZIZita55:11

       Absolutely. It's like I always s- tell people at the beginning, just post content, get it out. The views are gonna suck, but that way you can understand how to actually create content. It's all about focus on quantity over quality at the very beginning because what you wanna do is get a ton of videos out. And again, with Shorts, it does allow you to create 10 videos. Like you said, 10 videos compared to, like, one YouTube video.

    3. CJCalum Johnson55:34

       Mm.

    4. ZIZita55:34

       And right? Most people, if they're gonna start YouTube, they're probably gonna try to aim for one video a week, so you're only doing four videos in a month, right? On Instagram, I can post two videos a day. I got four videos in just two days out, and that gives me more feedback. It gets me better at creating content 'cause I'm consistently creating.

    5. CJCalum Johnson55:51

       Mm.

    6. ZIZita55:51

       It's like that's kinda one of the first things we do with everyone that we work with is, like, let's just get you good at content. Let's just get you good at ideating, scripting, recording, editing. Let's get all this down. Let's just post the content 'cause the content's not gonna get any views. I always tell people, "Don't worry about your very first post. Don't worry about making them perfect or anything. They're not gonna get the views you're probably thinking you're gonna get. They probably will bomb, all of them. But the goal is, number one, just to get you to press that post button so then we get over this imposter syndrome and we have things going out. And number two, to get you better at content. Let's make every piece of content you create 1% better."

    7. CJCalum Johnson56:29

       Mm.

    8. ZIZita56:29

       "'Cause if we can do that, then a month from now, you're gonna create really good content that has the opportunity to get millions of views."

    9. CJCalum Johnson56:38

       Mm.

    10. ZIZita56:38

        'Cause I can look at a video and be like, "Yeah, this is not gonna even cross 1,000 or 10,000. Like, this has no chance."

    11. CJCalum Johnson56:43

        Mm.

    12. ZIZita56:44

        Right? So the goal is let's get you better, let's make these videos more crisp, let's make the editing, scripting, recording better, and then we'll start focusing more on strategy. We'll start focusing more on hooks, positioning, and all of that. How we can maybe make the editing more engaging, retain the viewers longer to increase those metrics like watch times and saves and all that.

    13. CJCalum Johnson57:04

        Mm.

    14. ZIZita57:05

        I only really focus on that with people after they show me that they can actually create good content, and that usually does take a couple weeks to a month.

    15. CJCalum Johnson57:13

        Mm. Can, can we just speak quickly about some of the, the limiting beliefs? And, like, a few come to mind, right? Like, um, people can't stay consistent in posting-

    16. ZIZita57:24

        Big one, yeah

    17. CJCalum Johnson57:24

        ... content. They feel imposter syndrome, like the thing that you were speaking about. "Oh, it's cringey, my voice," or, "No one's gonna watch. What are people gonna think?" I think that's probably the, the next biggest one is, like, fear of other people's opinions. "Oh, my, my boss at work is gonna find my video," even though it gets like 100 views and they-

    18. ZIZita57:42

        Yeah

    19. CJCalum Johnson57:42

        ... like, can you- how... And, and, and let's make it personal. Like, how did you overcome the limiting beliefs?

    20. ZIZita57:52

        Okay, so the first one was let's do people see my content. I got over it almost immediately 'cause my parents and friends saw my f- like, my second video I ever posted. Almost all of them saw it. So it was like I just had to deal with that at that point.

    21. CJCalum Johnson58:06

        [laughs]

    22. ZIZita58:06

        It was just like, "God dammit."

    23. CJCalum Johnson58:08

        [laughs]

    24. ZIZita58:08

        Like, whatever. Again, I always told my family this, like, "Watch the content, just don't talk to me about it 'cause that would make me cringe knowing that you've watched these videos."

    25. CJCalum Johnson58:17

        Yeah. [laughs]

    26. ZIZita58:18

        So from my belief, it was just kind of like it's gonna happen. People are gonna see your videos. Now, hopefully you stay consistent enough with it where you're at a point where I am now. Everybody from my high school or everybody has seen almost my videos, and then they don't go like, "Oh, that's cringe. Like, why are you doing that?" They go, "Oh, that's really dope what you're doing. How can I do that?" Now they wanna learn.

    27. CJCalum Johnson58:40

        Mm.

    28. ZIZita58:41

        Right? So you get to that point where like first you were cringe, but now people wanna, like, learn from you. So for that limiting belief, again, for people that are scared that their friends and all that are gonna see it, which a lot of people are. A lot of people be like, "Oh, I don't want people on my profile, like, my existing followers to see my content. Should I create a new one?" And I always tell people, like, "You could, but at the end of the day, these people are gonna see it." 'Cause our goal is to go viral here, so if you wanna go viral, you have to accept it that people will see your content, and you're just gonna have to get over that fear. And it's like who cares if someone sees your content nowadays?

    29. CJCalum Johnson59:14

        Mm.

    30. ZIZita59:15

        Like, I understand, like, internally you're like, "Oh, I don't wanna sound cringey. I don't want people to make fun of me," and it was the same for me, too. But I'm telling you, once people do find your video, it's not as bad as you think it's gonna be. You're gonna be fine. Just consistently post. And that's the second-biggest one. The biggest reason people fail with content creation is just not consistently posting. I've worked with many people where they'll start off very excited to post content, get things going. They'll post maybe their first couple, but then they'll, like, stop. And then they, um-- I think people realize that maybe it's not as easy as they thought. They thought maybe it'll only take them, like, two hours a week, script, record, post, but it actually does take a little bit longer. So for people who are scared to consistently post, what I say to them is, like, content creation doesn't have to be hard. It can actually be very, very simple as long as you have a strategy for your content, as long as you can more streamline it. Now, to do that, it's like, well, you have five parts in the content creation process. You have ideation, scripting, recording, editing, then posting/scheduling. If you can figure out a way to streamline each part, content creation becomes very, very easy. Now, the way to do that is if we go one by one, ideation first is, like, um, finding different AI tools to maybe find these proven ideas and find these ideas for you so you don't have to go out, spend hours doing it yourself. And then for scripting, you can even use, like, ChatGPT or have certain frameworks. In my videos, I give out frameworks and templates all the time for people. So have certain frameworks that make scripting very, very easy. It's literally just plug and play for you. Uh, recording, batch record all your videos so you only record for one day out of the week out of seven. And then i- if you do that, and even if you have a teleprompter, you can get seven, 10 videos done in, like, an hour.
11. 1:05:05 – 1:19:03

    The FRAMEWORK for creating viral videos with AI

    1. CJCalum Johnson1:05:05

       phase one is like the ideation phase. And so, um, you kind of have this process of how you come up with ideas, and then h- also how you use AI within that process.

    2. ZIZita1:05:18

       Yeah.

    3. CJCalum Johnson1:05:18

       And so can you break that down for people?

    4. ZIZita1:05:21

       Yeah, yeah. So for the ideation, I always tell people, "If you're a beginning creator, always create content on proven ideas over unproven ones." Now, proven ideas just means videos that have gone viral where you can take that core idea and adapt it to your own video or your own niche. So because m- the reason why videos go viral in the first place, it's not because of the hook, it's not because of you, it's really because of that core idea in the video. What's being taught in the video or what's the main lesson in the video? So what I do, what I recommend to people is if you're first starting out, find 10 creators who are in your niche or in your industry who are absolutely crushing it with content. Then go to their profiles and use these different AI tools. So for example, for TikTok, to organize their videos from most to least views, use this AI called Sort TikTok. That way you can easily find what videos popped off for this creator. And then for Instagram you can use this AI tool called Viral Finder, where all you have to do is put the username in, and again, it will pop up that user, organize all their video from the most views. And then I even think TikTok or X is a great place to find ideas. So you can use this AI tool called Tweet Hunter, which will organize their tweets from like the most likes. So find 10 creators who are crushing with content, organize their videos or tweets by, you know, most, most views to least views, and then put all those videos, put like 20 of the top videos from each creator into like a spreadsheet. So that way you have, in the end, you have 200 ideas you can now pick out of. And then out of those 200 ideas, look at maybe, let's start off with like 30. Pick 30 ideas that you think that you wanna create content about, that you're interested in creating content about. Then go ahead, take the links of those videos- And actually just get the script of those videos too. Now, to get the scripts, I use this AI tool called Descript. Basically, I just download the, uh, video off Instagram or TikTok. If you wanna download an Instagram off TikTok, use SnapTik. If you wanna download one off Instagram, use SnapInsta. And then I put that video into Descript, it'll give me the script of the entire video. And then what I do is I look at all these scripts for those 30 videos, and I take a look at the core idea, I look at how the video is positioned, you know, the angle of the video that leads up into that core idea or the main value, and I just figure out different ways how I can make it different or improve it. And then for me, and for other people we work with, that gets us 30 videos, you know, for the month. And just like that, we have a month's worth of videos on all proven ideas that w- have gone viral before, and probably have a good chance of going viral for us or any creator that we're working with. We just need to figure out the different angle or positioning of that core idea. Um, and again, doing it this way is a major reason why, again, everyone on my team, or the main guys on my team, which is, uh, Chaso and Tappa, shout out to you guys, um, all have over 100,000 followers in just about a year, maybe a year and a half. Which is pretty good, I would say [laughs]

    5. CJCalum Johnson1:08:31

       Yeah

    6. ZIZita1:08:32

       ... for anyone. Just getting 100K in just that timeframe.

    7. CJCalum Johnson1:08:35

       Yeah. So I, I came across your videos when I was trying to build an agency, uh, a little over a year ago, and one of the things, uh, that stands out when you see your page is, yes, you're using these tactics, and you, like, broke it down perfectly, but you're also adding your own sauce to the videos. Like, there's, there's a style that is yours. And so can you talk about that part? 'Cause I can see people taking that approach, and basically all they're doing is just copying.

    8. ZIZita1:09:05

       Yeah. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah [laughs] . Yeah, so that's another major thing, is, like, everyone's just... We're, we're now living in an age where it feels like everyone's just stealing content, right? So how do you do- how do you make that idea your own?

    9. CJCalum Johnson1:09:18

       Yeah.

    10. ZIZita1:09:18

        So I'll give you an example. So there's this creator who had this idea for content. It was, basically the idea was you, if you stack these three AI tools together, it's gonna help you get more views. Okay? That was the idea. I basically, the core idea, now, if I look at that video, the core idea there is stacking those three AI tools. That's the core idea of the video. So I was thinking, "Okay, how can I use that for my own video?" So basically, I just thought about a different angle of it, and I thought, "Okay, well, let me not do, 'Here are three AI tools if you use together are gonna get you more views.' Here's, like, three AI tools that if you use together is gonna help you create more stige- s- uh, stunning visual content." That video ended up getting, like, over a million views.

    11. CJCalum Johnson1:10:01

        Mm.

    12. ZIZita1:10:02

        So to make sure you're not copying, copying the video one for one, again, take that core idea of the video and then just switch around everything around that core idea. Switch out the hook, switch out the lead-up sentence into the core idea or the main value of the video. Switch out the CTA. Don't use the same visuals [laughs] . That's a big thing. Make, use your own editing style. And that way you can make the video your own. 'Cause the thing is, everybody on Instagram, number one, is taking hooks from each other, right? Taking each other's, like, editing styles. It really is a game at this point for most people that are really trying to grow. So really to make things your own, try to find a hook maybe in a different video that went well, combine it with this video, and then just figure out your own ways and your own tone of voice, but do not, do not take the script one for one, and that's why I, that's why I consistently tell everyone to.

    13. CJCalum Johnson1:10:59

        Mm.

    14. ZIZita1:10:59

        In the videos and everyone in our community too. It's like, do not take these videos. You do not wanna be seen as, like, stealing. And it's crazy too, because even in my content, I have a lot of, like, ChatGPT prompts I give out, and a lot of people would almost take those prompts exactly and just put them in their own videos. And I could easily call these people out, but I never did. Um, [laughs] but it's like if I did, that would've really, like, hurt their brand.

    15. CJCalum Johnson1:11:24

        Mm.

    16. ZIZita1:11:25

        So it's more of just, like, you don't wanna be called out for that. You wanna make it your own unique video. An easy way to do that is just take the core idea, change how it's presented, and change everything around that in the video. Change up the hook, change up the CTA, change up everything. But just keep that core idea or the core lesson the same in the video.

    17. CJCalum Johnson1:11:43

        Yeah. Can you, can we, um... Let's talk about storytelling for a moment. I, I think, you know what's funny? So when, when the first video on this channel went viral, to be honest, I, I really had no idea why.

    18. ZIZita1:11:57

        Yeah.

    19. CJCalum Johnson1:11:57

        Right? Like, before you get one that goes, you're kind of, it's like you're searching around in the dark. Like, you're just kind of looking arou- but you don't know. When you feel something, you don't even really know what it is.

    20. ZIZita1:12:09

        Yeah.

    21. CJCalum Johnson1:12:09

        It was only really from that video going viral and then subsequent videos going that you start to study them, you start to understand it, and this is the case reg- this is what I've realized. It's the case regardless of the platform. So I'm talking about movies, documentaries, podcasts, to the other side of the spectrum, which is, like, short-form, uh, even, like, tweets. Like, really short-

    22. ZIZita1:12:36

        Yeah

    23. CJCalum Johnson1:12:36

        ... digestible content. It all comes down to storytelling. So I'm curious for you, do you have, like, a certain framework, structure to how you think about, like, putting together your short-form videos? Okay, quick switch-up. I wanna speak to everyone that is pursuing something right now, some sort of dream or ambition that every single day you are grinding towards. 12 months ago, I remember sitting in the guest bedroom of my mom's house. It was October 31st, and I remember the date vividly because it was Halloween. At that time, I'd been living at home for over six months, and nothing was going to plan I remember that evening, multiple group chats on WhatsApp were just on fire. "Let's meet here for the pregame. What are you wearing? What's your costume? Do you have some spare fake blood?" All of my friends in the city were going out, and I remember sitting there in the middle of nowhere in New Jersey, three hours from the city, and just missing my old life. And at that moment, I felt like a complete idiot. Who was I to think that I could start a successful podcast, I could leave my job and build a business? I'd never done this before. I felt like a fool and that I was delusional. And right as I said that final part, my mindset switched. I was delusional, and I was gonna stay delusional until the end. I was gonna stay delusional until it worked. One month later, our first video went viral and everything changed. The message of stay delusional has remained with me since that day. And so when it came to making our first product, I knew that that had to be the message. So only 50 of these will be sold as part of our first drop. And if you wanna be part of it, if you wanna be part of this community, this movement, that staying delusional to your dreams, then go to the link in the description, sign up at calum.bio, and you will stay informed of when these T-shirts drop, and you'll be able to get them. So thank you so much for listening. Let's go back to the show.

    24. ZIZita1:14:55

        Yeah. The main one I would say, and I believe this is the main framework that almost every creator, like e- even in my niche, probably creates their videos around. So it first starts off with what's called a negative hook. So it's a hook where you're focusing on the viewer potentially, like, losing something. So it could be like, for example, "If you're using these hashtags, you are missing out on thousands of views," right? Like the lo- like the viewer's losing out on something. So because there is a-- Because people are more afraid of losing out on than gaining things, you always wanna target that emotion on losing something out or, um, just missing something. So you always wanna use kind of a negative hook, and that's what a lot of these probably social media gurus you've seen online say, too. It's like always use a negative hook. Don't use a positive hook like, "Hey, here are three ways that you'll get more views on social media." Be like, "Hey, if you're not doing these three things, you're losing out on, like, thousands of followers." Right? So it's always focused on that negative hook. Then after that is what I call the buildup. Now, the buildup is just a sentence that increases curiosity and gets people to watch more of the video. So example of this. So let's do, um, the hook I said before where stop doing these three things, um, if you wanna get more views. And then the buildup sentence, just to increase curiosity, could be like, "And these three things that you're doing, you are putting them in every piece of your content, and you don't even realize it."

    25. CJCalum Johnson1:16:26

        Mm-hmm.

    26. ZIZita1:16:27

        You know, it's just a buildup sentence to give more context to the viewer to make them realize that, oh, something big is coming up, and they really should stick around and watch the video to hear about it. So one of the biggest, like, one of the best buildup sentences I always like using is, like, whenever I'm talking about a strategy or a system, I always tell people, um, that, "I'm gonna help you get this result, and it's gonna take less than 30 seconds." Like, that's what I usually say in my buildup sentence. Like, "Oh, I'm gonna teach you all this in less than 30 seconds or 60 seconds," just to make the viewer more curious and wanna stick around to hear the next line.

    27. CJCalum Johnson1:16:59

        Mm.

    28. ZIZita1:17:00

        So you have negative hook, which goes into the buildup. Then usually what I do is go into, like, the main value of the video. So whatever I'm teaching, what's the main lesson? And there's different ways you could structure that. Um, but after you do the value, then you kind of get into the promise, which is basically you're telling the viewer, "Hey, if you do this thing that I just said, you will get this result." So it's kind of like that's just that reconfirming of it, and then you would h- kind of have the CTA at the end, which could be like, "Hey, follow me if you wanna learn more about this," or, "Comment this keyword if you wanna get a guide," or whatever it may be. So that's always the framework that I think about for any video. And go watch any video online on short-form that gets a lot of views. Usually it will follow this framework. So it's negative hook, buildup, your core value or your main idea or main lesson, promise, then CTA.

    29. CJCalum Johnson1:17:50

        Hmm. You know, it's so, it's so good. Um, this is why we brought you on, Zita.

    30. ZIZita1:17:55

        [laughs] Appreciate it.
12. 1:19:03 – 1:26:04

    How to get ideas for viral content using ChatGPT

    1. CJCalum Johnson1:19:03

       recording, we were talking about one of them with your viral prompt. So I'm gonna read it out, and then why don't you explain it to people how, how they can use it in their content creation. So here's the prompt. You literally put this into ChatGPT word by word. So you say, "I want you to do customer research for me Tell me 10 frustrations, 10 desires, 10 dreams, and 10 fears that my target audience experiences that relate to what I talk about. How can someone use that?

    2. ZIZita1:19:34

       [laughs] So when I created the video, uh, I believe that video where I talked about this prompt got, like, over a million views, and then I thought it was a good prompt because what the prompt does and what the video was talking about was, "Here's an easy way to get, like, 40 content ideas." Because when you figure out the frustrations, dreams, desires, and wants, you get all these ideas that tap into emotional response of a viewer. So if you create a piece of content on a frustration and you're giving the solution to that frustration, your ideal viewer is gonna wanna watch that video 'cause it's creating that emotional response. Same thing with if you're targeting desire, if you're targeting a want. So when I created that prompt, I thought it was just really good for beginning content creators because to get the exact person you wanna target watching you, just literally talk about their fears or wants. Those are the two main things. Either pe- they wanna get closer to the want, so give them step-by-steps or a framework so g- to get there, or they wanna get rid of that fear, so give them a unique solution. So that was one way that I think someone can really use the prompt. The other way is using it in, like, their marketing and all that, so that's kind of how I positioned it, too. But it was mostly it was just to find out- just to come up with, like, the initial, like, content ideas. And yeah, so when I created the video on that prompt, it went viral, and then I just kept seeing a bunch of other creators, um, take the prompt almost exactly or just change it up a little bit. I remember there was, there was this girl... It's so funny, too, 'cause I maybe seen 10 videos of, like, creators, and I watched the video and I go, "That's my goddamn prompt." [laughs]

    3. CJCalum Johnson1:21:11

       [laughs]

    4. ZIZita1:21:12

       And I'm like, "What the fuck?"

    5. CJCalum Johnson1:21:13

       [laughs]

    6. ZIZita1:21:14

       There's this, like, there's this creator, there's this girl who she's like, she a- like, basically the video is, like, her... Looks like she's filming a podcast. She's talking about, "Oh, this is my favorite prompt. I use this all the time," kind of like she came up with it.

    7. CJCalum Johnson1:21:26

       [laughs]

    8. ZIZita1:21:26

       And I remember watching the video and being like, "That's my prompt," and the video got like 5 million views.

    9. CJCalum Johnson1:21:30

       [laughs]

    10. ZIZita1:21:30

        I was like, "Goddammit. My video only got like 1.5. What's this shit?" [laughs]

    11. CJCalum Johnson1:21:34

        [laughs]

    12. ZIZita1:21:35

        So it's interesting 'cause then you go back to that co- that concept of taking those proven ideas.

    13. CJCalum Johnson1:21:41

        Mm.

    14. ZIZita1:21:41

        Now, that's one where, yes, you kind of are taking the content, right? Now, I don't- if you change up the prompt a bit, go for it. I don't consider that stealing. If you change it up to your own sense, that's fine with me. But yeah, if you're taking, like, the prompt or you're taking a prompt, like, one-for-one, not great, right? 'Cause that really is just stealing. Um, but yeah, that was, like, probably my biggest prompt I ever gave out that went, like, the most viral, and I think the one that a lot of people used. Um, and the feedback that I got from it is that people are like, "This is actually one of the prompts that actually works," 'cause I feel like a lot of people give prompts that don't work really-

    15. CJCalum Johnson1:22:17

        Mm

    16. ZIZita1:22:17

        ... or more generic ones. So even a- after that video, I decided to create a bunch of different prompts, and if you go to my profile you'll see a lot of the videos. I give a lot of these prompts out. Actually, one of my favorite ones I gave out, a guy who actually was on your show was Justin Welsh.

    17. CJCalum Johnson1:22:30

        Yeah.

    18. ZIZita1:22:31

        And in, in one of his, uh, emails he wrote down his framework he uses for his emails, like the exact framework he uses when he's creating his own emails. And obviously Justin Welsh has a list of, like, probably 100,000 people on his newsletter. So I took this framework and I took it into a prompt to create a 60-second script that follows this framework, and I gave it out to my audience just using kind of like one of the previous frameworks we had. I just adjusted a little bit. Uh, that was a really cool prompt and a lot of people loved that prompt, too.

    19. CJCalum Johnson1:23:01

        Mm.

    20. ZIZita1:23:02

        Because I feel like a lot of people think that ChatGPT isn't good for actually scripting out content, but it's just because a lot of people aren't using it right. Like, a lot of people are asking ChatGPT, "Hey, give me 10 content ideas about marketing," right? When really if you wanna get good output out of ChatGPT, you need to give it a lot more context. You need to give it who you are, what kind of content create, who's your target audience, uh, what are... Again, what are the frustration, dreams, fears that you wanna tap into, and that's gonna give you a much better output. Even with ChatGPT's new model, the, I think it's called the o1 model, which now [smacks lips] ba- on IQ test scores it now averages better than humans, which is crazy. And I've been experiencing with that, too, 'cause, like, that's gonna change the landscape of, like, copywriting scripting 'cause now it, like, it thinks as, like, a human almost, which is absurd. So it's been really fun to play around with that, too, and I have a lot more stuff to, like, give out in the future that I'm just tri- testing out right now.

    21. CJCalum Johnson1:23:59

        Yeah. You know what? Let, let's talk about the AI thing because you even mention, um, that all of this content stuff that you go through and posting consistently, whether I don't know how many times that is a week, but posting multiple times a week, someone can do all of that in less than seven hours, so it doesn't even take a bunch of time.

    22. ZIZita1:24:18

        Yep.

    23. CJCalum Johnson1:24:18

        And I think it's been one of the things that we've done recently, because we did a conversation with, uh, Mr. Grateful, Dom Ashburn, a few months ago, and I remember when he was telling me some of the things that ChatGPT was doing, it was, like, blowing up my mind. And now we've started to use it, um, more and more even in putting out this podcast. And so two of the things that surprised me that I didn't even realize, as someone who's, like, kind of into that space, I didn't even fully realize that ChatGPT could do all of these things. The first thing is, um, it has memory.

    24. ZIZita1:24:56

        Yep.

    25. CJCalum Johnson1:24:56

        So, like, as you're having these, like, threads of chats and, like, conversations with ChatGPT, or you're telling it about your business or your content, um, I remember one of the things that Dom was saying is that he actually takes all of the metrics from his Instagram, will, like, get the sheets, and then he'll input it into ChatGPT so that it's like it's building this memory base of, like, who your audience is, like, all of these things so that the recommendations it's giving are way more specialized. So that's the f- first thing is the memory. The second thing is actually the fact that you can just upload like attachments. Like, there's so many things, like even what you were mentioning with Justin Welsh, like you could take the transcript from one of his videos, or you could take literally the email, input the PDF into ChatGPT so that the recommendation it's giving you is based off something that it's like analyzed. And to your point, it's like smarter than a human now.

    26. ZIZita1:25:55

        Yeah.

    27. CJCalum Johnson1:25:55

        So when it's analyzing it, it's giving you like very accurate, um, recreation of that thing. So can you kind of just speak a bit

13. 1:26:04 – 1:39:01

    How AI WILL change the world

    1. CJCalum Johnson1:26:04

       more to that? Because I think people don't actually understand how... I think when we think about AI, the common thought is like, "Oh, this is this thing in the future that's like coming." It's not that.

    2. ZIZita1:26:18

       No.

    3. CJCalum Johnson1:26:18

       It's actually here right now, and you can utilize it right now. Can you speak to that?

    4. ZIZita1:26:23

       Yeah. I mean, just think about it like AI really was introduced to us, I would say last year in, I think April, when really ChatGPT was introduced to the public or given to the public to actually try. That to me is like when AI- People kind of knew about AI in the public, but AI's been around for years, decades. Like, I, again, in my previous past, like I built AI models and all that. Now, they weren't as nearly as intelligent as ChatGPT, but ChatGPT was this first AI model where you really saw the capabilities of it. And I think we've seen just this evolution in the last year and a half with AI and how fast it's growing. Like, it is ridiculously fast. Like, it feels like there's a new ChatGPT model coming out almost like every few months, and it's like a huge change. It's not just like the Apple ph- you know, the iPhone 15 to the iPhone 60, which is almost the same, right?

    5. CJCalum Johnson1:27:14

       [laughs]

    6. ZIZita1:27:14

       It's a massive change with these models, and they're just getting so much smarter. So with these changes, I think you're just seeing this whole industry, I think you're almost seeing every industry change. I saw a video today talking about the jobs that are being replaced by AI, almost like, I think it was like almost like 30% of telemarketing jobs are now like replaced by AI, right? Cashiers, almost 20%, right? So you have all these jobs also being taken over by AI. So people have to start accepting that it is something that is here. It is gonna be in their lives, I believe, almost every single day in the next coming future. And it will make our lives easier, it will make it more efficient. You just kind of have to start learning about it.

    7. CJCalum Johnson1:27:57

       Mm.

    8. ZIZita1:27:57

       'Cause there is a lot of people that are very much resistant. They're like, "Oh, it's too technical. You know, it's too complicated. I don't wanna learn it. I don't wanna do any of this." Um, which is why I think a lot of people are even resistant to kind of use ChatGPT. Like, when I tell someone to search something up on Google or something, like I say, "Use ChatGPT," 'cause instead of looking through an article, it will just give you the answer. And that's most times what people want. They just want an answer. They don't care if it's coming from usually the most credible source. They just want an answer for something. So even with AI and content, there's actually this creator out there who's kind of revolutionizing things right now. His name is Varun Mayya, and he's a- he's right now averaging, I believe, 20 million views a month, just on his content on Instagram. Now, with him, if you watch his content, usually he's talking about something in the news, and it's usually him in front of just a camera and a background. Looks completely normal. But if you look at his videos, what you'll notice is that if you look closely enough, you'll see that it's not actually him, but it's actually an AI version of him, but it looks so goddamn realistic. And if you were just an average viewer, you can probably never tell it was him. And so I even became interested in this, and I started even checking out how I could do this for myself. So there's a, uh, a company out there called HeyGen, which is kind of the leaders right now for AI avatars. And I remember a few months ago, to actually create your own version of an AI avatar that looked like you, you would have to pay for them to like do this for you. You actually like license out this avatar for like a year, and you would have to pay, I believe the price came out to like $2,000.

    9. CJCalum Johnson1:29:30

       Jesus.

    10. ZIZita1:29:31

        And I was like, "I'm not gonna pay that," [laughs] right?

    11. CJCalum Johnson1:29:32

        [laughs]

    12. ZIZita1:29:33

        Just to get an AI version for myself. But now they have this new feature called Instant Avatar where you can get a free trial from HeyGen. You can literally set up a camera in front of you, I did this literally two weeks ago, talk in front of a camera for three minutes, upload that into HeyGen, and it will create you an instant avatar that looks exactly like you. It even moves, too. You can have it walking. It'll look exactly like you, the hand movements and everything. And the, what's crazy to me is that a few months ago they were charging $2,000 for this. Now they're giving this for almost free. So it just shows you how fast AI's improving and how they're even like, "Well, this is gonna become the norm. Let's just give this out for free, 'cause people are gonna want this." And I think that gives a lot of interesting capabilities for a lot of people that want to create content, 'cause a lot of people don't want to put themselves in front of a camera. But if you just record yourself once, and you can have the same look every single time in your video, that's gonna let a lot of people start to open up to the thought of creating content.

    13. CJCalum Johnson1:30:31

        Hmm.

    14. ZIZita1:30:31

        Even if people that want to create faceless channels and don't want to show your face, hey, you can get one of their AI avatars, 'cause they have a ton of AI avatars that are, look like real people, but they're not real people at all. Like, they were just made up. So you can now use these AI avatars to be the face of your content even if you don't wanna be. And I think we're, I think we're gonna see that a lot more in the future, too. I think a lot of companies will jump on it, too. 'Cause like I was even thinking about this, too. How could these companies get into this industry with these AI avatars being the face of their companies? Well, it's like would you rather pay an AI avatar, like build up the AI avatar to have a certain amount of followers, maybe like as a stream or whatever, use that AI avatar and pay them rather than pay an influencer that, number one, if they're the face of your company, they can always get canceled, and then your stock plummets.

    15. CJCalum Johnson1:31:21

        Mm.

    16. ZIZita1:31:22

        You know? So it's just a safety thing at the end of the day for these companies. And if you can systematically create your own AI avatar that is the face of your brand that you build up to get a huge following, that's gonna drive a huge amount of revenue, and you control everything. They work 24/7, they create unlimited content, and you don't have to pay them millions of dollars, you know, as like these other influencers you have to, uh, pay. So it's really, really interesting what's going on, and I do think with AI, I think it will change content creation a lot in the next couple years. So I think if you're not jump on it right now, you're doing yourself a disservice and you're gonna get left behind. So it's better just hop on the wave right now and start learning it a bit. Just learn more about ChatGPT-

    17. CJCalum Johnson1:32:05

        Mm

    18. ZIZita1:32:05

        ... honestly, just to start off with, I would say.

    19. CJCalum Johnson1:32:07

        Yeah. You know what? To, to your point, because I think when people hear how quickly it's developing and what some of the capabilities are, there's just like this, this fear to it, right? Like, a lot of the discourse and like narrative around AI, it's kind of like apocalyptic. Like, it's like it's gonna take over humanity, or even if it doesn't do that, all of these people are gonna lose their jobs. And so where my mind goes, I'm like, okay, AI at this point is, it's inevitable, to be honest.

    20. ZIZita1:32:36

        Yeah.

    21. CJCalum Johnson1:32:36

        Like, what is the, the defense against that? Like, how do you defend against that? And to your point, I think there's two things that come to mind. First of all is what you mentioned, which is actually getting familiar with AI and these tools. Like, I remember, uh, earlier this year I saw that there's like, companies are hiring, like prompt engineers now.

    22. ZIZita1:32:58

        [laughs]

    23. CJCalum Johnson1:32:58

        Like, people that just, like know how to, like-

    24. ZIZita1:33:00

        Yeah

    25. CJCalum Johnson1:33:00

        ... interface with ChatGPT. Like, that's a job. And that's like a well-paying job. It's like... And to be honest, I think, um, most people do not really know how to properly use AI. And that was, I am like just starting to get out of that bucket myself. Like, I, I remember I was talking to my editor and I was like, "Wow, you can do this with ChatGPT?" And they've been doing it for like months.

    26. ZIZita1:33:28

        Yeah.

    27. CJCalum Johnson1:33:28

        So they're like, "Yeah." But like for me, I'm like, damn, this is like, it's, um, it opens it up. And then the second thing, even to the personal brand point, I think there's something to be said about doubling down on, like very human things. Very, like aspects to yourself which are very personal, which are more difficult at this point, I feel like, for AI to like fully replicate.

    28. ZIZita1:33:53

        Yeah.

    29. CJCalum Johnson1:33:53

        To your point though, even with the avatar stuff, it's like starting to even get that. But like doing the personal brand content creation, like those sort of more personal human elements and like understanding how to tell your own story and like, I think it's difficult for machines to do that in the same way that-

    30. ZIZita1:34:12

        Yeah
14. 1:39:01 – 1:44:06

    How to combine AI tools to automate your content process.

    1. CJCalum Johnson1:39:01

       'cause obviously I think a lot of people have heard about ChatGPT. What are some like other AI tools that you personally use like quite a lot in your workflows that people wouldn't have really heard of, but they're like really impactful for you?

    2. ZIZita1:39:20

       Yeah. So the main ones I would say, um, Make is a huge one. So Make is very similar to Zapier where you can integrate and connect a bunch of tools together, so it's kinda like they're all speaking to each other. So for example, like we, we have some automations that basically can like onboard clients automatically, can send them contracts and all that. Then that saves us a huge amount of time. And just automate a lot of the stuff in our business. Even automate the content ideation process, uh, connect with our editors and make sure like the revisions, they're like updating consistently, like we're consistently getting feedback and getting notifications. So Make is a huge one. And then I would say another big one that we consistently use, even Notion. Notion with Notion's AI too we use a lot just for organization, for databases just to keep track of things. Some other AIs we use a lot in our business. Descript is a huge one. I mentioned that one before, which we use just to get the scripts of other videos so then we can adapt those scripts for our own.

    3. CJCalum Johnson1:40:27

       Mm.

    4. ZIZita1:40:27

       And then even for the general user, the ones I used early on before I actually had like money to reinvest into team members and all that, was... So there's an AI tool called Gling.ai which will basically, if you're creating content, it's gonna remove all the bad takes and silences through your content so you only have like your best takes possible. So that saves a huge amount of time, 'cause if you're cutting clips up yourself, takes a very long time. That's what I did at the very beginning. I was like, "There's no way I'm doing this. I gotta figure out something." So Gling.ai was amazing. Even when we're creating content, sometimes in our content there's background noises, the audio maybe isn't great, so we use this AI tool called AI Acoustics or, uh, uh, Adobe Podcast too, you can use either one of those, to actually improve. The AI will actually improve your audio, reduce the echo, reduce background noise, and make it sound like we're using like one of these mics here

    5. CJCalum Johnson1:41:20

       Mm

    6. ZIZita1:41:20

       ... like a professional grade mic. And then another one which I think is the best editing AI tool out at the moment is Summagic, where basically you can input your video into Summagic and it will automatically generate captions, it's gonna generate B-roll, transitions. Um, it'll... I think it now will even cut up your video too. Because again, at the very beginning of creating content, usually if you can't afford an editor and you can't pay people to do this for you, you have to do it yourself. And for me at the beginning, I had to do it myself. So my whole goal was find AIs that can make content creation the most... can make my content creation the most efficient as possible. So using those three tools I used a lot, and then there was just a whole bunch of other ones, like Tweet Hunter I mentioned before was a big one we used. Sort TikTok we still use a lot for content ideation. And then now for even like, let's say scripting content, we just use ChatGPT, but we have a bunch of pre-made frameworks that we, uh, use consistently, and we just put those into ChatGPT and just give it like more context about the creator and what the video's about, and that'll pump out a script that is like 80% of the way done. We just have to like fine-tune it a little bit. Um, and I'm trying to think for some other ones.

    7. CJCalum Johnson1:42:32

       Bro, I think you've done enough, man. [laughs] You've-

    8. ZIZita1:42:34

       Actually no, there, there is one more I wanna mention. 'Cause this is for a lot of people who, let's say, can't afford a teleprompter. 'Cause a teleprompter is huge for creating content, 'cause you don't wanna just memorize your lines.

    9. CJCalum Johnson1:42:46

       Yeah.

    10. ZIZita1:42:46

        I, I remember when I was creating YouTube videos, I-- When I was creating those 20-minute YouTube videos, I would write the whole script out and I would memorize every single line.

    11. CJCalum Johnson1:42:54

        [laughs]

    12. ZIZita1:42:55

        It took me two hours to record a 20-minute video-

    13. CJCalum Johnson1:42:57

        [laughs]

    14. ZIZita1:42:58

        ... before I had a teleprompter. So I bought a teleprompter, but for everyone who can't afford a teleprompter, 'cause teleprompters can cost a decent amount of money, use this AI tool called Veed.io, 'cause it has what's called eye, uh, contact correction. So basically what you can do is you can be looking at the camera... Or no, you can be looking off to the side at your computer while still talking, and then the AI will automatically look like your eyes are facing the camera.

    15. CJCalum Johnson1:43:22

        Mm. That's good.

    16. ZIZita1:43:23

        Which is a huge, which is huge. Like, I'm telling you right now-

    17. CJCalum Johnson1:43:26

        [laughs]

    18. ZIZita1:43:26

        ... if you're getting into content, you know how huge that is. 'Cause you do not wanna be memorizing your lines, because it sucks.

    19. CJCalum Johnson1:43:32

        Yeah.

    20. ZIZita1:43:32

        And I know that because I did it. [laughs]

    21. CJCalum Johnson1:43:35

        You know what's funny? Literally, like at the beginning, at the beginning of this week, I called like a meeting with my team, like a few editors, and I was like Like I say, they were already on all of the AI stuff, but I was like getting into it and I was like, "Okay, how do we use AI like in all of our processes?" 'Cause there's like it just felt like there was so much, um, stuff there. We're gonna have to call another meeting.

    22. ZIZita1:43:57

        [laughs]

    23. CJCalum Johnson1:43:58

        Also what you just like so I'm like, "Huh, we could use that. That Teleprompts would be good."

    24. ZIZita1:44:01

        Yeah. [laughs]

    25. CJCalum Johnson1:44:01

        Like [laughs] I'm like every day. You know what? Here's, here's where I wanna end. So

15. 1:44:06 – 1:50:07

    How to turn influence into dollars (Full sales funnel)

    1. CJCalum Johnson1:44:07

       let's say that someone's kind of gone through this process, right? And they're doing it effectively. So they're producing content that is getting them followers. They're building that following. For you it was zero to 100,000 in under six months. So maybe they're even on that trajectory or they're, they're building towards that. They also have the variety of posts. They're using the content funnel.

    2. ZIZita1:44:29

       Yeah.

    3. CJCalum Johnson1:44:30

       So it's not just that they're getting ... It's not just that they're entertaining people or they're getting views or attention. They're also building authority, building influence, building expertise. I wanna just talk about that final component, the automated sales funnel that actually is taking that influence and turning it into dollars.

    4. ZIZita1:44:50

       Yeah.

    5. CJCalum Johnson1:44:51

       Give us a quick overview of what that looks like.

    6. ZIZita1:44:53

       So to give you an example of that, most people on let's say Instagram right now, most of the creators I know are using this exact funnel where it's first of all you give out a lead magnet, so it's just a free resource that is gonna help the viewer, you know, get that desired result. And then typically you're using ManyChat to give that lead magnet to people. So what you would be doing, and if you're on Instagram you've probably seen this for sure, where at the end of the video someone will say, "Hey, comment this keyword if you want this guide or training." So what happens is someone comments that keyword, and then you use this AI tool called ManyChat, and ManyChat will automatically send them a link to your lead magnet, which is gonna be this page where all that's gonna be on that page is gonna be your headline of whatever the lead magnet is, and then it's gonna be a box where they can put their email address in. And then when they press submit, that email address then goes and gets added to your email list. Now, I think email is one of the best ways to make money because the thing with content is even though I have 100,000 followers, 100,000 people aren't seeing my content every time I post. It actually only goes out to like a certain percentage, like 20% or less, and then it may get pushed out more. With emails, most likely it's reaching probably 90% or above. It's on them if they wanna open up your email or not, but at least they're getting it in their inbox. So what we recommend is always have an email list of these people that you can always contact. Now, when someone opts into your lead magnet and gives you their email, you then wanna have what we call a new lead sequence, which is basically gonna be five to eight emails they're, that they're gonna get through five to eight days that basically teaches them about or try to shows them that they have a problem that they have and that they should pro- they should solve this problem right now and what are the consequences if they don't solve this problem now. And just nurtures them and tells them of a solution and how that solution is going to be your offer or product. So basically through emails one to three, that's what it's all about, teaching them they have a problem, teaching them why they should solve this problem. Then in email four and five you're introducing your offer and you're introducing your product, and then you're adding scarcity, scarcity and urgency to get them to say take action now. And then when they wanna take action, they're then gonna go through a sales page or a VSL page that just teaches again the viewer or the user just a little bit more about your product, showcases some social proofs, go over the main benefits, goes over what they're gonna be getting. And then j- if they're interested in, they go to a checkout page and then buy your product. Now, the reason we call this the automated sales funnel is 'cause once you build out the sales page, once you build out the lead magnet, and once you build out the emails, there's nothing really more you have to do. All you have to do now is consistently create the content and just push people more into these funnels. Now, to push more people into these funnels you can use IG stories. You can use the link in your bio. You can, again, use more hot keyword posts as I call them. Like, "Hey, if you want the lead magnet, get, um, comment the CTA or comment this keyword."

    7. CJCalum Johnson1:47:58

       Mm.

    8. ZIZita1:47:59

       So the goal after you build this sales funnel is just to push people into it, and then naturally people are gonna buy. And then what you wanna do is typically you wanna get them to go to a lower ticket product, which again, which is between maybe 500 to $150. And then through different things in the backend you try to upsell them on those higher tier, uh, products that you have. So that's what we kind of adopt for everyone is we adopt this automated sales funnel and we help them build it out. Because if you can get enough people in this sales funnel, then it's just all about optimizing the sales page, the emails just to convert better, and just getting more traffic. 'Cause that's really the secret at the end of the day. To go from like 0 to 20k per month or 0 to 100k per month, it's just getting more traffic.

    9. CJCalum Johnson1:48:43

       Mm.

    10. ZIZita1:48:43

        And getting more traffic all comes down to the content at the end of the day. So once you build out this sales funnel, focus on the content, focus on getting more views, or not even getting more views. Just focus on attracting more high quality leads and you're gonna make more money.

    11. CJCalum Johnson1:48:58

        Mm. You know what, man? I'm just, um ... I'm really, I'm really grateful that you came on. Um, I don't usually end my episodes like that.

    12. ZIZita1:49:05

        Appreciate it.

    13. CJCalum Johnson1:49:06

        But like, um, you know, like I said, like I, I found out ... I started following your page like over a year ago, and I think the thing that stood out instantly was how, how step-by-step, how practical, how pinpoint the information was, and it didn't disappoint. Like you're genuinely great at what you do. And here's where I want to end. We spoke earlier about the Zita that was sitting at that WeWork office, and you're looking out into downtown Toronto, and there's this, there's this frustration, there's this, uh, feeling of missing out on something, missing out on this experience that everyone else who kind of chose a more traditional path is getting to experience. And so you've gone from that point to a point now where obviously I'm not in the day-to-day of your life, but like it sounds like it's something that you really enjoy and like cherish. The funny

16. 1:50:07 – 1:56:12

    What’s next after $30k/month?

    1. CJCalum Johnson1:50:07

       thing is for, for us as humans is there's always a next thing though, isn't there?

    2. ZIZita1:50:10

       Yeah.

    3. CJCalum Johnson1:50:10

       There's always something, as good as things can seem, there's always like, "Huh, but that would be, be a bit nicer if I had a bit more of that." And so I'm curious, what is that, what is that for you right now? What is the, the thing that is like the next thing that you're focusing your time on, or that you think like, "Okay, that's where I want to go next"?

    4. ZIZita1:50:31

       Yep. The biggest thing I think at the moment is just building out the business. So our business is called Vow Creator, and right now it's just building out that and just making the product as good as possible. Like I, my whole goal is to have the best product out there on teaching people how to gain followers and how to convert them into customers, and just make money from content and from what they're passionate about. Like that is my main thing that I'm working on right now is just making the best product possible. Like two weeks ago I made a whole 35-page document for those people that are in our community and in our program, and I'm creating like one of these almost every single month. It may take like a full week almost to create.

    5. CJCalum Johnson1:51:12

       Mm.

    6. ZIZita1:51:12

       It's just because I wanna create the best product possible 'cause I truly believe in just giving out the most value and really teaching people step by steps how they can achieve this result. So I would say that's really now the main focus. And for the next things in my life, it's more of just probably more traveling, number one, too. Like I've lived in Toronto now for, I think I'm coming on three years fully, where it's just like I've been so focused on the business, again, working like 12, 15-hour days, where now it's like the business is doing well, let me kind of enjoy these fruits for a little bit.

    7. CJCalum Johnson1:51:44

       Mm.

    8. ZIZita1:51:45

       So it's probably gonna be more traveling out a bit. Um, and then while I'm traveling, keep just improving the business, improving the product. And that's kind of where I just see myself in the next, over a couple years. It's more of just let's build this out even more, build out the content business even more, 'cause I think more people will jump into content. I mean, if you've seen Cristiano Ronaldo has a YouTube channel now.

    9. CJCalum Johnson1:52:07

       Yeah.

    10. ZIZita1:52:07

        Tom Brady has a YouTube channel. Lionel Messi just announced he's starting a production company. Like so you're having the biggest faces on the planet starting to get into content, and there's a reason for it. So I believe we're still in like the early ages of the creator economy. I think more people will jump into it. I think there's gonna be more opportunities. And I'm here just to kind of like build out a product, build out a business that's gonna kind of scale with the creator economy as it scales, too.

    11. CJCalum Johnson1:52:34

        Yeah. You know, it's funny that, uh, I remember the moment when I heard about the Cristiano Ronaldo YouTube.

    12. ZIZita1:52:39

        Yeah.

    13. CJCalum Johnson1:52:40

        That shit pissed me off.

    14. ZIZita1:52:41

        [laughs]

    15. CJCalum Johnson1:52:41

        I was, I was like, uh, not anything to do with him as a player. He's actually one of my favorite players. It was, um... You t- you try so hard to like build subscribers and like your channel-

    16. ZIZita1:52:52

        Oh [laughs]

    17. CJCalum Johnson1:52:53

        ... and then he turns up on YouTube. I don't remember what the statistic was. It's like in an hour he had like a million subs or something.

    18. ZIZita1:52:59

        Yeah.

    19. CJCalum Johnson1:52:59

        He was like getting the plaque. I was like, "Uh, okay."

    20. ZIZita1:53:02

        In the first day he had over, I think, 20 million.

    21. CJCalum Johnson1:53:04

        Yeah.

    22. ZIZita1:53:05

        20 million subscribers in just the first day.

    23. CJCalum Johnson1:53:07

        [laughs]

    24. ZIZita1:53:07

        You now have to compete with him for views on the platform.

    25. CJCalum Johnson1:53:10

        Yeah.

    26. ZIZita1:53:10

        You got Brady coming in here, too. It's like, why are you here?

    27. CJCalum Johnson1:53:13

        Yeah [laughs]

    28. ZIZita1:53:13

        You have your money. Go do your own thing.

    29. CJCalum Johnson1:53:16

        Yeah.

    30. ZIZita1:53:16

        It's fucking crazy.

Episode duration: 1:56:13