The System Every Creator Needs To Figure Out To Build A Successful Career

Your career depends on your ability to build a system.

Because a lack of a system leads to random acts of creation and promotion, which leads to…not much of anything.

The good news is while each creator’s system is unique to their abilities and needs, the mechanics of each system are basically the same.

Every successful creator’s system contains the same three elements: Discovery, connection, and monetization mechanisms.

Here’s how each one works and how to consider your own…

You Need A Discovery Mechanism

This is how new people find out you and your creations exist.

Typically, it consists of the creations, content and social media posts you put into the world.

If you don’t have something designed to attract the attention of new people on a consistent basis, your discovery mechanism needs some work.

You Need A Connection Mechanism

This is how you take someone who discovers your creations and turn them into an actual fan you can reach with your future creations.

Turning that person into an email subscriber is typically the most powerful connection you can have, but your connection mechanism could also be to get them to follow you on social media, subscribe to your podcast or YouTube channel, or whatever other way you choose to transition people from being aware of you to being connected to you.

If you don’t have a specific plan to get people who discover you to connect to you, you’ll struggle to build a large audience and have way too many missed opportunities as people who liked what they saw of you move on and forget about you.

You Need A Monetization Mechanism

This is how you earn a living from your creations.

It’s how you turn your audience — the people who connect to you in the previous phase — into customers or people who support what you do financially.

Your monetization mechanism may be a product, service, or donation and it’s typically either paid by your audience or others who hire you.

If you don’t have a specific path to eventual monetization, you won’t be able to build a sustainable creative career and will wind up a creative hobbyist instead of a creative pro.

Here’s What My System Looks Like…

To give you a sense of what a creator’s system can look like, here’s a breakdown of my three mechanisms.

My Discovery mechanism — the ways people find me — include the following:

My Connection mechanism — the way I want people to connect to me —includes the following:

  • Subscribe to my newsletter (this is by far my top connection priority)
  • Follow me on Twitter
  • Join my Newsletter Creators Facebook group
  • Follow me on Medium

My Monetization mechanism — the products and services I want people to purchase to sustain my creative career— includes the following:

When you lay out your system like this, it becomes much easier to figure out what to do.

This approach gives me a clear overview of what I’m building and how I’m building it which allows me to develop and test strategies to improve each mechanism on an ongoing basis.

A system can do the same for you.


Get more tips on how to produce, promote, and profit from your creations.

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