Audit Your Creator Business

How to Audit Your Content Business

Performing an audit is all about:

• Intentional self-reflection

• Radical self-responsibility

• Gauging progress

• Creating a plan that works

Every so often, I do a life audit—I look at aspects like career, finances, relationships, etc. But I recently thought, why not do this for my business?

The entire process takes a couple hours, but it’s one of the most worthwhile processes I’ve participated in. The clarity and actionable insights that come from an audit is insane.

Here’s how to conduct an audit on your content business:

Income Streams 💰

Grab your income records from 2024. If they’re not already labeled by income stream (ie. affiliate commission, brand deals, etc), sort them out.

Look at the following:

• Amount made

• Time invested

• Any relevant patterns

Map it out in a table if it’s helpful. (Example below)

In this example, we can extract a few actionable insights:

• Digital products produced more revenue despite being lower lift than affiliate linking. → I will invest more time into producing and selling digital products.

• Brand deals increased after a content series. → I will create another content series that may lead to long-term brand deals.

• Financial product links generated more revenue than Amazon links. → I will pause on investing time linking tons of Amazon products and focus on content where I can promote financial product links.

Content Performance 📈

Go to your primary platform. Grab the link to your profile. Head to ChatGPT (or your favorite similar AI tool). Ask it the following prompt.

Some AI platforms can pull data from further back. Others can’t. ChatGPT pulled 7 videos from this prompt. I noticed a couple patterns:

• A few of the top 7 were from the same series.

• They were shorter pieces of content (less than 1 minute).

• Mostly lifestyle content (as opposed to other pillars I create within).

In this example, we can extract these actionable insights:

• Create another content series, or expand on the prior one that performed.

• Edit down longer videos to keep them under 1 minute.

• Lean into lifestyle angle in content more.

You might also want to ask ChatGPT to pull your worst performing content. It’s good to see if there’s patterns there too.

Processes and Pleasure 😊

Brainstorm a list of all the things you do in your content business.

Rate them on joy and operational efficiency.

It might look something like this:

In this example, you might gain the following actionable insights:

• You decide to outsource monitoring analytics because it doesn’t bring you joy.

• Your process for editing content is inefficient because you don’t have a system in place for organizing clips. You enjoy the process though, so you develop an organization system in Google Drive.

• You like writing scripts, but your process is time-consuming. You spend 30 minutes looking for an AI tool to help expedite your process and organize your thoughts faster.

Finance, Taxes, and Compliance 🫡

3 simple Qs:

1. Are you tracking your income and expenses? If no, start. If so, do you feel confident in your process?

2. Do you feel prepared for tax season? If no, book a call with an accountant or ask a trusted creator friend how they stay organized for tax season.

3. Are you up to date on rules and regulations? (ie. Are you properly labeling sponsored posts and affiliate links? If you have a website, do you have the necessary Terms and Disclaimers?) If you’re unsure, might be worth it to book a short call with an attorney.

Launching Physical Products as a Creator

Last week, we interviewed ChefPK in Creator Studio, our Discord Community.

Alongside being a professional chef, ChefPK started YouTube as a side hustle. He built his brand around the food eaten in anime shows and launched his first manga-inspired cookbook, AniBites, to celebrate hitting 100k subscribers.

Now, he’s launching a new product, Cooking with Chaos—a recipe card game.

Here are some of our favorite takeaways from the conversation:

• Know your audience and their budget/interests.

  • ChefPK used AI to skim his channel’s comments. He gathered info like their age, occupation, and expendable income.

  • He decided against his original idea of a high-end knife because his audience doesn’t have $300-$400 to spend on a chef knife.

• Create something that’s collectible and “expandable.”

  • Consumers lose interest in certain products after their initial purchase. Create something that can be supplemented by subsequent launches.

• Make it for more than just your audience.

  • Don’t forget to think about the broader consumer market. What gap in the market is your product filling?

  • ChefPK keeps his branding/name minimal on Cooking with Chaos cards.

Quick Links

🗣️ IG launches new testimonial ad format for creators.

💰 Wyoming entrepreneur bids $50B for TikTok.

🐐 This platform deemed the “GOAT” for creators.

🛋️ $5k-$7k/mo for 15 videos with Rugs.com.

This Week in Creator Studio

This week in Creator Studio, our private Discord community, we’re bringing in Dylan Huey:

• Creator with 6M+ followers across platforms

• CEO of REACH, a national collegiate influencer organization

• TEDx speaker and creator economy leader

See ya next week,

Karat