The new year is fast approaching, and what better time to create a new set of goals and revenue targets? Setting such intentions will help you stay focused, track your progress and maximize your profitability.
This is also the perfect time to shake off any perceived failures and unmet objectives, before turning them into goals that you can spend 2023 working toward. To help you get started on the right path, here are some ways to set realistic goals and engineer your life in such a way as to actually achieve them.
As a content creator, you are an entrepreneur with no limits on how much you can push, and your success in 2023 is all up to you.
To Build Your Future, Take a Look at Your Past
Future success is made easier by reviewing your past successes and seeing what worked. For folks in the camming industry, this means analyzing which streaming performances and months were your best, as well as what circumstances made them possible. Here are three effective strategies for reviewing your previous fiscal year:
Create a graph: A line graph will provide you with a helpful visual representation of your revenue history and performance over the previous year. You can either use good old-fashioned paper and pen to plot your success points by hand, or leverage software like Microsoft Excel to capture the data and generate graphs.
Gather data from cam platforms: While every cam platform may be unique in its own way, they all have access to incredibly useful data. From individual performance metrics to overall site traffic, cam platforms are an amazing resource in terms of data review — and boy, do they love talking about it! The most enterprising and entrepreneurial performers know that at any given point, they are more than welcome to reach out to their account manager, cam coach or other internal contacts to request performance metrics in order to gain insight into their performance and revenue. Don’t be shy.
Ask Peers for Advice
One of the most beautiful things about our industry is the strong sense of camaraderie you won’t find in the corporate world. And the numbers don’t lie: there is definitely enough business to go around for everyone. So why not reach out to your colleagues, since they can offer special insight into the wild world of camming? There is no better source for tips and tricks to increase traffic to your room and overall revenues than those who are out there doing the work just like you. And thanks to social media, everyone is nearly instantly accessible, so don’t be afraid to strike up a conversation about shop talk with the intention of learning a thing or two from the accomplished professionals in the field.
A/B Test Your Audiences
A/B testing is a powerful method employed by marketers, scientists and leading executives in order to directly test their engaged audiences, see what works and build on what’s successful. A/B testing is simple: you select two options or paths for moving forward, deploy both methods in a limited manner, and then compare the data to see which one outperforms the other before proceeding full throttle.
For example, say you want to test the best time of day to broadcast. The way to go about this is to schedule one show in the morning and then one show in the evening, ideally on the same day of the week and the same length of broadcast time so as to get the most authentic and uninterrupted data possible. Once both shows have been completed, take a moment to review the number of people in your room and the amount of tips you collected, and start scheduling more shows at whichever time performed better.
This is just one example of A/B testing; you can experiment with many elements of your show to see what works and what you should build on. These elements can include different outfits, show themes, broadcast locations and guests vs. no guests. The only way to grow is through experimentation, so get creative and employ the data you collect in order to build and maximize your revenues.
Set Smaller Goals to Work Toward the Big Ones
Any life coach will tell you that the best way to achieve your big goals is to deconstruct all of the tasks and accomplishments needed to hit that one big goal, and attack those smaller goals individually. For example, if your goal is to make a certain total dollar amount for the year, break that number down into monthly and weekly targets, and work towards the smaller, achievable numbers as you go.
Psychologically, the motivation boost when you accomplish the smaller goals will trigger the momentum needed to keep you engaged and motivated to hit that larger target. Additionally, tracking smaller goals gives you the space to adjust throughout the year and monitor growth, without the burden of a huge goal looming over your head or putting yourself in the position of having an impossible goal in front of you with not enough time left in the year to achieve it.
Dream Bigger
The biggest mistake we all make when setting our goals is allowing self-doubt to creep in, thereby limiting how we perceive our own potential. Why not make this your “dream bigger” year? Set goals and revenue targets that, if achieved, could potentially change your life. Proven benefits of setting enormous goals include:
Changing your mindset: All too often, we get trapped in a limiting state of mind and remain stuck thinking that we can’t achieve great things. Setting big goals will push you to rethink what’s possible for yourself and help you turn things you once considered pie-in-the-sky dreams into reality.
Rethinking your strategy: When you start to consider your business practices in the context of achieving next-level goals, you begin to pinpoint certain behaviors and strategies that no longer serve you.
Getting focused: Let’s be honest, often one of the biggest obstacles between us and what we truly want is ourselves. Perhaps, like many, you’re a procrastinator. Or you’re easily distracted by unimportant minutiae. This is where one of the most important elements of success comes into play, one that is actually within our individual control. When you set your “dream bigger” goals, you will quickly identify the parts of your life you need to change and how you need to pivot your decision-making in order to get on the path that will bring you to the next level of success. Whenever faced with a decision or a distraction, ask yourself what your future self will be most grateful for: immediate gratification, or foregoing the quick fix and short shot of dopamine to invest your time and energy into taking steps toward your big goals.
Ultimately, it’s all up to you, and that’s the greatest part of starting a new year. As a content creator, you are an entrepreneur with no limits on how much you can push, and your success in 2023 is all up to you. Design the life you want, achieve the financial freedom you crave and revel in the success of living a life most only dream of. It may not be easy, but it sure is worth it.
Johnny Diamond is senior account manager at camming platform CAM4. Follow him @JDiamondXXX on Twitter and contact johnny@cam4.com for more information.
