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VZJ6RfBTGUHwxvJxkGHY Amanda Northcutt, founder and the CEO of Level Up Creators. Level Up Creators
"The most of my career has been made up of a bunch of happy accidental events," starts Amanda Northcutt the founder and CEO of Level Up Creators. "My journey has been incredibly fluid. But that tends to be the case for most people. We tend to end up where we're supposed to be as long as we're being intentional and strategic."
The family jokes that she didn't speak before my brother started college. "My brother is a highly well-known lawyer, but it was him who occupied every inch of airspace in the home. He went to college when I was fourteen before entering high school. I started coming into my own once the airspace was available in the house."
Amanda's first gig was a shoe boutique. "Everyone was convinced that I'd not be successful because I was shy. I burst out of my shell, and I began selling shoes like crazy with record sales across the nation. I was awestruck! I was enthralled by business when I was 16, and I was sure at that time that's the path I would like to follow."
In the following years, Amanda was a student at university, and teamed up with a friend who was starting a website and needed someone to sell advertising on it. "This was back in 2005. the selling of online ads was similar to advertising on banners. It was like selling air! I heard the word "no often and got past any apprehension of selling to people pretty quick," she recalls.
Then being thrown to the bottom end
"I got my chops by being thrown into deep water," she continues. "I took that small selling gig into a larger sales job at a new firm named TexAgs.com and was there for more than a decade. This is where I learned the most about business." In this period she worked out the concept of memberships that recurring revenue can bring, increasing value, maximizing LTV as well as selling sponsorships.
"It's not a cool tiny website any more. It's like the largest collegiate fan website in the world. It was my second time working at the site and was a total blast." she smiles. "I was taught how to manage and lead employees. That's where I was enthralled by the model of membership and the recurring income. It was 2005. The next year, I'll be in the space for over two decades. Crazy how time flies!"
It attracted thousands people paying $13 a month for information about Texas A&M University sports teams. "We also cracked the secret to moving from banner ads to sponsorships (brand agreements in the modern world). The companies were trying to get their message out to our audience and we gave them very unique access points that were trackable and made a difference for these firms," she says.
Amanda used the same model to started Northcutt Media, using the sponsorship model that they refined at TexAgs then applied it to similar websites around the country. "That was the first time I had a venture in business, at age 22. We traveled a lot and similar things."
But a few years after, her health began to decline. "I needed to take some time off, but also dial in on living a healthy lifestyle," - Amanda needed to adjust the balance of her priorities, mainly her husband's health, as well as her baby son.
Amanda is now sharing about her journey to health more publicly and plans to do more. She's found that many women who have work that is stressful, intense and demanding tend to have autoimmune disease or similar. "The more I am at risk, the more likely I am able to lead by being vulnerable," she says. "Every whenever I talk about my circumstances, someone who isn't familiar with me comes in and texts me and says 'Hey, could we have a chat about it?' which is wonderful."
Amanda altered the way things were done. "I wanted to become a mom. I wanted to be the one who managed my health. I wanted to become an expert." In order to restore some normality to her career, she and her husband sold the business of their former partner Member Up and took it on, and made it run as a consultancy.
"I had a wonderful moment helping businesses with memberships that covered all kinds of topics. It was stuff one would never even consider until you're in the world and you know that there's a niche for each kind of passion There are people on the internet that want the same things you do." After a prolonged stint in the membership niche then she switched to fractional executive work at various SaaS companies around the world.
As part of this re-balanced lifestyle, Amanda reduced her work to 20-30 hours a week, but she was determined to be "extraordinarily impactful" in each of the organizations she worked for. She quit Silicon Valley at the end of 2022to create Level Up Creators: "I was looking to bring everything I learned from this B2B market, specifically SaaS market, and transfer the knowledge to creators particularly women.
"I'm keen to help women to create wealth cycles that last generations and apply their expertise by providing huge amounts of value to their communities of people who follow them and receive compensation for it in the form of a gift."
The services offered by Level Up Creators
What exactly does Level Up Creators accomplish? "We're seeking to increase impact and income especially for female creators. I truly believe I've assembled the top team of operators in the world," she replies.
They aid people to determine the place they're at, where they're going, and what's keeping their progress from happening. Then they orchestrate ways to remove the barriers that are holding you back from getting there you're looking for. "Our best time to start is when you've built a community around a certain topic, which is very significant - and have over 50,000 social media users as well as more than 2,000 email subscribers."
"When you approach us, I'll probably be asking you around a hundred questions at first," says Amanda. "I'm always looking to understand before being understood." Amanda collects a quantitative and qualitative data collection from the creator, so they are able to help them determine their choices.
"We would like to help the subject matter experts develop a product suite. We'd like to create lead magnets. Then, an educational course, maybe an introductory masterclass of three parts or similar Then we could change to a recurring income product. It could be a $49, $179 or even a $249 a month membership."
When you do that, Level Up Creators would move customers to group coaching with more recurring revenue levels. This is the time when "you can prove that you're able to provide consistently high-quality, repeatable quality that is on the mark to your followers and customers," she says.
The Level Up Creators team - image (c) welevelupcreators.com
This is how she assists people to develop their creative mindset. "Oftentimes experts in their field of expertise creators don't want to engage in branding deals or create products that ask for their fans to buy the products. It's my goal to educate creators about the fact they're in an incredible position to offer value above and above what can be provided for free on social media.
"We all want to be respected, power, love, relationships - the basic desires of our society," she continues. "We think we have connections to the people we follow. We are familiar with their lives that we would like to be more like them." Amanda believes that the creators who create an avenue for us to be more than them, it's a great chance for creators to offer things that add value and assist followers in achieving these goals, thus creating "a virtuous cycle of value".
"We have a greater appreciation for creators than have for these massive global legacy brands, because we're talking to an individual and not just an image. The first mission we have is to tell people that it's OK to market your products - since customers want to buy the products you have. We don't engage in unsavory sales or marketing, as well as we won't collaborate with people who aren't providing real legitimate benefits to their community. This is table stakes."
The future as well as the end of the brands from the past
"I'm thrilled to be in a place in which we're helping creatives in a new way, and also increasing our efforts to help women,"" Amanda muses. We are a professional services firm, but we're trying to emulate our client companies, and being a creator-first firm our own." She sums it up that they are here to educate creators on how to think like CEOs and run their business effectively.
"We have been working on some awesome products!" she laughs. The team will launch an initiative called the Level Up Creators School on March 1st 2024. This is a subscription-based business school for creators. "We'll offer our knowledge and experience to provide the exact training, community, tools as well as high-touch assistance to help creators reach their next big income milestone the very first one for many artists will be $50,000 million in revenue. We'll also use our Fastest Path To 50 framework for helping people get there. This is awesome!"
In a final thought about the industry in general, Amanda concludes: "The trend is towards a direct-to-consumer approach where the creators are having more power when it comes to spending on content and curating. It's amazing the amount of affection that fans have for creators they love."
Amanda clarifies that millennials as well as Gen Xers aren't relying on the big brands of the past for updates anymore "These big cable networks are nothing but dinosaurs! They can either get onto this train, or they will die."
"I am totally calling my shot: that is the future. My company was created to make that dream a reality, and to help others become wildly successful. I'd prefer that money be given to creators directly instead of huge corporations. The idea is, "All right, let someone else take over!' This is a great time to be a content creator!" she smiles.
More information
Amanda Northcutt is a consultant coach, coach, and six-time executive who has developed and scaled online businesses for D2C B2C, D2C and B2Bs.
She created Level Up Creators to help influential creator educators build sustainable businesses. Level Up Creators offers strategies and solutions to individuals who have at least one product that is already in use, such as fields such as personal finance, wellness, travel or sports, and who are prepared to increase the value and earnings of these products. For more information, visit welevelupcreators.com.