Have you ever reached a point in your business where you’re frustrated because you feel like nobody is giving you the attention, time, or respect you feel you deserve?

You put in all of this effort to get your business off the ground, set up a website up and begin serving a few clients but when are you going to have a breakthrough? When are you going to be a success? When are you going to “blow up”?

It’s going to take patience, the type of patience that knows how to endure through the slow times and use that time to prepare for the future when people will finally discover you.

I believe it’s important to look beyond the industry you’re in and observe what others creatives are doing. Wisdom is everywhere.

I met Rocio Mora (aka RisasRizos) at a conference last year. I hadn’t heard of her before but that didn’t matter because I was not her target audience, not to mention I don’t have long curly hair. Rocio is a blogger and youtube hair care consultant who has grown her audience to the point that she can now YouTube full time. As I listened to her story of how she went from 0 to over 23,000+ subscribers on YouTube I was able to draw many lessons from it.

Here is her story:

Rocio’s Story

Back on June 2014, a friend recommended that perhaps Rocio should share her hair story on YouTube and make youtube videos about hair care. At the time nobody really thought anything of her videos nor do they understand why she was taking the time to do that. Why should she even begin making videos when there’s already tons of YouTubers out there with millions of followers? What could she possibly say that someone hasn’t already said.

As she continued to make youtube videos about hair care, she simply would share from her own personal experience as well as look for new creative ways to make videos. Her goal at this point was to simply share information that may be helpful to others. During this time period, the only person who supported her and gave her positive feedback was her brother. Other than that her other family members didn’t really understand why she was investing time in doing this. It seemed like possibly they didn’t even care.

Rocio remained consistent in making videos and something happened. People started noticing and liking her videos. Finally, she reached the point where she celebrated the milestone of making 5,000 youtube subscribers. At this point, some family member said, “Oh that’s cool”. (I’m sure they thought it was cool, but perhaps they didn’t know what 5,000 YouTubers meant?)

The right people noticed

As she remained consistent and committed a year passed and her following grew to a point where sponsors began to reach out to her and ask for collaborations or to use their products. One of the sponsors was Being Latino, one of the nation’s leading U.S. Hispanic social media marketing companies with a collective network of more than 12 million followers. Rocio made some video content from them and they shared it on Facebook. Her mother happened to see the video on Facebook and that’s when things began to make sense for her mother.

A little while later sponsors began sending products to Rocio directly for her to feature on her Youtube channel. One sponsor sent something in the mail at no cost to Rocio and this was the moment of enlightenment for her father. Finally, not only did other notice and see the value of her business but now her family grasped what she was doing because they saw the tangible impact and influence she had with her audience. All this happened in a little over 1 year.

Are you willing to invest and put in work for 1 year straight in order to grow your business?


Success takes patience

There is no such thing as an overnight success, success is the sum of many nights of work and overcoming failure. Too often people want to see success within the first couple of months when something new has started Before those closest to Rocio began to “care” a whole year passed and she focused on the audience who appreciated her content rather than who wasn’t paying attention. There is a great video on youtube by Gary Vaynerchuk which sums this up pretty well called “Overnight Success”.

Don’t confuse not caring with not understanding

Not everyone will understand what it is you’re working on, but one day they will. No cares until they do. It’s hard for people to care about what they cannot grasp or understand. What’s more, how can we expect people to care if they are not even in our target audience? You don’t need everyone to care you only need the right people to notice you at the right time.

If you have an idea and you were given the vision, validate the idea and go for it. Of course others can’t see YOUR vision, it’s YOURS, not theirs. Once you get started and others see you in action, it will become clearer for other to understand what you doing in the future.

Get a hype man

Whatever it is you’re working on you need a hype man, someone to encourage you and remind you to keep working. In another video, 8 ways to validate your business idea, I discuss the idea of a hype man: This is someone who is aware of your goals and actually believes you are more than capable of reaching your goal. For Rocio this was her brother, for you this can be a family member, close friend, or someone in your same field who is also launching something around the same time as you.

Milestones

Celebrate milestones no matter how big or small as long as you are one step closer to reaching your goals. Rocio mentioned in the past she only had 10,000 subscribers on youtube. Compared to the celebrity YouTubers with 1 million subscribers 10,000 doesn’t seem like much but 10,000 is the size of a basketball stadium. It’s easy to look at the leaders in an industry and try to compare, but everything is relative and must be put into the proper perspective.

Be consistent and visible

New ideas are never adopted quickly. There are a few exceptions but most of the time people play the loss / lead game. They begin a business and invest upfront and they maintain long enough to get to a point where they finally get a large return on their investment. You have to remain active long enough for someone to take notice. Take the time now to work out your processes and get better at your craft. When people finally do discover you they will be able to look back and your longevity will serve in creating a trust for new adopters of your brand.

Keep on creating, keep on designing, keep on building and keep on hustling. Whatever it is you are working on if you feel like no one cares realize one day they will as you continue to improve day by day.

Success is a marathon, not a sprint.


Showing 2 comments
  • poornima
    Reply

    Great reminder to create consistently and without expectations! My daily mantra is no expectations. Looking forward to more of your videos Nathan.

    • Nathan Allotey
      Reply

      Thank you for your words. I’ve seen similar things in your life as it pertains to growing an audience. You’ve been consistent for quite some time and the things you did 2 years ago built up equality for today. People may say “what is a Femgineer?”, but once they view your content it becomes plainly obvious.

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