When I was a kid I didn't think I would be happy unless I was a "millionaire". Some kids in my school said they were millionaires and they would make fun of anyone who wasn't.
I asked my dad what he was worth. He said $2. Maybe that scarred me so much that I always make sure to have wads of $2 bills on me at all times.
A year or so later his company went bankrupt. So he wasn't worth the same anymore. In his mind, he was worth ZERO.
For the rest of his life he sat in the living room, depressed, and listened to music. When he was a little boy he loved music and won an award.
At some point we all return to what we loved as a child. I suppose that means I will return to comics, Judy Blume, and spying on people.
A few weeks ago I met Mimi Ikonn and Alex Ikonn. I was insanely curious about them.
How come? Because Mimi makes videos of herself, delivers real value to people, and then makes over a million a year because of those videos.
I don't know how old Mimi is. She's much younger than me. She's much younger than my father ever was when I was alive. He would've liked to live her life.
So Claudia and I asked Mimi and Alex if we could interview them.
Because they seemed very happy also. The podcast comes out later today but here's the summary.
This is a simple post. How to make a million.
I am absolutely sure the same techniques that worked for Mimi and Alex can work for anyone. I had them lay it out step by step.
A) EMOTIONS
Mimi became obsessed with beauty and hair. She and Alex watched before and after videos of women who were getting hair extensions.
"They seemed much happier after getting extensions," Alex said. "Whenever there are strong emotions about something you know there is an opportunity."
So Mimi started making videos of herself discussing hair and beauty and hair products.
"I never thought I would get more than 1,000 views," Mimi said. "But I loved doing the videos. And I wanted to share my love for the topics with as many people as possible."
Now she has had a quarter of a BILLION views on her videos with 2.7 million subscribers.
B) HUB AND SPOKE
People ask: "How do I get traffic to my blog". Or "how do I get buyers of my book." or "How do I get people to follow me on Twitter."
A lot of it is about loneliness. We sit in our house writing blog posts and then hit Publish. We want family to love them. We want friends to love them. And then we want the world to love them.
I'm really just talking about myself. I know when people enjoy things I do, I feel as if I have a family. I'm happy. At least until the next post.
Mimi loved making the videos but needed traffic.
So they did the only two-step technique that gets traffic online for anything you want to do. Well, make it a three-step technique.
1) Love
Know more, love more, express more, bleed more, than anyone else. Was Mimi the only one doing videos on beauty and hair? No. But maybe she put more passion into it.
2) Spread the Love
Alex would take images and posts and links to her videos and spread them on Pinterest, Instagram, blogs, other sites and have them all point back to her YouTube channel.
I call this "the Hub and Spoke" approach. Youtube was the hub, with a dozen or so spokes reaching out to popular sites that all would link back to the hub.
3) Make more Love
No matter what you do - some will be good and some will be bad. Not every video or post is going to have views. So you do more.
When you do more, several things happen:
a. More people find you
b. You rank higher on search
c. You improve
d. People who find you start clicking on your older videos so now they start to get more views.
The "Make More Love" technique always works.
Michelle Phan did 54 YouTube videos before she made a massive hit.
Hugh Howey had already ten novels before he published "Wool" which became a massive bestseller. Clayton Christiansen applied for NASA for 18 years in a row before they accepted him.
Make more love.
C) 1000 PEOPLE
Note she said she only thought she was going to get 1000 viewers. The number 1000 keeps coming up with people who have HUGE audiences.
Kevin Kelly wrote about this in a great post called "1000 True Fans". He writes about it kk.org. He also talks about it on my podcast.
Tim Ferriss talks about how every one of his posts he makes sure he's going to deliver value to at least 1000 people.
Of course he delivers much more value than that. But 1000 seems to be the right number that people who know seem to focus on.
Keep focusing on delivering value for a 1000 and then they tell 2 friends and so on and next thing you know you have a quarter of a billion views, five bestsellers, movies being made about you, you go into space, your own makeup lines, and on and on and on, depending on what it is you love.
D) B...