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VZJ6RfBTGUHwxvJxkGHY Amanda Northcutt, founder and the CEO of Level Up Creators. Level Up Creators

"The most of my professional life has been made up of lots of fun incidents," starts Amanda Northcutt who is the CEO and founder of Level Up Creators. "My career path is extremely irregular and non-linear. It's the case for most people. The way we end up is where we're supposed to be in the event that we're intentional and strategic."

The family jokes that she didn't speak until her brother was in university. "My brother's a very successful lawyer, but he took up every inch of airspace in the home. He went to college when I was fourteen and heading into high school. I started coming into my own when that space was available inside the house."

Amanda's first position was in the shoe store. "Everyone was convinced that I'd be a failure due to my shyness. I completely came out of my shell, and I began selling shoes in a blaze of glory, breaking national sales records. It was amazing! I was enthralled by business at the age of 16 so I knew at this point that's what I'd like to take."

In the following years, Amanda was a student at university, and connected with a fellow student who was starting a website and required someone to market advertising on it. "This was 2005, when selling online advertisements was similar to banner ads. It was like selling air! I was hearing the word "no' a lot and got over any fear of selling my products to customers quick," she recalls.

Being thrown into the deep at the bottom

"I got my chops from being in deep water," she continues. "I parlayed that little sale into a much bigger sales job at a new firm known as TexAgs.com and eventually worked for a long time. It was there that I truly learned how to run a business." In this period, she figured out the membership model and recurring revenue. She also figured out how to add value, increasing LTV as well as selling sponsorships.

"It's not a cool tiny website anymore. It's like the largest collegiate fan site on the planet. I was the 2nd employee there, and I had an absolute blast," she smiles. "I was taught how to run and manage individuals. That's where I fell in love with the model of membership and regular revenue. This was back in 2005. In the next year, I'll be in the space for two decades. It's amazing how fast time passes!"

It attracted thousands users who pay $13 monthly for details about Texas A&M University sports teams. "We have also broken the mystery of changing banner advertisements to sponsorships (brand deals in today's terms). Companies were trying to reach our readers and we gave the access of very specific points which could be tracked and made a difference for these firms," she says.

Amanda adopted the model and created Northcutt Media, using the sponsorship model that they refined at TexAgs then applied the same model and applied it to websites throughout the country. "That was the first time I had a job when I was 22 years old. We traveled a lot and similar things."

However, a couple of years after, her health began to decline. "I required some time off and be aware of my living a healthy lifestyle," - Amanda needed to redress the balance of priorities in her life including her husband's health, as well as her the baby boy.

Amanda has begun to talk about her journey to health more openly and hopes to continue doing more. She has found that women working in high stress jobs are more likely to be afflicted with an autoimmune condition or similar. "The more vulnerable I become vulnerable, the more I am able to lead with this kind of vulnerability," she says. "Every whenever I talk about my situation, someone who isn't familiar with me comes in and texts me, asking could we have a chat?', and it's so wonderful."

Amanda changed things up. "I had to be a mother. I wanted to be the person who was in charge of my health, and I was required to work as an expert." In an effort to get back to a normal profession, she along with her husband sold the business of their former partner Member Up and took it on, and made it run as a consulting company.

"I have had an amazing time helping membership businesses which covered all sorts of topics. It was stuff people would not even think about until you're in the world and know there's a niche for each type of interest, and there are users on the web who want what you have." After a long stint in the membership niche then she switched to an executive role that was a fraction of SaaS organizations around the world.

As part of this re-balanced life, Amanda reduced her work to between 20 and 30 hours per week. She aimed to be "extraordinarily influential" at each of the organizations she consulted for. Amanda left Silicon Valley at the end of 2022to create Level Up Creators: "I decided to apply everything I learned from this B2B, primarily SaaS industry, and apply the knowledge to creators particularly women.

"I'm keen to help women create generational wealth cycles and leveraging their experience through providing enormous value to their communities and members and receiving compensation for it in the form of a gift."

The services offered by Level Up Creators

So what does Level Up Creators accomplish? "We're looking to optimize the impact of our work and increase income for female creators in particular. We are confident that we have the most experienced team of entrepreneurs on planet earth," she replies.

They assist people in determining their current location, the direction they're going, and what's keeping them from getting there. Then they orchestrate ways to remove these barriers and get you there you're looking for. "Our ideal situation is when you've built a community around a certain topic, which is very crucial - and you have over 50,000 social media users and/or over 2,000 email subscribers."

"When you come to us, I'll probably inquire about 100 questions at first," says Amanda. "I'm always seeking to know before I can be understood." Amanda gathers the quantitative and qualitative information set from a creator so they are able to help them determine their options.

"We would like to help the subject matter experts develop an entire product line. We'd like to create lead magnets. Then, some kind of course, possibly an introductory masterclass of three parts or similar Then we could move into a recurring revenue product. Perhaps it's $49 or $179 or even the $249 monthly membership."

When you do that, Level Up Creators would move clients to group coaching, which comes with higher tiers of recurring revenue. This happens an indication that "you can prove that you're capable of providing consistent, repeated worth that's right to your followers and customers," she says.

The Level Up Creators team - image (c) welevelupcreators.com

She helps others to develop their creative mindset. "Oftentimes experts in their field of expertise creators are hesitant to do brand deals or to make items and then ask the audience to buy them. My goal is to educate creators about the fact the amazing position to continue providing value over what's available with no cost on social media.

"We all seek power, respect, authority, love, relationships - the basic desires of our society," she continues. "We believe that we are connected to the people we follow. We know so much about their lives that we would like to be more like them." Amanda believes that the creators who create opportunities to us all to become more than them, it's a great opportunity for creators to sell things that add value and assist followers in achieving their goals, resulting in "a beneficial cycle".

"We have so much more affinity for creators than we do the massive legacy global brands because we're talking to a human, not the logo. The first mission we have is to tell people that it's OK to sell stuff - because consumers want to purchase what they can get. We don't engage in poor sales or marketing as well as we won't collaborate with creators who are not offering real benefit to their communities. It's like tables stakes."

The future and the death of the brands from the past

"I'm excited to be in a position where we're helping creators in a new way, and also increasing our efforts to help women,"" Amanda muses. The company is a professional firm, but we are working toward mirroring our client business, by being a Creator-first business ourselves." She sums it up that they are helping creators learn the ways to be CEOs in their thinking and run their business effectively.

"We are developing some amazing product!" she laughs. The team is launching an initiative called the Level Up Creators School on the 1st March in 2024. This is a membership based business school for creators. "We'll offer our knowledge and know-how to offer the right educational, community, and resources, and high-touch support to assist creators in reaching the next milestone in their income - the first of which for many creators will be $50,000 in RR. We'll be using the Fastest Path To 50 framework for helping people get there. This is awesome!"

In a final thought about the business in general, Amanda concludes: "The industry is moving towards this direct-to-consumer approach where the creators are having more power when it comes to spending on content and curation. It's incredible the degree of loyalty that people feel for the creators that they love."

Amanda says that millennials and Gen Xers aren't relying on large legacy brands for their updates anymore "These large cable networks are a dinosaur! You can choose to get on this train or they will be dead."

"I completely believe in my shot: that is the future. I've built a company to help bring that vision into reality, and to help others become immensely successful. I'd prefer that money be distributed to creators, rather than huge companies. The idea is, "All right, let someone else get a chance! The time is right to be a content creator!" she smiles.

More details

Amanda Northcutt is a consultant coach, coach, and six-time executive who has created and grown online businesses for D2C, B2C, and B2Bs.

She created Level Up Creators to help prominent creators and educators create profitable businesses that are sustainable. Level Up Creators offers strategies and systems to people who have at least one product that is already in use, such as fields such as personal finance, wellness sports, travel, or wellness and is ready to expand their impact and income. For more information, visit welevelupcreators.com.