If you do what you love, you will never work a day. Pretty motivating, right? According to Salem King, that is not entirely true. He believes if you do what you love it, makes you work harder than you have ever worked. Okay, maybe Marc Anthony did not mean it precisely when he made that statement King’s career is an excellent example of passion driving his discipline, dedication and determination to his craft. Salem King is a personal brand strategist, consultant, content creator, podcaster, speaker, and bestselling author. He has amassed over 70 thousand followers on Instagram and more than 1 thousand followers on YouTube.
King worked in real estate for three years. In 2018, his third year of working there, he began to dabble in content creation and grew to enjoy creating. King made over 100k for the first time when he put together a course on content creation.
Salem King
“I decided to have a class cause I was getting a lot of questions about how I make my content. There were a few people who requested that I create a class, at first, I did a free class and then when I saw how that went, they decided to do a paid class, and people paid. The class was 5 thousand Naira, about a hundred people paid in less than 48 hours, that was the first time I made over a 100k, like a while later,” he recounts.
Monetizing and making a steady income from content creation can be strenuous, so when King, made this money, it was a shock, he was not aware that he could make any money from content creation.
“When I made that money, it felt new. I was happy I could make money from content creation because it was a hobby initially. I was having fun with it when I found out, I could make enough money to care for myself and pay bills. It was surprising, and I knew I had to double down,”
Salem King
That experience led King to start viewing content creations as a business. He invested some of the income into his career and splurged the rest on himself.
“It was a new season for me. I started to treat my content creation career as a business. I remember taking some of the money to register my business. A lot of it I spent on flexing,”
Salem King
Though King did not gain any financial epiphanies from making his first 100k; however growing up, he learnt the importance of savings.
Salem King
“Start a savings culture. My dad taught me. I used to feel like what’s the point of saving, for example, 100 every month, if at the end of the year, I am going to have 1,200 that is nothing, but he helped me see that these habits are what I needed to build. So I think any young person should learn to save, that would save your life, build the habit of saving,”
King decided that his business needed structure, so he made an important choice early in his career. He recognized his goals, weighed his options and hired himself as a career manager.
Salem King
“Getting a manager is the best decision I ever made. At the time, I did not have up to 10,000 followers. So it was weird to get followed up. I was worried about it I felt like how much am I earning? Why would I hire a manager? I can’t afford to have a manager. But I figured it was the best decision ever made. It just made it possible for me to build. With somebody who was seeing things from a different perspective from mine because I am a creative person and in so many ways, I think creatively; I needed someone who thinks about everything I do from a business perspective,”
