SPI 747: How to Build a Six-Figure Brand in a Small Niche with Victoria Moll

SPI 747: How to Build a Six-Figure Brand in a Small Niche with Victoria Moll

Victoria Moll: I developed sort of a formula for myself. I keep a spreadsheet. I have all the different ideas of things that I can do, and then I rank them on a scale of one to three for three different categories. Number one is how interested am I in doing this? Number two is how long is it gonna take me to do this?

And then number three is how much money is this gonna make me? Then I take the whole list and I look at it and I go, Okay, Is there anything that hits all three categories Is there something that’s not gonna take me a lot of time, I can make a lot of money, and I’m gonna be really interested in it?

And if there’s something that hits all three of them, yep, that’s the one I go for.

Pat Flynn: This is episode seven hundred and forty seven, the very first episode of 2024, and I always love starting off the new year with some big time inspiration and specific strategies that might be able to help you. And today, who’s gonna help us is Victoria Moll, the founder of Contempo Coding. She’s in a space, I’ll tell you the niche in just a moment, that on the surface might seem pretty dry. Also, on the surface might seem like it’s not that big of a space. However, she’s been able to amass over a hundred thousand subscribers on YouTube and generate over six figures a year.

What is this space? It’s medical coding, and she’s been able to bring some energy into the space and be seen as a leader in this space, sell online courses in this space, and have the top podcast. And it’s amazing. We’re gonna talk about the whole journey. Where Victoria and I first connected was actually during what we call the Income Stream.

The Income Stream was a daily for three hundred and sixty five days, a whole year daily going live on YouTube on the Pat Flynn YouTube channel. And I did that when the pandemic started to bring the community together, to be there to support each other through tough times. And I always remember seeing her username in the chat, Contempo Coding. And now Contempo Coding has grown to a six figure business, a hundred thousand subs.

And Victoria is here to tell us all about how it’s happened and the decisions that she’s making now to keep and maintain her lifestyle, which allows her to travel multiple times a year with her daughter to different places, and it’s awesome. And And here she is, Victoria Moll from ContempoCoding.com.

Announcer: You’re listening to the Smart Passive Income Podcast, a proud member of the Entrepreneur Podcast Network, a show that’s all about working hard now, so you can sit back and reap the benefits later. And now your host. When he was a kid, his favorite Halloween candy were pixie sticks. Pat Flynn.

Pat Flynn: Victoria, welcome to the SPI Podcast. Thanks so much for being here today.

Victoria Moll: I am absolutely excited to be here with you today, Pat.

Pat Flynn: And we’re kicking off 2024 in a special way.

And this is perfect because I remember seeing you almost every single day for a whole year back in 2020 inside of the Income Stream. And the Income Stream was when I went live daily on YouTube to just kinda bring community together during the pandemic, and and it created something really special. What was your experience with the Income Stream during that time, and and where were you at in your business

Victoria Moll: at that moment? When the income stream started, it was right around the start of the pandemic, and I had been working my job as a side hustle on YouTube, but also working full time for a hospital and health care facility as a medical coding auditor. And I made very good money as a medical coding auditor, but I was kind of dabbling and also doing something for myself.

And at that time, I was doing a lot of research. So I was fortunate in the fact that I had already been working from home when the pandemic hit at my full time job as well as my part time job. It actually happened right before the pandemic. It was funny because I had purchased a home Valentine’s Day of 2020. So I had purchased it with this intent of, oh, I’m gonna start my online business.

I have this new home office now. I got my camera set up. I got everything set up to do this home office studio, basically had a KVM switch, a keyboard video mouse switch, so I could press one button and switch all my peripherals from my day job to my side hustle and sit in the exact same chair and everything worked exactly the same. So when the income stream came on, it was so great because I was working from home, but I could also have my second monitor playing something else. So I was using that to my advantage to really research and study, and every day, there’s Pat.

And there’s always something I’m picking up from Pat’s stream, you know, a new tip on how to teach for my courses or how to set up my lighting for YouTube or how to do live streams, which is a part of my business now. So it was really helping me out grow that side hustle to the point where I hit that, where I’m like, okay, I think it’s it’s time to make the switch, take the leap of faith, and go full time on this.

Pat Flynn: What was your side hustle about who were you serving?

Victoria Moll: So I work in the medical billing and coding field. Medical billing and coding, for those of you who don’t know, it’s the process of taking different reports on patients’ diagnoses, their procedures, all their services, their medical equipment, and converting them into unified codes.

We need that for a couple of reasons. Primary one people think of is medical billing, right? We have to put everything on an insurance claim, get it out to insurance so they can pay it, but also we need that for a lot of statistical and analytical purposes. If you think of, you know, how many patients have certain diseases, how many of those diseases progress. So we track things like the codes for patients that have diabetes, but then also all the complications you can get from diabetes, so we can use that analytics to make even things like financial decisions.

If you think of even, like, a package of Oreo cookies, the Oreo cookies have that barcode on the back. Right? The barcode is really what keeps all the information about Oreo cookies when you scan it into the register. Right? So when you scan it, the register detects that that’s a package of Oreo cookies and it can attach a price to it.

It can say, oh, well, if you buy two packages of Oreo cookies today, you get a discount. We do the same kind of thing with your healthcare data. We can’t send an entire claim that has all of these narratives in it, so we convert them to code, so we can use that data more efficiently and more effectively. Got it. So I worked in medical billing and coding for years.

I did articles, public speaking events, And really wanted to get into education. So in twenty nineteen, I actually got my instructor Certification from the AAPC, the company that I’m credentialed through as a medical coder. And they allow you to, once you become an instructor, license their curriculum. So instead of having to develop everything from zero and from scratch, you can just license their curriculum and it’s all together, and you’re like, hey. Now you’re licensed.

You can teach these courses for different medical coding certifications. So I had passed my instructor certification in 2019 and was teaching in person workshops and wanted to do online courses as well, which was very timely when the pandemic hit and everything had switched to online courses. I was already starting to get set up. So my business does a lot of online education, a lot of YouTube. YouTube is really what fed all the sales for the online courses.

There were people already on YouTube teaching medical coding, but not the way that I was teaching it. I made sure that I I did a lot of research into what I was doing, so I was able to produce something that was a little bit more engaging a little bit more from a production quality a little bit better, but I started very simple. I started shooting videos on my phone. I was in front of green screens. I was editing the green screen out.

Yeah. It’s just Starting with what I had and building from that. Like when I bought my first professional camera, the Sony ZV-1, that was like a huge milestone for me. Like now I’m not shooting videos on my phone anymore. I have an actual official vlog camera to work on.

That’s so cool. It was nice because I had all of that background that I’d already been up. I’d already said, hey, look, I’m Victoria. I’m here. I’m a medical coder.

I have all these different credentials behind my name. I have these published articles, I’ve spoken at these national conferences, and I had that backing, so I could say, hey, I’m kind of an authoritative source in this. And, also, I I’ve brought things in from, I think, a little bit of a different angle. Prior to being in medical coding, I was actually a Pop culture blogger? Really?

Back in, like, the Geocities days where you would have to code your own HTML. Yeah. I remember those days. I used to have websites about you know, Transformers and Sweet Secrets and Polly Pockets and TV shows back then, and I would do all these pop culture blogs, And I was pretty popular at it. Like, I had one deal where I had made, I think, a makeover of a Optimus Prime figure.

And Hasbro, prior to the Shia Labouf Megan Fox movie come out, was gonna rerelease the Transformers original cartoon movie on DVD. So they’re like, oh, we love your article. You we can send you a screener of the DVD, like the you’ve got the touch, you’ve got the Power Transformers movie. I’m like, oh, this is awesome. So I had, like, this little bit more of a fun personality and I had been in in Internet culture for long enough to kind of bring this different spin into medical coding.

I’d worked in an instructor in a tech school, so I knew the curriculum. And I knew it was kind of dry, so I really wanted to come out here and be like, hey, Let’s learn this, but let’s be a little bit more excited about it. Let’s try and figure out different ways that we can spin this to make it more engaging for the audience and for the students.

Pat Flynn: Yeah. That’s a great point.

I mean, there’s a lot of us who feel like maybe our material isn’t conducive to an engaging YouTube video, and I think that’s wrong. I mean, I’d love for you to a little bit more in detail about how you took this topic that is, you know, on paper pretty dry, what were some of the specific things you did on YouTube to Make it more engaging. Just put that sort of Internet pop culture personality into it. Do you have any specific examples of that?

Victoria Moll: Yeah. You know, it’s a balance between figuring out your personality and the professional personality. And I think over the years, I’ve kind of dove in a little bit more to the more pop culture personality, the more fun side of Victoria. I think maybe just hitting a hundred thousand subscribers this year or, I guess last year.

Pat Flynn: Congratulations, by the way.

I mean, that’s a huge milestone. A hundred thousand subs in the world of of medical coding, like, that’s That’s pretty wild.

Victoria Moll: Thank you. Thank you. It’s a lot.

It’s absolutely a lot because it’s a small niche, but I’ve done very well with a small niche.

Pat Flynn: Another case for the riches are in the niches. I mean, I’m saying. You know?

Victoria Moll: It absolutely is.

It absolutely is. When I meet people and I’m like, yeah. I have this this multiple six figure business and it’s based off of medical coding, they look at me like, how? Medical coding, really? That is really cool.

It’s it’s not what you would think of, but I grew up kind of watching people, like, my sister had a video game convention, and, like, James Rolfe, the angry video game nerd, would come and visit at the convention and do meet with him. So I I liked these little online personas, but I didn’t wanna kind of take it to that far. But I would look out at them and kind of gain some inspiration. Like, How are these people who are in, like, gaming engaging with their audience? And then I would find people like, oh, Harris Heller, and he’d talk about equipment that you can use and how to set up OBS.

And I’m like, oh, well, the way that they’re setting up some of these live streams that they’re doing, I think there’s some inspiration that I can take and bring this back into what I’m doing for medical coding. So I would do live streams and I would kind of set them up a little bit like what gamers were doing.

Pat Flynn: So what is that like? Like, how I I’m trying to imagine a live stream about medical coding, like, on the surface. And I know it’s not like this, but it’s like, Is it just like, alright, everybody, these are the medical codes for these diseases. Everybody repeat after me or say in the chat. Like, no. I know it’s not like that, but, like like, I I’m I’m curious. And, of course, we can all see this.

The replays, I’m sure, are available on your YouTube channel and whatnot at Contempo Coding. But What’s a live stream like? Like, what are you doing?

Victoria Moll: So when I do live streams, they’re like an AMA, an ask me anything, but they’re more so geared towards career questions. There’s a lot that goes on with the exams, the certifications, getting continuing education credits that people have questions on, and they just like having someone that they can ask those questions in person.

The other interesting thing is medical coding, we do a lot of things with books, and we’re still in a paper book stage. I’m trying to transition everyone into ebooks because that’s the way the industry is going, and it’s a bit of a struggle. People like their paper books. So sometimes I’ll go over, like, case studies and I have a document camera. I’ve taken my document camera and I have shown my face and then also the document camera at the same time.

Here’s where you flip through the pages in the books. Here, if you’re looking this up, here is where you find it so they can see me. I’m making eye contact. I’m engaging with them, but I’m also physically showing them how to go through their book or, hey, I need to find a job. Okay.

Let me show you how to get on Indeed.com. Maybe instead of typing in medical coder, you type in one of the medical code sets. Now it’s bringing up all the jobs that are looking for that skill set versus necessarily the job title. So now we have a wider net of jobs that we can look at to apply for.

Pat Flynn: Wow.

I I love that. And the idea of you setting up a camera sort of is that like a top down camera showing the book and and then your face is kinda in the corner kinda thing?

Victoria Moll: Basically, yeah. So, yeah, they can see what I’m doing, and then they can see me as well I love that. Which is what I used for a lot of my online courses as well.

The funny thing is with the pandemic, so many instructors were thrown into it And they taught in person classes. They were used to, I am side by side next to my student, and I say turn to this page, and if they can’t find it, I can reach out and turn the page for them. Now they’re in thrown into this and they’re brilliant teachers, but they don’t know how to use this equipment, they’ve never had to teach online before, so I became this resource for teachers as well that they said, hey, go to this YouTube video and you can watch on Victoria Tell You how to page through your book and what’s in your book because I don’t have the equipment to know how to do it, so I became not only a resource for students but teachers as well. And I had actually a college in Florida reach out to me early on and say, hey, Victoria, we realized A couple of your videos, the subtitles are a little messy.

And a lot of our students with disability in being able to hear, we need those subtitles and they love your videos, but these couple ones aren’t subtitled. We captioned them for you. What? Can you just upload these videos to your YouTube channel so that we can have the proper captions for these students? And I’m like, absolutely, and thank you so much for saying that because I wanna make sure that all of my videos are gonna have captions on it for those people that do have disabilities, and do you need the captions for the videos.

Pat Flynn: That is a cool story. Like, you had no idea that that was even happening, and then somebody reached out. And it’s like, hey, can can you make sure these are great. And now you know, and now you’re going into all the other videos probably to make sure everything’s correct and you’re doing them that service.

That is, that is absolutely wonderful. On your online course, tell me a little bit about how you decipher between what you offer for free on YouTube and what you’ve packaged in a in in the course. And then how do you market that? What do you what are you driving people to? Is it Only open certain times of the year, or is it always open?

And and how do you make sure that there’s a connection between your YouTube channel and the course that you’re offering, it’s obviously working. So I just I’m just digging in to see how it works.

Victoria Moll: So with my YouTube channel, I have a big Google Drive list just full of topics that I wanna cover, and not all of them are going to be comprehensive topics. They’re just gonna be things that, okay, maybe today I wanna talk about coding for different types of animal bites, and that’s maybe a ten minute video. It’s certainly not gonna be an hour long course.

So the hour long courses are more where we’re deep diving into something like, hey, I wanna take a certain type of medical coding credential. Okay. Well, here’s a review class that I put together for that particular credential. There’s a couple of advanced credentials that I do offer full courses for. I don’t do medical coding one on one anymore only because I had such an overwhelming amount of students that wanted me to teach them medical coding from the beginning.

And to me, it just felt like, oh my gosh, you know, I don’t think I could do them a service by myself. I’m not a good team manager, so I would have to bring on a whole team of people to make sure that they’re learning medical terminology, that they are getting what they need out of this course so that it’s gonna be great for their job. You know, that’s that’s a lot. And and instead of building it for myself, I was fortunate enough to develop a partner who has a program who said, hey, um, we’ve identified these particular career paths that we think don’t really need a college degree, but do need some sort of formal training. So we would love to partner with you.

We’ll take your students, and we’ll make sure that they get into the best program ever, and we’ll give you a referral fee for that. Awesome. So an affiliate program, essentially. You know, they said they they sent me these things, and they said, hey, you know, what do you think of this place? Oh, yeah.

These are the exact same books I used to teach with at the tech school. They give an externship. There’s no way I could possibly give this many students externships. I couldn’t coordinate all that. They get a college degree.

I can’t give that to them. I can’t give them a little certificate of completion from a a university. So it checked all the boxes, we recorded a master class, and now I just everyone who’s like, hey, I wanna learn medical billing and coding from the start. Hey. Awesome.

I have the best program I can send you to. It is an affiliate program, so I do receive a commission from them, but I know they always take care of my viewers, so you can go over to them. If you have specialty certifications you wanna get after that, I have these available on ContempoCoding.com. If you need continuing education credits, I have certain courses that are approved for continuing education credits, And you can also find those on my website.

Pat Flynn: And you’ve got the pitch down, Victoria.

I love it. I love it. And I’m sure these companies love it too. Right? You are promoting this company.

They’re getting more customers Thanks to you. They’re happy to share a little bit of that revenue with you. Are they pushing people to some of your programs after The sort of, like, one on one experience with with their students, are they saying, like, hey, go to like, are they an affiliate for your stuff after the fact?

Victoria Moll: They are not. I might be in the future if I start pushing out more continuing ed credits, but I think they do flow kind of naturally backwards where, you know, I’m kind of the person that says, hey.

This is what the industry is. If this is a good fit for you, here’s where you can go and get formal training on it. And then when they’re done, they’re like, oh, Victoria was so great. I’m going back to her channel because now need to find a job. Nice.

Right. What does Victoria say about how to find a job now in this career?

Pat Flynn: Love it. Okay. That that’s really helpful.

You had mentioned earlier that you have a license to share this information and do, you know, create curriculum around it and such. Like, what does that look like as far as do you do you have to pay the organization anything as a result of that, or or was it just simply a a matter of qualifying to be able to do that? Because I mean, you you remember my story with the LEED exam. There there was no license to be able to do that. I just kinda I just kinda did that, and they were fine with it.

Right. But then I know in some cases, people are curious about doing something like this, but it has to be more formalized like like this. So I’m curious about what your experience was like there.

Victoria Moll: You know, my goal from the beginning was always to become an independent instructor. When I had started out in medical billing and coding, I was hired off my internship at the hospital, and they said, Hey, we need certified coders. If you wanna Wanna become a certified coder, we’ll have this instructor come in. You pay for it.

If you pass the exam, we’ll reimburse you. Awesome. The material at the time was not anything great. So, while my instructor was very knowledgeable, very fantastic, like, the material was so dry. So my goal had always been, okay, well, I think one day I’d like to do this and become an instructor myself, and hopefully, I can make this a little bit more engaging than the dry material that we, so one of the first things I had to do was become an approved instructor.

There’s qualifications in order to become an approved instructor and license their material. You have to be In the industry for five years, you have to pass an instructor certification, and then they will allow you to license the material. So I have to pay an annual licensing fee and then a per student fee as well. Got it. Ideally down the line, it might be better for me to start developing my own material, And that is something I’m looking into, but there’s some contractual things that go in there.

So I have to make sure that I’m doing everything according to what are my limitations within the licensing contract that I currently have.

Pat Flynn: That makes sense. And you don’t have to get specific with with numbers here if you don’t want to. But As far as, like, what you charge for a course, it’s obviously a percentage higher than what the fee is per student plus, you know, your annual fee kind of based into that. Right?

So you’re still generating a profit after that. And like you said, you’re you’re generating six figures a year, which is amazing. So despite still having to maybe share some of that profit with the company that or the organization, like, you’re still able to build a viable business on on top of that and and then some. You know, it’s very popular for people who are, especially in the educational space, teaching something in a more online course fashion to also have the one on one coaching or the the the group coaching programs on top of that. Are you exploring any of that?

And if so, what does that look like? Or if not, Why

Victoria Moll: not? So, yeah, like you said, I do make a good amount of money. I have to pay some amount in licensing fees, which is worth it because to develop the curriculum from start would be a lot more of my time involvement. Yeah.

That’d be crazy. So and it’s only for, like, if I’m teaching the full curriculum for two credentials. If I’m doing a continuing ed course or webinar, those I don’t have to pay the the additional licensing fees for. Oh, okay. Cool.

But as far as online coaching, I tried it a little bit once because I was getting, you know, like like we all do when you start getting a popular business, lots of people are in your DMs. They have all of these different questions. And, you know, at first, you’re like, oh, this is great. I can make a video about this. This is a good source of material, and you try to help as many people, but then it gets so overwhelming where you’re like, oh, gosh.

This is just too much. I can’t answer all of these questions all day long because I won’t get any content made. So, you know, I did start trying to open some coaching opportunities to people and say, hey. If you have questions about these topics, I’ll coach you on that. I did it for a while.

I just felt like it wasn’t for me. With my business, I like to keep things very, very flexible. One of the things I’ve discovered about myself is I’m very easily overwhelmed, so I don’t like having a lot of things on my calendar. And having all of those coaching appointments, it was just difficult for me then to switch back and forth from different tasks. So I couldn’t go from like, okay, now I’m coaching.

Okay. Now I’m gonna design a thumbnail. Okay. Now I’m gonna plan my next video. It was just too much, so I thought, okay.

Well, I’m just gonna have to stop with the coaching. And I’m I’m looking for some people right now, and I’ve got a couple of people under my network that I can turf them off to that I’m like, hey. I’m not doing it right now, but I know Marissa is, so I can send you off to her. And that way, they’re still getting the help that they need, and I’m still able to produce the content that I love that helps everyone else out.

Pat Flynn: Amazing.

So YouTube, a hundred thousand subs. Have you gotten your silver play button already?

Victoria Moll: Yep. I keep it right here behind you. Oh, there it is right behind you.

It’s Funny, sometimes when I’m shooting in different areas of my office, I’ll move the silver play button behind me to where I’m shooting just so it can be in the back. I’m so proud of it.

Pat Flynn: Oh, it has to be in the back. I mean, you see it behind me over here too. It’s and especially in a smaller space, it’s so well deserved, and and it doesn’t come without, obviously, learning a little bit about YouTube and what works and what doesn’t on there.

Tell me about your YouTube journey in particular. Like, Was it always working really well for you? And if not, when did it really start clicking?

Victoria Moll: Yeah. I published one of my first YouTube videos maybe in 2017, and I think it’s still out on a different channel somewhere where I was just kind of experimenting with it at the time and had to put it to the side because I was going through a divorce, my mother passed away, I had moved back home with my dad.

My dad is a little hard of hearing, so it was constantly loud in the house, so it was very difficult to ever record YouTube videos. There were times where I would have to find a little corner of my bedroom and put the green screen kind of tucked behind my dresser so I could get something recorded. And interestingly, there was a manager at the hospital that knew I was looking for a space, and she told me that there was a secret library at the hospital that I could borrow. So I would start shooting some of my online courses and videos there. She’s like, yeah, it’s an it’s a secret library.

It was sponsored. I know One of the doctors is, I think, is using it for their private office, but they’re not supposed to be. But if you knock on the door on Saturday, he’ll let you in. And while he’s rounding on patients, you can go and record there, and I’m like, awesome. I’m gonna go work in the secret library at the hospital.

Wow. That’s kinda neat. So when I started working from home and had this official setup, And I was like, oh my gosh. Here we go. I’m gonna start my online business.

I’m gonna be an online instructor. This is gonna be great. I spent a lot of time researching YouTube. One of the first books I picked up that was really helpful with my YouTube journey was actually Superfans, and that helped me learn all of those great tools about building an audience and finding my vibe and understanding your vibe attracts your tribe and that maybe other people that I look at that have a different kind of vibe, they’re attracting a different kind of tribe. So maybe I want that tribe over there, and I’ll attract the people that are most fitted with me.

One of the things I struggled with when I started really doing a lot of YouTube videos was I didn’t know how to do my makeup for YouTube. And it was a little annoying because I’m like, I bet guys never have to think about this. They never have to think, oh, I’m going on YouTube, and I’m gonna have to figure out how to put on my makeup.

Pat Flynn: We we don’t normally. Although, I’m sure there are male YouTubers who do really excellent things with makeup to stand out even more.

But, no, Good. I I don’t even think about that sometimes. So so what was the what was going on that that was making it difficult?

Victoria Moll: So I’ve had a very simple makeup day to day face. And I didn’t know how to do, like, what kind of eyeshadow should I do?

Should I wear eyeliner? What kind of, you know, should I make things shiny? Should I make things not shiny? Lip no lipstick. I wasn’t sure.

Like, I had to watch videos on how to do my makeup, and I couldn’t find any videos on how to do makeup specifically for when you’re filming videos. And there’s a type of makeup that’s called oh gosh. What’s it called? It’s like a glitter on your on your face, and it’s kind of, like, makes you look, like, shiny. And I thought, oh, this is so cute.

It’s gonna make me look all dewy and cute and and lustery. And I put it all over my face not realizing that when the light is reflecting on it from my ring light, instead of looking all cute and dewy, I would just look greasy. So I had all these bits just really greasy because I had on all this makeup shimmer, and I I am like, oh, okay. I’m supposed to wear, like, matte powder. So So it took a while for me to even figure out, like, how to do my makeup so that it reflects on the lights and that it looks good for thumbnails and that, you know I’m forty years old, so, you know, a little bit a little bit of a laugh lines and so forth, making sure that those aren’t as aparent as they they usually are.

Pat Flynn: Oh, man. That’s a great story. But I yeah. You’re right. It’s something I I don’t often think about, but now I’m gonna watch my videos and wonder, can I put on anything that would help out a little bit, especially with, like, the reflection and stuff?

Yeah. That that’s interesting. So That’s, like, one little thing that you learned along the way. What about for reach and getting found on your videos? How much are you involved with nailing the titles, nailing the thumbnails, and all the things that, you know, a lot of YouTubers say are, like, key to success.

Victoria Moll: My early process was pen and paper. I had a little notebook where I wrote down to myself, okay, number one, what’s the hook of this video? Number two, who’s this video for? Is there a story I can tell related to this video? And then I would go through bullet points of the content.

And it was frustrating working through the process, but now it is so nailed down. So it was worth going through all of those struggles. Where I’m recording right now is a leased office and a co working space. I started doing co working. They had this beautiful basement office, And I started leasing it out so I can record my videos with all different locations now.

So I have somewhere I can record in front of the couch and somewhere I can record you’re where I am right now, which is at my desk, and then I have a little conference room area, so it sets different areas for where I can record versus my home office, which was very tight. I could set up, like, one ring light, so I kind of outgrew it. But my process has developed throughout that, but but stayed kind of true to that. I I always think of, okay, here’s my hook, here’s my idea for what I’m I’m a story I’m gonna tell, or is it just bullet points of things I’m gonna cover? So now that I I keep that all in a Google Drive and I have a template that I use that every time I start out a video, I just fill in here’s my topic, here’s my thumbnail idea, here’s what I’m gonna cover.

So it’s very streamlined. Early on, it was tough because I was combating my home office with neighbors’ lawnmowers, and trains going by and the Amazon man ringing the doorbell. So now it’s a a much more controlled environment, and I can produce content so incredibly fast. But, yeah, I did a lot of research in the beginning about things like search engine optimization, how to put keywords in. I actually, one day during the Income Stream, won YouTube Secrets.

So that was one of the first YouTube related books then that I got. And shortly after that was when Derral Eves came out with YouTube Formula, which was very eye opening, that book, about how things, like, even the words that you’re saying are picked up by YouTube and used for the algorithm. So I made sure that I used a lot of a lot of SEO. I had to research a lot of SEO stuff. I watched one of your videos where you talked about AnswerThePublic.

So that right away, that went on my list of things to produce content about what is medical coding, Who can do medical coding? What does a day in the medical coder’s life look like? Medical coding jobs, how to find a medical coding job. Like, everything that was and I’m like, let me just go through and we’ll make answers to all these questions for these videos.

Pat Flynn: Nice. That’s a great system. And The more you just use it, the faster you go through it. Right? So how many videos are you coming out with now? Like, what’s your usual cadence?

Victoria Moll: So it’s it’s shifted around a while. Originally, I was producing two videos a week, and two videos a week was a lot, especially when you’re when you’re working a full time job. But now I I just try to do one really good quality video a week. I do a podcast. It’s a video podcast every other week that comes out.

I’m trying to do little shorts and TikToks that I experiment with every now and then, but that’s the core of it, and then I also live stream every other week as well. So the weeks that I don’t have a podcast come out, I do a live stream then at the end of that week. And now I have an editor, and that is the greatest gift I can ever give myself was finding an editor. And it’s interesting because I’d found it in an unusual spot. I needed an editor.

I couldn’t find anyone. I was trying to outsource to different places, but it just wasn’t working out. So I reached out to just my personal network. And of all people, my personal trainer hooked me up with someone that he had just come out to do just go to him to the gym and shoot some videos. She had graduated, I think, with film related or film adjacent type of degree from Temple University.

And she said, yeah. I’ll edit your YouTube videos. This is how much I’ll charge per video, and I want that is amazing. I love this. So now I try to, as much as I can, just batch record three, four videos and then send it off to the editor, and I’m kinda good then for a while.

Pat Flynn: Look at that. That is amazing. How much, if you don’t mind me asking, is it per video with that particular editor?

Victoria Moll: Two hundred dollars.

Pat Flynn: Two hundred dollars per video. Worth it?

Victoria Moll: Yep. Absolutely. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely so worth it.

And she it’s I love it because I was talking with Roberto Blake. I did a coaching session with him, and he’s like, oh, well, you should you know, if you’re looking to get better quality videos, you could learn some more editing skills, and you could get Adobe Premiere, and you could do this, and you do this, and I’m like, oh gosh, for me to learn Adobe Premiere and all the different features, it’s gonna take a lot of time. And I don’t know. Like, I I don’t mind the editing, but I I feel like I put it off a lot. Same.

So it’ll be like the last thing on my list, and then it’s the day before upload. And I’m like, okay, let me hurry up and quick get this done because I know I have to do it. So it was just so worthwhile to find someone who did it. And now I’m just like, okay, I’ll make a a point, and I’ll gesture my hand out, and, like, sparkles will fly out of my hand, and I’m like, I would have never figured out how to make that happen. I’m so glad that you’re skilled at this and that you’re willing to let me pay you to tap into that skill.

Pat Flynn: I love it. I I also love that you tapped into your network to find this person. I think that’s something that we Often don’t even think about because we often go, well, my audience or my network, they’re none of them are editors, but they might know somebody who is. And and like you said, it worked out really, really well. As your business grows now, I mean, six figure business, six figure YouTube channel as far as subscribership, what have been the new challenges that have surfaced as a result of now the growth that you’ve had?

What was Not a problem before, but kinda is now.

Victoria Moll: Figuring out what to do next, it’s such a balance sometimes where it’s like I’ve got so many good ideas and so many directions I can move in, but I don’t want to do something that is gonna be really profitable, but I don’t enjoy, or I think it’s gonna be a great idea, but then I get three months into it, and I’m like, Oh, I don’t wanna do this anymore. So just having so many choices sometimes can be very overwhelming because I I could write a book, I could produce more online courses. Could I start a second channel? Could I do more live streams?

Could I go on TikTok live? Could I focus more on Instagram reels? Like, there’s just so many different things I can do. But again, I I’m very mindful in not wanting to scale too much because I know I’m just I am kind of flaky, and I’m not great at managing a team. And I don’t want to bring people on and then disappoint them or have them feel that they’re mismanaged and so forth.

So I try to keep things as manageable as I can with just me, my editor who I pay, you know, ten ninety nine, And my fiance, Chuck, who kinda works part time with me, he helps ship out books and run reports and stuff for me, and, of course, manages the household, which is the most important.

Pat Flynn: Go, Chuck. Yeah. That’s cool. And I love that you just know that about yourself that it would be difficult to add on a bunch of team members and scale in that way. You’re just, like, not not even content.

You are opting out of the hyper rapid growth lifestyle and all the things that would be included with that, which add, again, even more problems. So you’ve kind of already done what you needed to do to suppress the potential new challenges that could arise at this point. I mean, it is definitely a challenge because After you unlock certain successes like you’ve had, your confidence goes through the roof that, like, I can build anything. I can I can go any direction now, and now there are so many more options? I think you’ve done a wonderful job.

Do you have a filter for those options? What questions are you asking yourself to decide what to say yes to and decide what to say no to.

Victoria Moll: I developed sort of a formula for myself. I keep a spreadsheet, sheet. And on the spreadsheet, I have all the different ideas of things that I can do, and then I rank them on a scale of one to three for three different categories. Number one is how interested am I in doing this? So on a scale of one to three, and I’ll put in like two stars or three stars or one star, How interested am I in doing this? Number two is how long is it gonna take me to do this? So is this something that I can do really quickly, or is this something I’m gonna have to invest a lot of time in?

And then number three is how much money is this gonna make me? So I then I take the whole list and I look at it and I go, okay. Is there anything that hits all three categories at the maximum level. Is there something that’s not gonna take me a lot of time? I can make a lot of money, and I’m gonna be really interested in it.

And if there’s something that hits all three of them, yep, that’s the one I go for. If not, okay, what’s the closest thing I can do? Maybe is there something that I’m really interested in it’s gonna make some good money, but it’s gonna take me a lot of time. Okay. Well, you know, is that maybe the one that I wanna sacrifice right now for my next decision that I’m gonna sacrifice the time, and it’s gonna have to take me a lot of time to do this.

Pat Flynn: That is great. I mean, it’s very similar to Essentialism, which is a book that a lot of us have read where you kind of rank the things that you’re doing. And it’s like, okay. If if something is, You know, zero to five on that list out of ten, it’s like, okay, that I should not be doing that anymore. But then it’s the six, sevens, and eights that are the trouble things, the things that you could continue to do that kinda enjoy doing, but then they’re not necessarily moving the needle like a nine or a ten.

And in this in this strategy, it’s just very clear if they are going to be of high interest to you. It’s not gonna take a lot of time, and it’s gonna make you a lot of money. I mean, nothing else on that list really matters at that point. Where did you come up with that, or did you get inspired by something to to make that your filter?

Victoria Moll: Yeah. It just kind of came from generally making pros and cons list. And as I was making pros and cons list, I’m like, okay. Well, You know, one of my things, I have trouble paying attention to things, so I should probably track, is this something that’s gonna take me a lot of time? So because then now I know I’m at risk that I’m gonna maybe lose interest. And, of course, obviously, you know, I want something to be profitable.

And then what’s my interest level? Am I gonna be interested in mean, I’m not obviously gonna put anything on there that’s not gonna be a value. So everything starting off has to be something that’s gonna be a value to my audience, not just something that I’m gonna make a lot of money and be super interested So, yeah, it just it just kind of grew from making pros and cons list and understanding what’s important to me. I, again, I just don’t like having a lot of stuff on my schedule. I love having the flexibility, and that’s one of the things I didn’t like about when I was doing coaching.

I I love being able to go off on trips with my daughter. You know, one of my goals this year was I wanna go on six vacations, which sounds crazy, but I I I did it in 2023. I went on six vacations and a couple of day trips. Good for you. And I my daughter and I are annual pass holders for Walt Disney World.

We live in Pennsylvania, so I like just keeping an eye out on when there’s gonna be a good sale to go. Like, is there a flight discount and a pass holder discount and, look, my calendar’s clear and I can go. Or, hey, you know, I can go in six weeks And, you know, if I get caught up on my videos and I have them all set up and they’re up ready to upload while I’m gone, awesome. And, you know, I can stand in line at seven dwarfs mind train and answer a couple emails if I have to. That’s not an issue.

Pat Flynn: Still have yet to ride that ride. I can’t wait. But that is so cool. We’re Disney fanatics here in in the Flynn family as well. And I’m I’m a fan of you and and everything you talked about today.

I’m just so grateful, And I appreciate you mentioning superfans earlier as a as a way to learn how to do YouTube and build that community because community is where we know, at least at SPI, what we’re focused on is you’ve seen with SPI Pro and the All Access Pass. And I was just really grateful to run into you last year at VidSummit, which I definitely recommend for people who are invested in and interested in YouTube. And that’s where we connected, and we were like I is like you told me about the progress you’ve made since the Income Stream, and I was like, I gotta unpack this more. I gotta get you on the show, and what a way to start 2024. I’m very proud of you.

I’m very, very excited for your future, and I just wanna thank you again for the time today. Where can people go to see your work in action and learn more from you?

Victoria Moll: Yeah. So I’m on ContempoCoding.com. I’m on YouTube as Contempo Coding, TikTok Contempo Coding, Instagram. That’s basically the username and handle that I have for all my social media outlets, and you can find me there teaching all things career wise medical coding, tips, tricks, tutorials.

Pat Flynn: I love it. Thank you so much, Victoria. Well done, and we’ll have to connect again soon and see how 2024 goes. I’d I can’t wait to see how things grow for you.

Victoria Moll: Yeah. Thank you so much, Pat.

Pat Flynn: Alright. I hope you enjoyed that interview, and what a wonderful way to start the new year with Victoria here. And just I love featuring our own community members who are doing amazing things, especially in small spaces that you wouldn’t expect to do so well, and she’s just killing it.

Congratulations. Super proud of you, Victoria. And I’m super proud of you for listening all the way through this episode, and I hope that this inspires you to take action this year. It is a brand new year, 2024. This can be your year, and SPI wants to be here to help you do that.

We have our new EIR program, which you know about by this point. If you are a seasoned listener here to the show, you know this is a big deal for us, bringing these experts into the SPI Pro community to help teach you and for you to get access to them, get access to me. If you wanna check all that out, head on over to SPIPro.Com, and you can learn more about all of us there. So, anyway, cheers to you. Here’s to an amazing year, and I look forward to serving you in the next episode.

Till then, keep on keeping on. Love you. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for listening to the Smart Passive Income podcast at SmartPassiveIncome.com. I’m your host, Pat Flynn. Sound editing by Duncan Brown. Our senior producer is David Grabowski, and our executive producer is Matt Gartland. The Smart Passive Income Podcast is a production of SPI Media, and a proud member of the Entrepreneur Podcast Network. Catch you next week!