Among the countless techniques and business models for making money online—which you can find advice on in abundance through YouTube alone—“Growth Operating” has been gaining momentum as one of the most popular in recent years. At least, the name has.
Although its operating basis is not exactly new, the Growth Operating business model is something that has evolved to optimize every aspect of a business, from marketing and sales to product development and customer experience.
It’s a holistic approach that integrates paid traffic, communities, and followings to make creators more money.
Sound interesting? Keep reading to discover how to start growth operating in seven steps.
So, You Want to Start Growth Operating
Any online business thrives on two main pillars: Traffic (the people who visit websites and buy the products) and the offer (the product or service people are buying). The general idea of Growth Operating is to build offers that a creator or influencer can sell to their audience (their traffic source).
Let’s take a step back and imagine your favorite TikToker with a big audience. They are probably monetizing their following through brand partnerships, either getting paid through commissions (affiliate marketing) or flat-fee opportunities.
Affiliate marketing offers creators the convenience of not having to manage service fulfillment, customer support, or the operational complexities of running a business. However, this approach has significant drawbacks, including reduced revenue potential and the inability to sell with their own business. Since they are primarily promoting other companies' products, they don’t have a business with the unique value needed to attract potential buyers.
And this is where you, as a Growth Operator, work your magic.
Growth Operating is about helping these influencers and content creators build their own products, reach their audience in the right way, and maximize profits from their own digital products and/or services.
Next, we’ll show you the differences between Growth Operating and Affiliate Marketing more in depth. And for more, here is a video from us about the topic:
Growth Operating Versus Affiliate Marketing
Although Growth Operating and Affiliate Marketing are two strategies that influencers use to achieve growth, they differ significantly in scope, methodology, and application. Let's take a closer look at each of them.
Growth Operating characteristics:
Ownership
Growth Operators help influencers create and sell their own products, which enhances brand value and ownership.
Revenue
Influencers retain more revenue since they’re selling their own brands and don’t need to split profits with third-party brands.
Business Value
By advertising their own products, influencers can build a sellable business entity, attracting potential buyers and investors. They have full control over their products and services, changing them as they see fit.
Comprehensive Involvement
Growth Operators can handle everything from customer acquisition and community management to product creation (traffic and offer), providing a more integrated business solution.
Affiliate Marketing characteristics:
Convenience
Influencers and content creators can promote other companies' products, avoiding the complexities of product development, fulfillment, and customer support for a percentage of the sales.
Limited Revenue
Earnings for these partnerships are limited to commissions, often resulting in lower overall revenue compared to selling their own products.
Exit Limitations
Since the business relies on promoting others' products, it lacks the unique value proposition needed for a potential acquisition. Influencers do not have any control over the product they’re advertising and must follow the guidelines of the company that owns it.
Focus on Promotion
Affiliate marketers primarily focus on generating traffic and sales for third-party products, with less control over the overall customer experience and business operations. Furthermore, there is little room for innovation in the product.
Why You Should Be Growth Operating
Growth Operating presents a unique and lucrative opportunity for those looking to make a significant impact—and profit, of course—in the digital business world.
As a Growth Operator, you’ll help influencers and creators develop and sell their own products, creating a brand with focus on long-term growth and enhancing customer experience and satisfaction with their audience.
A growth operator focuses on creating scalable systems and processes that allow influencers the monetization of their following, basically expanding an online persona into an efficient business. By identifying and optimizing key growth levers such as high-margin ebooks and courses, a growth operator can achieve sustainable development without overextending your resources.
So if you have experience on the internet with paid marketing, personal brands, and community management, Growth Operating could be a profitable venture for you.
And here’s how you can do it.
How to Start Growth Operating in 7 Steps
1. Find your Niche
Specialize in the area you want to work with. Choose a niche that you are knowledgeable about, passionate about. This could be anything from fitness to finance or tech to travel. Research and understand the market needs and pain points within your chosen niche.
Although there are niches that are more profitable than others, it is important that you actually know that niche in order to provide the best service in it. This way you can speak intelligently with the influencers who may become your client.
2. Find Clients
Identify creators who have an existing following in the niche you choose, but lack their own community. The simplest way to find them is just by searching through Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
There’s even specific tools you can use to find the right influencers in the niche you want to work with, such as GRIN and Upfluencer, although these are built for ecommerce brands not Growth Operators (you’ll still find value in them).
The best influencers to work with are coaches who already have some type of product because your goals will be most aligned from the start. But, you can definitely still find success with more consumer-focused content like fitness or diet.
3. Create the Community
A community is the place where the creator’s audience can interact. It can be in Discord channels, a chat on Telegram, or the best solution: Whop.
Whop is built for Growth Operators.
At Whop, we streamline the management of monthly payments and subscriptions of your creator’s audience, seamlessly integrating with Discord and Telegram, whilst also providing an opportunity for you to create your community right on Whop. For instance, you can create both free and premium chats within your whop and handle memberships using our payment tools. If a member cancels their subscription, they will no longer be charged and will lose access to the premium sections of your whop.
Your whop is more than just a space for communities to chat. You can also sell courses, ebooks, pdfs, coaching, whatever you want, all from one central hub. Plus, you can manage all aspects of your business—memberships, community engagement, and digital product distribution—in one centralized location.
Among other things, building a community is essential to provide interactiveness, customer service, and even keep track of the audience’s overall satisfaction.
4. Develop the Product
This is the offer. Collaborate with the creator to develop digital products like courses, ebooks, or coaching services (remember how we said coaches are the best creators to work with?).
The larger the niche the content creator you work with operates in, the more possibilities you have to monetize the type of content they create.
Just make sure the product aligns with the creator’s brand and audience interests.
5. Generate Traffic
You can generate traffic in two ways: Organically and with paid ads.
Organic traffic is the audience that the influencer already has, gathered over their time producing content. They already know the brand, look for it, and may even tell other people about him or her. It’s arguably the best because it’s the highest quality, although it takes a lot of time to nurture.
That’s another reason why Whop is great for Growth Operating—we have a built-in marketplace so there’s already a pool of buyers to market to.
With paid ads, you use numerous platforms to reach the largest possible audience, whether it be Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, or YouTube. Of course, the quality of these ads will be imperative here, so you’ll need a good team to produce effective creative that attracts eyeballs.
It may be more difficult to learn, but a good ad campaign can generate incredible returns. Paid ads also have a ton of benefits, mainly that the scale is higher, although it can be expensive.
6. Optimize Conversion Rates
You need to make sure that these paid campaigns are delivering results and converting new customers.
Test new ideas, experiment to see what works and what doesn't, and adapt accordingly. It's important to know the target audience of the content creator you're working with to create more targeted ads and increase the conversion rate of new leads (potential customers) into new customers.
Run controlled experiments, A/B testing, and analyze the results. Experimentation allows continuous improvement. Determine the key factors that will drive growth for your campaigns.
7. Monitor, Analyze, and Adjust
Growth operating involves meticulously managing all the behind-the-scenes aspects of a business to ensure smooth and efficient operations. This includes overseeing backend functions such as customer support, community management, and product delivery.
To achieve optimal results, it's crucial to continuously monitor performance, analyze data to identify trends in the market and areas that need to be improved, and adjust strategies as needed. Integrated platforms like Whop are invaluable in this process, offering tools that streamline operations and enhance efficiency.
By leveraging such platforms, you can automate routine tasks, gain valuable insights into customer behavior, and maintain a high level of service, all while focusing on scaling and optimizing your growth strategies.
How to Market Yourself to Get Clients
Marketing yourself effectively as a Growth Operator is crucial for attracting and retaining clients and you need to keep this in mind when trying to find an influencer business partner.
Build a strong online presence
You can create a professional website showcasing your past work, like a portfolio, with your services and contact information.
Leverage social media to build networking
Any influencer that you’re trying to sign as a client would ideally like to see that you have your own social following. At a very minimum, make sure your social media is clean and professional.
Offer free consultations
As mentioned previously, you can use social media to find the people you want to work with and show them what you can do by offering a no-strings-attached consultation. You can use this not only to build a nice network but to understand the client’s needs and demonstrate your value. Always provide a tailored growth plan, showcasing your strategic thinking and adaptability.
Reach out to creators directly
Share personalized pitches highlighting how you can help them monetize their following and create a business.
Things to Keep in Mind When You’re Just Starting with Growth Operating
Growth Operating can be rewarding, but it also comes with its challenges that you have to keep in mind as you start your journey.
Have patience
Building a successful Growth Operating business takes time, especially when you are in the process of finding your first influencer partner.
Build a solid skill set
You need to have a strong grasp of digital marketing strategies, including paid ads, sales funnels, and email marketing. It will help you stand out in the market as a professional, build a good reputation, and eventually, secure more profitable deals.
Practice continuous learning
Stay updated with the latest digital marketing trends, personas and tools. Working with an influencer means you need to stay ahead. In fact, Whop has numerous communities to learn all of the new things happening in digital marketing.
Always be ready to adapt
Be ready to adapt your strategies based on data and client feedback. Long-term solutions aren’t always possible in the digital market world.
Don’t forget to build relationships
Foster strong relationships with your business partner and other big players to ensure long-term collaboration and success.
Starting as a Growth Operator requires a blend of marketing knowledge, technical skills, and strategic thinking. There’s no “easy” way to go about it.
Forging a Career in Growth Operating? Use Whop for Your Clients!
At Whop, we offer comprehensive tools to support you throughout your entrepreneurial journey, particularly if you’re venturing into Growth Operating. Our platform simplifies subscription management, digital product delivery, and community engagement through chats and live coaching calls. You can sell anything digital with Whop - from your online courses, to your ebooks, video-calls and gated communities.
Whop enables creators to monetize their expertise and audience effectively. Your whop hub is a customizable so that you can tailor it to meet your vision. Additionally, our dedicated support team is available around the clock to assist you at every step of the way.
Growth Operating FAQs
The answers to the biggest questions around Growth Operating.
What is Growth Operating?
Growth operating is when you partner with a creator or influencer and help them build products to sell to their audience. You can create digital products such as courses, ebooks and paid communities using a platform like Whop.
What Does it Take to Be a Growth Operator?
Starting as a growth operator requires a blend of marketing knowledge, networking skills, and product development expertise. By understanding the market, building a strong online presence, and focusing on client success, you can set a solid foundation for a successful growth operating career.
Is Growth Operating a Good and Legitimate Business Model?
Yes, Growth Operating is a legitimate business model with a well-established foundation, even though it may seem new under its current name. Essentially, growth operating involves leveraging existing followings to create and sell structured products, helping creators monetize their audience effectively.
Why You Should Trust Us
Joe Niehaus is a content writer at Whop covering ecommerce and marketing. Throughout his career, he’s helped manage affiliate marketing programs for nine-figure brands and worked with top-tier publishers like Travel + Leisure, Men’s Health, and Business Insider.
