Why Creators Need to Own Their Audience | Jim Fuhs

PROFITABLE TALKS...

In this episode, Christian sits down with Jim Fuhs of Fusion Marketing to talk about Substack, creator-owned audiences, video marketing, AI, entrepreneurship, and the importance of building a business that actually supports the life you want.

Jim shares how he transitioned from government contracting into content creation and video strategy, why he believes creators need to stop relying entirely on platforms like Facebook, and how Substack is emerging as a powerful “direct-to-creator” platform.

The conversation also explores the growing flood of AI-generated content, the increasing importance of trust and community, and why wisdom—not just access to tools—is becoming the real differentiator in business.

PROFITABLE TAKEAWAYS...

•  Substack as a creator-owned platform 
•  Building direct relationships through email lists 
•  Repurposing video content into written content 
•  Community vs. algorithm-driven audiences 
•  The reality behind “passive income” 
•  AI-generated content and authenticity 
•  Trust as the future competitive advantage 
•  Why creators should teach openly 
•  Using video to educate customers 
•  Entrepreneurship and intentional business design 
•  Avoiding trend-chasing in business 
•  The importance of mentors and masterminds 
•  Creating a business around lifestyle freedom 
•  Wisdom vs. access to technology 
•  Why simple video content still works

Join our community of creative entrepreneurs and get a free copy of our No-BS Guide To Making Your Creative Business Actually Profitable delivered straight to your inbox. We’ll share smart, simple tips to help you keep more of what you earn—no boring accountant talk, we promise.  
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Transcript

Christian Brim (00:00.396)
My short-term memory is shit. Okay.

Christian Brim (00:06.356)
Welcome to another episode of the profitable creative, the only place on the interwebs where you will learn how to turn your passion into profit. I am your host, Christian Brim. Special shout out to our one listener in Shepherd'sville, Kentucky. It's a great name. Thank you for listening. Joining me today, Jim Fuse of Fusion Marketing. Jim, welcome to the show.

Jim Fuhs (00:29.55)
to be here, Christian, glad to be able to share with your audience and thanks for having me.

Christian Brim (00:34.13)
Absolutely. Now you and I met at the unconference, correct? had a great experience there in conversation. what catch me up on what's been going on since last I left you.

Jim Fuhs (00:38.456)
That's correct.

Jim Fuhs (00:49.794)
Well, I've been keeping busy with Substack and fact this week as we're recording I'll be heading to Dallas to be speaking at Military CreatorCon about Substack.

Christian Brim (01:02.804)
I'm going to, I'm speaking at Military CreatorCon. Did we know this? that's wild. Yeah. Okay. That's crazy. Yes. Well, we'll see each other here in a couple of days. That's beautiful. So tell it, why Substack? I'm curious.

Jim Fuhs (01:05.432)
Well then I'll see you there. I did not know this. I'll see you there.

Jim Fuhs (01:14.423)
Yes.

Jim Fuhs (01:18.424)
Well, first of all, think for me, part of it is, and you may or may not be one of these folks, but Facebook has just become too difficult for, I think, businesses and creators to manage. You're completely dependent on their whims, how they change, what can and can't be done on the platform. And Christopher Lockhead, who runs the category Pirates,

He talked about how Substack is created a new category, which is direct to creator. And so not only can you write on Substack, so I think some people thought, it's just like Medium, but it's really become multimodal. You can post your podcast, you can go live, you can take recorded video and put it in a publication, which is basically a website because you can

pay for a domain if you want to, but it allows you to build an audience where you actually get subscribers free or paid and you get an email list. So now you're building a list that you can take to other places, which a lot of these other platforms don't. And I was one of those that probably for years, know, it's like, you know, what's good for you. I know I need an email list. I know I should be doing this, but I kept making excuses.

Christian Brim (02:31.884)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Fuhs (02:41.57)
So that's really where Substack One allowed me to start building that list, which allows me to do other things off platform, but also allowed me to come up with a new creative way to take video, both live and recorded, and turn it into a format of, can now write a summary to go along with the video. So for those people that have different learning styles, they can be like, hey, I just want to read about the summary. I don't really have time.

to watch this whole thing. And so I really like that. It's made me get excited about writing again, because it's always easy to do video. It's great having these conversations like we're having now because we have that interaction. But I think being able to take your video and repurpose it in a way that will, one, create a legacy for you that people can see later.

but also too allowing you to kind of like really summarize what you were talking about.

Christian Brim (03:47.734)
So, okay, did I read between the lines there that you were resistant to Substack for some period of time?

Jim Fuhs (03:55.886)
I just, for me, I didn't necessarily see where it was different because at first, like it started in 2017, it really was a, you know, to me it was like medium. Oh, it's another place to write a blog post. And I was really one of those folks that I just wasn't getting into writing. I have my own theories that I joke sometimes that when I got my master's degree many years ago, I had to write a thesis.

Christian Brim (04:01.397)
Okay.

Christian Brim (04:10.326)
Right.

Jim Fuhs (04:26.06)
And my thesis advisor was, you know, very tough person. And so it really, I think that made me kind of lose my appeal to writing. And so for me, I was more about creating video and podcasting. But then when I said, hey, I can actually still do that and now take this content and do other things with it. And I can write stuff that maybe I want to add more.

detail that I couldn't before. That's what really changed my mind about it.

Christian Brim (04:58.026)
Okay, so maybe context for the listeners about what your business is so then I can ask a follow-up question.

Jim Fuhs (05:06.658)
Sure, yeah, so I really, help businesses educate and tell their story with video. And so I do remote production for small to multimillion dollar companies. And I also do that for myself as a Amazon influencer. do videos really related around the tech space. So helping people.

Christian Brim (05:14.229)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Fuhs (05:32.728)
figure out how to go live, how to create a podcast, what gear they should use. And so that's really what Fusion Marketing has evolved into. Because, you know, like many marketers, I would probably say I started out doing social media marketing, but I have shifted to doing the things I enjoy. And so what I really enjoy now is taking Substack and even evolving that as a part of my business and helping people get started because there are just so many

different ways you can be using this to take your niche and really reach out to others with it.

Christian Brim (06:09.388)
So your niche, I'm going to say this and you're probably going to be like, yeah, that's a really bad explanation of what I do. you're doing content to promote and sell consumer electronics at the highest level, right? OK. And that's a separate thing from doing the other work you do in your agency, right?

Jim Fuhs (06:16.878)
I

Christian Brim (06:38.22)
In other words, you don't do that for others. You don't do the, okay. So then my follow-up question is what problem does Substack solve for you?

Jim Fuhs (06:38.232)
That's correct.

Jim Fuhs (06:54.594)
But for me, it's about building community around, you know, the video journey. In fact, you my first Substack publication is called Jim's Writing and Video Journey because I'm taking my community along and like, hey, look, here's how we can do video, whether it's on or off Substack. I'm doing demonstrations with video, writing out how you can do it.

Christian Brim (06:58.687)
Mmm.

Jim Fuhs (07:22.274)
you know, because they are always just like a lot of platforms, always making changes. And so whether it's the tools and so some of that ties into the consumer electronics piece, right? Hey, here's the microphone I'm using. Here's the software I'm using to produce this. And so that is where I'm using that as a way to put it in a place where I can organize it, where when we're on these social platforms, we don't always get to do it. And

Christian Brim (07:49.823)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Fuhs (07:51.232)
It is also that piece of because of the way Substack lets you organize your publication with sections, I can now categorize like this section is about how to go live. This section is video strategy. And you could choose to just like, just want those articles when you publish something on that. don't have to. I have other articles like I wrote a couple of years ago when my father passed away about how that impacted me. And that's why it's called my writing and video journey, because it gives me that flexibility to

It's my publication, I can say what I want.

Christian Brim (08:24.362)
Yeah. And, so, I'm very new on Substack and I actually look back and I hadn't, have not written anything in the, in the new year, which is awful. I've had lots of ideas. just have not, I I should write a Substack article. to me, Substack was a replacement for blog, but I got in there and was looking at the platform and I could see where.

And this is, this is probably a really a reductive way to look at it, but it's like, could, it helps me create a website essentially with all of my content. but, but I think what you alluded to that the community and the ability to get email subscribers, whether they're paid or not is really the business value. It's not, it's not necessary. mean, am I, am I

Miss speaking there.

Jim Fuhs (09:24.078)
No, I think you're absolutely right because you can not only can you, you know, take that email list and send emails out to that subscriber list, regardless of whether you've posted any new content on Substack, you have that connection now. I can email, you know, it gives you that stats like I could email my top subscribers and say, hey, I really appreciate your support. You're reading all my stuff. I want to offer you, you know,

let's get together for a Zoom or something else that has nothing to do with the platform, but just about getting to know each other better. And so if you look at other platforms, that is not something easy to do and not something that you even necessarily know if you're going to have any success with.

Christian Brim (10:13.364)
Yeah, and I did some coursework with a Substract creator, Anna Kalin, I think is her name. And I was really kind of surprised with the way she was using it, which she was looking, using a lot of the analytical backend to do research essentially around what her community was.

interested in what was presenting problems for them and then being able to give products or courses to fill that need. So where in your estimation as a professional marketer is Substack in the growth curve? Is it still too late to get going on Substack?

Jim Fuhs (11:05.974)
No, I think it's actually still great opportunity. I've got a couple of ideas for additional publications even some even around if you want to call it the hyper local aspect because as we see what's happening with newspapers and other things you could create a publication that would revolve around your local community.

and you could be interviewing local business owners, you could be writing articles, creating a calendar or sending out a weekly newsletter, here's the events in our area. And the flip side would be, if Christian wants his business to be mentioned in it, he's going to pay me without having to do true advertising. And for you as the business or the sub-stack creator, you can say, hey, I have a list of

Christian Brim (11:40.054)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (11:50.474)
Yeah.

Jim Fuhs (12:00.542)
X number of people that is based in this location because each publication you create in Substack has its own unique subscriber list. So it's not automatically taking your subscribers from say your pickleball Substack and talking about cooking.

Christian Brim (12:19.936)
I love that. Yeah. I mean, I, I, agree that it's still, it's hard to say that a technology that old is, is still new, but I think, you know, the overarching problem with technology of any sort is the human adaptation to it. Like technology can progress a lot faster than we can adapt to using it.

Jim Fuhs (12:40.93)
Yes.

Christian Brim (12:47.36)
And, you know, oftentimes the use is not what it was intended originally. Like I don't, I don't know the story of Substack, but I don't know that what they have is what they envisioned. in any case. So, okay. let's, let's go back to your business. how long have you been doing it?

Jim Fuhs (13:12.686)
So I really switched into fusion marketing about 10 years ago. Prior to that, my business had been government contract consulting, because my previous life, I guess if you want to say, retired as a Marine and I was a government contracting officer at the end of my career. And so I was in that space, but on the defense contractor side of things and not actually with the government anymore. But it's a...

That's one of those things, Christian, right? When I was growing up, I never said, when I grow up, I want to be a government contracting guy for the rest of my life. I had always liked tech, you know?

Christian Brim (13:49.324)
I don't think they listed that option in kindergarten when they asked, what do you want to be when you grow up? no, astronaut, fireman, those were, yeah.

Jim Fuhs (13:54.678)
I agree. I don't think that we knew that existed. We didn't even know what a contract meant.

Jim Fuhs (14:03.234)
Yeah, yeah, but but it was funny because I was at a conference and in 16 and I saw these people getting paid to help people with Facebook and I and once I started like looking at like well this doesn't look hard and I you know, so I just kind of started teaching myself how to do that and with my you know background and you know as a graduate student and undergrad in business I said I can do this doesn't look like rocket science.

But as rocket science might have been a different story.

Christian Brim (14:35.316)
Okay, so explaining your business model. So you have a consultancy or a service side where it's a fee for service. Then the product promotion side, how do you make money with that?

Jim Fuhs (14:43.586)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Fuhs (14:52.526)
Yeah, so really for me on the on product promotion side is, you know, we work with companies through like Sure and others that provide us their equipment. We do product reviews and then we're really getting commission off of Amazon and now YouTube as well because we have been able to monetize our YouTube channels by multipurposing our content from Amazon to YouTube. And now, of course, they've got the ability to, you know,

Lowe's, Home Depot, whatever, if you're talking about a product sold there, like, hey, if you'll share our affiliate link and somebody buys it, we'll send you some coins. so it's kind of that joke of, it's passive income, but it's not really passive because you got to do the work. And I think that sometimes that that's a misnomer in society. Like, well, if you create all these videos, even with YouTube, if you create all these YouTube videos and you get subscribers, you'll make all this money.

And it's like, don't quit your day job just yet. Because I think things change. know, we're not, you know, the Sean Cannell's of the world. mean, it's kind of like sometimes it's timing. And that's where I feel like sometimes even with Substack to your earlier question, it's the timing. It's still early. There's still, you know, even yourself, right? There's still a lot of people that I know that haven't embraced Substack yet. And that's OK.

because I think you'll either come over or you won't, but it's also not something for people to like pull their hair out and lose sleep about. I think, so from that perspective, that's kind of the difference of, yeah, these things. And I think too, because I did retire from the military, I'm in a unique situation in that I don't like, I gotta get this done or I'm not gonna be able to put food on the table. So I'm able to be a little bit more

strategic about what I choose to do and So I do a lot of observation and even you know, because I don't know I'm sure at some point we may be going to talk about AI even with AI I use it some for as an assistant But I still think like what we're doing here where this is real Jim and real Christian talking is much more important than creating, you know avatars of the two of us that

Jim Fuhs (17:17.718)
have some made up conversation based on prompts. And I think there's still a lot of people and probably more so I'll say people in our generation of because where we are age wise that have not embraced all this technology. So we still got to keep things simple and we can still provide them services and products that are going to help them do better. And I think eventually they're all starting to see

got at least have a little bit of connection with this stuff.

Christian Brim (17:50.683)
Yeah, no, I think Pardon my rambling, but if we if we go back to even cable TV Not not broadcast TV where you had shows that Were released and then well, I guess that would be No, you have to go back

Jim Fuhs (18:02.403)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (18:17.522)
It doesn't matter where it reached the level of syndication, right? So that they were, they were selling it a second, a third, a fourth time. wasn't current content. Yeah. so you got the Jerry Seinfeld and you know, the Seinfeld show, those types of things that reached that level were rare, right? and, and most people in the content creation business and,

Jim Fuhs (18:21.474)
Right.

Christian Brim (18:46.464)
that's what that was, had to continue to do it. So it was not passive. It was you had to stay current, you had to stay relevant. Fast forward to now where content creation is essentially free. If you use AI, you can produce any kind of content, not good content, but you can produce any kind of content for nothing. I think the gap there is the community to curate the content.

to say this you should listen to Jim because I Know Jim I followed Jim. I've been on his show whatever There's there's this trust factor that is a huge gap and and I think that Producers of content, however, you monetize it is is irrelevant

the trust factor is going to be increasingly more important. And I think community fills that gap nicely.

Jim Fuhs (19:49.838)
I 100 % with that.

Christian Brim (19:52.566)
Thank you. That's why I said I wanted you to. Okay, so pivoting back to AI, you know, with the placement of advertising in LLM, how does that shift what you do?

Jim Fuhs (19:54.638)
You

Jim Fuhs (20:05.23)
I think that's where for me, I'm getting away from some of these other platforms and staying more focused on things like Substack where I feel like there's, not to say that they have AI on their backend for creating clips as an example to, I guess you could say compete with something like Opus clips. But it's that whole thing of being able to reach out to people individually, building that

Really, guess, would be the best way to put it, building that trust, right? By knowing that, this is really Christian, this is really Jim that's communicating with me, it's not just a bunch of bots that are throwing stuff out. Because people are really starting to sense that and there's just so much AI slop out there that I think it starts to get harder and harder to determine.

Christian Brim (20:41.717)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Fuhs (21:01.624)
you know, is it live or is it Memorex, right? Only some people will get that thing. That's right, that's right. So I think that's part of the challenge is it's like, well, when I look at these other platforms, when I look at things like Facebook and working with businesses, it's like, well, you need to educate your potential audience about what is the problem you solve.

Christian Brim (21:04.213)
Mm-hmm.

The one with gray hairs. Yes, we'll get it.

Jim Fuhs (21:28.398)
So part of the problem I solve is helping people educate or figure out what to educate their potential customers with. Like, hey, have you made a video? Have you talked about how you solved a problem? Because that's what we're looking for is problem solving, not for a shiny object. Because sure, I could say, yeah, you should get on Substack and you'd be like, well, why? And if I don't explain like, well, you can lay out a way of how you solve things for people by

Christian Brim (21:37.215)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (21:50.655)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Fuhs (21:57.356)
in sense, telling a story in multiple formats because the other thing I think that we all tend to forget is that we all learn differently. Right. Some of us learn by listening, some of us learn by reading, some of us by watching. So that's where I think the future is right now. Not to say that it's anything new, going back to your earlier comment. It's not that things have changed. It's just how we present it.

Christian Brim (21:59.723)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Fuhs (22:26.708)
And I think that if we give people more options, but not too many options, right? Because if we do that, then no decisions are made. That will tend to let us know where should we spend our time. I've seen one lady that on Substack, which I think is fascinating, interesting, maybe something I will do. She'll write an article and then she will record in her own voice her reading the article. So you could listen to her read it.

Christian Brim (22:54.346)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Fuhs (22:56.31)
Or you could read it. That's like, well, you know, that's actually not a bad thing to let people listen to you reading it because that may build some trust. Right. It's that whole thing of like, hey, I like her voice. It's you know, it makes sense to me. So I think those are some of the things I mean, no different than podcast. Right. Some podcasters do audio, even though they're recording a video while they're doing it. They don't show the video piece and

Christian Brim (23:05.396)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jim Fuhs (23:25.772)
And then you have people say, well, you really got to do that video part. And it's like, but maybe they're not ready to. And that's OK. But then some of them, guess, right? Some of this AI stuff, you could take that audio and it'll create the video for you. So I don't really know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I think I'm still kind of in the middle.

Christian Brim (23:46.636)
Yeah, I think you hit on a prevailing problem for all of us is that technology has made a lot more things possible and or cheap. The question is, should you be doing it? And just because you can do it doesn't mean you should be doing it. I chose audio for this podcast because I was lazy and didn't want to mess with video, but I do record video and I do use it in the promotional.

Jim Fuhs (24:04.088)
Right.

Christian Brim (24:16.576)
But I had a guest, Connor Quinn, on here recently and he is one of the OG voice actors. part of the deal on having him on, he and I had met in person, he's local here in Oklahoma City, so we had met beforehand, but he said, you can't use my image. And I'm like, sure, no problem. you know, won't you do any promotional clips? And I didn't ask him why, but...

As I got to thinking about his brand, his product, as soon as an image is associated with it, it disrupts what he's selling, which is voice acting, voice coaching, you know, those things. And I'm like, yeah, I would never have thought about that. But it really speaks to the overarching question of do you, should you?

Jim Fuhs (24:58.04)
Right.

Christian Brim (25:11.85)
be doing this with with what your business intent and your your community, your customers prospects. Is that the right thing to do?

Jim Fuhs (25:21.602)
Right, and I would even, know, people talk about live streaming and I've helped people do stuff live. Video doesn't have to be live. Video doesn't have to be hiring, you know, a company that's gonna charge you $10,000 to bring in all these high-speed cameras. It's as simple as putting your phone on a tripod, having good audio, which is always the most critical thing in video, and explaining, yeah.

Christian Brim (25:30.633)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (25:45.748)
Randy, did you get that? Randy's my audio editor. He would agree with you. He's standing up and clapping right now.

Jim Fuhs (25:53.238)
Right. But yeah, it's all about explain to me what you're going to what you do or what problem you solved. I mean, I've told, you know, some of these local companies, do you have before and after videos, right? Even before and after pictures? This is what we walked into. This is what we did for the client. And I'm amazed how many don't do it. But they'll run around on Facebook all day.

Christian Brim (26:09.375)
Mmm.

Jim Fuhs (26:20.834)
Like, hey, look, I'm out at this networking event. It's like, OK, great. I don't really care. It's like, what are you doing for me? Where do I go find out about what your business does? well, go to our website. And the website is like a million other websites, right? You just have these little spots on that. we do home repair. We do this. Like, well, can I see some of it? They don't have anything. And so I just think it's because.

this younger generation, maybe even the older generation, they're using things like YouTube, one, to sometimes do it themselves, or two, it's that whole thing of, and I learned this back during the Google Plus days, right? These people say, well, you tell everyone how to build a website, not me, this other person. Well, you're giving away all your secrets. But the reality is, you and I, Christian, I think value our time.

And you say, you know, that's a lot of work. This person just showed me their capability. I'm going to hire them because they just showed me how they do it. And I don't got time for that. And I think that's what people miss is they act like, these are all secrets. can't we can't put our secrets on video because somebody will steal it. The people that steal it aren't the type of people that you or I would want to do business with to begin with.

Christian Brim (27:43.884)
100 % I mean The reality is there's more knowledge than ever about everything and there what is sorely lacking is any wisdom I I talk about in profit first for creatives about you know profit first is a tool and The tool is useless if you don't know what you're trying to achieve with it. So in other words the intent behind it

And the analogy was, you know, if you need a screwdriver, a hammer is not going to work and vice versa. I guess you could hammer a screw in, the point is, yeah, I mean, the point is, is that just because we have all of these tools available, AKA technology, doesn't give us any more wisdom about how to use it, when to use it, where to use it.

Jim Fuhs (28:24.792)
Take a while.

Christian Brim (28:40.938)
That's that's what's missing. I think from this whole equation is we're we're swimming in do it yourself because it's cheap and easy and and there's no real intent behind it. Or.

Jim Fuhs (28:56.226)
That is such a powerful statement, Christian, because right now, especially with AI, I think we're seeing it even more. Because now all of a sudden all these people like, well I'm vibe coding and I'm creating this app and I'm creating this app. And I'm like, I don't got time for all that. If I really think I need an app, I'll find someone that's doing that. But why we wanna take on all these additional tasks all in the name of, I guess, saving money?

Christian Brim (29:25.676)
And I've gotten sucked into it. It's it's in it's shiny. It's intriguing. It's new. It's cool. I was talking just to a friend of mine and he was down with his family on spring break in Cancun, I think. And he was in the pool and he was playing. Catch with his kid and there was another guy playing catch with his kid, but the other guy had.

Jim Fuhs (29:25.742)
It's fascinating.

Christian Brim (29:52.992)
his phone up on this table that was in the pool, right? And he'd see him go over there and periodically mess with it. And he was intrigued and he went up and he asked him, he said, what are you doing? He goes, well, I'm, I'm vibe coding. doing an app. And he was like, okay. Tell me more. And he goes, well, I'm a dentist and I'm creating this app so that people can see before and after on procedures to their, you know, cosmetic dentistry.

And I'm gonna, I'm gonna sell this to other dentists and I'm sitting here saying, and this, this colleague of mine was kind of like intrigued. He's younger and, I'm sitting here going one, what a waste of your life that you're missing your vacation and playing ball with your kid, right? To vibe code. And then of course my cynical brain is like, like he's the only dentist that's thought of that.

Right and and as soon as he creates it, it's going to be worthless. There's no there's no there's no value in what he's doing, but that goes back to the wisdom the intent like what do you do you have any idea why you're doing what you're doing and the answer a lot of times is no.

Jim Fuhs (31:08.77)
Right? Yeah, wisdom, right? If we could only have had it many years ago, we would have probably made some better decisions or maybe not.

Christian Brim (31:17.834)
Look, I've earned what little wisdom I do have. It cost a lot. Thank you very much. Okay, so in going back to the business model, what do you, what challenges have you had? You've been in business 10 years. Like what, what, if you were going to go back 10 years and tell yourself, Hey, Jim,

Jim Fuhs (31:25.378)
Yep.

Christian Brim (31:45.132)
don't do this, it's going to cost you a lot of money, time, pain, heartache. What comes to mind?

Jim Fuhs (31:54.254)
I would say probably the biggest one for me was I should have done video sooner. Like don't be afraid of it. And even probably the podcast piece. it took me a couple years to do either and it was more because of my clients and seeing, you know, that's where I'll give Facebook some credit, right? When Facebook Live rolled out, like that was the way you were gonna get found. And so I had to...

Christian Brim (32:02.004)
Hmm, okay.

Christian Brim (32:19.2)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Fuhs (32:21.75)
I'm one of those folks that if I'm going to expect you to do something, right, this is kind of that that marine leadership thing. I got to be willing to do it myself. And so that's that's how that started. So I should have just from the beginning, you know, because even I think when I first heard of this thing called YouTube, I'm like, well, why why do people create these videos and post them up? Who wants to see that? So. That would probably be the big thing is like start video sooner.

Christian Brim (32:30.518)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Fuhs (32:51.916)
doesn't, know, even back then, if you really look at it, you could have done it for a reasonable amount. It wasn't like you had to go spend, you know, thousands and thousands of dollars. I think the other thing I would tell myself is don't be afraid to tell people what you do. I think sometimes that's a little bit of that imposter syndrome. You know, that the whole humble brag thing, I think.

Christian Brim (33:11.66)
Mmm.

Christian Brim (33:19.061)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Fuhs (33:20.558)
I think I'm still not good enough at that. think I need to do that a little bit more often. And I will say that's maybe where Substack has helped because I can take a clip from something I've done and I can share it elsewhere. And then that at least gets people's interest. You the whole repurposing thing of taking your content and doing other things with it. I think that would be the third thing that I would tell myself, you know.

should have started doing that much sooner than I did. And I think I'd be further along in some things, but I think the other thing is what is the end game for what you're doing? What is it that you really want your business to do? Because for me, I think I've shifted to doing something that I definitely enjoy. Like I can't say that I enjoyed creating posts for people on social media.

Christian Brim (34:00.191)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Fuhs (34:15.904)
I can help them, but I'd rather they do it themselves. But it's that we ideally have many years still ahead of us. So I'm not one of these people that, when I turn 65, I'm going to retire and not do anything. So I want to do something that allows me to continue to learn. And I think that's where a combination of technology and, you know, content creation is fascinating because you can start to think of, hey,

Christian Brim (34:18.859)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Fuhs (34:45.71)
This is another way I can teach people or learn how to do something and then share that knowledge with others. So that's kind of how I see my business continuing to evolve down the road.

Christian Brim (34:59.146)
Yeah, I think that that's a very, very powerful question thought to sit with about what do you want the business to be? What do you want from the business and designing the business from that perspective? I had a CPA reach out to me recently and we got on a call last week.

And he said, I've been in business a year. I just started this and I'm trying to figure out how to go forward because, know, I've got several clients and they're all very different and I do different things for them. I like them differently, you know, kind of like what you said, I might be able to do the work, but I don't like the work. Right. And, you know, just through that conversation with him, it's like, it's

it's okay to say no and and build the business the way you want it. I think there's a lot of fear around saying no because when you're starting out you want you feel like you've got to take everything because you got to pay the bills. But that oftentimes leaves you in the place like this guy one year later and I'm like he's like I really hate working with this guy but I can't

Jim Fuhs (36:13.453)
Right.

Christian Brim (36:23.636)
really fire him because it's half my revenue and you you end up in where the business is the tail that wags the dog. It becomes, it drives what your life looks like rather than vice versa.

Jim Fuhs (36:40.78)
Yeah, and I think that kind of goes into and I don't know if you guys are just having a conversation, but that's where mentors masterminds and even having a coach I think is another thing that's so important as a business owner because otherwise, you know, who are you talking to? You're not talking to people that necessarily understand what you're going through. As much as your family may love you, they may like,

Christian Brim (37:00.49)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Fuhs (37:08.162)
Why don't you just go back to having a job? Because at least you've got the security of your income in theory, because of course, lot of that's changing in our society today with the change of technology. But that's where he may run into somebody that has that, or ran through that same problem. Maybe even it was you, Christian, that have. And say, well, look, here's some things you can decide. I mean, even for me,

I've never really had employees, right? I've maybe had some 1099s and that's a conscious choice because I don't want employees. don't, you know, that's not what I'm looking to do to like grow a business that has, you know, thousands of people employed because even as a, you know, if you want to call it a solopreneur slash content creator, I can have teammates that have their own businesses that can help me with things and vice versa.

But I also, for me, the biggest thing, which may sound contrary, I started my own business because I wanted to have control of my time and my decisions. And that's where I think it was different, you know, after working both in the military and then working, you know, for other companies before I started my own thing. That was my biggest concern is like I gave 25 years of my life to the government. They told me where to go, when to be there, and I didn't have a choice. And so

I was like, in this next chapter, I want to be in charge. I want to be in control. And so that's the other piece. As a business owner, know, kind of be careful what you ask for. You might just get it.

Christian Brim (38:47.134)
No, I think that's, I think that's virtually every entrepreneur I've met is they want control of their destiny, that they they want that money freedom and time freedom. And I guess my advice to anybody listening is that you have to be intentional about designing the business. Otherwise you end up with neither time nor money freedom. Yeah.

Jim Fuhs (39:13.376)
Right. You're back to a job at some point. I'm sure you have too seen several people that were entrepreneurs that they're now back to a job because they really, I don't think they planned it. You even have these people that their business was speaking and we see how the pandemic affected a lot of that. so it's like, but so did you really have a business or were you just a professional speaker?

Christian Brim (39:32.332)
Mmm.

Jim Fuhs (39:40.876)
because did you really offer a product or service that was going to generate revenue? And I think that's one of those things you have to think about. And what is the future of what you're creating? I think, you know, even if you look over the last five years, these people sometimes kind of scare me, I guess, in a, in in a strange sense of, you know, they went from being the, NFT people to the crypto people. Now they're the AI people.

It's like they're just chasing what's hot, but they're not really ever becoming an expert in something.

Christian Brim (40:19.444)
Yeah, and then you're down in Cancun with your kid vibe coding rather than playing football with him in the in the pool. Yeah, it's wild. Jim, how do people find out more about fusion marketing if they want to learn more?

Jim Fuhs (40:24.846)
you

Jim Fuhs (40:34.924)
I would say the best way would be actually to go to my Substack, jimfuse.substack.com. I I do have my website, fusionmarketing.com, but I'm tending to put more content on Substack. Also, LinkedIn is another great place to connect with me at Jim Fuse on LinkedIn. I claimed my name long ago, surprised nobody else took it, because you know, it's such a popular name.

Christian Brim (40:59.902)
It is. is. Listeners will have those links in the show notes. If you like what you've heard, please rate the podcast, share the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. If you don't like what you've heard, hit that little envelope button, shoot us a text and let us know and we'll get rid of Jim. Until next time, ta-ta for now.