How I Turned My Influence To Income

My First Steps in the Creator Economy

I would deem myself to be an accidental influencer, I know there are people who start their accounts with the intention of growing it to a point of monetising it but when I started my Instagram account, I had absolutely no idea that you could make money from it.

In 2020, I started an Instagram page called overatcharlie’s, documenting what we were doing to our new build home. At the time, it wasn’t a business idea or a career plan, it was simply a creative outlet. I was sharing progress updates without any expectation that it would turn into anything more.

What I didn’t realise back then was that this account would become the foundation of everything I’ve built since. I started to see the biggest impact when I moved beyond small gifted collaborations and began actively pitching myself. I still remember the excitement of my first gifted partnership with a Manchester candle company, I deemed gifted collaborations as a big win. From there, demand from brands slowly started to grow. As more brands approached me for content, my confidence grew, and I became far more intentional about positioning myself and pitching myself for the work I wanted.

Seeing Both Sides of the Table

I had a unique perspective, working full-time at a marketing agency while growing my own page. I could see both sides of the table, how brands make decisions, and what it’s really like to create content and build influence from the creator’s perspective.

This also gave me the ability to recognise my worth. It doesn’t come immediately, and being paid to create content for something I once saw as a hobby felt foreign for a long time. It wasn’t until I recognised the real value I was giving to brands that everything shifted.

By the time my collaboration income matched my salary, I knew it was time to take the leap. In November 2022, I left the security of full-time employment to fully pursue a career in the creator economy. Understanding both sides of the business didn’t just help me make smarter decisions, it set me apart and showed me how to create influence that actually drives results.

Turning Collaboration Income into a Career

I had always shared my story on my page, so my followers knew my career background. When I announced I was leaving my job, I started receiving enquiries from brands and programs, not just to create content as a one-off, but to work on a retainer model, managing their social media month-to-month.

Scaling Beyond Personal Content

I think there’s still a huge transparency gap when it comes to income in our industry, which causes uncertainty when it comes to rates and knowing your worth. When I really started to focus on this, and understand the metrics and benchmarks that brands look for, I went from earning £320 across multiple collaborations in May, to a recurring income of £2,256 per month by November.

I was aware of how unpredictable income can be from brand collaborations alone. As a newly self-employed freelancer, I wanted to ensure I had multiple streams of income. I started offering training services, coaching, and small business retainers which took off much faster than I could have anticipated.

While I continued doing brand collaborations through @overatcharlies for a while after leaving my job, I quickly realised the biggest demand for my time was in sharing my knowledge and helping brands grow their own channels. After just eight weeks of being self-employed, I hired my first team member, who joined part-time through the apprenticeship scheme, to help manage and service these retainer clients.

That home account is where the name for the agency came from, and it’s where my journey in the creator economy really began.

Fast forward to today…

My focus is helping creators grow the way I wish I had when I started, turning influence into income with more impact. Over the past three years, running an Influencer and Personal Brand agency whilst being a creator myself, has given me a unique perspective. I use it to help people build smarter strategies, pitch confidently, maximise income, and work with brands in a way that actually feels aligned. That’s exactly what we cover in my Influence to Income programme, sharing the lessons I wish I’d had so others don’t have to learn them the hard way.

Ready to turn your Influence To Income?

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