You Are The Media (YATM) is the home for marketing misfits. It started in 2013 at the seaside, in England 🌊 The community is built around creativity, interdependence, visibility, experimentation and co-learning.
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Hi YATMers, I’m Melissa Hague. I work with people navigating the human side of work, especially when things feel stretching, uncertain, or messy.
I’m interested in everyday courage. The kind it takes to have honest conversations, make decisions without all the answers, and stay human rather than perfect.
It explores what courage looks like in real, everyday life through thoughtful, grounded conversations. Insightful without being heavy, and perfect for listening while walking, cooking, or doing life.
Wishing you a courageous 2026! Let's make sure we connect today.
Building your future on one thing is a heavy way to operate.
A lighter way is to build multiple ways in.
When you create more than one route into what you believe, your work doesn’t live or die on one launch. It all works from the direct relationship you have with your audience. The stronger it is, the more resilient it becomes.
Let me share what I’ve done to build a business around different revenue streams.
This Is The Problem
I see it for so many people, one delivery and one giant emotional crash. I’ve been part of this.
One of the reasons I started YATM was because I was going through a very tough time. I had around £40,000 of bad debt. I’d placed too much emotional weight on one client, and when they went bust, it triggered legal fees and a spiral that took a toll financially and personally.
Today, I see small businesses, similar to me, pouring everything into a main focus, a course, consulting, programmem a big event. They build the project, spend time on generating awareness, and it still doesn’t land. Often the real issue isn’t the offer. It’s the lack of audience and the fragility of the model.
The idea isn’t the problem. The structure is.
When your income relies on one delivery, you don’t have a business, you have a single point of failure. Timing, energy, platform reach, the economy, life… one wobble can throw everything off. I’ve experienced it and it’s awful.
The next decision isn’t to walk away. It’s to stop forcing the idea to survive through one mechanism.
What I’ve learned over time is, if you have a central idea, and multiple ways to support it financially, you stop being dependent on one “yes”.
You’re Not Driven By A Job Title, You’re Driven By A Promise
For many people, their work is understood through an industry label, such as marketing, accounting, property. The label carries meaning as well as reputation.
If you’re building around an idea rather than a job title, you have to work harder to help people understand what you do and why it matters to them. That’s the difference between industry identity and idea identity.
Idea identity is a promise that plays a role in someone else’s life.
That’s the real product. Not ‘a course,’ but progress. Not ‘a membership,’but belonging. Not ‘an event,’but the feeling of being supported by people on your side.
Once you lead with the promise, multiple strands start to feel like different routes into the same change.
For me, YATM was never ‘content.’ It was a place for people to find their voice, build their audience, and learn in the company of others.
The YATM Proof. Five Paid Routes, One Idea
For the record, I did not build this with some masterplan. I learned it the long way.
You don’t need one perfect product. You need a system that lets people join in at different levels and at different times. It’s all connected to the same belief.
Here’s how it shows up in YATM:
☀️ Events (Lunch Clubs): this is the first room many people step into. It’s low pressure and simple commitment for time away from the screen. The goal is to meet people and feel, “I’m not doing this alone.”
☀️ Membership (YATM Club): this is continuity alongside your work. A place to practise, be supported, learn together and stay close to people who are on your side.
☀️ Annual event (Creator Day): this is a shared identity moment where lots of people come together. This is all about feeling part of something bigger than ourselves, where everyone feels 10ft tall.
☀️ Education (further education and higher education): Creator Lab. Helping young adults build confidence and employability, and giving them a ready-made community if they want it.
☀️ Partnerships / sponsorship: organisations align with the YATM stamp because the space is visible. They’re not funding ‘content,’ it’s aligning with connection, community and trust.
This is where the difference between direct revenue and indirect revenue helps.
- Direct revenue is tied to a delivery: membership, tickets, services.
- Indirect revenue supports the idea: sponsorship, education work, partnerships, collaborations, paid opportunities that exist because the platform exists.
The key point is that these aren’t separate businesses. They are layers of the same idea and promise, just in different formats.
The Reason It Works
The most underrated part of building anything is the direct relationship you have with other people.
When people choose to hear from you, by email, by showing up, by replying, by recognising your work, you’ve got something durable.
That’s why the Thursday newsletter has held everything together since 2013. It helps build trust, creates familiarity and it gives me a place to share.
That relationship is what makes every paid route possible. The deeper the relationship, the less ‘salesy’ the offers feel because people already understand what you stand for.
Without a relationship in place, diversification can take longer.
You Can Build In Layers
I think about YATM in commitment levels. You can do the same with your own work and how people stand alongside you.
Low commitment. People get to know you (newsletter, free resources, open sessions). For YATM it’s a weekly newsletter.
Mid commitment. People engage and build trust (events, workshops, training). For YATM is is Lunch Clubs.
High commitment. People invest and become part of the framework. For YATM this is membership, annual events, consulting and partnerships.
It’s the same idea, but different entry points and different timing (during the year).
Let’s Round-Up
You don’t need to keep asking, “What should I sell?”
It’s stronger to ask: What change do I help create? What room do I host?
Then build two or three routes into that change, so your business doesn’t live or die on one output.
One route can be small and accessible. One can be deeper and paid. One can be periodic and high-energy.
The more diverse your routes are and the stronger your direct relationship with your audience, the more resilient the ecosystem becomes.
Build the system and ways in. Your work stops feeling like a gamble and over time it carries you forward.
What works is staying long enough for people to recognise what you stand for and for them to feel themselves inside it.
Don’t make your goal “adulation.” Make the goal “routine” or even “returning.”
The work isn’t gone, you’re just coming back to make it better.
Our Cowork Crew pals are part of Creator Day...
Our good friends at Cowork Crew are heading to Creator Day.
Cowork Crew takes the best bits of coworking and networking and puts it all together. If you're all IN for Creator Day, on Wednesday 13th May, from 12pm make the session part of your day. It's included as part of the Creator Day price.
There is so much happening this year for you to join in with others on your side.
Matt (King) teed up an idea in YATM Club yesterday. Let's call it Power Point Night.
5 to 10 minute presentations on hobbies or what you're obsessed with. Some presentations already include, book genres, fairies and magic, rock n roll bands, painting and gaming.
Phones away, we're going to have a Club night, in.
Come and join YATM Club, it's £90 a quarter or £330 for the year.
If you'd like, let me show you how it looks before you join, here.
Lunch Club returns February...
Looking forward to getting the shows back up and running. They are all 12.30pm to 2pm, but then we decide to stay out for the afternoon.
Poole | Thursday 5th February and theme is trust, book here
London | Thursday 12th February and the theme is connection, book here
Bristol | Thursday 26th February and the theme is being you, book here
My shouty video to start your Thursday. Enjoy the day...Mark
You Are The Media (YATM) is the home for marketing misfits. It started in 2013 at the seaside, in England 🌊 The community is built around creativity, interdependence, visibility, experimentation and co-learning.
