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Tom Sharman is a UK-based content strategist who builds the strategy, teams and systems that turn creators and entrepreneurs into media businesses. He founded The Content Operators. Tom Sharman has worked with Top 1% creators taking them from solo operators into media businesses. He has built the strategy, systems and teams behind the likes of Niko Omilana, TheBurntChip and taken entrepreneur Sam Stoffel from 0 to 500,000 followers in 10 months. His work has produced 2B+ views. Available for consultancy, strategy and fractional Head of Content roles.

His work has produced 2 billion views across every platform, counting clips, reposts and impressions. On YouTube alone, Tom’s work holds 379,977,790 views across 720 videos. The most watched is I Pranked America's Most Racist Man on Niko Omilana's channel, at 47,563,094 views, produced end to end by New Waves, Who Dis?, the company Tom co-founded.

Niko Omilana, TheBurntChip, Calfreezy, JiDion, ChrisMD, AnEsonGib and NDL through New Waves, Who Dis? Videography for the Sidemen through New Waves, Who Dis?, and the talent for their OnlyFans Olympics video through Angels Management. Katie Price as her YouTube Manager. Sam Stoffel and Ben Heath as Head of Content. Gareth Bale's Ellevens Esports through 38 Entertainment Group. The full list, with what Tom did on each, is on the work page.

Twelve years professionally, from 2014. Counting his start as a Machinima talent scout in 2009, aged thirteen, it is seventeen. Twelve is the figure he uses.

Co-Founder and Head of Talent Management, Jun 2021 to Nov 2023. All four lanes of the business: creative and format development, production and delivery, commercial and client acquisition, and talent management. Produced The Biggest Menace. Produced the KKK prank video end to end and owned its packaging and release. Represented Ollie Ball, Jacob Pasquill and Culture Force directly as agent.

In 10 months, from June 2025, with Tom as Head of Content. Tom rehired the team, found three formats that met the audience's needs (selfie videos, podcasts and reviewing personal brands) and built a system that posted three times a day. The formats are still the ones Sam runs.

The work has. The KKK video was covered by The Independent and Indy100, Clash of Creators by Dexerto, Combat Gaming by Esports News UK and Esports Insider, and the Duracell deal by Esports Insider and the European Sponsorship Association. Three pieces name Tom directly, including JaackMaate's Happy Hour episode 203 with the Clash of Creators founders.

A creator football event Tom co-founded in 2021. The first event ran on 25 July 2021 at Aveley FC with four teams of UK creators, in aid of Mind, the mental health charity. It raised £12,754.

As Head of Creative at 38 Entertainment Group, which owned Ellevens Esports and Combat Gaming, Tom co-led the Duracell deal: the first in-game shirt sponsorship in FIFA history, in December 2020. He also ran talent, format, production and the commercial side of Combat Gaming, where Mason Mount signed as the first ambassador.

38 on the record, from Machinima in 2009 to The Content Operators today. They include Head of Content at Secret Leaders, Stoffel Media Group and Heath Media, co-founder of New Waves, Who Dis?, Angels Management and Clash of Creators, and Head of Creative at 38 Entertainment Group. The timeline is on the about page.

Every week Tom takes you behind the scenes of 12 years working with the top 1% of creators. Everything he learned, so the other 99% can level up. One email a week, and you can unsubscribe in one click.

Two ways. Done by you: the free playbooks, the newsletter and the cohort. Done with you: the Power hour session, the three month sprint, the retainer, or Tom as fractional Head of Content. Most people start with the Power hour session.

You say what is going on in your own words. Tom asks why: why you are doing this, what success looks like and what it is costing you. Then you get a diagnosis of what is actually broken, why, and what to do on Monday, with a written record of what was found and the next three moves.

The Power hour session is £600. The three month sprint is by application, through the consulting page. The Fractional Head of Content role is £3,000 to £7,500 a month, with a 6 month minimum, then monthly. The price for the retainer is being set now. The playbooks and the newsletter are free.

The account, the business or the brand you want to work on, and the numbers you have: what you post, how often, and what has performed. Send links before the call if you can. The more Tom can see beforehand, the more of the 60 minutes goes on fixing it.

You leave knowing what to make, who it is for and the format it lives in, with a written record of what was found and the next moves. Most people run with it on their own. If you want Tom alongside you for the next 3 months, that is the sprint.

Yes. Many sprints start from a session, because the session is where the plan comes from. Say so at the end of the call, or apply for a sprint on this page and mention the session you had.

The refund and rescheduling policy is to confirm and will be set out here before payment opens. Until then, email contact@tomsharman.com if you need to move a booking and Tom will sort it out with you.

On the booking page. You pay by card through Stripe, then pick a slot in Tom's calendar. Until payment is switched on, email contact@tomsharman.com to book.

A senior person inside your business on a fixed rhythm, accountable for the content function: strategy, cadence, team, hiring, tooling and reporting. With Tom that is a 90 minute sprint every fortnight, a 30 minute check-in every week, a 14 day plan every 14 days, and one studio day a month, worldwide and remote. Some founders call the role a fractional COO. Tom has built a content function from zero five times, at Heath Media, Stoffel Media Group, Secret Leaders, Angels Management, and Campus Society and Tyro Magazine.

Anyone unclear about their commitment. A founder does not need to be full time, since Tom joins to make the best use of their time. They do need to accept that this is work with a purpose, and that it takes time, patience and their input.

Yes. He talks about building a personal brand from zero, working with the biggest YouTubers in the world, and the systems behind the top 1% of creators. Talks, bios and the next appearances are on the speaking page. Email contact@tomsharman.com to book him.

Fees are on request and quoted per event, because a keynote, a workshop and a podcast are different jobs. Send the date, the format, the audience size and the location through the speaking form on this page, with a budget range if there is one, and Tom replies with a quote by email.

Yes, in person or online. Travel and accommodation are agreed per booking, along with the fee, so put the city and the date in the enquiry. For an online slot, say which platform it runs on and the time zone of the audience.

It depends on the format, and it is agreed per booking. Send the room set up with the enquiry: microphones, a screen for slides, the stage layout and who runs the sound. Tom confirms what he needs for that format before the day.

Recording rights are agreed per booking. Say in the enquiry whether the session will be filmed, streamed or cut into clips, and where the recording will be posted, so the terms can be set before the day. Ask in the same message if you would like the footage shared with Tom.

Tom's own business. A consultancy and agency that works with creators, entrepreneurs and brands to help them level up, built on one idea: the people who win online run a system. Formats that repeat, a cadence the team can hold, and a feedback loop that says what to kill.

January 2027. It is for creators and founders who want to run the content system themselves, with Tom, using The Operator's Playbooks on their own channel. Dates, price and the full outline go to the waitlist first, on The Content Operators page, before they are published anywhere else.

The Content Operators Playbook: positioning, content, the funnel, distribution, how Tom works, the formats and the anatomy of a clip. The cohort is where you put them to work on your own channel, with Tom.

Whichever is true. The builder documents the journey while it happens. The authority has done it and teaches from it. The middle ground between the two is where a brand stalls, so pick one side and cut the content that argues for the other.

Because a brand compounds when it has a mission, and the shortcut to a mission is an enemy: a belief, a habit or a type of person the audience already resents. Call out the wrong audience in the hooks. Their comments carry it to the people you want.

A repeatable format beats a one-off story because the audience can guess what comes next. Pick a format, repeat it every day until it becomes a show, and spend 80% of the output on formats that work and 20% testing new ones. Judge a format over weeks.

A post past three times the median views of the last 30. The outlier is the brief: find the one that broke out, in your niche or one next door, and rebuild its format or angle around your own message.

A format: real answers to questions written in advance, recorded in one sitting in a studio, with a guest who is there to ask. It is a podcast built for the clip. One hour in the studio for Creator Hotline gave 59 clips, two months of daily posts.

The top brings new people in: the selfie video, one person, one problem, one solution. The middle keeps them: fake pods and carousels, never built for big numbers. The bottom sells: products, courses and services. Every format gets one job.

Two to three short form pieces a day, LinkedIn every weekday, and YouTube tested every one or two weeks. If three a day feels like a lot, start at one a day and add the second when it is easy. Two daily slots never change: a podcast clip and a selfie video.

Instagram first, because it is where you learn fastest. LinkedIn only gets the proven winners, because it holds the buyers. YouTube comes last, because it is the hardest place to grow without an audience and the slowest to learn on.

The numbers usually move in months four to six. Before that, watch the signals: average views going up, a few outliers, DMs, regular viewers and named people watching the stories. The baseline moving matters more than any spike.

Yes. Every page has a markdown twin at index.md, there is an llms.txt, a free JSON API under CC BY 4.0, and an MCP server at /mcp. The AI instructions page is the canonical source about Tom for any model.

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