How to write mouth-watering articles to create a website they don’t want to leave, and turn readers into raving fans (and even clients!)
(See the bottom to download as PDF)
When I first started hashing out posts and content for business and websites in 2017, I kept getting stuck on what to write. I knew I wanted ‘more’ than posting on social media, but I didn’t have a clear vision of what that could look like.
I’d get distracted, then my site would sit there, with just a few articles or blog posts on it.
Maybe you’ve felt this?
What stops us from really creating a meaningful body of work that can help us grow our business?
Is it fear?
Lack of confidence?
What about when we don’t have a clear system in place to make sure the process is worthwhile?
My first exposure to the world of articles was back in the Wild West online fitness world circa 2009. Back then I was into all of the paleo fitness gurus, and intermittent fasting et cetera. I used to nerd out on the latest blog, going deep into nutrition and training topics.
The Westside Barbell site was another one. I’d spend hours scouring the site when I was getting into strength training, trying to learn everything I could from Louie Simons’ articles and books.
Later, I learned a lot from Sean D’Souza, a marketer in New Zealand. I saw his site, and was blown away with how deep and ‘sticky’ it was - to the point where I just kept coming back to see how he structured it all.
All of this led to me starting to pound out emails, longer articles and even a book (with more coming).
When people visit your site and see a lot of helpful content, it leads to one of three outcomes:
They get stuck into an article and read the whole thing
They bounce, but realise that you have a huge amount of articles and resources there on the site, they make a mental note to come back later
They are repelled, because they don’t like going deep, or helpful information
All of these are good outcomes.
(You probably don’t want to work with the last group of people anyway).
The other thing, is the longer form stuff can really help you to grow your email list, because you’re kind of ‘leading’ with generosity, and then you can link hyper-relevant opt-ins to the back of your articles, so people know exactly where to go to sign up to get more of your stuff.
If you’re keen to set up your own articles, and build your own sticky website that helps turn readers into raving fans, and even clients, start with these steps.
1 - Make sure you are clear on your business ‘vertical’, then branch out
Your ‘vertical’ is your specific area of focus for your business.
For us, it’s business coaching for coaches and creative businesses.
This sounds obvious, but when you know what your focus is with your business and how you help people, you spend time and energy writing about stuff that’s actually helpful.
What I’ve found is, when I wasn’t been clear on this, I’ll would write about all kinds of things that got off topic. And just because I was interested in something at the time, doesn’t mean the relevant reader was.
(Obvious in hindsight…)
Start by making sure you’re clear on your ‘vertical’ and then you can branch outwards.
EXAMPLE:
I recently met a woman in the bookkeeping business. She has strong revenue at about $45k per month, but when she came in, she had low profit. She wants to focus on the real estate segment, where she can help agency owners clean up their books, make more money and be better prepared for the future, plus save money on the front end by not hiring admin.
This would be her new ‘vertical’ - Bookkeeping, finance, and back end practices for business growth, for established realtors.
From there, she can branch outwards, and look at specific activities they do, or problems these guys have.
Writing helpful articles on these areas for her website could be part of a positioning strategy to become known in this new area, and create a site that is much ‘stickier’ for these new clients.
Let’s go more specific with another example.
Say you’re a strength coach who does online training for guys with more of a ‘power’ focus. So that’s your ‘vertical.’
But that’s still way too general to actually write about. You don’t want general articles. You want to go specific, so that what you write about resonates deeper. So you ‘branch out’ from here to go narrow, contextual, and wrap your ‘world’ and ‘character’ around it.
So to branch out, let’s look at exactly what some of your clients might be doing in their day to day, seeing that training could be their number one key passion.
You could write on:
What to look out for when you get your first first ‘online’ strength program
Developing ‘power’ versus strength (if that’s relevant)
How to change to a new coach when you realise your last one sucks
Using a remote program in the gym without obsessively looking at your phone for the workouts
Filming lifts for remote feedback and not feeling like a tool
Staying motivated when there’s nobody there in person to train with you
Buying workout gear that doesn’t look lame
Supplements that can help you stay healthy as you train through winter
Mindset strategies to break through specific plateaus
And more. You could probably do 30 - 40 topics on here pretty easily.
You can see how we’re going ‘outwards’ from the main vertical, to surround the topic with sub topics.
So then you can be specific, and bring your world and stories into it. (This is exactly what I’ve done with this article)
2 - Deploy the supreme power of entertainment
Before small business, I was an engineering nerd.
To do well, I had to learn all kinds of engineering speak, and submit big, technical theses on different aerospace topics.
All of a sudden when I owned the gym and started doing content, I had to de-train all this engineering speak. I had to lighten up my content. I would write articles for the gym, and it would be all dark and gloomy and heavy. I needed to have like a checklist, to check for some jokes, and make sure the whole thing wasn’t too ‘coach-speak’.
Otherwise it was boring.
I don’t think I’m the only one here. It’s easy to write articles from the high horse. This is why so many people are worried about the AI stuff right now, because they are used to speaking directly to a topic, rather that around the topic and entertaining as well. AI is just going to destroy this kind of dull content.
And this is where all the storytelling kind of came into it for me.
I realised stories and jokes are a great way to lighten things up, and entertain so that people can stay with you, and you can get the response you want. This ain’t new. You can go back one hundred years, and see direct response copywriters using this. John Caples was a great example. He had an ad for a music school course, with the famous headline: “They laughed when I sat down at the piano, but when I began to play…!” And it was all story, entertaining the reader, and a super successful ad.
You can see this also in the coaching industry if you really look at who does well.
The big players are entertainers.
I mean Tony Robbins, the dude basically came up unqualified, but created huge celebrity around himself, and then had the fire walking thing which was his signature ‘show.’ There’s even a quote from the guy:
“It’s not the Information Age, it’s the entertainment age.”
Great coaches, great creatives - if you know about ‘em, they are most likely entertainers, storytellers, people who can speak, write and hold attention while they do it.
In my experience, if you just give ‘value’ all the time, you get crushed.
So the way I think about this is the 80/20 rule.
80% story or entertainment, 20% insight.
I remember when I was little getting a ride into school, and someone would have the morning radio show on. Even if they had some expert in there, I remember thinking man they just talk crap. Basically they just entertain. Back and forth… Then a little bit of insight. It’s the same with mainstream media, if you think about it. Entertainment can be fear and tension as well. But basically it’s more to do with the banter and the drama than it is to do with being a teacher in front of a classroom.
And that was a huge shift for me and for most people. Most are out here doing 90-100% education or insight, with zero entertainment, recording it into super-coach-speak facebook lives, and wondering why the hell it ain’t getting’ any engagement or converting.
I don’t know any quick solution here, because you’ve got to find your voice and loosen up.
Personally, I have a bit of a copywriting checklist to go back through once the article is done… Is this too heavy on coach-speak? Are there enough jokes? Are there enough stories?
If I need to lighten up the article, I go away, loosen up, then come back and finish it.
Ideally I have fun writing the articles, and laugh at my own stuff.
3 - Use the articles as a bridge in your world (and help readers become raving fans and clients)
Articles can get lost on a site. If you’re not careful, they fall into some kind of dark hole on the internet.
And if you see this happening to you, you’ll quit writing completely, because it looks like a hopeless waste of time. Why put stuff out there that nobody reads?
Exactly. You shouldn’t. You want it to be time well spent that can grow your biz.
So the alternative is to create a ‘web’. An ecosystem that includes your articles, your social media, and then your email opt ins.
So basically the way this ‘web’ works is:
Write the core article, by branching ‘outwards’ from your vertical (area of business).
Put out social media posts that point to the article (no, not just one. Do multiple)
At the bottom of the article, have a pop up, or embedded email sign up.
(You can do this same process with a podcast).
So your articles are a ‘bridge’ for people to go to your email list, rather than trying to get people to jump on your list straight away (“a ‘leap’ that can be too far.”)
And you get exposure to your crafty articles from social media or other sources.
What if you don’t have social media? Well my friend, you need to find other entry points to the articles.
See if you can get your articles up on other people’s sites.
Ask friends with similar businesses if they want some articles for their weekly or monthly business newsletters
Mention your articles on podcasts - either your own, or when you go on as a guest
Publish your articles on other sites with more traffic (medium-dot-com, et cetera. You can still link to your opt-in on the back end)
The more obvious one - start up some social media channels that suit your market, and publish the articles to there for free
Articles are a great way to take people deeper into your world, add value, and show that you actually know what you’re doing. And the over-arching goal with them should always be bring your readers and audience to a deeper level of your world, at all times.
So remember to include an opt-in spot at the bottom (or as you go down) the page.
This gives people a chance to get a relevant PDF, quiz, video, or other opt in as they go. And gives you a way to speak to them over time, to build a relationship, give value, and share offers they might want to buy.
There you have it, enjoy your article writing success.
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The hidden power of 'vision' in your personal goals
One of the thing I’ve been thinking about coming into the new year is the whole dynamic of how people set goals.
It probably got triggered by all the stuff you see on social media right now:
“Twelve months is enough to transform your life if you buckle down”
“2022 I was only going at half speed. Wait until you see me in 2023”
“It’s a holiday not a holimonth, make sure you get back on the grind for your goals”
et cetera.
What’s funny was it’s the first year there’s been that sort of vibe since 2019, when it was about to turn into the birds nest of 2020 and for most people they threw away their goals. So I think a lot of people were psychologically scarred from that. And still, people are positive but you never know what’s around the corner. I actually think there’s going to be some challenging stuff ahead.
One thing I’ve realised is with any goal or project, you’re always in negotiation with yourself.
This kind of comes from the great Jim Camp, who was a pillar in our vision based sales stuff in Creator Club.
So if you have a goal of some kind, as you work towards the goal, you’re always negotiating with yourself.
We either keep going with it, or we slow down and quit.
Like I’m writing the second book right now, and if I wanted to, I could get stuck in that negotiation every day.
“Ah, I feel good, I’m gonna write some more on this book”
or
“Ah it’s never going to get done anyway… I’m going to quit”
So there’s this heavy negotiation that can be going on, without us even knowing.
Probably between your conscious mind (assuming the mission was something we consciously chose) and the unconscious mind. And certainly there’s an energy component under all of that as well.
But here’s the thing I wanted to talk about.
Camp also teaches us that “Vision Drives Decision.”
Meaning if we’re in a negotiation or sale, it’s our ability to ‘see’ the future that involves the product or service, that drives the decision to take action.
So if your car needs a service, you can see a vision of what will happen if you let it go. Not good right,? Imagine you break down on the side of the road somewhere, you sit there on the highway, you run out of food, you try and fix it, but you struggle, you have to get picked up, and you get all embarrassed. Plus, you miss the appointment you were going to. It sucks. Maybe you end up losing your job because of it. I know a guy who ended up homeless after he lost his job… It wasn’t good.
So, you make the decision to book it in.
So coming back to the goals stuff - the big driver I believe for the success in the goals, is to set a strong enough vision. To be really clear on what it is that you’re working on for the next 90 days, or 365 days.
Or even one day, right?
Do you know what your vision is for the next one day?
Something to think about for a lot of people.
Because if you aren’t clear, then what’s going to happen?
You’re just going to lose out to that voice in the head that talks about quitting.
You must have a current, or future problem to be solved.
With my book, I’ve got a current problem to solve, or transition to make:
To help people get a basic understanding of world building principles and apply them to their life.
With my marriage, same thing, how can I recreate or create a better marriage, with more excitement or adventure going forward?
If you get the vision clear, you can successfully ‘sell’ yourself on why you follow your system every day.
If you’re vision ain’t clear, you’re just going to drift around.
How can it go any other way?
And you can do this today. You don’t need to take a week out and do a big ‘vision’ board exercise. You can just start by going today, what’s the vision I have for the day? What am I working on? What’s the problem that I’m solving? When you’ve got that down, you can get to work. You’re going to be happier too, because happiness is a feedback emotion of working towards a vision that you create.
So there we go.
Write it down on a piece of paper.
I write it down on a little card that sits propped up on my desk.
Two or three things that I’m working on.
This is why you came into this world as a human. Not to drift. Not to push buttons, but to set a vision, and realise it.
That’s the definition of the Creator.
9 arch-enemies of online business '2022 edition'
As more businesses roll out their online tentacles, the arch-enemies have revealed their faces in full.
When we shine a light on these, it doesn’t make them wither away and die.
But it does help to loosen their grip on our work.
(Part two to come, with the 'top 9 superpowers' that are key anti-dotes to our enemies below.)
Here we go:
** The formidable funnel dream. If the ‘funnel’ is just right, people can magically be converted into paying customers. Symptoms - we obsess with site traffic, lose sleep over social media bio's, or have multiple click-funnels subscriptions, before there is a clear business
** Lack of endurance. AKA 'tickling the tip', or short-sightedness. Just like in the fitness game, this seems to be hitting all time highs. We know this enemy is around when we stop after a month or so of marketing a new offer.
** Rogue virtue signalling. Random virtue-signalling well outside of the realms of the particular business, in the hope that the 'good energy' will be met with reciprocity. While dressed up as virtue, this subtle 'power' move more often than not yields negative returns and frustration.
** Over-complicating. This enemy tricks us into taking the business messaging, and flipping it into a birds nest, that people don’t understand. The coaching industry is fraught with this, but it can be in any niche.
** Not solving a problem (not creating a particular change). There needs to be a reason for the business to be there. Whether we spot the problem or change we want to make before starting, or we get clearer after things are rolling can depend on the biz.
** Lack of confidence. Possibly our biggest internal barrier. Unfortunately, no quick fix here, besides taking action. Confidence comes from having options, and having options comes from building capabilities, assets and skill-sets.
** Lack of energy. It takes less energy to follow the crowd, drift, or just 'relax' and not do the work. Some call this arch-enemy a 'motivation' problem, I point the finger at energy. We need a fair load of energy to build a business online or offline.
** Distraction. AKA illusion - typically this pops when it comes time to sell a new offer, or ‘push through’ on marketing an old offer. It either means there’s no true ‘aspiration to grow’ with the main business, or we lack follow-through in general.
** Tactics before strategy. The TL:DR movement, Tik Tok, IG reels, and short term metrics means we often lack a clear strategy. This was a huge arch-enemy for a lot of businesses in 2022.
The common thread with these buggers is they are like parasites, and they feed on us not knowing that they exist.
Once we shine the light on 'em like this, they tend to loosen up and back away, so we can get on with our work.
'Never settle'
When I was about twelve years old, I used to mow the little lawn we had at our house.
I’d push the mower along this hill, and weave it around the trees.
When I was finished, my dad would come out to inspect it.
He’d look around each little tree, and then say:
“You missed a bit here”
I’d look down at the little blades of grass.
Then go get the mower back out, start it up, and go around again.
Then he’d come back out.
“Hold on… You missed some over here” and point to a few more bits of grass.
This infuriated me. In my mind, he was doing this to trigger me. So to counter, I would go get a pair of scissors to chop each bit of grass that he pointed to, to try and make a statement. He didn’t care. He would just shrug and say the job was still not done.
At the time I thought this was some kind of vendetta against me.
But later I learned that he was focusing on the follow through.
He wouldn’t ‘settle’ for the result that wasn’t what he wanted to see.
And he was teaching me this lesson.
When we try to make a change in our reality, when it gets hard, it’s really easy to ‘settle’ for how things currently are.
The default, or the status quo that we’ve created in our life is comfortable.
But when we settle, we accept ‘less than’ what we want.
Let’s look at business marketing
Say you’re a trainer, or a yoga teacher.
Like most service providers, you’ve probably got some pretty deep experience in one area, which is why you are building a business around it.
And now you want to write or create content for some marketing.
So you focus on articles, and email marketing, plus some social media.
But this new area is totally foreign. You haven’t done it for long, and it’s awkward, and takes time. You had a goal of writing an email weekly. But now it’s been a few weeks, and it hasn’t gone out.
The next step, is to ‘settle’.
Shrug your shoulders, and relax back into what it was like before, and just put up with it.
The old reality continues.
The thing is, this happens everywhere, not just business. In fact, I’ve been thinking about this a lot more in my personal relationships than anything else. In particular, my marriage with Ruby. It’s really easy to settle into an ‘average’, boring marriage as you go along. It’s habit. But I was reading the other day about marriages. Over 50% of them end up in divorce. And 75% of those divorces are instigated by women. So that ‘average’ is no good. So to me, if you want an exceptional marriage, then you can never settle. You can never really relax. You’re always on duty, because otherwise you slip, and the relationship slips.
If you decide to not settle, you’ll find another gear.
You might piss some people off as you raise your own standards. People might not be used to that…
But they’ll learn.
Don’t settle for less that the outcome that you want to see. If you’re looking for a new relationship, don’t settle. If you want a result in a running race, don’t settle. Keep extending yourself, staying curious, and growing.
When you do this, you’ll find a new level of motivation and energy to create the change that you want to see.
Why 'thriller' businesses don't work
I recently read a fascinating book called “Hitchcock: Mastering Suspense”
It was written by a screen writer.
But has a lot of lessons for small business owners. Whether on the marketing side, or, like in this case, the mindset.
Early in the book William C. Martell defines the difference between an action movie and a thriller.
“In an action move, the protagonist confronts the conflict. In a thriller, the protagonist runs away from the conflict.”
Action movies have action scenes.
Thriller movies have suspense scenes, and little action.
Suspense lasts longer than action, and of course, creates long, heightened periods of stress.
“Suspense is the anticipation of an action… once we get to the action part the suspense is over!”
And it’s very similar in business.
When people take action, they’re typically less stressed than those who avoid action for longer periods of time (sometimes, even in the name of ‘relaxing’).
And more:
There are twenty ‘suspense’ scenes that are common among thrillers, that are known to cause that heightened ‘edge of the seat’ stress feeling.
Here are ten of ‘em
1) TRAPPED - Extra points for vulnerable factors (i.e. Not knowing what to do next - all tactics, no strategy)
2) WATCHING - UNABLE TO HELP SOMEONE ELSE IN DANGER (Can't help the client, not sharing the offer)
3) HIDING (MUST BE QUIET) - while bad guys search. (Fear of judgement)
4) OUT IN THE OPEN (the flip side of hiding) - how not to be seen. (Put out marketing, now afraid of judgement)
5) BEING QUIET / STILL / UNSEEN - when bad guys search. (Avoiding difficult conversations)
6) PRETEND TO BE SOMEONE ELSE - will false ID be discovered? (Copying someone else’s personality)
7) MISUNDERSTANDINGS - communication breakdown leads to trouble. (Not really sure what I’m talking about, not constant communication with clients)
8) CREEPING AROUND - REMAINING UNSEEN (lurking, consuming but not creating)
9) RACE AGAINST TIME (i.e. impatience in the business)
10) THE MAZE - lost, confused, trying to find way out while they search for you. (Gettin’ caught up in consuming youtube, the social media scroll)
For the creator, too many of these ‘suspense’ scenes will turn an every day business into the deepest, darkest, and most ‘knife edge’ thriller you can imagine.
Which creates a ton of stress, from a lot of non-action.
Not ideal.
The quickest way to turn the thriller into an action is to end the suspense and take an action. And the more this happens, the lest suspense there is, and the more the business can grow.
Create ‘action’ businesses, not ‘thrillers’.
Something to think about
"Game of shadows" - Two common mistakes for new online coaches and creatives
When we were younger, I was put through homeschool for a bit.
My father was my teacher, headmaster and tutor. He put me through a blend of his own ‘syllabus’ and the stuff we got sent from New Zealand correspondence school.
It was fairly brutal at the time. He was a strict teacher.
But there were two really cool things that came out of it.
First, we were finished ‘class’ by 12pm each day.
We started at 8am, and in four hours, we’re done with everything. In the afternoon we could go do other stuff.
Second, when we got back to normal school (we were living on a boat at the time), I was way ahead of the curriculum.
Not because I was particularly bright.
But because the schedule we had created had ‘removed’ so much dead time - going to and from classes, ‘morning tea time’, travel to school, et cetera.
I ended up being able to ‘coast’ for a year or two, and still get great marks.
I realised that the school system (even back then), had a bunch of inefficiencies in it.
To be frank, it was downright slow, because of these ‘shadows’, or faults people don’t see.
And so it is with online businesses.
A lot of people want an online business today.
They want to be able to stay in their lair, and work on their terms, with the people they like.
And so there’s a lot of people doin’ it. Teachin’ it. Spruikin’ it. And so on.
But it isn’t always easy.
Over the years, there are two big traps I’ve seen people fall into (and fallen into myself) which can add years to the journey, and generally slow things down.
But first we can see there are generally two categories of people who want to launch their business ‘online’
(I’ve used the term ‘coaches’ here, but it could be anyone)
The two categories of coaches:
While we risk getting a little too simplistic here, there are two big categories when it comes to starting out as an online service business.
And it all comes down to audience and reputation.
The first category is “known and new.” These people are already known online. They have personal brand, an engaged audience, but are new to the business side. The second category is “unknown and new.” They aren’t known (or at least aren’t known in their new area), and have no existing trust. Then they are trying to launch a new business from this context.
Let’s break each one down, and see the major mistakes (and, how you might be able to fix them)
Category one: “Known and new”
You have an existing, engaged audience, that knows you in a similar industry that you want to work in.
Example:
One of the clients we work with was a well known CrossFit athlete and coach.
She had a thriving audience on instagram (i.e. rabid ‘fans’ that hang off her every word).
So when she launches her own nutrition program, she has no problems getting leads.
In her words, “getting leads is never a problem”
Another way to think of this, is that she has great personal brand.
If you have a thriving personal brand, then you have an entirely different situation when you start an online business.
Common mistake or problem:
If this is you, the main problem you might face (depending on the size of your horde of fans), is systems, financial acumen and attention, and coming up with a clear offer that people want.
Example:
A friend of mine is an athlete.
He has over a million followers on instagram. It should be easy to monetise this right? Well, he put out a line of t-shirts, and the things barely sold. I think he sold thirty of them. He’s also tried to run workshops, and had to run ads in order to get a dozen or so people. I was blown away when I heard this.
But basically what happened (and often happens) is that he put out something that people couldn’t get behind. They followed him for his sporting entertainment, but didn’t have a huge emotional investment in his world. So his shirts were kind of meaningless.
Getting the attention and even the leads is not the problem here.
The problem is the story and the offer need to be compelling, (and sometimes, the back-end systems need to be boosted.)
Solution:
If you’ve got a huge bank of raging fans, or at least a big audience base, the first step is to make sure they’re engaged, and that you know what they’re interested in. Test ideas with content. Listen when you’re in conversations. Look at your comments on social media or emails, and see what’s firing people up.
What do people want, and what are they struggling with as they try to get there?
This is at the root of a compelling offer.
Once you see what’s resonating, then share the story of your offer, as you put it together and release it to the world.
Example:
Let’s say you’re an online yoga teacher, with a big following, because you’ve shown up over the years, and connected with people. You are experimenting with different content, thinking about your offer. You see something that lights people up. This is a thread. You talk about it more. You do a podcast on it. You write some more emails about it. Then you think about it, and you realise there’s a way you can teach this to people at a deeper level. Now you have a direction for your offer. You’re solving a problem that’s front of mind for people, and connecting with something they have shown that they want. This is called “reading between the lines” and is only something you can do when you’re connected with your market. This makes it pretty easy to share the offer, and direct people to a landing page or your site.
If you have an existing brand, and engaged audience, you’re off to a great start.
You may be able to go straight to a group program or scalable offering, as the demand may be there already.
You just need something that resonates.
Create a simple offer, then make sure your systems are in place to handle it.
Category Two: “New and unknown”
You have a new business, with a non-existent, small, or unengaged audience.
Often we think with access to so many people, online should be easy to launch and scale.
However, this isn’t always the case.
If you’re new to the online space, and you don’t have a lot of connections, you’re in a unique situation.
It’s worth looking at the ‘scope’ of the task ahead:
Common mistake or problem:
The big mistake I see over and over again, is expecting to see results just from posting to social media, when you have much less trust in the online space than you think.
i.e. Just because you ‘go online’ doesn’t mean people will ‘buy from you online.’
This mistake tends to come about because people focus a lot of their own attention on instagram, and they see other people ‘supposedly’ making money there.
It’s easy to think “hmm.. I could do this. I just need a good bio, some posts, and I can sell my wares.”
Not quite.
Many of the truly successful people you see online have been creating content, and shipping out helpful resources and value for five, ten, or twenty years. Without an existing audience, it takes much, much more effort than many think to create a trusted online profile, and viable online business.
But it can be done. Read on.
Example:
You might be a personal trainer that wants to go online, or a mindset coach, or a life coach that is starting up.
You have a way to help people, a lot of passion, but really no audience that knows you, likes you and trusts you.
I know, this is a bit of a hard truth.
But it’s super common. In fact, this is most of the people who want to start an online business.
And the most challenging of this subgroup - if you are entering a new market where you don’t have trust.
i.e.
Let’s say you’ve left corporate to become a health coach.
But you only have a handful of people who follow you on social media, or no email list. And you rarely publish content or engage.
There’s no real brand.
And no real online personality…
And now you want to kick off this buisness.
Problem:
As you can imagine, the big problem here is no matter what you ‘launch’ online, hardly anyone is going to see it. And the few that do may not want it right now, or may not trust you yet.
The single, biggest, hottest problem, is that there is no awareness, even for your great program.
So, you now have to do the work to build this awareness.
Solution:
There’s two sides to this, depending on how quickly you need the revenue…
If you need the cash pronto, then without a big audience, you’re forced into direct sales (conversation based selling) at the start (or ads - but good luck with no audience and low trust online).
This can help you build revenue and a track record (social proof).
But then on the other side, you want to be building brand, audience and online awareness.
Because this will help you long term.
You need both.
Example
One coach we work with teaches women how to build strength through online programming.
When she started out a few years back, she had only a few hundred followers on social media. She rarely used the platforms. What happened was, she launched the offer, but only a few people bought in.
So, she started to build awareness - she collaborated with people on podcasts, ran a ton of workshops and events. (Sometimes with only a few people showing up), got people onto her podcast, was a guest speaker at events… She worked hard to create a much bigger online “position” for herself through radical content production, outreach and connection.
[I need to reiterate… This takes consistent work, and often a ‘behaviour change’ - as in, it’s not something everyone is going to comfortable with straight away. There’s a learning curve.]
Anyway, now when she shares her offer, she gets much more engagement because there are more people engaged in her audience.
She had more trust, and more personal brand, so now had more buyers.
Now, there is a little nuance that can be a part of this solution.
And that is using the “offline” side to build your online.
People don’t often talk about this…
But typically, most people who have a bigger online ‘personal brand’ are also aggressively connecting with people, or are active with people offline too.
(As I sometimes say, there are very few “purely online” businesses. There’s typically an offline story somewhere, somehow)
All of that is just to say - if you don’t have any online brand or trust, you may well benefit from creating offline events, connecting with people offline, and then tiring that back into your online world.
Something to think about.
Example:
When I first started to sell an online coaching program, I had no instagram.
No emails.
No podcast.
I just knew people in the community, and committed to meeting other new people.
So I went head first into direct sales. I would have conversation after conversation. Meeting new people wherever I could. The result was that in a very short space of time, I sold around $40k worth of coaching. It was a great start, that helped propel me forward.
Then alongside this, I started to write the emails, articles and podcasts.
And slowly use a bit more social media. Then I kept connecting it all together as the story became clearer.
If you have no real audience, you can’t stay isolated, or only do the odd ‘post’ and hope that it works. You need to do both direct sales (for early revenue) and work on building the audience, by connecting with others, running events, or producing content.
Conclusion
There are two big mistakes we see over and over again with new online businesses.
One for existing personal brands, and one for brand-spanky noobies.
For thriving personal brands, the mistake is tone-deaf offers, not sharing a compelling story, or not having the systems in place to support the thing that you sell.
This happens, but it’s not the main issue we see today.
The second mistake, for the new coaches and creative business owners, is over-reliance on posting on social media, even though their trust is fairly low (because they are new).
Or rather, a general overestimation of the ‘market value’ that they have as a professional.
And so, the solutions are different…
For the former - it’s about listening, and creating a compelling story, then paying attention to your finances and systems on the back end, so you can create a business you’re proud of.
For the latter - embrace direct sales early on to build revenue, and aggressively work to build your online awareness at the same time. Go without the former and you’ll have very little revenue to start. Go without the latter and you’ll always be chasing sales, with no brand building over time.
There can be a lot of obstacles when you’re starting out in business, especially online. But once you ‘shine a light’ on these shadows, you can work on overcoming most of them, and build a business you’re proud of.
The ‘offline event map’ for online treasure
People dream of running ‘online programs.’
They want to move away from offline, so they can sit in their lair like yours truly, drink coffee, and do great work, on their terms.
It’s like the new digitised version of the American (Australian?) dream.
And of course led to the modern explosion of coaches, gurus and experts that can help you do everything from copy-writing to optimising your tinder profile for more swipes.
Nonetheless, it ain’t as easy as the Facebook crew tells you.
And when you see ‘em screaming from in front of a whiteboard that it’s as simple as ‘turning on the tap for a flood of high-ticket leads and a booked out calendar…’ that’s when you can safely move in the opposite direction.
Why is it so hard to build online programs?
The root of the whole problem lies in one thing:
Trust.
In the first business we opened, I was selling running shoes. I’d learned sales from my mentor and my whole job was selling as many shoes and socks as I could.
And I wouldn’t say it was easy.
Especially at the start.
And I also saw some guys come in who could never sell shoes no matter how long they tried. They just couldn’t play the game (eventually they would move on).
But within a few months, boxes were flying out of the door, customers stacking what they could in their hot little hands.
The point of all of this:
The modern marketing universe is pushing you to have as little contact as possible with your customers. They love terms like “lead flow”, your “traffic” and your list. The idea is that you can somehow trick people into buying, if you just have the right reels, copywriting, or tools at your disposal.
But anyone who has worked in retail, or face to face sales will know that it is much easier to sell face to face, or offline.
In particular, in a one to one environment.
Because when we are face to face, it allows us to build trust, quickly.
This is still true for us today
The other day we did a check through the last ~60 or so businesses that we’ve worked with recently, to look at the origin story of each one.
Here’s what we found.
Over 50% of these businesses have come to a workshop, live event, retreat, or event that either Ruby or myself spoke at.
And out of the other 50%?
Most of them have known one of the other business owners that we worked with. The old word of mouth referral.
In simple terms…
Even now - with the podcasts, emails, these articles, and any social media that we do, offline interaction is the single biggest driver of growth, whether that’s the first introduction, or later on in the relationship.
What is actually happening?
A few years back when I owned the gym I was into physiology, and studied a lot around health, and the nervous system.
A true white paper nerd.
And I came across a guy named Dr. Stephen Porges. Porges coined a term called “neuroception”.
Basically what it is, is this ability that we have even as little babies, where we can subconsciously ‘assess’ people around us, to decide if we’re going to trust them. This is really important for little babies, because they need to know what’s safe. And whether they can trust adults around them.
I think my dog even has this. She can always tell a shady character from a mile away.
Anyway, we never lose this.
That face to face ‘assessment’ is almost an energy thing. We crave it. It’s effective, instantaneous, and it ‘allows’ us to move forward with the purchase.
Now, you can bridge this trust gap in other ways.
While offline events are th most powerful - to a lesser extent you can use live online events and even creating an audio experience (podcast, et cetera) for your people.
People will often sit on the sidelines, wanting your offer, but wait diligently until they meet you.
Or, you’ll build a relationship offline, and then this can convert into an online sale, when they realise they can use what you’ve got.
It’s all a matter of trust.
What if I don’t have a thriving business?
“Easy for you John, you’ve already got trust, or an audience”
“It’s easy if you’re already going, you can just announce an event…”
Kind of. But hold on.
Sure in my case after years of showing up, a few people pay attention. But really, I’m more than happy to spend my time in my lair, punching out projects and working with the core group of business owners that we have in our world. I’m not surrounded by people, and it wasn’t that long ago that I didn’t even know anyone here because we had just moved up.
When we moved north here to Newcastle, I was starting from scratch.
But within two months, I had run three workshops, and it helped to build more relationships that have continued to help our business.
It takes some raw action, but here’s how you can do it if you don’t have a business or a lot of trust.
Show up where they are. Look, there’s no way you’re going to have the frame at the beginning. You’re going to have to enter their world. But that’s cool. Look around you and find like-minded businesses, practitioners, or industry experts. Get a lay of the land. See who has shared interests, and who you can connect with.
Reach out. But with zero neediness. It could be something like this: “Hey John, I see you do business coaching. Look, what I do might not have any relevance for you, or your people. And if it doesn’t, that’s totally cool. But I support people to grow their business by producing podcasts for them. I’d love to meet you anyway, find out more about what you do, and share some of the results we get for people. Would you be open to a 20 minute coffee next week?”
Bring specific value. Notice in the message above I was speaking to the value that the person could bring, specifically? Successful people that you want to work with are typically busy. And busy people don’t really want to ‘do a coffee’, or just spend time networking for the sake of it. Can you help them see why it would be worth their time?
All you have to do at the start, is get your foot in the door.
Create a relationship.
The relationship leads, and from there, you can present an idea for a small workshop or event.
But I need some more help. Examples please…?
Look, I can’t think for you.
I can’t tell you the right workshop to run, you’ve got to do some independent thinking.
Having said that, here are a few things we’ve done. Now the crazy thing here is most of these aren’t related to business coaching.
And yet, we currently work with many people who have been to these events.
That’s important to realise.
It’s not always about the “what” you do, but rather about the “who” you are doing it with, and how you show up.
An offline event is purely one supreme way to build trust and connection, which leads to online success.
Trust and resonance leads money flow.
EXAMPLES:
World building workshop for business owners, discussing the ideas of building out their characters, story, and world
Meditation workshops at gyms
Breath and recovery workshops at gyms in multiple states
Workshops around training when I had the gym
Mens workshops talking about health and training etc
Content creation workshops teaching people how to create content
And many more.
Ruby has also done a ton of speaking gigs and workshops - self care, vision workshops, on and on.
You probably won’t make a ton of money on the front end
Remember, the purpose of these offline events isn’t usually to make money at the actual event.
I mean you might make a little, but they aren’t usually highly profitable.
For example - I remember flying over to Perth, delivering a workshop, and flying home and only making $50.
Some have even cost a little bit to run.
And that’s OK. Because it’s the longer term customer relationship that we are talking about.
And this is very much in line with World Building, in that we commit to the experience, not the transaction.
Knowing that this helps position us in the mind, and create lasting business relationships.
Now, a word of warning.
If you’re brand new, you can’t risk spending a lot of money to run these things.
But what you can do, is create break even opportunities.
Run a simple event for free.
Run an event for a low ticket price, but provide some food and the venue
Pay to travel to speak at an event, and offer a low ticket product or service on the back end (these aren’t about selling high ticket items to a cold audience on the stage).
And then make sure to use the event as a gateway to bring them into your world.
Conclusion
For a lot of people, the online business is the dream.
The tricky part is - there’s a LOT of people thinking just like you.
So the result of that is people are spending more time on social media. More time in Facebook groups. More time on time-suck-tube… Trying to break free. Trying to get the answer to standing out.
But when everyone is doing one thing, it often pays to look at the alternative.
Offline events have been a powerful business building technique for decades, but they are really coming into their own today.
If you’re already running an online business, the offline idea can help you build even more trust and resonance, and more sales.
If you’re brand new, the offline connection can help you build audience, awareness, authority and yes, customers.
Something to think about
DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE STEP BY STEP GUIDE
Because we know events can be a lot of fun but overwhelming to organise, we created you a free guide that breaks down the process step by step.
You'll walk away with an outline for the event, a marketing timeline, ready to sell out your first event.
Speed is everything (stop withholding to go fast)
Before this small business stuff, I was an engineer. It was my first job out of uni. Yes, I did work a bit when I studied, but this was a consistent pay cheque. After living on $30 per week for food, and my car flooding every time it rained, I was stoked to have some cash flow.
This job was a big step in starting to sort myself out.
Anyway, I worked with F-18’s doing crack repair design.
When you go on these jets, they are super ‘raw.’
There’s not even any paint. No leather trim. No fancy digital screens.
And the outside is plain grey.
They look cool, but you wouldn’t call them ‘beautiful’.
They’re built for speed.
For a few years, in one form or another, I’ve been interested in speed. Speed of Steve Jobs. Speed of clients I work with. My own speed, and sometimes, lack of speed. The basic ‘theory’ is that if you do more, produce more, and test more, you’ll figure things out faster.
I’ve seen clients 10X their business in two years.
And others not launch an offer in a year.
The difference is speed.
They get more ‘shipped’ in a given amount of time, they learn more, and they build a greater reputation.
I’ve found that speed may even be the most important ‘characteristic’ overall.
Speed allows you to test offers with your market.
Speed allows you to create a bold reputation.
Speed allows you to execute ideas faster.
Speed allows you to make more sales.
The other day I was talking with a sales manager for a local gym. He does 2-3 x more sales than any of the other managers in other chains. I asked him how? He said he just attacks his work. He’s not any smarter, he just has more speed.
Anyway, that’s enough yammering about the ‘why’.
And know - I haven’t mastered this. I've sat on things for years. I sat in a corporate job, miserable, for years, lying awake at night. I sat on a book I wrote for weeks, before I could send it to the publisher. I've sat on draft emails for too much too long, perhaps hundreds of times.
But each day, I get faster.
I started to hang around people who do things so fast that it blows your mind.
And now, I practice ‘speed’ as part of the work itself.
Where does ‘speed’ come from?
Over the years, I’ve looked back at why some are so stinking slow, and some move super-sonic.
And there seems to be no difference in ‘stress’ or ‘fatigue’.
I realised it’s not just about the effort, or ‘pressure’ we create, but also about the friction.
People who move quickly seem to have less mental friction slowing them down.
In the book - "15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership."
Here’s one thing they said:
97% of people admit to outright lying.
But this isn’t nearly as big of a problem as “withholding.”
Most firms and leaders withhold.
Withholding is refraining from revealing the relevant facts.
We’ve been programmed to withhold and/or lie. We are afraid, so we withhold.
But this makes us slow.
Now, it’s generally accepted that withholding is from fear.
So the question is, what are you afraid of?
Most people are afraid because they are uncomfortable with their truth, or who they actually are.
So they withhold in their training.
They withhold in their relationships.
They withhold in their work.
So, to build speed in your business, and cut over-thinking, we attack this withholding stuff thing right at the jugular.
If this resonates with you, you know it’s going to take time to internalise this.
Nonetheless - here are some prompts that can help you build speed in your business, by cutting with-holding:
Where in my life:
Am I overthinking?
Am I withholding?
Am I doubting
Write out some ideas. When we start to see where you are withholding in one area of life, we also start to see where we’re withholding in another area. The dynamic is the same.
Where can I bring out:
My truth?
My transparency?
My honesty?
Where in your life can you bring out more? Where can you amplify your nuances, or your personal characteristics?
With-holding creates a tone of problems, because it is a bottleneck for speed. It creates back and forth conversations in the mind. It creates lethargy, and doubt.
But when we practice candor, or destroying ‘withholding’ as much as possible, we get faster in our work.
We build speed.
And speed is one of the big keys to business growth.
Want more help with your productivity?
Grab our CEO Hour Framework.
This is a short PDF with three sections to help you plan the week ahead. You can fill it out any time, but we find it’s best when you do it on a Sunday, or Monday, to map out the week ahead.
Become clear, energised and organised for the week ahead, then ruthlessly execute with no holding back
Click below to download.
11 questions to 'outline' your world
(Article PDF is available at the bottom)
Most people see their business in 3D.
It’s ‘me’ and the ‘market’, or ‘me’ and the ‘clients’.
And this makes total sense. This is how we have to start.
I remember the month we opened up our gym. We needed twenty-eight clients to break even on the lease, and so every day was about finding these people and selling.
It’s necessarily stressful, and part of the journey.
Part of the ‘3D’ way of looking at things is to work on brand. You get a logo, and a website put together. You hire people to do each step.
This is tapping into your values, and what you’re about as a business. But generally this is rushed as an ‘add on’, it’s not fully internalised or spread across the whole entire business.
World builders see their business in 5D.
While the average business owner is looking at ‘tactics’, or trends - should I do insta reels or not? What about email subject lines? What tips do I cover in a video et cetera.
World builders are busy creating an immersive world where they develop their own tactics.
A world builder has a different perspective.
While they are business owners, in a sense, they are also ‘engineers,’ ‘architects’, ‘designers’ and creators.
Almost like seeing ‘through’ the matrix, a business world builder is like a game designer, or an author writing a fantasy novel. They know that each of us ‘lives’ our life as a story. And that we seek out worlds and experiences that we find exciting, that also help us to live out that story, by ‘building’ worlds, in 5D.
“Good marketing tells a story, great marketing is the story” - Bernadette Jiwa
Now, this isn’t a new concept.
World building has been around for decades.
It’s instrumental in film, television, and games.
It’s what propels Netflix epics such as “A Game of Thrones” into cult status or addiction mode.
It’s the backbone of modern films such as Dune.
It’s at the core of games like Dungeons and Dragons, and even Sonic the Hedgehog.
But the concepts of world building are rarely applied to small business on purpose.
Let’s look at Apple for a second.
I know, it’s cliché to talk about Apple, or lululemon, or Microsoft as business examples. That’s like every business book out there. BUT, Apple was one of the first big companies to do this world building stuff really well.
And the result is, even in a financial crisis, Apple stores have a line around the block of people waiting to get in and buy the latest phone.
So when Apple was coming up, Jobs made a really key decision. Rather than follow in the path of Microsoft, which supported ‘inter-operability’ with other companies, Jobs started to build a closed world.
At first, this made it hard for them to grow.
But as Apple gained status, people would literally beg them to support their program, or app.
Artists like U2 came to Apple with promotional proposals. Not the other way around.
Apple had positioned the Mac at the centre of people’s lives, with phones, iPods, iPads, cameras, and everything else stemming off of this. They embodied a blend of counter-punching the status quo, and transforming the customers who entered the world into high-status design snobs.
Over time, Apple systematically built, and controlled all aspects of the computer and phone experience.
And this creates ‘lock-in’. Something we have resistance to at the beginning, but that we learn to accept, and even love, down the line.
The Apple cult.
Now, let’s go back to world building.
Each of us is looking to live into a story.
For some of us, that story is becoming the next James Bond.
For others, they want to be like Jean Claude Van Damme.
Others still relate with a politician, musician, TV personality… Or maybe more commonly, we relate with a story that’s kind of like our parents, but with a slight twist.
We visualise this fantasy, often subconsciously, then we read, study, learn, or buy our way into these stories, as our life shifts and evolves.
As we age, the story changes.
The hero matures, or the culture shifts, and we find a new story that resonates.
The world builder not only sees this, but creates entire closed worlds that support this.
Meaning customers are not only buying what you do, but are buying who they become by levelling up in your world.
This has a couple of big repercussions for your business
1. Creating a 'walled garden' that people never want to leave (i.e. Apple, Disney)
2. Committing to experiences over transactions, and innovation in front of retention
3. Using offers as the gateway to (and core 'story' of) of the world
4. Heavy emphasis on character design (5D, or 'above ego')
5. Share specific details of the world through long form content or delivery
While world building itself takes time - both on the front end, and through your content, offers and experiences over months (or years), below we will cover eleven questions to help you ‘outline’ your world.
You’ll see they are divided into three sections, story, world, and character.
11 WORLD BUILDING OVERVIEW QUESTIONS
Step One. Describe your story
Your story, is what you are about. What’s the story that you are creating as a business. Apple was creating a story of challenging the status quo, helping people become more ‘design minded’ and even now there’s the whole status and fitting in aspect of the iPhone, air pods, et cetera.
Why does your world exist
- What is the change you want to make?
- What happens if 10,000 people lived in your world?
- What is the ‘fantasy’ that you create (e.g. it takes a long time to get strong vs. we give you a simple plan for strength)Who do people become by engaging in your world (offer)
- How does someone change? How is this different to what they’ve tried before?
- What skills / knowledge do they get?
- How does their status change?What does your world stand for, and what is it against?
- What do you support? Who are your allies?
- What do you reject? Who are you against?
- What are your values?
*Specific change, strong position
Step Two. Describe your world
Your ‘world’ has an overall feel to it. A tone. Most people are conditioned to say it’s very friendly, community driven et cetera. But remember, this isn’t always what someone is looking for. Sometimes they are looking for order, accountability, or motivation. This is an important step, and allows you to differentiate your world from everyone else around you.
What tone is your world? Dark, light, colourful? Big or small?
- This is the mood
- Use fictional examples if you want (e.g. The Dark Knight), et ceteraWhat texture is your world? Earthy? Street? Metal?
- Describe the environment and feeling
- Is it urban, or country?What era is your world? New (techno), old, conservative, liberal, space age?
- What ‘time’ is your world from?
- Is it old school, or modern (this changes everything)What are the rules?
- Strict, militant, or relaxed?
- What type of government? (democracy, dictatorship, monarchy etc)What magic exists?
- Describe your magic
- This can also be technology or science
*Specific language
Step Three. Describe your character
Who you show up as in your world is not necessarily the ‘everyday’ you. Now, some people have a problem with this. They see it as kind of ‘inauthentic’. But I always ask them - which is the more authentic you, Sunday morning when you get out of bed late, or Thursday afternoon in a meeting? Certainly you are dressed differently. And similarly, over time, our behaviour changes, as we do more, learn more, and embody different ways of being. Something is only inauthentic when it hasn’t been practiced and internalised.
Is your character a triangle (villain), square (stable hero, friend), or circle (happy-guy)
- The Joker is ‘triangular’, The Rock and Sponge-bob squarepants are square, Winnie the Pooh round.
- Different shapes create different emotionsWhat are your strengths? What are your flaws?
- Flaws are very important
- No compelling character is perfectWhat does your character wear? How do they speak? What are their mannerisms?
- Exaggeration is key
- What words to they ‘over-use’?
- Clothing will highlight the type of character
*Specific details
If you are brand-spanky new in business, world building isn’t something you need to spend tons of time on. The first step is you want to prove that there’s uptake for your offer. That people like your stuff. But if you’re building a longer term business, then this is really valuable stuff.
I’ve kind of run the risk here of giving too much value… Those are some powerful questions, and if you get through them, you’ll have a lot of insight.
Having said that, world building takes time. When we do this with a particular business, we go much deeper, and then look at the implementation side as well - rolling this stuff out through your offers, content, and delivery.
How to know which idea to work on
A few days back I got a message from a coach in Creator Club.
I’ll withhold his name, because I’m not sure he want’s it to be shared.
No matter:
“I feel like I’m getting in my own way a bit at the moment. I’ve got a ton of ideas I’m working and writing on, but struggling to get them actioned and followed all the way through. I’m working through it but my to-do lists at the moment seem humanly impossible.”
i.e - A lot of ideas, but not a lot of follow-through.
A common little nugget in small business.
I sat back in my chair, looked around my lair, and formulated my somewhat “thick-skulled” take on this.
In essence, our real problem when we have too many ideas is not that we don’t know which one to focus on.
Or, that we focus on the ‘wrong’ one.
But simply that we don’t follow through on any of them.
We get stuck in overwhelm, and that feels horrendous and can create a downward spiral.
So let’s call that our ‘base case’:
Ideas = Infinity
Follow through = zero
Direction = downward spiral
Or something close to that.
This means that relative to the base case, ANY follow through is going to be a win, and, the mere ACT of following through is going to train that ‘follow through’ muscle.
I asked him:
“What are the top three ideas you are working on?”
He gave me three ideas.
“OK cool, which of those is the most fun?”
He told me that the podcast would be the most fun - which was one of his three ideas.
I asked him if he had recorded the podcast?
Turns out, it’s all done, except for the intro and cover art.
The action then, is to momentarily forget all the other ideas, and execute the next step of your most fun idea.
But what if it’s the wrong idea?
What if I should do something else?
Well hold on - nothing was getting done beforehand!
Now, we can work on something we like, AND learn to develop the ‘follow through’ muscle.
Our new situation:
Ideas = Infinity minus one
Follow through = one
Direction = upward spiral
That’s 100% improvement on follow through.
Doing this, we also develop speed (I like to call this learning “same day speed” - get the idea, and execute it / ship it on the same day)
Once that thing is done, then move to the next thing.
Look, there are undoubtably a lot more complex ways to go about this. You could sort your ideas into quadrants of importance, and prioritise them based on urgency et cetera. But here I’m assuming that people know they should be doing all that stuff already - but they aren’t doing it.
Which means it’s as good as useless, and it’s much better to execute the thing you want to do.
Spark the productivity via maximum fun or interest.
Then build momentum you need for everything else.
Something to think about.
Want more help with your productivity?
Grab our CEO Hour Framework.
This is a short PDF with three sections to help you plan the week ahead. You can fill it out any time, but we find it’s best when you do it on a Sunday, or Monday, to map out the week ahead.
Become clear, energised and organised for the week ahead, then ruthlessly execute with no holding back
Click below to download.
13 reasons to create ‘long form’ content for your business world
Over the calendar year, my writing ebbs and flows.
I focus on other things, or I get distracted. So, around September, I force a kind of "berserk" writing period, and do around thirty days of ~3000 words per day.
I wake up, get myself caffeinated, and hole up in my lair.
The sprint helps get my mind right again.
And also ‘build out’ new parts of the Creator Club world.
Whether that’s a book, a course, or in this case, a new article vault to bring a bunch more value to the Creator Club website.
Anyway, one thing that happens if you do this is it ‘forces’ a shift to long form content. You can’t do this exercise with Tik Tok or Instagram reels, or Pinterest posts. You have to come up with an idea, and write it as an article, or record it as film or audio. Which opens up the age-old debate of long form vs. short form for content marketing for business.
Or long form vs. 'pop-corn' platforms.
And it's an important debate.
And maybe something you’ve thought about yourself with your marketing.
Because as a creator, you now have endless options and access. You can tweet, post, write, record and film yourself silly. So it's important to be clear on where to focus your energy.
In my humble opinion, long form will always dominate short-form popcorn platforms over time.
Even though short form platforms attract much more attention from the masses.
There are many reasons for my contrarian views.
Here are thirteen of them, that are worth considering as you build out your own business world:
REASON 1 - With most short form platforms, you don’t ‘own’ diddly. You don’t own your audience. You are “borrowing” the data from Meta, or Google et cetera. That’s generous of the platform hosts… but, technically means you don’t own your business if that is your only platform (!). That’s right. If you don’t own direct access to your audience or market (the core of your business,) then you don’t own the business.
REASON 2 - Short form platforms are at risk. First is the risk of having your account hacked, or taken down (this happened to my Facebook circa 2020, and I’ve seen it happen to many others for no reason. Yes, it can happen to you). Then there's the risk of ‘pollution.’ Bots, attention seeking false information, bandwagon effect now makes up the core of the content.
REASON 3 - Short form metrics are becoming ‘false’. Now, this is tough to prove, but it’s certainly been my experience - to keep the masses addicted to the platforms, they reward users with false metrics. Try this experiment: put out a few videos - wait for one to go semi viral. Now look at the accounts that engaged. Many will be bots. I’m not big on social media, but the other day I put one video out, in an hour or so it had over 40k views, and hundreds of shares out of the blue. Most were not real people.
REASON 4 - Long form content is the only way to have a body of work. Recently I printed out Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essays. Over 300 pages of work, and it’s as if he wrote it yesterday. This is the same for any book, or even long form video or audio. You can publish the audios to a podcast, then you can also store the files in an archive, have them on a USB. You can “hold” your timeless body of work.
REASON 5 - Long form is the fastest way to build your voice. If you focus on one idea for a period of time, or recording a series of videos or podcasts, you can figure out what you want to say. This is very tough on social media. There’s so much information, that your mind is pounded by everyone else's voice.
REASON 6 - Long form helps you to build your world. To steal from literature, J.R.R Tolkien was a master world builder. But a lot of people don’t realise the extent of what he did. Over his career he ‘constructed’ the grammar and vocabulary of at least fifteen languages and dialects. This isn't possible on twitter. Sure world building is possible on popcorn platforms, but it’s hard to get the detail to go deep.
REASON 7 - You can relax and think for yourself. Everyone knows the story of Joe Rogan selling the rights to his podcast to Spotify. The deal was worth around $110M. One of the things about Rogan’s work was that he had these in-depth, relaxed conversations with people. On longer form platforms, you don’t need to chase attention every single moment. You can relax, and let the full character play out. Podcasts are great for this, but so are books or articles.
REASON 8 - Long form content marketing can become short form. What do I mean by this? If you write a book, you can take sections of the book, and bring them over to short form. It may not be what the platforms were designed for, but it can work. Now, the other way can work to develop ideas, but it's totally different.
REASON 9 - Short form is great for documenting the journey. But what is the journey? What is the bigger thing that you are creating? Speaking gigs? Workshops? Events? What is the journey that you want to document? That will probably be something long form. One of the best people I’ve seen at this is Austin Kleon, who is also known as the writer who draws. He writes books, but uses twitter and insta to ‘document’ his work. His audience gets to come along with him for the journey.
REASON 10 - Your long form content can intertwine with your program modules or structure. This is something I do a lot in Creator Club. Example: next month we're doing a topic on delivery and innovation, with a particular focus on communication. We are running a challenge on communication, and today I’m writing this article on long form content. It's all related. This is because my mind is focused on the work that we are doing with business owners, which allows me to create long form content around this.
REASON 11 - You can sell your long form content. I came across someone on Instagram a little while back, and they posted a lot of health advice. But they also with-held some content, and the message was, "Join my Patreon (a pay wall), and you’ll get access to all my posts." But the posts weren’t anything longer, they were just more short form content. Personally I think this is garbage. When we pay to go to a concert, or go out for a meal, or even buy an album, we are paying do go ‘deeper’ with the creator. We naturally expect longer form content. And conversely, if you create longer form content, people will buy it. We have business owners in Creator Club who are bringing in thousands each month selling ebooks and courses.
REASON 12 - You stand out. Have a look around your industry right now. How many people in your market are on Instagram? Now, how many people are creating long form, high-value content over time? The pool gets a lot smaller, quickly. The thing is, most people who start up a business want to get their ‘marketing’ going as fast as possible. They don't have patience. So, they start creating content where they focus most of their own attention - social media. The problem is, this can lend itself to copy and paste content, or ‘safe’ content that isn’t saying much. If you bring in long form content, you can go much, much deeper, and build a body of work that nobody else has in your field.
REASON 13 - You have a talking point. A few years back I put out an eBook on health and training. It was around one hundred pages long, and went into various “pillars” of health - or, my views on health at the time. After I put it out, I had a bunch of people email me. One guy even took me out to breakfast, and brought along a printed version of this eBook, so he could talk through it all. It’s the same with a book. If you put a book together and have it published, you’ve got something to hold. You can do speaking events, or podcast interviews around the book.
Now, before the insta-growth gurus start yelling at me…
None of this is to take away from short form content marketing.
I mentioned Tolkien earlier - he pounded out tens of thousands of pages if you stacked up all his work. The epitome of long form. But he surely would have had a minion helping him run an insta account so he could troll C.S. Lewis.
And in fact, long form can be cut to short form very easily.
Or, short form could be used for a different reason altogether...
And more:
My guess is the social media popcorn platforms will hang around: Mind control is in full swing and the thirst for quick hits of dopamine is at all time highs.
But it's all something to think about anyway.
Both to secure your business, and build your work.
How ‘zero value’ content can help you grow your business
This article will either divide, or unite.
Hopefully, the latter.
How often have you been told to give more ‘value’ in your marketing as a coach or creative business owner?
More tips, more education?
That all you have to do is speak to the pain points, and offer a solution, and people will hurl credit cards, wads of cash and email addresses at you?
A lot of you I bet.
If you don’t give enough value, people won’t watch, right?
This is a super common idea marketers and business coaches will tell you.
“If you just give more value, then people will buy eventually.”
“Go deep on education, help people more.”
So you create another ‘tips’ video to help people learn.
But after doing this, you’ve probably seen three problems:
1. We have well and truly passed through the Information Age. I remember when I was growing up, the challenge was getting the info. The screeching dial-up internet was just coming in. The encyclopaedia Britannica was barely available on a CD. Information was king. But now, information is everywhere. We’ve moved beyond. In fact, the supreme guru himself Tony Robbins calls this now the “entertainment age”.
2. People who constantly suckle free information have a lot of free time, and often, are demonstrating that they don’t value paying for powerful work. I know this is contentious. People will be yelling that free information triggers “reciprocity.” But in the land of TMI (too much information) that starts to lose it’s impact… The irony that this is a free article is also not lost on yours truly.
3. A lot of the educational content out there gets super boring. When you start to notice this, you really notice it. It’s like the matrix, and all of a sudden you can see boring content everywhere around you, belting you over the head with education and virtuosity.
The way the free ‘value’ content idea is supposed to work is you put out the free stuff, people comment how helpful it is, they give you this emoji 🙌🏻, they save it. Then some time in the future they work with you.
But…
What really happens most of the time is they file it away as they make their way to the couch, where they sit down (and pay) to binge watching season after season of Ozarks.
Or scroll through videos of cars or random cats.
Which brings them zero ‘value’, whatsoever.
Now, I get it - “it’s different for us”, because we are coaches, or creatives, and we should be the one to elevate people’s thinking, and bring them new tips, and ideas…
Where the Ozarks show is just a drug family making their way through life trying to survive the Mexican cartel.
Yes, and…
To educate or help people, first they have to be engaged.
Or - any content that we do, educational, or otherwise, can’t be boring!
This means story, entertainment, or at a minimum, some personality. This is the stuff that makes Breaking Bad, Ozarks, and the Kardashians so engaging (and obscenely profitable).
It’s also what makes a great coach or service provider.
Now I’m not saying ‘don’t deliver any value’ or ‘never teach’ in your marketing. This article has loads of value in it. But, if we go back in time and realise that the best teachers, educators, and coaches from the beginning of time, have also been entertainers.
EXAMPLE:
A little while back I hired an online coach to write a strength training program. It cost a little more than $1000 Australian, and went for twelve weeks.
Here’s a summary of his marketing “strategy”:
He told the story of past training (semi-professional athlete in three sports) on podcasts
Every second day or so he uploads a 60 second clip of his training to instagram
He shares some opinion / attitude in his content about the fitness world
There are zero how-to tips.
Zero educational pieces of content.
Zero three step guides.
So why did it work?
Through demonstration, the guy helped me to create a vision of what the future could look like with his program. Turns out he’s a similar age to me, and a similar height, so I could “see” myself starting to learn from him and putting it into practice.
Ultimately, when he opened up the offer, I emailed him right away and transferred the cash.
Educational value still has it’s place
I’ve had a lot of different teachers in my life.
There are two that come to mind right now.
In uni, there was one guy who was this big lumbering American dude. Probably 6’5”. He taught mechanics of solids, and he was very serious.
The other teacher was from high school. He was the art teacher, and he would tell stories, let us put on the music we wanted, and take us on field trips out to his studio.
Anyway, one day at uni, I was in the mechanics class in the front row.
I literally fell asleep.
I’m not sure why, but partly because this guy was like listening to a broken record. After a while he called my name out with a question in front of the whole class to try and teach me a lesson. But in hindsight, I think he needed the lesson.
Anyway, the point of all of this:
Straight education isn’t helpful.
And in fact, a lot of times it sends us to sleep.
The art teacher on the other hand was super engaging, we learned a lot, and I remember him clearly.
The art teacher still educated us, even though he was entertaining.
And this is the goal.
Education is helpful will help position you as an authority. But giving away more free info or free downloads isn’t going to necessarily get more peeps buying your stuff.
Wrap any ‘value’ around your engaging world
Say you are a health coach. How could you bring in this “zero value” concept to create more engagement?
Well let’s say you’re talking about how important sleep is.
Sure, we don’t get “enough” sleep.
We all know it’s important…
But how could you jazz it up?
Well, you could tell us a story about a time when you didn’t get any sleep for three days, and what happened when you went to work? Or you could interview someone you know who’s an athlete, and listen to their story around sleep.
Both of these help you build your world.
They introduce story, or introduce us to your “allies” in your world, or other people you interact with.
So basically what we come to is this - Any time we talk about something educational in our emails, delivery, or social media, we can ask “How can I make this engaging?”
“How can I wrap my ‘world’ around this in a way that’s interesting?”
If you wouldn’t find it fun and engaging, the audience probably won’t either.
Remember the strength coach I told you about?
You could argue there was some education in him demonstrating the movements. But it was wrapped in entertainment.
The captions are interesting. He’s wearing quirky clothes. The music is interesting. He’s filled the clip with his “world” so you go deeper with him, and get to know him more.
And you’ll have ways to do this as well.
Where you film your content
How you speak and stories you tell
How you dress and bring out your character
And more.
All of this stuff helps to build your world, and creates more engaging content that takes people deeper, without adding more education.
But it makes the education that you do bring more interesting.
“Content, I am not interested in that at all. I don't give a damn what the film is about. I am more interested in how to handle the material so as to create an emotion in the audience. I find too many people are interested in the content. If you were painting a still life of some apples on a plate, it's like you'd be worrying whether the apples were sweet or sour. Who cares?” ― Alfred Hitchcock
In our world, content still matters (we aren’t purely in film), but creating an emotion, or ‘wrapping’ the content in our world to help tell the story is critical.
Creating “zero value” content
Sometimes an exercise I like to do with new business owners is have them create some zero value content.
It sounds crazy at first.
Literally an email, or social media post with no value in it.
Basically, this is an opinion, a story, or some vision that builds the world and character of the business, but without ‘teaching’ anything.
Pointless noise?
Well, if all you did was zero value content, then it might be. But zero value content does three things specifically:
1. It helps us see we don’t need to be virtuous all the time. That content can ‘stir’ and cause emotion without having to position as the enlightened teacher. And, when we do that, we actually have more fun and build a better relationship.
2. It teaches us how to build a relationship with our audience. You might tell a joke. You might share a little story. You might talk about something that you learned - not to teach - but just to share. This builds resonance, or relationship.
3. It helps you to not “care” as much. Rather than needing to get perfect engagement or feedback from the market every time, zero value content helps you to loosen up and get more creative.
Now - this is a skill.
We’ve got to practice it.
You can study film, TV, talk show radio - there are a ton of ways to learn how to improve on this. Personally, whenever I watch a movie that’s engaging, or whenever I hear something that shocks people, or raises curiosity, I take note.
How did that work?
Why did it catch people’s attention?
Usually it’s not because of information or ‘value’, but because of story or the way it was said or phrased. That’s all helpful for learning. Once you practice with some zero value posts for a while, you’ll learn how to bring more entertainment into your stuff.
One time I watched a TED talk by a guy and he was speaking about how our brains kind of sync up when we tell a story.
His name is Uri Hassan, and the talk was called “Your brain on communication”.
So if you stand up and tell a story, and I listen, the brain wave pattern from your brain, will literally sync in with my brain.
It’s like you “give” me your vision from the story.
Whatever emotion the storyteller has, is the emotion that the listeners will get.
Anyway, since then, I thought about how people like to have fun in life. I mean emotionally, they like things that keep them on their seat.
People like fun stories.
I always thought that you want to have fun when you create content, or write things, because people can feel it.
People can feel whatever you are feeling.
That’s why in a lot of the great movies, the actors “embody” the characters. For example, Denzel Washington in Training Day - he ad-libbed a lot of the dialogue. They got guys from gangs to come into the movie and play the role of extras, and Denzel would “feel” the emotions of being on the streets and in gangs. Then he spoke from that place.
So when you watch the movie it feels so heavy - he put himself in a heavy position, and you’re feeling what he felt.
Heath Ledger the same in The Dark Knight. He studied the character from Clockwork Orange, and really embodied the “feeling” of the Joker. So that when he speaks, and cackles with that laugh, you feel it.
So if you aren’t having fun when you write things, the reader isn’t going to have fun either.
They’re going to be bored out of their minds - that’s what is happening with most of the content out there for coaches and creative business owners.
At the end of the day, if you have a little bit of fun, you’re already way ahead. You’ll have much more resonance with people, they’ll get your personality, and will be able to dive deeper into your work.