The secret to creating content even if you don’t have time

Transcription

Daniel: I think more people should be hiring ghostwriters, and I think there are two reasons why. And the first reason is the same reason people hire a fitness coach or a financial advisor. And I know this sounds cringe, but the reality is, we all know how to be healthier. We can eat cleaner, we can work out more, we can sleep more, we can go to the gym more. And there are all these things we can cut out, junk food, drink less alcohol. We know what to do, but the reality is, we don't do it. That's why we hire a fitness coach to help pressure us and to help get us there and really help us get us there faster because some of us, I mean, like me, don't know. The same reason with a financial advisor. There are, you know, a million different ways out there to make more money and plan your money, but it helps to have someone else do that for you. Plus, if you're better at making money than saving the money, then that's why you would hire a financial advisor. So you do what you're better at. That really leads into my second point. So the first point is, we know the tools out there, but we still need help. And the second one is, you hire for things that you're not good at, like at a company. You might outsource the strategy department to a consulting firm. Give a billion other examples of this, but you hire for stuff that you're not good at. You might DoorDash your groceries or pay someone to clean your house. And just like you pay for that, you should pay for a ghostwriter because the reality is with a lot of these big, big B2B companies, just one deal can pay for a year of ghostwriting. Now that was a big rant and I'm gonna let you go, Matt, and see what else you have to say about why you should hire a ghostwriter. Matt: Yeah, this is a really relevant topic, I think, for a lot of founders who know that they should be posting and either aren't, or they're doing it, but they're not really seeing results. So before I even get into the reasons you should hire a ghostwriter, I think it's really important to just set the record straight and say that I'm only talking about a good ghostwriter. There's a lot of people out there who offer personal branding or ghostwriting content, writing services, what have you, copywriting, but I almost think of it as like a spectrum of like at the very bottom of the barrel, it's like very commoditized. Like anyone can kind of like offer this service or you might as well just throw stuff into ChatGPT and you'll get a similar output to what these content farms or content services would get you. But at the very high-end, say you're like a Fortune 500 CEO or executive, and you've hired someone who understands your industry and is really good at sort of dissecting the relevant insights from your day-to-day conversations. They're really good at synthesizing the takeaways from the conversations that you have. Matt: And they know how to package content in a way that resonates with your specific audience, which requires a very deep understanding of who you're trying to talk to. And so they're not applying necessarily a cookie cutter approach to the content that you might see at the other end of the spectrum. I'm only talking about if you're working with this kind of a ghostwriter. And if you are working or thinking about working with a ghostwriter, you can almost think of it as two situations. If we take the fitness coach example, why do people hire a fitness coach? There's usually two use cases. One is you've never worked out before and you're so overwhelmed and you just don't even know or have the knowledge to do it successfully. And you know, maybe you could watch a bunch of YouTube videos and you know, you could probably go to the gym and try to figure it out over time, but it would take you a really long time. And you know, you would benefit from that guidance. So that's the first use case is if you aren't very good at content or maybe you've never posted before. Case number two is though, you're like a bodybuilder and you've been working out for years, but you really want to go to the Olympia and you want, you know to get to the next level. You can't do it alone. You need a coach. You need someone who's going to keep you accountable. You need someone who is going to get you from 90 to a hundred. Maybe you yourself were able to go from zero to 90%, but that last 10% is so hard. Maybe there are certain things that are mental blocks or whatever, what have you that are getting in the way of you fully maximizing the ability to grow your audience and build your brand. And so I think that there's a ton of value to both groups. To the first group, it's probably pretty obvious why they should hire a ghostwriter because for them, it saves them the time, the pain, the energy of actually having to figure out this whole content thing, right? And let's be real, Daniel, you and I, we write a lot of content. We make a lot of content, but for most of the population, I would say the majority of founders out there, they aren't used to posting content and they need a lot of coaching when it comes to even small things like, how do I properly format this LinkedIn post so that it's optimized for the platform? Or how do I get around the mental barrier of, oh, this feels so cringe. I can't even hit post. Like those are things that I've noticed working with some of the clients that I have at Forge, my ghostwriting agency, that have never posted before, is I end up having to also just coach them on the mental aspects of, hey, it's okay to post this. Like, trust me, if it flops, nobody's going to see it. It's just not going to get pushed out. And I know it feels cringe, but, you know, trust me on this, the raw and authentic thoughts that you're putting out there, a lot of people are gonna resonate with. So that's the first bucket. Daniel: But in the second bucket, these people may not see as much of a reason initially, at least, of why they should hire a ghostwriter because maybe you've already gotten to 10,000 followers by yourself. So why would you need to hire a ghostwriter? Well, my argument to you is that just like how bodybuilders will hire a professional bodybuilding coach so that they can get to the Olympia, in the same way, if you hire a top 1% ghostwriter, this is oftentimes gonna be the big unlock for you that can take your content to the next level. What does it look like to take your content to the next level? Well, maybe this means right now you're really good at getting attention. Maybe you're like Roy Lee and you're so good at getting impressions, but maybe you're struggling with turning that attention into actual customers or actual sales calls. And so a good ghostwriter would know how to structure your content strategy so that it's not just all top of funnel content, but also there's content in there that is going to bring people down the funnel and actually get you more customers, which is the hard business result for you. Or maybe you've been really good at getting customers, but on the flip side, you suck at getting impressions and you don't know how to create posts that get hundreds of thousands of impressions. Then a very good ghostwriter could also help you to unlock that part of your content as well. So as you can see, there are two broad use cases for people. The ones that have never created content before and just need help getting it up and running and getting that content engine started. And then those that have been creating content for a while and maybe you're an executive, but having a ghostwriter can obviously save you time, but a good one will really know how to optimize your strategy so that you're fully, you're well-rounded, you're hitting all the spots that maybe you weren't getting before and you're actually getting the kind of result from content that you are looking for, whether that's impressions or inbound DMs or customer calls, things like that. So that's my argument for why you should consider hiring a ghostwriter. Totally not biased. Matt: Matt, you articulated that so well. If I had to add one thing, it would be that for that second bucket of people that are already creating content, because I think a lot of people that are creating content don't think to hire a ghostwriter, but the reality is if someone were to hire you, Matt, you're gonna see stuff in their content that they don't see because they're writing it themselves. Like when you're writing, when we're writing ourselves, we'll make typos. That's why I always like to go back with a fresh pair of eyes. Daniel: But I think just with my experience with you, Matt, you know, hosting this podcast, I'll send you LinkedIn posts and say, you know, should I use the word quit or stop? Which I was doing for, you know, some of these rage bait posts, but then also more seriously, like how do you like this format idea? You know, is this too authentic? And almost use you as a thought partner to level up my LinkedIn strategy and take it to the next level because it's, you know, alone, I can get to X, but with you, we can get to X plus Y. And I think that's why a lot of groups are forming around LinkedIn content or schools, stuff like that, where people can see each other's posts and critique their strategy because not enough feedback occurs on LinkedIn besides the algorithm. And you're never gonna get a detailed, you know, report card from the algorithm to say, this is what you missed. This is why it didn't go viral. But if you were to get that from other people, that can help you improve your content better because inherently other people are gonna see things that you