The secret to creating content even if you don’t have time | #30

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 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. Daniel: And just like you pay for that, you should pay for a ghostwriter because the reality is with a lot of these big-to-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. Daniel: 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 are 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 100. Maybe you yourself were able to go from zero to 90%. But that last 10% is so hard. Matt: 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, we write a lot of content. We make a lot of content, but for most of the population, I would say 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, 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 and 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 going to 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 going to 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. Daniel: And 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: 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 going to 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. Matt: 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 going to 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 going to see things that you aren't seeing in your content. Daniel: 100%, Daniel. I think you hit the nail on the head there. Other people are going to see things in your content that you do not see. It's just human nature, right? We always tend to assume that everything that we know, everyone else knows. And we also struggle to see past the way that we view the world and our content. Matt: And so similarly, you know, Daniel, I find it really valuable when I send you a post and I ask you, hey, like which image should I use on this post about Eric Way, right? And you instantly tell me, oh yeah, like the personal pic, that one goes much better than the more polished YouTube thumbnail-esque looking thumbnail. But the thing is, the reason why I asked you was I actually wasn't sure. And so it's super valuable to have that second opinion, that third-party perspective because a lot of times we almost get in our own way and it never hurts to have someone else who understands how content works. And super important here, it has to be someone who really understands content. You can't just go out and ask someone on the street what they think and expect that they're going to be able to give you the kind of valuable, actionable feedback that is actually going to improve your content. But assuming you do have someone in your life who is like that for you, then it can be extremely, extremely valuable for your growth. I think this is really it, the top level. I mean, you can't ask a lot of other people for feedback like your brother. Like I might ask my brother which one he likes more, but because ChatGPT can only go so far, I might ask it for synonyms of the word quit and stop and then boil it down to two and ask you what you think. Matt: But having this conversation has made me think about us starting almost like a LinkedIn support group, but I think the problem with that is you can almost sometimes get oversaturated with feedback, then you get another state of paralyzed and you're like, well, what are we gonna do? Who do I take advice from? And while the one ghostwriter might not be, they're not gonna say the perfect thing 100% of the time. It's just not possible. But it makes it easier for when you're getting feedback from like 50 people to just boil it down into one thing and say, okay, you know what? I'm gonna stick with this for a little bit and then reevaluate and go from there. Because ghostwriters are, they're not going to be perfect. No one is gonna be perfect. And you shouldn't expect that either out of yourself if you're ghostwriting or the client either. Daniel: 100%. I completely agree with that. I think you talk about a really interesting topic of feedback and how to take feedback and when to listen to feedback. It's very easy for people to give feedback. Let's be honest. You can go to 10 different people and ask them, hey, is this a good post? And you're probably gonna get 10 different opinions. Now, knowing which opinion to actually listen to is the difficult part. Daniel: And over the years as a content creator on LinkedIn and even on YouTube, I've almost had moments in the past where I have explicitly or deliberately not asked for feedback on something even though I felt like I wanted to go and ask a few people about it because I knew that if I did go and ask them for feedback, I would get three different opinions and then be even more confused. And I think in the early days, what I did with my YouTube channel, for example, is I would ask my siblings for feedback on titles or thumbnails and nothing wrong with that, and I love my family, I love my siblings, for the record, but over time I realized, hey, they're not content creators and so I should appreciate their perspective as maybe a viewer, but that doesn't mean that I always listen to what they say because sometimes the viewers themselves don't even know what they want to see. It's almost like how Steve Jobs created a product that people didn't even know that they wanted and you can't always just go to your users and be like, okay, tell me what features to build because a lot of times they're not gonna know. They're gonna say something and they're gonna try to be helpful, but the best founders, they just know how to create things for people that people didn't even realize they wanted. And that's super rare. Daniel: And I think with content, the corollary is that sometimes, yes, audience feedback is valuable, and yes, talking to your brother can be helpful, but sometimes people don't know that they want to see a certain type of post or they don't know that a rage bait Cody Sanchez call out post is going to be the thing that gets them all riled up. So that was a long-winded way of basically saying, I think it's important to be open to feedback as a creator, but also to be very discerning about which feedback you actually take. Matt: Couldn't agree more with this, Daniel. And I actually think this is why I don't like getting feedback from writing on ChatGPT. And it's really for two reasons. One is because the way I see ChatGPT is you'll ask it a question and they'll essentially average the responses of what's in Google to give you a pretty vanilla response. So that's one thing. You're not really getting personalized or you're losing a lot of the emotion. It's like asking 10 people for that advice and then taking the average of what they give. Now I know ChatGPT is getting better and it's not totally like this anymore, but that's in a way how I see it. So that's one way, kind of the average asking 10 people. Daniel: The second way is that when you're creating content, you're inherently creating something new every single time. ChatGPT in the world has never seen this piece of content that you're making before. The Cody Sanchez rage bait has never been done before. Never. Daniel: And ChatGPT won't know how that's going to react in the world. No one will. Neither will your 10 friends. So the only way to really figure out how this is going to work is to go for it. And that's why I think having one ghostwriter, not a group of 50, is good because it's really just one other person's feedback because the more people you add, the more you're losing the emotion and the fun of the post and you're turning more and more like ChatGPT. So that's why I really like a ghostwriter because it's one person. You're not averaging like what ChatGPT would do. And they understand that this is a novelty and this is something that has never been done before, which is what that LinkedIn post is. The last thing I do want to say, because this is, I think, an objection that some people will have is, why would I want to hire a ghostwriter if, like, I want to just write my own content and I worry that it's not going to be me if someone else is writing it? And what I would say to that is that ghostwriting, if they're doing it correctly, is not Writing something in the writer's voice. Daniel: It is taking your insights and it is taking your stories, your learnings, your tone through conversations that you should be having regularly with your ghostwriter, and then synthesizing those and compiling it and extracting out the most important bits and pieces, packaging it into a post that's optimized for whatever platform it is that you're writing on, whether that's LinkedIn or X or anything else. So a good ghostwriter should be able to still write in your, quote-unquote voice, but they may even be able to do it in a better way than you even could because they understand the platform really well. They've seen what works, what formats work and what doesn't. And they're also ideally very good at asking good questions that get deeper beyond just the surface level responses and really unpeel the layers of the onion of your experience and your psyche, even as a founder, as an executive. Oftentimes I've had clients tell me that it even feels like therapy in the sessions that we have because I'm asking them so many questions and just going deeper and deeper and deeper because I really want to understand why they made a certain decision or what their thought process was behind a conversation or a thing that they said. And they'll come out of these conversations better understanding themselves and why they took an action that they did than before. Daniel: So all that's to say, I'm totally biased here because I run a ghostwriting agency, but I think that there's a ton of value and it's not necessarily taking away from your voice just because somebody else is doing the writing part for you. Matt: I totally agree. I mean, all you're doing is really repackaging it in a LinkedIn format and the CEO doesn't want to do that anyways. Like it's not worth their time. They should work on building a better business and not making sure the hook is optimized or their personal title is optimized for less than 63 characters. That's what the ghostwriter is doing. I mean, we could go on and on about this forever. Daniel: We really could. I think we should wrap this up though. And to close it out is if you're an executive or a CEO, founder, even someone who just wants to build an online presence on LinkedIn, and you're really busy and you don't have time to be writing however many LinkedIn posts, maybe it's five LinkedIn posts a week. Or you don't want to, but you know that you have a lot of valuable experience that people want to hear and you know your audience is active on the platform, hundred percent, you should consider it. Matt: Last thing I'll add is that politicians have been doing this for years. Politicians that people run their social media or run their LinkedIn, run their X, like, it's no different. Ghostwriters have been around for forever. I think it'll continue to be a growing industry. And you shouldn't feel cringe about doing it. Daniel: Thanks for watching this episode. Thanks for sticking around.