How to See Content as Assets in Your Business Arsenal with Stacey Harris

Racheal Cook: If there's something that I always caution my clients against, it's creating couch potato content. Couch potato content is the content you create once, then it goes back in the archives of your blog or your podcast or your YouTube channel or your newsletter to die, to never be seen again. It is such a huge waste of time and energy. Unfortunately, when people take this approach, they find themselves on this content creation hamster wheel that is so stressful and so overwhelming. They feel every single week, this pressure to get the newsletter out, to get the content out, to get the social media out, to do all these things. It honestly just feels like this monster that they have created in their business. No wonder so many people hate marketing. This week, I am bringing in my dear friend and podcast producer, Stacey Harris, to talk about why we are anti-couch potato content and instead how we approach content differently by looking at it as an asset that can be used again and again, and again in the business. Listen in.

Are you ready to grow from solopreneur to CEO? You're in the right place. I'm your host, Racheal Cook. I've spent the last decade helping women entrepreneurs start and scale service-based businesses. If you're serious about building a sustainable business, it's time to put the strategy, systems, and support in place to make it happen. Join me each week for candid conversations about stepping into your role as CEO, the hard lessons learned along the way, and practical profitable strategies to grow a sustainable business without the hustle and burnout.

Hey there, CEOs. Welcome back to another great conversation here on Promote Yourself to CEO. I've been loving bringing some of my clients and team members onto the show to talk about the things that we are talking about behind the scenes. I know this conversation today is going to be such an eye opener for so many. One of the things that I truly believe in and I talk about with my clients all the time is the importance of creating assets in your business. What is an asset? An asset is something that you create once. You do the hard work once, then you're able to profit from it again and again, and again without doing much more work. This shift in how to approach your marketing is a game changer. It is an absolute game changer.

This is how, over the last year, I was able to handle some really big challenges going on in my life. I had to take on the care of my fully disabled mother. I had to hire and fire, and manage a whole team of nurses because she has 24-hour nursing care at home. I was able to do all of that while continuously juggling my business. I was able to take basically most of the summer off from my business. I only worked about five hours a week so that I could get some mental health time after this huge life change of taking over mom's care.

The biggest reason I was able to do so much of that, that my business was able to not just continue humming along but continue to grow is because of this difference, this approach that Stacey Harris and I are going to talk to you about today. Because we think differently about marketing, because we don't just want you to be on this content creation hamster wheel where every week, you're panicked, trying to think of what's going out and instead, you have a library of assets you can pull from at any time, we want you to create that freedom. That freedom where if you want to go on vacation and you don't want to create something new, it's fine because you've got assets. If you want to take some time off for your mental health or your physical health, if you want to focus on your family for a period of time, or heaven forbid, you have a family emergency that just takes up a ton of your bandwidth. When you take the time upfront in your business to create these assets, everything changes. I can't wait for you to listen to this conversation.

Stacey Harris is one of my dearest friends. She has been my podcast producer for the last couple of years. If you love the Promote Yourself to CEO show, you can thank Stacey because she is the one who sits down with me once a quarter to figure out what we're doing with the show, which assets we're going to share, and what new things we're going to add in the mix. She is the one that I go to when I'm trying to brainstorm new things in the business. You will find she is just hilarious. I am so excited to introduce you to Stacey Harris of Uncommonly More podcast production. I can't wait to circle back with you and share some action steps, some takeaways for you as you are thinking about your content for the year ahead.

Hey CEOs. I hope you will join me in welcoming Stacey Harris.

Stacey Harris: We're going to put some crowd cheering sound effects in here. I feel like you have a daytime talk show.

Racheal Cook: Edit in all the sound effects for me, Stacey. I don't know how anything works y'all. When it comes to podcasting stuff, I basically just push a button. Stacey didn't even let me push the button today. She pushed the button for me, then she made the magic happen. If you've been listening to Promote Yourself to CEO for the last couple years, you can thank Stacey for producing it and getting it out on time.

Stacey Harris: Yay, you're welcome. Everyone, you're welcome.

Racheal Cook: As we dive into this conversation, Stacey, I'd love you to share a little bit about what Uncommonly More does first, then we will get into how we are rethinking the way we approach our marketing in 2022.

Stacey Harris: I'm super excited about this. Thank you for having me first of all. I always like when we get to sit and chat. Uncommonly More is a podcast production agency, which means something to you only if you already know what podcast producing is. Let me tell you what it is. Essentially, what we do is we help service-based, and I call them info based—like experts, speakers, things like that—business owners, use their content to convert the leads they're generating. By the way, it also generates leads in the process. There's that wonderful thing but what this does is it allows you to really build connection and community that gets converted, so that community actually sees the results they're wanting to see. Some of that is a little different than traditional podcast production because our podcast hosts are essentially self-sponsored. They're not necessarily looking to get tens of thousands of people listening to their show so that they can sell ad space. What they're looking for is to get their right fit clients listening to them so that they can get on the phone with them, they can get them on the email list, then they can actually solve the problem that listener has.

We think about podcasting a little differently than everybody else does, especially considering I have been podcasting since 2013. November of 2013 is when I launched my podcast. When I launched my podcast, Rach, you're around a similar time. There weren't a lot of women in podcasting. There were even less women in business podcasting. It's always been really important to me that this be a place where actual conversations happen and not just like, “Ooh, it's so shiny. Everyone said I should do it, so I do it.” That's how we still approach podcasting all of these years later. It's funny because we talk about the changes we're making at 2022 and a lot of it is doing more of the same, which is actually providing real value, then presenting them with the decision they need to make, moving forward, so around the loop goes but that's what we do. We handle absolutely everything after the record button gets pushed and before the promotion of the show happens. We provide an edited podcast audio, show notes, optimized for SEO, graphics, audiograms, all of the shiny stuff so that all of our clients just record and release, promote.

Racheal Cook: Yes. It makes it so much easier. I absolutely love having your team on my team. It's amazing. I love it so much. One thing you said there that I want to point out is I think you and I have been ahead of the curve for this a long time with the way we think about podcasts because what I tend to see is people say, “Well, I want to have a podcast,” then they look at what the top podcasts are doing and assume that the only way to have a successful podcast as part of their marketing ecosystem is to do what those people are doing. But what I often see is what those people are doing isn't what we need to do as small business owners. They are focused on the influencer ad space versus what we need to focus on, which is showcasing our experience and expertise.

Stacey Harris: You're exactly right. I get on so many calls where people are asking me if they should be doing what Dax Shepard does on Armchair Expert and I'm like, “No, no because you have entirely different purposes for your show.” My show I hope is entertaining. My favorite part is when someone DMs me and tells me they laughed at my jokes because I am forever just trying to be the funny one. I just want people to think I'm hilarious. However, if I formatted my show or created content the same way Dax Shepard does or insert latest celebrity podcaster here, I would never ever, ever see results in my business because traditional shows where they're looking to get sponsorships are not actually trying to sell the thing that the sponsor wants them to sell. They're trying to sell ad space. I think about this a lot with Facebook. Facebook's customer is not me paying for the ad. Facebook's customer is the consumer. My ad only makes sense there if the consumer is happy. The consumer is going to be happiest if they're just wildly entertained, delighted, and really kept in this entertainment loop that I want them in. That's not super helpful if I’m trying to convert someone.

Racheal Cook: You mean if they’re scrolling on the dopamine dispenser. If they're scrolling on the dopamine dispenser, then Facebook is happy. I think this is such an interesting thing to talk about because these are the subtle differences that if we don't distinguish them, then our strategy moving into next year isn't going to make sense. Another strategy that I see on podcasts that I don't think should be the sole focus for a lot of our podcasts is only doing an interview-based podcast.

Stacey Harris: That's one of the reasons I point to shows like Dax's because it's completely interview-based. It's about bringing in other people and talking about almost like a topic of the week. Think about it very similar to a daytime news show or a late night show. The point is just to have this one little capsule of laughter, then we move on to the next capsule of laughter. There's no long-standing takeaway. There's no change created. There's no next step. The whole thing lives here. But that's not actually what we want. When we approach our shows that way, we end up with these just like pits of value. They're wonderful. They're great. Someone would be delighted to be in there, however, they're going to drown in there because there's nothing to move them to an actual solution they're merely entertained. That entertainment doesn't get results.

Racheal Cook: I love it. It can if we layer in some other things. Let's be clear. You can be entertaining and get amazing results but I think what we're trying to get to is you have to shift your approach from just producing content for the sake of producing content, chasing download numbers, chasing ad space, trying to focus on becoming the next Dax Shepard, just interviewing everybody. If the purpose of your podcast or really any content you're sharing is to get paying clients, then we need to do the things that help you get paying clients, which is showcasing your expertise. We can do that in a lot of ways. Stacey has been so important in my whole strategic process in making sure, as I'm thinking about my podcast, we're being highly strategic. There are no episodes released that aren't part of a bigger picture strategy.

I think this shift will just help so many people, Stacey, to see that if they're creating content—and we're saying podcast—but this shift applies everywhere. It is everywhere. You could use the shift in your written blog. You can use the shift in thinking about video content if you do video. Even if you're just focused on social media, this shift from “I'm here to fill and feed the dopamine dispenser” to “I'm here to attract, engage, nurture, then invite people to come pay me so that I can help them get the results they want,” it will make a massive, massive difference. Stacey, I want to ask you to walk them through kind of how the sausage is made, how do we sit down and plan out our content together because I think this will help people see this shift in real action.

Stacey Harris: I'm going to get to pull out my three questions now. You know them very well. My questions are my favorite things. We sit down once a quarter with every one of our production clients as you know. We talk about these questions every time, over and over again. I used to run a full day marketing workshop. It was the same three questions then. These questions have gotten me literally through 10 years of business now. The first question, what are we selling? Racheal, I get on a call and I'm like, “Cool. How are you?” “Great. Everything's wonderful. What are we selling this quarter?” Because if we don't first know where we want to put people, we can't do any of the reverse engineering of what they need to know before they get there, which is our next question. What do they need to know before they make that purchase decision? What are the questions they need answered? The third question I always like to check in is who are we talking to, because we have different goals at different times. If I'm running a series of episodes really just meant to drive people onto my email list, so I can sell them later, I'm probably talking to people who are in a slightly different place than people who I'm going to put into a program next month.

Racheal Cook: Yes.

Stacey Harris: Those are the three questions every time. What are we selling? What do they need to know before they buy it? Who are they? Just a quick check-in. I'll be honest, in most cases, it's the same person it always is, but oftentimes, quarter to quarter, there are nuances we have learned, things we have picked up and said, “Oh, actually, they're XYZ or they're at this point in business or at this point in revenue,” or whatever but we always talk about those things. That has to be where it starts because that second question is actually your content calendar. What do they need to know before they buy? Great. There are 8 to 12 episodes right there. That's a whole quarter's worth of content. The reason I say 8 to 12 is because I also like to layer in things like case studies, conversations with clients. We just had you on my show, talking about how we work together. I like doing that because it's the social proof built right in. Think about it like the testimonial on your sales page. We're laying it right into the information about our offering.

Racheal Cook: I love that. I want to add into this the way that I specifically approach this because my business is very rinse and repeat. I have designed it to the point where every quarter, we're going to open the doors to The CEO Collective. It is just going to be very rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. But at the same time, we're not just repeating the same content quarter after quarter after quarter. If we did that, there would be no growth in the podcast. People would get bored and they'd fall off. We have to vary up quarter to quarter what we're talking about. For example, in Q4 this year, October, November, December, it's all about Best Year Ever. We have a whole month leading up to running the challenge.

We run the challenge live, then as we wrap up the challenge, we're still leading people into 2022. We're still continuing that conversation into 2022. Then throughout the year, I'll pick a theme of one of the angles, like an on-ramp into The CEO Collective because there are multiple facets in it. Sometimes, we've done a whole series on marketing. We've done a whole series on sales. We'll create these little mini series of content. Over time, we have so much to choose from now that chances are if I run a series again, people aren't going to be like, “Oh, I've already heard that.” It's been 12 to 18 months and it's a whole fresh group of people listening to that content again.

Stacey Harris: I will add to that because this is always, always the sticking point and there's someone listening right now who's going, “But someone has already heard it. They're going to be blah-blah-blah.” The people who do hear it for a second time will A, probably not remember that they heard it before and B, will hear something new. One of my favorite things to do is to consume content I've already consumed because there is some new layer that I will dredge up. There's almost no podcast episode in the world where everything that can be gleaned from it, certainly of value, is going to be gleaned in one consumption piece. Because here's the deal, as we learn new things, as we evolve, as we take in new information, new angles show up, new perspectives change. They're going to get something different from it than they would otherwise. A great example of that is the Best Year Ever Challenge. How many of you have done that year after year after year after year and still come back every single year to listen to it because it builds, and you get deeper knowledge? That's called mastery, folks.

Racheal Cook: That's the truth. I think anybody who is trying to master a topic, they don't consume as many different things as they can. They go deep in understanding the topic. This is something I'm doing right now. I'm going through the Playing Big Facilitators Training. I have read this book a thousand times. I have probably given away 200 copies of it. I give it to every member of The CEO Collective. I've gone through the program and now I'm like, “You know what, it's about time I just do the Facilitators Training.” It's not because Tara Mohr is lazy. It's because her content is amazing. Every time I open a page, I get what I need out of it. I think this approach to shifting the way we think about our content, what if instead of having junk food content, content that we're just throwing out for the sake of having content that you throw out, what if we create mouth-watering content you want to savor and it becomes your favorite thing, and you want to ask for it for Thanksgiving every year?

Stacey Harris: Here's the deal. This is also how you create space from that never-ending content creation hamster wheel that we all have felt we were on from time to time. We're recording this in September, so I've spent this entire month doing those quarterly calls with clients and nearly every single client showed up and said, “All right but I, a little bit, don't want to do this. I, a little bit, don't have anything to say.” Just because it happens all the time to every podcaster, however, when you are building assets, when you are building something that can be used again and again, and again, you can buy yourself some time, you can buy yourself some rest while the show keeps working.

Instead of doing what, I don't know, 98% (that is not a real stat) of podcasters who have ever created a podcast have done and just let your show slowly disappear into the ether and you just stop touching it forever and ever because you were in a lull, you go back to the assets you've built, you serve your prospective clients, you build your client list, and you buy yourself some space to deliver, to get creative, to take a rest, to do whatever you need to do so that you can cycle back and show up again with, again, not junk food content, whole food content that's actually of value because you built assets.

Racheal Cook: Yes. I think sometimes, people are afraid of this because they're like, “Aren't I just saying the same thing again and again, and again?”

Stacey Harris: You are. You are.

Racheal Cook: You absolutely are but here's the thing, people need to hear it again and again, and again. This is how we learn. If you land on something that works, that is powerful, and that facilitates that change or transformation for people, you will talk about it and talk about it, and talk about it. Every year, you will find different angles of how you talk about it. But what happens is then people think of your name and they associate it with this thing. Like people think of me and they think of Best Year Ever Challenge, CEO Date, CEO Retreat because I’m doing the same thing again and again, and again. I love this so much.

I think this also translates through other areas of your business, this concept of building assets, doing the hard work once, then 80% of the work is done. Each time you go to run that system again, 80% of it is done. You only have to tweak 10% or 20%. This is something that everyone needs to really hear. If you're implementing some content marketing strategy, if you are doing “launches”, the more assets you can build there, the easier it really does get, then you don't find yourself in this launch burnout cycle, content marketing burnout cycle because like Stacey said, you can always run something you've previously run and if the asset is built, then you're probably spending a day reviewing it and making sure there are no wrong dates before you run the system again.

Stacey Harris: I think it's so valuable for someone who has a more “traditional launch model” but also if you're like me and you don't have a launch model, we're an agency, we provide a service. We take clients literally every day of the year—that's actually not true, there are two weeks at the end of the year where we all take off—but the other 50 weeks of the year, we're welcoming clients in all the time. It can feel a little bit like you're always in that sales. You're just in one big 50-week launch period. That gets relieved when you're building things that can do this for you. Not just in being able to repurpose them to the podcast episodes but in my email sequences, we point to specific episodes. When we send proposals, we have assets on the podcast that we include in those proposals because guess what, they help sell the thing I'm selling you.

We send those people who want to refer us to someone or these are things we can use in lots of ways because we are literally always selling. Our doors are always open. We don't have those periods of launch and rest, and launch and rest or launch and deliver and launch and deliver. We're always delivering and we're always selling, which can feel really overwhelming if you don't build a system, if you don't build these assets to support you. I recorded half as many episodes this summer as I would normally record but guess what, a new episode went out every single week because we repurposed. There was no difference in downloads, week to week, just as many people consumed the fresh ones as they consumed the ones that we were releasing.

Racheal Cook: Chances are, like you said, they may not have seen it. I think this episode is especially important for anybody. If you're newer in your business and you're just starting to create your body of work, maybe you're just in the first 10, 20, 50 pieces of content, yeah, there's a lot there. Some of that really is you've got to create a lot of content to figure out exactly what the message is, what the angle is, what's sticky and gets people to pay attention. There's always some of that up front. Stacey and I are, over a decade, into doing this stuff and there's still some experimentation here, and there. But once you get to the point where if you've been creating content for a long time and you've got over a hundred pieces or more, I mean, Stacey, how many episodes have you recorded do you think?

Stacey Harris: I will hit 550 by the end of this year. I think we're at 541 or something like that right now. But I was going to say I have 540 episodes of the show, I've said four things on the show, legitimately. Four things.

Racheal Cook: I feel the same. I have hundreds of episodes. I feel like I'm saying the same thing all the time but because this is content that is super valuable, it stands on its own, it is evergreen, it stands the test of time, I can always pull it out again. I can always come and zhoosh it up or tweak it a little bit or try a different angle with it but I'm never starting from scratch with my content. If you're thinking about 2022 and what will make your marketing easier, if you are on this content marketing journey and you feel like you are just running in this hamster wheel, and your little legs are tired, then listen back through this episode, go listen to the episode that Stacey and I recorded for her podcast as well on how we do this internally inside my business for the Best Year Ever Challenge, and other challenges, because this concept will save you so much of your bandwidth. It will save you so much time and energy because you're not always having to start from scratch.

Stacey Harris: I think I want us to make sure we highlight one specific instance of this that's really helpful. Let's give an example of a way that this just works. We talked about this a little bit when you were on my show but we have an episode of our show called What Working With Uncommonly More Looks Like, but it's literally a podcast version of the production sales page. Seriously, that's what it is. It's me talking through what happens after you apply. “You have this call with me, you get a proposal. After you get your proposal, this will be what happens. After you sign your contract and you have your first invoice, here's what production looks like.” I just pull back the curtain and say exactly what's going to happen next because I found that the biggest hurdle was not really understanding what they were investing in and what happens next. Especially as we move through 2021 and into 2022, we have all seen more and more frequently that not everything that is shiny, magical, and sells us is necessarily what we thought it was going to be on the back side.

Being really transparent in that episode of saying, “Here's what happens,” I mentioned this earlier, we include it with proposals. When people want to refer to me, that's what I have them send. When someone first meets me and they're like, “Hey, what does this look like?” I’ll send them that episode. It's essentially a way for me to have a pre-sales call sales call with them so that when I have my conversation with them, we're actually in what would be traditionally the follow-up call after your proposal where we're walking through the specifics to them, handling any concerns or objections, however you want to phrase that, making sure they're going to get exactly what they need because now, we're not talking in generalities, we're talking specifically about their business and their show, and away we go. We're done. They sign the contract before we get off the call most frequently because I've built something that I can use in lots and lots of ways. That actually supports helping them make the decision, not just helping them decide if I'm valuable or not.

Racheal Cook: I love that so much. I think for anyone who is a service-based business, this is huge. This is such a smart idea. I think even if your business's model is different like mine, I haven't done a review of the sales page but I have shared what we call the Open House, which is more of, “Here's what it looks like behind the scenes.” I agree absolutely, these types of things help alleviate the concern of like, “What am I getting myself into? Is this actually what I think it is?” It lets them really peek behind the curtain and see how it's going to work so they can decide whether or not it's a fit. I love this so, so much. Stacey, you’re brilliant.

Stacey Harris: I agree. I like the Open House because I think oftentimes, we create overwhelm that doesn't necessarily exist before we make an investment, especially if we're making a somewhat sizable investment or we're talking about being a part of something for 12 months like, “Okay, I'm going to need to know what 12 months is going to look like.” This stems mostly from me being the most commitment phobic person, I know, which used to make more sense but now I've been married and had a business for 10 years, so you know.

Racheal Cook: But before that, she struggled with commitment.

Stacey Harris: But I've literally made all of the commitments I'm willing to make at this point. I am out of commitment space. All of my commitments have been filled. I want to know what's happening before I sign on. I want to know what is behind there. That's what we created. I think there's a version of this for every business. A service-based do the sales page. You've got more of a mentorship or coaching program, look at bringing in an open house, then pair that with episodes where you bring clients on who've experienced it to talk through it. I had Rach on my show. Think of that like the testimonial that sits on the sales page. We gave you the information now, we gave you the social proof, now make a decision. It doesn't necessarily have to be to buy but to decide, either buy or leave.

Racheal Cook: Are you joining this enrollment cycle or not?

Stacey Harris: Yeah.

Racheal Cook: I think these are the things that as we think ahead to 2022, I really want everyone listening to think about what is the purpose of all this content you're creating. If you were going through the Best Year Ever Challenge and you mapped out your 12-month profit plan, start thinking about what Stacey and I have talked about. When it comes time to creating the content to lead people towards and right into your specific product program or service, be thinking about the content that is going to become the asset that you can rinse and repeat so that 5, 10 years down the road, you're not still on this hamster wheel. You have built this system that works for you effortlessly.

In fact, I remember I really heard this the first time, probably early on in my business—this is right when automation, emails, and stuff were just becoming popular—I knew somebody who had a service-based business. It was like a holistic health wellness center. What she did was she said, “Email is going to be my primary strategy. I'm going to sit down and write three years of email newsletters, and just put it on an auto responder, then repeat it forever.” I was like, “That sounds terrible to have to do.” But once it's done, it's done. You really only have to go in and make sure that it all still is relevant. That takes so much time up front but at the end of it, you get so much time back. When you get that time back, you can focus on other things in your business that need your attention.

Stacey Harris: Absolutely. Here's the deal. The great thing is you don't have to create them in one day but when you go into 2022 saying, “That's my goal for 2022, is to build 12 months worth of assets so that when I go to do my my 2023 planning, it's about revising and not recreating,” then you set yourself up. Make that a big part of what you do in 2022. How do you do this 1% more than you did in 2021? That's it.

Racheal Cook: Even if you already have content, go back through your content and see what was the most popular, what resonated the most, what got the most engagement. Maybe that becomes content, maybe it was an Instagram post that did really, really well and now you're going to turn that into a blog post or a video or a podcast. When you see indicators that this content is resonating, that becomes your core content. That becomes the asset. That's exactly what we're talking about here.

Stacey Harris: Absolutely. I have a great example of that for you that I want to point out because I think it can come from anywhere. I think it was 2019. You got really fired up and you did an Instagram live.

Racheal Cook: Which one?

Stacey Harris: This was the one when Rach got way more Rach. Because in 2018, I met Rach in person for the first time in LA and I said something that in retrospect, when I hear you tell the story, I think it sounds terrible but I meant it in a nice way.

Racheal Cook: It’s so funny though.

Stacey Harris: I was like, “I like you so much more now.” Because I got to know actual Rach, like real life Racheal, like who you are, not necessarily asset building like “This has gotta be all.”

Racheal Cook: It can be a little too serious sometimes, you all, if you haven't noticed yet, I can be a little too serious and a little too focused. Stacey is my friend who makes me laugh and basically pee my pants every time we're sitting together.

Stacey Harris: Be really honest because I don't remember what the precipice was. We were all on a call or something, then you did this Instagram live and it took off. That literally became podcast episodes, emails, and social posts. It could come from anywhere.

Racheal Cook: It could come from anywhere.

Stacey Harris: This is a podcast conversation, strictly because Racheal and I both have podcasts and I produce them for a living but this applies to social media. It applies to your email. It applies to your blogs, to your video. Find what's working, then do it in as many places, as many ways in the format that makes sense for the platform it's going on to, and just keep hitting the drum because it's what works.

Racheal Cook: I love it. Stacey, where can everyone find you and hear more of your awesomeness?

Stacey Harris: I would recommend just going into the podcast player that you're listening to right now and just searching Uncommonly More because then you'll find my show. That's probably the easiest, best way to start. So Uncommonly More with Stacey Harris is my podcast, uncommonlymore.com is the website where you find it. We also have a private podcast, just for podcasters looking to stay up to date on what's actually happening in podcasts. We release one episode a month where it's like, “These are the things you need to be paying attention to this month.” It's like as we went into Q4, we released an episode that was the three episode types that have to be released this time of year. They just make the most sense this time of year. We just released a whole training around private podcast feeds in there. It's over at The Podcast Newsroom, which is at uncommonlymore.com/newsroom.

Racheal Cook: I'm adding that to my list because I didn't know this, Stacey. I have known you for a long time now.

Stacey Harris: We just launched it in August. It's fairly new still.

Racheal Cook: I'm going to download that right now. Thank you, Stacey, so much for joining me. I always love having conversations with you. I hope everybody enjoyed listening to us talk about this. This is what it's like to sit down with me and Stacey, and just hear us talk about all the things related to marketing. It's one thing that we both love to talk about. If you want more, especially if you are a podcaster or a hope-to-be podcaster, go follow her. She's amazing.

Stacey Harris: Thank you. Thanks for having me. I always love when we get to share our conversation to the world.

Racheal Cook: Yes, I think everybody's going to wish they could come hang out with us in real life.

Stacey Harris: We'll have to work on that.

Racheal Cook: We'll have to work on that maybe 2022 or 2023.

Stacey Harris: I'm in. Bye everybody.

Racheal Cook: Hey CEOs. I hope you loved this conversation with Stacey. As you can tell, I absolutely adore her. We have this conversation literally every week in our boxers, going back and forth, talking about marketing, talking about my podcast specifically, talking about things we're seeing. It's really fun for me to bring you behind the scenes into the conversations I'm having with actual people on my team who help produce this content and get it out in the world for you to enjoy.

I wanted to circle back and just highlight the three key questions that Stacey asks me every single quarter. I think these three key questions can totally change the way you think about your content. Because like I said at the very top of the show, the purpose of creating content is not to just do a brain dump of every single different type of content idea you can, have like idea soup of topics you can talk about, then just throw it all out there all over the internet, on your podcast, on your video show, on your newsletter, on your social, whatever it might be. If all we're doing is creating content for the sake of content, we are not doing content marketing. The purpose of marketing is to get people from knowing who you are to becoming a paying client. We need to have content that has a purpose behind it, that is moving people towards the thing you want them to buy, the thing that you have to offer. These three key questions that Stacey asks me every single quarter are so important. It will make such a huge shift for you when you're thinking about the content you are creating. Truly, this is how you end up with that core content that becomes an asset in your business that you can rinse and repeat because you've thought about your content in relation to the things you are offering your potential clients. That is a game changer.

The first question when you're looking at the next quarter, what are you selling? What product, program, or service are you selling? If you're not clear what you are selling, then your content will not have any purpose. Your content is not actually helping you to get clients. It's out there, maybe they're seeing it, but it's not serving the purpose of answering the key questions they need answered, of helping them see why you are the right fit. We need our content to be aligned to the actual product, programs, or services that we are selling. First off, what are you selling?

Then from there, we need to reverse engineer. Once we know what we're selling, we need to ask ourselves again, who is the ideal client for this? I know so many of everybody listening, all you CEOs have done so many client avatars, dream client inventory. You have an idea of who your dream client is. Chances are you have a really good one for the overall big picture in your business, but what I can tell you is if you have more than one offer, you really have more than one ideal client. You have to really dig in here. You have to dig in a little bit more because often, you have offers that are a little bit different from each other. The problems one offer solves is a little different than the problems another offer solves. If you don't know who your ideal client is, then you're not going to be able to make sure that the content is answering those specific questions. We need to ask ourselves who is the ideal client for this particular offer. How are they different from the other types of offers that I have? Is it something about where they are in their journey? Is it something about their specific problem? Is it the difference between being a DIY versus being done for you? Think about the differences for this specific offer and this ideal client. That will help you so much.

The next part, which is what do they need to know in order to buy this product, program, or service? What do they need to know from you? This new approach in how you think about your content is a game changer. Because what's really happening is when you're asking yourself these questions, you're answering their objections before you've even told them what the offer is. You're thinking about their objections way in advance because their objections are the questions that they need to have answered. Whatever it is that you're selling, you need to ask yourself, “Why is this important and relevant to them right now? What does this allow them to do, be, have, feel, or experience that they could or couldn't before? What are the common mistakes they might make if they were trying to figure this out on their own? What are the myths out there that might be steering them wrong and keeping them from making the right decision to move forward, and achieve their goal?” What are the things that they need to know in advance before they can think about whether or not your product, program, or service is the right fit?

If you can ask yourself these questions and you think about your content in this new way, you will find yourself at the end of a quarter with a solid amount of content in a library related to that particular offer. This is exactly what we do behind the scenes in my business. For each offer, I have these folders full of content that has already been created. When we want to promote that offer again or we want to talk about it again, I can go, “Hmm, what content do I want to pull from in order to share this existing offer? What do I have that I could tweak or update or add to in order to get people into this next new thing?” Looking at your content as assets that can be rinsed and repeated is an absolute game changer. It is such an absolute game changer. I hope that you take this to heart, then make sure you're tagging me and Stacey on Instagram. Tag me @racheal.cook, tag Stacey at @uncommonlymore. We would love to hear how this is shifting your approach towards your content as you're looking towards 2022.