Ryan Booth - Effortless Content [PDF]

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WSODOWNLOADS.IN Effortless Content Creation                Create high converting content easily, without overthinking  and struggling to plan 

                  By Ben Byrne  Cofounder of the Clientology 

WSODOWNLOADS.IN Table of Contents:     Chapter 1: Introduction     Chapter 2: What is content    Chapter 3: Target market deep dive    Chapter 4: Fast Content Formulas    Chapter 5: Creating your Core Content    Chapter 6: Creating your organic pathway    Chapter 7: Filling your funnel    Chapter 8: Should you be omnipresent?    Chapter 9: Cashflow Content    Chapter 10: The Endless Content machine    Chapter 11: 1 Year of Content in 1 Day    Chapter 12: The BATCH-elor   

WSODOWNLOADS.IN Chapter 13: Tools of the Trade        Chapter Uno: Introduction    Why am I sitting here writing to you about content?    Does it even work?    And what the hell does “content” even mean?     I’m sure you have these questions and much more.     In this book, I’m going to give you a complete blueprint for:    1. Attracting an audience of raving fans.  2. Generating more qualified leads  3. Closing deals easier and faster, and       You’ll have to forgive me if you wanted a super long, drawn out book with a ton of  theory and fluff.   I’m going to do my best to keep this book as tactical and practical as possible.    Ryan asked me to write this book because I am obsessed with content.   I have been for the past few years.     Even though we are big on outbound marketing, I’m a true believer in content  marketing.    Why? Because I used to be a door to door salesman.    

WSODOWNLOADS.IN I’m not sure if you’ve ever sold something door to door in the middle of a Canadian  winter, but it sucks.    The original “cold outreach”. lol.    Ryan used to be a cold caller as well.     He would spend an entire day cold calling prospects for a wealth firm. He told me  he did up to 300 dials per day.    It was so hard on his nerves, he would chug a beer in the office at 8 am before  getting started.    For me, there were days when I DREADED the thought of knocking on one more  door.     Especially when it started getting dark at 4 pm. Nobody wants to talk to a stranger  after dark, when it’s freezing cold out.    Think about this: On an average day, I would knock on 200 doors. Easy.    Sweating in the summer, freezing in the winter. Getting doors slammed in my face.  Facing rejection all day long. Getting chased by dogs and threatened by hillbillies.    It’s a ton of effort for very little results.    Now let’s say you make a simple post, or a video, or a podcast, or even a tweet, and  200 people read it.     I imagine that piece of content like a mini door to door salesmen working hard for  me.    Outbound is hard work. It takes a lot of sweat equity and persistence.  There’s no way around it.    Content marketing takes persistence as well, but it’s MUCH better in a lot of ways. 

WSODOWNLOADS.IN   If the only tool in your utility belt is cold emails, or cold calling, here’s what reality  looks like for you:    -Borderline spamming dozens, or even hundreds of people per day with cut and  paste pitches.  -Attracting low quality clients.  -Closing people is too hard because there’s no trust or relationship established.  -Dealing with no shows to your sales calls.  -Lots of rejection    I’m not sure about you, but I did not get into business to spam people to buy my  stuff.    I’d much rather work with people who are pre-sold on me before we talk.    People who already feel like they know, like, and trust me. People who feel like I can  help them and they’re already bought in on my offer.    The ​worst​ sales situation you can be in, is trying to “convince” people why they  should work with you.    Look, cold outreach is fine when you’re starting out in your business and you’re still  in “hustle mode”.     I have no problem with using cold outreach to get your first few clients.    If cold is your ONLY method for generating new leads, you have a serious flaw in  your business.    Over the past few years we’ve made hundreds of thousands of dollars from content  marketing.     Growing our business used to be hard and unpredictable.    

WSODOWNLOADS.IN We used to be pure hunter gatherers. Everyday we would go out and we’d have no  clue what we’d get.    Now we’ve developed a system to bring in new leads and clients. People who  already know who we are, what we’re all about, and believe we can help them.  That is a HUGE change.    In other words, now we’re farming...for new clients!    And they say money doesn’t grow on trees.     I’m super excited to share our entire system with you in this book.    But first, let’s shift gears and talk about the foundations of content, so we’re talking  the same language here.     

Chapter Dos: What is content?    We need another word for "content".     It's one of those catch-all terms. Everyone has a different definition for what it  means.    Instagram models take butt pics and call it content.    People share irrelevant industry articles on LinkedIn and call it content.    Influencers post random quotes and call it content.    It’s obvious we need a better word.    Here’s how I think about it.    Content is: 

WSODOWNLOADS.IN   -Anything which educates and motivates your ideal client to work with you.    -Anything which positions you as an authority and expert in your field.    -Anything which makes your market “raise their hand” and say I’m interested in  learning more.    -Anything which makes your selling job easier.    -Anything which handles objections before they come up on calls.    -Anything which builds a bond between you and your audience.    If you think about it, content is one of the main differentiators you have. Having  your own unique intellectual property (IP) is one of the best ways to stand out     As the owner of your business, creating great content is one of your main jobs.    You may have noticed I did not use the word “give value” in any of the above  examples.     I hesitate to say “give value”, because it’s such a subjective word.    What does value even mean? Here’s a better way to think about it.    There are 3 questions I ask before posting anything:    1. Does this ​serve​ my market and help them move forward in some way?    2. Is this shareable and saveable?    3. What is the strategy behind posting this? Can I use this content anywhere  else?    Huge bonus: Will this ​start a conversation?  

WSODOWNLOADS.IN   Here’s a rule for you to remember: Conversations lead to conversions. 

  The Content “Money Pyramid”  For us, we create content for our client's, our prospects, and our team.     If we can create a piece of content which can help all 3, that’s a BIG win.     As you’ll see in upcoming chapters, there’s a method behind the madness.   Next we’re going to cover the foundational question:    “What do I say in my content?”   

Chapter Three-o: The Target Market Deep Dive    Have you ever found yourself thinking way too hard about what to say, or running  out of ideas?    If so, this chapter is going to help you fix that.   

WSODOWNLOADS.IN Most content doesn’t work simply because it doesn’t strike a nerve with the person  consuming it.    It’s either not relevant, or it’s written in your language and not theirs.     For example: Let’s say you’re a women’s success coach.     You might say, “I help women become empowered!”    Whereas your prospects might be saying, “how do I break through the glass  ceiling?”    Your language and theirs aren’t matching up.     When you get this wrong, all you hear is crickets when you hit post.   Nobody watches your videos or reads your stuff.  Nobody becomes a lead and turns into a client.    Then you get discouraged and feel like it’s a big waste of time.    How would it feel if every time you hit post, you had a flood of new leads?    People engaging with your stuff, sharing it, commenting and loving it.    Would that be pretty cool? Well it’s 100% possible.    There’s an easy method we can use to maximize the chances of your content  hitting the mark every time. We’re going to map out our prospects “Hot buttons”.    Let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work.    Oh, what’s that? You thought you were going to only read stuff without doing any  work? Guess again!    I want you to take a piece of paper and draw out a diagram like the one below:   

WSODOWNLOADS.IN     Creating Your Perfect Messaging

    We learned this tool from a great coach and mentor named Taki Moore.   He calls it the 4 forces.    The idea is to map out the exact language patterns inside your prospects mind.    Let’s start off with ​frustrations​ in the lower left corner.    Make a list of all the problems your market is having right now related to the  problem you help solve.    This section is for the exact symptoms your ideal clients are experiencing.    For example, here’s what we could write for our program.    - Low cash flow  - Not enough leads 

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Not charging high enough prices, low profitability  Team members aren’t performing  Calls aren’t closing  Working 50-80 hours a week in their business.  Ads aren’t converting  Doing too much stuff with little results to show for it.  Sending proposals and never hearing back from prospects.  Only getting client's from referrals  Stuck using job sites like Upwork.  Competitors getting all the business. 

  The key is using their EXACT words.     That’s why it’s important you don’t make stuff up here or guess.     I would suggest you do the following for research:    -Listen to old recorded sales calls  -Interview prospects  -Talk to current client's  -Join FB groups where your niche lives. Read their posts and the questions they ask.    Social media is a goldmine if you use it right.   There are plenty of places you can gather information.     Reddit, Twitter, Linkedin, Quora, Facebook, Youtube, Amazon book reviews.    Another great tool to use is “Buzzsumo”. That tool will let you put in any keyword  and it’ll bring a list of the most popular related articles and blog posts.    Take careful note of the blog titles and topics. Those are reflective of your markets  hot buttons.    Let’s move on.    The next step is to start thinking about their ​fears​. 

WSODOWNLOADS.IN   What’s the long term result of these problems, if nothing changes?    Let’s use some of the above examples.    The long term fear related to low cash flow?     Maybe they won’t be able to meet payroll.  Maybe they’ll have to shut down their business.   Maybe they’ll even declare bankruptcy.    The long term fear of their team not performing?    Maybe they won’t be able to hire people to help them….  Their business won’t be able to scale...    And they’ll get burnt out and end up hating their business.    Long term fear of not closing sales?     They won’t be able to keep the lights on and pay the bills.  They’ll keep losing deals to competitors.   They might have to go back to work for someone else.    You get the idea.    Moving on, the next step is to look at their ​wants​.    The easiest thing to do is take the frustrations and flip them.    Instead of experiencing low cash flow, they want high cash flow.     The more specific you can be here the better.    Like instead of earning $10,000 per month, they want to reach $50,000 per month.   

WSODOWNLOADS.IN Flip every frustration on it’s head like this and then move onto the dreams section.    What are the long term dreams this person wants?     Again, you could project yourself mentally into the future here, OR you can go out  and ask people.    If you have no data to work with, use your imagination. But be sure to update this  diagram with real world information when you talk to real prospects.    For the dream section, I like to take the wants and add “so I can”.    I want high profitability, so I can hire a team to help me.    Get it?    Here’s a tweetable quote:    If you don’t know what to say in your content, that means you haven’t researched  your market enough.     

Chapter Four: Fast Content Formulas    Now that you know what to talk about, the next logical question is:    “How do I create the content?”    That’s the question we’re going to answer in this chapter.    Do you get stressed out when you’re trying to create content? Most people do.  They’re not copywriters. They’re not “influencers”.    I’m guessing you don’t have formulas you can pull out of your hat to bang off a post,  or record a video at will. 

WSODOWNLOADS.IN   The other situation is you’re already making content, but it’s not producing results.  You’re getting no leads, no engagement, and no new client's.    This leads to a feeling of frustration when you can’t see immediate results.    I don’t want you to spend hours and hours trying to come up with the perfect post  here. That’s not an efficient use of your most valuable asset, time.    By the end of this chapter you will never experience writers block again.     Here is the first formula:   

    This formula is an adaptation of a tool called “4mat”.    

WSODOWNLOADS.IN 4mat is a tool developed in the late 70’s by a school teacher named Dr Bernice  McCarthy.    McCarthy was teaching preschool kids and she struggled to keep their attention.  You can’t lecture to little kids. They won’t listen.    She discovered a secret to getting her kids to pay attention and learn better.  When she followed this formula, the kids “got it” faster. Grades improved.     The only difference is, the original 4mat tool had “what if” instead of now.    The copywriter in me wants to explain why this formula works, but that’s not  important. I don’t know how a calculator works, but I can still use it. Same deal  here.    I first learned about it from a great marketer named Andy Jenkins. (RIP Andy :-( )    He explained how almost every piece of marketing follows this framework.    Product launches always have 4 videos or emails leading up to it.    Ads often follow this formula. Sales pitches do too.    It’s also great for email sequences, social media posts, book chapters, and course  modules.    Let’s break it down.    Why    Starting with why, this is what hooks your audience in.    Why should they watch your video or read your post?     Grab your version of the target market deep dive tool from the previous chapter.   

WSODOWNLOADS.IN It’s almost always a better idea to start off with a pain point versus a goal, but feel  free to try the other way around.    Start off with a few frustrations, and a fear.   Then I follow it up with a few wants and a dream.    If you don’t hook them in right away, you could have the best content in the world,  but nobody will stick around to know it.    What    The “What” section is the main teaching part of your content.    I like to give 3 to 5 main tips or points in my content.    If it’s free content, I never teach people WHAT to do, or HOW to do it.    Instead, I teach them WHAT they should want, and HOW to think.    What mistakes are they making?    What are the mistakes in their thinking?    Where are they not taking ownership of the problem?    Fitness is an easy example here.    Think of a girl trying to grow a juicy .    What are the mistakes they’re making?    They’re not focusing on compound exercises which grow the “gluteus maximus.”    Such as deadlifts and squats.   

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WSODOWNLOADS.IN Instead, they’re doing those dumb exercises with the bands you always see girls  doing.  The fastest way to grow a big bum is to focus on the exercises which target those  muscles. Compound exercises target those muscles the best.    What about the mistakes in their thinking?    They might be thinking doing those exercises will make them big and bulky, or look  like a dude.    Couldn’t be further from the truth. Besides, most guys have to train super hard and  eat a TON to look like that.     In reality, they will look better. More toned, sexier, more feminine, more (insert  what girls want) here.    Finally, where are the places they’re not taking ownership?    One example coming to mind is genetics.     You think you can’t grow a booty because everybody in your family has a pancake  ass?     Well how much do your family members train? Have they ever worked with a  personal trainer?    Well the fact is, yada yada yada.    See what I mean here?    A question you might be wondering is, why don’t you teach the how-to?    There are a few problems with teaching people what to do and how to do it.   

WSODOWNLOADS.IN 1) They can get overwhelmed. It’s super easy to get bogged down by technical  details. It’s better to keep things at a high level.    2) They might be missing foundational pieces in their business.     For example, if you give someone a sales script, but their mindset and tonality is  horrible. Chances are they won’t close.   That person is going to think your stuff blows and they won’t buy from you.    3) They will want to act on your free trainings before working with you. This  takes 4-5 months on average until they get bored and try something else, if it  doesn’t work.    4) Their curiosity gets satisfied, and they feel like they don’t need anything else.  Great content “baits the hook” and gets them wanting more.    How and Now    For the how and now part of the framework, this is a good time to move the  conversation down the funnel, so to speak.    For example,    Let’s say you’re making a video about how to get more leads for a chiropractor.    A great “how” would be either     A) Giving away a worksheet, tool, or template to help them act on what you taught.    Or B) Telling them to book a call with you to see how your strategy would work in  their business.    The “Now” section is simply your call to action (CTA).     Asking them to take the next step.    

WSODOWNLOADS.IN That CTA could be:    -Comment a keyword below  -​Opt in for a lead magnet on your website.  -​Like or share your post with someone who would find it valuable.  -​Join your group.  -​Send you a DM to learn more.  -​Register for a webinar.  -Book a call    And so on.    You must tell people what to do next, or they won’t do it.    Now you have a super easy formula to follow to come up with content.    But we’re not done.    Here’s an 8 step framework you can follow for creating videos in 60 seconds or less.      1) Brand 

2) Seed 

3) Hook 

4) Problem 

5) Solution 

6) Teach 

7) Wrap 

8) CTA 

    1) Brand​: introduce yourself in 2-3 seconds.    “Hey it’s Ben here from the Church of Clientology, where we help agencies scale”    2) Seed​: Seed your offer    “Yesterday I was talking with one of the client's in our CAIP program and he asked  me how I come up with video content fast.”   

WSODOWNLOADS.IN If you’re perceptive, you’ll notice I am always seeding offers throughout our  content. Including this book! Think of it like product placement in the movies.  You see the actor drinking coke. You think that’s by accident? Nuh-uh.    3) Hook​: What is the topic of your video?    “In this video I want to break down the 8 part framework I use to bang off video  scripts in 60 seconds or less.”    4) Problem: ​State a few frustrations and a fear.    “If you don’t have a framework to follow, shooting videos can be tough.    You tend to ramble and lose your viewers interest fast.  You come across as unprofessional.  And nobody wants to do business with you.    If this keeps up, you’ll never generate a consistent flow of leads from your video  marketing efforts.”    5) Solution: ​State a few wants and a dream.    “But when you have an easy script to follow, shooting videos is a breeze.    You will hook your viewers attention so they watch the whole thing.  When that happens, people see you as the expert you are,  And they reach out to you to do business.    When video marketing is working for you, you never have to worry about leads  again.”    6) Teach: ​What are 3 points you can give? (Doing/Thinking/Ownership)    “Rather than going off the cuff, you need a solid framework to follow each time.   

WSODOWNLOADS.IN Start off with who you are.   Introduce yourself and tell them what the video is all about.   Next, why should they watch your video? Remember, you’re competing with cat  videos and porn. There must be a good hook.    Now teach them in a way which leaves them wanting more.    Finally, you want to fulfill their desire for more with a simple call to action at the  end of the video.    Second tip:     Stop thinking about yourself and how you’re coming across when shooting videos.  Ignore the camera completely. A simple hack I’ve found is talking to the camera like  I’m talking to a friend.     Don’t put on your fake “Mr Important Entrepreneur” voice either.   Talk how you do when you’re talking to a friend. You do have friends, right?    My third and final tip for making killer videos is paying attention to what the data is  telling you.    One thing you can do is upload your video to wistia.  Then you can track how many people watch all the way through and where they are  dropping off.    That’ll give you a starting point for where to improve.    If you’re not adjusting your videos based on data, you’re flying blind. There’s no  excuse for that with the amount of data available to us today.”    7) Wrap up: ​Remind them of what you told them.    “Hey, I hope you enjoyed this training and you got a lot out of it.   

WSODOWNLOADS.IN Remember the 3 big things to know:   Follow a framework,   Talk to the camera like you’re speaking to a friend, and  Listen to the story the DATA is telling you.    Do that and you’ll be miles ahead of everyone else.”    8) CTA: ​Give them one next step to take.    “Hey, would you like the exact framework I use and teach to my client's so they can  make videos that convert?    Click the link below and grab your copy for free.”    With this formula you can now come up with an entire video in 60 seconds.   It can’t get easier than that.    Let’s do one more formula, I’m feeling generous.     This isn’t a copywriting book, but you can’t talk about content without storytelling.    I’m going to share an easy framework for creating original and interesting content.    Because if all you talk about is dry facts, your audience is going to get bored to  tears.    Think about it like this:    Your brain is like a radio with 2 stations:  Storytelling and Logic.    You can talk about features and benefits all day. You can give all the statistics and  data in the world.  The problem is, our brain is always tuned to the storytelling channel.   

WSODOWNLOADS.IN We need context and meaning.    People buy things when they know what it means to them.    Let’s run through a 5 part storytelling framework now:    WHAT → WHY → LESSON → APPLY → CTA    What happened?​ Set the scene.    Why is it important?     What’s the lesson you learned from it?    How can your audience apply the lesson in their life or business?    What’s the next step you can ask them to take?    Using this formula, you can take any random event and turn it into a piece of  original content.    I’ll make up an example right now. This happened last week.  --Start Script--    [What]​ Last week my mom asked me to help her go shopping for a brand new car.    This was a big deal to her because she’s always bought old, crappy ones.   So we went to the dealerships and test drove a few around.    We weren’t buying anything too crazy. She has a middle class, government job after  all.    Anyway she finally decided on the car she wanted.    At the last minute, she almost backed out of the deal. Her fears of what might  happen almost got the best of her. 

WSODOWNLOADS.IN   [Why] ​Have you ever had this happen to you on a sales call?      The finance manager handled her objection in a way I wouldn’t have thought of.    He didn’t close her on the price.   In fact, it turned out to be a lot more than she expected to pay.     He kept telling her, “You deserve this.”   “You’ve worked hard all your life. You shouldn’t have to be driving old beaters.”    [Lesson]​ At the end of the day, we’re all slightly more evolved monkeys.   In other words, we’re EMOTIONAL beings.    This guy saved the deal because he was listening to the story behind my moms  objection.    This is something you will ​never​ get from reading a script.     [Apply] ​I’d love to show you a training I created on 5 ways to close the deal after  the prospect says no.    [CTA]​ To get your copy, comment“SAVE THE DEAL!” below this post and I’ll shoot it  over!    --End script-- 

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    (She bought a 2021 hyundai elantra in case you were wondering.)      Now you have no excuse to tell me “I don’t know what to saaay in my content”!    Think of these formulas like jello molds.  You use our mold, but with your own filling.     They work for any niche.   

Chapter Five: Creating Your Core Content    The next step in the process is to think about what you want your market to  associate you with.    If you’re anything like me, there are certain topics you can talk about for hours.  This is your deep domain expertise.    For me, I can talk about all kinds of things for hours because I live it and breathe it.    Mindset. Sales. Marketing. Offers. Copywriting. Advertising. Green tea. Fitness.  Spirituality. 

WSODOWNLOADS.IN   The key is matching up those topics to your markets problems and goals.     We want to engineer your positioning for your niche.   When they think of “X”, they think of you.    For example: When I think of Sales, Grant Cardone comes to mind.   I don’t even think his sales training is that good, but he’s positioned himself by  creating tons of sales content.    You can do the same with your core content.    Here’s a diagram to help you think about it. 

  Here’s what I tell my client's to do:    Pick 3 core topics which nail the sweet spot in the above diagram.    It might help to think of frequently asked questions you hear from your prospects.  Write down 5 -10 and use those topics.    I want you to be careful here though.   What you talk about dictates the quality of leads you get.   

WSODOWNLOADS.IN The biggest complaint I hear is, “I keep attracting unqualified leads!”.  “Nobody can afford my service!”    Then I go and check out their content.     Turns out, they’re talking about how to make your first dollar on the internet even  if you’re 100k in debt.     Lol.     You can’t attract whales with minnow bait, people.    Even the names of your lead magnets and content will attract and repel certain  people.    A great example is Frank Kern.     He’s not trying to attract newbies to the internet marketing world.  He wants to work with 7 figure business owners.    That’s why he named his podcast“Your Next Million” instead of “Your First Dollar  from the Internet.”    In business, people will have different problems at different stages in their growth.     For example, for someone making less than 100k per year, they want to know how  to get more leads and sales.    Between 100 to 300k: The focus is on growing the business and buying back their  time.    The focus from 300k to 700 is on: Systems, leverage, operations, advertising, sales  teams, etc.    From 700k to 1 million+ 

WSODOWNLOADS.IN The focus is on expanding your capacity, scaling up without breaking fulfillment,  etc.    Then we have 1 mil to 5 mill    5M to 10M,     10M to 30M,    30M to 100M+    There are big differences in the business owners at each stage.   Could be the exact same type of business...    ...different “species” of business owners running them.   Different psychological makeup, skills, character traits.    For us, there are 3 core concepts we talk about because we know that’s what our  ideal clients are looking for.    We focus on helping people around 5k to 15k, grow to 30-50k and beyond.     Those guys care about the following:    1) Attracting more leads  2) Closing more deals  3) Freeing up their time    Under those 3 umbrellas, there are 3 subcategories we can talk about as well.   That makes 9 different subcategories in total to choose from.    How did we pick them?    These are all based on the things we know our niche needs to grow their business.   

WSODOWNLOADS.IN The content in this book falls under a subcategory of the “attract more leads”  category.    There’s an exercise you can do I learned from Frank Kern.   It’s called the “Milestone Method”.    What you do is take a piece of paper and draw a big line down the middle.    On the left side, you draw a sad face.   On the right side, you draw a happy face.    What must happen to go from where they’re at, to where they want to go?  What are the milestones along that journey?  Within those milestones, you will find your core content.    Here’s what that might look like:    Let’s say my market wanted to meet a girlfriend.  Here are the steps to do that.    Step 1: Improve your appearance. Clean your act up, ya know?  Step 2: Leave your parents basement and go to a place where attractive girls are.  Step 3: Approach a girl.  Step 4: Strike up a conversation without being weird.  Step 5: Ask her out on a date.  Step 6: Go on date with her.  Step 7: “Engage physically”  Step 8: Repeat steps 2-7 until you find a girl you like enough to be your girlfriend.  Step 9: Ask her to be your girlfriend.    Ta-da.     Your core content could be:    How to improve your appearance to be more attractive to women  How to have a conversation without being a creep, and  

WSODOWNLOADS.IN How to transition from a date to the bedroom.    Great!     Now you have a few methods for coming up with your core content.     These topics will create the engine for your content marketing machine.    They’ll also be very useful later when we’re planning out our content calendar for  the year.    Go ahead and come up with your core content right now.    In ze next chapter, we’re going to dig into the strategies and start tying this all  together.   Remember, it’s not enough to post stuff and hope for the best.   We need to be deliberate in our business.   

Chapter Six: Creating Your Organic Pathway    In this chapter, we’re going to get to work on building out your organic pathway.  This is another word for your customer journey.    Most marketers are guilty of following the “hope and pray” content strategy.   That’s where you post stuff and hope it will lead to money, somehow.    Without a strategy behind what you’re posting, it’s a big waste of time.    The organic pathway is a system designed to take prospects from cold, to warm, to  hot. Think of it like a funnel.    A key distinction I make in the content process is the difference between ​Assets  and ​Inputs.    An asset is a key piece of content which has a very specific job of moving your  prospects to the next level of the funnel. We’ll cover more on this in a second. 

WSODOWNLOADS.IN   An input is another pathway into the funnel. Such as an ad, video, post, tweet,  podcast, tik-tok, whatever.    There’s top of funnel content (TOFU), middle of funnel content (MOFU) and bottom  of content (BOFU).    TOP OF FUNNEL    The job of TOFU content is to get a cold stranger to raise their hand, expressing  curiosity.     A big mistake I used to make was thinking I needed to get people to know, like, and  trust me, so my content was all around me.     At the cold level, we want to demonstrate to our market we understand them and  their pains. It’s not about you.    These dudes have no idea who we are, or what we’re all about yet.     Content at this level is about 3 things:    Helping people solve their problems,   Connecting with them as a real human, and   Proving we can help using social proof.    A lot of people ask far too much from cold people. We see this all the time with cold  email, and in our DM’s.     My inbox is full of spammy pitches from people who did zero research on me.  They’ve made no effort to build a relationship.    Is it possible to convert a cold prospect to a paying client in one message?   Yes, but it’s rare and hard to do.    The name of the game is​ micro commitments. 

WSODOWNLOADS.IN   That’s why we break the customer journey up into 3 stages.    What are assets for the top of the funnel?    Here are a few: Pillar posts, cheatsheets, guides, 5 day challenges, etc.    If you remember my first rule for posting, it’s something which will help my  prospect move forward, or get a win.    Think tactical, practical, and goal oriented. By goal oriented, I mean it’s moving  them closer to their goals.    MIDDLE OF FUNNEL    The job of MOFU content is to warm your prospects up to you and your brand.     Think about growing a relationship with someone. They should know what you’re  all about, like you, and start to trust you can help them.    The goal is to get someone to express interest and make the micro commitment.    That’s usually going to be giving us their email in exchange for a piece of training or  a lead magnet.     A great MOFU asset installs 3 beliefs in our client's which make our selling job  easier.    1) Beliefs about us - we can help them, we’re not scammers, etc.  2) Beliefs about themselves - they can get the results too  3) Beliefs about our offer - our vehicle will get them where they wanna go    We use a mini webinar to do this.     Books, podcasts, case studies, or video series also work.   

WSODOWNLOADS.IN BOTTOM OF FUNNEL    The goal of BOFU content is to get someone to enter our sales process.    For an online business? That sales process could be  :  Booking a call  Starting a conversation  Visiting a sales page  Watching a webinar.    If you have an offline business, you could ask people to come in for an appointment,  or request a quote.    We want to establish “conversion confidence” here.     That’s where the prospect knows now is the right time, your offer is the right thing,  and you are the right person.  The biggest asset is the NAME of your next step. If you’re asking for a call, don’t say  it’s a strategy call. Everyone says that and people instantly recognize it’s a sales call.    I recommend naming it after the result your prospects want most, or the problem  they want solved.    For example:     Your 8 week to abs strategy call  Your 100k profit session  Your double your dates gameplan    Let’s talk about pathways.    There are a few pathways you can take your client's through.    The main one we use for our business goes like this:   

WSODOWNLOADS.IN Optimized social media profile and channels (TOFU) --->   FB group (MOFU)---> Opt in for Email list (MOFU) --->   Phone call (BOFU)---> Enter sales process ---> Close---> New client.     For our organic pathway, we chose to use a FB group. Why?  Because it’s a great place to warm up an audience and indoctrinate them.     But that doesn’t mean you don’t have to.    It’s just as easy to go with the tried and true email opt in.    My goal is to be able to communicate with our prospects on as many channels as  possible. I call this the principle of surrounding your prospects.    For us that would be: Email, FB group, FB pixel for retargeting, SMS, and DM’s.    It’s a total bonus if they follow us on our other social media channels.     Side note: You can find me on most social media channels as benwbyrne, or the  church of clientology.    The principle of surrounding your prospects is an evergreen strategy.   Social media channels will come and go. Hell, the internet could disappear  tomorrow.    I’m still going to be surrounding my prospects with direct mail, phone calls, and  carrier pigeons.    Plus, there’s a lot of RISK with only relying on one channel.     Surrounding your prospects on multiple channels is a way to mitigate that risk.    A major is having ALIGNMENT throughout the funnel.   

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WSODOWNLOADS.IN So if your offer is around helping ecommerce people make their first $100 per day,  here’s what you don’t want to do:    Make a TOFU lead magnet on how to earn $100 per day from your shopify store.  A MOFU training on scaling your store to 50k/month.  And a strategy call on how to pick the perfect products to sell.    There’s no alignment there.    We know a guy who has great alignment throughout his process.     A fellow Canadian named Brian Mark. He coaches fit pros to land their first 10  client's online.    His lead magnet is “how to land your first 10 client's online.”  His middle of funnel training is a case study about how he landed his first 10 online  client's.  His bottom of funnel offer is a call showing you how to land your first 10 client's  online.    Simple.     Yet so many people make this mistake.     Here it is on a bumper sticker: Keep the same promise throughout the entire  funnel. This goes for advertising too, big time.    Your homework is thinking up what assets you can create right now for each stage.  What will you name them?     It helps to reverse engineer your offer and the result you deliver.   

Chapter Seven: Filling Your Funnel    Here’s where you should be at by now:   

WSODOWNLOADS.IN You've mapped out your target market's hot buttons.  Chosen your core content  Crafted your organic pathway...    Now it’s time to fill that sucker up with prospects.    You might be thinking, wow this is going to take forever.   Isn’t organic reach dead?    Not true.    Within my framework of content marketing, there are daily hunting and farming  activities.  I’ll classify hunting activities as “active” and farming as “passive”.    These are how we grow our audience, engage, and monetize our audience every  day.    If you have some bucks to throw towards advertising, you can add gasoline to the  fire, but again it’s not necessary.    In this book, we will only cover organic methods.    Here are some passive ways to grow your audience:    Get into consistent rhythms posting content every day, week, and month.    Your social media posts will start attracting people to reach out and connect with  you.    -You can post content in relevant facebook groups. (without CTA’s)    -You can attract an audience on Youtube, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram, and  Facebook.    

WSODOWNLOADS.IN These are all great places to start attracting an audience with great content.    The three keys to remember are:    1) Having an optimized profile  2) Developing pig-headed determination and consistency  3) Finding your voice and style.    An optimized profile functions like a mini sales letter. Your ideal prospects discover  you and get sucked down the rabbit hole.    In our book, Freelancer to CEO, we called this your “Content Vortex.”  Your profile needs to have links to take people to the next step in your relationship.  ( If you’re skipping around, check out the chapter 6 on the Organic Pathway)    Right now, my profile has links to our fb group and our Freelancer to CEO book.   Once someone joins our group, the next step is for them to check out our mini  webinar.    All success requires pig-headed determination and consistency.     The most successful people are not smarter than you. They’re more consistent than  you.    Do you think Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant would have been great if they only  practiced when they felt like it?    No way! You have to come at your business with the same level of dedication.    All great businesses were built on the foundation of dedication, focus, and  consistency.    To make it super easy for you to stay on track, I created an entire chapter on  planning content. See chapter 11.   

WSODOWNLOADS.IN To develop your own voice and style, this is going to come as a by-product of  producing a lot of content.     You can’t shortcut this.    Most people imitate their favourite guru when they start out and it’s fine to get you  going.    The world doesn’t need another Grant Cardone, or a Tai Lopez, or a Gary Vee.   We damn sure don’t need two Ben Byrne’s or two Ryan Booth’s either.     The world needs an original YOU.    Here are a few things I started thinking about when I was trying to find my own  style:    What are my favourite movies, books, TV shows, influencers, and video games?    What about those things do I like? Get as specific as you can.      Why do I like them?     Look for common patterns you can incorporate into your content.    If that’s too hard, a simple mental exercise is to always make content like you’re  talking to a friend.    There are postures in sales: superior, equal, and inferior. These apply to content as  well.    Superior is talking down to people. I am the authority, I am the expert. My word is  law. Listen to me, damn you! People KNOW me!    Equal is peer to peer, or friend to friend. I spend 80-90% of my time here.   Whether you read my stuff, watch my videos, or hang out with me in person, I like  to think you’re getting the same person. 

WSODOWNLOADS.IN   Inferior is helpful when you need to ask questions or make self deprecating jokes.  When in doubt, go with equal posturing.    Here are some active ways to grow your audience:    Active Method #1:    You can and should be connecting with your ideal prospects every single day.  This is an active task you can do to start building your community of prospects.    The number one mistake my client's make is adding peers, not prospects.    For example: Let’s say I have 1000 connections on Linkedin.    Knowing Linkedin will only show my content to about 25% of them or less, let’s run  the numbers.    What if 500 are peers, AKA people who will never buy…    And 500 are prospects, people I’d love to work with.    That means your ideal client has a 50% chance of seeing your post.     Let’s get honest, most people aren’t even connected with 50% prospects.  In my experience, it’s closer to 10 or 20%.    That’s like putting in 10 hours of work per day and getting paid for 1 or 2.    If the only people seeing and liking my posts are peers, that’s going to feel nice.   But it’s not putting money in the bank.    I want money, not applause.     If you’re only connected with prospects, you double your chances of success.  It’s logic, pure and simple.  

WSODOWNLOADS.IN   If you’re wondering, “Where do I find ideal clients to connect with?”    Here are 3 places to start.    #1) Relevant facebook groups.     If you work with accountants, search for accounting groups in fb and join them.   Connect with people in there who seem like a good fit.    #2) LinkedIn Sales Navigator.    Super easy to punch in a few keywords to find good client's.   I’d recommend it for most professional service niches, or for reaching executives.    Linkedin is not the best for ecommerce or medical niches.    Some of our client's have gotten ecom client's from LinkedIn, but you can’t search  for “ecommerce store owner”. You have to get creative.    Most medical professionals aren’t on linkedin often enough.    #3) Instagram.     Search for relevant hashtags. Find accounts of people you can follow and reach out  to. Follow them and engage with their stuff and start conversations over DMs.    Active Method #2:    The next you can do, is start reaching out to people who have engaged with your  stuff.    If someone liked, commented, or shared my post, I’m imagining them raising their  hand and saying, I want to know more.    So I’m going to reach out to them and start that conversation. 

WSODOWNLOADS.IN   Here’s how it might go:    “Hey Bob,    Thanks for liking my post. What are your thoughts on XYZ topic?”    Or    “Hey Bob,    I noticed you liked my post on XYZ. Are you interested in learning more about  that subject? I have some other resources I can send over.”    Or    “Hey George,    Thanks for liking my post. What were your biggest takeaways?”    Or you can go right for the kill.    “Hey Matt,    Thanks for liking my video dude. I’m looking for committed individuals who are  looking to grow their agency faster. I took a look at your profile and you look like  a good fit for our program/service. Are you interested?”    If you’re putting out a lot of great content, you’re likely going to get a response like  this:    “Hey Ben,    I’ve been following you for a while. Love your stuff. Great to talk to you! “    This is an opportunity to start a messenger selling conversation and book a call. 

WSODOWNLOADS.IN   We covered our messenger selling convo strategy in a training called “DMs to  Dollars” before.     This is how we take someone from a messenger chat to booking a call, or buying a  course.    Here are two more great opportunities to start a conversation:    If they joined our FB group, or sent you a friend request.    Active Method #3:    The third active task you could be doing is finding people who have access to your  ideal audience.    Who are the influencers your prospects follow right now?    Go find 10 accounts and follow them. Make sure you turn on the post notifications  for their accounts.    Every time they post something, it’s a great idea to go and leave a smart, contextual  comment, or 3.    On instagram for example, on a new post, you can see the first 3 comments.     If those are all great comments by you, there’s a great chance your ideal client's will  see it.    This is how Ryan started growing his Twitter following.   It still works.    What’s a smart contextual comment, you ask?    “Hey I love what you said about X. Here’s my thoughts on it. Bla bla bla.   Keep up the good work. Love to see it.” 

WSODOWNLOADS.IN   Or...    “I loved your tip on X. I tried this and it worked great! What are your thoughts on  XYZ?”    Compare a comment like this to the typical fire emoji or one word comment. It’s  night and day.    I do this with my prospects as well as influencers. I’m engaging with them and  trying to put the “social” back in social media.     People notice this and they appreciate it.     This can open doors to new opportunities fast.    The best part? ​You don’t have to create anything    Active Method #4:    Tapping into “OPA” is a really solid strategy.     What’s an OPA?    “Other people’s audience.”    You could get endorsed by the owner of that audience. That would let you siphon  some of their followers into your ecosystem.    You could dreate a referral relationship, or an affiliate offer too.    Another option is asking them if it would be cool to add value to their audience.    If they have a podcast, see if they’d like to interview you.    The pitch is dead simple.    

WSODOWNLOADS.IN “Hey, I’ve been following your podcast on real estate investing for a long time,  and I love the show.     Talk about something personal about it you liked.    I’m reaching out because I think your audience would also be interested in  learning how to find alternative ways to secure funding. That’s my specialty.     If you think it would be valuable and you’d like to do an interview, let me know.”    Podcast hosts are always looking for more content.     Keep your message simple. Make it obvious why their audience would benefit from  your expertise. It should be a no brainer.    You can find FB groups and do interviews over FB live with the group owner as well.    Make it a habit to reach out to one potential partner per day and you’ll be blowing  up in no time.    The key here is leverage.     I’m all about creating something once and getting a ton of value from it.    How long would it take you to cold email 5000 prospects? A month? Two?  One solid piece of content can reach that many in an hour.    That’s why building an audience is so powerful.    This is a strategy our client's are using to make bank in certain communities.  It doesn’t have to be on FB either.    So there you have 5 solid active ways to grow your following:    1) Connect with 20-50 ideal client's per day  2) Reach out to people who engage with your stuff 

WSODOWNLOADS.IN 3) Engage with the stuff of influencers for your niche  4) Find “OPA”’s to tap into.  5) Look for potential referral partners.    You should take an hour per day to do this.    20 minutes connecting with new people.  20 minutes engaging with prospects and influencers in your space  And 20 minutes finding new potential people to promote you to their audience.   

Chapter Eight: Should You Be Omnipresent?    Certain influencers tell you to be on every single platform.    “You gotta be omnipresent baby! Wooo!”    You gotta get on Tik Tok, Snapchat, IG, FB, LinkedIn, Twitter, Youtube, Reddit, etc.    My answer to this is: It depends.    Are you earning $20,000 per month or more?    Can you afford to hire people to help you spread your content far and wide?     Do you have a huge team like Gary Veeeeeee?    I’m guessing you don’t.     The common advice to be omnipresent is misleading anyway.    Your ideal clients are NOT on every single platform.     Everyone has their preferred social media of choice.     One reason we tell people to surround their prospects is for this reason.    

WSODOWNLOADS.IN Let’s say my communication is email.    You’re trying to reach me on Linkedin? I won’t see that for days or weeks.    As a producer of content, here’s my simple advice for you.    What’s the first app you open up when you get up in the morning?     Go deep on that.    We always tell our clients to go deep before going wide.     This goes for your niche, and your platforms.    This is a PSA:   “Business owner” is not a niche.   “Course creators, coaches, and consultants is not a niche.”  “Service businesses? Not a niche! lol”    Why do we go deep on one platform? Because you understand how people  communicate on it.   You speak the same language.    I used to think Twitter was a waste of time and there was no way you could make  money on it. I 100% did not believe my ideal client's were there.    Ryan proved the power of going a mile deep, inch wide on one platform.    He became a go to person because he had laser beam focus there.    It’s much better to dominate one channel first. After that, you can start expanding  your reach.    We want to get ONE organic path working before we try to make another.    Most people fail because they jump around too much.  

WSODOWNLOADS.IN   You can build a million dollar business from Twitter.   You can build a million dollar business from Facebook.  You can build a million dollar business from Linkedin.  You can build a million dollar business from Instagram.    But it’s much harder to build a 7 figure business when you’re spread thin.    Do not try to be everywhere at first.     We DO have an awesome method for “cross pollinating” content, so you get more  reach on other platforms.    But I want you to master one channel before you start thinking about that strategy.  Unless​ you have money to invest in hiring people to help you.    Build the skill set on one platform. Build the discipline, the consistency first.   Attract a core audience in one place.     It’s so much easier.    Final note on omnipresence:     You might be thinking,    “Ben, didn’t you say I should surround my prospects and communicate with them  on as many channels as possible?    Isn’t that the same thing as omnipresence?”    Yes I did say that, and no it’s not the same.  Surrounding prospects is a different concept. Here’s why:    The main strategy is to go deep on one platform and move people down your  pathway.   

WSODOWNLOADS.IN That involves taking people off of their platform of choice, to a place where you can  follow up with them.     Omnipresence is a passive way to grow your audience.     Surrounding them is a passive way to lead someone down your organic pathway.    Think of omnipresence and the organic pathway like a revolver.    There are 6 chambers, which all lead into the same barrel.    Those 6 chambers could be Youtube, IG, Linkedin, Twitter, A blog, and Facebook.    The barrel, AKA the Organic Pathway, is how you turn them into new client's.    Once someone has entered the “barrel”, AKA your sales process, your goal is to  keep them moving.     You can do this on a variety of channels.     Facebook groups, SMS, email list, phone call, messenger, retargeting ads, direct  mail.    See how that works?    To summarize this chapter:    Stay on one channel and master it before going to other's.     The one exception to this rule, is if you have money to invest into hiring a content  person to help spread it.   

Chapter Nine: CashFlow Content    My mentor taught me the following principle of business.   

WSODOWNLOADS.IN Cashflow follows your calendar.     If you’re not planning out your money making events ahead of time, you’re planning  to fail.    I’ve found most people either only give, give, give and never ask.   This leaves them broke and feeling frustrated.    Or they only ask and treat their audience like an ATM machine.   By acting like panhandlers, they’re training their audience to ignore them.    We don’t want either situation.    The first principle of CashFlow Content is the ​“Give/Ask” rhythms.    Right now, our give/ask rhythm looks like this:    On a weekly basis, we give 3-4 times and ask once.    Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday are “give” days.   Thursday is an “ask” day.    Also, we switch up our “ask” 4 times per month..    We do one of the following:    -Ask people to join our group  -Download our book  -Check out a mini webinar  -Join our case study program  -Book a strategy call to scale their business.    Three sundays per month we aim to put out a high quality training video with an  invitation to book a call.   This is “conversion content” which lives at the bottom of the funnel.    

WSODOWNLOADS.IN It’s a nice way to follow up with people without being spammy.    In the future, we’ll be doing a live webinar training 1x/month with a CTA to book a  call too.    You might be wondering, what exactly are you giving on those days?   What kind of posts are you making, etc etc.    Right now, I want to keep this big picture for you.   We’ll be getting into the nitty gritty tactics in an upcoming chapter.    Have you ever wondered “how can I sell without selling?”    A member in our Church of Clientology FB group recently asked this question:    “How do you create that spark to buy without making people ignore your content,  knowing it’s going to have a sell at the end?”    Translation: I’ve trained my audience to see all my stuff as a sales pitch in disguise.  How do I keep their attention while still selling stuff?    The key is mastering and cycling invitations.     If your price point is $3000 or more, you most likely won’t be selling it over an  email or messenger convo. But you can still make people raise their hand and take  the next step.    Here’s a quick tip for making CTA’s.    I’d love for you to start thinking about ​invitations vs asks.    Here’s the difference:    Imagine you’re asking someone out on a date.     Which of the following options sounds like a bigger commitment? 

WSODOWNLOADS.IN   #1) Want to go to a movie with me this friday?    #2) Hey a few of us are going to a movie this friday, would you like to join?    The first one is asking for a lot.   The second one lets you decline or accept without feeling weird about it.    Got it?     Here’s one more key principle for monetizing your audience, fb group, or email list:    Ask in public, sell in private.    When you pair invitations with asking in public, selling in private you get a magical  formula:  Here are some go to invitation templates…   You can use these in email, or as social posts.    #1) Brainstorm session    “Hey, I’m getting a few people together to brainstorm how to scale their dental  practice with ads. Would you like to join us?”    #2) The case study invite    “Hey, I’m looking for 5 more freelancers who want to earn $10,000 or more  within the next 30 days. If that’s you, reply back to this email with the words  GROW!   And I’ll send you all the details.”    #3) The Super Signature ( Credit to Dean Jackson)    “Whenever you’re ready, here are 3 more ways I can help you:   

WSODOWNLOADS.IN Struggling to convert cold traffic into buyers? Book an advertising breakthrough  call. Reply back with the words “BREAKTHROUGH”.    Join our 7 figure mastermind and surround yourself with other great business  leaders. Reply back with the words “MASTERMIND” for more info.    Be a guest on my next podcast. Reply back with the words “GUEST”    #4) The 9 Word PS. (Also credit to Dean Jackson)    PS - Are you still interested in growing your business with facebook ads?  PS - Are you still looking to lose 10 lbs by Christmas?  PS - Are you still interested in stopping your divorce?    #5) The Power Offer    Hey,     If I offered to build out your entire content marketing plan, would you take me  up on that?    You have 2 tasks for this chapter:    #1) Plan ahead what days you’ll be doing your “asks” or invitations on.  #2) What next steps will you be asking people to take?    Here’s a small list of even more potential next steps you can pre-plan:    1) Events (live or virtual)  2) Selling Webinars  3) 5 day challenges  4) Download your lead magnet (book, cheat sheet, template, etc)  5) Comment or DM a keyword on a post for a free training or resource.  6) Apply for a consultation  7) Join your Case study/Pilot Program  8) Watch a Case Study video 

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Chapter Ten: The Endless Content Machine    What would you do if you ONLY had one hour per week to generate business?    I am ​obsessed​ with the idea of leverage. That’s what this chapter is all about.    The definition of leverage is simple:    Getting more out than what you put in.    The average marketer has no system for leverage. Their life is full of hard work and  effort, with very little results.    As Bane put it in The Dark Knight Rises: “Admirable, but mistaken.”    The leveraged marketer enjoys the exact opposite situation.    You do the hard work one time, and that investment pays dividends for months to  come.    Here’s a visual example of the difference.    

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        So how do you achieve leverage with your content?    In this chapter I’m going to reveal the blueprint for the “Endless Content Machine.”    The first question you need to answer is, what is my preferred ​modality?    Modality is a $10 word, so I’ll explain:    There are 3 modalities.    Written, Video, and Audio.    Every person has a preferred way to create and consume content.    The goal is to harness your strengths. It doesn’t matter which modality you prefer. 

WSODOWNLOADS.IN   If you find making videos easiest, great.   If you’re a natural writer, perfect.  If you like talking, awesome.    Here’s my vision for you.    You create one piece of core content per week, based on your strengths.    Earlier I mentioned a cat named Brian Mark. He has a fantastic leveraged system to  model. His IG handle is bmarkfit if you wanna check him out.    Brian’s a video guy, and he is a model of consistency.    He does a single FB live video *every* day at 10 am PST, which gets shared to  multiple platforms.     Every time, he shows up at an 11 out of 10 on the energy scale and delivers great  value     Here’s where it gets cool:.    After the video is over, the audio gets stripped and edited into a podcast. This also  gets uploaded every day.   Brian has created one of the top business podcasts in Canada over the last year.  Pretty impressive.     Even though we only have like 11 to be fair.     Moving on,    The next step is getting the audio transcribed and transformed into posts and  emails.    This content generates leads every single day like clockwork.    

WSODOWNLOADS.IN People are hitting Brian up around the clock because he makes offers every day.    Those people get qualified and then become clients.     Brian has built a 7 figure business doing this.     Want to know the best part?    Brain ONLY does the video.    One video, done for the day.     He has a small team of people doing all the other stuff.   The editing, the transcribing, the writing, the posting and uploading.    It’s a beautiful thing.    This way, he can spend the rest of time coaching his client's and delivering amazing  results. This leads to more testimonials, which lead to even more client's.    Dean Jackson is another example of a system like this. He is a phenomenal  marketer, well worth studying.    Dean does one interview per week for his podcast. The format is a free  consultation.     You can check out his show “More Cheese, Less Whiskers” to see what it’s all about.    Dean’s ONLY job is talking to that person for 1 hour. After that, the podcast gets  edited, uploaded, and disseminated.     Dissemination is another $10 word. My definition is:    “Taking one type of content and posting it in many places in many forms.”    Deans organic pathway looks like this: 

WSODOWNLOADS.IN   Podcast→ email list→ invitations→ new clients.    The key to making a system like this work, is thinking “WHO” not “HOW”.    I don’t want you to try to figure out how to edit video and audio... or spend your  time turning raw transcriptions into posts or emails.    That is “lesser mortal stuff”.   You can find dudes on Fiverr or Upwork to do it for cheap.    The goal is to focus on your superpower.   The rest should be hands-off.     If you’re a writer, here’s what I’d recommend you do.    Take the time to write out a “Pillar post.”    That’s a piece of core content which is going to make a big impact.   Take the time to include visuals and data and make it valuable.   You know you’re done when you think, “wow, this is something I would pay for.”    Now you can use a diagram like this one to get more mileage out of that pillar post:   

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      You can take that one pillar post and milk it for all it’s worth with a framework like  this.    Another guy with a neat system is Ari Meisel.    Ari is a total gangster when it comes to optimizing and systemizing your business.  His program is“The Replaceable Founder”.      Ari sends out 1 audio message per day on Voxer to his client's. Voxer is like a walkie  talkie app if you’ve never heard of it.     Once a week, his team takes the best of the best of those voice memo’s and starts a  similar process as above.  They transcribed into and turned into social posts, blog posts, and emails.     His process is so efficient he can get months worth of content from a simple 2-3  minute voice memo.     Here’s a great example of how we used this strategy in our business.    We released a book called “Freelancer to CEO” a few months ago.  

WSODOWNLOADS.IN   The content for that book came from a webinar. We spent close to 3 hours talking  explaining our 4 pillars of scale. People got a lot of value out of it.     The material could have died with the webinar. We decided to turn it into a book.    The recording got sent off to “the internet land”, transcribed, and edited. We paid a  dude to design a cover and voila.      A book was born.    I wish I could say the same about this one!    To wrap up, this chapter is all about leverage. Getting more out than what you put  in.    Now you know how to take one piece of content and get a “metric shit ton” of  mileage out of it.    Your homework for this chapter is to think about your preferred method of  communication.     How do you prefer to create?    Are you dynamic on camera? Great at talking? Go with video.    Scared of being on camera? Face built for radio? Go with audio.   Either podcast or voice memo style.    Total introvert like me? Go with writing.       Next up, it’s time to discover how to plan out an entire year of content in a few  hours. Fun!   

Chapter Eleven: 1 Years Worth of Content in 1 Day 

WSODOWNLOADS.IN   Picture this:    It’s 4 AM. You’re in bed sound asleep.     You wake up to a “click”. There’s a shotgun pointed in your face.    It’s Mike Tyson.    He says: “If you can’t answer thith question, kith your ath goodbye.”    Here’s the question:    “What are you going to POST this time next year?”    It’s December 13th, 2020 today.   What are you posting December 13th 2021?    Would you be dead or alive?    If you’re like most people, I’m guessing you’re a goner.   Not to fear.     I’m going to show you how to answer this question in the unlikely event this  happens.    In this chapter, I’m going to show you exactly how to plan out an entire year’s  worth of content in 1 day.    If you’re coming up with content on the fly,...never knowing what you’re going to  say on a given day, that’s hard work.    My goal is for you to work hard once. That hard work in this case, is thinking and  planning.     For the rest of the year, it comes down to executing the program. 

WSODOWNLOADS.IN   In fact, I’m going to kill two birds with one stone here.  Since it’s December 11th, 2020 today, I’m going to teach you how to do this, AND  plan out our content for the year at the same time.     My god, the efficiency!    Step #1: Taking a Macro Look at the Year.    Create a chart which looks like this:     

      The next step is to start writing down your core content in the box which says  “topics”.    My advice is to have at least 3, and as many as 12.    The next thing is coming up with your primary content types.   

WSODOWNLOADS.IN For us, it’s going to be email, facebook posts in our group, social posts outside our  group, webinars, and FB lives.  For frequency, here’s what I’’d suggest:    At least 3 posts and emails per week.    1 longer form piece of content per month.    2-4 live videos.    Here’s what I came up with:     

  Macro Content Calendar    The topics above are the primary ways we help our client's grow their business.    By focusing on the 5 essential parts of any business, you can create a scale ready  machine. We learned this from Alex Charfen. He’s a great entrepreneur.    This creates the foundation of our program. 

WSODOWNLOADS.IN   The 5 pieces are:    Lead gen, getting more people into your funnel.  Lead nurture, getting those people to enter your sales process.  Sales, qualifying those leads and converting them into clients   Delivery, fulfilling your promise in a scalable way.  Back end, upselling, re-selling, retainers, and referrals.    and back end,   Each month gets assigned a theme or topic.    If you only have 3 topics, all you have to do is repeat them 4x per year.  Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!    It’s completely okay to reuse the same content.    Let’s say you’re a fit pro and you teach 3 core concepts:    Nutrition, Exercise, and Sleep.    You can repost the same content you made in January again in April, July, and  October.    There’s two things I want to drill into your brain here:    It’s not about coming up with “new” stuff all the time. The goal is to ensure your  entire market “GETS IT”.    Here’s a weird analogy so this hits home.    Imagine you owned a pharmaceutical company which sold vaccines.    Now here’s the thing about your company: You also make the viruses.   It’s called demand generation, people.   

WSODOWNLOADS.IN The profitability of your business depends on how many people get the vaccine.   Thus your goal isn’t to make a million different viruses.     Your goal is to infect as many people as possible with the same virus.    COUGH BILL GATES COUGH.     Jk I’m not a conspiracy theorist. This is just an example!”    Anyway, content follows the exact same principle.     The goal is NOT to make brand new content 24/7 /365.     Give yourself permission to repost the same stuff.    If you’re consistent, there will be a non stop flow of new people entering your  ecosystem.    Which brings me to point #2:    Let’s say someone enters my world in month 3, or 5, or 11.   They haven’t consumed my previous stuff yet.     Someone who has been following me since month 1 has seen my content. But after  3 months, they’ve forgotten all about it.    You can recreate the same content later, because our perspective changes in time.        Once you have planned out your macro calendar, let’s create a micro calendar.    Here’s an example of what it might look like:   

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        On your calendar, switch up whatever content types you’re choosing and give them  an appropriate key character.     Where it says theme, enter your core content topic.    Now fill it in.     Here’s a rough version of finished micro calendar for January:   

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    Now we’re starting to get a little more organized.    Is it perfect? No, there’s more we could add or change. But it’s good enough for  now.    We’re not done yet.    How do we keep content fresh and interesting?  A key is being able to talk about the same thing from a variety of different angles.    There are 3 major angles we can put our content through.     Angle #1) Value   

WSODOWNLOADS.IN For value, you can talk about coaching or “how to” content.   We’ve already covered frameworks for this in chapter 4.    Or you can ​demonstrate​ your expertise.    For example, if you’re a sales coach, share a sales call you did.     Try making a “director's cut” version.   That’s where you could add in stuff like:    -​Why you asked a certain question,  -Your thought process behind that way you handled the objection at the end, and   -Nuances around the tonality of your questions.    Demonstrations are a great way to prove you know your stuff, while delivering  value at the same time.    The key to value type posts is not falling into the generalist trap.    Here’s a mistake I see copywriters make all too often:    They love sharing generic “conversion” tips, or “persuasion tips”.    Unfortunately, the only people who care about that stuff tend to be other  copywriters lol.    Go specific to one niche, with one problem.    So a post called “3 ways to get more conversions from your website”....    Would perform much better if you were targeting a certain niche like HVAC  owners:    “3 ways to get more commercial HVAC repair jobs.”    Do they want commercial heating repair jobs?  

WSODOWNLOADS.IN I have no idea. But you get the point.    Angle #2: Connection    Regardless of whether your offer is B2B or B2C, you’re always dealing with other  humans.    There’s no such thing as a “business”. It’s a collection of people working together.    People are multidimensional.  So if all you talk about is business, you’re robbing yourself of clients.    For service type businesses, there needs to be a level of connection.    Connection type posts bring your “tribe” closer to you.    Your personal beliefs, philosophy, and values are key differentiators in business.  They attract people as much as your service.    I break connection down into two categories:    Your character  Your beliefs    For character, think of your backstory.   How did it lead to your superpowers?    What is the setting in your stories? Are you travelling? In your office? In nature?    Who else is a character in your story? Do you have pets? Friends? Spouse? Team  members? Business partner?    What are some of the props in your tv show?    For me, I have my Starbucks green tea.   Ryan has his iced coffee from Tim Hortons. 

WSODOWNLOADS.IN   Who are the villains in your story?    What are you for?   What are you against?    We’re for leverage and against constant hard work.  We’re for high profitability and against low ticket.  We’re for freedom and against hustle.    If you don’t like that, Gary Vee might be hiring.    For beliefs, what are your personal and professional beliefs related to your topics?    For example:     My personal belief about content is everyone should be making it, it’s one of the  highest ROI things you can do.   Another one of my beliefs is you should work hard once and reap the benefits.    A farmer doesn’t plant a new seed every single day of the year. They plant their field  once and then they harvest.    My professional belief about content is, if you make it and follow a framework, you  will make money. This is my belief because I’ve experienced it.    What about some of your experiences around your topic?    I can think of good AND bad experiences related to content.    Bad would be putting a ton of effort into making good content and getting no  results. That is frustrating as hell!    A good experience?    A person who messages me and says they want to join our program.  

WSODOWNLOADS.IN Why?  Because they watched everything we made and they love our stuff.    You can engineer a “netflix effect” in your business. That’s where someone finds out  about you and then binges all your content.    I know this is a thing, because I do it all the time.     I’ll hear about someone on a Podcast. Then I’ll check out their stuff. I’ll join their list.  Read some emails. Watch a webinar.     Next thing you know I’m buying something.    You could also talk about your experiences with other people’s content too.     All you need to do is swap out “content” here with your topic of choice. I’ll share a  template at the end of this chapter to make this easier.    Angle #3: Social Proof    Pop quiz.    What is the most important type of content?     Yep you guessed it. Social proof.    You can share value until the cows come home, but proof is what creates  conversion confidence.    Social proof causes someone to go from thinking:  “That’s interesting information” to “wait, that could be me!”    Social proof gets the least engagement in most cases, but leads to the highest # of  new leads and sales.    So the more testimonials and case studies you share, the better.  

WSODOWNLOADS.IN There’s no such thing as too much social proof.    There’s 2 types of social proof:    Tangible and intangible.    Tangible social proof is the best kind.     “John joined our program and made $650,000 in 3 months.”  “Christina joined our big booty bootcamp and added 3 lbs to her bum in 10  weeks.” (lol)    Intangible isn’t as powerful, but everything helps.    “I love Ben and Ryan’s program. It’s made me so motivated to go out and crush my  goals! They’re the best!!”    I would call the last angle, a topic related CTA.     So let’s break down how you can use these angles for one topic and create an entire  month’s worth of content.    Topic: Sales  Sub topic: objections    How to: How to overcome the “Let’s wait until Q1 to get started” objection.    Demonstration: A live recording of me handling that very objection.    Personal belief: If you lose a lot of sales from objections, you might be “playing to  not lose” vs “playing to win.”    Professional belief: There are only 3 reasons why a prospect would say no. Here  they are.   

WSODOWNLOADS.IN Good experience: How I was able to make an extra $24,000 by handling this  objection.    Bad experience: One time a salesman was a total dick to me when I said no. (story)    Case study: How our client Julio closed his first $10,000/month retainer.    CTA: Want to close more deals? It really helps if you have a framework for handling  any objection that comes up. Download mine. Send me a DM saying “show me da  moooney!!”    Boom.     If you’re posting 3x per week, this framework covers 8 of them.    For the remaining 4 posts? You could:    Throw in a live Q&A around objections.  Share a list of the top objections you get and how you handle them.  Repeat two of the angles.    Now you’ve got your posts for the month.    Here’s a link to a template I called the “Content Angle Matrix.”  It’s a tool we use to make 100 posts in 10 minutes or less.  Click here    All you need to do is click file, make a copy, and you can get started with the matrix.    The steps are simple. Write out the headline or big idea for each topic, matched  with each angle. If you want to get fancy, throw in the modality for each post.    V for video, W for written, A for audio, or P for picture post.    Switch it up.    

WSODOWNLOADS.IN Your next steps are:     Plan out your calendar.  Go macro, then micro.   From there, you can come up with angles around your big topics.    Final step:   Hold your hand out in front of you.  Reach over your shoulder.  Now pat yourself on the back.    Awesome work!   

Chapter Twelve: The BATCH-elor    Cheesy title alert.    Anyway, now that you know what you’re going to do, it’s time to DO it.    In this chapter I’m going to share the secret of batching.     If you’ve been following along, you’re well aware of my motto: work hard once.    Most of us don’t follow this motto. This makes creating the content harder than  need be.    Here’s the problem you’re going to run into...    If you’re in ​creation mode​ every day, it’s a hassle.   Even if you’ve planned out your content to the nth degree.   Even if you know exactly what you’re going to say in it every post from now until  this time next year.    There will be days where you slip up and don’t get your video or post out that day.  This is inevitable.   

WSODOWNLOADS.IN Some people will get discouraged when it happens. Missing one day can lead to  missing two days, and then 3 days.     Before you know it, you’re no longer producing anything.    Why don’t we make sure this doesn’t happen?    Here are some strategies for batching:    If you have the money, hire a photographer or videographer to come by once a  month.    Shoot 12 videos or take a bunch of different photos.     Bring a few changes of clothes. Have 2 or 3 different settings to choose from.  Bang it all out one time.    Done for the month. Whew!    If you’re newer and you don’t have the funds, make one day per week your content  day.    Instead of hiring a photographer or a videographer, do it all yourself.     For us, we used to do everything on monday. That was our content day.    Another option is creating a pillar piece of content at the beginning of every month.  It could be a webinar, podcast, pillar post, or a solid FB live.    You can break it up yourself into smaller pieces and into different modalities.     Even though I don’t recommend this long term, sometimes you gotta do what you  gotta do.   

WSODOWNLOADS.IN Here’s a huge mindset tip to wrap up this chapter:    Be easy on yourself if you’re new to making content.   It’s a skill.  Like any other skill, you’re going to be ​bad​ at first. You will improve with time  and dedication.     Do not be a perfectionist. Quality will improve with quantity. Keep your focus on  helping your market, and not on how you’re coming across.    Action plan: Choose the best method of batching for you and schedule it into your  calendar.   

Chapter Thirteen: Tools of the Trade    We’ve covered a lot of ground in this book up until now.    You’re ready to go out and conquer the world....  The apprentice is about to become the master….    Now the only thing left for you to do...is take action!    There’s a little tear in my eye writing this.     They grow up so fast… Okay I’m over it.    This chapter is all about sharing tools of the trade.  The equipment, apps, and software you can use to make your job easier.    I’m not the world’s foremost expert on this stuff, so I’ll share what I actually use to  make our content.    The Tools:     The first thing you’re gonna need is a smart phone. I create 99% of my content on  my iPhone 11 Pro. 

WSODOWNLOADS.IN   If you’re going to be making a lot of videos, invest in a half decent tripod.     I have a short one and a tall one which both fit my phone.    You can find all kinds of models on Amazon.    My little one was about $18, and the bigger one was around $40.    If you want to get fancy, you can buy a “gimbal” which helps with stabilization.     Ryan likes to say I film like I have parkinsons, which is both rude and true. A gimbal  helps prevent that.    The price for them lands within the same ballpark as my tripod.    Camera:     For now, I shoot all my videos on my Iphone. It’s an iPhone 11 Pro. But you don’t  need the newest phone to make a quality video.    I’m going to upgrade to a fancy DSLR camera to shoot higher quality live stream  videos. But, that’s not really necessary either.    A decent camera is going to be around $1-2k.    Whiteboard:    You can’t call yourself a real marketer if you don’t have a whiteboard!  You should be able to pick one up for $30-$200.    Microphone:    If you’re going to record podcasts and videos from your computer, audio quality is  king. It pays to invest in a quality microphone.    I have a blue yeti mic which does everything I need. They cost around $200. 

WSODOWNLOADS.IN   Apps:    SparkCamera is an app I LOVE for shooting shorter form video content. It’s so good  for making stories, quick videos and even ads.    It set me back $39 for the year.     Picture Editing:    I use Canva. All the images in this book were made on Canva, by yours truly.     They’re not amazing, but they get the job done and that’s what I care about. I use  the free version.    Pictures:    If you’re making content and you need to find royalty free photos to include, I use  unsplash. It’s free and there are decent pictures on it.    Hemingway:    If you’re writing a lot, put them through this app. Especially if you’re not a  copywriter.   This goes for posts and emails big time.    Hemingway will grade the reading level of your stuff.  The idea is to keep your writing at a grade 5 level or below for the highest  readability.    I edited this entire book with Hemmingway. It’s at a grade 5 reading level.   You’re welcome  I love this app. It costs around $40.    Video editing:   

WSODOWNLOADS.IN For simple edits, I use the basic iMovie on my iPhone. If it’s going to take longer, I’ll  upload the video to my computer and edit on screencast-o-matic which I mention  below.    Graphic Design:    If you want to get fancy as fvck, you can use a service like “Design Pickle”.    It’s a subscription business which gives you unlimited designs for $300ish per  month.     Software:    Depending on what you sell, I’d suggest buying a screen recording software.  There are a bunch out there.     If you’re a mac person, get screenflow. It’s $99.    You can also get screencast-o-matic. That’s around $15 for the year.    Ipad Pro with Apple Pencil:    Again, if you want to get fancy as fvck, get yourself an Ipad with a pencil.   This allows you to make some high quality, interactive training videos.    Calendly:    You’re going to be booking a lot of sales calls if you do this right.   Calendly makes it easy to send people booking links and applications.   The basic version is free.    We use Scheduleonce which is a bit more expensive, but they’re basically the same  thing.    Scheduling Software:   

WSODOWNLOADS.IN After you batch stuff, you might want to pre-schedule it.    There are a bunch of scheduling softwares out there.    Buffer comes to mind.  Twittimer for Twitter.    Facebook has its own scheduling ability.    The best automation is human automation if you ask me.     Just get someone else to do it!    And there you have it.    That’s my entire “tech stack.”     

Conclusion:    I hope you enjoyed reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it for you.    Congratulations on making it to the end.   It’s a fact that most people don’t even open the books they buy.    My true wish is that you don’t treat this book like the typical “marketing info  hoarder.”   The goal isn’t to “learn” some interesting stuff.  The goal is to help you go out and make more money.     Bottom line.     So with that said, I hope you take action on what you learned and you get a flood of  new business.   

WSODOWNLOADS.IN If you’re not in our free FB group, “The Church of Clientology” yet, head on over.  Click this link to join    Be sure to mention you read this book and let me know what you thought of it!    We also have a few bonus training videos which cover a few topics I didn’t feel  like writing about in this book.    I’d love to shoot them your way, as my way of saying thanks for grabbing your copy  of Effortless Content!     Send me a message on Facebook with the code word: “Green tea”.   And I’ll know you read this and I’ll give you the link to the bonus training materials.    If you have any questions, shoot them over to ​[email protected]    And I wouldn’t be a true marketer if I didn’t make an offer to help you even more,  would I?    Are you looking to grow your client business faster?     We might be able to help you do that.    We’re looking for people who fit the following criteria:    Already earning 5-10k/month with your business…  You deliver good results to your client's already….  You’re friendly and coachable...  And you’re frustrated you’re not growing faster…    We can (probably) help you.     The only way to know for sure is to book a quick time to chat.    Here’s a link to do so: https://go.oncehub.com/scalemyagency   

WSODOWNLOADS.IN Looking forward to seeing your beautiful face inside the Cult...I mean, Church of  Clientology!    It’s definitely not a cult.    See you soon.    Your buddy,    Ben “Glory Beard” Byrne