Why You Have To Take Back Control of Your Content

0:00All right, we're going to talk about why you need to take back control of your content. So let me give a backstory here. So yesterday, Neil and I were on the phone and we were just talking about, actually, I was critiquing Neil's content, right? And so this is no knock on his team. But what I've noticed is that when he sends emails out from his agency, for example, I've noticed that it doesn't sound like him or the content, like when I see content elsewhere or some of the captions that he's writing, it just doesn't sound like him and you can feel it from a mile away. and intuitively both Neil and I we know exactly what we do with our content if we had unlimited resources and what we're really getting back at was we just need to take back control of our content right and because when you have control of your content you're able to your people can tell when you're putting most of your effort into it and it performs a lot better when it's very clear that it's you and we're going to elaborate on what we mean yeah and Eric's spot and he's not trying to diss me or anything like that.

0:53He's spot on. And we were going over this because both Eric and I travel a lot and we speak at tons of events. And I was just like, huh, my team said this to me, Eric agrees. Eric's in a similar camp. We travel so much. If we actually spent the time producing content, we would reach so many more people in a more efficient manner. Now it doesn't mean that you shouldn't travel. You shouldn't do in-person events, but we were like, wait, what was if we cut back 20 % on traveling and put that energy into content? you know it would create a better balance and we think there would be a much higher roi and here's the issue with your team creating content versus you creating your own content especially if you're trying to build up your own brand or your corporate brand your is the quality of the content is just different and i'm not saying that people can't do a good job it's the authenticity that content has when it comes from yourself is very different when it comes from someone else who created it for you.

1:50Yep. A hundred percent. I mean, also the more you delegate, the further you get from it. And so what I'm noticing is like some of the stuff I've really delegated out, it's kind of become a free for all, right? And it comes down to the process again, but sometimes having more oversight over the content process, not letting go of your own marketing completely, that's important. So let me give you an example here. So a couple of weeks ago, Neil and I, we recorded in person for the first time in like three, four years or so. and the content we put out. We had a blast doing it, by the way, too. Yeah, it was really fun, but it was also chill.

2:22Like that is the level where Neil and I were just being ourselves, right? We're not like, you should do this. It should be like this. And it feels like we're like forcing something down your throat, right? And so what I'm saying is when we did it live like that, without much effort, I think four or five of the videos just popped off versus my normal IG reels. And we had that one Mr. Beast video. I think it's at 1.4 million views now on YouTube and still 220 ,000 or so on Instagram and like 70, 80 ,000 for shorts. So, and that was not the only one. We had some other ones that performed 10X better than my other reels, right?

2:56And my point of saying this all is that when we took more control, when we took back control and we just had editors find the best points and we didn't have this weird like hodgepodge of contractors, I'm really talking about myself right now, it just performs way better. And I've had to recently let go of some contractors that it was just too hard to work with them. Unfortunately, I didn't fit within their process. And it was like, man, there's a reason why our authentic stuff performs a lot better. One, we feel natural. Two, because we feel natural, we can tell good stories. And three, when we have pretty decent editors that can find the right points, it just works.

3:33We're also finding too that if you're not having fun, the content just isn't the same quality. And here's what I mean by this. I used to go to just studio to record my long form YouTube videos and my team would just provide scripts and our crank out 16 ish at a time. And it wasn't fun. It was miserable for me. And I was just reading from a teleprompter, even though I knew those topics. And I would ad lib quite a bit. And you know, there's some bullet points when I was reading from the teleprompter, the rest was just ad lib. But I wasn't having fun. And when I wasn't enjoying the content. I didn't want to produce more of it.

4:07So it's not just taking it back, but if you're not creating content that you're truly passionate, you're not enjoying doing it, change it up. Because when you do have fun, it shows in the content and it's just so much better. Even with this podcast, believe it or not, Eric and I have been doing this for how many years now? Five years? Close to seven. Seven? Yeah. Oh, wow. That's a long time. That means I've known you well over 10 years. Yeah. And when we were doing the podcast, there was years in between that we were just cranking amount and not really thinking about it. And it was mundane, but now we're having fun.

4:38We're picking new, fresh topics. We're energized again. We're going longer. We're going shorter on some of them. We're doing really long reaction videos once a week, but we're just doing the podcast, not to create content, not to generate sales, not to generate ad revenue. We're just talking about stuff him and I want to talk about and having a blast doing it. And we don't care about the rest, but that's funny enough. It's causing the results to be better because we're truly enjoying what we're doing at this moment when it comes to our content creation. And it's coming across when we're creating that content as well.

5:10You know, I think we're going to see more people doing it. I was actually watching a video with, with Layla Hormozis. So Layla was talking about how same thing as us, right? Like when we're out there, when we're teaching, we're getting a script or whatever, it feels like it's work, right? Versus like, if you and I are hanging out, that's the most natural. This is probably a level up beyond that where it's like, It's a little more like, how should we say it? It's a combo of both. Yeah, it's a combo, but it's still fun, right? But if you had us reading off, remember when, so when Neil and I were, here's a good example.

5:40So Neil had to, he recorded a course for someone and he had me come in. So I came in for the day and we were both reading off a teleprompter for the entire day. I think everyone was very professional. It was great and all that. But at the end of the day, I could tell for Neil, it wasn't natural, nor was it natural for me. and it didn't feel like I created something of my own. So let me end it with this and I'll pass it back to you, Nia, if you have anything else. When I say take back control of your content, that could be on the strategic side, but strategic side also means how are you doing your marketing in general?

6:10So for us, it's like, we're doing more programmatic SEO, right? I'm taking a hard look at how we're doing our email marketing as well. I'm taking a hard look at how we're going about with, if we're going to be boosting like our email list or whatever, how we're going to be driving more traffic, the ads that we're running. so I'm looking at things a little more versus being completely hands-off so I'm on the micromanaged scale I might be a little more on the micromanaged side but really not that much I'm just looking at things a little more and that's what I encourage you all to do don't try to abdicate your marketing completely because whenever we've done that in the past it hasn't worked out because that's both of our strengths so yep totally so try taking back your content stop focusing on chat gbt and barred and oh, they can help you create content faster.

6:52Sure. You can use them for some efficiencies, but create content that you want to create yourself. And you don't want to use chat GPT or AI, because if you want to create it and not use those tools, that means you're truly enjoying it. And it should come across in your content. All right. So that is it for today. Please don't forget to rate, review, subscribe to this pod five stars, please. It helps us. And you can go apply for the live event that's coming up leveling up.com slash founders happening in Beverly Hills, August 7th to the 9th. So it's coming up really fast. And yeah, we're going to be talking about AI, going to be talking about content, going to be talking about M &A stuff.

7:25It's going to be fun and just going to be great people. So goodbye.