Transcript:

Brad Powell: 0:00

You’ve been told that if you want to be visible, you simply need to post more often. But what if posting more is actually the thing that’s keeping you invisible? This season, we’re exploring how experts build trust-first brands without becoming fuel for the content machine, and in this episode, I’m going to break down why feeding the content machine doesn’t work for experts and what does, and I’m going to share the three shifts expert entrepreneurs need to make in order to build a trusted and known brand. So let’s get into it. So you’ve heard the trending marketing advice post every day be everywhere, more volume equals more visibility, and put you on that never-ending treadmill To grow your business as an expert entrepreneur. You’re told that you need to become a content creator. You’re told to be on camera every single day, crank out endless reels, build a funnel, go viral, and all this while you’re running your high-level service business as an expert entrepreneur. This advice was never designed for you. You don’t want or need to be an influencer, you don’t need to perform and you don’t need to spend your whole life creating content. I’m going to let you off the hook, because here’s the dilemma You’ve built real expertise offline and you get great results for your clients, but every time you’ve been trying to play the content game, it starts to feel fake, it’s exhausting and it still leaves you feeling kind of invisible. The sad part is that the more you’re staying stuck in this volume equal visibility trap, the more it’s keeping your brilliance hidden, the people who need you. They can’t find you online, and so you either burn out or, maybe worse, you say, okay, I’m gonna bag this and you don’t do any of the online stuff anymore, which means that in either case, you’re going to stay invisible. Here’s my takeaway, and this is the big myth that I want to bust today More content does not equal more clients, and the mic drop truth here is that your audience wants trust, not volume. I’m going to say that again. It’s super important your audience wants trust, not volume. So here are the three shifts expert entrepreneurs need to make in order to build a trusted and known brand. Shift number one high visibility does not come from high volume. For expert brands, trust is built through resonance, not reach. So don’t be focusing on how to reach greater and greater numbers of people. Instead, focus on this question Does this thing that I’m doing, this piece of content that I’m putting out there, this messaging, does this resonate with my ideal audience?

Brad Powell: 3:06

So, for example, let’s say you were on a client call and during that call, your client had this big aha moment. This transformation happened for the client. Well, you can turn that transformation into your next piece of content, and there’s a variety of ways to do that, but the idea here is that just find a way to capture what happened. So you’re not creating, you’re documenting. You’re capturing what actually happened and then sharing that with your audience. You can be like Indiana Jones in the Temple of Doom and you’re on an exploration and you’re going down there to capture treasure, and when you find the treasure, you bring it back and you share it with your audience. We, as experts, are going through this kind of process daily, weekly, all the time, and so we just need to find a way to capture those moments and share that with our audience. Now here’s an example of mine from a webinar that I did recently, and all I did was I took an aha moment from the webinar and I turned it into a small piece of content.

Brad Powell: 4:21

People get content creation all wrong in the sense that we’ve all been sold on how we need to be content creators and we have to go out and create, which means that you have to figure out well, what am I going to talk about? How am I going to do it? Like, do I get on video? Do I blog post? Do I get on Twitter? I don’t even like Twitter.

Brad Powell: 4:40

If you can take experiences that you’re already doing, like if you’re a coach, it’s very simple Bring somebody on, coach them, record it. What comes from that recording can be a body of work and contribute to a body of work which is showing you in your zone of genius, doing exactly what you do, and you don’t even necessarily have to include the other person part of the recording. It’s just the parts where you are sharing your nuggets of wisdom or your best stuff, or the thing that you just came up with, the insight that you had in the moment. That’s the stuff that you put out as part of your messaging. Even if you don’t like doing video like Zoda, I’m never going to do video that’s fine, but you could still record it and then you could transcribe it and that can still be, like even if all you did was take it and put it into a book and publish that. That creates a body of work for you.

Brad Powell: 5:32

That is you being the best part of you, because I know that for every person that is doing a service thing with clients, in the moment when we’re with our client and we’re doing a service thing with clients, in the moment when we’re with our client and we’re doing our work, we are absolutely giving generously at our best. That’s the part where it’s easy. You’re in the flow of the thing that you do and magic happens and the clients get it. The trouble is that only one person gets it at a time, and so if you’re able to bottle that and share it to a broader group, then great, it’s awesome and it’s really all you need to do.

Brad Powell: 6:08

And I know that that piece of content is gonna resonate with my audience because I already did it. I served it in a webinar and I saw the reaction, and so it’s like oh, I know this works, so now I can take it and share it to new people. All right, so here’s shift number two Connection is greater than content. The mic drop truth here is that people buy from people. Shift number two connection is greater than content. The mic drop truth here is that people buy from people. As an expert, people want to feel your presence, they want to hear your perspective and they need to trust your experience, so I’m going to share a quick video by a client of mine.

Brad Powell: 6:45

Her name is Tess Masters, and one of the things that she’s done is she has this really large and very interactive group on Facebook and in this video she’s talking about an experience that she had with that group.

Tess Masters: 6:59

One of the things that I see a lot in our program is this idea of it’s too late. It’s too late for me to get healthy, it’s too late for me to make changes. I’m in my 60s or I’m in my 70s, so it’s always so amazing to see older women coming into their own and really coming into their prime. We have this lovely lady in our community, jan, and she got on one of the video calls and just shared with everybody. I feel like at 65, I’m finally beginning to bloom and I could just see everybody on the call tearing up because they could really relate to it. This idea of blossoming and opening up became a theme of the call and then all of these other women started chiming in, telling their stories of being in their 50s, 60s, 70s, even some women in their 80s. Going me too.

Tess Masters: 7:49

I feel like I’m just starting to open up and realize there’s this entire world out there for me to claim and that, yeah, I’m not 20 anymore, but I know myself better. I know what I want, I know who I want to spend time with, and there’s something so incredible about the power of when women come together, and when you give yourself permission to be vulnerable in community with other people, it gives them the permission to do the same thing. So I think one of the secret sources in our program is the community. So find a community that you connect with.

Brad Powell: 8:21

This video shows how 60 seconds can build more trust than 6,000 words. And what happened here was that she had an experience with her clients and all she did was capture that and retell the story, and it’s a powerful story. When you’re listening to Tess, you can feel the emotion, you can feel the energy in the room as if you were actually there. And how did Tess capture this moment? Well, she’s one of my clients, which means that we met and we had a remote interview session where I was prompting her and asking her questions, and this was one of the responses that she gave from the recording session that we had. And in that one session, where we talked for just one hour, she ended up with more than a month’s worth of content, like this one video.

Brad Powell: 9:14

So right now, as you’re listening to this, I’m guessing that what I’m about to say will sound familiar. You’re an expert in your space, you’ve built a trusted business, your clients love what you do, but online you’re not showing up in the way you know that you could be, and when you try to show up, it feels like you’re either forcing it or you’re getting lost in all the noise, and meanwhile you’re watching others online who are way less experienced than you, but they’re getting all the visibility. And you’re wondering do I really need to become some kind of content machine just to get noticed? And underneath it all, you’re thinking this is just not me and I don’t want to do it this way. So here’s the thing If your brand stays hidden which is what I like to call underexposed the right clients, the ones who would love to work with you they can’t find you. You may be doing great work, but it’s staying behind closed doors.

Brad Powell: 10:17

Imagine this instead, what if you had a simple way to turn the conversations you’re already having, the insights you’re already sharing into high-trust content, content that builds trust, authority and demand for your business without performing, without burnout and without adding more to your plate? Well, that’s exactly what I do with my Mic Drop Moments method, and if you’d like to see what this could look like for you, here’s what I recommend Just go to standoutcallcom and schedule a free standout on video call with me, and on the call, we’re going to take a look at where you’re currently invisible online and why. The hidden opportunities in your business, where trust building content is already happening You’re just not capturing it yet, and the exact strategy I’d recommend to turn your expertise into visibility and demand, all in a way that fits you and your business. So if you’re ready to start showing up in a way that stands out without feeding the content machine, go to standoutcallcom, grab a time and I’ll see you there. All right?

Brad Powell: 11:30

So here is shift number three, which is capture, not create. So here’s the premise on this one the smartest experts don’t feed the content machine. You’re going to be creating trust-building content by capturing moments of your expertise, and you no longer have to perform for clicks. As an example, I’m going to share this video, which is made by Curtis Matsko, who is the founder of Portland Leather Goods, which is a very successful company that I think now is earning something like $400 million annually.

Curtis Matsko: 12:07

So he is doing all right and and he’s quite the expert- when I started my company, portland Goods, I actually looked around and there was about five different companies that I admired and all of my employees would say we need to be more like that. And I had to fight and say no, we have to do our own thing. But I thought about it for a while. I wanted to duplicate what they were doing, because if they’re doing it, it’s probably what you need to do. And we did something different. People kept saying to me no, you need to be like this company and then after the years, as you see them, go bankrupt and completely go out of business for just doing the same old, boring crap year after year. You realize being new and different is essential on a daily, on an hourly, on a weekly, on a yearly basis.

Brad Powell: 12:50

So in this example, I helped Curtis capture this moment of his expertise, this moment where he was in his zone of genius as a guest on my podcast. And this is a great opportunity for you which is a very easy one to capture your expertise when you’re in your zone of genius by becoming a guest on somebody else’s show. So in your networking you want to be looking out for who has a podcast and how can you develop a relationship with those people and how can you collaborate in a way that you could be on their show and supporting them and they’ll interview you, they’ll ask you questions, you can show up and stand out with your expertise. Now, one of the things that you can do as a prep for getting on a show is make sure that, before you go on anybody’s show, know the points that you want to express. Basically, be like a politician. Like you know, when politicians go do interviews or they do a press conference, they have these talking points and they know what they’re going to say and they do it in a way that’s very much in the form of a soundbite, so they can do it short and so in 30 to 60 second clips and that stuff can get repurposed and posted online, and you want to approach your podcast guesting in exactly the same way. So, when someone asks you a question, you know what you’re going to say and you can say it in 60 seconds or less, which means that later, when you get the recording, you’re going to have several pieces of content that you can pull from that recording and then share online later in the future. So, after just one half hour of being interviewed by a podcaster, you now have plenty of material that you can share with your audience in a whole variety of ways, and, of course, video is only one of the ways you can do it. All this stuff can be transcribed and can be turned into text and carousels and in a myriad of ways of presenting it on the various platforms where you might be active.

Brad Powell: 14:57

So, as we wrap up, here’s one thing that you can do this week Go look at your calendar. Where in the last week were you already showing up in your zone of genius? Just pick one conversation that you had, maybe a client call, or a Zoom presentation, or maybe you were a podcast guest. Capture that moment in whatever way you can, and, as you’re doing that, ask yourself these questions what was the big aha? What was the belief shift that happened in this moment? What was the story that was told? All of these things are absolute golden nuggets that you can take and turn into amazing trust-building content for your brand.

Brad Powell: 15:41

And, of course, this is exactly what I help my clients do with Mic Drop Moments. I help my clients turn everyday conversations, the stuff they did last week, into trust building content. And we do it without feeding the content machine. And we do it without feeling like you’re on a gerbil wheel, because my clients they just spend one hour once a month, or sometimes one hour once every other month, and they get all their content done. And in this season, if you follow the show, you are going to learn how you can do this and see how experts are doing it every single week. Now you might be thinking, ok, I’m ready to show up as myself. How do I do that in a way that builds trust and attracts new clients? And that’s exactly what I’m covering in the next episode, which is called why.

Brad Powell: 16:36

Being Yourself is your Best Content Strategy. So hit subscribe and you won’t want to miss it. And remember, this season we are ditching the content machine, with less hustle and more standout moments. I’ll see you next time, so long.