How Your Offer Defines the Clients You Attract and Their Expectations - The Art & Business of Writing Podcast with Nicolas Cole

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Transcript17 lines

[00:00]
A
What's new?
[00:02]
B
Good. It's good to be on the call. Good to meet everyone.
[00:04]
A
Yeah. How's. What's new in the biz? And any. Any pressing questions?
[00:10]
B
Yeah. So, I mean, yeah, I'm starting with two new clients next quarter. Excited for that. I'm starting with a big tech company. I'm going to be ghostwriting for their CFO and doing weekly posts for them. And it's. It's about three times the rate that I've charged previously. So that's. That's great. Despite the bureaucratic hurdles that I've had to do for procurement and just getting approved by them internally. And there's. There's two interesting questions, I guess, that are on my mind. One is about thinking in terms of LinkedIn. I know you and I discussed this the other week is thinking about the value about helping these people who are writing on LinkedIn actually convert the people who are engaging in their posts to leads or potential partnerships, other opportunities afterwards. And I started using a platform called Trigafy, which kind of tracks social engagement in an Excel like spreadsheet. And you plug it into clay and kind of identify. I see potential IPs, and then automate sequences either on LinkedIn or email that reaches out to them. And I thought, is that the closer I am to generating revenue for them, the more valuable I become and the higher price they can charge? Is that my passion? No, I'd rather just, like, write for them. But I think it creates a kind of stickiness and a kind of moat compared to other people who are just ghostwriting. So that's like a question for you and for the group, I guess. I guess I'll pause there.
[01:38]
A
But yeah, yeah, it's. It's one of those. So here, here's the challenge with that. The vast majority of things are all options, and you can do any one of them or any number of them. Do you need to do that in order to have a great client base? No. Something we. I think we talked about. We did talk about this last week or whenever we chatted, but I think a big misunderstanding that people have about content creation and ghostwriting is that they don't understand that for a lot of people, the value is just, look, I'm participating on the Internet, you know, and especially depending on the type of person that you work with. A lot of the clients I worked with, all they wanted was just, I just don't want an empty profile. You know, it had nothing to do with, like, converting clients. Now, can you add that as a service? Sure. But Also, it actually changes the sort of client that you work with, because when you add that sort of service, you inherently are going to attract more clients that are more interested in that direct response sort of service. Right. And as a natural byproduct, by adding that service, you're going to attract less of the people who go, I actually just want to create thought leadership content, right? So. So it's not, I think oftentimes people think, like, I have to be revenue critical in order to have a great service. And that's actually not true. It's just a different type of service and it attracts a different type of person. And so it just depends on, like, which one do you want to build, which one do you enjoy? You know, I would not make this decision from, like, I feel like I need to, because you don't need to. You know, you also don't need a hundred clients, right? So we're not having this conversation like your salesforce, and you're like, do I go into this category market or this category market? It's literally like, do you want 10 of these types of clients or 10 of these types of clients?
[03:46]
B
Really interesting. Can I ask you to double click on the. I know you know that my clientele and your clientele is early in General, early stage B2B founders who have raised a ton of VC funding or tech executives or venture capitalists. Can I ask you to double click on what is the real underlying value we're providing? And the context for this question is an interesting question. Interesting conversation I had recently with the prospect who I asked him, have you had any experience with the ghostwriter previously? Have you done personal branding in the past? And he said he actually had a pretty good writer in the past, but the reason he didn't like them, the reason he fired them was because they were really bad at interviewing him and they were really bad at asking him targeted questions and was kind of really fascinating to me because I never really saw a part of, like a core part of the value I provide in the interviewing. I always thought it was like, okay, I have to do the interviewing. I have to extract their knowledge and insights in order to write for them. That's an essential thing I have to do. But the real value is in the content. And so I'm trying to think through, like, what is the real value? Is it is really a status game? Are we helping people, like, basically feel good about themselves through the interviewing and then be perceived as more legit and authoritative? Like, how do you understand the real underlying value and why people Buy this service.
[04:54]
A
Yeah. The real underlying value is that it increases the likelihood that more people see that person as a real person on the Internet. Like full stop, end of story. That's all it is. It's, it's. I'm, I'm an investor. I meet with a founder, we go out for coffee, I know that I'm about to go meet up with them. I got there five minutes early. What do I do? I type that founder's name into Google. That's what I do, right? And if nothing pops up, I'm like, there's, there's one of two answers. If nothing pops up. Either they are boy genius who is just like the most incredibly smart person ever and they are like off on the Internet and they like have completely chosen not to play that game. But like they secretly know how to build rockets or they're incompetent. Right? And so like that, that actually is the value. That is what they're buying. That's why I think it's so hard for most people to understand. And I see it all the time. People ask questions about this in pga, in Liftoff, in here. People misunderstand that. Like for a lot of people, especially startup founders that raise a shit ton of money, the value has literally nothing to do with direct response. It has everything to do with perceived status and the fact that they are a real person on the Internet. The bonus value comes in the interview, which is that over time, the best ghostwriters. The role that I ended up finding myself playing is that you help these people clarify their thinking. Like, yes. Does it create better content? Sure. But like they, they hop on those calls because they're really excited to like think through something. Every other hour of their day is spent them telling other people what to do. This is the only pocket in their day where someone asks them, how do you think about that? It's a really interesting value prop. Right? And so that is actually a very different service than something that's more direct Response related on LinkedIn or whatever platform. It's not that like one is better than the other, it's that they solve different problems. And so it's like, which it's no different than do you want to build a short form video agency or do you want to build PR agency? Like they're just different types of businesses.
[07:20]
B
Can I ask that in your business? And then I want to let other people ask questions if they have.
[07:24]
A
Sure, that's a great question. All good.
[07:28]
B
So how did you think about KPIs in that context? For the clients who wouldn't necessarily care about direct response, thinking about thought leadership and thinking about this sort of ineffable thing called brand value. The CEO of this multi billion dollar company, I don't know how we're going to measure. I mean there's the usual social metrics, impressions, engagements, etc and then there's another category of metrics. People talk about business metrics which could be inbound leads. It could be better talent acquisition or easier talent acquisition and more and better investors. But for the ones who really just like want to be a person on the Internet, is it like were you looking at followers? Was it more just like having a presence and the actual quality of content? Despite that being really hard to quantify. Like how do you, how do you like what kind of reports did you show your clients to show you are becoming a person on the Internet?
[08:20]
A
We, I know this is hard to believe but 300 plus clients, we didn't promise a single metric and didn't provide a single report. And now, now there, there's a case to be made that, that there were elements of that were not correct. And I actually, I'm fine to admit that like I think if I was to do the agency over, there are some things that I differently but at the same time, if I'm being totally honest, like we ended up working with CEOs and founders that 99.9% of people would never get the chance to interact with billionaires, most well known VCs in the world, celebrities, Olympic athletes, like, and I think a big reason why we were able to attract that sort of person is almost because of the nature of the service. I was like, I was like, either you understand the value of sharing your insights at scale or you don't. What's the KPI? The KPI is you're not doing it. That's the KPI. You're invisible on the Internet. Do you want a library? And the people that really fought me on that either joined for a month and then churned or they just didn't become clients in the first place. But that wasn't our target client. We, we had clients stick with us for three years who just wanted to put out a piece a week. Being like this is what I, this is what I about my industry. And then if they ever really pushed on, like how do you quantify the roi? I would always try and put it in the context of something that was specific to their business. So if it was like the CEO of a, like one was, we worked with the entire exec Team of a blockchain company back in 2017. They were developing really interesting blockchain infrastructure for other companies to build on. And one of the executives kept giving us a hard time being like, how do we quantify this? How do I quantify this? And so on call, I said, all right, well, ask me how I should quantify. If you walk into a partnership meeting three months from now and someone has read one of your articles and they trust you and they decide to work with you, and that deal is worth $10 million, how would you like me to quantify our work together? And then guess what? That happened, like, literally three months later. They walked into a meeting, and the person that they were meeting with sits down. And the first thing they say is, oh, by the way, I just loved your article last week about blockchain technology. And then they built that partnership, and then they came back and he was like, you're totally right. I have no idea. So it's just. It's a very different type of service, you know.
[10:55]
B
In terms of chartered founders. Was there. I don't. I think I asked you something like this last time. But it was a particular stage founder that cared less about the direct response KPIs and much more about the vague. Being a present, being having a presence on the Internet.
[11:10]
A
Almost always it was a direct correlation to the more money they raised, the less they cared about it. Like, if I had a seed stage founder, they were like, I can barely pay you, so how do I make sure that I'm getting customers so that this is ROI positive? But if it was the founder of a series D, we just raised half a billion dollars company, they're like, I don't give a fuck. I just want to put out pieces about leadership and I look like a person. Right. So that is the direct correlation. All right.
[11:41]
B
That gives me some clarity into the direction I want to move in. Going up market. So thank you.
[11:47]
A
Yeah. I think the last thing I just wanted to share is you have to remember that there's very different types of marketing and that there's very different types of reasons to do marketing. And for a lot of these people, the decision to put out content has really nothing to do with customers or money. Like, if you just went and raised a hundred million dollars, you could give a fuck about how many people you convert from LinkedIn. You don't care. Right. You do care, though, about looking like a real person, and then you can go raise another 250 million 18 months later. Right. And so for a lot of that type of person. The decision to put out content is a lot less logical and it's a lot more emotional. Like don't underestimate how many of those people are like I raised $100 million, I did a secondary round so I took 10 million off the table for myself. I just bought a baller ass house, I'm the fucking shit. And now I just want to put pieces out into the world because I want to share how smart I am and I'm not making that up. I worked with a hundred plus people who fit that archetype so I'm just, I'm telling you like you have to sort of separate and go. That is one specific service and you will attract a very different type of client if you're like we get into the nitty gritty, it's very direct response. We send these messages, we do these connection requests like those are not the same person. Well said, makes sense.
[13:21]
B
Thanks.
[13:22]
A
Yeah, awesome, great question.

Summary4 min read

Podcast Summary: Coffee With Cole – "How Your Offer Defines the Clients You Attract and Their Expectations"

Podcast Information:

Title: Coffee With Cole: The Digital Writing Podcast
Host: Nicolas Cole
Episode Title: How Your Offer Defines the Clients You Attract and Their Expectations
Release Date: January 24, 2025

Introduction

In this insightful episode of "Coffee With Cole", host Nicolas Cole delves into the intricate relationship between the services ghostwriters offer and the types of clients they attract. Featuring a candid conversation with a seasoned ghostwriter (referred to as Speaker B), the discussion navigates the nuances of client expectations, service differentiation, and strategic positioning within the digital writing landscape.

New Client Ventures and Pricing Strategies

Speaker B opens the dialogue by sharing exciting news about onboarding two new clients in the upcoming quarter, including a prominent tech company's CFO. Notably, B has managed to triple their previous rates, overcoming internal bureaucratic challenges:

“[00:10] B: ...I started with a big tech company. I'm going to be ghostwriting for their CFO and doing weekly posts for them. And it's about three times the rate that I've charged previously.”

This significant rate increase underscores the evolving value proposition B offers to high-caliber clients.

Enhancing Value Through LinkedIn Engagement

B introduces a strategic consideration: leveraging LinkedIn not just for content distribution but as a tool for lead generation and partnership opportunities. They discuss the use of platforms like Trigafy and Clay to track social engagement and automate outreach sequences. B contemplates whether integrating these revenue-centric services could create a competitive moat, thereby justifying higher pricing.

“[00:24] B: ...is that the closer I am to generating revenue for them, the more valuable I become and the higher price they can charge?”

However, B expresses a personal preference for focusing purely on writing, highlighting a potential tension between passion and business expansion.

Defining Client Value and Service Offerings

Nicolas Cole (Speaker A) responds by emphasizing that not all ghostwriters need to diversify their services. He highlights a common misconception that content creation must always be tied to direct response objectives:

“[01:38] A: ...the value is just, I’m participating on the Internet... many clients just wanted to ensure they weren't invisible online, without necessarily seeking direct conversions.”

A elaborates that offering additional services like lead generation attracts a different client demographic—those interested in direct response—while maintaining a pure writing service appeals to clients seeking thought leadership and personal branding.

Understanding Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Brand Presence

Speaker B shifts the focus to metrics, questioning how to measure success for clients whose goals revolve around brand presence rather than immediate business outcomes:

“[07:20] B: ...how do you quantify the ROI for clients who just want to be a person on the Internet?”

Speaker A candidly admits that his agency didn’t promise specific metrics or provide detailed reports, instead prioritizing long-term visibility and personal branding. He shares an anecdote illustrating how content led to a significant business partnership:

“[08:19] A: ...if you walk into a partnership meeting and someone references your article, that’s the real value we provide.”

A further explains that the relevance of KPIs shifts based on the client's stage of business funding. Early-stage founders prioritize ROI and customer acquisition, while well-funded executives focus on maintaining a strong online presence.

“[11:09] A: ...the more money they raised, the less they cared about direct response and more about having a presence.”

Strategic Positioning and Market Targeting

With these insights, Speaker B concludes that targeting higher-market clients who value personal branding over direct response metrics aligns better with their service offerings. This strategic pivot involves moving upmarket to engage with clients who appreciate the intrinsic value of being perceived as authoritative and legitimate figures online.

“[11:40] B: That gives me some clarity into the direction I want to move in. Going up market. So thank you.”

Final Insights and Takeaways

Speaker A encapsulates the essence of the discussion by reiterating the importance of understanding different marketing motivations:

“[13:21] A: ...the decision to put out content has really nothing to do with customers or money... it's a lot more emotional.”

He advises ghostwriters to clearly define their service offerings to attract the desired client type, whether it be those seeking direct response capabilities or those aiming for thought leadership and personal branding.

Notable Quotes

Speaker B on Enhancing Value:

“[00:24] B: ...is that the closer I am to generating revenue for them, the more valuable I become and the higher price they can charge?”
Speaker A on Core Value:

“[04:54] A: The real underlying value is that it increases the likelihood that more people see that person as a real person on the Internet. Like full stop, end of story.”
Speaker A on Client Stages:

“[11:09] A: ...the more money they raised, the less they cared about direct response and more about having a presence.”
Speaker A on Content Motivation:

“[13:21] A: ...the decision to put out content has really nothing to do with customers or money... it's a lot more emotional.”

Conclusion

This episode of "Coffee With Cole" provides valuable insights into how ghostwriters can strategically define their service offerings to attract the right clientele. By distinguishing between clients seeking direct response metrics and those valuing personal branding, ghostwriters can tailor their approaches to meet diverse client expectations. Nicolas Cole and his guest underscore the importance of clarity in service definition, strategic market targeting, and understanding the underlying motivations that drive clients to invest in digital writing services.

For ghostwriters and digital content creators, the key takeaway is the critical need to align your offerings with the specific needs and expectations of your target clients, ensuring long-term partnerships and business growth.

Loading summary

Transcript17 lines

[00:00]
A
What's new?
[00:02]
B
Good. It's good to be on the call. Good to meet everyone.
[00:04]
A
Yeah. How's. What's new in the biz? And any. Any pressing questions?
[00:10]
B
Yeah. So, I mean, yeah, I'm starting with two new clients next quarter. Excited for that. I'm starting with a big tech company. I'm going to be ghostwriting for their CFO and doing weekly posts for them. And it's. It's about three times the rate that I've charged previously. So that's. That's great. Despite the bureaucratic hurdles that I've had to do for procurement and just getting approved by them internally. And there's. There's two interesting questions, I guess, that are on my mind. One is about thinking in terms of LinkedIn. I know you and I discussed this the other week is thinking about the value about helping these people who are writing on LinkedIn actually convert the people who are engaging in their posts to leads or potential partnerships, other opportunities afterwards. And I started using a platform called Trigafy, which kind of tracks social engagement in an Excel like spreadsheet. And you plug it into clay and kind of identify. I see potential IPs, and then automate sequences either on LinkedIn or email that reaches out to them. And I thought, is that the closer I am to generating revenue for them, the more valuable I become and the higher price they can charge? Is that my passion? No, I'd rather just, like, write for them. But I think it creates a kind of stickiness and a kind of moat compared to other people who are just ghostwriting. So that's like a question for you and for the group, I guess. I guess I'll pause there.
[01:38]
A
But yeah, yeah, it's. It's one of those. So here, here's the challenge with that. The vast majority of things are all options, and you can do any one of them or any number of them. Do you need to do that in order to have a great client base? No. Something we. I think we talked about. We did talk about this last week or whenever we chatted, but I think a big misunderstanding that people have about content creation and ghostwriting is that they don't understand that for a lot of people, the value is just, look, I'm participating on the Internet, you know, and especially depending on the type of person that you work with. A lot of the clients I worked with, all they wanted was just, I just don't want an empty profile. You know, it had nothing to do with, like, converting clients. Now, can you add that as a service? Sure. But Also, it actually changes the sort of client that you work with, because when you add that sort of service, you inherently are going to attract more clients that are more interested in that direct response sort of service. Right. And as a natural byproduct, by adding that service, you're going to attract less of the people who go, I actually just want to create thought leadership content, right? So. So it's not, I think oftentimes people think, like, I have to be revenue critical in order to have a great service. And that's actually not true. It's just a different type of service and it attracts a different type of person. And so it just depends on, like, which one do you want to build, which one do you enjoy? You know, I would not make this decision from, like, I feel like I need to, because you don't need to. You know, you also don't need a hundred clients, right? So we're not having this conversation like your salesforce, and you're like, do I go into this category market or this category market? It's literally like, do you want 10 of these types of clients or 10 of these types of clients?
[03:46]
B
Really interesting. Can I ask you to double click on the. I know you know that my clientele and your clientele is early in General, early stage B2B founders who have raised a ton of VC funding or tech executives or venture capitalists. Can I ask you to double click on what is the real underlying value we're providing? And the context for this question is an interesting question. Interesting conversation I had recently with the prospect who I asked him, have you had any experience with the ghostwriter previously? Have you done personal branding in the past? And he said he actually had a pretty good writer in the past, but the reason he didn't like them, the reason he fired them was because they were really bad at interviewing him and they were really bad at asking him targeted questions and was kind of really fascinating to me because I never really saw a part of, like a core part of the value I provide in the interviewing. I always thought it was like, okay, I have to do the interviewing. I have to extract their knowledge and insights in order to write for them. That's an essential thing I have to do. But the real value is in the content. And so I'm trying to think through, like, what is the real value? Is it is really a status game? Are we helping people, like, basically feel good about themselves through the interviewing and then be perceived as more legit and authoritative? Like, how do you understand the real underlying value and why people Buy this service.
[04:54]
A
Yeah. The real underlying value is that it increases the likelihood that more people see that person as a real person on the Internet. Like full stop, end of story. That's all it is. It's, it's. I'm, I'm an investor. I meet with a founder, we go out for coffee, I know that I'm about to go meet up with them. I got there five minutes early. What do I do? I type that founder's name into Google. That's what I do, right? And if nothing pops up, I'm like, there's, there's one of two answers. If nothing pops up. Either they are boy genius who is just like the most incredibly smart person ever and they are like off on the Internet and they like have completely chosen not to play that game. But like they secretly know how to build rockets or they're incompetent. Right? And so like that, that actually is the value. That is what they're buying. That's why I think it's so hard for most people to understand. And I see it all the time. People ask questions about this in pga, in Liftoff, in here. People misunderstand that. Like for a lot of people, especially startup founders that raise a shit ton of money, the value has literally nothing to do with direct response. It has everything to do with perceived status and the fact that they are a real person on the Internet. The bonus value comes in the interview, which is that over time, the best ghostwriters. The role that I ended up finding myself playing is that you help these people clarify their thinking. Like, yes. Does it create better content? Sure. But like they, they hop on those calls because they're really excited to like think through something. Every other hour of their day is spent them telling other people what to do. This is the only pocket in their day where someone asks them, how do you think about that? It's a really interesting value prop. Right? And so that is actually a very different service than something that's more direct Response related on LinkedIn or whatever platform. It's not that like one is better than the other, it's that they solve different problems. And so it's like, which it's no different than do you want to build a short form video agency or do you want to build PR agency? Like they're just different types of businesses.
[07:20]
B
Can I ask that in your business? And then I want to let other people ask questions if they have.
[07:24]
A
Sure, that's a great question. All good.
[07:28]
B
So how did you think about KPIs in that context? For the clients who wouldn't necessarily care about direct response, thinking about thought leadership and thinking about this sort of ineffable thing called brand value. The CEO of this multi billion dollar company, I don't know how we're going to measure. I mean there's the usual social metrics, impressions, engagements, etc and then there's another category of metrics. People talk about business metrics which could be inbound leads. It could be better talent acquisition or easier talent acquisition and more and better investors. But for the ones who really just like want to be a person on the Internet, is it like were you looking at followers? Was it more just like having a presence and the actual quality of content? Despite that being really hard to quantify. Like how do you, how do you like what kind of reports did you show your clients to show you are becoming a person on the Internet?
[08:20]
A
We, I know this is hard to believe but 300 plus clients, we didn't promise a single metric and didn't provide a single report. And now, now there, there's a case to be made that, that there were elements of that were not correct. And I actually, I'm fine to admit that like I think if I was to do the agency over, there are some things that I differently but at the same time, if I'm being totally honest, like we ended up working with CEOs and founders that 99.9% of people would never get the chance to interact with billionaires, most well known VCs in the world, celebrities, Olympic athletes, like, and I think a big reason why we were able to attract that sort of person is almost because of the nature of the service. I was like, I was like, either you understand the value of sharing your insights at scale or you don't. What's the KPI? The KPI is you're not doing it. That's the KPI. You're invisible on the Internet. Do you want a library? And the people that really fought me on that either joined for a month and then churned or they just didn't become clients in the first place. But that wasn't our target client. We, we had clients stick with us for three years who just wanted to put out a piece a week. Being like this is what I, this is what I about my industry. And then if they ever really pushed on, like how do you quantify the roi? I would always try and put it in the context of something that was specific to their business. So if it was like the CEO of a, like one was, we worked with the entire exec Team of a blockchain company back in 2017. They were developing really interesting blockchain infrastructure for other companies to build on. And one of the executives kept giving us a hard time being like, how do we quantify this? How do I quantify this? And so on call, I said, all right, well, ask me how I should quantify. If you walk into a partnership meeting three months from now and someone has read one of your articles and they trust you and they decide to work with you, and that deal is worth $10 million, how would you like me to quantify our work together? And then guess what? That happened, like, literally three months later. They walked into a meeting, and the person that they were meeting with sits down. And the first thing they say is, oh, by the way, I just loved your article last week about blockchain technology. And then they built that partnership, and then they came back and he was like, you're totally right. I have no idea. So it's just. It's a very different type of service, you know.
[10:55]
B
In terms of chartered founders. Was there. I don't. I think I asked you something like this last time. But it was a particular stage founder that cared less about the direct response KPIs and much more about the vague. Being a present, being having a presence on the Internet.
[11:10]
A
Almost always it was a direct correlation to the more money they raised, the less they cared about it. Like, if I had a seed stage founder, they were like, I can barely pay you, so how do I make sure that I'm getting customers so that this is ROI positive? But if it was the founder of a series D, we just raised half a billion dollars company, they're like, I don't give a fuck. I just want to put out pieces about leadership and I look like a person. Right. So that is the direct correlation. All right.
[11:41]
B
That gives me some clarity into the direction I want to move in. Going up market. So thank you.
[11:47]
A
Yeah. I think the last thing I just wanted to share is you have to remember that there's very different types of marketing and that there's very different types of reasons to do marketing. And for a lot of these people, the decision to put out content has really nothing to do with customers or money. Like, if you just went and raised a hundred million dollars, you could give a fuck about how many people you convert from LinkedIn. You don't care. Right. You do care, though, about looking like a real person, and then you can go raise another 250 million 18 months later. Right. And so for a lot of that type of person. The decision to put out content is a lot less logical and it's a lot more emotional. Like don't underestimate how many of those people are like I raised $100 million, I did a secondary round so I took 10 million off the table for myself. I just bought a baller ass house, I'm the fucking shit. And now I just want to put pieces out into the world because I want to share how smart I am and I'm not making that up. I worked with a hundred plus people who fit that archetype so I'm just, I'm telling you like you have to sort of separate and go. That is one specific service and you will attract a very different type of client if you're like we get into the nitty gritty, it's very direct response. We send these messages, we do these connection requests like those are not the same person. Well said, makes sense.
[13:21]
B
Thanks.
[13:22]
A
Yeah, awesome, great question.