Loading summary
Transcript2 lines
- [00:01]
A
You are listening to the Grow youw Local Business podcast where local marketing expert and life coach Leslie Presnol shares the strategies and the mindset to help you reach more people in your city and bring in a steady stream of clients. All right, let's dive in.
- [00:21]
B
Hello. Welcome to episode 101. Today I wanted to share my top 88 content creation lessons learned after 100 episodes of recording the Grow youw Local Business podcast. And these are not podcast lessons. So this is not an episode for podcasters. This is for you, the local business owner. So this is not about starting a podcast or just for people who podcast. It's totally for you, my local business owner listener who also has to create content for social media and for emails and for or your website or wherever else you may be showing up. These lessons totally apply to you. So y'all, a hundred episodes. It has been a journey. So I started this podcast in the fall of 2022 and here we are in the fall of 2024. Two years later, a hundred episodes later. So much strategy that we have covered to help you grow your local business. So much mindset shifts that we have covered to help grow your local business. And I have to say, I have to take a minute and say that I am pretty proud. I know I don't celebrate myself enough. That's what my husband always tells me anyway. But a hundred episodes, like that's a big deal. I will say I am proud of that and I am so excited for the next 100 episodes. And I wanted to ask you a favor today as we celebrate 100 episodes, if you haven't already, I would love it if you could take a minute and leave a rating or review on whatever platform you are listening to this episode on. I would love to hear your biggest takeaways or breakthroughs, what you love about the podcast. And if the platform doesn't allow you to actually leave a written review, you can always shoot me a message through my website or send me a DM on social media. I would love to hear from you. I will link all of that up in the show notes so you can easily find me. But I would also love it if you could share this podcast with someone. Like, do you have a local business owner friend who you know could really benefit from the podcast or someone who's always listening or always looking for the next thing to listen to? I'm in a group chat with some of my coaching peers and we are always sending each other podcast recommendations and just episodes when we listen to it. We're like, you have to listen to this, and it's always so helpful. I'm like, thank you. This happened to be, like, exactly what I needed today. So do you have someone like that that you can send and share with? Okay, so let's dive in to today's topic. My top content creation lessons learned from 100 podcast episodes. And again, these are content lessons. I narrowed it down to eight lessons learned. And again, not podcast lessons. So not for podcasters. It's for you, the business owner. So lesson number one is to give myself regular brainstorming time to come up with content ideas and not seeing brainstorming time as a waste of time. So let me back up for a second. What I found the most surprising when I was reflecting about the lessons learned over the past two years and over the past 100 episodes is I thought initially with launching a podcast that it would be a lot easier to come up with content every week. I have been a content creator for over 14 years. Like, it has been my profession, like, making money on the Internet with my content since 2010, and I still struggled with coming up with podcast episodes. Like, there were days when I didn't have anything to say. There were days when I didn't want to record. There were days that I procrastinated all day long instead of recording. And that surprised me because, like I said, I come from a background in blogging, where I was cranking out multiple blog posts a month. I come from a background in journalism, where I was cranking out stories every single day. I come from a teaching background, also where I had to have a whole new lesson planned every single day. So it was. I just found it very interesting that I still struggled to come up with a new episode topic every single week. And I just want to normalize that for you going in as a business owner, especially if you're not a content creator, if you have never been a content creator. Like, I. My profession for my entire adult career has been around creating content. And I feel like I've been a writer my whole life. I've just always loved writing and I still struggled. So it is okay. If coming up with ideas and if cranking out content feels hard, sometimes it's okay. If you have days where you don't know what to say, it's okay. When you feel like you've run out of things to say, can we just normalize that and not beat ourselves up and just make that part of a process? Like, remember in school, our teachers always taught us a writing process, and what did that process Start with brainstorming. Like, we had the brainstorming phase, then we had the rough draft, then we edited, then we finalized whatever all the steps were. And then somewhere along the way, when we became content creators on social media, it's like we thought we were just supposed to be the business owner cranking out content perfectly all day, every day. Also working with clients and never missing a beat. Like, no, it's okay if you have days where you're like, you know what? I just need a brainstorming day. A day to brainstorm for an hour or a time block or a full day, whatever it is for you. Because I don't have any ideas right now. Like, my brain is not braining. I had a lot of those days. It's okay to go through that and to give yourself time blocked off on your calendar, just to reconnect back to your ideal client, reconnect back to what you help them with, what they need to hear from you, and just do a big brainstorming session where you literally do nothing but think. Like, don't try to write the content too. Just think. That was what I found really helpful for me coming up with podcast topics, especially when I could tell when I was getting into like the nitty gritty, like week to week cranking out content or feeling like I was just trying to pull things out of my brain and they they weren't coming. Or if you feel yourself getting wrapped up in that on social media, like, oh, it's a new day, I gotta post, I gotta post. Like, feeling like that hamster wheel, like, what do I post today? It's a new day. Give yourself time and stay in space to brainstorm. I know we think that brainstorming can feel like a time suck or a waste of time because nothing's really produced or done at the end of it. Like, it's just ideas. But those ideas are very valuable. Those ideas then make your content creation so much faster in the day to day. So that's my first lesson. Make sure you're giving yourself just time to brainstorm regularly. Make it a regular practice, whether you want to do it monthly or every other week. Like, whatever you feel like is going to work for you. Just give yourself time to think about your client, to put ideas down, even if they're incomplete ideas, even if they're terrible ideas, even if they're ideas that you may not use. Just give yourself time to think. Sometimes I will come up with an idea and I'm like, okay, that's a really good idea for an episode but it may actually be months before that idea gets fully thought out in my head to where I can really put it out in a way that makes sense and that I can really teach it. For example, I thought of the episode on location drama months and months before I released it, because I was like, okay, I know my clients have this problem. Like, they have a lot of thoughts about where they live and why they can't be successful and get results because of where they currently live. But I didn't really know yet how to fully articulate it. I didn't really know yet how to explain the solution to them and how to keep moving forward with that. So I just jotted down the note, and I didn't really have a fun name for it, like location drama, which I love that name now. So what happened is my brain kind of just subconsciously continued to go to work for hashing out that idea. Like, our brain will go to work on things when we're not even really thinking about it. So I just started noticing that even when I wasn't working, like, when I was getting ready or just, you know, working around the house or walking, I would be thinking about the concept of, like, location drama, and I just started solving it. And I was like, ooh, like, this is an actual concept that I can teach now and really help my people with. And now so many people will come on consults or join my program and be like, okay, I have location drama, and I know you can help me. So sometimes I'll just let myself sit with an idea and let my subconscious just work it out. But I would never be able to do that if I didn't also give myself that time to brainstorm and just get out those half ideas to begin with. Okay. The second lesson that I learned is it's okay for your content topics to be random or to feel random. So let me explain what I mean. I tended to get really caught up in my episodes, jumping around from topic to topic. Like, one week we'd be talking about Instagram, and then we're talking about your mindset. Then we're talking about Facebook groups, then we're talking about local events, then we're talking about how to show up as that local go to person. And I just got really caught up in, like, this is random. Like, there's no flow to this. And the same thing would happen to me on social media. And my clients also get caught up in this. I recently coached a student on this who felt like her emails every week were on random topics. And I told Her. And what I have told myself and what I got coaching on as I went through all of this is it's okay for things to feel random and not flow perfectly. It's actually the perfect, laid out, like step by step plan that people get whenever they work with you. So this client that I was talking with and coaching with, she's a pelvic floor therapist and she wanted her emails to really flow and I told her they get the step by step and they're like specific problem solved every week when they work with you directly. It's okay if you're talking about this symptom this week and then this exercise this week and then this other problem this week. This is how your audience is going to know that you can help them with all these different problems. Random only becomes a problem when you start talking about things that you don't actually help people with. Like if I'm a local marketing coach and all of a sudden I have an episode coming out on scrapbooking that's random. So as long as your content is about your topic or your niche or how you help your people, it isn't random. It's showing your people how well rounded you are and all the different ways you can help them and, and they get the step by step or the truly systematized way or your step by step process or everything done for them when they actually work with you. The third content lesson I learned is there's always going to be another episode. So sometimes or a lot of times I would get really caught up in having to pack an episode full of value or put like everything I know in an episode. And I could tell especially early on that there was a lot of energy happening where it was like, I have to let them know that I can help them. So let me teach them as much as I can in one episode. And what that does is it creates a lot of pressure for a single episode or even on social media. Like, I will see my clients and they'll tell me that they feel like they have to share everything they know in one post or they'll try to share just how valuable they are or how much they can help in one post, as if it's the first, last and only post someone's ever going to see from them. And I started just thinking of every episode or every social media post or every email as a touch point. Like, this is just another opportunity for me to help my person. It's another opportunity for them to get a transformation for them to get a win for them to Know that I can help them. There's always going to be another episode next week. So it doesn't matter too if this is like the perfect episode or the fully value packed episode, or if this episode doesn't have as high a stats as the one did last week. Because I'm just gonna get up and go again next week with another episode. I am building a body of work. It's like a whole collection that I'm building. Like, I have my podcast, I have my social media, my emails. It's all working collectively together. There is no one episode, no one post, no one email. Like, no one thing is going to make or break my business. It's a combination of everything working together all the time. It's the multiple touch points that someone is having with me. It's the compound effect. And this switch in thinking has released so much pressure with creating content every week. It is released so much perfectionism. It's made me work so much faster and it's made me not get so caught up in my analytics and in my downloads and all the things. Because like I said, there, there's just gonna be another episode next week. Like, if y'all don't love this one, maybe you'll love the one next week. Like, there's just always gonna be another thing. There's gonna be another social media post tomorrow, another email next week. Like, it's totally fine. Just moving on live and learn is totally fine. The fourth lesson I learned is the really easy natural to you stuff is what your audience really loves. So it's like the stuff that comes so naturally to you that you can just talk about for days that you don't even have to think about. Like, the little tips and tricks that you just say almost like second nature. Like, you don't even realize that you said it. That is what your audience is like, wait, what? Slow down, repeat, rewind. Say again. It's the stuff that's like, so natural to you, so easy for you that is the gold to your audience. I would spend so much time putting together some episodes that felt so hard. And my downloads would be like, you know, whatever, not great. Then the weeks that I would be kind of in a hurry or a rush and just have to get something out quick. I'd be like, okay, I just coached a client on this. Let me just go say this on the podcast real quick. Those were the episodes that blew up that, like, you guys love that y'all were sending me messages about. I would go in my house to tell my husband after I Record it and be like, oh my gosh, tomorrow's episode's terrible. They're going to hate it. And then the next day my downloads would be like triple the previous week. I'd be like, okay, maybe not. But those were the ones that came out that were just so easy and natural to me, the quick and easy episodes. So it got me thinking, like, how do you get more of this out of you? Like, how do you find more of this, like gold within you? And what I know now is it's the little nuggets that you just say to your clients all the time. Like, I know the stuff I say to my clients on the calls that just come out so naturally I'm like, oh my gosh, I could write a book with this stuff. Like, that's the stuff that can be turned into very quick social media posts, little quick reels, videos, emails, content, wherever you're showing up, whatever blows your clients minds and is so helpful to your clients in real life, it will also blow your online audience minds. They're gonna be like, oh my gosh, this is the most helpful thing ever. I just truly believe the gold is in the stuff that comes so easily to you. It's the little tips and tricks that just come out of you whenever the clients, whenever your clients ask you questions and when you're just working with someone. Like, that's the gold. All right. The fifth lesson learned is your content is always working for you, even when you think it's not. So. Someone recently joined the LocalPreneur Academy and she told me that she had been following me for three years and she had never commented on anything. I didn't know she was listening to my podcast. I just didn't know. Like, I wasn't even aware that she was in my audience or had even been following along. And I think so often that our content is working. People are watching, are watching, they are listening, they are paying attention. But it's the people who aren't always actively engaging that end up becoming our buyers. And they appear. They tend to appear. It feels like out of nowhere, like some of my most engaged people on social media may not ever be my buyers. And a lot of people who join the local Preneur Academy, I've. They've never engaged with me before they join. I just have so much proof over and over that our buyers tend to watch a lot of what we do. They are engaged, but they aren't always engaging. And I see people get caught up in engagement metrics and then when they don't get the engagement, like, likes and comments. They think they're doing it wrong, so then they stop or they switch up what they're doing. And I think I have just found more success by continuing to be consistent, not stopping, not jumping from thing to thing, knowing that my clients are watching, and continuing to look for that evidence to build up my belief. So my advice for you is don't give up. Like, if you are posting now and not getting the engagement, keep going. And then to build up your belief, go look at your analytics, see how many humans are actually looking at it. You can see like, oh, 60 people saw this post. 20 people opened this email. 13 people watched my story. Great. Like, those are real people who are engaging with your content. Like, they're watching, they're reading, they're paying attention. So keep going for them the next lesson. Lesson number six that I learned is content creation does get faster and it does get easier. I actually just did an entire podcast episode on this that I'll link up in the show notes all about the time that your marketing takes. But when I first started podcasting, it was taking me, no lie, a full day of work, like eight hours to record a podcast. And most of that wasn't actually creating the podcast. Most of it was just me having a human experience of being a new content creator on a new platform. So a lot of my time was procrastinating, spinning out, starting, stopping, worrying about what to say, starting like a outliner script and then backspacing, starting over with a blank page, like, worrying how to say something, worrying if you guys would find it valuable enough, if y'all would all leave me terrible reviews, and if I would die or not, I would go eat a lot of snacks, I would scroll on my phone, I would talk to my husband, I would go for a lot of walks, got lots of exercise. On podcast days, I would listen to a lot of other podcasts, I would listen to coaching calls. Like I would do anything else until it was like the final hour and I had to get it done. It was a process in the beginning, and I just gave myself that much time. I blocked off an entire day because I knew that I was going to have a human experience. I did not try to record a podcast in a two hour time block because I just knew that that was not gonna happen. So if you're new to creating content, if you're trying to get into creating reels or creating a certain type of content on Instagram or just social media in general, emails, whatever it is for you, give yourself more Time than you need. Like, double. And trust the process. It feels slow now. And I know you think you don't have the extra time right now, but marketing and remind yourself of this. Marketing your business is the most important thing you can be doing right now besides actually working with your clients. You're either working with your clients or you're marketing to bring more clients in. There's, like, nothing else to be doing with your time. So give yourself the time to get better at creating the content and marketing while trusting that you're also going to get faster at it. Like, eventually, my podcast production time did get cut in half. I was able to do it faster. I was having less of an emotional response to it. My brain just calmed down. I got more confident, I got faster. And now a hundred episodes in, I'm able to crank it out even faster. Like, I'm not always hyperspeed. Some episodes do still take a little longer. I mean, like, this one took a little longer just because it was more of a list episode. But for the most part, in general, on average, like, you are going to get faster. So trust the process. Give yourself more time in the beginning, knowing that it will be a shorter time in the future if you allow yourself just to go through the content creation levels of being like a beginner, and then you'll become more proficient and then you'll get to the expert level. That's actually what that whole entire podcast was about, walking you through the different levels. So I'll link that up in the show notes. But trust the process. Give yourself more time in the beginning, knowing it will be shorter time in the future. If you allow yourself to just go through the content creation process, you'll get faster and really start to master it. All right, the seventh lesson I learned is I have genius inside of me, and you have genius inside of you as well. I know when we are putting content out, it is so easy to get wrapped up in imposter syndrome. That was my number one thing I struggled with in the beginning. I did not want to be just another podcast that sounded like everyone else. And I instantly wanted to be someone that everyone liked, knew, and trusted. And I wanted to be, like, the expert in the industry. But I had a lot of thoughts that people were going to be like, who's this? Does she really know what she's talking about? And I had a lot of fears around, like, huge, like, industry titans listening to my podcast in the beginning. Look, they were not listening to me in the beginning, but in my mind, I was like, oh, my Gosh, this huge person who's like, my idol is gonna listen and think I'm an idiot. That was in my head. But I had to show up and literally just be an example of what I teach. I knew I wanted to be like the expert, like the person you go to for marketing and growing your local business, just like I teach you to show up and be the local go to person. So I had to show up and as that person every day. I knew that was the only way that I would become her. And I got coaching on all my thoughts. Along the way, I journaled and self coached and wrote out all my own thoughts that didn't align with being that go to person. And what I found after a hundred episodes and really a lot earlier is I do have so much genius inside of me. I have my own experiences, my own knowledge, my own ways of teaching things, my own systems, my own strategies, things that are truly unique to me. And so do you. I talk to so many of my clients and they come to me and they think they don't have anything to say or offer or anything unique or original. And in one conversation, I'm like blown away by them. I'm like, tell me more. Oh, my gosh. So often we can't see ourselves the way that other people see us. And that's one thing that I've really had to work on and continue to work on. So I just want to offer that to you today. Other people see you as an expert in your field, in your industry. Other people look up to you for what you do. Other people see you as that go to person right now. They see your skill sets, they see your capabilities. They see how you can help them. And look, right now, if you're just getting started, it may be your friends and your family that see you that way. You may get text that are like, hey, I need your advice on this. Like, that is proof they see you as an expert. So now it's just you getting out there and sharing that with more people in your city. Okay, the last lesson learned, which I'm going to be honest and a little vulnerable here, this is a lesson that I am still learning, and that is to just be you in your content. Your people want to know the real you. You're the face of your business. You're the person they'll be working with. They do want to know you. Here's what happened. When I first started the podcast, I had this belief that my audience didn't want to know me at all. They just wanted the strategy they just wanted the information. They didn't want any small talk in the beginning. They just. They didn't want to know about my life, about my personal experience, nothing about me. They just wanted the information. So for like a hundred episodes, I shared very little about myself. But what I found actually through Instagram stories is people love getting to know me, and I'm still, like I said, I'm still working on showing more. More parts of my life and being more vulnerable and really just being myself. I notice when I'm truly being myself, like with my clients inside the localpreneur Academy, and can sometimes sense the difference. So that's, like I said, something that I'm continu. Continuing to work on is just relaxing more into myself, sharing more of me, more of my life, being a business owner that you know, and forming connections with my audience. I was a blogger for 14 years. I actually used to share, if not overshare, so much of my life on social media. And it's like I had this really weird switch in my mind when I became a coach that I had to have, like, this more mature business and less of an influencer lifestyle on social media. So it was just like this weird thought error that happened in my brain that I'm recognizing now and can continue to kind of uncover more of. But, I mean, even last week, I shared an episode that was more just about me and my personal journey through growing my business by 200% throughout pregnancy and with a newborn. And it was a little uncomfortable releasing that episode. I felt more vulnerable and questioned, like, do people want to know this about me? Because I don't typically talk about myself as much. So just being more vulnerable, offering more of myself, not being afraid to share about my life and letting you guys in a bit more has just been a lesson that I have been learning with the podcast and with social media in general. Because, like I said, I did release a hundred episodes with very little about me. But, you know, people still come to me all the time. They're like, I feel like we know each other. So maybe there's more in there that I realize, but. But just something that I was reflecting on. So are you sharing you with your audience? Like, are you letting them get to know you? And if not, what is one simple way you can start doing that? Like, maybe it's incorporating one story into your day, showing something about your personal life and what you're up to. Or maybe you start with one Instagram post a month that's like a roundup of your personal camera roll. Photos from the month to share a recap and give your audience a glimps into your life. Like I I do think there are some simple ways that you can ease into it. If you don't want to just go into instantly oversharing on the Internet, that's totally fine and available to you. Okay my friends, so Those are my eight lessons learned from my first 100 podcast episodes. So thank you so so much for being here. It absolutely means the world to get to hang out with you every Tuesday and to be part of your local business journey. So have a great week and I will talk to you soon. Hey, if you enjoyed today's episode, I want to invite you to check out my program, the LocalPreneur Academy. This is the only program for small business owners who want to become the local go to in their industry with a steady stream of clients. You can find more information@lesleypressnell.com and I'll see you inside.