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#267 Step-by-Step How to Make Money Online with Content

• Darren Lee

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Speaker 0:

Most content businesses get stuck at zero dollars a month, it's because they're often chasing the wrong metric. They're putting together everything that people don't really need. In this video, I'm going to show you exactly how to build a content system, turn content into cash and build a self-fulfilling system funnel for your business and for your content business. The reality is a lot of these content companies. They're chasing the wrong thing. They're making viral content about things that are controversial, they're not solving any specific problems and they're not helping anyone. What I'm going to show you is the Vox way, the way we've been doing it for many different companies for many years in different industries, all around podcasts and YouTube videos. So by the end of this video, you're going to have an exact content system for you to be able to generate more revenue, generate more leads, and do this without burning and crushing your entire soul, because you don't need to go viral, you don't need all the hacks, you don't need all the tricks. You need a system. You need to create a world and you need to create a universe for your content and for you to exist in. Everything else outside the content is not gonna drive revenue for the business. That is a feature, not a bug of the world, and that's what we're gonna build. Today, I'm gonna show you the exact content system that we're using and how you can build this for yourself. But, at the end of the day, what I'm really focused on as the founder, as the business owner, is the revenue that comes from it.

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Let me tell you a bit of a story. When we started Vox back in 2022, before we did the rebrand we were growing podcast and we were producing podcast. Our six-figure business was we build podcast. Our seven-figure business was we grow podcast, and our eight-figure business that we're building is we monetize podcasts. So me, my core focus is the content that we create and how that content leads to revenue downstream. So it has to be designed and we're going to design it today. And again, this is for anyone. So the first thing we need to look at always is going to be the actual content.

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Okay, so for here, we have a long form video. Okay, does this need to be a podcast? No, it can be a YouTube video. Okay, there needs to be one central video that all of your content comes off of this. So this is the highest value point and then at the very bottom of the content system. All the way down here you will have products and services. On one end of the spectrum you have products, your services. This is what you want people to buy. This can be low ticket, high ticket, mid ticket, it doesn't even matter. Okay, it can be a software company, it literally doesn't matter. Here we run organic traffic to this.

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But to get to this point, we need to do things, we need to build things, we need to have things that run, and then all of this right here is the universe, the universe where our content resides. So, from here to here to here, this is what we call the universe, and within the universe we create our content system. Content pillars for everything to exist, and the first three buckets that you need to be worried about and need to be focused on is your personal experiences, tactics and techniques and how-to guides. So all content that is created for your content business will fall into these three categories personal experiences, tactics and how-to guides. But the big difference here is this is split into two different modalities. These modalities get broken up into value-based content and experience-based content. So what value-based content is is the values that you actually hold you as an individual. Are you someone that has values, different types of abilities, different types of unique mechanisms for to be able to help other people. Are you someone who's just a high ticket closer, who got into the space two years ago, or are you someone that has genuine experience as an entrepreneur? There's a very fine line between one and the other. This is what's actually going to get people to cross the chasm to actually buy from you. This is what's going to get people to fall in love with your brand and how you can show up everywhere. This content system that we've been using has allowed people to never even think about being in the content hamster wheel of creating more content. We can basically define and create all of this, so we will split it up into value-based content and experience-based content.

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One thing I would say here is the value personal experience style content is what the OG influencers use. So people like Christian Guzman, mike Thurston, rob Lipset all of these guys had fantastic value-based personal experience content. But the challenge is for some people, they find it difficult to get people to convert into users. Okay, because they don't really have the real tactical, tangible, experience-based content. What is it within the world that they can truly help people with? And that's what we want to define and actually walk through with people, because, even though you'll get lots of like impressions or people to come that they can truly help people with and that's what we want to define and actually walk through with people Because, even though you'll get lots of impressions or people that come into your world through your values, we need to actually show people true experience that we are the person that they should buy from, repeat, buy from and really stay in the world with you.

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So we need to understand this on like a seven day time horizon, or when we're creating a podcast or when we're creating videos, because what's going to happen here is, if I just told you, basically entertaining style content I may as well be a Kardashian that Kardashian style content doesn't actually hit anyone. High entertainment, low value. Then, on the other spectrum, if it's a little bit of a drier style content, it's going to be very difficult for you to actually get entertained and stay within it. So combining the personal and tactical is the best mechanism for you to be able to get people into your universe, turn them into loyal fans, convert them into users, convert them into clients, turn those clients into raving fans and evangelists. These people will go to war, quite literally, for you, because you're not only teaching them on this side, you're also entertaining them on this side. So we need to balance educational content and entertaining content and combine the two together.

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So at this point, we're going to get into the next stage, right? So here, at the moment, we still don't actually have specific content that we're going to help people with. We need to be able to tie this down a little bit further, and how this will run is every part will split into two, into three different aspects, and within here, these are going to be very specific and very focused on the outcome. Okay, so one aspect of your personal experiences is going to be your origin story. Okay, the next one is your mission and vision, and the next one is your unique ability. Okay, let's go through these one by one Within your personal experiences.

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We don't want to just vomit onto our prospects and to our viewers. We want to show them our origin story. So my origin story is that I started my podcast with a $60 microphone and a money back guarantee, because I genuinely believed I was going to give up my podcast. Before then, I'd built an e-commerce company, I tried to build a startup, I was drop shipping rave clothes to rave kids and I was running parties as a kid. These are important things that show the full time span of who I am and also like what I'm interested in, right, I also played sport at a pretty high level and I use a lot of these as part of my origin story for people to understand who the hell I am, who really am I, because I need to basically pull people into my universe through storytelling. Storytelling lights up a part of the brain that a lot of the logical, straight line thinking is not actually able to access.

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Okay, and depending on your offer, depending on your business, you will want to interweave the two to three, if not four, overarching themes that make you the category of one in your specific vertical. So let's give an example If you run a sales podcast, you will have, let's say, sales content to do of you as a junior sales rep, senior sales rep, sales manager, even head of sales. You will detail the main important points. But the best aspect of storytelling is not the fact that you need to detail everything, Because if you ask your grandmother how was her vacation, she will tell you one by one what she did on every day, and that's boring as fuck. What you want is you want the three or four main moments that you can really dig in on. So let's just take the sales example.

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Your first example here in the origin story can literally be you just saying here was my experience picking up the phone, here's my experience on my first sales call ever. How that felt. Because feeling in origin story attaches way more than logic. We connect much more on the logical side in the end with our offer, but on an emotional side, we buy people into you, buy into the story. That's why you look at Hormozy and he's had seven failed businesses before gym launch and you feel that you relate to it. It becomes relatable and that's exactly why you detail that story.

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Now, an important part here is that this has to be no BS right. Whenever you hear the term bullshit backstory, it's for a good reason. People take this out of context. People say more than what's actually true. So it's meant to be very specific and very focused on your actual story.

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Okay, what's important here is I would leave the stuff that's not to do with your offer just out of it, just for now. It's probably a point for a podcast, maybe for another day, but now, in the beginning, you don't necessarily need that. What you need right now is just to detail the origin story, but we need to show people, through our mission and through our vision, what we want to do differently. So vision is what you want to see differently in the world. So for me, my vision is I believe podcasts are the highest form of communication to connect deeply with people, believe podcasts are the highest form of communication to connect deeply with people. So my vision is to inspire people to have their own podcast, to be able to go deeper with their friends, family, network, customers, clients. But my mission is how I get there. So my mission is we have a team, we have a company called Voix and we help people grow and monetize their podcast. We do that through different ways. We do it for them and we do it with them Through our education business and through our media company. And the reason why we do it that way is because we can help the most amount of people.

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Whenever I hear about people's vision that they want to help as many people as possible, but then their actual mission is completely misaligned because they're just selling some high ticket service to some person who's like 80 years old or works in a company that doesn't actually solve anyone. It doesn't help anyone, it doesn't do anything for anyone. So this needs to be very specific to your own journey. That's why credibility and authority is the highest point of leverage here, because the more authority we can have. I recorded 263 podcast episodes. We released three podcasts a day. We've released over a thousand podcasts. I would like to say that I have the credibility and the authority to deliver a podcast for someone, because I've just done it for half a decade, quite literally. So now we have a very aligned mission and vision dialed in the last part.

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Here is the unique ability. So people think unique ability is just what they do. Okay, I do sales, I make podcasts. Unique ability is not that. Unique ability is how you change someone through the different mechanisms that you can help them with. So I may help someone produce a podcast, but I may help someone increase their revenue, save time, grow their network by speaking to other people through a podcast. So see the change here. My unique ability isn't editing a damn podcast. It's actually enabling people to build their own successful business, build their own brand and build their network and save time doing it with a podcast. So my unique ability is marketing, positioning, growth, monetization and building offers for entrepreneurs, and we do that through the vessel of a podcast.

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When this is actually taken care of, we move on to the next stage, which is the tactical and technical content. So the personal content brings people into your world, but the tactical content will get them to actually pay with their wallet, and this is done through a few different mechanisms. It's going to be your principles, so the principles you live by in your business. It's the frameworks you can share, and the last one is the techniques. So let's break this down step by step. So now, people that are in your world and they've seen a few couple of cool posts, or maybe a cool podcast, or maybe even a short form clip that comes off the back of this. What they're actually seeing then as a result is they're seeing your methodology for doing things.

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We have a three-step approach for growing podcasts from zero to six figures. It's called the content growth flywheel. It's positioning, growth and offers. That is a framework. My principles is that I believe podcasts should only be video only. They shouldn't be audio, because audio sucks my principle and because of that, I pull people in to have a similar value based around the principles. So the principles are very tactical, they're very strategic, they're very keyword focused, they're very focused on the actual vehicle of what you do, because this stuff builds trust, this stuff builds your Stripe account, and how this is actually done is because of the fact that we show them the method of delivery, because if you cannot deliver on what you're saying, well, then you're just a broke influencer. So what we want to do here is we want to show people the methods.

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So this is your four-step framework, your five-step framework, whatever that is that you have as your unique mechanism. That's what you need to bring up here, and the unique mechanism is based off a few things. It's, one, your experience. Two, your actual strategy for doing something. And three, why is it valuable? It has to be new, it has to be new. It has to be new. It has to be new. It has to be new. It has to be new, novel, different, differentiated. Whatever that mechanism might be, it has to come in here, because people's brains are looking for things that are new, novel.

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And it also has a framework based around it, because if I tell you today that I can grow your podcast, you need to see the roadmap. This needs to be valuable to you and it also needs to be simple for you to understand. So the framework can be three steps. It can be a roadmap, it can be based on time, it can be based on the calendar, it can be based on duration, but regardless, it needs to be based on something right. It needs to be based on something, because that's where you have this self-development podcast or guru who just says like, oh, like, just meditate and just you'll be like happier because they've just showed what works for them. But if you try meditate, it will work. You need a framework, you need a method, you need a roadmap, you need a way to do this that also positions yourself as an authority.

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So where I see this fall down is guys create an offer or create content. Then they need an offer, so they just make up a bullshit, basically framework that didn't help them and never helped anyone else as well, whereas you want the framework to be created in essence, of you doing the thing. Authority is made up of your own credibility and your own experiences, so we want to be able to detail that very specifically for people that when they come into our world, we will show them this, and this is all based on free content. Remember I haven't told you how many times you should post a short form video. I haven't said how many posts you need to put up on Twitter or how much tweets you need to do or LinkedIn posts need to do. I'm showing you the ecosystem in which your content exists for you to be able to drive up traffic to your offer, because we need to get people from the traffic source into our actual products or services All organic, no ads.

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And the last step in here is going to be around our how-to guides. This is things that have a fast time-to-value ratio. Time Time to value is how much time does it take before someone can implement the piece of value? It should be instant, it should almost be instant. The best metric is time to value equals zero, because you were able to deliver them so much value right up front. And how we do this is through trends, actionable insights and then relevant concepts, unlike the frameworks. Frameworks can get kind of boring because it's like my five steps to improve b2b sales on linkedin, whereas how to guide is very topical.

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So let's give an example. At donald trump went on a bunch of podcasts. I wrote posts around him going on podcasts and how, basically the biggest leaders in the world are going on podcasts, so maybe you should too. And then that's relevant and trendy when there's a campaign, a political campaign, so I lean into what's happening during those cycles of time. Okay, so that's trending, I can put that in there. And also, if it's actionable and there's insight there, people can go and implement that right now. So I'll give you another example. If I'm analyzing the video of Donald Trump on a podcast, I can say, oh, he leaned into aspects of sales here, he leaned into aspects of persuasion, he leaned into aspects of manipulation or whatnot. And I can detail what's the insight. So what's the lesson, what's the insight? And then people can say, oh, okay, I learned that aspect of sales. I can add this in right here Even though people are led by their stories and we can show them through storytelling how to improve just their life, the framework approach here can run stale.

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It will still lead to conversion, but the trends, the actual insights, the relevant concepts will get people to buy now because it's the last point in the curve. So if we looked at things like Robert Cialdini Influence, which is like the best book of all time when it comes to this. What we can add in here is a fact of like, scarcity and urgency, because if something is scarce, like the opportunity to start a podcast before it becomes saturated, or, let's say it's urgent, whereby there's less people available to do it now than ever before, or it's harder to do it now than before, that's still relevant. That's a relevant concept. So it's taking what's happening in the world right now out in the world. What's happening in the world. How does that fit into your content system right now? So that's what keeps you top of mind Again, top of mind, top of mind.

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Authority sell content, but one thing in here that's going to be very important is where do they go next? Because if you can't take your users from a rented platform which is up here into an owned platform, it's going to be super difficult for you to convert them into paid users. We run a ton of podcasts, a ton of content businesses, and it's the same story over and over again, which is Darren growth is nice, but how do I turn content into cash? And it's the same story over and over again, which is turn growth is nice, but how do I turn content into cash? And it's true, this mechanism right here. So we will have, let's say, a high value free training, lead magnet workshop webinar. That has to come next. So what that would mean is we'll have this in here and the circle will start getting complete, because at this point, everything will dial into this. This is a super important point.

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After this point, everything you do has another step in the journey for your customer, because you're producing all this amazing free content and it's like here's my story, here's what I believe, here's what I'm really good at, here's what's working in the market, here's the trends, here's the frameworks, here's the tools, here's the actual insights, here's the relevant concepts. If you want to learn more about this topic, that's in my universe hit this free training, get this free lead magnet workshop webinar, automated workshop, whatever that may be. But it has to come next, because most guys are caught up in here or they're caught here. Or they're caught here because there's always a constraint on the business. There's a bottleneck, there's a constraint. There's always something like this.

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So the goal here is to make this high value free content better than most people's paid content. So a simple, simple method here is if you have a program, a course, whatever you want to call it. Let's say it's just a large program. You want to take out a module from here or take out a lesson from here your top lesson that's like 40 minutes long and give it away for free. So I have bought programs for $8,000 because in an email, in a lead magnet, I was given a training for something that's very important in that program. So it was a sales training that I actually watched and it was like how to get like more high ticket clients or some shit, and I watched it and then I bought something for 8k afterwards and the rest of the program was pretty good, whatever, but it was the most, it was the most important and the most valuable point.

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Okay, so we need a way to bring people in, because if you're gatekeeping and you can't gatekeep in organic content, it's just not possible. If you're going to gatekeeping and you can't gatekeep in organic content, it's just not possible. If you're going to gatekeep, you can't do it because people will say, well, this stuff is kind of shit, because if I've heard a great story from you and you taught me something cool, and then I click on a free training and then the free training is just like buy my course, buy my course, buy my course. I'm not going to do anything from it, because this on the back end should be your last point of contact. Before someone books a call, buys your program, takes the next step. It should be the very last thing they do.

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For most people, they will never get to this point, and how we put this on steroids is that we need a way to drip people into our program so this is most evil donors on this process. Drip people into our program, so this is most evil donors on this process. So that's why I really want you to try to get it, which is we go drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip. Hopefully you can guess what this is. If you don't know, I will tell you. Which is email sequences. So we need to run an email sequence on the backend into our next funnel, and the reason being is because people don't go on Instagram just to buy shit. People don't go on LinkedIn, youtube just to buy stuff. Okay, so if we've wowed them in the universe, we can then bring them into our high value content. We have them on our email list, put them into MailChimp, convertkit, whatever you want to use, and then we can run an email sequence on the backend.

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I would say there's two different approaches. Okay, there's the one approach, which is the 48 hour approach, and then in the 48 hour approach, you're showing your story, a YouTube video, you're showing case studies, testimonials, your best testimonials, everything within that 48 hour period. So that could be like three or four emails and you might think, well, everyone's going to hate that, they're going to unsubscribe. If they do unsubscribe, they're not a good fit for your email, like that's. The whole logic is that we don't. We don't just want tire kickers on it. We don't want an email list of 35,000 people and they're all tire kickers. We want to make sure that we have the right people in the ecosystem, because people aren't. You don't need to get people to buy your shit, but you need to get them basically indoctrinated into your brand so that then, over time, when they're financially capable and they want to take the next step, they'll take the next step.

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The other side of it is, let's say, a 28-day drip and then, with a 28-day drip, what that would look like is you span out emails, maybe every four days. You'd increase them over four days, five days. Over those 28 days, you just drip feed the same information, but it's less pushy. There's less. I need this. Instead. You want this.

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You've designed it in a way that has the same story videos, that has the same testimonials, that has the same reviews for you to go and be able to help other people. And then, throughout that process, this cycle literally repeats, because it will go from here okay which is a products and services all the way back. So this goes back and this will go back, and then you hit round two. There's two, your second video and then the third video, and then the fourth video, and then the third video, and then the fourth video, and then the fifth video, and then the sixth video and then the seventh video, because what will actually happen is you don't need to sell. You will just create an atmosphere that will allow people to come to you. You'll keep creating videos, and these videos will hit these different components, and then these different components will generate more leads, and these different leads will go into the email sequence and then they will invariably buy.

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Okay, so you don't need to do all of this. You just need to understand this, build it out and then have this on top. Okay, because then your effort and sacrifice to quote her mosey is just one YouTube video a week. It hits these components, it hits these parameters and it positions you as the absolute beast in your industry. And it's fun, it's exciting. It's not restrictive. It's actually the opposite of that. It's going to keep you in the game for longer and longer.

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You can do all of this without sales calls, without ads, without wasting time and without spending your entire life on it. If that looks good for you, then I'd love to show you a little bit of an insight into Voets and how we can also help you with this process. This is a huge part which we train people on in our six-figure program called Incubator and our seven-figure program called Apex, to scale businesses from zero to six figures and six figures to seven figures in our two programs. So that sounds good for you. You can actually schedule a call right down below with our team and take the next step and have a chat with our team. But until then, I want to ask you one last question do you have a system like this, have you run a system like this, and also, does it produce results? Because if it doesn't, you need to improve your art history, your principles, your frameworks, your techniques, and that is how you will turn content into cash in 2025.