Kickoff Sessions

#285 More Content Won't Make You Rich, But This Will

• Darren Lee • Episode 285

Share episode

Watch This NEXT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlK2P76_ZZs

Want me to give you some help with your content business? Book in a call with me to discuss working together: https://www.voics.co/schedule

Support the show

Speaker 1:

You remove the word podcast and you just insert any type of content. So if you guys are running a LinkedIn strategy, an IG strategy, a Twitter strategy, it's the same thing. Any of you guys could put your head out the window and scream for leads and you'd probably get them. So the actual mechanism and modality doesn't matter. It's not about like dollars and cents. It's about solving the problem. For many people, you have to do it for yourself before you do it for anybody else.

Speaker 2:

So I did it for myself before we did it for anybody else. Right now, our company is pacing around three and a half million a year, right? So for anyone that doesn't know who Darren is, I will let him give you a little intro, and then we're going to dive into the world of crushing it in podcasting and YouTubing and making a hundred grand a month type conversations.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and ultimately, I want to make this about you guys. Thank you for coming. Thank you for letting me speak number one. So my name is Darren Lee. I come from a very rural area in Ireland. I spent many, many years locked away in Ireland. It doesn't look it from the hair. It looks like I've been stuck on a beach for too long.

Speaker 1:

I have spent five years in Bali, though, and I think for anyone that initially comes to Bali, you probably think it's for backpackers walking around right, kind of seen a few faces knotted. What I like to think is the old style of Bali. We're now in a new evolution of Bali, where we have some amazing entrepreneurs, people who are sick of Dubai, sick of the Rolexes, sick of the BS of the West, and they're here for a new and better life. So I think I've seen some of that evolution, but for context, for my own business. So I've been building businesses since I was about 14, 15. I used to run parties 15, 16, 17 years old. I built my first company at 21, went to zero, built another company at 23, went to zero, and then it was time to slow down, listen and learn. So that's when I started my podcast at 24. So I've interviewed some people that are very influential in the space and it's been a huge lesson to myself. I was broke, had no money, so I had to learn by asking people to come on my podcast and learn. And what I learned through that process was that a lot of the content that we guys want to put out is trust. Right, we build reciprocity, we build trust with people. I've created a thousand YouTube videos. Some of them have tanked, some of them have done well, well and I've seen the evolution.

Speaker 1:

So when I left the world of startups and I used to work in fintech, I got some interest from people about what I was doing. So that started a mini agency media company at the time and we ran a lot of your favorite podcasters, podcasts in America, a lot of the big, you know fortune 100 companies. We run their podcasts and everything and really that kind of born into more of an agency model and a media company. So everything to do with their backend from their products, their services, everything we just do we run on the backend and it's a complicated model. But the reason why I say that is because a lot of this stuff that I was building wasn't really for everyone. I had content coming out. People, for the most part, liked it, but they weren't really engaging with me because I had this super expensive agency that no one could work with and it was this massive gap.

Speaker 1:

But what I'd realized was we were actually building a broader ecosystem. So the ecosystem that we really build is we put content on the front end in the form of YouTube, video, podcast, whatever that may be. We build reciprocity and we pull people into our universe and then, as for you guys particularly who may be in the journey of that, you can use that to feed your business and your lifestyle. So I like to say that we're not really for just random creators, we're for business owners who want to grow their business. So we kind of have a portfolio of companies now that are doing 10K a month and they're doing 10 million a month, and the beautiful part about this is it's the same thing.

Speaker 1:

It's just content on the front end and a backend offer, product, service or, in the case of many of these companies, huge enterprise deals effectively. And that kind of model, that kind of build, effectively allows you guys and everyone to really build a business that you really enjoy. Right, and you have to do it for yourself before you do it for anybody else, so I did it for myself before we did it for anybody else, and right now our company is pacing around three and a half million a year. We have an amazing team. Tom is head of client success in our education business, and now we have an education business which teaches people how to build a content business.

Speaker 2:

And then we have the agency then, which also runs the show effectively, because it seems to me and I've run a couple of podcasts very, very amateurly a long time ago now but it seems like a lot of podcasts don't really make money and to generate revenue through that seems to be quite difficult for most, but your model seems to work in a much more efficient approach. Do you want to share anything more on that?

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So if you remove the word podcast and just insert any type of content, so if you guys are running a LinkedIn strategy, an IG strategy, a Twitter strategy, it's the same thing. Any of you guys could put your head out the window and scream for leads and you'd probably get them. So the actual mechanism and modality doesn't matter. It literally doesn't matter. We did it with probably the hardest form possible, which is a podcast, and if you get into the nerdy metrics of retention, it has the lowest right. It's the hardest to keep people on the platform. So the logic was everyone's viewing it through the lens of you need a podcast to make money, or it's impossible to make money from it, but it's actually your business on the backend. So let's give an example we have a lot of sales trainers and guys who teach people sales. They, in theory, can write on LinkedIn, can post on IG, can post on YouTube, but they use that traffic to pull it into their business, right? So I think a lot of content creators are thinking through the lens of they want to go viral, they need to chase likes, they need to chase engagement. All of that stuff is actually just not necessary because effectively likes and cash, so you're not going to have those people as the buyers. What we want to do is almost reframe it. So I've had the luxury of working with a lot of large companies and the main thing we focus on is the product, which otherwise, in the online business space, is the offer. So without the offer being dialed in and you guys were talking about it earlier too nothing else matters because you can have the most views, the most engagement, but if it's falling into thin air, it falls to no one. Everyone knows the ice guy right now that sticks his head in his ice in his head and bend in the bowl of ice. You know, in theory, he needs to have a really strong offer for him to make a lot of money, and his revenue per followers is actually very low in comparison to how much followers he has 10 million and he's doing like a quarter of a million a month, which is amazing, but his revenue per follower is super low, whereas the irony was that we worked with so many people that had tiny audiences that their revenue per follower was crazy. They're making $1, $2, $3 per follower, and that's a beautiful part.

Speaker 1:

So I think we're in this new stage now where it's like forget content as becoming a creator. Look at content as your business, and then what do you need to do as a business owner? To just get more traffic, because when the offer is defined and you solve a painful problem for a specific user, you just need traffic, and then that allows you to show up as a guest, as a podcast host, as a YouTuber it really doesn't matter. And then the beautiful part then is having a clean, crisp sales process to get people through the line right, and I think those businesses can be extremely lean, and you guys were talking about earlier around the one person business.

Speaker 1:

Effectively, that can be it. The only reason why you'd need to have any complexity is just the complexity of the actual implementation. So I kind of would like everyone to kind of rethink about how they think about content, because it's not about the likes and the followers, like. Some of you guys may know me, but most of you guys probably don't, and that's almost intentional, because if you knew me, you'd probably have a not a positive association with the content, because it's just for likes, which is a different reframe.

Speaker 2:

Interesting, so it puts a very different spin on it. And do you see any trends coming along Like you've just talked about there? Do you see any sort of if you look into a crystal ball and look into the next year or two to give advice to people that are listening?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's an amazing question. So if we take a step back, like, why do we do what we do? Like, what's the actual logic? We're actually in a trust recession right now. So people are super skeptical of the course sellers, the program bros. They are skeptical of it. People don't want to work with agencies.

Speaker 1:

So what is the differentiator? It's not the personal brand, it's actually the mechanism of what you're doing. Right, it's the fact that you're showing up. You are that person. You've solved the problem for yourself before you solve it for anybody else. That's the most important part. So, as you're building your business and as I speak to you, you will immediately search me on Google, on YouTube. Youtube is owned by Google. You'll see me initially, and all we're doing here is just crossing that trust chasm. Because if you want more people to come into your ecosystem, we just want to build more trust. Right, and it's not about, like, dollars and cents, it's about solving the problem for many people. So let's just give an example. So let's say, if I helped someone with sales and we do sales training, so that's why I'm giving an example If so, no one can afford a product, a program. I'm totally fine Because there's the ecosystem where people step into your world and in theory, your free content should be better than everyone else's paid content.

Speaker 1:

And that's the beautiful part is because you give it out, you give it all. You show the way, you show the how, and then people want to come and they're like you know, I've built a reciprocity. I've been watching this guy for two, three years. I know I want to take the next step, because then at your point, then you can have your $1,000 product, your $5,000 product. We have a $60,000 product and it doesn't matter because it's for the right person. People pay for proximity and speed at the end of the day. But what I want to kind of get across is we want to give people an ecosystem so that they have fun to work with us and for work where people work with. You could be just on your email list.

Speaker 2:

Right, right, interesting. Yeah, I was told he was going to be a good one to interview, and now I know why. How much time have we got? We've got five minutes.

Speaker 1:

I've got all day, he's got all day, he's got all day, all right.

Speaker 2:

So is there anything else you'd like to add to knowing that the audience here is a mix of seasoned entrepreneurs with all different backgrounds and levels of experience?

Speaker 1:

And is there anything you would like to give this audience that you think would be valuable right now? So I think there's a real gap in the whole online business world where we have business owners who are too proud to create content and then we have creators who are too proud of their Canva templates to send DMs. You need to find a marriage between the two, because I think offers and sales is like dating If you see someone that you're attracted to you, don't just walk over and just jump on them right. There's a bit of a look, there's an engage, there's almost like an opt-in. There's like a step right, there's like a step.

Speaker 2:

Is this how you see life? Just walking around?

Speaker 1:

opt-in, engaged, love it. But we need to find a point whereby we have amazing content that solves a painful problem for someone and then we have a mechanism and a path to go and work with that person. So, taking that step right and taking that step and if I was to like, look at any like business, the first thing step down is how do we talk to the people that we work with? How do you talk to the people that we engage with? How do we talk to the people that we engage with every single day? Because a lot of guys want to work with you and even looking at your work, I can see that you can help a lot of people.

Speaker 1:

But there needs to be that step, that small step, to shorten that gap 10k a month business, a million a month business and much, much further. And I think even the guys at the very top of the game, they're still talking to their prospects, they're talking to their leads, they're running amazing lead magnets, they're keeping it active. It's simple but not easy, but it is possible for everyone and that's the big thing, right? So you think it's possible for everyone 100% Okay.

Speaker 1:

Because, if you think about it, if you take a step back so you help people with hypnosis, If you have amazing content on how hypnosis can help you get to the next level as an entrepreneur and unlock that different aspect, people could watch that and maybe look at some YouTube videos and do some self-hypnosis, but then they could also see you as the authority in the niche and say, oh, I want to go take another step with you. They might pay you for a mastermind, pay you for one day, pay for half the day, pay for six months in a program, but it goes back to having that specific problem that you're solving and that doesn't mean you need to be an expert, Right? Remember? I had a background in tech. I was recording podcasts in my bedroom with a Zoom mic and everything, a Zoom camera and people would just say, hey, like could you come in and have a talk with our marketing team? I'm like, all right, cool. I was like, yeah, guys just run content.

Speaker 1:

So the irony of being the expert is that you only need to be a four out of 10 to help someone. That's a three out of 10. If you want to learn golf, you don't go to Tiger Woods, you go to someone who's a four out of 10 in your local golf course, because that's the only place you need to be as the authority within your small specific zone of influence and over time that will grow. That influence will grow. We started a podcast and we're doing YouTube as well. We do ghostwriting. It's probably not as good as you, but we do it. But, and that's the kind of idea.

Speaker 2:

Amazing. Well, thank you, as always, I'd love to continue for another hour, another two hours probably. Haven't got the time. We'll definitely do another one for sure. Maybe you can point us in the right direction on that side of things too. 100%, yeah, thank you very much. Really appreciate your time.

Speaker 1:

Thank you.

Speaker 2:

Ritter.