What Your Content Says About Your Business

In The Business of Marketing Podcast by A. Lee Judge

We’re back with a strong episode about business content you won’t want to miss. We discuss what your content says about your business. We focus on 3 Big Topics…

  • Using your clear and honest story to gain trust
  • How to build credibility and trust
  • The importance of sharing your knowledge

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Rough Podcast Transcript:

(please excuse the robot… a human has not checked the quality of this translation)

Intro: 00:01 Welcome to the business of content podcast of place where you can learn how to use digital and social media to drive your business and personal brand, and now your host, A. Lee Judge and Dontaye Carter.

A. Lee Judge: 00:17 Once again, welcome to the business of content podcast where we talk about content creation and how to use it to connect with your audience. I’m A. Lee Judge and I’m Dontaye Carter. And today we’re gonna. Talk about what your content says about you storytime. All right. Dontaye is the story man. That’s his area of expertise. Yes sir. Alright, so today we’re going to cover three things. We’re going to make sure we hit at least these three. First of all is using your clear, not a story for your brand and for your content. Second of all, how to create credibility and trust. And third, it’s a hard one, right? And the third one is the importance of sharing your knowledge. All right. Thought leadership. There we go. Oh, okay. So let’s kick it off with the first one. Dontaye, let’s talk about using your clear and honest story for your content. How do you do that?

Dontaye Carter: 01:06 Know, I think one of the things that I asked my clients before we even get to the, what is your clear and honest story is what’s your why? [inaudible]. Okay. Um, because you can’t even get to that latter portion without answering that question, why did I, why did I step into this profession? Why do I continue to be in this profession? What is the foundation of that? Oh, that why? What’s your story there that’s defining what is that defining moment? And those are, those are the things that I really sit down and I asked them like, we got to sit down. Let’s, let’s. Because I want, I want to brag on you for a little bit, right? I want to figure out what made you who you are today because that’s the person that your audience, that, that targeted audience that you’ve identified is going to connect to outside of your company, outside of your executive staff, outside of your board.

A. Lee Judge: 01:58 They want to know about you. So I think the clear part is where you talk to them about, especially because if you’re going to tell your story first, you have to be clear about what your story is and who you are. Right? Well, I think we’re all clear about what our story is. I think in behind scenes we all share that story of, of who we are, what made us who we are. I think the part where it gets a little, a little cloudy, I guess you can say is when you have to share that story with the public, that’s the hard part because you’re taking, you’re removing that veil, you’re allowing people to see you for who you are. And that’s the hardest part is people don’t always want to be seen. I think prior to social media, parts of the Internet, you always knew about big companies, but you never knew who the people were inside those companies. Gotcha. And today’s Day and age, we want to know who you are. You know, we, we want to know, especially when it comes to expressing in terms of

A. Lee Judge: 03:00 for business content, the clarity part. Let’s say for example, if you have a woman who’s a minister, who’s an author and a CEO of a company, you know, when she looks to make content, um, is she going at it from my, I am my, my clear messages about women? Is My clear messages about a ministry? Is it about, you know, running a business which is my clear message, what is it one thing that I’m gonna let spearhead my story, which I think that’s the hardest part. I’ve gone through exercise and myself where I’ve written down, you know, what all things that I can talk about, which was my passionate about which ones I want to be known for and it takes time for an individual to figure out their own clarity and how to present their story.

Dontaye Carter: 03:44 Well, I, I think it’s, it’s coming back to your target audience, right? What story’s going to resonate best with them? Okay. Because at this point it’s not about you, it’s about them and it’s about keeping you connected with that target audience. And so I think we can really get caught up in wanting to share these different parts of our lives. But if they don’t relate to your business, what you’re trying to sell, how you’re trying to connect with your audience, then none of that matters. Okay. So we got to clear part down. Yeah. How about the honest part? Who first just honestly yourself, right? Yeah. Be Honest. Two years. Well, you can be honest to your, your, uh, you can be all, you can be honest to that audience until you’re able to look yourself in the mirror. And um, you know, I was um, I was reading about Cindy Whitehead.

Dontaye Carter: 04:33 I mean, she’s a serial entrepreneur, created dozens of businesses, sold them, she’s a billionaire, Yada Yada. But her passion is getting more women involved. And um, she was actually on a podcast and the speaker was saying, you know, I didn’t bring her here because, you know, of all this sexism or anything I, I brought her here for the simple fact of she’s great at what she does. And I think that’s the mindset that you also have to be as being too good to where they can ignore you and allowing that to tell your story because she’s so good that she can be honest about her story, that hey, I have a passion about helping women, one because I am a woman. And two, because I know that when it comes to business owners, it’s a male dominated industry. There aren’t too many women and these fields that are dominating like, hey, like I dominate. And so I think you also have to be very aware of, okay, where am I at in terms of my business? Do I really have that platform to tell the story the way I want to. Because if that story doesn’t come off authentic, you’re going to lose your audience anyway.

A. Lee Judge: 05:42 And it, that, that authenticity, I think goes a long way in terms of allowing your audience to connect with you and believe you as being, being real. Like, uh, you mentioned someone being honest. You as a story. I think about Oprah Winfrey, Oprah Winfrey selling weightwatchers, right? Um, my first thought is, okay, now she has a chef, somebody can follow her around what a perfect plate, you know, perfect meal that the calories down to the count and every time she has a thought of being hungry, this, there’s someone right beside her, given her some food. But then she comes out honestly and says, I love bread. I’m like, wow, okay. I get it because I love bread too. So she’s not so perfect as he can’t admit honestly that hey, I’m selling is weight watchers stuff. But the struggle is real because I love brain. Like everybody else loves bread, you know, and it, it kind of made you think, wow, okay, if she can do this and she has real life cravings, you know, her honesty is that she loves bread. All of a sudden what she’s trying to push her in her business sense is a lot more credible. I think I can relate to that. Yeah.

Dontaye Carter: 06:52 You know, I know a guy who really, you know, he preaches, um, financial literacy and, and minority communities. And as an established minority, his message really resonates with me because of the fact that he can step in and say, you know, I struggle with my finances as well as successful as you all think I am. I still struggled my finances. And that’s a message that resonates with us all. And I think when you, when you reach a certain level of success and you’re able to kind of peel those layers back and say, hey, I know you guys see me for being this, this successful business person, but I’m still this, when I’m honest about who I am, these are still my struggles. And those are the things that resonate with people.

A. Lee Judge: 07:46 Okay. And that, that brings us clearly into our second item, which, which is how to create credibility and trust. You know, so we talked about being, you know, being clear on what you’re talking about, honest about who you are. And I think those two things are the foundation for building, building credibility and trust

Dontaye Carter: 08:07 are. And I think the way that you continue to drive that point home is really telling the stories of how you help people write the business that you have. What did you do to improve the lives of your customers? Okay. And I think, I think a lot of people lose sight of that. There are so quick to want to get, Oh, I got to get a testimonial up on my website. I got to get this person talking about how amazing I am or that person talking about how amazing I am. I’m always impressed by the people who, whenever I read reviews and I hear a customer or clients say, Oh, they were just so patient. They helped me. There’s, um, there’s one attorney that, um, that I was working with and his clients. The, one of the things that they always said about him is he never waited for you to ask him to do something.

Dontaye Carter: 09:04 There was one lady that had been in a car accident. She’s a, she’s a school teacher, didn’t, did not want to miss the rest of the school year. The accident happened in January. She didn’t want to miss the school year because she wanted to be there for her seniors that were leaving and this guy set up to where she would go and see a. I’m a chiropractor every week until the end of the school year. When she got the surgery. She never asked them to do that, but he thought about the fact that she loves her students so much she’s going to want to be there, so this is something I can do to help her to help to ease the pain that she really strives to be there for her students. And so as those things where people are just like, wow, he just helped me. He was so thoughtful.

Dontaye Carter: 09:45 He thought of me, she thought of me. And so these are the things that build that credibility, net trust because the customers know they come first. Okay. So this was a business that did this or? Yes, it was a business law firm. Okay. So they, they basically, uh, could use that to create content, but not so much from a sales standpoint, but to just show that they have credibility and they’re trustworthy. And to, as we always say, document something that they’re doing and just let people know and connect with them as being honest, credible people. Yeah, definitely. And so the way that they documented it is, um, it ended up, it was, um, it was a video that was, that was put together and it was also, um, it was also, um, a blog post that was created and I kind of helped me both of those.

Dontaye Carter: 10:38 But the whole point was, it’s let’s not talk about selling. Let’s not talk about, hey, give me a review. Let’s talk about how you serve that person. At the end of the day, it comes down to service. When you, when you serve people like they become the best, they become your third party credibility. And that’s what you want. You want somebody that’s going to go out, go out into the world and say, oh my goodness, the brother that owns content content monster is amazing. Like he knew how to get my good side. He knew how to make sure that I spoke clearly. You know what I mean? Because all these things matter to people. Nobody wants to get on TV and look funny right here, right? And so when you’re so thoughtful that they don’t even have to ask you for help, you just, hey, you don’t even say it, but you’ll notice that they’re struggling and you just go and help them.

Dontaye Carter: 11:26 That’s how you build the credibility. That’s how you build trust, because people know that you have their best interest at heart. At the end of the day, that’s what you want it as a business owner and as a business. Right? And we’re talking about how you know what your, what your content says about you, and so it’s important too, to realize that if your day to day activities are positive and trustworthy and people you know, it would be valuable for your customers to know. Be sure to content out of that, document it because if you’re doing good deeds or train your customers well, that should be documented because if I’ve never heard of your company before, for example, but I found a story about how well you treat your customers. I want to be a customer too, so I want to urge companies not to miss opportunities to document them doing what they do.

Dontaye Carter: 12:17 Right, and let me just ask yourself, what is Walt Disney? No, for? What does Coca Cola no for like they’re known for how they’ve made people feel and the more that you can help people to develop an emotional connection with your business, with your brand, with your story, that’s when you develop the credibility and the trust and that isn’t done through advertising either. No, it’s not. It’s done through creating tons and tons of content that that effectively demonstrate who you are and what your story is is called pop pop. You want to explain that to us people, to people, man, people to people. That’s right. It’s all about connecting lists. Let’s get away from La, from big business. At the end of the day, we all know people connect with people before to connect with your products or your services. It’s all about the people. The more that you can get back to the people the morning you can give to the people, the more that the people will give back to you and you’re the king of transitions because the third and final ad we want to make sure we cover today is the importance of sharing your knowledge with your audience, sharing your knowledge.

Dontaye Carter: 13:30 You know? Um, it’s so funny, I said because you hear so many of ’em I guess some of the older business owners that are like, you know, back in my day we never had to share our knowledge. We just did it. I don’t want everybody to know what I do or how I do it, but in today’s Day and age, that’s value to people. People want to know, hey, what do you know? Yeah, how do you accomplish what you do and what are the results that you can show like these things all matter to people. That’s why data driven storytelling is huge. It’s pulling analytics is letting people know like, Hey, I have a 99 point nine percent winning percentage and I am still ready for trial. That’s what develops confidence. We talked about building credibility and trust. The more that you share your thought leadership, the more that people know, hey, this guy knows what he’s doing, this guys prepared to help me and this guy can help me. Yeah, and if you ever, if you ever been concerned about sharing your knowledge given away what you know, here’s one tip that you can, you can hang your hat on that will save you from worrying about that ever again. And that is that most people will never execute on the knowledge they have. Oh, it’s so true right now. If my cpa told me the whole task code, I’m not going to do my taxes. If my mechanic told me how to change, I’m

A. Lee Judge: 14:52 not changing my bricks, you know, but if he tells me how to do it and he convinced me that he knows what he’s talking about, I will go to him to have him take my breaks are to my tax guy to have him do my taxes. So if they give away all their knowledge, they will convince me that they have the knowledge to give. Right? Yeah. I’m not going to go out and do it, you know, I don’t care how much you know, the, the, the gardener, the guy cutting down trees tells me how he cut down trees. I’m not going to go do it myself,

Dontaye Carter: 15:18 but at the gardener of the tree guy walks over and says, hey, I’m gonna have to cut this tree on the right side first, about four inches from the bottom. And as I’m cutting through, I’m going to have to stop about midway and I’m going to have to go over to the left side about another four, maybe lower, maybe three inches so we can get the push that we want and we can start to, to, to hack it that tree that way. But what we’re going to do is, and I’m saying that we’re gonna, we’re gonna hack on it from the left side so that as the tree starting to fall and won’t fall towards your house. Like that builds confidence. You’re like, whoa. He thought about my house.

A. Lee Judge: 15:53 I mean, I’ve had a guy in the same scenario talk about, you know, well, you know, you have some Azalea Bushes of that. You’d want to set those bushes, so in order to save your bushes and the lamb on the other treat is hanging by, we’re going to do this, that and the other. So he gave away all his knowledge. He told how to do it. I wasn’t gonna go do it. And the same thing goes for any business that you’re doing right now. Just know that the odds of your customer going out and do it in themselves with the knowledge are slim to none. And if they are going to do it themselves, they’re going to probably do it without the knowledge. Anyway. So let me ask

Dontaye Carter: 16:22 you this though. You know, there are a lot of people who say you don’t want to give away too much. Don’t give away too much. What are your thoughts on it? I mean, we’re in a day and age where information is just so accessible.

A. Lee Judge: 16:32 You know, I have found myself wondering, should I give that away because maybe the competition is listening and then I remind myself the competition’s not me. First of all, they can’t do it the way I can do it. Right. Second of all, there may not just do it. I mean, I will never worry about the customer doing what I do because the customer, if they’re a good customer that they know, they know their lane. I know my lane. Um, if they’re the customer who thinks, well, if Lee tells me how he creates content for us, we’ll do it. Just do it ourselves. I’m confident enough to know that they can’t do it the way I do it, right. They can’t do it on the scale or the quality level that I can do it. Um, and I’ve also learned from previous experiences to that if I teach a customer how to do something, uh, on the level in which they can do it, then they’ll do their part and they’ll grow and come back to me for the bigger project. So either way, I still don’t lose in teaching them how to help themselves. Yeah, and I think, you know, if you’re ever gonna have an issue where you’re sharing knowledge and you’re seeing it’s being replicated instead of sitting over here getting upset, I think that’s where there should be more private than anything, right? Because you’re putting something out there and it’s sticking with people. It was so funny, I had a, a, a business

Dontaye Carter: 17:50 partner of mine that he reached out and said, hey, you know, you pitched a proposal to a certain company. They declined your services, but some of those small things that you told them that they can do to really increase their, their, uh, exposure. They’re already putting those things into practice now. I kind of laughed and he said, why are you laughing? And I said, because to your point, they’re going to have to come back to me at some time. [inaudible] like, yeah, I’ve given you enough to get going, but at some point you’re gonna have to say, okay, we just hit a wall, um, somebody to get data back on the phone so we can sit down and talk with them some more. That’s going to happen. Nine out of 10 times because they’re going to either hit a wall because they realize they don’t know all the stories, they don’t know, have all the information, uh, or they’re going to realize, let this guy who has it down to a science do it versus us trying to figure it out along the way. Yeah. Not Economical to do things yourself most of time. No, it’s not. And I think people will find it that it’s so funny. Right. So, um, from Memorial Day, my wife and I talked about making lobster macaroni and as we’re picking up all these ingredients, we say go to youtube.

A. Lee Judge: 19:02 It was just like, man, like it’s like $20 here, $15. Just go and get it out and get it from, you know, hey, we can go to capital grill, get the top of the line lobster Mac for $18. So it’s nice. It’s funny, I say go to Youtube, right? Because that means you’re going to go and consume somebody content. But even if you had just watched youtube decided to go out and get the ingredients and make it, what happened? You decided, no, let’s just go buy it. Let’s just go buy it. So no matter how many shifts gave you that recipe, it’s still cheaper to buy it. Like when you actually think about when you have to buy the macro and yet the battle buddy, you have to buy the lobster. You have to buy six different cheeses. Like before you know it, it’s we should have just bought a bowl.

A. Lee Judge: 19:47 So there you go. The importance of sharing your knowledge, sharing your knowledge gives you 10 times possibility of becoming an expert and being seen as an expert and gaining more clients. The idea of somebody taking your idea and doing it themselves, it’s just not gonna happen and when it does happen, it’s gonna happen on such a small scale. They’ll come back to you anyway because you’re the expert. So they’re gonna. They’re gonna. Learn that. So true. So true. That’s a good note to end on. Yeah. Let’s wrap this thing up as Rabida. Once again, I’m A. Lee Judge and I’m Dontaye card, or you guys can find me on. Hey, I’m on facebook. I’m on Linkedin. I have a website, www dot carter media group, that net. Keep following me. You can follow Lee, a lead judge on linkedin and also the website for content monsters, content m o n s, t a content monster.com. Check us out there. Also, be sure to vote up the podcast wherever you listen to whatever there’ll be itunes or stitcher or wherever you find it, and check us next week. Adios. Take care of it.

Outro: 20:52 Thanks for listening to the business of content podcast, brought to you by content monster Dotcom and Carter media. If you enjoyed the show, please don’t forget to give it five stars and subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast platform.