Here’s what happens when you publish content for a year

Read Time: 5 minutes

Welcome to BE THE EXPERT! In today’s issue:

• What happens when you publish content for a year
• Why publishing ORIGINAL content is so important
• Big enhancements to the ACCELERATE platform

Here’s what happens when you publish content for a year

This is the 52nd issue of this newsletter and we’ll be at 10,000 readers within the next month or so!

Rather than a highlights issue, I wanted to use it as an example of how important it is to publish content consistently, over the long term, with specific objectives in mind.

There are short, medium, and long-term objectives this strategy supports:

• Short-term: Providing consistent value weekly to your audience to attract them and keep them engaged with you

• Medium-term: Turn the content into many different assets and formats then publish them everywhere (repurposing) for increased reach

• Long-term: Build a body of your knowledge, refine it, and turn it into major assets like books, courses, coaching programs.

If you read last week’s issue about the 3x rule, this is an example of it in action: I’m getting 3x (in reality much more) benefit from the single action of writing the newsletter.

Each issue contributes to those three objectives.

The third one is the most important and most overlooked.

Reverse-engineer your content strategy

When I plan my content strategy and help clients plan theirs, we always start by defining their signature system: their methodology for helping their customers or clients achieve the result or transformation they desire.

That gets broken down into 3 – 5 pillars, and further broken down into the essential steps within each pillar.

In my case, the outcome my audience wants is a successful online business.

My pillars are Strategy, Systems, Tools, and Team.

Under those are a number of steps, frameworks, etc.

I identified most of those over 5 years ago, but FAILED to succeed because I never had time to take the couple of months required to write it all down, create all the courses and videos, the resources, and everything else required.

This is the time challenge most of us have as solopreneurs: way too much to do and too little time to do it.

So instead of a top down, build it all, then try to sell it approach, I inverted it and said what if I built it all one week and one topic at a time?

What if I published the essence of each pillar, topic, and framework in my content, then later assembled it all, expanded it, added resources, and used THAT as my program?

That seemed like it could work, given all my constraints.

I decided to build my content plan like I would build a book: Outline the major sections, chapters, and themes first, then fill them in over time.

In other words, build the house one brick at a time where each brick was an issue of this newsletter.

My ultimate goal was to have my signature system in several forms: a book, a collection of courses (DIY), a coaching program (DWY), and an agency (DFY).

So I started the newsletter to think about and create each brick one week at a time.

That has several benefits, namely it forces you to think about simplifying, creating frameworks, etc. to keep the content tight and valuable.

These become your intellectual property, your expertise distilled into frameworks, processes, and content.

Throughout the year of writing this newsletter, I covered the most essential elements within my signature system, Solo to Virtual CEO:

Strategy

• Expert Business Roadmap
• Expert Business System

Systems

• Figure it out, write it out, delegate it out
• 9 foundational elements (0 – 6-figures)
• 9 essential systems (6 – 7-figures)

Tools

• Accelerate platform
• AI assistants and agents

Team

• Virtual COO
• Fractional Team Model

There are more, but you get the idea.

Over the course of the year, I’ve written 2,000 – 3,000 words of high-value content in each of those areas, 5 – 10 articles per pillar.

The last few months are where that has really paid off.

Maximize the ROI from your efforts

After MANY years, I was finally able to create courses, programs, and products very quickly because I had all my frameworks, thoughts, and core content created.

I could take all the newsletter issues in the strategy pillar and turn them into slides and record content for a course.

I could take all the feedback and questions and turn those into additional resources and coaching.

I could create SOPs and checklists and add them to our DWY and DFY programs.

I could build automations and other tools to help people accelerate their progress.

What would otherwise be daunting if just looking at a blank screen, I could go into my Expert Business Operating System in Notion, where 100% of everything I’ve ever written is and start with that and create all the different assets much quicker.

Each week, you build one part of your long-term asset, one brick at a time.

For medium term assets, each content piece can be turned into a

YouTube video, Podcast episode, or blog post.

For short term assets, each content piece can be turned into Reels, Images, Carousels, text posts, etc.

This alignment of short, medium, and long-term goals is essential to success as a solopreneur or small business.

That one act of consistent content creation enables all of these other benefits.

Look at this newsletter issue as an example.

It belongs to my Strategy pillar and is the inspiration for my Content System.

You can bet this will be turned into a lesson within one or more of the courses in my Solo to Virtual CEO program.

We have already created a number of resources and tools to help people plan their content strategy down to every single week, all aligned to their pillars.

Those are part of our DWY and DFY programs.

So you can see how one topic within your pillars, under your signature system, can be turned into so many assets.

With each issue also turned into a video, podcast, blog, and 20 other assets, you have a huge amount of content to fill your social channels and expand your reach.

Then, compound that over months, quarters, and years.

By the end of my second year of doing this, I’ll have over 100 issues and 200,000 words written (~400 printed pages)

At that point, I’ll turn it all into a book and have another highly valuable asset (and since it’s all in Notion and organized, that will be a pretty simple AI exercise by then to have it reformat MY words and thoughts into a book (not generic AI crap)

These are the reasons why creating valuable, original content every week is so important.

Take Action

To ensure your efforts all support your short, medium, and long-term goals:

1. Define your signature system: your methodology and pillars that help your ideal clients achieve their goals
2. Break your pillars down into the essential steps and resources needed (bricks)
3. Define your content plan around documenting each brick within each pillar over the course of a few months to a year
4. As you complete all the bricks for a given pillar, turn it into the other assets like a course, coaching, or done-for-you service
5. When all your content and pillars are done along with their related assets, you now have your flagship program and optional high-ticket or fully done-for-you program.

Saturday Spotlight 💡

Content Spotlight:​

In this video, I show the importance of creating and capturing your own unique knowledge to stand out in a world where AI-generated content is becoming increasingly prevalent.

As an expert in your field, it’s crucial to document your experiences, your work with clients, and your experience to build a valuable knowledge base 📖 that sets you apart from the generic information produced by AI.

I share my strategies for leveraging AI to AMPLIFY your content without relying on it for original creation.

Tool Spotlight:​

Our Expert Business ACCELERATE suite continues to gain substantial new features every week.

Recently, the ability to have a custom-branded mobile app for your courses/membership has been added! I know of some competitors that charge over $20,000 annually for just that feature alone…

ACCELERATE now also supports document signing, custom contracts/forms, and related functionality where you used to need DocuSign or an equivalent, but those functions are now built in.

YouTube was just added to the social media scheduling section within ACCELERATE, so it now supports all the major social networks and short-form video channels!

There are more enhancements like this every week! To assemble equivalent capability, you’d be spending over $3,000/mo on tools, but ACCELERATE is less than 1/10th that and can run your entire online business.

It is INCLUDED in the DIY/DWY/DFY program linked above!

News Spotlight:​

​YouTube Is Developing Thumb Frame Customization for Shorts Clips​ – Social Media Today

Finally, YouTube looks to give us some flexibility on thumbnails for Shorts.

No custom thumbnails yet, but at least the capability to choose a frame from the short as the thumbnail as opposed to the current inevitably most awkward frame they can find…