Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders with Jon Cook: Recent Episodes
Keynote Content with Jon Cook
The Keynote Clarity Flash Briefing is your daily insight for speakers, coaches, and consultants how to better market their message to the audiences they want to serve. Jon Cook from Keynote Content is your host providing you the latest insight on how to break through the noise in your industry and build your reputation as a rising thought leader.
There’s a good chance you’re listening to Keynote Clarity because you have an Alexa device, like an Echo, an Echo Dot, or an Echo Show.
You may even be wondering, “How do I create and launch my own flash briefing?”
Over the past six months, our team at Keynote Content has created a turnkey flash briefing production system.
There are three key phases in our Flash Briefing development:
Phase 1 is where we focus on your overall flash briefing strategy: what’s the name of your new flash briefing, who is it for, what are the daily themes, and how do I know which equipment to use to create a great audio experience?
Phase 2 is about your initial buildout and test month. We do all of the work to produce your flash briefing and walk with you every step of the way through your launch. The only responsibilities you have is paying for your hosting provider and providing raw audio files for us to produce, schedule, and populate to Alexa devices around the world.
Phase 3 is where the ongoing monthly production of your flash briefing. Just like with Phase 2, the only thing you have to do is provide us with a month’s worth of raw audio files we can use.
If you’d like to learn more, you can check out alexaflashbriefings.com to see our process and sign up if it looks like a great fit for your message. Again, go to alexaflashbriefings.com and check it out today to see how our team can help you create, launch, and grow your flash briefing.
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
I started recording videos using a teleprompter about six years ago. At first, it was tough. There’s a learning curve to using a teleprompter, and for me, it took a few videos before I was comfortable enough to truly be myself without looking like I was just reading a script.
Can a teleprompter actually help you make better videos? The answer is it depends. I know, that’s a cop-out answer, but it’s the truth. There are many factors to creating a great video, and a teleprompter is only one of these factors.
Other factors such as the script you’re using, the lighting, the sound quality, your outfit, your body language, those are just as important as the teleprompter.
In the end though, I have more confidence creating videos if I know what I want to say and it’s on the screen for me.
If you haven’t tried a teleprompter before, I recommend starting with bullet points instead of an actual script. It gives you an idea of where you want to go next without having to read every word and stay true to how you show up on screen.
Give it a try and good luck!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
When I went to launch my first online course five years ago, I focused so much on the design of the sales page.
What button color should I pick? Is that the ‘perfect’ image for this section? What color should the headline be?
I thought I hit save on the draft of the page, but by chance, I accidentally published my sales page. It stayed up for an entire weekend, and I didn’t know my mistake until I saw a sale come through.
It occurred to me that people were willing to overlook half-baked design or even bad design if they connected with the message on the page.
Now, I’m not saying design doesn’t matter at all - of course it does - but it’s more important to focus on the copy.
Is it absolutely clear the value you’re offering through your sales page? Clarity in your copy will lead to conversions on a bland-looking sales page.
Focus on your message first, then add in great design. If you have to choose though, go with a simple design and a great story to tell.
You will generate more sales with great copy and a bad design over bad copy with a great design.
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Picture yourself waking up this morning. What motivated you to get out of bed? Was it inspiration or obligation? Your audience needs to know why you do what you do.
If you’re like many speakers, coaches, and consultants, you constantly face the question of “Is this all worth it? Why do I keep doing this?”
Think about your audience, the people you get to serve.
Think about how their lives and businesses, marriages, families, mindsets, finances, schedules, whatever area you impact, think about how your clients have better lives because of you and your Message.
That’s what I want you to hold onto today: you are making a difference. Even if it’s only one person, you changed their life.
Now, go find someone else today that you can help with your Message. You don’t have to make a life-changing impact, but you do have an opportunity to make a difference.
Hold onto that inspiration - you are making a difference - and keep pushing forward!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
If you want to get to know your target market better, you need to make multiple connections every day.
This may be reaching out to someone you know or want to get to know on LinkedIn. See who your second-level connections may be and send a message introducing yourself and asking how they met your mutual friend.
You can also send a well-written message to a new colleague. Take a few minutes and look through their website. If something jumps out to you, make mention of that to your colleague. It shows you took the time to get to know their business better.
Another idea is to reach out to one of your strategic partners and set up a call to catch up and trade ideas.
Whatever step you take, focus on building a better connection. We can’t serve and connect people we don’t know or understand. Give generously of your time, focus on adding value, and you will start to build a more meaningful network of great connections.
Reach out to at least one person today to create a better connection for tomorrow.
--
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
xWe're wrapping up our episode interview series with Sam Horn of Intrigue Agency. Thank you again, Sam, for your generous insight and time.
Jon Cook:
Sam, if somebody wants to connect with you, what's the best place for them to go and continue a conversation with you and your team?
Sam Horn:
Thank you so much. They are welcome to go to my website, which is intrigueagency.com.
Jon Cook:
Fantastic. Thank you so much, Sam Horn. To people who are listening to this, be inspired. You already have a message burning inside you. You have something that's aching to get out, that's jumping at the chance. Don't wait for the some day. Start today.
--
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
We're continuing our episode interview series featuring Sam Horn of Intrigue Agency…
Jon Cook:
We also have what I call the unwilling, captive audiences that were in the elevator. Sam, what's your take, your approach to getting rid of elevator pitches and replacing it with something more meaningful?
Sam Horn:
Thank you. I have a post on LinkedIn that's gone viral, has hundreds of thousands of views, and the title of it is “Why Never To Give Another Elevator Speech And What To Do Instead”. I also spoke about this at Inc 500.
So, a woman from Oklahoma, she was Entrepreneur of the Year for her state, and I said, "Colleen, what do you do?" Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah At the end of 60 seconds, Jon, no one in the room knew what she did, and she was a CEO. And now, think of the lost opportunity cost, right? I mean, these are some of the top entrepreneurs in the country, but no one's going to talk to her, partner with her, et cetera. So I said, "Colleen, can we talk more?" She said, "Sure." I said, "Okay, #1, what do you do that we can see, that we can smell, that we can taste, that we can touch? Instead of, “I have a platform for blank,” and it's conceptual and confusing, we can't see it, we don't get it?
So she said, "I run the facilities that run MRIs and CAT scans." I said, "Good. Don't tell people that." She said, "Don't tell people that?" I said, "If someone says what do you do, and you say, 'I run the facilities that run MRIs and CAT scans', what are they going to say?" That's the end of the conversation. We don't want to end conversations. We want to open conversation. So, I said, "Turn it into a three-part question."
She said, "What's this about a three-part question?" I said, "If you say, 'have you ever had an MRI or CAT scan?' And they say 'No,' hah, we're back to a conversational cul-de-sac, right?" [inaudible 00:01:52] like an interrogation. The person is backing up because it's like, "Whoa." But if we say, "Do you know anyone?" Could be yourself, could be a friend, could be a family member.
You see where we're giving them control of the conversation? They get to go wherever they want, whatever's most relevant for them or recent. "Who's had an MRI or CAT scan?" They'll probably going to think about it and they'll say, "Oh, well, my daughter had an MRI. She hurt her knee playing soccer." Now we simply paraphrase what it is they said with what we do. "Oh, that's what I do. I run the facilities that offer MRIs like the one your daughter had when she hurt her knee playing soccer."
So the steps of this are, from now on, when someone says, "What do you do," don't tell them. That's infobesity, oh, end of conversation. Instead, ask a three-part question. Do you know anyone? Could be yourself or friend or family member who has, and then put in the real world results of what you do and stop talking. [inaudible 00:03:00] say something, even if, well, I haven't, but my wife has, or, yeah, well I, and then simply paraphrase what they said with what they do, because that's confirming the connection.
It's under 60 seconds. Now, we have a meaningful, mutually rewarding conversation and we're off and running instead of, “What do you do,” “This,” “Oh…next.”
--
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
We're continuing our episode interview series featuring Sam Horn of Intrigue Agency…
Jon Cook:
There's almost this lie, this trap that we fall into as authors is saying, "writing my book, I need to find the secluded space." And then we almost like work on our craft, our art in the dark. And then when it's ready, which is relative, then we bring it out for the world to see. But it's been created in an echo chamber. There's been nobody else speaking into your manuscript, your message, the thing that you want to share with the world. From an art standpoint, it may be beautiful or it may be well-intended, but just not well constructed.
Sam Horn:
Writing is supposed to be an empathetic exercise, not an intellectual exercise. Do you know who had writer's block for eight years? Sting, the musician - the words wouldn't come. So what did he do? He went back home and he grew up in Newcastle with these big ships and so forth. And he went and he interviewed people and he ended up writing a Broadway play, a Broadway musical that won a Tony and once again it never would have happened if he hadn't gotten up and outside and connected with the people he wanted to write for. Well, I had an epiphany when I read that because I was working on my next book and I loved to write. I was very busy at the time and writing had become a grind. I would look at what I had written and it did not sing. And when I heard that I thought, "Of course it's not singing. I am isolated, I am thinking it up."
I got up. I went over to my son's high school, I interviewed teachers. What do you say when, when kids say you have favorites? Principals, what do you say when teachers come to you and say, I quit? Kids, what do you say when someone's bullying you on the bus? And I connected with the people I wanted to write for, and their words, and their stories, and their concerns, and their worries filled my mind. And when I came back, I sat down and the words flowed out so fast, my fingers couldn't keep up.
So if you’re a writers who’s come to a halt, just as you said, Jon, we're probably isolated. We're trying to think it up. It's become an intellectual exercise.
--
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
We're continuing our episode interview series featuring Sam Horn of Intrigue Agency…
Jon Cook:
So, how do I find my crowd? How do I find the people that I really want to serve?
Sam Horn:
I'm so glad you're asking that, Jon. People can't jump on our bandwagon if it's parked in the garage, right? So how can we get our bandwagon out of the garage? Well, once again, I will give a real life success story because I think there is nothing more powerful or persuasive than a real life success story. When we know that someone else has done it, then we start believing that we can too, right? As Maya Angelou said, we can't be it if we don't see it, but here's this success story and then I'll tell you how I help clients do that.
James Rollins came to the Maui Writers Conference. He was a veterinarian in Davis, California. Now he's working six, seven days a week. He's a busy man. He comes home on his 40th birthday. He's so exhausted. He sits down, he turns on the TV, but there is Tony Robbins and Tony Robbins says, if you have a dream and you don't get up off the couch right now and do something about it, it will never happen.
Well, James got up, he walked over to the phone, he called his local Barnes and Noble because what he'd always wanted to do is to write sci-fi and fantasy fiction. And he asked, "Do you have a writer support group?" And they did every Tuesday night, so every Tuesday night he would leave his veterinary practice and he would go and he would get support for his books.
Well, he came to Maui Writer's Conference, and at the opening orientation he heard someone talking behind him. Now we had what was called a manuscript marketplace, a guaranteed look by a top agent or editor or publisher. And this person was saying that he knew who was going to win the manuscript marketplace. In fact, he was so impressed with his writing, he was going to get him a two book deal with his agent and editor, and it was Terry Brooks, Sword of Shannara, one of the top fantasy writers of all time. That was James Rollins. He's talking about my work. James has gone on now to write 18 New York Times best sellers. And it once again, it never would have happened if he hadn't gotten up off the couch, walked over to the phone and called a group of people who would have this front and back, like-minded souls who have simpatico goals, who will encourage each other, support each other, give constructive feedback.
So when I'm working with entrepreneurs or when I'm working with authors or speakers who are your peaks, where can you go so you're not going it alone?
--
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
We're continuing our episode interview series featuring Sam Horn of Intrigue Agency…
Sam Horn:
So would you like another way that we can actually engage people ethically so that they are paying attention from start to finish?
Jon Cook:
Absolutely!
Sam Horn:
Okay. Use a dog on a tanker story, and you're thinking, "A what?" Well, several years ago, there was an article in The Washington Post about an oil tanker that caught fire 800 miles off the coast of Hawaii. Now a cruise ship happened to be going by and rescued the 11 people on board, and the captain gave a press conference. He talked about how grateful he was to be rescued. All he can think about is his dog left behind on the tanker.
That press conference goes viral, and thousands of people from around the world are sending in money. $5, $500. The U.S. Navy changes the exercise plate of the U.S. Pacific fleet to search the open ocean. They find the tanker. They send a C-130 to fly low to see if there's any signs of life. Here's this brown and white blur racing up and down the deck of the tanker. The amount of quarter of a million dollar rescue mission to get Hok Get and bring him back to the islands.
Now, Jon, you and listeners may be thinking, “What does that have to do with me and content and capturing and keeping people's attention?” Well, here's the question. Why did people from around the world mobilize to save one dog when there are thousands of people in their own cities going without food, water and shelter?
It's because of something called the empathy telescope. And the empathy telescope says, we can put ourselves in the shoes of one person, or one dog, we cannot put ourselves in the shoes of many. We cannot put ourselves in the shoes of an idea or an organization. So when we're communicating, if we're talking about all the people this affects or if we're talking about all the customers we've served, it's so distant and far away or so overwhelming, people don't relate to it.
It is when we have one person who had a problem and bought our product and is now better off, one company that had a challenge and couldn't solve it until they hired us, then we scale out from the one.
The question is, what is your idea or the point or the product, what's your dog on a tanker story? Start with your dog on your tanker story.
--
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
We're continuing our episode interview series featuring Sam Horn of Intrigue Agency…
Sam Horn:
When we finish telling our where story or our signature origin story, we don't stop, because that's not enough. People go, "Well, good for you. What's that got to do with me?" right?
So after every true, real-life example, we hook and hinge back to the audience with three you questions: "Have you ever had a goal and worked toward and didn't work out the way you wanted? Did you ever try something and people laughed at you?" Do you see, when we tell a story and we come back with, "Where has that happened for you? Have you ever been in that situation?"
Now, I don't care whether it's a multimillion-dollar CEO, whether it's the recent college grad, they are relating what you're saying to their circumstances, so it is relevant to them and they're a lot more likely to relate to it and get some epiphany, some Socratic epiphany, and act on it.
--
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
I recently had the chance to sit down with Sam Horn, the founder and CEO of the Intrigue Agency. She is the former Executive Director of the world-renowned Maui Writers Conference and Pitch Coach for Springboard Enterprises, which has helped entrepreneurs receive $8.8 billion in funding. She has helped hundreds of clients create quality books and high-stakes presentations for TED-MED, TEDx, SXSW, Wisdom 2.0, Google and Facebook.
We had a chance to sit down for about 30 minutes and I was honored to ask Sam several questions about how she helps entrepreneurs like yourself better position their Message. Now, I want to give you a front-row seat to hear those questions and Sam’s brilliance… Let’s get started.
Jon Cook:
The world is noisier than ever right now so how do we, with a powerful message, how do you guide people with that powerful message to break through the noise and connect with their audience better?
Sam Horn:
We're going to start with something I call a "Did you know?" opening because most people start their presentations or a book or a blog by explaining, right? We've been taught to tell people what we're going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what we told them, right? That makes us a bore, snore, or chore. So here's a quick example and then I'm going to give you three steps they can use to make their first 60 seconds so compelling that people put their digital devices down and get their eyebrows up, okay?
And I don't care whether you're writing, whether you're speaking, whether you're doing a podcast, like Jon is, start with three "Did you know?" questions. Did you know this? This? This? Then, go to the scope of the problem you're solving or the issue you're addressing or the need that you're filling.
Now, where do you find the startling statistics? You Google that stuff. Just go online, put in what are surprising statistics about blank and put in your topic, put in your problem or your issue or your industry. Up will come things even you didn't know. And if you don't know them, chances are your decision-makers won't know them. You've just earned smart people's attention's time because they're smarter than they were 20 seconds ago.
Second step, use the word "Imagine." The word imagine pulls people out of their preoccupation because they're not distracted now, they're picturing your point, or they're seeing what you're saying. So, think about your decision-makers. What are they concerned about? Worried about? Well, imagine a one-use needle instead of re-use. Imagine painless inoculations instead of painful. Imagine a fraction of the current cost instead of really expensive. You see how in a world of infobesity we distilled into one sentence? Who wouldn't want that?
And then, third step, you don't have to imagine it. We've created it. Now come in with your testimonial. Now come in with your example or your product demonstration to prove it isn't a pie in the sky or speculative. It's a done deal. And you do all that in 60 seconds. That's how we earn people's attention in a world of infobesity.
--
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
We're wrapping up our episode series with John Lee Dumas of EO Fire. Thank you again, JLD, for your generous insight and time.
Jon Cook:
We want to say thank you so much to John Lee Dumas, Entrepreneurs on Fire podcast. The link will be there in the show notes, all the information. What's one product or experience or opportunity that we can share to help promote you and your message further?
John Lee Dumas:
Well, to me, all the magic happens outside of your comfort zone. So what is going to get you outside of your comfort zone? What that is is your big idea. You need to have one big idea that's scary, that's audacious, that scares you, but still makes you passionate, fired up. All of those things need to be happening. So if you don't have your big idea, well, you need to get that. I have a completely free training that's called yourbigidea.io. That'll get you there.
--
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
We're continuing our episodes series featuring questions I got a chance to ask John Lee Dumas of EO Fire…
Jon Cook:
What's something that you are passionate about, a cause, a movement that you're passionate about that isn't directly tied to Fire Nation, but you're able to leverage your platform to say, "We can make this difference -- this impact -- in the world?"
John Lee Dumas:
Well, to me, honestly, it'd be more vague than that in a way because I consider it the ripple effect. And that's the fact that this interview right now is going to be experienced by people who would never have heard of me before or know of entrepreneurs on fire. But because you have an audience and because you have different people who are watching and consuming your content, now maybe they're going to hear something from me that inspires them to go and do something. And then that person's going to do something that then inspires a whole new trope of people that so on and so forth, that ripple effect, that trickle down effects, that snowball effect of just now, this one interview impact thousands and thousands of people, all because it started by just impacting one person, who then impacted 10 people. And those 10 people then impacts, and then it can so quickly make a difference in this world.
So, I love the ripple effect. That's the cause that I believe in. That's the passion. That's why I do what I do. That's why I do my social media. That's why I do my podcast. That's why I spend one day every single month doing 25 interviews on other shows. I mean, this is one of the 25 interviews I'm doing today on another show because I'm putting in the reps, because this might be the podcast, the show that impacts somebody, that goes off and does an incredible, crazy thing.
--
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
We're continuing our episodes series featuring questions I got a chance to ask John Lee Dumas of EO Fire…
Jon Cook:
I think for a lot of people that they wonder, “What if I pick the wrong niche?” Or “What if I niche too far and I'm almost too niched to actually connect with my crowd?” How do you walk somebody through right sizing their niche?
John Lee Dumas:
Like if you use the wrong niche, then learn from it. Say, okay, good stuff. I've identified a couple of things that I did wrong going down this path. Now I'm going to readjust, pivot, and move in a different direction and there's no problem. There's no harm, no foul there. You need to be taking action and trying things. And so if you get into a wrong niche, like congratulate yourself for actually getting into any niche at all.
And now you asked another question about if you find yourself in a niche too far. To me, that's impossible. It is absolutely impossible to niche down too far because if you've niched down all the way to the bone where there's only one person in the world besides yourself that would ever consume your content, that's still one person in the world.
And you start there, you engage that person, you jump on a video call with them, you learn their biggest pain points or struggles or obstacles or challenges, and you improve based off that feedback, and then you broaden that a little bit.
Then you broaden that. Now you have two listeners and four, eight, 16, 32, 64 and keep going and going, so on and so forth. Until now you've gotten to a more comfortable niche, so going too deep, impossible.
Just recognize that that's an opportunity to really engage, to really go one-on-one, to really learn more about your avatar, your perfect listener, consumer, client, customer, fan, and then broaden out after that.
--
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
We're continuing our episodes series featuring questions I got a chance to ask John Lee Dumas of EO Fire…
Jon Cook:
When I think about Fire Nation, it's evolved so much. I've been a part of the Fire Nation for the past three years now and continue to see how different parts of your audience, and your message, has evolved over the last three years. What's something that's surprised you about Fire Nation just in the past year?
John Lee Dumas:
I'd say what's surprised me most about Fire Nation in the past year is their just quick adoption into what I call the micro-niche. Back in 2013, '14, '15, it was all about being broad and vague. Trying to capture as big of an audience as possible. Entrepreneurs On Fire worked because it worked back in that timeframe, but if you launched Entrepreneurs On Fire with an unknown name in 2019, it doesn't work because it's one of a million shows. But it worked back in 2012 because it was unique, it was different, and it was rare. There just wasn't that much in the way of competition.
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
We're continuing our episodes series featuring questions I got a chance to ask John Lee Dumas of EO Fire…
Jon Cook:
When we think about how our message continues to evolve, think about these smart home devices: Google Home, and Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Show, and even the technology of Alexa. How are you leveraging that technology and those smart devices to continue to share your message beyond podcasts?
John Lee Dumas:
I think this is the world of voice right now. The reason why voice is winning at such a high level is because it gives you back time. You can now go running and listen to an audio book. You can now be driving your car and listening to a podcast. You can be folding laundry and consuming great audio content, so you're getting time back. Before when those were like dead times, like listening to some song on the radio or just whistling Dixie to yourself as your folding laundry. Now, you can actually be using that time in a beneficial way. I mean like I literally used to hate to dry dishes, but now, I'm almost like, "I don't really care because I'm just going to be like" ... I might as well be doing something while I'm listening to a podcast. It's just another way to consume great content, so it's giving you your time back.
Like when I walk into my bathroom every single morning to brush my teeth I say, "Alexa, what’s in the news?" and she starts playing my news. Like, "What's the weather?" A Gary Vaynerchuk clip. Another podcast. This and that. Boom, boom, boom. Now I'm doing my things in the morning and I'm consuming this content automatically. Then I'm just like, "Alexa, order me more toothpaste," and boom- she orders me more toothpaste. That's giving me back time, something that I don't have to go to my computer, or open Amazon, or go to Amazon, and click “Order,” and buy. I don't have to do it, so it gives you back time.
I also have The Daily Refresh, which is my Alexa flash briefing, so I mean I've bought into this whole thing of creating short-form content that people can consume on a daily basis. Make it part of your daily routine, so in under three minutes, if you subscribe to The Daily Refresh you get a quote to inspire the minds, gratitude to warm the soul, and guided breathing to energize the body. Boom, two minutes and 45 seconds later it's over and you're off to do your day. So that's a great way, in my opinion, and what I've been seeing, that's really been working in the voice world.
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
I recently had the chance to sit down with John Lee Dumas. He is the founder and host of EO Fire, an award-winning podcast where he interviews today's most inspiring entrepreneurs, seven days a week. With over 1,400 different episodes and seven figures a year in revenue. JLD has shown the world the power of podcasting. Prepare to ignite!
We had a chance to sit down for about 20, 30 minutes and talk through some of the top questions I wanted to ask him as one of the most influential podcasters in the world. Now, I want to give you a front-row seat to hear those questions and see how JLD is positioning himself for the future.
Jon Cook:
Different industries, different messages, people change from year to year. We're constantly evolving. How has your message, even the way in which you share your message evolved and changed over this past year?
John Lee Dumas:
So, one thing that I'm really passionate about is keeping my finger on the pulse because things are changing so quickly in this world. I mean, a lot of people are saying, "I missed the podcasting thing." And like whether they're right or wrong, it's just kind of the wrong attitude because there's always that next thing that's just right over the horizon. And like people that identify that next thing and they jump on it, boom, they make it happen. So I can tell you for within the past year, I really never took Instagram seriously. It's been around for a long time. I never took it that seriously. But about a year ago, maybe even like eight or 10 months ago, I'm like, "Wow, this is a special platform."
I'm like, "I'm getting a lot of engagements. I'm crossing 100,000 followers." I really am seeing a way for me to get my message out. And even maybe more on a micro message way, like not a long-form podcast, but maybe more like a short-form, one-minute, little inspirational clip, maybe cutting that up into four Instagram stories. I’m seeing great engagement in the direct messages, like another inbox right there with really being able to communicate with people. So that's an area that I'm really seeing is kind of been exploding for me this past year. That's, you asked me two years ago, I'm like, "Now Instagram is for like photographers."
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Over the past few days, I’ve shared with you the process of increasing your content production without sacrificing your time or sanity. It starts with creating one feature-length piece of content, like a Facebook Live video that’s eight- to 10-minutes long. From there you extract the audio from the Facebook video and transcribe the audio using Rev.com.
You can then segment the video and audio into smaller pieces of content that can be posted as social media posts, edited into an article on your website or on Medium, and the video can also be republished on YouTube with the transcript.
Of course, the goal of all this isn’t just to create more content for the sake of creating more content. It’s to drive more interest to your business so you can help more people. The fifth and final step for increasing your content production is to focus on one clear call to action across all pieces of content.
That could be for your audience to fill out an application, send you a message through your website, or book a call. Whatever you decide to use for your call to action, make it clear and streamline your audience’s interest from any platform into one contact point.
Make it a great day today and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Once you have your feature-length video, you can post your video to YouTube with the transcription, great hashtags and keywords, and a compelling call to action. That’s just the starting point.
Now that you have your transcription, you or one of your team members, even a VA, can break that content apart into smaller pieces of content, like quotes, blog articles, a weekly email publication, or Instagram posts. You can schedule your content to publish at different times throughout the day. You can trust a team member to do this for you, which is a struggle for me because I’m a recovering perfectionist and a recovering control freak. However, trusting a team member to do this is becoming one of my best investments already in the past few months. Find a great team member who you can train and guide them to post how you would like and let them get to work.
I cannot emphasize this enough that you need to adapt your content to fit each specific channel, not just copy+pasting your content from one channel to the next. YouTube is a very different platform than LinkedIn, which is an entirely different world from Facebook and Twitter and Snapchat and every other different platform where you can publish content.
This is the step where you’ll start to truly see your Message make a greater difference because you’ll be in more places than ever before in less time than you ever expected. Have fun multiplying your content today and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Yesterday I gave you some pretty technical instructions on how to download the audio from your Facebook video. How’d you do? In case you got stuck, you can re-listen to yesterday’s episode or read our show transcript to see exactly how to download the audio file of your Facebook video.
Once you have that file, you can go to Rev.com and ask them to transcribe that audio file for you with 99% accuracy. We use Rev.com with our clients at Keynote Content and we love their services. It costs about a dollar for every minute of audio they transcribe and the turnaround time is fantastic.
This is a big step in multiplying your content while maximizing your time. In my mind, if you’re paying around eight to 10 dollars a week to get well over a thousand words of raw content you can use, it’s worth every penny.
Tomorrow I’ll share more about how to use that transcript, but for today, work on getting that audio transcribed and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Yesterday I shared the first step in increasing your content production: creating a feature-length piece of content. That could be a feature-length article or an eight- to 10-minute video. If you’re short on time or not really a writer, you may want to start by creating a Facebook Live or pre-recording a video.
Let’s say you start with creating a video. You can take that video and download it as an audio file. If you’re doing a Facebook Live video, you can download just the audio by going into your Facebook page, finding your post that has the Facebook Live video, and right-clicking on the video.
It will show a pop-up with a dropdown menu. One of the options will say, “Show video URL”. Click on that option and it open a little pop-up box with the URL or website address for that exact video. Copy the URL and then go to getfvid.com.
Once you are on getfvid.com, you will see a box for a Facebook video converter. Enter the URL you just copied from Facebook and select Download. It will take you to the next screen where you will see the option to Convert to .mp3. That’s one of the most popular types of audio files, and it’s the option you want to choose.
Download that file to your computer or other device, and breathe easy - that’s a lot of technical content, so if you need to revisit this step, just re-listen to this episode a few more times or read our transcript with the links and the instructions.
Have a great day today and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Yesterday I mentioned how I spent the past few months learning from a few incredible people like Peng Joon, Nicholas Kusmich, and Gary Vaynerchuk about how to increase my content production without sacrificing my schedule and sanity. I’m already seeing a big change in how I approach content creation - and this is coming from the guy who’s written over two million words in the past eight years!
I know how to create content, but how do I create more content the most efficient way possible and still maintaining a good quality of content?
The process I learned from Peng and Nicholas starts with creating one feature-length piece of content every week. Depending on your Content Type, that could be a written piece of content, like a feature-length blog article that’s between 1,500 and 3,000 words. It may be easier for you to start with creating an eight- to 10-minute video, whether that’s a pre-recorded video or a Facebook Live. Whatever your approach is, focus on creating that one piece of feature-length content first.
There’s a whole process that comes after that large piece of content, but for today, plan out that first piece of content. Block out an hour sometime this week and crush that first piece of content. Tomorrow I’ll cover what to do with it next, but for now, make it a great day and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
A consistent theme I keep hearing from clients - and what I keep encountering myself - is, “How do I increase my content production while maximizing my time?” It’s easy to feel pressured and obligated to post, like, tweet, share, do a live stream, record a podcast episode, and doesn’t that all sound exhausting? Whether you’re a speaker, coach, consultant, trainer, service provider, or whatever your normal work responsibilities are, how do you find the time to create all of that content and still get all of your profit-generating work done?
I spent the past few months digging into this concept of multiplying your content while maximizing your time. There are a few amazing people that have taught me so much about multiplying content the right way and they are Peng Joon, Nicholas Kusmich, and Gary Vaynerchuk. Over the next few days, I’m going to share what I’ve learned from Peng and Nicholas on how to multiply your content without sacrificing your schedule or sanity.
For now though, I want you to enjoy today as a great chance to get outside, have some good rest and relaxation time, and sit with this reminder. You have a powerful Message that someone today needs to hear that will change their life forever. That’s your Message - and you have that opportunity right now.
Make it a great day, be inspired, and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
It’s the weekend after Thanksgiving here in the U.S. and for a lot of entrepreneurs, this is when you send out all your messages promoting your deal for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Shop Small Saturday, or whatever you want to call it.
Whether you’re running a ‘sale’ this weekend or not for your course, your book, your coaching, your mastermind, or any other sale, I would love for this to be your last sale you ever run. Ever.
I made the mistake of running different sales to my digital products. Did I make money? Sure, quite a bit, but what it cost me was perceived value. People who bought my course at $297 instead of $497 automatically started to see what my sale telegraphed: that I didn’t believe the value of my course was worth it’s posted price.
Don’t discount your genius, that insight you worked so hard to develop and refine to serve your audience. If you want to add value, give bonuses on top of your set price for your products. It adds even more value without cheapening the insight you already infused into your product or service. By adding bonuses, you raise the ceiling on the value instead of lowering the floor.
Have a great day today and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
After working with almost a thousand speakers over the past four years, I started seeing more patterns emerge. Different speakers kept sharing this concern: I don’t know how to find a great common ground that everyone in my audience can connect with and understand what that feels like.
First, you won’t connect with everyone in your audience at an event. There’s always going to be the dude who’s there because his boss bought him a ticket or someone else is not fully present because something way more important to them has their attention, like a loved one in the hospital. You don’t have to worry about connecting with everyone.
At the same time, I like asking two questions:
- “What’s one fear that a majority of my audience has that I can help defeat?”
- “What’s one desire that a majority of my audience has that I can fulfill for them?”
We all have fears and desires - that’s part of our innate humanity. How you address those fears and fulfill those desires as a speaker can mean all the difference in the world to someone in your audience. That’s a life-changing responsibility and I know you have what it takes to deliver on that opportunity because your Message matters.
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
If you’ve spent much time at all in the marketing space, then you’re familiar with the concept of a marketing funnel. It looks larger at the top and funnels down towards the bottom, just like a funnel. The problem is your funnel is actually upside down, a lesson I learned from Flint McGlaughlin at the MECLABS Institute.
People aren’t falling into your funnel from the top and letting gravity pulling them further and further into higher-priced offers. It’s as if your funnel is a mountain for your prospect to climb and gravity is pulling them back down to the mountain unless they decide to keep climbing higher with you and your business.
Every step along the way is a micro-decision to keep listening to you, keep reading your content, and keep engaging with your overall Message. Every click, every scroll, every moment they spend with you is their conscious decision to keep climbing further up your funnel mountain.
Today is about seeing your marketing as a mountain to climb instead of a funnel to fall into and let gravity do the rest. Take a look at your website and your sales pages and see how you can reposition different pieces to make the climb easier for your prospects to enjoy.
Have a great day today and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Today is Thanksgiving Day here in the United States, and I fully recognize that we have listeners from all over the world. So, while you may not be celebrating Thanksgiving today, I want you to know I’m celebrating you.
I’m absolutely blown away that we have people listening to Keynote Clarity from Canada, New Zealand, Germany, the Philippines, Brazil, the U.K., Ghana, Russia, Zimbabwe, Ireland, India, South Africa, Singapore, Japan, Australia, Vietnam, the U.A.E., Chile, Sweden, and if I missed where you’re from, I’m so sorry, but I want to say thank you.
This started back in March as a way to connect with you on a daily basis, to share one idea, one tip to help you get your Message in front of more people to help change the world for good.
I so believe in what you have to share. I know that you are changing lives of people I will probably never meet in just one lifetime. Thank you for what you’re doing to help make our world a better place.
Thank you so much for this honor. Make it a great day today and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Friction is a term that many marketers shy away from because you don’t want anything aggravating your readers or listeners, right? I disagree with that. Friction shows that there are two forces at odds with each other.
People are coming to your website, walking into your breakout session, and listening to your podcast with friction already in their lives. Stepping on the scale and not seeing the numbers you want can cause friction to disrupt your eating habits. Slamming the door after another argument with your partner is the sound of friction with your partner.
Many speakers, coaches, and consultants try to ignore the friction or dismiss it altogether with phrases like, “You’re just thinking about that conflict all wrong,” which is a terrible way to speak to your audience but a lot of speakers do that.
Your job as a speaker, coach, or consultant is to focus on the friction -- highlight the pain, give it a name, talk about the raw emotions that are associated with that friction. Then, show them you have a way of leveraging that friction for their benefit.
You can show them the pain they’re experiencing because a specific area of their life is not in alignment. It’s bumping against other parts of life or against the lives of others -- and it’s causing pain. You can show them how to align that part of their life - whether that’s financing, parenting, health, wellness, relationships, anything -- with the pathway that removes the friction and gives them freedom to live a more meaningful, positive life.
Today is about turning friction into freedom for your audience. Share one idea or tip with your audience today that can help them turn friction into freedom. Make it a great day today and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
I recently met up with a small group of high-level entrepreneurs for breakfast. Many of us are in the coaching and consulting space. My friend Brent asked a simple question as part of our conversation. He asked, “What’s your exit strategy?” This is a question I’ve heard a number of times over the past year, and my answer is the same.
I don’t have an exit strategy in place with Keynote Content. I know there are a lot of entrepreneurs who grow businesses with the sole purpose of exiting for a massive profit. Not me -- in my perspective, just for what I’m doing with Keynote Content, having an exit strategy feels like a Plan B for me, and that’s not my calling.
This is a lifelong mission to help speakers, coaches, and consultants craft and share their Messages to change the world for good. That’s never going to change - the world will always need more hope, more joy, and a more meaningful way to live tomorrow. That’s what I’m fired up about -- and that’s why I’m ecstatic to keep sharing more ways to help with your Message.
I’d love to hear what’s one challenge you’re facing or one dream you want to accomplish with your Message over this next year. Send me a note at jon@keynotecontent.com or connect with me on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram at @keynotecontent.
The best days are still ahead for you and your impact on the world. Make today count because your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Whenever I’m working with coaches or consultants who focus on the corporate space, we emphasize the reading comprehension level of their content. We aim for their content to be easily consumable by an eleven-year-old.
Why is that? A sixth-grade reading level is the preferred reading comprehension level of the average Fortune 500 C-suite executive. It has nothing to do with their ability to comprehend more complex content. It’s all about the speed of comprehension - the transfer of knowledge. If they have to take longer to read a piece or content or listen to the section of podcast episode more than once to full grasp what’s said, you will lose their interest.
So, how do you write for a sixth-grade reading comprehension level? Simplify. You don’t have to use jargon or even long sentences. Shorter is sweeter, simpler is better. The more you can communicate your concept in as simple of terms as possible, the better it will convey your Message to your C-suite crowd.
I’d love to hear your experience with creating content for a C-Suite crowd. Send me your stories at jon@keynotecontent.com or connect with me on social media @keynotecontent. Have a great day today and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Whether you’re a service provider, a trainer, a speaker, or a coach, there is a value you assign to your services. That may be an hourly rate (not recommended) or a set rate, but regardless of your rate, the reality is there’s always someone who can provide what you’re offering at a cheaper rate.
If you’re gaining clients based on your pricing, that’s a bad sign. It means they’re evaluating your perspective solely on a price tag, not on the actual value you’re bringing to the table. As a rule of thumb, I avoid prospects who make their decision only based on the price tag.
If you want to attract premium clients, you need to have a premium-quality service and results. Once you have the service and results, then you set a premium price tag to match your value -- and don’t budge. Someone can always do it cheaper, but there needs to be few who can do it better.
I’d love to hear some of the challenges you’re facing with pricing and value. Send me your questions and stories to jon@keynotecontent.com or tag me on social media @keynotecontent.
Have a great day today and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Whether you have a hundred or 100,000 subscribers on your email list, I guarantee not everyone on your list is interested in all of the same topics as everyone else. People join your list for a variety of reasons, which is why segmenting your list by interest topics is one of the most valuable investments you may make this year.
Of course, it’s easier to segment well before you create a new list or grow your current list to a much larger size. What do you do if you have an established email list that isn’t segmented yet? I recommend sending out a brief survey of five to eight questions and yes, you can use incentive if you want. Spend a couple hundred dollars for a new tablet or another type of gift and randomly select a winner from survey responders.
The survey questions can focus on the key topics you cover. As you receive responses, you can then start segmenting people into different interest segments. Then, send interest-specific content to each segment to better serve their unique interests instead of a one-size-fits-all approach to emailing your list.
Have a great day today and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
I recently helped a high-profile client apply for a TED Talk, not a TEDx talk - an actual TED Talk. What’s crazy is that I didn’t know she applied for a TED Talk until after she applied using the same content we put together for her Featured Talks.
We spent a little under an hour putting together three Featured Talk titles with a description, three to five takeaways per talk, and a money quote that will stick with her audiences. After building out her Featured Talks, she took that content and applied for a TED Talk.
The challenge was this round of TED Talk applications is focused on overcoming obstacles. She shared how our work together helped her see that her audience was looking for a contrast between where they are right now and where they want to be.
That’s where you as a speaker can add contrast to your Featured Talk title as well. Think about the current reality someone in your audience is facing. For our client people in her audience are often facing disappointment, lack of fulfillment, and limited freedom and flexibility with their work. So, we created one of her talk titles to focus on building a fun, freedom-filled financial empire from the comfort of your couch.
It gives an amazing contrast between what her audience is experiencing and what they’re craving to experience. It makes her talk that much more attractive because she’s presenting her talk as a bridge between the angst they’re feeling right now and the new reality they want to experience as soon as possible.
Implement that same contrast with your talk titles and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Not too long ago it was common practice to write blog articles that were 300 to 500 words long. That’s how I got my start: writing a short blog article every day focusing on one idea. It’s fairly easy to write a short blog article, but the payoff isn’t there anymore for Google search engine rankings.
Yes, it’s still possible to rank well with blog content, but the game is always changing with Google. If you want to gain significant traction with blog content, you need to aim for around 2,000 words per blog article. The average word count for website pages and blog articles that rank on the first page of Google search results is 1,890 words.
Instead of writing a list or overview of a few topics, focus on one topic or even a subtopic and go into greater detail on that topic. When you focus on the nuances of a topic, it serves your audience better because it gives a greater context for the people who land on that page or article. While you may be writing two or three articles a week, you can use the same amount of time to write a longer article once a week that better serves your audience.
I’d love to hear about the different options you’ve used to create blog content. Send me your thoughts and ideas at jon@keynotecontent.com or tag me @keynotecontent. Have a great day today and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
A recent survey by Demand Gen Report shows that the average purchaser consumes between three to five pieces of content before making a purchase. I recommend business coaches aim to double that number when engaging with a coaching prospect. The average coaching prospect is trusting you with more than just a one-time purchase. They want to know you have the expertise, skillset, and process to help them achieve the results they need for long-term success.
So, what pieces of content would be great for business coaches to create and share? I recommend having a feature-length piece of content, whether that’s a blog article that’s around 2,000 words or a 30-minute video training. This piece of content serves as the greatest value-add for your audience. They need to get tremendous value from this content without having to pay you anything.
You can connect a few smaller pieces of content beforehand, like a series of social media posts or an ask-me-anything session via Facebook Live, that all lead to the larger piece of content. You can then add a few more focused pieces of content, like a case study or a series of follow-up emails that guide towards a buying decision.
That will easily give you between six to 10 different pieces of content to engage with your coaching prospect before they need to make a decision. Try a few different combinations and let me know what works. Have a great day today and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Hi, I’m a Mac… and I’m a PC. If that sounds familiar, then you probably remember the Mac vs. PC commercials from around 2006 where Apple intentionally positioned their Apple products against Microsoft’s products.
Mac was represented by a casually dressed, relaxed young guy while PC was played by a slightly older more middle-aged actor in a coat and tie. The contrast was apparent from the second the commercials started… and the contrast worked.
Apple wasn’t selling computers or a phones or an .mp3 player - they sold a lifestyle where art, music, communication, and expression were easier than ever thanks to Apple.
If you want to build your brand Message like Apple built their brand Message, you need to focus on what Apple projected to their audience. Apple wasn’t sharing just another option compared to Microsoft. They were offering a better way to live.
Nobody wants another product just to say they bought a product. People want to buy the promise attached to your product or service. You need to offer them a better way of life, not just another option.
Today is about finding out how your audience wants to enjoy life - and how you with your products and services can help them experience that new way of life. It’s the difference between selling a personal budgeting system and enjoying financial freedom. It’s the difference between offering a weight loss program and experiencing more energy than you’ve ever had since you were a kid.
It’s a way of life, not just another option. Make today count because your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
I recently received an email from one of our clients about their latest email campaign. They’re in the financial services space and their open rate was 46.8%, which is almost triple the industry average. Their click-through rate was 13.8%, over five times the industry average.
Without knowing their industry averages, they asked me, “Are those good numbers? Which number is more important?”
A lot of marketing experts will tell you the open rate is the more important number because “Who cares what the click numbers are if they don’t even open the email?”
I agree, the open rate is important and you need great headlines to keep improving your open rate. However, the open rate pales in value compared to your click-through rate. A headline about free beer or how to make a million dollars in 60 minutes would have a high open rate, but of course, those aren’t offers that truly serve your audience’s needs.
Your click-through rate tells you how many of the people who said “Yes!” after reading through your copy and connecting with your offer. Your open rate is important because it catches your audience’s attention, but your click-through rate is even more important because it tells you how much of your audience’s attention you kept throughout your email.
If you currently send any type of marketing email to your subscriber list, I would love to hear what your open and click-through rates are. Email me those two stats at jon@keynotecontent.com or you can post them online and tag me @keynotecontent.
Have a great day today, and remember - your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
A recent survey by Econsultancy found that at least 30% of website visitors would use a search bar on a website to continue searching for additional content. That means roughly one out of every three people who come to your website is looking for a way to search for more of the same content on your website. This same crowd are also five times more likely to convert into a lead if they can use a search feature on your website.
Our website at Keynote Content has a small eyeglass search icon at the end of our main menu towards the top of our website. We also have a search feature at the bottom of our website in our footer section.
So, where’s your search button? I recommend adding a search button towards the top of your website and at the bottom in your footer section. This gives readers a chance to search before they scroll down as well as searching after reading an article or page.
Today is about making sure you have a Search feature easily accessible on your website. Double-check on your site and add a search bar if you don’t have one right now.
Have a great day today and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
The holidays are right around the corner and it’s a crazy time of year for busyness, travel, extra parties, time with family and friends, and uh-oh, you forgot to create any holiday-themed content to share with your crowd.
What do you do? Follow these four steps:
- Grab your phone - it’s probably already in your hand.
- Open Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, whatever platform you want to use.
- Find a holiday-themed backdrop or item, like a pumpkin, a wreath, a Christmas tree, an ice skating rink, something you really only see around during the holidays.
- Record a video with that item and talk about how that item reminds you about a challenge your audience is facing - and then, connect that challenge with a solution or tip you can offer to your audience.
It takes less than five minutes, but it can be a great piece of content. You don’t need to hire a video crew or rent out a studio. Some of the best holiday-themed content is created on your phone. Just pull out your phone, hit record with a wreath or Christmas tree behind your shoulder, and connect a holiday trend or idea with your Message.
When you’re done, post it on social media and tag me @keynotecontent so I can see what you created.
Have fun and remember your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Yesterday I shared about what do you do if you’re wanting to share holiday-themed content but it’s now mid-November and you didn’t create any content.
Breathe easy - I’ve got you covered. I already shared one tip: find out which holiday means the most to your audience and focus on that holiday first.
Another idea is to adapt what you currently have that’s already working for you. If you have a blog article that’s performing well earlier in the year, think of a holiday-themed spinoff from that topic and rework that concept into a fresh, exciting blog article. You can take an existing list of ideas and give them a holiday theme.
It’s simple, easier than you might expect, and no, you don’t have to worry about missing the holiday excitement because you’ll be creating great content right away.
Today, I want you to identify your best-performing piece of marketing material and adapt that for the holidays. When you’re done, share it with the world and tag me on social media @keynotecontent. I’d love to see what you came up with for your new piece of holiday-themed content.
Remember to have fun with it because you have the power to change someone’s life. Your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
It’s November 14th and that means Thanksgiving is only two weeks away. So, what do you do if I you haven’t created any holiday-themed content for your audience already? Is it too late?
No, of course it’s not too late! I’m going to share a few ideas over the next few days about how you can create great content right away that fits the holiday season.
The first tip is to find out what holiday you want to focus on first. Hint: start with the holiday your audience cares about the most and then you can focus on the others. If it’s Thanksgiving, create your first piece of content around Thanksgiving and then focus on New Year’s and Christmas.
If you’re not sure what holiday your audience loves more, start with the holiday that’s furthest away, New Year’s, and focus on that first. Once you have as much content as you want for New Year’s, work your way backwards on the calendar until you get to today.
Have fun creating some last-minute, exciting holiday-themed content and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
If you’re looking to use video in your online course, there are typically three options:
- You can record yourself on camera without any supporting graphics.
- You can record yourself sharing the screen with some graphics or slides, whether the slides are in a corner of the screen and you’re on the larger part of the screen or the graphics are the larger part and you’re in a smaller part of the screen.
- You record yourself doing voiceover of the content and there’s no video showing your face at all.
After working with over 1,100 different speakers, coaches, and consultants, I’ve found the second option to work better than any other option. Specifically, I’ve found the most effective approach to be where you have your slides or graphics as the larger part of the screen and your face or head as a small picture-in-picture video. This allows your audience to still see your face, sense your body language, and connect with what you’re saying while letting the content on your slides hold their attention.
I’d love to hear which of these three versions works for you and your audience. Send me your thoughts at jon@keynotecontent.com or on social media @keynotecontent.
Have a great day today and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
This past weekend I spoke at a conference in the Dallas-Fort Worth Area at the Texas Motor Speedway. It’s an incredible venue and I’m so thankful I got to connect with the audience at the event and have amazing conversations.
Our lunch seating overlooked the racetrack and I watched as some of the fastest cars I’ve ever seen raced around the track. What I noticed was that while the cars were going fast, they weren’t going as fast as they could. Why was that?
They were practicing. They were getting their laps in on the track perfecting their craft before their audience could see them race. You have that same opportunity with your Message.
Today is your chance to work on your craft. You can get in front of the camera, do a few takes, rewatch the film, and then, do a few more takes, perfecting how you want to show up on screen. You can do that with your videos, your podcast, your breakout session prep, your blog articles, all of the different ways you craft and share your Message.
Put in the work today by working on your Message because you have the power to change someone’s life with what you have to say. Your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Whether you’re speaking on stage, giving a webinar, or sharing an article with your audience, chances are you’ve wondered how much of your content you need to give your audience. There are two mistakes I see a lot of people in our audience make:
First, they give too much content and overwhelm their audience. It’s information overload and while their audience is appreciative, it’s likely the audience is taking notes as fast as possible and missing the flow and end goal of the presentation.
The second mistake I see is that they try to inspire too much change too quickly. If I’m giving a keynote presentation, it’s tempting to try to take my audience from A to Z with A being they don’t have any momentum or clarity with their Message and Z is that they have rock-solid clarity, great messaging in place, a content strategy that fits their personality and their Market, and all of these benchmarks that are impossible to achieve in just one hour.
So, what do I do? I try to find out what’s a realistic expectation to have on my time with our audience when it comes to igniting transformation. I probably won’t be able to inspire someone to go from A to Z - and that’s okay - but I may be able to inspire someone to go from A to J or A to K, whatever that looks like on our client journey.
Another example: if you’re creating a lead magnet, I recommend focusing on taking your audience from A to B instead of trying to go from A to Z. That’s too far of a jump and too big of a change to present for someone in your audience who likely isn’t that familiar with you yet.
Today, I want you to focus on how your Message can inspire change in your audience to take them from A to whatever letter you think they can realistically be at after listening to you and your Message.
If you stuck not knowing how to set those expectations for yourself or your audience, send me a message at jon@keynotecontent.com or tag me on social media @keynotecontent to share your concerns. I’m happy to listen, ask great questions, and share my perspective.
Have a great day today and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
The classic saying goes “If you give a man (or a woman) a fish, you can feed them for a day. If you teach a man (or woman) to fish, they can feed themselves for life.” How does that translate to being a speaker, coach, or consultant and sharing your Message? There’s a belief that by sharing your Message, your solution with your audience, that you’re empowering them with a way to ‘fish for themselves’, so to speak.
I like to think about your Solution this way: if you teach a man to fish, then you can sell him fishing gear or you can help him build a fish hatchery. The analogy breaks down as more ideas come to the surface, but the point is your Message can inherently give someone in your audience an idea of what process or tactics to follow or use.
This teaches your audience what to do, but they’re not equipped on how to do what they need to do yet. Information without application is why libraries are filled with books that nobody reads anymore, if they ever read those books at all.
That’s where your solution is so critical. This is the fishing gear you can sell to your audience. You can talk about the tactics they need to use, but by offering a great solution, it gives them the equipment and tools they need to be successful in the future.
Today, I want you to focus on what it looks like to teach your audience how to fish, as it were, and how your Solution can be like selling fishing gear to someone you just taught how to fish.
Have fun today and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Part of our M3 Clarity training for business coaches often includes identifying the right niche for their business. I think there’s a danger in people telling you that you need to keep shrinking your niche into a hyper-specialized niche, smaller and smaller every year. That’s where I often hear the question, “How small should my niche be as a business coach?”
I see my responsibility as not necessarily encouraging everyone to keep shrinking their niche down into a smaller speciality. My responsibility is to ‘right size’ your niche to fit the exact crowd you want to serve. If that’s a million people, that’s great. If it’s less than a thousand people inside your country, that’s great too!
Right-sizing your niche is about knowing who is and who isn’t in your niche, why that is, and also having a solid conviction as to why the current size of your niche may be the best size for your niche in the future.
So, if you’re stuck worrying about whether your niche is too big or too small, it’s likely your niche is a little too broad and you could niche down even further. That being said, you may hit a great balance when you find the right size for your niche - and you can eliminate any pressure to keep niching down further when it feels like it’s already a great fit.
Make it a great day today and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
One question I constantly hear from speakers across industries and backgrounds is, “How many slides should a speaker use?” As with many answers I give, my answer is, “It depends…” How long is your presentation? What’s the setting or context of the event? What’s your audience like? Who’s speaking before and/or after you if there is anyone else speaking?
I had a one-on-one lunch with one of the founders of the National Speakers Association and asked him that question. He said he uses over 600 slides for his main keynote presentation that lasts an hour. That’s ten slides per minute - averaging a new slide every six seconds!
Now, that may seem ridiculous to you, and that’s okay - he does what works for him, and you need to do what works for you. My rule of thumb is that I like to spend no more than a minute on any particular slide. I’m less concerned with how many slides a speaker needs to have and more concerned with the purpose of each slide. So many speakers add slides into their slidedeck that don’t need to be in there.
When you go to create your next slidedeck, view each slide in your slidedeck and ask yourself if that slide serves a unique purpose. If it doesn’t remove that slide.
Have fun and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
The Five Ones has been a game-changer for our team’s work at Keynote Content. Committing to pursue only one target Market with one solution through one conversion tool from one traffic source for one solid year is a big decision.
When I decided to pursue the Five Ones, I killed off all of our Facebook ads running to all of our funnels, rebuilt our best offer to be our One Solution, and then, I realized more changes needed to happen.
I said goodbye to our podcast we launched last year called Copy & Content. We’re repurposing any recorded content that we haven’t published yet. We stopped reaching out to prospective guests and we’re pouring all of the time that was earmarked for the podcast to building out and optimizing our Five Ones.
Here are our Five Ones:
- One target Market - Business Coaches
- One Solution - M3 Clarity training
- One Conversion Tool - Lead Gen Funnel through ClickFunnels
- One Traffic Source - Facebook ads
- One year
Our monthly revenue numbers are almost double compared to what they were a few months ago because we’re implementing the Five Ones. Of course, I can’t guarantee those same results for you and your Five Ones experience.
What I can guarantee is that simplicity drives scalable growth. If you’re a business coach who’s ready to jump in with the Five Ones, reach out to our team at keynotecontent.com or connect with me on social media @keynotecontent to start a conversation.
Make today count and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
We’ve gone through each part of the Five Ones leading up today. We identified your one target Market, your One Solution, your One Conversion Tool, and your One Traffic Source. Now you’re wondering what the fifth and final part of the Five Ones is.
It’s one year - one full year, no shortcuts, no halfway-in-halfway-out approach. It’s committing to do the Five Ones for a full calendar year, and this may be the hardest part of the Five Ones.
I’ll share more tomorrow about some of the sacrifices and choices I’ve made to go all in with the Five Ones for a full calendar year. It’s taken more than I expected, and some of the decisions hurt a bit, but I promise you, it’s been worth it every step of the way.
Committing to the Five Ones for a full year may be a deal-breaker for you, and that’s okay - I get it. There’s no shame in not doing this for a full year. Maybe you’re listening to this and wondering if you have what it takes to try the Five Ones for a full year.
I can’t answer that for you - only you can do that - but what I do know is that you have more greatness ready to shine in the world. The Five Ones could be the perfect launchpad to get your business and your Message to greater heights than ever before.
I want you to think about that today and if you’re concerned, uncertain, even afraid of what it may mean to do the Five Ones, send me a message at jon@keynotecontent.com or tag me on social media @keynotecontent. I love creating a safe space for people in our audience just like you who have big questions and concerns about the future.
You’re not alone in this, you do have what it takes, and I want you to never forget: your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Let’s do a quick recap of the Five Ones so far. We started with One Target Market - a specific niche of people you want to serve in your industry. Then, we focused on One Solution - whether that’s a digital product, a coaching program, your membership site, book, done-for-you service, whatever it is, you need to choose only one solution.
That leads to our third part, one conversion tool, like a sales page or an online application. Your conversion tool is one decision point where your prospect is most likely to say “Yes!” to your one Solution.
Now, we’re at the fourth part of the Five Ones: one traffic source. It could be a paid traffic source, like Facebook ads or Google Ads, or it could be an organic traffic source, like posting on LinkedIn, Instagram, or speaking on stages.
What I want to emphasize here is that your one traffic source cannot be passive, like word-of-mouth referrals. You need an active traffic source that you can turn on at any moment to start getting traffic headed towards your one conversion tool.
Today, I want you to identify your one traffic source and make a commitment to go all in with that one traffic source with the Five Ones. If you’re not sure which traffic source to choose, send me a note at jon@keynotecontent.com or tag me on social media @keynotecontent. I’m happy to hear what your options are and give you my recommendation based on what makes the most sense for your Message and your target Market.
Have fun today and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Now that we identified your one target Market and your one solution to get your target Market the best results, we need the third part of the Five Ones.
This is one conversion tool. This could be a sales funnel, an online training, making an offer while speaking from the stage, a sales call, an online application, or any number of other conversion tools.
Confession: I geek out on all of the funnels, the upsell pages, downsells, cross-sells, all of the different ways you can convert a prospect into a customer.
What makes the Five Ones so effective is that you focus on only one conversion tool as part of this process. Start with your one Solution and focus on how you can best convert prospects to say “Yes!” to that solution. If you already have a conversion tool in place that’s working, see how you can optimize that tool for a higher conversion rate.
If you don’t have a conversion tool in place yet, I recommend looking for a highly reliable, easy to navigate conversion tool, like a simple sales funnel or a sales call.
Whatever conversion tool you decide to use, test it over before you decide to use it for the Five Ones. If it doesn’t work well for you, try another for a week or so until you start to see some promising results.
Have fun testing and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Now that we have the first of the Five Ones in place - one target Market - we need to focus on the second of the Five Ones: one solution.
What’s one solution you can offer to your one target Market to help them get an amazing result? Your one solution could be a digital product, a training series, group coaching, membership, your book, or a done-for-you service.
This is where it’s tempting to think everything you offer can help your audience. That’s why you created all these different offers, right?
Fight that urge and choose the best solution, the one you know gets the best results in the most effective way. What do you do with the rest of the offers? For now, ignore the rest of those offers and focus on optimizing the best offer as your one solution.
If you get stuck or want to bounce a few ideas about what offer you could pick, send me a message at jon@keynotecontent.com or tag me on social media @keynotecontent. I’m happy to share my perspective.
Make it a great day and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
The first one of the Five Ones is focusing on one target Market. What is the niche in your industry where you want to serve? Think about the people inside that niche. What’s the biggest challenge they’re facing right now that you can solve for them?
Today I want you to write down the top 10 characteristics about your audience that makes them unique. Then, write down ten great questions, one question for each of those unique characteristics, that will help you understand your audience better than anyone else in your industry. Ask questions that you don’t think other experts in your niche have asked your audience.
This will help you create a solid avatar for the one target Market you want to serve as part of the Five Ones.
Have fun identifying your one target Market and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Over the past three months, I started experiencing more of a time crunch than ever before. I was stressed out of my mind, there was a slight twitch in my left eye - yikes, sleep-deprived, not fully present with my wife and kids. It was bad -- and embarrassing as I even talk about this now.
The problem? I was trying to do so many things with different offers, funnels, ads, everything all at once... and failing miserably.
It was around that time I heard Taki Moore share about the Five Ones and started implementing them for my work with Keynote Content.
Here’s what the Five Ones are…
One target Market
One solution
One conversion tool
One traffic source
For one year.
It took guts, pushing away that feeling of FOMO, and honestly, being pretty discouraged a few times, but the results are amazing.
We're already on our way to doubling our business from this point last year because of the Five Ones.
Over the next few days, I’m going to go into more detail about each of the Five Ones and how you can implement this concept into your business.
For now though, make it a great day and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Today is October 31st, Halloween Day here in the U.S., so hopefully, you get to enjoy some candy, snacks, a libation of choice, and a great party tonight, even if it’s just counting down the days until you can decorate for Christmas.
Halloween is known for scary things - ghost, goblins, spooky stories - but for you as a speaker, coach, or consultant, I want us to focus on what’s scaring your audience. What’s keeping them up at night? What’s causing a nightmare in their business? What’s the one thing they hope and pray never happens that you know you can help them protect against?
That’s where we can help turn the scary parts into a sigh of relief. Today I want you to ask your audience what scares them the most that you can solve for them. Post it on social media, ask your clients, send out a survey, however you do it, find out what scares your audience and let them know you’re there to help the scary parts of life turn into a sigh of relief.
Have fun, stay spooky safe tonight trick-or-treating, and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
A Video Sales Letter or VSL as its sometimes called is a featured video that’s positioned at the top of a sales page for a specific product or service.
As the name implies, a VSL is designed to function as a video version of your sales page. If someone watches your VSL, it’s supposed to give the viewer a complete idea of the purpose of your offer, how it can benefit them, and the action you want them to take with the product or service you’re selling.
So, how long should your Video Sales Letter be? The most effective Video Sales Letters I’ve seen tend to be around five minutes long. For your first Video Sales Letter, I recommend aiming for a three-minute video. That’s enough time to capture and keep your audience’s attention and share the value of your offer.
Have fun recording and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
We saw a significant uptick in voice-activated content in 2018 with the increased popularity of Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and of course, Siri.
This is a great time to shift our perspective from just asking, “How will my audience search to find my content?” to the new question of “What are some question my audience will ask Siri, Alexa, or Google Home to try to find my content?”
One shift you may want to consider when it comes to creating headlines for your content is write your headlines in the form of questions.
Instead of “5 Ways to Break Through the Six-Figure Plateau as a Health Coach” your new headline could be “What are the Best Ways to Break Through the Six-Figure Plateau as a Health Coach?”
You can also create pieces of content that are the most natural questions someone would ask about your topic. If you provide health coaching, you could create longer articles or podcast episodes that are titled “What are the Greatest Challenges to Reaching Your Ideal Weight?” or “How Do I Meal Prep for a Travel Week Without Falling Off My Regimen?”
Lead with the questions you’re anticipating your audience is asking their devices. It creates a more organic connection between your user’s voice searches and your content.
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Napoleon Bonaparte made three requirements of all his couriers. For anyone trusted to carry Napoleon’s orders across the battlefield or throughout his kingdom, these were the three requirements:
- Be clear.
- Be clear.
- Be clear.
One of the most successful military leaders in the history of the world knew the value of clarity.
As rising thought leaders, we must place the same value of clarity on our message.
What does my audience absolutely need to understand about my message?
This means we need to be ruthless with our editing, vigilant with our posts, and dialed in when it comes to knowing our audience.
The clearer we are with our message, the more effective our message will carry across different channels and conversations to the people we want to reach.
Today is about clarity with your audience. Be clear. Be clear. Be clear. And go change someone’s world with your message today.
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
There are three different types of speakers when it comes to creating the actual talk.
On one side of the bell curve is the more type-A, “I script everything!” crowd. Every word, every movement, even every inflection of the voice is carefully planned and scripted for each part of the talk.
On the other end of the bell curve is the crowd of speakers that tend to speak more off the cuff. The most structure they’ll use is bullet points. Even the idea of scripting anything feels like you’re trying to cramp their style.
And then, there’s the middle crowd, a hybrid of scripted and bullet points. I’ve found that probably 70 to 80 percent of speakers fall into this category.
Which of these three categories do you find yourself as a speaker? Are you more scripted, more bullet pointed, or more of a hybrid?
Whichever type you are, try giving the other types a test drive. If you script all the time, try using only the bullet points and see how it feels. If you’re more loose and free-spirited in your speaking, try writing out your entire talk from start to finish.
You may be surprised how much you enjoy the other ways of creating your talk.
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
When creating your next talk, whether it’s for a webinar, a breakout session, a keynote speech, or online training, try to narrow your talk down to one sentence.
In one sentence, what is the one big idea you want to communicate through your talk?
By focusing on your one big idea, it gives your talk a solid spine to structure the rest of your talk. Each point you add to your talk needs to emphasize your one big idea.
If a piece of content doesn’t have a clear connection to your one big idea, it’s probably adding more noise than anything else. Get rid of that part altogether or rework it to create a clear connection.
This approach also gives you a clear lens through which to gauge if your audience understands what you’re sharing. If you’re unsure, ask someone ahead of time to read your speech or watch a pre-recording and then, ask them to share what they think the one big idea of your talk is.
The clearer you can make your one big idea, the easier it is for your audience to follow that thread through your talk from beginning to end.
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Automation in marketing is more popular than ever, but are we missing something?
From email autoresponders to marketing funnels, messenger bots, and chat experiences, it’s fun to see your message connect with people around the world at any moment.
The challenge is making sure we’re connecting automations to actual conversations.
How do we show our audience that they’re connecting with an actual human being? One example of how this can happen with automations is by shortening the length of our replies to only a few sentences.
Shorter replies with more questions included in automations create a more conversational experience when people are going through our automations.
The most effective automations are the ones with intentional checkpoints where our prospects can connect with us through a phone call or video call. It lets them know we’re here to step up the conversation if they’re ready to move forward now.
This approach allows us to leverage the convenience and streamlined experience of automations while also letting our audiences know we’re human, too.
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Yesterday we talked about creating the Minimum Viable Content for your brand. What’s the exact amount of content you need to generate more conversations with your target Market?
There are three key questions you can ask about any piece of content to see if it fits in your Minimum Viable Content:
The first question, has this content or type of content created more conversations with a current or prospective client? This includes comments or shares on social media, in-person conversations, or follow-up emails after sharing this content.
The second question, has this content or type of content generated any sales for my business? This is the easiest question to answer, but you need to ask this question only of content that’s been out in the world for at least six months.
And the third question, does this type of content seem to be worth the trouble of producing it? This may be the most nebulous question to ask, but you already know if creating this type of content creates more joy or more stress.
If the answer is “Yes!” to any of these three questions, keep that piece of content. If the answer is “No!” to all three questions, then it’s probably best to eliminate that content from your content strategy.
This audit can free up more of your time to focus on what’s actually getting you results with your Message.
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Speakers, coaches, and consultants often waste energy creating more content than they need to generate sales.
Imagine you wanted to boil a pot of water to make pasta. It takes 212° Fahrenheit or 100° Celsius to boil water. Anything above that boiling point is wasted energy.
Now, you may be tempted to say, “Well, what if we used a flamethrower that’s a thousand degrees. That will make the water boil faster!”
That’s a huge mistake. Using that much heat will actually cause the water to evaporate and we won’t have any water to make our pasta. In fact, that much heat would be so oppressive that no one will want to stay close to what we’re cooking up.
It’s easy to laugh at that word picture, but that’s the reality many thought leaders like yourself are facing when it comes to creating content. Releasing so much content in a short period of time can cause information overwhelm for your audience.
That’s why I recommend focusing on how to create your MVC: Minimum Viable Content. What’s the exact amount of content you need to create to best market your business?
A good next step is taking an audit of all the pieces of content you’re creating on a regular basis. Ask yourself: is this content actually contributing to the overall impact our brand has on our target Market?
Tomorrow we’ll dig into how to do a Minimum Viable Content Audit for your content. For now though, I hope you have an incredible day.
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
If you want to break through the noise in your industry, you need to establish what makes you different.
Start with a Manifesto, a short, powerful set of statements you can share to prove to your audience you’re different than the next speaker, coach, or consultant.
Now, your Manifesto doesn’t have to be a written Manifesto, but that’s a great place to start.
Aim for about 150-200 words and make sure it covers three key questions:
One, why do I do what I do?
Two, why does it matter?
And three, what makes me different enough to catch my audience’s attention?
I’ll share those three questions again so they’re easy to remember. These are the three questions you need to cover in your Manifesto:
The first question, why do I do what I do?
The second, why does it matter?
And the third question, what makes me different enough to catch my audience’s attention?
As you create the first draft of your Manifesto, I’ll give you a heads-up: your first draft is probably going to stink. That’s okay Show it to whoever will give you honest feedback and keep refining your Manifesto until it gives you goosebumps as soon as you start reading it.
And then, share it with me on social media. Just tag @keynotecontent so I can be inspired with you.
Have fun and good luck!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Have you ever heard someone say, “Just watch me whip this crowd into a frenzy by reading my mission statement.”
Think about the last time you read a mission statement. bleh It was probably jam-packed with a bunch of buzzwords, like excellence and integrity and leadership.
Of course, those are great qualities, but those exact three words were also included in the mission statement for Enron.
If that name sounds familiar, then you recognize that Enron was the largest corporate bankruptcy in the history of the U.S.
Simply saying we value excellence, leadership, and integrity doesn’t mean the message connects with our audience on a visceral level.
That’s just one example of why the world needs more manifestos and fewer mission statements.
A manifesto is a short, powerful way for you as a thought leader to draw a line in the sand. What is worth living and breathing and dying for in your eyes and what are you calling your audience to join you to do together?
Today, I want you to consider writing your Manifesto. What would you want it to say? What emotions do you want it to evoke? What’s the line in the sand that you want to draw because you know it’s so important?
We’ll dig in more tomorrow about how to create your new Manifesto, but for now, have a great day.
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
A new podcast player called Bullhorn is creating some exciting new traffic jumps for podcasters and flash briefing creators. Users can call a local number and listen to their favorite podcasts while saving on data. That may sound unusual because who doesn’t have enough data on their mobile phone plan? You would be surprised at how many people don’t have big data plans and it’s actually affecting how people may be connecting with your podcast or flash briefing content.
In many cases, podcasts that are already established are doubling their traffic. There are a few instances where Bullhorn is actually outpacing Apple Podcasts in terms of downloads and listeners.
You can download Bullhorn for free from the App Store on Apple or Google Play or by visiting https://bullhorn.fm. If you also have a podcast or a flash briefing, you can submit your RSS feed for free to be featured on Bullhorn.
If you’d rather have someone else do that work for you, you can send a note to our team at Keynote Content at info@keynotecontent.com or tag me on social media @keynotecontent and I’m happy to do that for you for a low one-time fee of $25.
Have fun checking out Bullhorn and remember, your Message matters.
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Instagram TV, or IGTV as it’s sometimes called, is already changing how audiences interact with content. What many of us are used to is recording our videos horizontally so our videos are wider than they’re taller. Now, with IGTV, the framing cuts at a portrait, not a landscape, meaning vertical videos are more effective for IGTV instead of our horizontal videos we’re used to filming.
If you’re going to create videos that you might repurpose for IGTV, focus on how your framing can be used for vertical or horizontal videos. Even if you record in horizontal or landscape orientation, wider than taller, you can still use that video by cropping the sides in IGTV without losing the quality of your video.
Give it a try and let me know how it goes. Have fun and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
One question I hear on a weekly basis from clients is, “How much content do I need to create every day?” For me, I recommend creating at least one quality piece of content every day. That could be a blog article, a great video, a podcast episode, a Facebook Live, something that gives great content to your audience.
The key is what to do with that piece of content. You or your team can create a ton of smaller pieces of content by repurposing or disseminating that one larger piece of content into more bite-sized pieces. If you did a ten-minute video, your team can pull a week’s worth of tweets from that video. You can convert that video into an audio file and publish it as a podcast or transcribe your video using Rev.com and have a content writer clean it up into a great article.
My challenge to you is to start with creating one great piece of content every week. You can level up to creating a piece of content every day later, but for now, start with one piece per week. Have fun and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos recently shared that he tries to keep Amazon thinking with a Day One mindset. What’s a Day One mindset? It’s that mentality you had during the first day of your business - the first time you spoke on stage, the first day of your coaching business, the day you officially started business as a service provider, a consultant, the day your podcast launched.
I remember my first day I was so excited I couldn’t sleep the night before. I’d worked for weeks getting me website built during the late hours at night and super early in the morning. I remember having goosebumps thinking about how my work was going to help people share Messages that matter and change lives.
What inspired you to get to your Day One? What motivated you to push the big red button to launch yourself and your Message out into the world?
I want you to hold onto that this week. Take a few minutes and think about your Launch Day, your Day One, and write down some thoughts.
I would love to hear from you what you remember from your Day One. Send me a message at jon@keynotecontent.com or tag me on social media @keynotecontent. Your Day One meant something because you saw a future where your unique genius can help people. Share your story with me so I can encourage you this week.
Have a great day and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
You’re probably familiar with the phrase, “We don’t know what we don’t know.” I know there are a lot of things I don’t know about when it comes to certain things in life, like nutrition. I just don’t know a lot about nutrition - and that’s okay, but I know the value of having good nutrition.
When I talk with a personal trainer or a nutritionist I’ve worked with in the past, they often answer my questions about what I want, like getting my six-pack back, and yes, I do have a six-pack again. What makes our interactions even more valuable is that even though they address what I want, they know what I need and how to guide me towards what I need, not just what I want.
What we want and what we need are often not the same things. The same is true for your audience. They may want you to fix their schedule or their nutrition, their relationship, their kids’ reactions to their parenting, but the reality is what they need is more inner work, a mindset shift, a realignment of priorities.
Your audience is needing you to address (and maybe even give them) what they want. Truly serving your audience is about knowing what they also need, especially if that’s different than what they want.
What’s one way you can address what your audience wants today? And, what’s one common question or situation where it’s obvious what your audience needs and what your audience wants are not the same thing?
Share those with me on social media @keynotecontent or email me at jon@keynotecontent.com. I’d love to see what your audience needs versus what your audience wants and how you’re working to serve your audience in both areas.
Have a great day and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
There’s one factor that I’ve seen from so many speakers that dynamically affects the energy in the room before they even say a word: how fast they walk on stage. I’ve seen speakers take their time walking slowly -- and it usually kills the energy in the room. I’ve seen speakers literally run onto stage and a few times they’ve gone so fast that they’re not out of breath.
What’s the right pace to walk on stage as a speaker? When I’m speaking, I have so many details going through my mind: my opening, my pacing, my tone, my positioning, my audience. I’ve found that if you walk on stage at 1.5 times your normal walking pace, it shows you’re on a mission.
It telegraphs to your audience, “I’m on a mission to tell you something important.” Messengers who walk quickly, like waiters, your concierge, an assistant, they walk faster when they know they have an important message for someone important in their life.” For you as the speaker, your Message can be life-changing for someone important in your life: your audience. The next time you get on stage, walk 1.5 times the speed of your normal walking pace and watch the energy in the room increase before you even say a word.
Have a great day and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
A framework, a method, a pathway, a process - whatever you call it, it’s helpful to have a written, detailed idea of how you would like to help your prospective clients achieve a goal with your support.
So, how do you build a great framework? If you want to build a new framework, focus on the steps you would want your audience to take. What are three to five steps or stages that you tend to have your clients follow to get the outcome they desire with your help?
For our team at Keynote Content, we use our M3 Clarity framework with three key parts: Manifesto, Market, and Message. I build this framework after learning from the genius of Mel Abraham, the best person I know when it comes to building a great framework for your audience to follow.
Now, I’m not saying your framework has to have three steps or four parts. Start by identifying a common pathway that you tend to follow with clients. Then, name each step or stage in that pathway. Give a clear explanation as to why that step is in that order and what purpose it serves.
The final part of creating a great framework is what I call the napkin test. Can you draw and explain your framework using the back of a napkin? Record a video of yourself drawing your framework on a napkin and explaining your framework, and then, send me that video to jon@keynotecontent.com or tag me on social media @keynotecontent. I would love to see your framework video.
Have a great day and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Webinars are still some of the most effective tools for generating sales into coaching programs, mastermind groups, online communities, and memberships. One of the challenges I hear a lot of coaches talk about when it comes to webinars is how to go through the content. Do I use notes? Do I not use notes? Do I have to memorize parts of my webinar or all of my webinar?
There’s good news - you don’t have to memorize your content. How I present my webinars is with a dual screen using Zoom. I set up the webinar as an event through Zoom and then, I share my screen (my second screen) with the slides on it. What my audience never sees is that I have my presenter’s screen on my first screen that has snapshots of my slides with my notes right in front of me.
It looks like I’m looking right into the camera, but just below the camera lens is where I can see my webinar content and engage with the chat throughout my content. So, if you’re nervous about your next webinar, try to use a second screen and give it a test with your notes on your first screen while sharing your second screen with your slides.
Have a great day and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
How many times have you been at a conference or on a webinar, watching a live presentation, and it feels like the speaker is just teasing the audience? They’re giving decent content, but it’s not remarkable content. They hint at ways they can solve significant questions and problems for the audience, but then, it turns into, “Oh, but you need to buy my book to get my whole process,” or “Buy my course before I’ll teach you my whole system.”
And I get it - you have intellectual property, your genius that you want people to pay to get from you. After working with over 600 different speakers one-on-one over the past three years, I can confidently state that teasing your audience never pays off. The speakers who make the best impact -- and the most money -- are the ones who teach their entire process, their whole system, and then, they invite the audience to buy from them.
Why is that? Because people aren’t paying for information anymore - we have more information than we will ever know what to do with for the rest of our lives. No, people want insight and access. They want to know how your system uniquely fits their exact business or problem.
So, be generous with your content, share your entire system, your whole process with your audience the next time you get to present. I promise you, your audience will pay attention because you will stand out from the rest of the speaker lineup because of your generosity. And, you will also get much better leads after the event because you didn’t tease your audience.
Have a great day and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Position Zero is the top search engine result on Google. It is where short answers to popular questions appear before blog articles, paid ads, and even some video content in the search engine results. Position Zero is intended to give search users the answer they're looking for without wasting any additional time combing through longer content.
Voice-activated content, such as answers from Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant, and Cortana, are designed to populate Position Zero more and more heading into 2020.
I recommend creating more voice-activated content for your expertise to help populate Position Zero on Google. One of the best ways to create more voice-activated content is to position your headlines for articles, videos, and audio content to match voice search users' questions they might ask Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant, and Cortana.
For example, if you’re a health and wellness coach, you can change your article’s headline from "7 Ways to Naturally Lower Your Cholesterol Without Prescriptions" to "How Do I Naturally Lower My Cholesterol Without Using a Prescription?" It's question-based, not statement-based. Start focusing on using questions for your headlines and you will slowly see your content rising in Google heading into 2020 and beyond.
Have a great day and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Another marketing trend we’ll see more of in 2020 is that the Federal Trade Commission, the FTC, will put stricter enforcement and maybe even new guidelines in place for influencers.
Whether you’re a podcast host showing off a new mic from your affiliate or a hospitality consultant talking about the amazing suite you happen to be staying in on Maui, the FTC wants you to disclose your relationship with those brands. If you’re not disclosing that you have some type of fiscally positive relationship with a brand, that will get you in trouble with the FTC.
The good news is it’s easier than ever to disclose that you’re connected with a brand. If you’re posting about a product or benefit from a brand on social media, you can use the hashtags #paid and #sponsored on your post. That lets your crowd know that you’re being paid to promote that product or opportunity.
The end goal is to protect consumers’ trust, so be mindful of what you’re responsible for as an influencer if you’re connected to brands and take the extra steps to disclose that info to your crowd.
Have a great day and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Google searches for the term “influencer marketing” have increased by 1,500% over the past three years. Fortune 500 marketing departments increased their budget lines for influencer marketing by 39% on average in 2019 and that number is only expected to increase heading into 2020.
What does that mean for you as a rising thought leader, as an influencer in your space? It means you need to double-down on your niche: who are the exact people you want to serve? Where are they hanging out? What do they want and how are they looking for what they want?
Create more content now to address the top 15 or 20 questions you believe your audience want answered. Create one piece of content per question and answer each question as effectively as you can.
The better you can answer those questions, connect with your crowd, and influence their everyday living, the more you can position yourself as a true influencer in your industry.
Have a great day and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
You’re already familiar with voice search, whether that’s Siri, Google Assistant, Cortana, or my personal favorite Alexa. According to a study by comScore, approximately 50% of all online searches will be voice-activated searches in 2020. That’s a massive signal that voice search is already well on its way to outpacing text-based search in popularity.
So, how do you best position your Message with your content to take full advantage of voice search? I highly recommend focusing on question-based content and create content specifically for voice-activated searches. For example, this is a flash briefing, but our team creates transcriptions for each of these episodes. This allows Google and other search engines to catalogue our content so we can show up in more voice-activated searches.
I created a training last year called “Five Steps to Creating an Instant Connection With Your Audience as a Thought Leader In 2019”. I’m working on our next training that will come out later this year on how to break through the noise in your industry in 2020. If you’re interested in learning more, send me a message at jon@keynotecontent.com and I can get you complimentary access for being a part of our flash briefing crowd.
Have a great day and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Another trend that will gain even more momentum in 2020 is the use of live streaming. We already saw a big jump in popularity for live streaming in 2018 and 2019, but I believe the biggest adoption of live streaming across virtually every social media channel will happen in 2020.
Facebook Live, Instagram Live, and now LinkedIn Live are all elbowing into position for influencers to leverage live video streaming for greater user engagement. From the data I’m seeing, it’s clear that if you’re going to jump into live streaming, be consistent. Go live at the same time each week or if you’re going to do an ‘impromptu’ live stream, give your crowd at least a ten-minute heads-up notice if you can. That shows them that you want them to catch your Message instead of just showing up and they feel like they missed out.
Try to do a live stream today and tag me on social media @keynotecontent so I can join you for your live stream if I’m available.
Have a great day and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaers Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Yesterday I started sharing about which marketing trends that you can expect to see in 2020. A newer concept is this idea of ‘content snacking’ where content consumers are looking for short- to medium-form content, such as Instagram posts, Facebook live videos, articles under 1,000 words, that they can consume a larger number of those content pieces.
Instead of having a longer blog article, as in over 2,500 words, the smaller size of content pieces allows the user to consume a larger number of content pieces. This gives them a better variety or cross-section of your content tone, style, and purpose.
What does content snacking mean for your Message and your content strategy heading into 2020? It means your audience is expecting more pieces of content from you with more variety. The good news is you can repurpose larger pieces of content into several smaller pieces of content that can be syndicated across multiple channels.
For example, 60-minute training can be splintered into 20 or 30 different social media posts, like tweets, Instagram pictures, and Facebook status updates. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to create more content - just repurpose the amount of content you’re already creating to have a stronger presence across multiple channels.
If you’re stuck not knowing how to repurpose your content, reach out to me at jon@keynotecontent.com or connect with me on social media @keynotecontent to start a conversation.
Have a great day and remember, your Message matters!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
We’re heading into 2020 here and I can’t wait to see how the marketing landscape continues changing for those of us in the thought leader and influencer space. Already a number of our clients who are speakers, coaches, consultants, YouTubers, podcasters, trainers, they’re asking our team what are some of the changes we’ll see in marketing in 2020.
Over the next few days, I’m going to share trends and changes in marketing that we will see in 2020. The first trend I’m already seeing and we will see explode in 2020 is that more brands will rely on influencers to better connect with their customer base.
As an example, one of our clients is one of the top retail specialists in the world. He’s already being approached by numerous Fortune 500 brands to be the face for their retail sales promotion for new products to hit the shelves. Another one of our clients is an Instagram influencer in the beauty space and a handful of brands are asking her to be the host for their next fashion gala in New York City.
Today I want you to think about three brands you and your audience already love. Reach out to that brand and tell them you would love to collaborate on a project together. Position yourself as a guide to better promote their products and you may be amazed at the response.
Have a great day and remember, your Message matters.
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
I invested tens of thousands of dollars in myself each year over my first five years as an entrepreneur. This past year though I spent more money hiring other experts this year and investing in myself than all of my previous years in business combined.
Why is that? Because if you want to reach a level you haven’t achieved before, you need to rely on people who already know how to get there and already reached that level.
You’re already wanting to be seen as an expert in your industry. And yet, there are areas in your business, your life, your leadership, even your mindset where you are not at the top of your game. You haven’t reached the level you want to experience, which is why you need to hire an expert.
One of the most common excuses I hear from colleagues is that they don’t have the money. I didn’t have the money either when I first started, but I didn’t let that be an excuse. I worked hard doing what I knew already worked and made the money to hire the coaches and get the training I needed to reach the next level.
What’s the cost you’re already paying by not hiring another expert to accelerate your Message and grow your business? How much are you paying in opportunity cost, missing out on great opportunities, because your Message and your business aren’t ready to say “Yes!” to those opportunities?
Be honest with how you answer those questions and make the choice today to invest in yourself. Make it a great day and remember, your Message matters.
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
One of our clients booked a clarity session with me a few weeks back. They specifically wanted to spend our time identifying the ‘perfect’ title for their role. They’re an entrepreneur, and chances are you’re an entrepreneur as well, so how do you choose the right title as a coach or consultant?
I guided our client to think about their title from the perspective of their audience’s success. What is the role you want to claim or create for yourself that has your audience’s success in mind first? Maybe that’s the idea of being a guide, a concierge, or a champion for your clients. Each of those three examples focus on how you’re positioned to better serve your audience, not just promote your own success.
If you have an idea of a great title but you’re not sure if it resonates, share it with me on social media and I’ll be happy to give you some constructive feedback. Just tag @keynotecontent or email at jon@keynotecontent.com. Make it a great day and remember, your Message matters.
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Who is your website about? That may sound like a ridiculous question because, of course, your website is about you and your company, right?
buzzer sound Wrong.
Your website needs to be a 24/7 neon-blinking sign that tells your audience that you are there to serve them. It’s your way for them to engage with your Message and your company’s values from anywhere at any time for the sole purpose of helping them succeed.
The reality is that people don’t buy from websites. People buy from other people. People make decisions with a business specifically because they connected with another human representing that business in a meaningful way.
Today, I want you to consider the human side of your website. Are you showing your humanity in your copy, your photos, your messages, and your layout?
Spend some time on your website today pretending this is your first time on your website. Who is it about? What is it telling your audience that you care about? How is everything laid out for your audience to connect with a real person?
Take a note of some changes you may want to make and remember, your Message matters.
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
I’ve worked with over 600 different speakers in a one-on-one context over the past three years. One of the top questions I keep hearing from speakers is: “How do I really tell when my audience loves my content?” Applause, laughter, audience members looking up at you instead of at their phones, those are all good signs you’re at least interesting.
However, I’ve found one tip that works incredibly well, no matter your industry, experience, or setting. Create a video recording of your audience while you give a presentation. You don’t need to see how you look on camera - you already know how you look. What you’re doing is watching to see how your audience responds throughout your presentation.
You will know where you’re at in your presentation because you’re the presenter, so take note of any moments in your presentation when your audience responds. You may expect them to laugh at one of your jokes and you may even hear laughter, but you can tell from facial expressions when audiences are giving a genuine laugh versus a courtesy laugh.
You may also notice people leaning in and looking up more during different parts of your presentation. Pay attention to the content you shared that caused those reactions. Include more of that type of content in your talk.
Those are just a couple of ways you can use your audience’s video to help you grow as a speaker. Have fun with your next presentation and remember, your Message matters.
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
What’s your value proposition? Many businesses miss the mark with this opportunity. You are proposing unique value to your Market, which is very different than simply stating what you do well.
If you want to create a better value proposition, you need it to be as unique as possible. Narrow your audience to a more specific group. Focus on a specialty of yours, not a generality.
Most importantly, you need your value proposition to be about your audience’s success, not yours. I’ve seen too many value propositions from different speakers, coaches, and consultants that talk about how successful the consultant is instead of how their value is designed to serve their audience.
A great value proposition means you have an undeniable skill that is as unique as possible to your industry that you want to use to serve a specific set of people better than anyone else. Nail those objectives and you will have an unforgettable value proposition.
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Endorphins are one of the four main brain chemicals we can experience when engaging with an influential message.
Now, you may hear endorphins and think of adrenaline junkies, people skydiving, swimming with sharks, mountain biking over cliffs, that type of thing. The problem is endorphins actually has to do with the feeling of doing something heroic for the benefit of someone else.
When endorphins are activated in our brains though, they actually diminish our logical reasoning. It means we’re willing to do what our brains would normally say is insane because we know someone will suffer if we don’t act right now.
One of the most effective ways you can connect with your audience is through endorphins. Make an outrageous claim. Challenge a deeply held belief they have. Say something that seems insane and you will win their attention long enough to prove you are not insane.
It takes knowing you’re willing to risk it all because you believe your Message has the power to protect them from suffering in an area where you have a great solution.
Be willing to push the limits, even appear to be insane, because even the skeptics are curious to know if you can back up your claims. That will give you the opportunity to change someone’s life forever if you’re willing to look even a little insane to catch their attention.
Have a great day and remember, your Message matters.
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
I recently recorded a fair amount of video content in studio with one of my videographers. In between takes one of my team members asked me, “Where do you look while recording your video?”
Some people say you need to look straight into the camera, but I’ve found some viewers actually know that you’re looking right at them and it can be a bit of a turnoff. I’ve found the best place to look is at the edge of the camera lens. It’s such a small difference, but wow, the payoff is that you still have the effect of making direct eye contact without it being so obvious.
What happens if you’re working off of a teleprompter? The teleprompter is set right over the lens, so reading the script takes care of itself. However, be careful that you don’t rotate your head from side to side while reading. Let your eyes take in the script and keep your head looking straight ahead.
Give it a try with focusing on the edge of the lens when recording your next video and remember, your Message matters.
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
When writing a headline for your email or your sales page, one of the most effective practices is to try challenging your readers. Specifically, it’s about challenging one of their deeply held beliefs. If you’re a health and wellness coach or a nutrition expert, your headline may be something along the lines of: “Everything You Thought You Knew About Cholesterol Is a LIE” or “What If Your Keto Diet Is Only 10% Effective?”
What you’re doing is you’re challenging what their doctor, their cardiologist, their personal trainer, even their spouse has told them for years. It catches their attention and creates an opportunity for you to engage with their skepticism. “Everything I believe about my cholesterol is a lie? Really? You must be crazy, so I’m curious and I’m going to keep reading…”
That’s the reaction we’re aiming for: we want them to be surprised, maybe even defensive. It gives you a chance to clearly lay out your argument in a way that’s designed to help them have a better tomorrow starting today.
Think about one deeply held belief that your audience has that you’re wanting to challenge or even question. Create one piece of content today, whether that’s an article, a video, a podcast episode, whatever you choose, and challenge that belief with your content.
Have fun and remember, your Message matters.
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Being a great speaker includes knowing how much time you have… and staying true to your time parameters.
It’s not just making sure you’re not going over your time limit, but it’s also making sure you’re not ending too early.
Think about what it does to a meeting planner or a waitstaff if they hear you’re going to talk for 45 minutes and then, they’re going to serve dessert.
If you end at 35 minutes, ten minutes earlier than they expect, that leaves the waitstaff scrambling to ensure all of the desserts are ready. It disrupts the flow of the event, and it doesn’t set the meeting planner up for success.
So, what do you do if you think you’re going to end early? I recommend calling it out, say something along the lines of, “Now, I’m supposed to go to 11:45, but I’ve already given you a lot of content,” of course, only say that if it’s true, and then, you can say, “But, I would love to do an exercise with you. Can I get a volunteer?”
That’s where you can pull someone out of the audience, invite them to join you on stage, and do a dialogue for the next five or six minutes about where they’re at with what you focus on as an expert. Include the audience in your interaction and keep an eye on the clock.
That gives you a real-life case study opportunity while honoring the meeting planner’s schedule. Most importantly, it adds even more value to your audience.
Again, that’s just one idea, so keep that in mind and make it a great day today!
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Are you wanting to get on more stages as a speaker? There are better ways to grow your message without having to constantly be traveling.
Over the past three years, I’ve worked with close to 600 different speakers helping them craft and share their message through different types of stages.
Dozens upon dozens of speakers have told me they hate traveling because it means time away from their spouse or their kids or their friends. It breaks my heart hearing about speakers who missed seeing their child take their first step because Mom was at another conference or Dad was in L.A. for a three-day workshop.
You don’t have to be a road warrior to spread your message as a speaker. One of the most overlooked stages in the world is podcasting.
You can be on four, five, even six or more podcasts all in the same day without ever having to leave your office or house. And, all of those podcasts have an unlimited shelf life that anyone can access from anywhere at any time.
So, how do you get on these podcasts? I’ve created a great resource called the Podcast-Winning Marketing Machine to help you get off on the road and onto more podcasts.
All you need to do is reach out to me at keynotecontent.com, and I can send you more info. Being a speaker doesn’t mean you have to be missing what matters at home. Use the power of podcasting to share your message beyond the stage.
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
The other day one of my colleagues asked me, “Jon, who is your competition?” Without hesitating, I responded, “No one.” No one is my competition because if I see someone as a competitor, it instantly draws me into a scarcity mindset. Competition means there’s a fear of missing out on a project to win, a stage to speak on, or an initiative to lead.
When Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton, Burr wept with these words, “The world was wide enough for Hamilton and me.” That’s the voice of regret. That’s the voice of someone who didn’t see and value the abundant opportunities around us today.
The world is wide enough for you and your competitors. Some of the best experiences I’ve ever had in business to date are when I collaborated with others who many would say are my competition. I’ve had these same amazing people on my podcast. I’ve shared content and even quoted them. We have strong, mutually profitable, others-focused relationships because we know the world is wide enough for all of us.
Reach out to someone today who may be seen as a competitor. Talk about a collaboration opportunity. Learn from them. Ask questions. Embrace the abundance of life and know the world is wide enough for you and your competitors, if you still see them as competitors, today.
Have a great day today and remember, your Message matters.
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
Last year we launched our podcast Copy & Content. We had 20 episodes for Season 1, and it was amazing. I’ve always wanted to host some type of interview series. Copy & Content gives me the chance to have that experience right now.
The challenge I saw is that our episodes average around 45 minutes per episode. That’s a good amount of time, but it’s certainly not even close to being the longest podcast per episode on the market today. That being said though, my friend Kami Huyse made a great observation when we reconnected at an event in May. Kami asked me, “Do you believe your crowd will enjoy your podcast in one sitting?”
What she means is, “Do I believe my audience will be able to comfortably consume an entire episode of Copy & Content without being distracted? Is each episode a digestible enough size for the average listener to enjoy? Is there a new piece of content from someone else that is more appealing because it’s easier for our listeners to digest before they finish listening to one of our episodes?”
So, we cut our podcast episode lengths in half for Season 2, which launches on Tuesday, October 1st. You can find the Copy & Content podcast wherever you find your other favorite podcasts. Give us a listen for Season 2 and remember, your Message matters.
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
LinkedIn recently launched its new live streaming service called LinkedIn Live. I know, it’s not the most creative name, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s currently in the beta phase, but you can request consideration for early access. I already entered my application and I’m excited to potentially launch our weekly Office Hours for our crowd to ask me anything.
If you’re part of the chosen few who are beta testing LinkedIn Live, you want to know how to leverage this amazing new feature to better connect with your crowd. One of the most important details you need to keep in mind is LinkedIn is not allowing you to sell any product or service or promote any product or service through a LinkedIn Live stream. You also cannot use any pre-recorded content. I love this aspect because it allows you to keep a truly live experience for viewers.
Those are just two of the required guidelines beta testers must follow. Hopefully, I will be able to be one of the beta testers to bring engaging, relevant content. I’ll share more as I learn and better understand the power of LinkedIn Live. For now though, have a great day and remember, your Message matters.
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
It’s easier than ever to create or redo a website and your Market is constantly evolving with new questions, interests, and needs for you to address. In fact, we’re in the middle of a redesign of our main website at Keynote Content.
So, when was the last time you updated your website? I recommend updating your website once every year or so. It doesn’t have to be a complete redesign like our team is doing, but it’s worth updating the copy, your headshot, the pictures, client testimonials, and maybe some of the design at least once a year.
It shows your audience that you’re keeping up with your industry and you’re ready to serve them with relevant, interesting content. Give your website a once-over today to see where you could make some updates, and remember, your Message matters.
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
There are over 110 million Alexa-powered devices in the world and the number is expected to double over the next year between Alexa Auto and wearable technologies. FitBit just announced their new watch will be a direct competitor to the Apple Watch and will include Alexa technology. It won’t be long before Alexa is accessible from virtually any device anywhere.
This is the perfect time to launch your new flash briefing on Alexa. While it doesn’t have to be polished and perfect, it does need to make a great first impression. That’s why our team at Keynote Content has a complete done-for-you flash briefing production process with three phases. We’re helping launch flash briefings for clients and already seeing at least several hundred downloads a month just from organic searches.
Visit www.alexaflashbriefings.com to see what’s included and sign up for Phase 1. Let’s get your flash briefing on devices all around the world. You can also reach out to me with any questions you may have about flash briefings by emailing me at jon@keynotecontent.com.
Have a great day today, and remember, your Message matters.
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
So many authors, course creators, and digital product makers focus, even obsess with the title of their product. Yes, the title matters - it needs to ‘pop’ off the page, but the real value is in your subtitle.
Think of your subtitle as the thesis statement, the promise your product, book, or course is making to your audience. What do you want to communicate to them about what’s possible because they say “Yes!” to your product?
I like long subtitles. It gives you a front-page, can’t-miss opportunity to challenge your prospective customer’s thinking, beliefs, status quo, or even reality. Spend as much time on your subtitle as your title because while a good title will catch their interest, a great subtitle will win their wallet.
Have a great day today and remember, your Message matters.
The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”