Productive Insights Podcast: Business Growth for Independent Professionals with Ash Roy

Links Mentioned:

• www.productiveinsights.com/212
• www.productiveinsights.com/200
• www.productiveinsights.com/195
• www.productiveinsights.com/176
• www.copyschool.com

00:00 Intro

0:58 The importance of understanding the creative brief

1:12 How to balance writing for humans and SEO optimization

1:35 How to leverage customer feedback and understand your audience in copywriting

3:53 Approach to content creation in the awareness, consideration, and decision stages.

6:06 How to tailor content to different stages of the marketing funnel, from awareness to consideration to decision

14:35 How to blend writing for the audience and search engines, using keywords to guide copywriting

23:00 The importance of strategy and higher-level thinking skills in copywriting

Ash Roy 00:00

If you're a small business owner looking to build his or her brand, using the power of content marketing, copywriting and better digital marketing strategies that attract lifelong clients who become raving fans and tell their friends about you. And this episode is for you. I'm actually the founder of Productive Insights dot com and the host of the Productive Insights Podcast, and I'm genuinely excited to bring you this episode with Bernadette Schwerdt

Bernadette is an award winning Australian entrepreneur and the founder of Copy School. In this conversation we dive into a variety of fascinating topics that will help you move the needle in your business using genuine, authentic methods to build your brand over the long term. Firstly, Bernadette and I talk about her approach to creating content in the buyer's journey at the awareness, consideration and decision stages, and specifically what questions she tries to answer at each of those stages in her content.

Bernadette Schwerdt 00:58

A lot of business owners don't know this, and that is one of the first questions a client will ask is What do we write? And that's not a simple answer. You have to take a few steps back and look at the creative brief You actually do a whole series of question and answer sort of responses.

Ash Roy 01:12

We then talk about striking a fine balance between writing for humans, but still pleasing the SEO gods so that your content ranks for the correct search terms and is search engine optimized.

Bernadette Schwerdt 01:25

You can sort of infiltrate those keywords into your copy. You merge both the human need and Google's needs so that you come up with a piece of copy that's going to appease both camps.

Ash Roy 01:35

She talks about how to leverage customer feedback and parlay that into your copywriting, and she really emphasizes the importance of understanding your audience. She even talks about how strategy connects at a high level to the copywriting process, which I thought was very important and useful.

Bernadette Schwerdt 01:52

I don't think you can ignore the SEO completely, but at the same time I don't think you can ignore your instinct and impulse as well and listen to what my customers or prospects say. I hear the questions that they're asking me and I take that into accommodation as well when I'm writing copy.

Ash Roy 02:06

And then she also shares how her skills as a mentor and copywriting has helped some of her clients make massive transformations in their lives and build businesses that have given them freedom from the 9 to 5.

Bernadette Schwerdt 02:19

Part of the reason I love what I do and this is only come about since I've started the training, is you realize people want something different in their lives and I get a lot of joy from being able to see people make progress and take information and apply it. And so when I see these people progress on a certain age, it gives me enormous joy just to see how people can take the information, apply and change their lives.

Ash Roy 02:43

So strap in and listen carefully to the pearls of wisdom that Bernadette shares that you can then implement in your business and your life and what your business saw. Oh, and one more thing before we start over. 90% of you who watch this YouTube channel have not subscribed. If you've ever enjoyed our videos, could you do me a favor and please hit the subscribe button?

This helps the channel more than you probably know, and the bigger the channel gets, the better quality guess we can bring to you. So please go ahead and hit subscribe. If you enjoy these videos and share them with a friend. Thanks. And let's get into the conversation with Bernadette, Bernadette Schuett is an award winning Australian entrepreneur, author, TEDx speaker and advertising copywriter.

She's the founder of Copy School, the Australian School of Copywriting and is the country's leading copywriting coach. Bernadette's flagship online courses help marketers, business owners and freelance content creators create cut through content that places them at the top of their field and on page one of Google. Today, I am delighted to welcome Bernadette Schwerdt from copyschool.com, and we're going to be talking about how you, our listeners and viewers, can grow your brand and your authority using content.

Ash Roy 03:51

Welcome to the show, Bernadette.

Bernadette Schwerdt 03:54

Thanks for having me. Ash. It's great to be here.

Ash Roy 03:54

I'm very excited to have you. I've been reading some of your books, one of your books particularly, and I found it to be very, very succinct and punchy, which I absolutely love and very biased towards that sort of content. That doesn't waffle a lot. And that's a very Aussie approach to most things, in my opinion. So great to have you.

So, Bernadette, let's start there. Let's talk about your approach to content creation in the awareness, consideration and decision stages and how you approach content creation in each of these stages.

Bernadette Schwerdt 04:23

I think what you're talking about there is the marketing funnel, isn't it? That's how two people come into your ecosystem as a business owner. And a lot of business owners don't know this, right? Because it does help work out what do you want to say? And that is one of the first questions a client will ask is what do we write?

And that's not a simple answer. You have to take a few steps back and look at the creative brief, which is another thing I talk to a lot of my students about is having a creative brief so you don't just go straight into the writing of something. You actually do a whole series of question and answer sort of responses.

So what I do actually, what I train my students to think about is, firstly, who's your customer? Right. Pretty basic. You try and get down to the one person, not so much a group of 25 to 34 year old women who buy groceries. I like to think within that subset, who is this woman? What is her name? Where does she live?

How many children does she have? What does she do for a job? What's her concerns? What's the problem? She'd love to solve here? And it doesn't take very long. I could do it in about 2 minutes with my clients. But once you get down to it, it's Gemma and ...

Links Mentioned:

• www.productiveinsights.com/175
• www.productiveinsghts.com/200
• www.productiveinsights.com/222
• www.productiveinsights.com/212
• www.primalvideo.com
• www.productiveinsights.com/primal

Chapters:

00:00 - Intro

01:12 - The secret to growing a youtube channel from 0 to 1.5m subscribers

02:45 - YouTuber vs business owner who uses YouTube for growth

08:17 - Is it too late to start a YouTube channel today?

09:32 - YouTube rewards new content that's best for the viewer

10:49 - How Primal video built a following of 1.5m subscribers when other channels didn't achieve this

11:23 - The YouTube strategy for growth is so simple when you hear it

11:40 - The first thing you need to do is create content people want

12:02 - It's about talking to the problem and introduce the viewer to the solution

13:31 - The two things you need to do to get found on YouTube

13:45 - What drives a click on YouTube?

14:28 - The third thing YouTube cares about

15:53 - How to help YouTube understand your content

16:53 - YouTube follows Google's search principles

17:12 - YouTube is the second most visited site in the world

19:07 - What do I put in my course if I'm giving away everything for free

19:25 - Earning vs stealing attention

19:49 - Do you need to make ridiculous faces on thumbnails

24:28 - Justin Brown's favorite YouTube software

24:46 - Why JB uses Keywords Everywhere for Keyword research

26:08 - How I use Chat GPT and AI in content creation

31:10 - How frequently should you publish

31:32 - How frequent and how consistent should your uploads be

35:04 - Toipc selection

39:20 - YouTube analytics

39:47 - YouTube build in video editor

40:02 - ...

00:00 - Introducing ... Derek Sivers!

 01:39 - How Derek built a $22m company by focusing purely on the customer

 04:40 - The problem with external funding

13:52 - How to approach the world with a positive bias

16:49 - The story of the cab driver and the mob

29:12 - Derek Siver's approach to content creation

32:22 - How Derek Sivers edits

33:44 - How Derek Sivers sees the AI changes

37:46 - How to live

40:28 - The attitude Derek Sivers brought to CD Baby

43:03 - The struggle before launching CD Baby

44:15 - Why I do my own editing now

44:34 - Why you must pursue pain

44:45 - The difference between deep happy and shallow happy

48:38 - Derek's advice to a person starting off in entrepreneurship

 49:00 - The Tarzan analogy

 50:24 - The key thing about internal vs external focus

 56:28 - Derek Sivers on SEO

57:33 - Derek Sivers' approach to writing anything

Links Mentioned:

• https://www.productiveinsights.com/blog/just-begin
• productiveinsights.com/221
•  try.sunsama.com/ash
• shortform.com/ash
• [email protected]

Transcript:

Lessons Learned in business in 2022 and action steps you can take in 2023 that's what we're going to be talking about in this podcast episode this is episode number 221 of the productive insights podcast and I'm delighted to be back and sharing some insights that hopefully, you will find useful in your business I've been in business for about 30 years now the last 10 of which have been as a founder of productiveinsights.com and I'm excited to share some of the lessons

I've learned along the way, especially over the last 12 months which you can then apply in 2023. overall 2022 has been a lot about stripping back and simplifying processes eliminating unnecessary things and a lot of that came back to two words that Seth Godin had once told me I wrote a blog post about this called just begin the first point I want to make is the value of just beginning now I think it's best if I explain this in stages I decided to bring the video editing in-house and this led me to a new Vantage Point bringing the video editing in-house meant that I was going to produce a lot less content in terms of volume and also in terms of frequency so that was the first realization when I realized that I was going to produce less content this meant that I could no longer justify a whole lot of subscriptions that I was paying for so I reduced production-related expenses as I went through the process of canceling these subscriptions I found myself asking a very important question what other software subscriptions am I paying for that I don't currently need? so the answer to that question led to a wonderfully satisfying few hours of canceling a bunch of subscriptions that added up to about twenty thousand dollars which wasn't like winning the lottery but it significantly reduced my expenses and added to the bottom line now I appreciate the above sequence may look a little bit overwhelming and energy is happening but I promise you if you just begin you will find yourself at a new vantage point which will then take you to another vantage point and another vantage point and so on. You will be pleasantly surprised with the traction you get the key actionable Insight from this first lesson is just begin and all will be revealed now the second Insight is to walk your way out of creative ruts by the way all of this information is available at productiveinsights.com 221 and you can follow along on our website if you like I've actually written a blog post that takes you through each of these steps in a bit more detail so Steve Jobs was known for his walking meetings I've walked about 10 000 steps a day for the last year and have found the benefits to be gradual but cumulative and as James Clear explained in my conversation with him the compounding effect of doing something daily is profound almost every time I feel I'm at a creative roadblock I go for a walk and I come back feeling refreshed and I achieve the breakthrough. Sure walking is not going to turn you into Michelangelo but there is some science behind this walking increases bloodflow to the brain and the physical activity sparks certain creativity that you wouldn't have otherwise had access to walking results in better memory retention and it also staves off withering of brain tissue that normally happens with age the key here is to incorporate walking into your daily routine I get a lot of thinking done when I walk every day and I use the combination of the Withings scale and the healthmate app which you can get on iOS watching my progress in terms of my daily steps gives me a goal that I can work towards and that gives me a sense of purpose Direction and forward motion no puns intended Okay the third Insight is to use sunsama to plan and review your daily activities sunsama is an app that I've been using for about a year now and I've found it to be extremely useful now I've tried just about every productivity tool out there and they've all had their benefits and they've all been great but I haven't been able to stick with them for more than say three or four months sunsama seems to have really hit the spot for me and one of the reasons is it's very minimalist user interface a lot of the interface sort of Blends into the background and pretty much disappears until you need it it's very easy to navigate your way around it doesnt feel overwhelming a lot of thought has been put into this app especially in terms of the user experience now full disclosure I am an affiliate of sunsama but I do strongly recommend it now here's why I think it really has hit the mark for me as I said before it's got a very minimalistic user interface it integrates with a ton of different other tools like Gmail Asana Trello calendars notion you name it and the reason that is really good is because it creates one source of Truth for all of your inputs that can potentially take up space on your calendar in your day so it allows you to drag your emails in and turn that into a task it basically allows you to just time box all your activities so time boxing and scheduling my tasks have helped me come up with another really important Insight which I'll talk about more in a minute and that is not over scheduling my day so I typically tend to only schedule four to six hours of actual planned tasks per day because there's a lot of overhead I have discovered as a result of reviewing using sunsama there's a lot of overhead that goes with a lot of these tasks and so by scheduling fewer tasks about four to six hours of actual work I have a better chance at completing all the tasks I set for myself and don't feel like I'm constantly catching up and behind if you know what I mean and the final reason I absolutely he loves sansama is the review features it has both daily weekly they're just amazing it gives you a fantastic opportunity to look at how you've spent your day how they align with your key objectives which you can map your tasks to using these hashtags and they give you a feel for how you're progressing towards your broader goals if you'd like to try the application out for 30 days for free with no credit cards required head over to try.sansama.com forward slash Ash so that's t-r-y dot s-u-n-s-a-m-a.com forward slash a s h and you can get set up for a 30-day free trial so the fourth Insight is to allocate an hour of unplanned time for every planned hour of tasks you have on your calendar I mentioned I will talk a bit more about this in the previous section as a result of using sunsama planning and review I have come to realize that a lot of tasks come with unexpected overheads so let me explain what I mean let's say I set aside an hour to record a podcast episode like this one as I start to record it I might realize that some of my subscriptions have lapsed maybe I realize that I need to do a bit more research before I start recording the podcast episode maybe I decide I need to look up some previous episodes that are related that I want to m...

Links Mentioned:

• Episode 175 with James Clear — author of Atomic Habits: 

https://www.productiveinsights.com/podcast/james-clear-atomic-habits

• Episode 176 with Todd Herman Author of Alter Ego Effect: 

https://www.productiveinsights.com/podcast/todd-herman-alter-ego-effect

• Episode 147 with Noah Kagan -- How to Push Past Your Comfort Zone

https://www.productiveinsights.com/podcast/noah-kagan

• Productive Insights Membership

https://www.productiveinsights.com/membership

• Learn more about Pomodoro Technique

https://www.productiveinsights.com/podcast/thepomodorotechnique



Transcript

To get back on track with your goals and your habits, seven strategies that actually work, that's what we're going to be talking about in this episode.

Let me ask you something, have you spent days, weeks, or months, carefully cultivating a habit that's going to lead you to a certain goal? And then you've suddenly slipped up?

Maybe you were planning on writing a book, and you wrote every single day, 300 words every day for about two months. And then life happened. And you missed today? Has that happened to you?

219. 12 Steps to Goal Setting

Let's continue with the 5 Steps To Improving LinkedIn Connections with Adam Franklin



• What message to send?
• What happens when you don't get a response?
• How many follow-up messages should you send?
• Should you offer a content/resource? Marketing giveaway?
• What engaging messages can you try?
• Are video/audio messages better than sentence text messages?
• How do you know if the contact is interested in your offer?
• What are the things that would demonstrate a connection's interest?
• What to do with people who don't have time to consume your offered content but are those who need your content the most?
• When do you offer a 15-minute call with a prospect?
• When to offer your prospect to book a sales call?
• What to do when prospects have expressed their interest in your offer?
• What are the biggest challenges and how to overcome them when making connections on LinkedIn?
• How to grow your email list while improving connections on LinkedIn?
• How to optimize your LinkedIn profile?