This episode is about how you can create valuable content. We discuss on what it takes to create content that is perceived as valuable so that you are much more in demand as an influencer.

If we don’t get it right, people are going to perceive your content as trivial, it will feel complex and what happens is that your content gets forgotten. But if you get it right, people will realize that it is useful, simple and ultimately it becomes unforgettable.

The three principles that you need to consider when doing this:

1. Distinction comes at the end
2. It comes from their world
3. Actionable leads to impact

The Thinking Hierarchy

• Essential: At the base level, it has to be essential in their lives. It needs to hit home. Otherwise they are going to perceive your content as junk. So, at the base level, you need to make it informational to make it atleast 1X important.
• Expansive: The next stage where your content should deepen the thinking on your topic and area of expertise. If that’s not the case, it becomes trivial. We are trying to extend the body of knowledge so that it becomes useful and 2X important.
• Actionable: Your content should be able to get results. People should be able to use it in their lives. Otherwise, it is not valuable and what we want is to create something that is invaluable so that it is 3X important.
• Refined: Is the content easily effective? We are trying to move from something that is perceived as complex to something that is simple enough for people to do it. In this way we can move it from 3X to 6X.
• Distinct: The final stage which is about making your information distinct. We shouldn’t start with it but finally, we want it to stand out. The result that we are looking for is to make it unforgettable instead of being forgotten. The results move to 10X.

— Begin Transcript —

Hey there, Mel Abraham here, the author of the #1 best-selling book, The Entrepreneur’s Solution and the founder of Thoughtpreneur Academy where we teach you how to brand yourself as an influencer for more impact, more income and more freedom. And welcome back to this episode of The Entrepreneur’s Solution show and in this episode, we’re going to kind of continue our path on The Influencer’s Path and in this episode, we’re going to talk about how do you create valuable content.

One of the challenges that people have had is how is it that some people can create content that goes viral or create content that wows people? What does it take to create content that is perceived as valuable? And when you are creating content that’s valuable, not only does that make it go longer and have a longer lifespan but it creates the value on that content which means that you become much more in demand as an influencer as we talked about in the last episode.

So that’s what we’re going to talk about in this episode. There is an action guide. I’m going to introduce you to what I call The Thinking Hierarchy in this episode and I’m going to take you through an exercise or at least you will be able to download the exercise and the template for what I call The Insight Amplifier to amplify your ideas to a higher level of value. Once you’ve captured them, how do you do that?

So if you want to get that action guide, do me a favor. Just go to MelAbraham.com/session082, you will be able to download that. If you’re not by your computer, I want to make sure you’re safe, so don’t be trying to do this while you’re driving or anything but when you get to a safe place, just text me. You may be out running or something. Just text me MYLEGACY one-word to 38470, I will send you the download link. You can get that action guide and you can work through the process with us. All right?

So glad you’re here. Let’s jump into this whole thing and we will just start to understand this whole concept of:

• What does it take to create valuable content?
• How do you create valuable content?
• What does it take to create what I call compellingly valuable content?

Now, why do we even care about this? Because content is content.

It’s not truly the case because if we don’t get this right, if we don’t get this right, people are going to perceive your content as trivial and If it is trivial, there’s no value in it.

They’re not going to search you out and the idea is to remember, if I’m going to be an influencer it’s because they believe that my content and the things that I know and the wisdom I have makes a positive difference in their life and they’re going to search me out for that difference. So, if it’s trivial, it’s not making a difference. So we don’t want it to be trivial.

The other thing that will happen if we don’t get this right is it’s going to feel complex and I know I’ve been guilty about this in the past where I got these great ideas but they’re so freaking complex, it’s like a tangled string and you just can’t get it all untangled.

It’s a mess to deal with and your audience and the folks that you’re trying to serve, although you know internally that if they understood it, they would be served at the highest level in their lives and their businesses would be better off because they cannot digest it, because it’s too complex, it’ doesn’t serve.

So, if we get this wrong and we don’t create the content properly then it becomes too complex and people won’t use it, they won’t search you out and ultimately what ends up happening is your content gets forgotten.

They might read it in passing and then it just goes away, just fades into the shadows, into the darkness which is not what we want.

We want it to have a life. We want it to continue to grow. Because here is the thing when we get this right and we really start to drive this and we start to do it the correct what ultimately is going to happen is that people are going to look at your content and go, “This is useful. This is the key unlocks the door. This is the element that allows me to move to the next stage, the next level to be able to allow me to continue on the path or my journey in a better way more well-equipped with the things that I need to do.”

Also, if you get this right is they realize that it’s simple. It actually is easy to do.

They go, “I can do that”. So, remember that when we’re working with folks, they got to understand that, hey they need it, two they want it, three they can do it and four they can do it now. And so, that’s the thing that we want is we need that simplicity for them to have that feeling to be able to do that on an ongoing basis.

And then the third thing ultimately it becomes unforgettable.

It’s like the love letters that you get from the love of your life. They become unforgettable. The words that you say, the things that you do, the impact that you have become unforgettable in their lives and that is when it starts to permeate. That’s when they are out there speaking to people

• About what it is that you’ve done for them
• About the impact that you’ve had
• About the wisdom that you brought to them

That allow them to do things differently in their business and their life. I mean, Think about that. Think about that in your space. If you’re trying to develop your positioning in the marketplace, if the impact that your products or services have in someone’s life is a positive, unforgettable experience. I put positive in front of there because it can be a negative unforgettable experience and we don’t want those. We want positive unforgettable experiences with our products or services and our interactions.

• That’s what’s going to get people to talk.
• That’s what’s going to get things to grow.
• That’s what’s going to get people to start to search you out.

>Because you create positive unforgettable experiences in people’s lives as we do that.

I feel blessed with some of the things that I had a chance to do so here’s the thing. What do you need to know?

And I think there’s a couple of principles to consider when you’re doing this and the first is this is that distinction is what a lot of people are focused on.

I want to be distinct. I want to be out there with distinction and that is a great aspiration at the end. It’s not where you start. The problem with starting with trying to be distinct is that you don’t do the deep thinking that we talked about in the previous episode. You don’t do enough deep thinking to flush out the insights, the perspective that you have to build on it at a deep enough level that people will look to you and say, “They know what they’re talking about. They’ve extended and expanded and expanded the thinking on this topic area with some distinct insights which are actionable in the process.” So, we will talk about this in more detail but the fact is, is that distinction is important but not till the end.

The second thing that I want you to know is that we need to come from their world.

In other words, we need to step in their shoes. We need to speak their language. We want to use their nomenclature. We need to understand what is going on

• With our audience,
• With our marketplace,
• With our clients,
• With our customers.

Do you?

And I’m not talking some flippant avatar or some flippant customer profile. I mean deeply seeded feelings.

• Do you understand their frustrations?
• Do you understand their fears?
• Do you know what their aspirations are?
• Do you know what’s driving them?
• What’s paining them?
• What is aggravating them?

Do we really, truly understand that?

Because until we do, we can’t, we can’t package our solutions in a container that resonates with them and so we need to build that in that process.

The other thing that we need to understand is that actionable leads to impact.

I can talk conceptual up here and I can tell you theory but if I don’t give you a step by step. In fact, this is one of the reasons that almost every single one of my episodes has a tool, has a template, has a worksheet, has an action guide, has a resource guide so you could go out and step by step start to build.

Everything needs to be actionable because until we take action we can have no impact. It’s just fluff in the air. It’s clouds in the sky. So, what we need to really do is make sure that what we’re presenting, what we’re creating is acti onable and when it becomes actionable, is when we start to get the impact to move forward.

So, that’s kind of the basic principles. There are some other principles that we can go into but let’s do this. Let me jump into the iPad. Let me jump back to the iPad for a moment and let’s just actually for a moment just talk about the thinking hierarchy in a sense of

• What’s the value of your thinking?
• What’s the value, the insights you’re creating?
• And what does it take to get there?

So, let’s just jump to that iPad real quickly and let’s build this out. If you don’t have the action guide in front of you to do this with me, download it. Go to MelAbraham.com/session082 or just text me at MYLEGACY one-word no-spaces to 38470 and I will send you the download link.

If you don’t have it and yet can’t get it just take out a piece of paper, follow along and let’s do some doodling. Alright? Let’s do some drawing. Let’s put this together and let’s jump in to The Thinking Hierarchy.

So here is the thing. I think at the very base level, our thinking, in order for it to have any kind of value at all, has to be what I call Essential. Okay? It has to be essential to their life. If it’s not, it’s not going to hit home. It’s got to hit home with them. In other words, they need to see that it’s necessary, they need to see that it lands in their lap that it lands in their lap.

At the very base, fundamental level if they don’t think they need it, if they don’t see importance of it, they’re not going to buy into it no matter how valuable you think it is but here is the thing. If we don’t get this right, if we don’t create content that is essential in their lives, in their businesses, what they’re going to do is they’re going to perceive it as Junk. And trust me, we get a ton of junk. Junk mail, junk email; all the time. What do we do? Delete, delete, delete, delete. Swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe. And it’s done. All right.

That’s not what we want. They need to see it as essential so it becomes at least at a base level Informational.

Here is the key behind this. If it’s informational at a minimum, if it’s informational at a minimum that starts to move it up what I call the value echelon, the value ladder. So versus something that is not essential. Something that is essential is probably going to be at least 1X. The value of something that’s not essential.

Here is the next step though then. Once we move this up, is that, remember, we’re not there to just repeat what others have said. That’s fine and dandy but there is not a tremendous amount of value in just repeating other people’s thoughts and repeating other people’s insights. It’s about our own insights. It’s about how we grow and how we find our own insights and so I think the next stage of this is that our information needs to be Expansive.

So, it’ needs to be expansive. In other words, it needs to deepen the thinking on your topic, on your area, on your expertise, on the industry, on whatever it is because if it doesn’t, if it doesn’t deepen the thinking then it’ll be perceived as Trivial. Trivial, repetitive, unimportant.

But if we can deepen it, if we can extend the body of knowledge, say it’s on productivity, on leadership, if there is a way that we can extend it and build on it, so we can give our unique take that grows it either by contradicting what has already been talked about or by contributing something further. Then it goes from trivial to useful and then it goes from 1X to 2X. It really starts to grow.

Now, this is the base. I really think that if we’re going to be in this space as an influencer, as a wisdom leader, as a thoughtpreneur (as I call them) then we need to be essential and expansive no matter what we do but we need to move beyond that at some point because in order to really start to increase the value of what we know and position ourselves properly, once we get to expansive, it now needs to be what I call Actionable.

In other words, it has to Get Results. So it needs to be actionable because that means that people can then take it, go use it and change their lives, change their business, do something different, end up somewhere different, a new destination because it becomes actionable. If it’s not actionable then it’s not going to be valuable.

It’s conceptual kind of “in the heaven’s” theory that can’t land in their life and they can’t do anything with but if we create actionable steps that that will get them results, now it’s not valuable, it is actually Invaluable. And if it’s invaluable, ultimately, that actually increases the value to say 3 times (if you will).

But there is still two levels that I want you to think about going. Now, we’re going to slowly evolve through this but we’re going to build our content this way in order to get us there and the next stage of that is this. Once it’s actionable, is it Refined?

What do I mean by refined?

In other words, is it Easily Effective?

In other words, how do we move them from something that is perceived as Complex and make it Simple. Where they look at it and go, “Shoot I get this. Not only do I get it, I can do it.”

That is where the things start to really start to accelerate. And what ends up happening here is when you create and this is usually done with your frameworks, with the models that you put together. It starts to take and move them from complexity to simplicity and when you do that, now all of a sudden, you have a multiple effect and it just jumps because they go, “I get it. I get it.”

And it changes the dynamics of what you are doing tremendously in the marketplace so the question is…and you see this all the time with my content. There’s always frameworks, there’s always tools, there is always templates to try and simplify it for you so you go, “I get it. I can do it and let’s move forward”. So, it creates simplicity on the other side of complexity.

Which then leads to this last stage and this is when and only when you start to think about this and that is, is my information Distinct? See we don’t start with that. In other words, does it stand out? Does it stand out? We want to make sure that our information stands out and is distinct but if we start with distinction, we didn’t do all the work below it. It’s like building a skyscraper on a sand foundation. It is not going to stand. It’s going to last. So we can’t create distinction.

First, you’re going to find that when you do that, you kind of get cliché kinds of presentations. You get cliché kinds of information. It’s superficial and surface and there is no depth to it and there isn’t the work that was necessary behind it and the marketplace doesn’t value it for very long. They may catch on. They may like it at the beginning but then they see there is nothing to it and that’s superficial so you don’t have the longevity and we want you to have the longevity, we want you to have the premium positioning but we want you to also have longevity.

When we get the distinction, if we don’t get the distinction right, then again, what ends up happening is that you’re Forgotten. But if we’re really distinct and part of the distinction comes through this building through the thinking hierarchy. When you build through the thinking hierarchy with frameworks and all of the metaphors and the stories and all the stuff that goes into it, it changes it because instead of being forgotten, you become Unforgettable.

And when that happens, that is when all of a sudden your value really jumps. That’s when people search you out. That’s when people are looking at you and saying, “This person knows something. This person knows something, makes a difference in my life and I will search them out. I will pay premium to work with them. I want to be in their circle. I want to understand the depth of knowledge and information I have.”

This is what creates a Gary Vaynerchuk. This is what creates a Simon Sinek. This is what creates a Seth Goden. This is what creates all of them to really start to bring this forward and to build it.

And so, that’s the framework that I need you to start to understand to really start to build it and there is steps in each of these that I don’t have time to go into but I am going to give you one part of it in the action guide and this is what I call The Insight Amplifier. And so, you want to download the action guide if you haven’t done so already MelAbraham.com/session082 or text me MYLEGACY one-word to 38470. We will send you the download link.

In that action guide, you’re going to find that Insight Amplifier that’s going to take you through the key, the three key questions they need to ask about each piece of content that you’re putting out there, each piece of content whether it’s on a landing page, whether it’s in a blog post, whether it’s in a video to ask those three questions and when you answer those questions that’s what starts to elevate you up the thinking hierarchy and you get used to building it from that perspective.

So download, download that and start working through it. As you start to bring your content forward, as you start to build content whether it’s on the website, whether it’s a blog post, whether it’s in video, whether it’s articles, whether it’s presentations or speeches or mentoring, you want to make sure that you’re working through the thinking hierarchy to increase the value and you use The Insight Amplifier to make that happen.

I hope that you found this of value to you. I hope that this starts to extend the things that you’re doing in this wisdom area, in this impact entrepreneur, this thoughtpreneur kind of space to really build things in a different light, to put yourself out there and postured as the influencer in your marketplace. To be known for making a difference for what you know.

Do me a favor? So as I’m closing this out, there’s a couple of things that I’d love for you to do. One is if you are not a subscriber, click the button. Subscribe. Stay with me, all right? I’d love to have this dialogue and make this more of a dialogue. So, if you have comments, questions, do me a favor? Leave comments. Leave questions. Or you can ask them on my automated line by going to AskMelNow.com and we will make sure that you get your questions on an upcoming episode to help you and support you as you move forward in your journeys and try to make your journeys epic ones.

And then, one last thing. Do me a favor? Would you share this with a friend? Just share it with someone because I know that these things have made a tremendous difference in my life, in my client’s and many of my friend’s lives as I’ve worked with them and I want to get this information, these tools, these templates, these worksheets and this technology and processes in the hands of as many people as possible because I believe that our society is searching for a new paradigm and let’s give it to them. Let’s give them what they need to do that.

So, I hope you found this of value. I look forward to seeing you in another episode. Leave me your comments, let me know, let’s have a conversation and until then,

May your vision be grand, your journey epic and your legacy significant!

See you soon. Cheers. Bye!!

— End Transcript —

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Like this? Please share it and help a few more people bring their dreams out of the darkness and give life to them again. Cheers, Mel

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