How To Plan Your Content Snowball Method

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Transcript:

Hey everybody, it's Jen. Welcome back! 

I am doing a daily live video from now until I don't know when about online business stuff.

Today is day four and I'm talking about a topic that is going to be building on previous topics that I've been talking about this week.

In case you missed it, here's the two minute recap:

I've been talking with people about different way to venture into online business.

A few days ago we talked about three different types of people.

One person that just wants to make some extra money online right now.

Second type of person wants to have a side project online right now that can be a money maker in the future, but you have some time right now to build it up.

Then the third type of person is someone who really wants to do something similar to what I did, and I'm not saying I did it perfectly and you could probably do it even better than me, but go full time with an online business.

Today our topic is about content creation and about how to create this snowball effect of video content that you're making.

This is really going to be most applicable to that third group, so this is a very specific follow up to our chat from yesterday.

We talked about creating community and about the value of that and how important that is right now, especially as people realize some of their only options for being in a community are online.

Pavla, you are there and I could just reach through the computer right now and hug you and kiss you.

I am so happy that you showed up.

You're just very dear to me.

This is a perfect example of online business and community.

Pavla and I met in person, three years ago. Two years ago. It's been awhile.

She had been in my circle of people who knew me a little bit online.

She had been watching my videos and even though it seems kind of weird that you would put yourself out there like that like I did, I have really created very real connections with real life people because I was just willing to get on a live chat on Facebook and start sharing.

The impact of that and the effects of my decision to do that, I would have never been able to guess when I started.

That's really on topic for what we're going to talk about today because we're talking about a Content Snowball effect and exactly how to create that.

The most important thing that we're going to start with, which is step one, is to forget what you think that you know about why anybody would buy anything from you online, why anybody would follow your YouTube channel, whatever possible or potential doubts are coming up for you as you're thinking about this like, I am an expert enough to even start sharing my thing.

Whatever your thing is.

I could not emphasis more to you that whatever your thing is, there are people that are out there looking for information about that thing.

This is not about you appealing to the entire internet and everybody thinking you're wonderful and that you're super smart.

You really only need a small group of people to believe in you, to appreciate the way that you teach things or the way that you talk about things in order to create a following online that can turn into a full time business.

Pavla said it was 2017, December. Goodness.

It seems like yesterday. That was so awesome that I got to see you there and...

Listen, I never forget anything anybody ever tells me. I think it's a flaw, not a perk. Pavla said, "hey, I've been watching your videos and we have so much in common. We both like sushi, we both like white wine. I just feel like I know you." I couldn't believe...

We met in person and she felt like she already knew me and it's almost like completing the circle or I don't know what the word is for that, but getting to meet her after her saying that she had been listening to me and that she had been impacted by what I said, I will have to say to you that, even at this point like three and a half years into this journey, it still kind of shocks me or surprises me when people say, "your content or your podcasts or your videos really were what I needed or really spoke to me or impacted my life in some way."

It's really still hard for me to process, but that is the power of the internet.

Rob. Rob's here. Rob says he's met the requirement of not being super smart.

Okay, good. We're going to talk about that today!

One thing I've been telling people is you can create a business around your expertise or you can create a business just around something that you're incredibly passionate about.

In terms of creating a full time online business that is centered around your authority in some way, it certainly helps for you to be focusing on something that you have experience with and you know for sure that you can help people get results.

However...

However, as part of step one, forget everything you know, you don't have to have this long client list of testimonials before you start sharing about your topic because one thing that will happen is that as the first few people who follow you, listen to you, ask you questions, and get that one-on-one interaction with you at the beginning, at least a few of them are actually going to take your suggestions and do what you say and then you'll be able to come back to you and say, "that was incredible. Thank you so much for breaking down the very next step I needed to do," or whatever.

That's where some of your testimonials come from is just the fact that you decided to start sharing.

I'm going to talk a lot about breaking down beliefs that are not necessarily productive.

If you're going to venture into this journey, we're going to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

So, that's step two that I listed is not knowing exactly what's going to happen when you do this is part of the process.

I just want to be a reassuring voice and coach you through that that when you start the snowball, it starts small.

It's very hard to predict how big things get or how deeply maybe you start going into a certain topic and become known for a certain topic.

One thing I do tell people when I do coach them one-on-one about this, about launching an online aspect of their business, is if you do not want to be known for it, do not talk about it.

I'm not saying that the minute that you start talking about some certain aspect of your niche, but once people know that that's something you have expertise on they start finding your YouTube channel, they start your content, they start finding your blog, they start sharing that with people.

That's the way the internet works is it turns up the volume on whatever you put out there.

What I want to tell you to day is, in terms of forgetting everything you know, don't feel like you have to be ready on day one in terms of being able to...

if you have done something yourself or you've helped a few people, literally just a few people with something that you're really good at, you can turn that into an entire business.

We're going to talk about how that happens.

I'm going to make sure that I read all the comments because God I'm so happy that you all are here.

Pavla says, "You do remember I'm happy to have you virtually in my life." You are the sweetest.

So let's talk about how this snowball thing happens and, in case you want to know more about this, I'm going to refer you back to my day one video.

I don't even think I have them numbered but the day one video was everyone has an online...

I lied.

The day one video was: do people really make internet money?

Yes, they do and here are some different ways that they do it.

So, I broke down a big range of options and just told the quick version story of my online business which, again, there's been ups and downs but I am so grateful that I have and that I have sort of figured out.

I told the story in that video of how I created that initial audience and then grew it from there, so today's video is a deeper dive into how I did that and how exactly you can do that and how you can start today.

That is a summary of where I was going.

If you want the longer version, go back to day one.

Here is the more in depth version of how exactly you can do the exact same thing.

Step one, we said, forget everything you know.

Keep telling me in the comments too if there are things that are coming up for you that are like, well I can't do it because of this, or what if that.

What if a whole bunch of people are doing the same thing at the same time.

What if there's a lot of other people online who talk about the same thing.

Why would anybody listen to me.

Why would somebody pay me.

Why would I start doing this when I don't know how I'm going to monetize it yet.

Those are things that you need put out of your mind right now.

I really, really mean that.

I had an idea when I started of how I was going to monetize it, but even if I had not, I can see now in hindsight how I could have probably even more easily monetized by simply putting out the content and then getting the feedback from the audience that I was building about what it is that they wanted to buy from me, essentially.

Now, for you that might be one-on-one services, consulting, doing web design, doing a done for you service, or some time of one-on-one coaching.

The exact service that you're going to end up offering will start to appear for you.

You don't have to figure that out all at once in the beginning.

Another thing is that if you do want to create a course or an ebook or any type of smaller item...

I wouldn't say a course is necessarily smaller in terms of the amount of work that you put in, but it's always going to cost people more to work with you one-on-one in coaching than it would for them to buy a course about that topic, work through the course content and then they can coach with you one-on-one if they want to.

That's exactly what my business looks like today.

I have an online course that people buy.

I don't try hard, at least, to have people do one-on-one coaching with me, but I offer that as an option.

What I'm saying is that I know it feels scary and I know it feels maybe counterintuitive, but the best thing for you to do is actually to just start talking.

Start teaching and building the audience so that the exact format of what you end up selling to them will become apparent to you because you're going to get to know, at least, your initial audience pretty intimately one-on-one because they'll have the opportunity to ask you questions.

You use those questions to create more content for them which gives more questions that they ask.

Even if you're putting out a lot of free content, there's still always going to be people who want to buy something from you because they either want an additional, personal level of service from you, or they want the accountability of buying a program and going through it step-by-step instead of watching hours and hours of your videos and trying to put it all together.

Pavla said, "I struggle with how to structure the content, and self-confidence too." Okay, perfect.

We're going to talk about those things today.

Step two is: get comfortable being uncomfortable.

Let's talk more about that.

Here's the uncomfortable part:

One is that you're even putting yourself on video in the first place.

Two is that you don't exactly know where you're going with it.

What I hope that I can just offer you as your unofficial, free coach in this matter is that I promise you that if you keep doing something, that it does build momentum and if you keep promoting it, which we're going to talk about in a minute, that it does build an audience of people that are interested and some of them are going to want more.

They are going to want more of the way you teach this thing.

They're going to want more of the way that Rob coaches on this topic because they love his sense of humor and, obviously, he has the credentials to back it up.

Whatever it is.

One of the biggest things about the self-confidence piece is that it honestly comes from, I know it sounds scary as hell, but it honestly comes from putting yourself out there and then seeing that there is a small group of people, at first, who are interested and then over time it starts to grow.

The more people that come and the more people that show up for you because you're showing up for them, you start to feel like, hey, I do know what I'm talking about.

Because for you, I know you're such a... some words I would use to describe you, Pavla, is you're very productive, you're very ambitious.

I think ambitious is the word.

You seem like you really focus and try to get the most out of what you're offered.

I say this, you guys, I just know Pavla in my audience.

(She has never paid me a dollar ever, and that's fine.)

That is fine, but we know each other because of the internet and what I see her doing is she takes content that she gets from different places, whatever resonates with her, and she actually takes action on it.

That's why I know her is, because I'm just so proud of her.

That really sticks out to me and makes a big difference to me and makes me feel good about what I am doing.

Anyway, Pavla, when I think about you not having self-confidence, that makes me sad because I think that there are a lot of people who would love to be as ambitious and as organized as you are.

Again, I'm not exactly sure what your projects are that you're thinking about doing right now, but I promise you that if you put yourself out there, there are going to be people who, again, resonate is really the word.

You can't win everybody over with information because otherwise just the person who can talk longest or is the most educated on a particular topic would win every time.

We know that that's not true, so building your following is really about being in your passion and for people to be able to see that when you show up.

Your self-confidence is going to grow every single time you do it.

Even if the first time you put yourself on video your voice is literally shaking, because I was there at the same place to.

Rob said, "I struggle with, okay just start talking. Who knows where I'll end up?" He said, "I trust you totally, just trying to think about how much to structure the videos." All right, perfect.

You set me up perfectly for my step three, which is the exact how to and beyond...

So Rob, when you're thinking about structuring your content, here is what I would do.

Whatever your topic is, and this applies to every single person out there:

Whatever your topic is that you're thinking, I want to be known for this.

I want this to be my thing, I want this to be what people, when they're having an issue in this particular industry or with this particular career problem, who knows.

Whatever the thing is, I want them to think of me, or I want to people to know that there's a specialty source of information on this topic available from Rob dot com, and on YouTube and whatever.

You have all these platforms.

When you're thinking about structuring the content, your very first few videos here's what I would do:

1. I would plan out a "What is my story?" video.

I'm thinking back, and I can link you guys, you can see my very first... not YouTube, they weren't originally put on YouTube but Facebook group videos, we'll talk about this more in a second.

You can see my very first videos and how nervous and unprofessional...

I don't know.

It was just literally Facebook live from my phone.

You can see those first few videos still from my YouTube.

At some point we edited a lot of them because I would say things that were very time sensitive or not relevant anymore after a certain amount of time, so at some point we edited them and re-uploaded them to YouTube so, when you go to my YouTube channel some of the dates are slightly off but the content, the video itself is way back from when I first started doing this.

The very first video I did I was talking to nobody.

That's what I wanted because I was scared to death.

I put it inside a private Facebook group so that the only people who could see this were people who were joining the group.

I wanted to make sure it was only people who were interested in professional organizing businesses because I didn't want anybody else in the world to know that I was doing this.

I didn't even tell my husband who we were only dating at that time, I didn't even tell my boyfriend that I had been doing these videos until I was like six weeks into it and I was doing it every Tuesday and nine o'clock.

What I'm saying is I was incredibly secretive about it because I didn't want to put it out there, but I put it out there only to people who were interested or I could verify that they were interested.

What I would do is I would do a live video topic.

My very first one was, hey, here's my story.

2. My second one is, what even is a fill-in-the-blank (________)?

So, in your niche or whatever you're thinking about it, it would be sort of a one-on-one video of whatever your topic is, like leadership 101 for CEOs in 2020.

Make it very basic.

You're just brain dumping like, "hey, here are all the topics that a person could potentially be searching for at this point of time," and just speak about that.

You have your story, you have your topic 101 and then...

I'm really glad you opened up to me and told me what you're thinking about and I'll read your comment in just a second.

3. Then your next videos you either get new topic ideas from the comments themselves, either on your video that you did on Facebook live...

Do a Facebook live video.

My best advice would be do a live video because otherwise you won't show up.

Commit to it and just do it!

If you're waiting until I time where you're like, "hey, I'm cute, I'm dressed right, my makeup looks good," Rob, "my hair's cut right," and the video's perfectly produced, you're never going to do it.

You will not do it, and the live video in Facebook's algorithm reaches more people than doing this pre-produced, perfectly edited video anyway that you just upload later.

Facebook really prioritizes live video content.

So, you create your Facebook page.

Everybody's doing this. Everybody who's listening to me who wants to do this is doing this.

You're a creating your Facebook page.

You're doing your first Facebook video that's, hey, here's my story, here's why I am starting to talk about this.

Then your second video is like the leadership 101.

Rob says he needs make sure his hair is just right.

Rob said, "here's the gist. I want to help people learn how to be a real leader, cut through the bull cookies, quote unquote." That's hilarious...

(I've never heard that phrase before!)

"Cut through the bull cookies and be a leader, not using all the buzzwords like 'transparent,' 'robust,' and just how to be real with your teams and get them where they need to go." He said, "see, I already took a note from you not to use profanity." All right.

Yes, on my chat yesterday on creating community I said the only thing I filter is that, if we knew each other well in real life I probably would use a curse word, but I don't do that.

I don't do that online.

So, Rob.

We're going to use Rob as a case study.

We're going to use Rob as a case study as long as he'll stay on this video for the rest of the time.

So, we're going to Rob Stogsdill's business page.

Your very first video you're going to talk about your story as it relates to this topic.

Leadership might not have been important to you when you started your career but here's all the things that happened that made me realize that I wanted to become a certified coach, that I wanted to get deeper into this topic because I see the value of helping people continue to get professional growth in this area and have companies invest in building their CEOs to that level.

You can even start to say, "here's what bugs me about the industry."

You can say, this could even be a separate video topic if you want to go deeper into it, "here's what bugs me about the leadership coaching industry right now. I'm tired of the buzzwords."

I will say that there is probably an aspect of my story that is related to the fact that I was very frustrated with the current information that was online about my topic at that time.

I, for better or for worse, I was a little scared about some of the things that I was saying because no one else was saying...

I'm like, "I'm sure other people feel this way but nobody else is really talking about this stuff."

I was afraid that some industry police was going to knock on my door and say, "I'm sorry. You cannot put your opinion out there because..." I don't know.

That was definitely an unfounded belief.

That was definitely in the step on category where it's like, hey, forget what you think that you know or believe because there is not an internet police that is going to knock on your door unless you're literally doing something illegal.

If you have an opinion about leadership coaching and it is controversial or different than what other people teach, that is a way for you to stand out and that is a competitive advantage for you.

In addition, Rob, to the humor, which I'm sure you will deliver those controversial opinions.

So build that in and plan for that.

We said Rob was our case study.

Video one, what's your story.

Video two, leadership 101.

Talk about the future.

Where do you see people wanting to go?

Where do you see people needing to go?

Where do you see companies lacking?

If you're niching down even further into leadership for corporate companies versus just self-employed business owners, talk about issues that they are facing.

Even talk about the b.s. corporate leadership retreats...

My husband talks to me all the time, he's so happy he doesn't have to go do that anymore because it was all so mind-numbingly, again with the buzzwords.

He's like, "we used to talk about blue-skying back in the 90s." He's like, "I never wanted to hear that word again." I think that's funny.

Call out what you know people are thinking because I think that's going to make them relate to you and make them realize that you're not just another...

I don't know how people would refer to it in your industry, but you're not just another boring leadership authority.

You're somebody who's like, "I actually really give a damn about this which is why I'm making this content."

You can say that.

Say that, "this is part of why I want to share my experience and answer your questions."

So then, I gave you your first couple...

and this is pillar content.

This is what I consider pillar content because you're going to refer people back to, hey, here's my story video, hey, here's an overview of what I'm all about.

You're going to refer people back to that content over and over again, so make that good.

Put in your good stories and have an anecdote about whatever.

Talk about what you're frustrated with because I think, again, you're going to resonate with the people who need you and you're going to repel who don't really care about what you have or what you have to offer and that's a good thing because not everybody is for everybody which is quite okay.

The next question you asked was how to structure the videos.

If you're not getting questions on your own videos, your next thing to do is go stalk the comment section on other people's videos that are in a very similar niche.

This can be on YouTube, this can be on Facebook, this can be, seriously, if you really want to get creative, go on Amazon to your very favorite books.

Your favorite leadership books, your favorite business building or whatever it is that you want to be working...

Eventually, Rob, I'm assuming that you want to have either a program or be doing one-on-one coaching in this specific niche.

Go to your favorite books and then go to the negative reviews.

What were people not getting?

You loved the book, but what were they not getting enough in terms of, there wasn't enough explanation of this.

"This part was really fluffy, or I didn't like the language of blah blah blah, or this wasn't really applicable anymore because now it's a few years later and we're dealing with X, Y, and Z."

Really go and investigate what people are saying and talking about now because those...

Not every single thing that they say might be a topic that you want to talk about, but at least you'll know the people who are willing to engage and give feedback.

What it is that they want to know more about that they're clearly not being served by other resources.

That's where your money is because if you can speak to that niche and fill those gaps then when people find you they're just like, "this is the information I've been looking for and not ever able to find in any other resource."

That is the answer about structuring your first few videos.

What I want to do is follow up with the first few platforms that you need to be comfortable with in terms of building an audience and building email list and I want to talk about why that is important.

When you're doing Facebook live videos, like I just said, you're going to get the most reach on Facebook live.

Hopefully, maybe people share that but the really important thing is that you're re-uploading.

You download your Facebook live video and then you upload that back to YouTube.

Then what you want to do is take that content and whatever your topic was for that content and make a really good title.

When I say what a really good title is...

This is good too, Pavla. Exact same thing for you.

Whatever your main idea of the video was, you're not going to be able to cover all of that in the title but if you can create a title that includes words that people would actually be searching for.

You guys are maybe going to have to think about this, what are people searching for that is in your niche and in that area that you're going to be talking about.

Because you don't just want to say something like, "ways to reach your goals," because I'm not Googling "ways to reach my goals."

I'm Googling something more specific than that and I'm googling something that is more relevant in terms of how I can apply this now.

If there's anything that is changing in this industry right now, you might want to even include the year in your title.

"This is happening in 2020," or, hate to say this but, how is the pandemic or the coronavirus or whatever word feels right, how is this affecting this.

Because if people are searching for the content in your niche and it's something that it absolutely has to be up to date or it's not going to be relevant anymore then you need to put words in your YouTube title that indicate, "hey, this just got put out. This is not old news."

Think about that when you're making your YouTube titles.

Then, in your YouTube descriptions, I don't want to say you have unlimited length of YouTube descriptions but you have a lot of space and that can be somewhere where you're putting more of your key words of what people would actually be searching for.

You could say, "hey, in this video we covered all these bullet points," because that will also help your search results.

What you want to do is you want to start to rank when people are searching for that specific content in YouTube.

(I talked more in depth about this in past videos.)

When people are searching for that content in YouTube, you want your stuff to start rising to the top and the fact that it's recent will also help it rise to the top.

So, you're taking your Facebook live video, downloading it, you upload it to YouTube and then you add in those things that help it rank in the search.

Then, your call to action:

A call to action is an industry term for anybody who's selling anything, you always want to leave people with something else to do to learn more or to continue getting more on their journey with you.

Your call to action could be, come like my Facebook page and turn on live notifications.

I'm doing daily live videos on this topic, whatever.

Wherever they can see more or follow you.

Ultimately, that in itself can snowball because we talked about, you do the live video, you have people engaging live, you have people commenting, but you upload it to YouTube which is where people are searching.

If people find you on YouTube and they want to come engage with you, they can do that on Facebook.

This is literally exactly how I built the business that I have today.

This sounds super basic, but understanding how this stuff works is non-negotiable if this is the type of business you want to build.

Your call to action can be to come join you for your next Facebook live chat.

Let's say you do commit to doing them every Tuesday at 9PM Eastern, that's what I used to do, that was always the thing that got put in the video caption so that if people liked it they knew where they could come get more of it.

Eventually, what you want is to have some way for people to opt in to your email list.

Let me talk about email lists for a second:

There are a lot of people who teach email list building.

There's a lot of other way to build an email list, but again, with the type of business that we're talking about where you want to be known as an authority on a thing and you want to sell a course, you want to sell coaching, you want to sell a membership product where you're putting out your ideas and your supporting video.

Pavla said this is an on fire video and her hand is already tired from all the notes.

Thank you, because I'm feeling it!

What was I trying to say:

If you want to build a business where you get to help people one-on-one and they know you as a person, there is no getting around doing video.

You can build that audience through YouTube and Facebook, but eventually you want to be able to reach them through an email list because then that is completely owned by you.

You guys may have seen this concept somewhere before if you've ever researched online business where people say, "hey, you don't own your fans on Facebook.

You don't own your followers on Instagram.

You don't own your subscribers on YouTube, but you do own people who have subscribed and opted in to an email list from you."

Eventually what you're going to want to have with your YouTube content and with your Facebook page content is, "hey, opt in to my email list," so that either you're offering them something like to get a weekly newsletter where you can make sure you never miss a video or give them some type of resource that they opt in with their email in order to get.

What I mean by that is, it could be anything.

It could be a free...

Again, this depends on your niche. But this idea can be for anybody:

It can be a free list of resources that you know and love, that you use and love.

It could be, if you're a professional organizer, again, this is not specific to professional organizers -- but it could be literally a list of your favorite products on Amazon.

That can be affiliate links to your favorite products on Amazon, but what they opted in for was to get your opinion.

They signed up with their email and now you have an opportunity to nurture them with more content.

You don't even have to email them for six months if you don't want to.

I'm on email lists all the time who are like, "hey, we haven't sent out a newsletter in like forever, but here's what we're up to and if you want to unsubscribe no big deal but we've been quiet and now we're doing this new project and if you're interested here's more information."

You don't even have to email them immediately if you don't have something to sell them, but if you continue sending them a newsletter of some kind or just continue making sure that you're pushing out your free content to them...

One day, when you do know what you want to sell them, because remember I said at the beginning you don't have to know one day one, what does my coaching offer look like?

What is my course that am I selling?

How am I monetizing this?

You don't have to know immediately, but if you continue just serving them, serving them, serving them, then one day you can send an email out to this list of, hopefully, thousands of people, it doesn't have to be many thousands of people.

My own email list has never been larger than 5000 people.

Now, we cull it regularly so that people who are not opening emails or not engaged, we don't wait for them to unsubscribe, we just unsubscribe them after a certain amount of time because, again, this is going deep into the email topic, but it hurts your email deliverability to have a bunch of people on your email list who don't open your emails.

(Don't ask me how they know that, but they know.)

So, my email list has never been has never been bigger than 5000 people and again, like I said, I've had a full time online business for three years.

Again, when I say you don't have to convert the entire internet, you don't have to have this massive following or 10000 people on an email list or, God, 100,000 people on an email list in order to make good money.

But, the critical thing is, the bigger your email list and the more people who have opted in for your content, one day when you do send out that offer that says, I'm Rob, "Hey, I have now opened my schedule for one-on-one clients that really want to take this deep and really want to work together closely to reach their goals in 90 days," or whatever your offer ends up being.

You have and industry standard -- is like 20 percent of people are going to open an email if they're an engaged subscriber.

You still only have like 20 percent of people open your emails because peoples email boxes are so full, but it's still the best way to sell things.

You have 20 percent of people who open that email and then like two percent who are going to buy your offer.

It stands to reason that the larger your audience, that it doesn't matter if one day you're selling a seven dollar ebook or a 3000 dollar coaching package or a 297 dollar course.

There's going to be a percentage of people who are going to be like, "this guy is what I need," or "I love the way he teaches this thing and now it's very structured and it's going to hold me accountable because I'm going to be spending money on it."

I could talk all day long about that topic so I'm probably going to have to hold that for another day, but as soon as you're giving them something where they have to spend money...

Again, you've been giving and giving and giving, so now you're asking -- but you're also serving them because there are lot of people who are never going to get those results even though you've been talking about it for free.

There's a ton of people who are never going to get those results until they're paying money for it.

That's just a fact of nature or, I don't know.

It's a fact of online business.

When I say you use this time where you're building, you're putting out video content of Facebook, you're uploading it to YouTube, you're sending people back to Facebook, you're building your email list because, again, you're giving them something that is worth giving your email address for and that they want to stay in touch with or stay up to date with you even though they might not necessarily watch every new video you put out or be subscribed to your...

They might not even like your Facebook page, but you are the first real and authentic person that they even ever came across on the topic of leadership, for example, Rob.

So, they are interested in you.

One day when you have that offer, you'll know what it needs to be because you will have heard from enough people and you will have gotten Q and A and feedback from enough people where they're just like, "here's what I'm willing to pay for."

Maybe this is another video topic, too, is how do you use all of the feedback that you get from that audience that you're building to create a whole thing.

Probably, the easiest thing in the world is to just say, "hey, I'm offering one-on-one coaching and here's my calendar and you can book it."

Maybe that is the easiest thing in the world because you don't have to figure out in advance what result that they want.

They just know that they want to work with you and that they trust you and they want to talk to you every single week.

Maybe that's all they know, but if you do create a course or an online program, you might know what it needs to be because you see, here's what people need:

Here's step one through eight, or one through four, or whatever.

"I can create training videos about those steps."

"I also know where people are going to get hung up in the process so I've created some additional coaching content in advance where it's just videos of me talking about the common obstacles of actually implementing what is it that you're teaching."

Wow, okay.

I feel like I just talked your ear off, but this is literally the essential...

This is what every single person who has built...

if you built an online business, if it's successful at all, you can't build something that's successful without actually listening to what people are saying.

While you're building your audience -- you're also doing the market research at the same time.

I swear to you, even though it feels super scary to put yourself out there, it's the most efficient thing that you could possibly do.

Back up to Pavla. Pavla asked a question.

She said her biggest fear is, what if she doesn't know the answer.

"What is the cool way to answer without looking stupid?"

I love that you asked this.

I'm going to assume that you're talking about in a live video situation.

One thing that you can say, actually, if you're in a live video situation and somebody is asking a question, and...

Maybe if you were to give more specifics I feel like I could answer you better.

Hey, by the way, what I just said was a good way to ask for more information when you are not quite sure you're going to give an answer that is adequate.

Do you feel like that was *meta*, LOL?

I just did what you...

I don't know if I was worried about looking stupid, but I asked you for more information so that I could be sure that I was at least answering the right question.

Does that make sense?

For one thing, ask people for more information, two, ask them for a specific example and then number three, be ready for the idea that you're not going to necessarily dive as deep as THEY want you to go in your video.

But you could say to them, "hey, Pavla," or, "hey, Rob, that was a really good question, I'm going to save that for future video," then later you just go back and you make a note.

You're like, "I think I need to research that a little bit so that I can give some options or gives some answers that I think are going to address that question adequately."

But there is...

Oh my gosh. Here's a really good tip.

I read this from someone who I really respect online.

Her name is Jen Dziura -- Dziura spelled in a really weird way but she once wrote a blog post.

(I'm talking like eight or nine years ago.)

This is a really long time ago.

She said one of the best ways to answer people when they ask you a question that you don't know is to say, "that is a great question and that's not my expertise, but blah blah blah blah."

Just saying, "I'm going to need to research that more for you because that's not my expertise."

If people ask you a question...

When you say something like, "hey, that's not my expertise," not only are you owning up to it -- but you're also implying that you do HAVE expertise.

That was one of the most golden tips that I've ever read in a blog.

She's like, "There's not shame in saying, 'Let me think on that and get back to you,' or 'Let me research a little bit to make sure that I'm answering that adequately.'

Those would be good to answer questions without looking stupid, but there's no shame in saying, "the more I thought about that, the more I realized that what I said five minutes ago might not be exactly right."

You could even say that in a video and say, 'I'm going to follow up with you after this chat so that I can research and make sure that I get your question answered!"

Veronica's saying in the chat, "I think people will respect you needing to research than to make something and they will see through it."

I 100 percent agree with that, Veronica.

And another thing is that you can't expect that every single scenario that other people have faced is -- setting the expectation that if you're putting yourself out there and you're building expertise in a topic, it does not mean that every single potential obstacle or question that people are going to ask you is something that you have personally dealt with.

So, you could say, "here's my opinion on how to deal with that," or "I haven't faced that exact thing before, but here's what I think that I would do," and then you could say, "...but I'm also going to think on that for a few days or sleep on it and follow back up with you because that was REALLY good, thought-provoking question."

Just validate and thank somebody for taking the time to ask something and not feeling like you have to have all the answers in advance.

Pavla, one thing I talk about a lot with professional organizers is you don't need to wait until you feel like you are the be all end all expert on organizing before you start making money.

You're past this point now but I think one of the initial fears is people are thinking, "What if they ask me a question about what is the perfect product or what is the perfect organizing solution for this closet or for my pantry or whatever, and I don't know enough because I haven't been in business enough, or I haven't had enough experience to answer them on the spot."

I'm always like, it's okay to tell them, "Awesome. I'm going to take some pictures of your space and I'm going to think on this and research on this."

You'll have some time in between because you can't be expected to be the encyclopedia of organizing solutions, like Johnny on the Spot.

Let them know, and this is true whether it's an organizing client or whether it's somebody that's asking a question on your Facebook live video...

Let them know that you heard them and then let them know that you're going to follow up and think on it.

I think that's probably the best thing that you can do.

Today's video, I'm just going to recap what I told you.

The Content Snowball starts with your story.

It starts with why you care about this topic.

As Veronica was just saying a second ago about people seeing through it, there people who will know that even if you sometimes get things wrong -- that when you really, really care about something and really care about making it right that you are somebody who can be trusted.

Trust is everything.

Trust is everything in person, trust is everything online.

People don't want to feel like you're saying what they want to hear and people don't want to feel like you're scamming them.

So, start your video snowball, your Content Snowball, with your story and why you care about this because that is the pillar of why people are going to trust you.

Then start to branch out from there about your topic 101.

You can cover...

Oh my goodness. When people call me during my Facebook live videos it makes me almost have a heart attack.

Rob said he has some questions, but he wants to go watch my first two videos to make sure I didn't already cover it which is two hours of work on your part and, Rob, I am willing to still answer even if I covered it so don't be afraid to ask me.

He said it's a weekend to-do item.

I am really excited to be talking to you guys in this way.

This honestly is a huge outlet for me at this point in time and I plan to be back tomorrow.

I don't think I'm taking a weekend off!

It might be a little shorter video or I might do some side topic because I have other things that I want to share.

For example, helping kids start YouTube channels.

That's another thing I'm passionate about, something I've allowed my children to do, and I know other people have questions about.

It doesn't exactly relate to what we talked about today but if you guys are willing to bear with me I'm just going to jump around as I'm inspired and as my schedule allows.

My schedule allows for a lot right now but I can't set an exact time every day because of life going on.

Pavla says she has questions.

She said, "It's the questions about organizing solutions without me knowing or seeing the space. I've been organizing for over two years so I'm pretty knowledgeable about products. You gave an excellent example of answers just now before I typed it all in."

Beautiful. You're doing great.

Remember...

Rob said, "thank you for using me as a case study."

All three of you that have been commenting a lot today, Rob, Pavla, and Veronica, you guys are all my people and I'm willing to use all three of you as a case study. All I ask in return is that maybe you buy me sushi one day when we see each other and tell somebody that I helped you.

Really, that's all.

Bye!