Ep. #685 - Why You Need to Create Content

Matt DeCoursey 0:00
And we’re back. Back for another episode of Startup Hustle. Matt DeCoursey, here, with Matt Watson. Hi, Matt.

Matt Watson 0:06
What’s going on, man? Let’s create some more content.

Matt DeCoursey 0:09
Oh, man. That’s what we’re going to talk about today. I know that much. Now. We’re back for another edition of our 52-part series on How to Start a Tech Company. Matt, did you notice something different about today?

Matt Watson 0:25
Yeah, I did.

Matt DeCoursey 0:26
What?

Matt Watson 0:28
It’s Friday.

Matt DeCoursey 0:29
Yeah, that’s right. We moved to Fridays, dude. Yeah, they kicked us out of the Wednesday spot. We are now I think it’s probably because of the production staff and the marketing team at Full Scale and Startup Hustle. And by the way, Matt, today’s episode of Startup Hustle is brought to you by FullScale.io. Helping you build a software team quickly and affordably. And man, we sure do exactly that. So reach out. Thank you to so many of you that already have. So come find us. We want to try to help you solve your tech problems. But I think the production team at Full Scale wanted us to bring people into the weekend,

Matt Watson 1:08
I think is, you know, Saturday morning, you’re out on the soccer field watching your kids play soccer, and you can listen to Full Scale, and we’ll be right there ready to go.

Matt DeCoursey 1:17
Do you mean Startup Hustle? Yeah, they are both kind of one and the same on Sundays. Speaking of soccer, I do want to point out that my daughter has an 8 am game on Saturday morning, and I just feel like that should be illegal.

Matt Watson 1:32
So listen to the podcast while you’re watching her game.

Matt DeCoursey 1:35
True. And I might because, you know, I reviewed the game tape and determined that the best thing about these episodes is, in fact, Matt. So you know, the hardest part about owning Full Scale with Matt is that neither one of us can be mad at FullScale.io. So, yeah, we’ll figure that out. So all right, why do you need to create content? Well, this is something we have we have a little bit of experience with between the content that we’ve created for Startup Hustle podcast, the blogs between all of the different things we’ve done, and Startup Hustle TV, we’ve created a little content, haven’t we?

Matt Watson 2:18
Absolutely. Content is king, right? Yep.

Matt DeCoursey 2:21
And, you know, there’s so much info and stuff out there from so many different sources that, well, if we want to talk about popular people like you got guys like Gary Vee, who encouraged you to make your company, a media company that happens to do other stuff. And I’ve always actually looked at our businesses like that. I mean, you know, you should be a sales and marketing company that happens to do whatever it is that you do. And that’s the modern world. Creating content is a popular way to do it. But my God, people are bad at it. Is that fair?

Matt Watson 2:58
Well, they’re more than anything. They’re inconsistent, right? I mean, yeah, they’re bad at it. But they’re definitely inconsistent. And it takes consistency.

Matt DeCoursey 3:07
Yeah, so what the there are reasons that creating content is important. And there’s, I mean, a whole lot of it. So and I think a lot of it revolves around, you know, where you’re creating it and what your objective is, for. I mentioned earlier about blogging, you know, the FullScale.io, the blog, where we publish an article every day, well thought out articles about technology, entrepreneurship and different stuff. We get 30 to 40,000 visitors a month to the site that are finding that in search engines. So the why of that is we drive traffic to our site, by providing some great content that answers questions.

Matt Watson 3:48
And that drives leads to the business and drives customers and creates revenue.

Matt DeCoursey 3:52
Creates credibility. Yeah. So I think one of the first things and you alluded to this in one of the past episodes that I often say, You got to look like you’re in whatever business you said, you’re in. Absolutely, but its credibility. And yeah, and that’s, that’s a key thing. So like, Do you actually know what you’re talking about? And it’s a good way to build some trust. Now, I mentioned earlier that I’ve talked to so many Startup Hustle listeners that have reached out for Full Scale services. And they invariably tell me, like, I’ll get on a, I’ll begin to tell them about so. I’m actually really familiar. I listen to the podcast, I feel like I already know you.

Matt Watson 4:32
Well, another good example of this is in tech, you know, often I’ll be trying to solve a specific problem, right? And I may search Google like 20 different ways about different things. And if the same freakin company shows up every time they must really know what they’re doing in regards to this right? And I see that happen a lot like you searching the same sort of topic over and over and over again. And one specific company just like owns Google for whatever that topic is, and it makes them seem very authoritative. Right. So, and we try to do the same thing at Full Scale, we have a lot of articles about what we do. And depending on what you search on Google, you’re, you’re gonna find this right? And, and even if may just goes to full scale.com, they don’t know our blog exists, right? They just go to full scale.io. And if they click on blog, and they see all the content, they’re like, Wow, these people know a lot about what we do, right? And it just makes you seem authoritative, and up to date, like you’re publishing new stuff, every you know, every week, you know about what’s going on in the industry and trends and all these different things. It just makes you seem like you know what you’re doing.

Matt DeCoursey 5:37
You mentioned, one of the so there’s a few things that and I wasn’t kidding, I think most people are pretty bad at creating content. I think a lot of it is that they are focused on current just the idea of creating content, but like, what do you what do you want to get out of it? Like, what’s your end result, and you mentioned like, is your win traffic, it could be in some businesses, in our case that the full FullScale.io That’s not the case, we want you to register, or reach out or schedule a call or do something to talk to us where we can see if it’s a good fit for us to help you or do business together or anything like that. Now, when you create content, there’s one role that I always look at, is with whatever you create post or any of it, if anyone watching it, or look at looks at it, if like the overwhelming response could just kind of be like so what, it probably sucks, you know, like people like some of it, learn some things. Or you need to entertain people or uniqueness you like and part of that learning is also like solving a problem. So and a world filled with content, social media platforms, digital advertising, all of it. You got to think about how you’re going to get start by how are you going to get anyone to even stop scrolling?

Matt Watson 6:59
Right again, great. Go ahead. No, no, please. So a great example of this. I think actually Gary Vee I follow him on Tik Tok. So I see him on Tik Tok. And, and he was talking about one day, I think just going on LinkedIn. Right? And finding different topics are related to you. And you can comment on all the threads, right? But if you’re but if your comment is something stupid, like haha, yeah, I agree. It doesn’t provide a lot of value. But if you provide some super well thought out message that other people read, and they’re like, Who is this guy? He knows a lot about this. And the next thing, you know, they click on your profile, and maybe they reach out to you, right? Or maybe they connect with you or follow you. And then over time, that relationship gets nurtured. And you know, maybe something comes of it down the road. But the key is, is creating that content, and even just commenting on things on LinkedIn is content.

Matt DeCoursey 7:52
Yeah, I agree. And I’m living it right now. It’s I made a post the other day on LinkedIn. That was asking, I said, my phone doesn’t even ring unless you’re on my contacts list. And that makes me wonder and want to ask if cold calling is dead and a thing of the past now, I wasn’t expecting this. But this has been up for now two days. And it’s got 82,000 impressions, 20 365 votes, 226 comments. And now here’s the thing is a lot of the people that are having a discussion, they’re like literally, very in depth answers, and a whole lot of stuff. And some of them are even telling me how how lame I am and how lazy I am for even asking that question. They’re like, this is something that’s the I see asked all the time, and I want to be like, Why are you interacting with it, then? Why are you engaging with it? Why are you commenting on it? But here’s the thing they are. So some of that is and that’s that’s simple acts of tribe building. So part of content, that part of the downstream effect of a lot of content can be what is intended to be tribe building. So tribe building, a great example of this is is music. So like the Grateful Dead? People follow that band all over the world, Matt, and a lot of it was because they wanted to see their friends in the parking lot. Right, they found as much value in the downstream effect of the top level content, which was the music in that case or the concert, but they found so much value in each other. So when you talk about like things like those comment threads, like as long as people are being productive, and they’re just not like, Fuck you, you suck. That’s not productive. Right? But I mean, there’s a lot of people like having like very in depth conversations about a lot of it and and so that’s effective content, even for the people that are telling me it’s not effective. And I’m like I actually replied to one of them. I was like, Man, this this post took me About 20 seconds to create, and 1000s of people are engaging with it, it’s kind of hard for me to feel like it’s it’s inefficient. Now that said, Does anything come of that that turns in to business or what I want the intended result to be? Now, look, my intent with this was I was literally I wanted to answer my own question because, Matt, as you’re aware, we tried, we’ve tried a lot of different things to sell at Full Scale and cold calling has not been successful. Now. So I actually wanted to crowds. Yeah, well, but for some industries that does, according to the hundreds of people are commenting and arguing with each other in the feed, by the way, the results of that post, right, that poll right now, after nearly 2400 votes is 68% of people believe it’s not dead. And 32% believe that it is now. I mean, that’s the biggest sample space I’ve seen on an online poll I’ve created now it

Matt Watson 10:58
definitely, it definitely depends on the industry, you’re dealing with. Sure. And

Matt DeCoursey 11:03
that was that was the conclusion. I came into like a lot of a lot of people and they all seem to have been checking out their profiles. Now. You talked about the end result, dude, I have not I get a lot of connection requests and follows on LinkedIn already. I and they and like the graph that shows you that is like, just so spiked, so here’s the thing this week. Well, Yo, dude, yeah, like, it’s like LinkedIn is gonna call me in a minute and be like, you’re gonna need a new graph, sir. But so here’s the thing is what does that accomplish? Now? I don’t know if that post is going to accomplish anything. But one thing I do know is that LinkedIn is an algorithm, it’s going to show all those people that engage with my stuff. The other stuff that I post, yeah, Yep, absolutely. So in that particular case, it’s super efficient. And first off 80,000 impressions on LinkedIn is valuable. Yeah. Like, it’s valuable. I mean, even if that was what $10 CPM, then I got $8 I got and that’s an $800. Post.

Matt Watson 12:04
Well, so I think I felt like something we should talk about are the different types of content. Right? Like there’s a lot of different types of content that you can create, like the pod all different are listening to, to comments on LinkedIn, to blog posts, and we could do a whole episode about blog posts and all different kinds to tick tock. I mean, I follow a lot of people on Tik Tok, and we’ve had guests on here like Kristen Thomas, who does sex therapist that has a huge following on tick tock, and she makes a lot of money from posting content on tick tock for her business, right? Like there are a lot of different forms of content where some other ones you can think of Matt like, we have some great people on Startup Hustle TV, that didn’t really well, I

Matt DeCoursey 12:43
was gonna say YouTube. Yeah, YouTube’s a big one. Now, here’s the thing is because so for those of you listening, Matt, and I have a lot of a lot of experience with this now, Matt’s former company stacker phi, which is now net trio. You guys did such an amazing job, you build a blog that was getting 800,000 to a million visits a month. Now, the conversation about what you do with those visits after is a different subject, but you get the traffic to start with. And that’s super effective. You know, that’s really good. But creating a blog article is a completely different approach than a video. Yeah. And it depends on like, so video, like blogs, and the same thing with a podcast, like a podcast is, it’s different. You need to approach it. So I think about YouTube, and okay, well, let’s look at our Startup Hustle. co host, Eric Perkins, Eric now makes more money off of his YouTube videos than off of the construction company that he runs filming the videos.

Matt Watson 13:45
They are absolutely a case study for this topic.

Matt DeCoursey 13:49
I mean, for real and like, and but the result of that is Eric has always wanted to provide valuable content. I actually have learned how to do construction things. I know how to use a speed square, because of them. But here’s the thing is so in that particular case, what a surprise like I don’t you know, like, yeah, it’s Eric’s getting offered TV shows and stuff like that. And he’s turning them down. He’s like, I don’t even want to do that. That’s not what I’m interested in. TV next, has been offered all of a man. Wow. And so the thing is, though, is now as a result, he’s got a five year waitlist for building homes. Wow. Yeah. Crazy right now. And now here’s the thing, Eric, Eric published 100 videos before anybody ever seemed to care or follow them. He did them consistently. He did them with quality, and he was diligent about them. And I think the biggest mistake people make when it comes to content is they create two pieces of it. And when they’re not an Instagram, Youtube or social media star after that, like Yeah, didn’t work.

Matt Watson 14:54
Didn’t go viral in the first one.

Matt DeCoursey 14:56
So YouTube, can when we say social media Uh, like, I mean, that’s Facebook, Insta Tech Talk LinkedIn. I mean, if you’re like sell a product, maybe Pinterest. I feel like fake sweater sweater. The sweater, dude. No way.

Matt Watson 15:14
I don’t know. But you’ve got to. You’ve got to build with a lot of followers and everything. I feel like it’s hard to get.

Matt DeCoursey 15:21
We have one, Matt, we Startup Hustle chat. Yeah. Well, and you know what? That so let’s talk about that for a second. So we created that like three years ago, and then didn’t do anything with it. I think the worst thing you can do with content is, well, just because you build it’s not Field of Dreams, Matt? No. It’s not like, if you build it, they will come. That’s not how it works. So yeah, so anyway, so you have the different platforms, you have written content, you have paid content. You could actually have live content, right, like webinars, just a whole lot of that stuff. Now. Oh, shit. Now, this is a really overwhelming list. So what do you think comes next?

Matt Watson 16:07
Yeah, that’s the biggest challenge, right? And it’s what to do with this content. And even at sacrifi with like, creating blog content, it was like, what do we do with this? Like, some of it is product marketing that we can use and sales follow up and stuff like that? I mean, yeah, that’s the thing, you got to have a strategy of what to do with the content? And is it content that’s attracting people at kind of the top of the funnel? So it’s just awareness that you exist? Or is it more, you know, at the bottom of the funnel, where if somebody engages with this content, there’s a high chance that they’re a customer, right, and there are different kinds of content?

Matt DeCoursey 16:39
So I think, I think the first thing of understanding the importance of it is like what jobs best with you? Right? Like some people do not do well in front of a camera. They don’t, or they don’t know how to edit a video or any of that. Okay, that’s not the right thing for you. Can you write can you create an article? Can you usually feats of athleticism? I want saw Matt jump over like a five foot tall block stack of Jenga blocks like giant sized Jenga blocks. And you dude, you didn’t spell one of them?

Matt Watson 17:22
Nope. I’ve got ups.

Matt DeCoursey 17:24
I feel like you got bit by like a radioactive spider or something is like, it’s kind of creepy, how you pull it off. So so there’s some of that too. So you have audio content? Like this podcast? Yep. Right. So some people are good at that some people aren’t. Now one thing I can tell you is, no matter what you choose, if you’re trying to get started, you’re gonna suck at all of it right away.

Matt Watson 17:48
I think we figured it out. 600 episodes later.

Matt DeCoursey 17:51
600 700 episodes later, the show still sucks. Now. I actually it’s funny, I look at some of the reviews that occasionally people will leave and there’ll be like, I went to I started at episode one. And I didn’t get that far. I’m like 700 later, that might not be the measuring stick, we should be like, it’s

Matt Watson 18:13
like nobody at this point in time would expect me to watch every episode of The Simpsons either. It’s like, after all the true like,

Matt DeCoursey 18:21
I went to Disney plus, and like looked at that. And I was like, overwhelmed. I was like, oh my god, like there’s 4000 seasons of The Simpsons and 9 million episodes. Where do I start? But now, but let’s go back to credibility, Matt? Okay, so we’ve got almost 700 episodes of the show. Let’s credibility. Like, at least, it’s at least persistence.

Matt Watson 18:46
That’s gonna say at least credibility.

Matt DeCoursey 18:50
Right, right. So I mean, someone’s maybe someone’s it’s true. So okay, so once you decide what you want to do, I think one of the things it’s important, you alluded to content often can break into other pieces and fall into other buckets. I think that’s an important thing to know. I think that’s important thing, because, for example, you look at Alright, so let’s say we’re going to create a video on YouTube slices and pieces of that can turn into Instagram posts, Instagram reels, Facebook, LinkedIn, a lot of it you can take the parts of, of the sum and spread them out into a lot of places like same thing with like blog articles, like maybe some of that turns into FAQ or help or some kind of content. Right?

Matt Watson 19:38
You always create a lot of content like that for Full Scale and GigaBook in the past right about onboarding and customer click common customer questions, stuff like that different kinds of content.

Matt DeCoursey 19:49
That well, you know what, and that’s the kind of kind of we keep talking about marketing content. How about that, but by the way, that stuff has literally changed the game for our sales process at all those platforms because As I just answer the questions that everyone seems to ask, so give the answer in. And here’s the reality. It’s funny, we’re talking about the cold call thing, dude, you’ll never get me on the phone for a cold call

Matt Watson 20:16
me. Do you answer this thing? Right, right? No,

Matt DeCoursey 20:18
I mean, I write so do I, and I don’t even answer, right. So like, if you can’t get a hold of someone, like, people don’t want to talk to people as much anymore. So if you have, but if you have the answer that okay, I will watch a one minute video.

Matt Watson 20:35
I will Yeah. But I think it depends so much on the business you’re in, right? Because you don’t really take phone calls for a living like, Full Scale is phone number isn’t even on our website, right?

Matt DeCoursey 20:49
No. So like you, because it’s not how we do it. Yeah,

Matt Watson 20:53
Yeah. But if you work in an industry where you get lots of phone calls, then if a telemarketer calls, you’re like, I don’t know, could be a customer. So I gotta answer the call or whatever. Right?

Matt DeCoursey 21:02
Yeah, I have some people in that LinkedIn thread that are telling me that I’m missing opportunities to do business by not answering the cold call. I don’t feel that way. Because I don’t think that the people that are just cold calling me or Wow, yeah, I don’t know.

Matt Watson 21:19
They’re cold call center call center in the middle of nowhere, and you’re immediately going to start selling.

Matt DeCoursey 21:24
Have you seen boiler room? Oh, yeah. It’d be boiler room. You know, when he said he’s like, sitting there eating cereal and at his table, and the guy from the newspaper guy calls, and he basically teaches the guy how to do a cold call. And then he’s like, so do you want to buy it? It’s like, now I read the times. But some of that, like, I mean, I I don’t answer those calls, because they’re a distraction. Yeah. And I mean, I’d maybe I am missing business. Maybe I’m not I don’t know. Anyway, join the 1000s of people arguing about it. On my LinkedIn comment,

Matt Watson 21:56
and so on our Facebook group to Startup Hustle chat.

Matt DeCoursey 22:00
Yeah, well, it’s part of what we talked about. So some of that is content that okay, Matt, do you know that more than half of the revenue that we have created at Full Scale is because people know that they can reach out to you or me about Full Scale services? Yep. So how do they know about that? How do they even know? Who where what any of that what we do?

Matt Watson 22:28
And let’s be content that we published making noise?

Matt DeCoursey 22:30
Yep, making noise. I say that a lot, too. Let’s make some noise. Okay, so now when it comes to content, I love the idea. I like specificity. You know, like, I don’t I’m not I’m not obsessed with like, how it’s not about how many of what it’s about who exactly who are you? Who are you speaking to, because you can get okay for So an example is if you you might create content, a blog article, and get a million visits a day from it. But if 0% of them result in anything productive for your business, you may actually be adept, it might be detrimental to the business, as opposed to helpful.

Matt Watson 23:16
So all those videos on Tik Tok of me dancing are not necessarily going to find us customers.

Matt DeCoursey 23:22
Do you really go viral new dancing? Do you have videos of you dancing on Tik Tok? For real?

Matt Watson 23:27
No, but I’m going to create some this weekend.

Matt DeCoursey 23:31
So Well, let’s talk about that for a second. Because one thing I think you need to consider as well as the content you create can very much be detrimental. Yeah, to your brand, your credibility. Maybe I mean, that’s the first thing you’re gonna come into my head was like, I’m not gonna work on it. Well, but so think about this. So let’s talk about this then in the content, because all right, so these last several years have been politically charged. Is that fair? Say Yeah, I don’t care which side of it you’re on. But I know that there are a lot of people that have that I don’t find to be as credible because of a lot of the content and shares out there pushing out digitally. Yeah, absolutely. Like, let’s let’s just live in the middle and just say who cares which way Matt and Matt feel in their personal lives and we don’t talk about shit on this show isn’t about politics. But is there someone somewhere over the last few years that because of the content they’re publishing, you’re like, fuck that. I’m deliberately messes with that person.

Matt Watson 24:36
I mean, and that’s, that’s always the joke about Facebook, by the way, is like Facebook is the platform you use to hate the people you love. And then like, tick, tick tock is the platform you use to love the people you’ll never meet. Right? And it’s for this reason, like on Facebook and even on LinkedIn, people will get really political about stuff and it’s like,

Matt DeCoursey 24:55
I just that’s not what we’re here for. I’m not Yeah, and so yeah, so and that in that particular case, it’s like, you know, so you, I think you gotta give some some thought to that too. Now that said, so I know an unnamed financial adviser who has some political opinions that aren’t popular in his region, because he’s just outnumbered. But he, but he kind of was like, You know what, I’m tired of this shit. And I know some of you are gonna hate me for it. But this is where I’m at. And that is actually resulting in him getting more business.

Matt Watson 25:28
And that’s possible, right? That’s possible to get people to go towards you. Because of, I mean, that’s such a like a bipolar opinion, right? You’re on one side of though. Yep. So potentially you attractive. But there are other things you could do that are very negative, like, you know, exposing like your crazy shenanigans of your dating life or some shit. I don’t know, that people’s like, it’s totally negative. There’s nothing positive that can come from this thing. Where there could be other things where you take, you know, strict opinions that way. And maybe you get people that rally to you because they agree with you.

Matt DeCoursey 25:58
Yeah, so there’s three, there are a few rules here. So whenever you talk about sex, politics or religion, you actually have a statistically a remarkably higher chance of alienating someone than getting them on your team. Why? Because people have very specific, well, first off, like the sex thing, it’s just not appropriate. Like you’re going to the it’s just not. When it comes to religion and politics, there’s just so much inch. Like, it’s so intricate, there are so many different avenues that people are going to go down that one of them people like, oh, man, you know, and they just and like I said, so I think you should keep that out of your content, if it’s related to your business unless your business is related to politics or religion or sex. Now, Kristen Thomas, she should be talking about sex, like all the time.

Matt Watson 26:51
Well, because she deals with people with autism.

Matt DeCoursey 26:53
She’s exactly right. Yes, sex coach. It’s why I’m performing at the top of my game. Good coaching. I mean, it’s so fucking terrible. I’m sorry, ask asked my wife. But I’m not supposed to talk about that. But no, but so some, some of these things, when you think about the end result is like, how are you coming off to other people? So and some of that too, like, how man, like, some people just don’t need to be on the other side of the camera. And it’s not because they’re ugly. It’s just because they kind of give

Matt Watson 27:27
you their time. are boring. Just like gather

Matt DeCoursey 27:30
boring, or, or like or smug.

Matt Watson 27:34
Resting bitchface.

Matt DeCoursey 27:37
Yeah. Is that am I doing it?

Matt Watson 27:40
How does that come across in a blog, though, but some people just don’t have the right kind of tone, and it’s not good at it.

Matt DeCoursey 27:50
So one thing I’ve learned, and I know you’ve learned this, too, but the blogs and the different stuff. People hate generally, overwhelmingly people hate writing. Yeah, writing is tough. Like, it’s hard to find people that will do it regularly and consistently. Now that said, there’s a ton of places that you that will write content for you based on guidelines and output that what’s that one that Joe something, Joe, that Joe? Fat Joe, right. Like you can get people to I mean, they’re writers, they’re freelancing and get people to create it, and you fine tune it or whatever, right.

Matt Watson 28:22
50 bucks. So.

Matt DeCoursey 28:27
So let’s talk about another thing on the content. So you have just like regular posts and stuff. And when it comes to the like, this is another thing like, okay, Matt, didn’t you a few years ago, weren’t you gleaming about the brilliance of me as a graphic designer? Just using Canva?

Matt Watson 28:44
Yeah, you did a really good job at that, you might have been the best designer we had.

Matt DeCoursey 28:48
And I’m not anymore, thank God. But the point is, is like that, I mean, that’s free. And or 15, or 10, or 15 bucks a month at the most. And it made it really easy for me to create, like everything from the sizing to the templates to like all of it. If you’re gonna post something, remember, you’re representing yourself and your business and all of it and you got to look at it and be like, does this look like crap? Because it looks like crap. Yeah. And then also, so another thing too, so I don’t think we got into how to get people’s attention that well, and it’s not about it’s not about talking about you. Yeah, it’s not about talking about you. If you want to get people to pay attention, you got to talk about the problems they have that you want to solve. Right? Like or just be really direct a podcast for entrepreneurs, still, without a doubt the most successful marketing campaign that I have ever launched. You know how I came up with that now. I saw a got milk ad and I was like, God, these guys are onto something. Short and sweet. I love it. What do you do and make it clean and clear. Right now we have we do have an ad for a post hire software engineer. And like 1,000,000.5. And it stands out. That’s all you need to know that gets my attention. What doesn’t get the attention is a shitload of words and a tiny font with an ugly color light on top of another ugly color.

Matt Watson 30:16
So scrolling, just keep in mind, see. And

Matt DeCoursey 30:21
so my book editor Patrick price go to ask a book editor.com to get his help. The first time he helped me, I had paid someone 600 bucks to design a cover for my first book, and I showed it to Patrick, and he literally goes, now this is terrible. And I was like, I really like it. And he goes, have you shrunk it down to the size of a thumbnail yet? And I did. And I immediately was like, oh my god, this is terrible. Yep. So some of that you got to give some thought and consideration to what it looks like on someone’s tiny ass phone.

Matt Watson 30:54
Yep, that’s the icon on your Tiktok or your phone or your app, or whatever it is. Yeah. How does it look?

Matt DeCoursey 31:01
Yeah, other things, too. We’re talking about video. Do you know Andrew, our fellow viewers tune in on Tuesdays. I think he’s still on Tuesdays. I don’t know. They just tell me what day to show up and record these now. Andrew got in trouble because with Jessica or producer because he had too many videos that had toilet showing in the background. So you know what we told Andrew about it. And he’s like, he was embarrassed. He’s like, Oh, my God, I should have noticed that. But so certain things, like I said, like, some people are going to notice it. And some people aren’t. I was thinking about some of the funnest content I created. I remember once stealing a Ferrari to go take it to play Penny slots, because I was going to was that yours?

Matt Watson 31:45
That was mine.

Matt DeCoursey 31:47
I had a plan behind that. I had $100, I was gonna double, double, double, double, double double. And then I had my own car. So didn’t really work out that way. And also, you’re not allowed to film stuff inside the casino and didn’t really plan that out. So I mean, you know, like, overall, there’s a zillion types of content you can create, you gotta have some intent behind it, think about what you’re wanting to do. I think it really in the end, as we kind of wrap up this episode, and you brought this up, like some of the most valuable content I’ve created isn’t marketing content, it’s explainer.

Matt Watson 32:24
Yeah, and it’s just trying to figure out finding your audience, right. And to the point earlier of like, even if you’re posting on, say Tik Tok, or YouTube or whatever, you don’t really care, if you get millions of viewers, you’re, you’re looking for a few 1000 People that are the exact audience that you’re after. So don’t don’t get depressed, because you just got a few 100 followers or whatever, because if you’re reaching the right people, you’ll continue to reach more and more of them. And these algorithms tend to work where, like, I’m gonna guess like males, you know, whatever age like all like this video. So we’re gonna show that video to other people that are this, you know, demographic group and all that, right. So the more people you get liking your content that are similar to those people, then the algorithms are more likely to show your content to those people to as the point so you just got to, you’re not you’re not trying to get millions of people you’re trying to get customers.

Matt DeCoursey 33:15
I want to let you know that I have received 36 New votes on that post during this recording. Wow,

Matt Watson 33:24
dang, I’m,

Matt DeCoursey 33:26
I’m shocked dude, I’m shocked. I have. I have another 1000 impressions that occurred during this like, I’m totally surprised, like,

Matt Watson 33:35
facto standard answered this point. You know, it’s funny as I think soon,

Matt DeCoursey 33:41
I might, I might now you know, the funny thing is is like is I kind of want to make a comment that says, Thank you look for my look for my similar question about cold emails in a week.

Matt Watson 33:57
But you find something

Matt DeCoursey 33:58
so here’s, yeah. So you know, a couple of things on the way out. And you know, once again, today’s episode of Startup Hustle is brought to you by FullScale.io. Reach out. I love talking to you folks. But you know, like, not everyone’s going to agree with your point of view. If you’re if you’re brokering opinions, and we see this with a podcast, you know, and like, there’s a couple points that I have Matt one, it’s about who you’re talking to you so because of this show, so many people have asked me questions about podcasts and a popular one is, is along the lines of like so I only I’ve getting this many downloads, is that good? Now, I asked that same question to Joel commons, the keyboardist from unfreeze McGee and my co author, and Joel said to me, I said, I’m just trying this was like, a year and a half ago when this show really started taking off and I was like, is that good? And he said, Well, Matt, do you do you feel successful? And I said, Yeah, I feel like we’re successful with it. He says then It’s successful. And another point of view with that is, and I told this to someone, so I had a guy local, it was a very niche topic. And he said, I only get about 100 downloads per episode. And I said, if 100 people showed up to hear you talk tomorrow, would you be happy with that? And he goes, Yeah, man, that’d be amazing. I said, then you’re successful? Because that’s what that is. Right? Yeah. So it’s all scalable. But but if you find like the, and you don’t need different businesses, like if you’re selling Pepsi, you got to sell a lot of units, right? Most businesses don’t need to do that. They don’t need millions of transactions.

Matt Watson 35:40
They see the view.

Matt DeCoursey 35:41
So when Yeah, and another thing too is all right. So look, I’m kind of using this LinkedIn post as an example, which is probably going to run its course by the time this episode comes out. Yes, it will. It’ll be closed by then. But you know what, here’s the thing. I don’t care that there are people in here that like this I love this guy actually invited this guy to be on the on the show. This guy bills himself, Benjamin Dennehy, the UK is most hated sales trainer is his description. And I invited me to be on the show. He said, the quote, as cold calling dead post is actually more annoying than cold calling itself. It’s the equivalent of sending an email, it’s lazy. And he’s been critical of me for making the post and I don’t care, that’s fine. You have to subject yourself to the fact that people are not always going to agree with you that here’s the thing that has 137 likes and 15 more replies, Benjamin, thank you for helping my engagement.

Matt Watson 36:44
Right? Yeah, that’s the thing more likes, gets, you know, the algorithms are gonna further spread the content. Right. Thank you, sir.

Matt DeCoursey 36:51
Thank you. And if they’re talking about it, now, let’s have a productive conversation. Now, this guy was like, you’re an idiot. You’re dumb stuff like that. I won’t leave those comments. And because that’s not that’s not productive, but you got to be you have to be willing to let everyone and everything disgusts you. And be okay with it. Like don’t like the musicians have to learn that because not everyone’s gonna like your show that night. But here’s the thing if they’re downstream talking about it, hey, they’re still talking about it.

Matt Watson 37:24
Sometimes there’s no such thing as bad press either.

Matt DeCoursey 37:28
I feel like I have a hard time wrapping my arms around the truth of that on some days, though, because I think there’s a hell of a lot of people that got canceled and me tude that would say that probably wasn’t good promo. How’s Harvey Weinstein feeling about that?

Matt Watson 37:43
Well, I guess that’s your next poll for LinkedIn.

Matt DeCoursey 37:47
No, my next poll is going to be I don’t ever open an email. That’s a cold email and it makes me want to think is cold emailing dead and a thing of the past now because apparently, I’m like, I’m on pace for a half a million impressions on this. Wow. I know. Like, actually more, more two days for the ad channel. 1000. Some impressions, like, all right,

Matt Watson 38:14
I’m waiting for like Gary Vee or somebody to comment.

Matt DeCoursey 38:18
He might be I can’t even keep I got another shift to do, man. I can’t even keep up with the hundreds of people that are common in here like, wow, yeah, yeah. Now that said, Hey, it is what it is. So Matt, what’s your what’s your what’s your freestyle? What’s your, your conclusion here?

Matt Watson 38:35
You know, I’m, I’ve got a back a large background in in creating blog content. So I’m definitely a fan of the blog content, especially content, it’s like compares you to your competitors. certain keywords that are really important in you know, industry, thought leadership kind of stuff that you can use in sales and marketing on your website, could be multipurpose for a lot of ways. And I think that’s the minimum kind of content that most people need. I love people that are really successful with other forms of video content and podcasts and stuff. But the blogging has always been more of my specialty.

Matt DeCoursey 39:12
By the way, on that LinkedIn post, there was a guy that said, we’ll add me to your content and your contact list because I need to call you. Right, like, it’s funny because someone was giving me shit. They were like, you’re, I was like, I literally, I stated that, that I felt that the post was efficient. And someone said, Well, how many how many people replying? Have you done business with? Well, first off, it was a day later. So let’s let that develop. And I’d said that, but literally, I started reaching out to that guy sent him a connection request. And I said, Send me your contact info. And let’s talk and he just sent me a message and he’s interested in using Full Scale.

Matt Watson 39:52
There you go see the content you created on LinkedIn.

Matt DeCoursey 39:56
It’s a dude every Silicon Valley in Silicon Valley. ally with a company that’s existed for almost 20 years. So yeah, you never know. No, yeah, here’s the thing. Dude, if that if we ended up doing business with that person, then here’s the point that post could be worth hundreds of 1000s of dollars, if not millions to our business. So therefore, everyone can hate me and call me lazy or all of it. And if the end result is I get a great customer out of it, then I’m cool with that. Now, I’m gonna get back to posting, I did post another poll on LinkedIn that literally just asks, Are you any good at what you do? Um, wish I just kind of was curious and I want to just sit. I want to tell everyone that answered it. So the options are yes, no and TBD. Only 80% of people said yes. 5% said no, 14% said TBD.

Matt Watson 40:52
You should have made one of the answers average at best.

Matt DeCoursey 41:02
Anyway, Matt, I’m gonna get out of here. I’ll see you.

Matt Watson 41:06
Thanks, everybody.