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Find Your Tilt Before AI Makes You Invisible · The Expert Method

• speaker-0: Nobody's gonna be there to take care of you. What's going to be very scarce in the next three to five years? Human content. Don't build your content home on rented land. speaker-1: What would you tell somebody who agrees with you that this old playbook is broken but has no idea what to build instead? What would you tell that person? speaker-0: You have to get yourself into weird situations. speaker-1: The old career advice was built around a pretty simple promise. Get a degree, get the job, build useful skills, and eventually the system will take care of you. But that promise is getting harder to trust. AI is changing what knowledge work is worth, career paths are less predictable, and more people are realizing that they may need to create their own leverage instead of waiting for a stable path to appear. So if the old playbook is breaking, what can you actually do about it? So with that, I'm excited to be joined by Joe Pulizzi. Joe is a writer, entrepreneur, and audience builder who has spent decades helping people turn ideas, trust, and consistent content into businesses they can actually own. In our conversation, we discuss why the old career playbook is breaking, how to find your content tilt, as he calls it, why Joe believes you should build the audience before you build the product, and what it means to create a content home instead of building on rented land. If you get value from this conversation, be sure to subscribe and share it with a friend. And now here is my conversation with Joe Pulizzi. Joe, thank you so much for being here. speaker-0: Ian, I appreciate it. Thanks for having me, speaker-1: Absolutely. So Joe, in some of your recent podcast appearances and some of your content, you've been talking about the idea that the old playbook for careers, success and building a meaningful life is breaking down. So what was that old playbook and what part of it do you think is most dangerous for people to still believe right now? speaker-0: Well, I, I've been talking more about this Ian because my, kids are in their early twenties and I wanted them to hear something that I have to say, actually listen to me. So I started writing about this, but it's basically that nobody's going to be there to take care of you. You can't be sure that somebody is going to give you a job. You can't be sure that your retirement is going to be taken care of anymore. And I think that when my parents were going through their years of trying to find a job and staying with an employer for 30 years, you could make the case that social security would be there, the pension would take care of you, you would find a job. With everything that's going on, especially with AI, which we might, may or may not talk about, I think that we have to take everything into our own hands as much as possible. So I'm really just focusing on if we want to do something special in our lives, we need to have the ability to make sure that that can happen. So let's do what we can now with the tools we have to make sure that we have, you know, what is the purpose in our life? What are the things that we need to do to get there? And how can I have as much freedom as possible to make that happen for myself and my family? speaker-1: Yeah, I love that. I think that's so well said. And I might argue that I feel like the old playbook never really enabled, like sure it enabled security for sure, but I don't know if it ever really enabled you to tap fully into your deeper purpose or meaning in life, I guess that that's a pretty deep and grandiose thing to say. But like, I feel like it never really forced you to ask yourself, what do I actually want to do with my life? Because you could just kind of go on autopilot. go into school, go get a job, just kind of do what you're told. And then you could live a great life, 100%. You could create an amazing house, amazing family. Like the really important things in life would be taken care of. But I also think like that you're icky guy, right? You're your reason for being like what you're here for and to contribute to the world. I feel like it was challenging to, or it wasn't challenging, but like it didn't really force you into that situation to figure that out. speaker-0: Well, I think we're blessed, right? We're at the point where we can actually ask those questions. mean, you and I probably know people where they're just trying to put food on the table. You know, they're just trying to, they're just trying to live and survive. This conversation we're having, having right now is not for those people. Like you have to get past that certain point where, you know, I'm not just out to get a dollar so I can buy something so I can feed my family. Like we're talking about, all right, you're in a position that you can sit back a little bit and say, what do I want to do with my life. And I think to that point, you're probably correct because when I would talk with, mean, you're a bit younger than I am, but when I was getting out of high school and then going immediately into college, because you didn't even think about it. It's like, if you were going to be successful, you went into college. It was all about what's the job that I can get that will pay me enough so I can buy the things and have security for my family. was no, what's your passion, Joe? What do you... What do you really want to give creatively to the world? That wasn't a conversation. It's like, okay, we're going to be a doctor. We're going to be a lawyer. I'm going to start a business where I can make a million dollars. What are the jobs out there that I can fill? Man, I really think I can create something and make a difference in this world. And I can do that and then create more freedom for myself and my family. Nobody talked about that. So to your point, I agree with you. But what I love about the conversation and maybe it's... with the younger generation, whether that's alpha or Z or even like the younger millennials, they're actually starting to ask that question. like, is a lot of horrible stuff that's going on. Of course it always has, but a lot of stuff that's going on in and around our lives. We got one shot as long as we're here. And as long as we get one shot, we might as well do something that is fun, that is additive to the world, that doesn't get us caught in this bog with what's going on with politics or news or anything. And that's what I love. so, you know, when I have a one-on-one conversation with an entrepreneur who's just starting, we're just, we're just getting each other excited and say, Hey, you can do this. And I know it's, it's kind of a piped here, but if you can believe in this thing, if you think it's that important and you want to do the work, because you always have to do the work. And if you don't just think that this thing's going to be served for you on a silver platter, you can change the world. And we're sort of in that blessed. position to be able to say that, you and I. speaker-1: Right? ⁓ Yeah, to your point, like you have to do the work. Like, I definitely know that I'm pretty naive and, you know, optimistic to a fault with a lot of things. So I agree that there's a lot of people out there that just need to, that idea of trying to figure out what is your passion, what do you actually want to work on, what work do you want to contribute to the world, what problem do you want to solve. is a blessing to able to think about that. speaker-0: think it's also important because you probably have a lot of people listening to this and say, well, what if you don't know your passion? What if you don't know what you can add to the world? I get into a lot of conversations and the way, know, I talk about it in my new book, Burn the Playbook a little bit, but basically you have to get yourself into weird situations. have to get yourself, put yourself out there into situations that are very strange where you then start to see, I'm good at this. Or I really love to do this. And it's very hard, especially like, you know, we went through COVID and we had to stay indoors and we didn't get the opportunity to go out and experience weird things that make an impact on us. And then it becomes observant what, what I want to, you what you want to do. Like I never realized that content marketing was a thing I even had a passion for, or I would be good at. until I did like four or five different temp jobs in different banks and just ended up by happenstance into an internal communications department. And then from that, I got into a publishing company. didn't never known. I didn't never know, but I got a lot of nos. mean, this is, know, when I got, I got my master's, I got my bachelor's and then got my master's degree in 97 from Penn State. I was overeducated, under-experienced. sent out hundreds of applications and nobody even wanted to look at me. Cause they're like, you don't have any experience. You got a master's degree. I'm not going to pay you anymore because you have that. You don't have this experience. And I'm like, okay, what am I going to do? I luckily just took the recommendation of one of my friends. I just went out, tempting. do a week here, a week there. I, and I ended up after six or seven of these things, getting a full-time job offer. like, ⁓ my God. And then that three years later turned into seeing this thing called content marketing that I would have never saw coming. I'm saying, wow, I. I think this is great. think it's, it's amazing if I can create marketing that people actually want instead of just trying to sell them. I'm like, this is the greatest thing ever. I would have never known that if it wasn't for the 10 other things that happened right before that. So that's what I would tell people, especially younger people that say, I don't know. I of course you don't know. How, how would you know? You're not going to know sitting behind your phone or your computer or going to even start in college or whatever the case is. So. Any experiences that you can possibly have, just go, just try it. Anything that you can actually get a no, know, Scott Galloway talks about this all the time. If you listen to Scott, he's like, absolutely. You want to get into so many opportunities where you can fail. Not that you want to fail, but you will and get that ask for the sale, ask for the date, ask for the thing. And then you really start to learn about yourself. And I think that's when it presents the opportunities for you. speaker-1: Yeah, and that failure is just a part of the process of getting better at whatever it is that you're trying. So Eli or Eli Bozoglu, the previous guest that we had on, talked about how failure really is success because every time you fail, as long as you're being intentional about it, you're going to be getting better every time. yeah, that question of what is your passion? What do you want to do? It frustrated me for a long time and I can't say that I confidently have an answer. ⁓ But yeah, it really comes down to just Paul Graham writes about, he has an essay in his awesome essay series about how to do what you love. And in that essay, he talks about the fact that you just follow your interests, right? Just do a bunch of experiments. Just follow what you're interested in. Put yourself in as many situations as you can. Meet as many people as you can. And I love what you added there, what you supplemented that idea with, which just put yourself in situations where you can get a no, right? Like kind of, and what that requires, the way that I interpret that is you have to like put yourself out there and you have to make an ask. Right? have to force yourself to make an ask, which is something that took me. It's still something that I'm working on is just getting better at making the ask in, whatever situation, right? Asking for what I want, asking for what I'm looking for. And you'd be surprised at how many doors open up when you do that. speaker-0: And it is much tougher for your age group than for mine. Absolutely. mean, cause that's all we, that's all we did. Like we were just thrown out there and we didn't have a, we didn't have a phone. didn't have internet. didn't have all we had to go out there. mean, I, my first like three jobs were sales jobs. So you get used to a lot of nos and then after a while you're like, okay, well that makes sense. And I like this and I don't want it I never want to. sell this over the phone again. And then I, and then, you, you get a little bit of more thick skin and you realize, ⁓ my God, I got, I got 18 nos today, but I'm still here. It didn't really hurt me at all. Well, here's what I learned and here's what I'll take with me the next day. And then you do that for like 30 days in a row, you get really good at a few things, especially taking rejection and not worrying about it. mean, you'll the most successful people in the world. They probably have taken the most rejection. You just don't see that they're just beyond that point. speaker-1: Alright, and the important thing about putting yourself out there and trying a bunch of different things is you really only feel like are able to, I guess it's a feeling, right? Like you feel like, I love doing that thing. You kind of intuitively know, but once you give yourself enough experiences, then you can reflect on those experiences and do some deeper thinking about, which of those things that I actually like, which of those things that I not like. But before you have those experiences, it's just all a hypothesis or you don't actually have any real information like you're just kind of guessing, which is what you have to do when you first start out, right? Like even when you're starting a business, right? When you're starting a business, when you come up with this idea of a product or service, it's just a hypothesis, but then you need to go and validate it. If you spend all your time just building it and not actually giving it to anybody to try and give you feedback on, it's just a hypothesis and you're not going to learn what people actually want. But I love it. There's some kind of like deep lesson or principle that underlies all of that. That idea of You have to put yourself out there, get an ass, get that information from the people that are out there. It allows you to reflect on it and improve based on it. speaker-0: It's the same thing with a lot of your audience if they're trying to create different informational products or whatever. In my experience, I've worked with hundreds of content entrepreneurs in this area and rarely, if ever, the first one is the thing. It almost never is. So you have to put yourself out there where once you build an audience, call it minimum viable audience, where you can actually have a large enough audience to sell against it, then you can say, ⁓ okay, well, I'm going to launch this. Never works. What did you learn? I mean, when I... You know, I started my whole content marketing journey. started a blog in 2007, 2008, and we launched a matching service. So basically it was called the eHarmony for content marketing. That was my whole idea. I was going to match up content creators with brands who needed content. It was a disaster. The financial model didn't work. Nothing worked. The only thing that worked was I was building the audience. That worked. But then two or three iterations later, I ended up coming up with, we're going to do content marketing training and we'll do this. content marketing event, and we'll do webinars and we'll do an email newsletter. Well, then we had 10 to 12 different revenue generators, but the first couple were just horrible. Now would I have gotten to that point of saying, ⁓ we're going to create this big event called content marketing world without the eHarmony thing? Never would have got there. So you just got to go on. That's where I always say it's like you want to really focus when you start this thing. Like what's the thing that you're going to become known for? But what's the platform? Are you using LinkedIn? Are you using email? Is it going to be a TikTok? Is it going to be a podcast like you're doing? Whatever that is, you start with that. You're very consistent and focused. But then when you get to revenue, you're all over the place. You're trying 17 different things to see what it'll take because the first couple aren't going to take. speaker-1: Right. Yeah. So I guess to put a ribbon on this theme of our conversation. So what would you tell somebody who agrees with you that this old playbook is broken but has no idea what to build instead? What would you tell that person? speaker-0: The first, mean, you mentioned a lot of it is I talk about finding your tilt. Like what is your area of differentiation? So what you do is some of the things we already talked about. What are the things you're good at and what are the things that you're interested in or you know more than some people out there? Like I know a lot about baseball memorabilia, Billy Joel and publishing. Like I can list all the things. So what am I good at? I'm good at public speaking and writing. And you start to sort of figure out, okay, what, what is my differentiation area to who? Cause so you started there. It's like, okay, that's the thing that I'm going to focus on. And I know I have some idea products out, but I, what do I want to be known for? I think I can be known for this thing. And then you fine tune that even more to say, okay, who's that audience? They're out here somewhere. What are their needs? What are their pain points? What keeps them up at night? And the combination of all that, that we just talked about, you find your tilt. Your differentiation, that's the thing that if you talk about it on a regular basis, using that one platform, you're going to rise above all the other content crap out there. That's the thing. That's the thing that you're seeing. I mean, if you look at any content entrepreneur, content creator out there, that's what they've done. That's what MrBeast has done. That's what Joe Rogan's done. That's what Megan Kelly's done. You can go across the aisle all over you. They've done, they've all found their more than a niche, what I would call that tilt, that differentiation. I try to get everyone, whether they're going to college, whether they're just out of high school, whether they're looking for a second career. I said, this is what you need. Especially in this age of AI, you need to be identifiable. You need to be recognizable. mean, when a Red Hot Chili Peppers song comes on and I hear the first few notes, whether if it's a new song or theirs, I know it's them. They have a very distinct sound. Billy Joel, same thing, very distinct sound. When I'm reading a Seth Godin blog, I can tell it's him right away. That's the thing that's that differentiation to that audience about the thing you want to be known for. And you say it a certain way, you you find the story that needs to be told in only a way that you can tell it. If you can find that and everyone has it in our own weird and strange way. And that's what I try to talk to people about that are at the point that you're like, where exactly is my passion, whatever. So you have to do the process and you don't really have it right away. So make the list like. And really think about it because sometimes you've never done it. Like I know a lot of people that I've worked with, they've just never done the exercise of, what do you know more than most people? I don't, I don't know. I never thought about, well, let's think about it. Like, well, what do you really like to do? I like to do this in my hobbies. like, what do you really like to do? Like, what's the thing that you'll do and you're not getting paid for that you'll stay up all night, that you'll listen to all the podcasts, that you'll do the thing. And then they know like, ⁓ yeah, this great. Let's put that down. See, and you work on that and this is like a couple of weeks to a couple of months process and you kind of hang and then you're like, okay, now I got it. got the feeling. And then you write, okay, well, if you were a media company, write your mission statement. Like I'm going to create consistent podcasts. I'm going to do it every Friday. I'm going to do it on the evolution of content marketing for enterprise marketers and enterprise marketers that are trying to justify spend within the organization. So you can get very specific with the, I'm just making all this up. But you can get the idea of you basically create an editorial mission statement like any media company would. And then everything else revolves from there. It's like, okay, now I know what I'm saying on my LinkedIn page. Now I know what I'm communicating in my Facebook and TikTok and on X or whatever the case is. And then what's going to be your home? That's the most important decision. Is it going to be an email newsletter? Is it going to be a blog? Is it going to be TikTok? Is it going to be YouTube? You know, whatever the case is. And then you go to work. And the reason why in a lot of cases, these things don't work Ian is because first of all, they haven't defined it enough. They really didn't find a content tilt that makes sense for them, or they didn't really put, put the work into this is really what they want to do. And the second thing is they don't focus on that one thing and consistently delivering over time. see so many content entrepreneurs go out there and ⁓ so what I'm going to do, I'm going to talk about financial advice for kids just getting out of high school. Okay. And then I'm going to do, here's what I'm going to do on X and here's what I'm going to do on YouTube. And I'm going to do this podcast and I'm going do the email and they're going to be a jack of all trades, master of none. it fails every time. And I'm like, you can't be great at all these things. Take Jimmy Donaldson's advice, Mr. Beast. What did he do? He went all in on YouTube. And I mean all in, like everybody else since, 2000, since he was what 13 years old or whatever. And it took him four years just to get the 30,000 subscribers. It's like. He just focused on understanding that platform. So that's the kind of thing we got to do. It generally takes 18 to 24 months, sometimes longer. And I would like to shorten that time period and maybe some of the tools out there help you do that, but it does take time to build trust. And that's ultimately, we're talking to an audience. We want to build an audience that knows, and trusts us. And if we do that, then we can start to sell our suite of products and find, know, fulfill that meeting. and then have that freedom that we want. Yeah. speaker-1: Well said. Well said. I'm glad I asked that question. There's so many little underlines that I want to go back through and do. I think the first one that I'll start with is, I don't remember where I heard Mr. say it, but he talked about this idea that, like I think patience. Patience is a big thing. Like you ended with 18 to 24 months is typically what it's going to take. And there's a lot of reasons for that. And Mr. Beast talks about the fact that he encourages you if you want to be a creator, if you want to become a content marketer, content entrepreneur, as you call it. He encourages you to just make a hundred videos. Just promise, like commit to making a hundred videos. You're to make a hundred videos, a hundred whatever, newsletters, a hundred things. Commit to making a hundred. And you're not going to worry about how many views, how many likes, whatever you're going to get on those hundred. All you're going to focus on is making one thing better every single iteration. Get better intentionally at one thing. Like make one part better. Like obviously his was YouTube. So he talked about, all right. This next video, all I'm gonna focus on is just making the hook, the introduction better. Okay, the next video, all I'm gonna focus on is speaking with more energy and enthusiasm. Okay, the next video, I'm gonna focus on let's try making the thumbnail better in this thing. Just focus, just commit to making one thing better in each iteration that you're doing. And then another interesting idea that ⁓ I would love to kind of talk about with you is, okay, so you encourage people to start by doing that initial reflection, right? Identifying what are you interested in and what are you better at than most people. You're really looking for what problem can you help people solve, which is really interesting, because I haven't thought about the idea of becoming a content entrepreneur, much like starting a traditional business, because that's the same process of starting a business. To identify the service or product that you can build, you first start by identifying a problem that you can solve or that you can create a product that can solve for somebody. So it's interesting that your content is the same way, which makes sense. haven't put those two pieces together. It's like what? information expertise do you have that you could help people solve through the content that you're going to share? And then what platform or what channel are you going to start with? And that focus I think is really important because for me, when I came out the gates, I was like, I'm going to do Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. I'm to do the podcast. going to do news. I was just like, I did none of it. I just did nothing because there was just like way too much. So I just didn't even get started. So make it easy on yourself to get started and stay consistent by just committing to one channel. And then you're also Like you said, you're going to be a jack of all trades, master of none if you try and do a shotgun approach and do everything all at once. Like you need to actually get good at something and that means sucking at it for a while. So you're going to suck at whatever one thing you choose for a bit, but then you just need to intentionally get better. But then the other point that I would love for you to explore a little bit more. So you talked about, you're to do this internal reflection and you're going to have this hypothesis and then you're going to take this out. Then once you start putting stuff out there, you're going to learn more about your audience. You're going to learn more about the people in your audience, the people that you're speaking to. And I would imagine that you encourage people to actually have conversations with the people that you're trying to communicate with to learn more about them. Learn more about what they actually want, what questions they're asking. I'm sure there's tools that are out there that you do some research to identify what these people in your audience are searching, what they're asking for, what they're looking for, the problems that they have. And then once you learn more about your audience, you just focus on speaking to them. and answering the questions that they have and helping them solve the problems that they have. So obviously when you first start, when you have this hypothesis, you're going to have an initial idea of who this person that you're speaking to is, the problems that they have, what you're talking to them about. But how do you approach the idea of learning more about your audience to provide more value to them? ⁓ How do you approach that? speaker-0: It's so funny. It's so ingrained in me to do this because when I first started in sales, we were forced to do reader calls. So I sold magazine advertising back in the day. And our sales manager basically said, you have to call five readers every week and talk to them and ask them like, what are their buying specifying decisions? How do they make those decisions? You know, what are they really struggling with? Like those things. And when I went into a sales call. I did better than everyone else because I was, had that information. could tell that possible advertiser. I could exactly what their, ⁓ their audience was, their audience and our audience was the same audience. like, what are they struggling with? What it keeps them up at night, whatever. And I went in there and said, well, I can help you do that. I can help you solve one of these problems. But because I knew that I had a leg up on everyone else. And you're right. There's a lot of tools out there. You can figure out a lot with. some of the persona driving tools that are out there. can figure out, you can go through the whole process and Claude or chat GPT or whatever you want to do and get, here's my persona. Here's my buyer. Here's their needs. Am I right? Am I wrong? Whatever you can do that. But you could also go to an event, go to an event, go to a live event where they're at and talk to these people. You will learn more. And it's like, okay, well, what if I don't know anybody? So let's say you're, you're going to somebody's presentation. So all you have to do, this is all you have to do. Go sit in the middle seat of something where there's going to be somebody to the right and to the left. Introduce yourself to the person on the right. Talk to them and it's up to you person on the left. Talk to them. Ask them a couple of questions. What are you really struggling with? Why are you here? Whatever you will learn so much about what goes on. You'll come out of that with, with the kind of information that you can drive, whatever your basis and your base would be the newsletter or the podcast or the YouTube series or whatever that is. And I don't think enough people do that. I mean, when I started my, you know, when I started content marketing Institute, let's say in 2010, I went to probably a dozen or 14 events a year. Some were local and some were international and some are whatever that I could talk to these. And I had a better idea than most because I was out there talking to them. Now, could you do it online? Could you do it in different communities? You can absolutely do a lot of this. You just don't get put in the types of situations when you do in person. and have that opportunity. The other thing is when you go to in-person events, the people that are there, their number one reason for going is almost always networking, not education. They want to meet other people that are having the same challenges and issues as them. So you can start to build your little community and that will actually help you because if you're trying to start an informational product yourself, this is the people that you probably want to have buy this thing, right? Ultimately, or buy whatever you have to sell. Again. Go through the process, like you said, where don't just launch the product. When I talk to entrepreneurs that they've got this, everyone's got a great idea for a product. I'm like, Jesus, such, that's the hardest way to go. The better way is to actually build the audience first and then launch the product because you're actually creating your marketing first. Marketing is the hardest, actually finding an audience to buy your thing is the hardest thing to do. Not actually creating the product. It's finding the audience to buy it. So create the audience first, the way that you and I are talking about it. And then you can launch all kinds of products against it just to see, but having that distribution. And by the way, we're more and more talking about controlled distribution. These are things like email lists, membership groups, communities, things that are outside of social media where you don't have direct access to that audience. That audience can be turned off and on depending on YouTube's terms. Facebook's terms, whatever the case is. So that's what we're really focusing on. You can use all those social media platforms for discovery, but at the end of the day, you want to create assets and assets is where you get that data, permission-based data. And that's kind of the goal of this whole thing working. speaker-1: Yeah, and I think you've called that in another podcast, like building a home instead of chasing the platforms, right? You're building your own owned audience instead of chasing the platforms. love that. speaker-0: Build your content, don't build your content home on rented land. speaker-1: Right, yes, that's gold. I love it. And I totally agree with your insight there about build the audience first and then the product or service, right? Because I would almost argue that building an audience, getting somebody to pay attention to you consistently and consume your content consistently, I almost feel like is going to be harder. Maybe it's not, I don't know. It's like the content ecosystem is so polluted. It's like so there's so much noise out there. But getting somebody to consistently tune into what you're creating, whether that's your newsletter, your podcast, your content on whatever platform, join a community, participate in a community, that almost might be harder than getting a couple people to say yes to a service that you might be able to provide them. speaker-0: I mean, I think we're pointing out a really big thing that's coming. mean, what's, what's going to be very scarce in the next three to five years? Human content. More and more, we all know you can, you can look at all the charts, whether you want to say it's 90%, 99%, more than 50%. I don't care what the number is. We know the direction. There is more and more AI driven content out there. Human content is going to be more scarce. If we were going to stand out, we have to have a point of view. We have to be differentiated. We have to be a little bit weird. These are the things that. You didn't used to do when I was younger because you wanted to fit in. never did that. Now you benefit from being weird, from being strange, from building an audience that knows, likes, and trusts you. That's the process. They first will know of you. Then they'll start to like you and listen to you on a regular basis. Then they come to trust you. Once you have somebody's trust, they will buy anything from you. Yeah. We've seen it a million times, but you have to get to that point. And by the way, it doesn't have to be a hundred million people. It could be. A hundred people. don't think, I mean, you can, I've seen business to business content creators have like 500 downloads an episode or a thousand people on their email list and they're a multimillion dollar company. It just depends on what you end up selling to those people and what their buying power is and really what you want to give over time. So you can do all these things, but set it up that way. that's where I mean, When I started my, uh, you know, my business without launching the product, I said, Oh, we're going to build this audience. Everybody thought I was nuts. And now when you look at most content creators, that's, that's the thing we build the audience first and then the product. I think that's going to be your differentiator with all this stuff that happens with technology is are you known? Do people know, are there human beings out there that know you that trust you? If that's the case, you will have leverage in any situation that you come in. speaker-1: No doubt. Find your tilt. Find your tilt. Create and find your tilt. Create your tilt. I love it. And yeah, like the advantage of that is one, okay, if you build the audience first, one, you're going to have like lead generation distribution down pat, which is if anybody started a business, you know that getting those leads when you're first starting out is really hard. But then two, I think a really critical thing again, is you're going to know that audience so well. So you're going to know exactly what they want, exactly what they're looking for. You're to be able to build a product or service. that serves them better than anybody else could because you know that audience so, well. And that is the most critical part in being able to create a solution for anybody is knowing them really well. speaker-0: Absolutely, 100%. Totally agree. speaker-1: Love it. So for experts, authors, and you've talked about this idea of AI content being so prevalent and human content becoming more more scarce. A lot of people are just electing to click the easy button, throw a prompt into Cloud or into ChatGPT, just generate their content for them, but whatever. So for info product creators, for experts, the old model was just create content, teach an idea, hope people apply it. You create this product, information for them, and hope people apply it and do the work and take action on what you're teaching them to do so that they get value. But if information is becoming abundant, right, it's at everybody's fingertips. It has been for a while, but now it's even more accessible just through a prompt. An AI can generate endless average content. What do you think experts need to build beyond just the information that they're putting out there? speaker-0: you look at the data on the number of podcast episodes out there and how many podcasts have more than three episodes, I think it's less than 50 % of all podcasts have more than three episodes. Most of this comes down to focus and repetition. I mean, we talked about the content tilt and all that stuff, but people aren't willing to do the work. They want, to your point, they don't have patience. They want this immediate gratification. This is like anything worthwhile. It's going to take some... time to do this. So we have to make sure that not only our content is different, that we're saying this thing for a long time consistently to these people. And then once we do that, then we get into the idea of diversification. So this is where a lot of people mess up because they're like, okay, well now I'm just going to do the podcast. I'm just going to... Mr. Beastley, we'll use that him as example. We'll go ahead, start it on YouTube. Now he's got everything. He's got the Twitter stream. He's got the things... Clip's going on TikTok and he's got them on Facebook and he's got, and he's got, ⁓ he's on doing the different products and services and he's got 18 things going on. That's what, that's what a media company does. So I want you to think about yourself as a media company. So once you get that clear differentiation and once you're delivering it consistently over that one base, then you get into the idea of diversification like any smart media company. So that what we did with Content Marketing Institute, we just started as a blog. We got that blog up to about 10,000 subscribers. And once we got that, we added in research. Okay. We do regular quarterly research projects that helped. Okay. That's our, we differentiated in or do we diversified into that area. Then we launched a magazine chief content officer. Okay, great. Why do we do all that? Because we found out, and you can do a lot of research on this and, and yourself, when you get to your own audience, how many pieces of content does, does you do your best customers, your most loyal customers ingest? Do they just do the one, do they do four, whatever? We found it was three and it didn't matter what three, it didn't know if it was the research, the blog, the webinars, the events, the road shows, the books, whatever the case is, three was the most important thing. So we have to ultimately at some point diversify. So get to that. So then you'll think, okay, well, I'm a content creator. What makes the most sense for me? Then you start looking at do, should I do an event? Should I do a book? Should I have a community? Should I have a webinar series? What are those things that you can add to your portfolio? Because what you're doing is you're creating a portfolio of assets. Just like if you have a stock portfolio and you have five to six to seven stocks or whatever the case is, you know, one is just one big bet. So you did well with your one big bet with your newsletter or your podcast. But then when you get that minimum viable audience, then we need to diversify. Cause you ultimately want as a content creator, you want eight or nine or 10, 11 different things. And that's when you really create the value. And that's where you can sit down and say, well, I can keep going with this thing. This is awesome. I'm really affecting a lot of people in a positive way, or you could say, well, it's time for me to sell. I'm going to package this asset up. like, cause we made the, wife and I made the decision in 2016. said, well, this event's doing really well. We would like to sell this thing because we want to do X, Y, and Z. So we ended up selling. I mean, I've. I've done this three times. I've created three different media entities and sold all three of them. And thankfully I don't have one now, you could do it. You could do this and it's sort of a predictable and the way that you do it, it's just that each one takes, you know, 18, 24, 32 months. You get it going, you build the thing, you diversify and go on. So that's where I would say in my recommendation to listeners is, if that's your plan, you can start planning for all that right now. Put the work in and you get to the point where you have. a lot more options than what you want to do financially with your life. speaker-1: Absolutely. Yeah, so you create consistency and that minimum viable audience through focus. Just focus and making it easy on yourself by just having one path. And then once you build that minimum viable audience, then you start to expand and diversify into other platforms, other mediums of interaction with your audience. And then from there you have all the options, right? Then you can start a product, then you can start a service, then you can continue to scale everything up. And I think in my opinion, You brought this up earlier. The content, the information is becoming a lot more accessible, but like obviously the people who are going to win are going to be the people who have their tilts, who have a unique angle, who have that human element to it or like a unique take, right? It's not just all generic AI information. But then in addition to that, I think it's the people who focus on building a gen like an actual community and foster human to human connection and building community is only going to become more and more important. speaker-0: And the community happened, like a lot of people want to go out and they want to say, I want to build a community, but a community comes after audience. You have to build the audience first and then the community sort of arises out of that. So a really good method to do is find your, find your 20 people, know, reach out to them. You know, what can I do for you today? Send them something like build your own community and like outside of the informational product you sell, but that you can go to. Like when I launched, you know, let's say Content Inc, my book from second edition in 2021, I was like, okay, who are my 50 people that first I want them to read this second that can help me spread this thing. Well, I've been working with those 50 people for years. I mean, that just, Hey, I'm running, they're like, Joe, whatever, whatever you need. And I'm the same thing with them. So that's what you need when you really go out there and you're like, okay, well, how do I market this thing or who can try this or whatever? You should have that group already built up. So that's the one that you, you've ⁓ been in these communities online or you go to events and meet these people and whatever, and then you put in the work. And a lot of people, I think have not done that. They have some of these relationships online, but you don't have that list. So write that list down. Like who are these 20 people or 30 people that you can count on to count on you help them. First of all, don't ask for anything. Just help them give it. How can I help you get to your goals? And then they'll ask you the same question back and it's a life changer. speaker-1: Absolutely. That was going to be the one big piece that I underlined in what you were saying there. We had Bob Berg on the podcast who wrote this amazing book called The Go Giver and it's just all about the idea. So once you have this list of people, ⁓ my goodness, it's just a... speaker-0: I've read that book multiple times. ⁓ I love it. speaker-1: I encourage you to go back listen to that episode Bob and can get the book the go-giver. It's amazing It's just this whole philosophy of just every interaction every relationship that you have with somebody just approach it with the idea of how can I give value like how what can I give to this person how can I provide value not looking to get anything from anybody and that's especially I mean that you're gonna find that's critical when you're starting out, right? that's how you build trust or I build an audience is all you focus on is giving value giving value and helping this other person and then that never goes away. That never ends. Your focus of just not looking at what you can get but looking at how can I give to this person and provide value and help them solve a problem is ⁓ how speaker-0: love that. see, this is, want to succeed on, let's say LinkedIn, reach out to somebody and say, Hey, Ian, I love your podcast. How can I help spread the message of your podcast? Or I've got this thing. I would love to promote it with my email newsletter. You're like, ⁓ my God, I love this person. Like they're just going to help promote myself. Yeah. I mean, you know what's going on, but you're like, I'll take it. I'm growing my thing too. Like we all need a little bit of help. Like go reach out, do your work and reach out to 20 people. Your life will change. And it's not that hard to do. It's just not a lot of people do it. speaker-1: Right? It's... because it's uncomfortable. You gotta make an ass, you gotta put yourself out there. Set up to be rejected, turned down, but... which does suck. It does suck for sure, but it's just a part of the process and they're gonna be the best. speaker-0: The yeses are worth it. Even one yes will make the 20 no's worth it. speaker-1: ⁓ Yeah, there's nothing quite like it. played sports my whole life, ⁓ getting a yes in business is there's nothing like that. It's the best. Joe, thank you so much for your time. I have one more question for you. But before we do that, how can people get in touch with you? speaker-0: So I'm at joepolizzi.com, P-U-L-I-Z-Z-I.com. And I mean, I've got a newsletter you can sign up to there, but my number one thing is I'm giving away Burn the Playbook ebook for free. Go to joepolizzi.com and you'll see Burn the Playbook, my new book, and you can download the ebook for free and have at it. I really just want, I think this book is so important, especially if you're a younger entrepreneur or professional to get this in your hands and learn from some of my mistakes. as I would along the way, because I think there is a formula in a lot of cases for being successful with informational products. And, ⁓ it's sort of the old, how do you build this media company in today's age? And it's exciting. And I, I wouldn't want it any other way. I think it's the best business model on the planet. And I just want other people to do it as well. speaker-1: Joe, final question for you is a recurring question I ask every guest. Joe, if you had a giant billboard that everyone in the world could see for 10 seconds, what would it say and why? speaker-0: You know, if you asked me this a couple of days ago, I probably would have said something different, Ian, but, I saw an interview with Tom Hanks recently and he answered this question. I just love it. And his, his answer was throw deep. You only live once. Go for it. Whatever you do, like, just go. Don't listen to anyone else. Most people are wrong or they're scared or they don't understand the world and the way you understand it. Just. Do the thing, throw deep, and you'll be successful. Throw After all those nose. After all the, you get a lot of nose on the way, but man, when you make it, it's gonna be great. It's gonna be an awesome journey. It's like we only get one shot at this thing. Right. So let's do it. Let's do it. speaker-1: I love it. Throw deep. And the beautiful thing about that, right, in football you got four downs to make the first down, but in life you got a lot more than just four downs, right? You can take a lot more swings than just the one. So go for it. I love it. Joe, thank you so much for the time. speaker-0: Ian, thank you. Appreciate it. speaker-1: Thank you for listening. The main thing I'm taking away from my conversation with Joe is that the audience should come before the product. Joe's point is that when you spend the time to build the audience first, you're not just creating attention. You are learning your market in public. You find out what these people care about, what they keep asking for, what language they use, what problems keep showing up, and what they are actually willing to engage with. Then, when it is time to create the product, service, event, community, or offer, You're not just guessing from a blank page or your own intuition. You already have trust, distribution, and a clear understanding of what the audience wants. And for a founder, that is a much stronger starting point than building in private and hoping that the market cares later. And also, like there's less friction to getting started, right? You can have no money and start to build an audience today. And then in doing so, you're going to learn a ton about this audience and you'll be able to figure out what you can actually build or offer to them that'll be of value. which is going to be the foundation of your product or service. If you want to get connected with Joe Pulizzi, you can find his website, newsletter, and the link to his free ebook, Burn the Playbook, in the description of this episode. And if you run a coaching program, course, or mastermind, and your clients aren't completing the work, download the free program execution system toolkit in the description. It shows you how to install what I call execution infrastructure, so clients actually follow through and get results. Thank you for listening, and I'll see you in the next one.