Graham Cochrane (00:05.294)
If you're creating content, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, a podcast, whatever, and it's not turning into money, I want to tell you something that might sting a little. It's not an algorithm problem. It's not a consistency problem. It's a words problem. You're posting, you're showing up, but most of what's coming out of your mouth or off your keyboard isn't.
The kind of content that actually gets people to buy. Here's the thing: nobody tells you. People don't pay for information anymore. They can get that anywhere for free. What they pay for is life. And there are three specific kinds of words that create it. Once you know what they are, you'll know exactly why your content hasn't been converting, and more importantly, exactly what to say instead.
Graham Cochrane (01:28.302)
Don't miss here, me. Content is amazing. Content creation is vital. And content creation is the gateway to accelerating your opportunity to become wealthy, to have impact in the world, to change your family's lives. And so I am bull bullish on content. I've been creating content for 17 years straight. Okay. The problem is everybody who's thinking about building a business, growing their business, expanding their personal brand has heard I should be creating content. And so they've become a content creator, but no one is creating content.
The right way. And so we talked about this a little bit last week why you shouldn't be focusing on teaching tactics in your content. You need to be focused on belief shifting. That is true. But I want to zoom out even further and give you literally the playbook on how to create content that draws people in, gets people to not only subscribe and share and become obsessed with your brand, but to
Actually move forward and become a customer. And so let's start with content. And just as a quick reminder, all content is, is a way for you to speak. Even even written content, Substack, blogging, whatever. It's a way for you to speak. Even people on X, post LinkedIn, written posts, it is words. And words create wealth.
Because words are how you create anything else. I mean, you look at the God of the universe, the book of Genesis, the very first verse of the Bible in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. How did he do it? He spoke. He spoke. Now that's tr it's strange because God could have snapped his fingers, right? It could have been like a
Graham Cochrane (03:17.048)
Could have been like a Thanos in a good way from Infinity Wars, right? It could he could have snapped his fingers, he could have waved a wand, he could have used his hands, he could have there's a million ways God could have created everything. But the Bible chooses to reveal to us that the way he chose to create all things, including you and I, is through words. Interestingly enough, later in the book of first John or
Graham Cochrane (03:50.497)
Interestingly enough, later in the Bible in the book of John, we kind of see a parallel passage. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And then it goes on to say that the Word created everything. The Word there is Jesus. So it's fascinating that Jesus is represented as a word and the Word. God created the heavens and the earth through speaking.
And that that is a giant clue as to how things are created in this world through our words. Your relationships are built and destroyed with words. Proverbs 18 tells us the power of life and death is in the tongue. Like what you say can create or it can destroy. And you've experienced that on either side of the coin. So speaking is creation. So words create.
But specifically for today's context, words create life. And I want you to see this in Proverbs 15:4. One of my favorite passages it says, gentle words are a tree of life. What are we talking about here? The tree of life metaphor, it shows up not just as a metaphor, but as a real thing in the book of Genesis, in the Garden of Eden that God created, there are all these trees for Adam and Eve to eat from, and there's animals, and it's amazing, and it's perfect.
but there is there there are two specific trees that are mentioned in the garden outside of all the regular fruit trees, though we don't know what kind of trees they were. There is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This is the one tree, the only thing Adam and Eve weren't allowed to eat from. Okay. They could have everything except for eating from this one tree. That's mentioned. That's the one that gets everyone into trouble. But also it's mentioned there is a tree of life.
And then if you go to the book of Revelation, you're going to see there is a tree of life in the recreated heavens and the earth, the new heavens and the earth in the new garden there. And so the tree of life is really, really powerful. So it is a real thing, but it also is used in scripture as a metaphor for what eating of the tree of life would do, which is bring more life to your bones and your body. You like you would live forever if you ate from the tree of life, is what the Bible is telling us. And so so they use the tree of life as this beautiful metaphor of a good thing.
Graham Cochrane (06:06.326)
And in Proverbs 15, 4, it says, gentle words. Words are a tree of life. Now, what does this have to do with anything, Graham? It has everything to do with everything. This is why your content isn't converting. You are creating content, just not the kind that creates life for people. Your words should be a tree of life.
And please lean in for this. Life is what people pay for. Life is what people pay for. That is all we want. I was telling my wife this week, I just want to experience more life in my life, right? I got a great life, but I want to experience more life in my life. People want more life in their relationships. They don't want dead relationships. They want alive relationships. Don't you? People want more life in their health.
They want more life in their finances. So many people are complaining and lamenting about the economy and the price of gas and the price of groceries. They want to feel so alive in their finances that they don't have to even worry about that, that their bank account isn't dead. It's alive and growing. Right? Like my bank account is growing every day. Don't you want your bank account to be growing every day? They want more life in their finances. They want more life in their parenting. Can I get a witness? Any parent in the room feeling a little tired at every stage?
I mean, I've got teenagers and I I've there's there's tiring aspects of parenting in all stages. It gets a lot easier, by the way. But it still can be tiring. Don't you want to feel more life in your parenting? So you're just fighting with your kids. It's not just a chore. It's not just this thing you have to do. It's something you get to do. People want more life in their hobbies. Literally, I I I want more life in my hobbies. I want to have more hobbies. I want to have more fun things. I I do parenting stuff. I do husband stuff. I do business stuff. I do
Leading worship at my church stuff. I I do writing books and stuff. I do all these things that are great and I love them all. But it's funny how hobbies have been crowded out. Just like random fun things have been crowded out, right? So we want more life in our hobbies. Does this make sense? Like people don't want to buy products. People don't want to buy coaching. They don't want to buy a service. They want more life, bro. And the moment you realize that, the moment you go,
Graham Cochrane (08:32.664)
Well, maybe I should talk about things that create a sense of life in people. Because if imagine if people's interactions with you and your content left them feeling so alive, don't you think they would want to have a double dip of that? They would want more of where that came from. One of my mentors and dear friends is Myron Golden. And I will praise him to the day I die because he is a
Diamond in the rough. They don't build him quite like Myron. One of the things that makes Myron so successful, outside of the fact that he is a brilliant communicator and salesperson and speaker and coach, entrepreneur. One of the things that makes him so successful, and you know this if you're a Myron fan, is when you spend even five minutes in his presence, you feel more alive.
You feel more alive because he speaks to the things in you that want to be awakened. He speaks to your possibility. He speaks to like, I'm not trying to be weird and make weird language, but it's almost like he speaks to this possible ascension. Like you're you're living here in the everyday life, but there could there could be this higher version of how you experience it, you and your life and your business. And it just like.
If you're in his presence for a minute, even on YouTube, and I've spent like hours with this man in person, on his private jet, at events, in his office, you know, like over having meals with him, you spend even five minutes with him on YouTube and you feel like I need more of that. Right. And that's why you keep coming back, you keep coming back. I need to binge, binge, binge his content because I want another hit of that.
That is an example of what's happening. You don't know w exactly what he's saying, and I'm gonna teach you what to say, but just want you to know what it feels like. People are so attracted to him, and then they want to buy his book or come to his challenge or join one of his programs or come to an event or do whatever they can do to get some of that juice. Cause he feels alive. And when he communicates, you feel alive. And life is all we're looking for. Is this making sense? Okay. Let's get into it. This is gonna be real simple for you. I'm gonna make this real simple. Can I just give you three types of words you should be sharing?
Graham Cochrane (10:56.706)
In your content. And when I say three types of words, it'll make sense in a second. Think of these as three categories of content, but not topical. So stop thinking about topical, like whatever it is you teach or do on your content platforms. Don't think of it as content buckets. Think of it as style of content. Think of it as intentional style of content. Your secret mission behind these cont these content categories. Okay. This will make sense in a second. So
The first word, there's three types of words. The first type of word are healing words. Healing words. And healing words have one purpose, and that is to mend the heart. Okay? Please stay with me here. You're dealing with human beings, not robots. Okay? These are not robots. People have broken hearts. Proverbs 15 4. I referenced it earlier. Gentle words are a tree of life. Do you know that word gentle in the Hebrew? Because the
Book of Proverbs is written in Hebrew originally, not in English, obviously. But what's translated as gentle is sometimes translated as healing, because that's really what the root word means in the Hebrew. Healing words are a tree of life. Interesting. So when you interact with people, whether it's on the side of the other side of a screen through your videos,
through the ear pod airpods with the podcast, through they're looking at your posts on X or on threads or Instagram, whatever. The person on the other side of that piece of content has a broken heart in some area of his or her life. There is pain. And so what you want to do is speak to that pain. You want you don't want to act like they're just a robot looking for information. You want to address them as a human
And so you want to share words that help them get some healing. What does this look like? What are you talking about? I'm talking about acknowledging the pain they might be feeling related to what you're going through or they're going through or what you're teaching or what you're covering. Does this make sense? So let's say you're a dating coach. If you're creating dating content to help people land a better boyfriend or girlfriend, husband or wife, well, there's probably a lot of pain.
Graham Cochrane (13:20.118)
In their love life. So instead of just getting right into your tips and tricks and stuff, why don't you speak to the pain for a moment? Address the pain of having someone cheat on you or being lonely for long periods of time or feeling like you're not enough or worthy of love, whatever real pain is going on, why don't you just talk about it? Like in your content. Like just talk about that. Number one, you'll instantly create empathy. Empathy. Like, wow.
Somebody feels what I'm feeling. Sympathy is I feel bad for you. Empathy is I feel what you're feeling. And don't we all want to have someone who just feels what we're feeling? So they will love you and trust you if you show empathy by acknowledging their pain, speaking to their pain, validating their pain, that they're not crazy for feeling that pain. There's nothing wrong with them that they felt that pain, that you that you even apply.
Can apologize if someone has hurt them? I mm, I'm giving you an example.
But speak to their heart. Help them mend their heart through your words. Share healing words. You don't have to be a licensed counselor or therapist, but you've been there, right? You're a human. Humans can help humans. Isn't that what we do? Like we help our friends who are walking through pain. We help them walk through the pain. And we can really help our friends walk through pain if we've walked through that exact same pain. That is why, by the way, the most hurtful and painful parts of your story can be the most healing.
And purposeful parts of someone else's story. Like God can redeem your pain. It is not pointless. Because when you've gone through something very specific, you now have an instant bridge to someone else that's going through that same thing. And there's instant empathy and trust. So if your content is feeling cold or transactional, like let me just teach you this cool trick, you're probably skipping healing words.
Graham Cochrane (15:23.34)
You're not acknowledging the pain before you get to the solution. This is also just good old fashioned sales copy strategy. Often people get right into the solution on their sales page or their their video or their webinar and they haven't they haven't addressed the pain in the room. And so people just don't feel seen. And it just feels like you're trying to sell me something. Sit in the pain, speak to the pain. And be a be a balm of healing to people. Like, yeah, I'm a business coach.
You could argue I just help people with their businesses, but if you've been around here long enough, hopefully you have felt some of these healing words that I have spoken over you where I've tried to build you up and address the pain and the hurt and and do the best I can from afar to create some healing there for you so that I'm not just a business coach, I'm a trusted friend and mentor is is my hope and aim. So healing words create life. Proper fifteen four. Cause healing words are a tree of life.
So this, you're gonna see a pattern here. There are multiple references in the book of Proverbs of a tree of life. So I started reading through this one day and was like, where are all the references of a tree of life? Interestingly enough, they can all tie back to words. So you got healing words. The second type of words you want to teach or share in your content are hopeful words. So if healing words mend the heart, hopeful words lift the spirit. Proverbs 13:12. Hope deferred.
Makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life. There's that phrase again. So hope deferred makes the heart sick. Yeah. How many of us have been hopeless about a situation? Like hopeless that this will change? The heart gets sick. Your spirit gets crushed. You're like, this is never gonna get any better. This is never gonna change. Like he's never gonna change if you're a wife, she's never gonna change if you're a husband.
The economy's never going to change if you're in a tough season in your business. Like if you have young kids or it's a really challenging season with your children, it could be a few years and you're like, this is how is this ever gonna change? You start to lose hope. Cause when that hope is deferred, like pushed down the field, the heart grows sick, right? But a dream fulfilled as a tree of life. What are we talking about here? We're talking about hope. Like when you can get back to dreaming again, when you can get back on the bandwagon of
Graham Cochrane (17:48.739)
Man, I'm actually hopeful about my future. Bro, instant life. What does that mean? Okay, it means this. If you're a content creator, one of your number one power moves is to fan the flame of people's dreams, is to make them feel like and believe at their core that change is not only possible, it is very probable for them, that what they desire is not far away. It is within reach and they can do it. I've been telling you for years.
For years, I w in my first business, the recording revolution, I was teaching music recording. Again, how does this apply to music recording? It applies to everything. So I would speak with healing words to the shame and pain of embarrassment that these musicians had of like, I wrote a song, it's a good song, but I'm when I record it, it sounds like a kid recorded it with a kazoo, right? It sounds bad. And I it's not that the song's bad or that I'm a bad musician. I just don't know the art and science of audio engineering.
Because I didn't go to audio school and I don't care to go to audio school, but I would love to know how to get it sounding a lot more professional so that I'm not embarrassed to share it. Embarrassment is a shame word. That is a painful word. Like Brene Brown has made a living speaking to the pain of shame, right? That's a real thing. So I would speak healing words to them about the pain and the embarrassment they were feeling. But I'd also speak hopeful words to them about you can make a professional sounding recording in your bedroom with budget gear.
Right. You don't need to go to a home studio. And I'm going to show you how. And it's actually simpler than you think. In fact, you could probably have a better sounding recording by this weekend. If you just like the way I would talk wasn't just what to do, it was the way I would communicate it. I my secret goal was to leave every person when they would walk away from a seven minute video or a 17 minute video or whatever, to walk away not only feeling like, I think I know how to do it, but walking away feeling like I believe I can do it and things can change for me.
I'm just infusing hope. I wasn't the best content creator in that niche. I wasn't the most talented content creator in that niche, but I had the largest YouTube channel and a million-dollar a year business teaching supposedly broke musicians how to record music. Why? Because I infused hope. People were addicted to my content because I was a beacon of hope for them in an industry that did not care about them as a person, just was like, buy this plugin, buy this guitar, use this microphone, just follow this.
Graham Cochrane (20:13.27)
Strategy and it'll sound better. That's so cold and mechanical. It doesn't speak to the pain. So there was no healing words. And it doesn't speak to the hope deferred and the dream that they really want to bring back. So I would I was a reigniter of people's dreams. Isn't that funny? And I was just selling courses and memberships, but really I was selling dreams. Bro, if you can speak to people's dead, dormant, dying dreams, you you you will print money because people will pay for their dreams.
Because they want to dream again. Nobody doesn't want to dream. We just get cynical in life because life can beat it out of you sometimes. Life is hard. But if we're really honest, we want to dream. Your people want to dream. So speak hopeful words. If your content feels flat, if it feels like it's just here's what to do, you're probably missing hopeful words. You're not painting the picture of what's possible. The number one goal of your videos or your blog posts or your ex posts or your whatever.
Is to create hope that change is possible. Because remember, you and I are in the transformation business. We're helping people transform from where they are to where they want to be. And the the only way someone's gonna, the only way in a very busy world and life, the only way someone's gonna be willing to put in the work, to go on the transformation journey, to become the person necessary to get to that next phase. And the only reason they're gonna do that, the only motivation for that is hope. Is hope.
Hope this could work for me. If they're discouraged, they're like, they're not gonna do it. And can I be honest with you, there is so much discouragement in the world today. People are so discouraged. And it it's some of it is is because the the the mass media and the social media is just designed to get people to keep watching and clicking. And so the fastest way to do that is to prey on fear and discouragement.
and so it's it's a constant hot mess. And I would encourage you to opt out as soon as you possibly can. Stop watching the news, stop reading the news on your phone, get off social media. It's like it's gonna destroy your hope. But that is only putting fuel on the fire of human nature. When human nature is one of discouragement. Because life is hard. People eat each other alive, right? The Bible calls it sin. People hurt each other.
Graham Cochrane (22:40.408)
People are selfish. People who you thought you could trust look out for number one when push comes to shove. People change for the worse. It's a tough world out there. And I'm not a negative person. But what's amazing about realizing how much discouragement is out there is something that I heard Jordan Peterson say one time. It shocked him how little encouragement it takes to change somebody's life.
Now that's both a sad and and hopeful statement. It is sad because it he he was basically saying after coming off of a tour, a lecture tour, meeting all these incredible people, how discouraged they were that when he would just share one one little encouraging line, they would it would be like giving a drop of water onto the tongue of a parched person who's been wandering the desert, and they're like, thank you so much for that water. And you're like, bro, it's just a drop.
But to the person who's dying of thirst in the desert, that drop is a lifeline. So that's a sad statement, but it's a hopeful statement for you and I as content creators that you don't have to be this insane communicator to transform somebody's life. You just have to be intentional to imbue hope into every piece of content you create. So that people's interaction with you and your brand and your content is, man, I I'm a little more encouraged.
Think this I think this is possible. And I love the word encouragement. It means to put courage into. So your job is just put a little bit of courage into somebody's life in every single piece of content you create. So hopeful words, because hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life. So you have healing words, hopeful words, and finally you have helpful words. So healing words mend the heart, hopeful words lift the spirit.
Well, helpful words guide the hands. So they're they're feeling a little more healed in their heart emotionally. They're lifted in their spirit and their vision of what's possible, right? With the hopeful words, but now they got to know what to do. They have to express that, right? Like once you've got hope, once you're a little healed in your heart.
Graham Cochrane (25:02.082)
Then you gotta go do something to change your life. Remember, our content doesn't change people's lives, their actions change their lives, but we have to direct them. So you do want to guide their hands. And this comes from Proverbs 3:18. Wisdom is a tree of life to those who embrace her. So this is the third tree of life reference. And what is wisdom? Knowledge applied. Okay? It doesn't say knowledge is a tree of life.
Wisdom is a tree of life. There's a lot of people with some K knowledge out there, as I'll say. There's a lot of people with some K knowledge, but not a whole lot of people with wisdom. A lot of people say, I know that. I've read that book. I got tons of books. I've taken all the courses. I've worked with all the coaches. I go to all the events and all the seminars. Great, good for you. So you're fat on the buffet of knowledge. What are you doing with it, bro?
Wisdom is the ability to not only have absorb the knowledge, but then categorize it and file it into your psyche so that when life hits you in the face or you bump up against good or bad or whatever situations, you can then take knowledge that's necessary and relevant for that situation and apply it in real life by doing something. Sometimes wisdom is the not doing of something, like keeping your mouth shut and not defending yourself all the time.
Wisdom is a tree of life, meaning knowledge applied is a tree of life, meaning helpful words that show them what knowledge to apply and how to apply it. If you if your content gives wisdom, bro, game over. Because I'm I'm telling you, I've seen content since the dawn of time, and I've been a content creator since 2009. And there ain't a whole lot of wisdom on these platforms. There's a lot of talking, there's a lot of tactics.
There's a lot of opinions. There's a lot of hate speech. There's a lot of judgment. There's a lot of stupid jokes, which are just funny. There's a lot of talent, entertainment. And so not all these things are bad. I'm just telling you what kind of stuff I see. There's a lot of copying. There's nobody original. Side rant. But there ain't a whole lot of wisdom. And wisdom smells different. You just know it.
Graham Cochrane (27:19.776)
I can get on someone's Instagram and and see them starting to open their mouth and share wisdom and go, snap, this is different. Right? Like there are a ton of influencers who think they have something to say. And and no offense if this is you, but they're 24 years old. They have nothing to say. Like you don't have anything to say at 24, right? But you know who does have wisdom? Erwin McManus. You you you you look at a 24-year-old influencer and then you go to an Orwell McManus.
And you go, wait a second, there's something different here. Wisdom. Right. And I'm just pulling out examples. And I'm not trying to come down. If you're twenty-four, there are I know twenty-four year olds have way more wisdom than fifty-four year olds. My point is I'm talking about the twenty four year olds, you know the ones that shouldn't even have a a TikTok. Like, what are we talking about here? They have nothing of value to say. Let no one despise you because of your youth. So I I have nothing against people at twenty four changing the world. Go friggin' change the world. Just please.
Be a person of wisdom. Be a person of wisdom. Okay. If your content gets views, but no action, meaning people don't do anything, they don't take action, you're probably missing helpful words. You're not giving people something to actually do. So this is really, really interesting. I love, I work with the team at Brand Builders Group. I love Rory and A.J. Vaden.
They're brilliant. So they have a brilliant company called Brand Builders Group. They help people with personal brands. I've worked with them the past three years. They helped me launch my second book, Rebel. We hit USA Today using their launch strategies. They're brilliant. I'm workshopping a new book idea with my strategists over there. they help you write keynotes. They're amazing. And they're just good humans. Everybody at Brand Builders, best humans I've ever met. but
One of the things they teach is how to think about content pillars. But what I love about the way they teach, like your kind of your core five, six, seven things you'll teach, big ideas, right? Is they teach a framework called story point framework behavior. And it's in a nutshell, tell a story that makes a point. It's usually a one-line or a quotable, a sound bite.
Graham Cochrane (29:45.807)
Teach a framework, which is usually a visual representation of that point, that encourages or incites a behavior. And that flow makes sense. So think about if you were watching a keynote speaker on a stage, she would get up, tell a story that draws everybody in, and you're like, that's so funny, or that's so sad, or that's so encouraging or inspiring, whatever it is. Stories bring people in, guard goes down. Storytelling energy is very different than teaching energy, it's very different than selling energy.
So they're starting with storytelling energy to draw you in. You're paying attention, line by line. And then she drops this one liner. That's the point of the story. And you go, yeah, that's a good line. And the line has so much power because the story that came before it. But now you're wondering, okay, but what does that look like? And is that line always true? Now she starts drawing a framework. It's a maybe it's a Venn diagram, maybe it's a quadrant, maybe it's
A chart, maybe it's she pulls up some stat stats or a study that was done at Harvard. She's showing you something visually that supports that point. And you, and now we're into teaching energy. And so we're like, yeah, that makes so much sense. But it's still just information and inspiration. The last thing that she does is she says, now in light of what you've learned here today, I want you to go out and X, Y, and Z, do this one thing in the next 24 hours or in the next seven days. And you're like, okay, I can do that.
Not only can I do that, I I know why I would want to do that, because you told me the story that made this point, you showed me this framework. And then you gave me something to do, a behavior. It's not crazy, like hard or technical. It's just one simple thing I could go do. I gave a TEDx talk, and you can look it up, it's on YouTube, Graham Cocker and TEDx. When I was training for that, learning, because I had to learn how to give a TEDx talk. I learned that the TED organization and
TEDx, which is an offshoot of, you know, TED. It's independently organized TED events. they want content that at the very end has to lead to an audience, not participation, but an audience like action. So you could tell stories, you can make points, you can do whatever you want, but at the end, you have to give the audience something they can go do. This is a very TED thing because it's a very smart thing to do. Don't just teach stuff that's
Graham Cochrane (32:11.79)
Hopeful and healing. Teach stuff that incites a behavior so they can actually go do some of this on their own. And your job as a content creator is to pre-chew and pre-digest your material so well that when you give it to them, it's it sinks in very quickly for them because you've done the hard work ahead of time for them. And once it sinks in, you say, now that you know this, here's something you can go do. Simple, but just go do this one thing. This is the call to action.
In most of your content, the call to action is going to be something they can go do with it, right? And then sometimes that call to action is to buy your next thing. The next step for you, you should pick up my book. Or you should get a ticket and come to my challenge. Or you should come to this event I'm doing here in Tampa. Or you should book a call. We can get on a call and see how I can help you with this. Either way, they need to take action if they want their life to change. Life doesn't change by watching a video, it changes by doing something different. Does that make sense?
So make sure you have healing words. Yes. Speak to their heart, mend their heart, speak to their pain, create empathy and trust. You need hopeful words. Lift their spirits. Everyone is so down here. If you can be the one content creator in your niche that raises people's spirits up and infuses hope and encouragement into their world, bro, game over. And then if you pair those two with helpful words that
Guide their hand so they know what to go do. Even if it's just go do this one thing, they'll love you forever. And because all three of those things are trees of life. And life is what people pay for. So you're you're giving them what they would pay for for free to the point that they're like, my gosh, you have you've charged my batteries. You have filled me up. And of course they're gonna want more of that juju. Like I was saying with Myron, people get filled up with Myron. They're like, how can I get more of Myron? Right? You want people to say that about you.
So, can I give you something to do? If you aren't already creating content, here's your simple three steps. And if you are creating content, let me simplify it for you so that from today forward, you can win in the content game. Here's your content wealth machine in three steps. Ready for it? Pick a person to speak to. Pick one person.
Graham Cochrane (34:35.424)
In my coaching program with my clients, I teach them something I call the perfect client code. The idea is to have a perfect client, not clients, not group of people, but client that you speak to all the time. All the time. In your content like this, on your sales page, in a webinar. All the time. It's just one singular person. This is why you'll never hear me say, Hey everyone. Hey guys. I'm not speaking to everyone. I'm not speaking to guys or girls.
I'm speaking to you and you alone. I mean, it's just you and me right now. Why would I speak to a bunch of people when you're likely watching or listening to this by yourself? It's you and me. See how much more powerful it is when I say, hey, friend, I'm speaking to you. And how I pull away from the reality and I break the fourth wall if I say, Hey, everybody, you're like, you're like looking over your shoulder, like there's nobody here. It's just you and me. Right? So pick a person and speak to that person.
Pick a person to speak to. Pick a platform to stand on. That's what platforms are, right? Something that elevates you so that people can hear you and see you. And in the old days, you'd go into a town square and someone put a literal soapbox down and they would stand up on their soapbox so that people could see them and they would say, Listen, listen, I have something to say. That's why they're called platforms. A stage. YouTube is a platform. Instagram is a platform. TikTok is a platform. X is a platform. Substack is a platform.
A podcast is a platform. Physical stages are a platform. All of these things are platforms. Don't be on all of them. Just pick one. Pick a platform to stand on. So you have a person to speak to, a platform to stand on, and then pick a payoff to sell. What are you selling? A payoff, an outcome, a result, a transformation, not a product, not a coaching program. Those are mechanisms, those are fulfillment.
Containers. Nobody wants a container. Those are vehicles. Nobody wants a vehicle. They want the destination. So what payoff singular does your person want? Get up on that platform and talk about that. Sell that payoff to that person from that platform. That's it. Like that is the whole game. Is the whole game. But why are we complicating it? That is the whole game. And when you speak to that person with healing words, hopeful words.
Graham Cochrane (37:00.79)
Helpful words, it's on like Donkey Kong, as they would say. I'm gonna give you a quick little example and then we'll say goodbye for today. One of my clients, her name is Iko. I love Iko. She's a great human being, but her story is great too. When she first found my content, she was a waitress. She was waiting tables and doing odd jobs, and she was creating, you know, maybe $1,000 to $5,000 a month, you know, trying to.
weight tables and she was trying to start a a coaching business. but she has been able to take what she knows and take her words and create a thirty thousand dollar a month coaching business, even with a very small audience. her industry is English pronunciation for native Japanese speakers. How cool is that? She's not an English teacher. She doesn't teach English. She helps
Japanese speakers pronounce English better. She works on their accent. I don't know if it gets any more niche than that. Doing $30,000 a month. So don't come at me, bro, with this. I can't make money on my niche. Yes, you can. And the reason she can is she she got up on her platform, YouTube, she picked her person, that that Japanese businesswoman or that Japanese baseball player.
That are coming to the US or coming to the UK and they're s interacting with more English speakers. She's got that one person in her mind. She's picked a person to speak to. She's picked a platform to s to stand on, YouTube, and picked a payoff to sell. And her payoff is a better English accent, like l getting rid of some of the Japanese accent so that you can communicate better and be treated with more respect or whatever. Get rid of embarrassment, like whatever that's all she does.
It's all she does. And her content is all about that. She's creating healing words in her content, speaking to the pain of embarrassment. Hopeful words. You can do this. There's some simple things we can do. Helpful words. She gives them practical things to do and she creates clients from that. Isn't that crazy? Just her words. And how fun is that that even that example, if I think about it, she's helping people with their words. Words are powerful. Words can become a tree of life. So
Graham Cochrane (39:29.346)
When you look at your content, analyze it this week and ask yourself, am I putting helpful words, healing words, and hopeful words into my content? And if not, how can I ramp it up? I hope that this blessed you. I hope this actually healed something for you. I hope this gave you some hope. And I hope that this was helpful for you. If so, leave a comment below, let me know. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, you can always DM me on Instagram at thegramcocker and let me know.
Your time's valuable. I appreciate you spending some of it with me today. Have a great rest of your week and I'll see you on another episode real soon.
