IAM542- Founder Helps Creators Maximize Their Return on Content

Amy is an expert in content repurposing and the Founder of Content 10x – a niche creative agency. She helps content creators grow their audience by maximizing their return on the content they create. She works with businesses, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders, and is the content repurposing powerhouse behind some of the most well-known podcasts and video shows.

Amy is the host of The Content 10x Podcast, author of the book Content 10x: More Content, Less Time, Maximum Results, and is a speaker who has spoken on stages around the world about content repurposing.

• CEO Hack: Trello for planning and operational management
• CEO Nugget: Choose a segment of people in your network and ask them ‘What do I do?'
• CEO Defined: Creating opportunities not just for yourself but for people also

Website: https://www.content10x.com/

Book link: https://www.content10x.com/book/
Podcast: https://www.content10x.com/podcast

Instagram: https://www.content10x.com/instagram
Facebook: https://www.content10x.com/facebook
LinkedIn: https://www.content10x.com/linkedin
Twitter: https://www.content10x.com/twitter

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Transcription:

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of.

This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:29

Hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Amy Woods of Content 10x.

Amy, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Amy Woods 0:39

Thank you for having me. It's great to be here.

Gresham Harkless 0:41

Yeah, no problem. Definitely, the pleasure is all mine. What I want to do is just read a little bit more about Amy so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing.

Amy is an expert in content repurposing and the Founder of Content 10x – a niche creative agency. She helps content creators grow their audience by maximizing their return on the content they create. She works with businesses, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders, and is the content repurposing powerhouse behind some of the most well-known podcasts and video shows.

Amy is the host of The Content 10x Podcast, author of the book Content 10x: More Content, Less Time, Maximum Results, and is a speaker who has spoken on stages around the world about content repurposing.

Amy, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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Amy Woods 1:20

I am ready and raring to go.

Gresham Harkless 1:22

Let's do it. So I wanted to kick everything off and hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story. What led you to start your business?

Amy Woods 1:30

Oh, well, I will try in a nutshell, I had a long corporate career previous to starting my business. I was a management consultant for 13 years, working in big corporations. I work for Accenture, in mergers and acquisitions, business transformation, and that kind of thing with big Fortune 500 companies. I've always had quite an entrepreneurial spirit, which I guess is why I like consulting. I'd always wanted my own business. But the two-year plan at Accenture became 3, 4, 5. But I think the jumping-off point was becoming apparent. So having kids and then not being able to just constantly travel all the time and then thinking, Well, what next? I want to move out of consulting, I want to start a business.

I was really attracted to virtual businesses, online businesses that don't require you to go to an office every day or too much travel, that kind of thing. So yeah, I explored a few different options started following people listening to podcasts, and just learning, reading, learning, immersing myself in the online business world. I started content Tenex, about two and a half years ago, now. I still consider it almost startup bottom, but it's not I guess, at this stage, it's been going great. I've no regrets. I don't intend to be an employee you can have to after running my own business, this is it now.

Gresham Harkless 3:04

Yeah, absolutely. Especially when you have that freedom and then like when you have certain life experiences, like of course, having kids, it starts to put different things in perspective, change those priorities. So it sounds like that's what happened to you. It's great that once you get that entrepreneurial bug and you start to pursue it more and more and more, it's hard to go back to not being that. So I definitely appreciate that.

I wanted to hear a little bit more about Content 10X, can you take us through exactly like what it is you do and how you work with clients?

Amy Woods 3:31

Yeah. So as you said, we are a creative agency, basically and our specialty is repurposing content. We work with mainly podcasters and video content creators kind of 50-50 really, and our content, clients will get their original content to also that podcast episode or that video. Then we take it from there and create lots of content based on it. It's like a repeatable service. So an example would be somebody who does a weekly video, and they will send the video to us. Then we will turn it into a produced podcast with show notes into short little teaser videos, like slice and dice into minutes videos for Instagram, Instagram Stories, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

We create things like graphics, we write blog posts, like long-form blog posts, based on the videos, and we maybe send an email to email subscribers as well. So what we do is we take one format of content and turn it into different formats retaining the message, the tone, the style, but in different formats and locations. It's not just a video on YouTube. It's now content on all the social plans where our clients focus, of course, like what industry that we're in where their audience hangs out, every service is bespoke to the client, but it's designed to be very light touch for our clients as long as you can create your core content everything else is taken care of.

It's like torture, but very high value in what happens because we are maximizing reach and exposure sigils really grow audiences so that when our clients can focus on the aspects of the business that do move the needle for the business, the audience is growing for them to be better able to then serve the people who come through as clients with them through the enhanced audience grow.

Gresham Harkless 5:25

Yeah, that makes so much sense. I would say even maximizing time as well, too, because if you can focus on, as you said, creating that core content, then what that allows you to do is to be where people are. So to be able to recreate and repurpose that content into whatever platform they're listening to, I think the entrepreneur and business owner just has to focus on creating that core content, as you talked about, and then it starts repurposing from all the awesome work your team does.

Amy Woods 5:48

Yeah, and I think it's so important to have an overall content strategy. Know your audience and know why you're creating the content, know what you want to be known for, and make sure that your messaging is really consistent. So you aren't just like Scattergun putting content out there just like a hamster going around. Just putting the content out in a scattergun approach, especially from a messaging perspective, if you have a strategy, and you focus on the strategy and the core content, then everything created after it's aligned with the strategy because it's repurposing that same message, just in different ways to reach different people.

I think if you try to do everything yourself, you try and be everywhere you try and commit to too much. I think sometimes the strategy then starts to break down, you start forgetting who you're talking to, and what your message needs to be. We help people be consistent, and we help people just make sure that they're focusing on our message and everything else can be done by by somebody else. So that's, that's our ways of working basically.

Gresham Harkless 6:53

Yeah, I definitely appreciate that because I think sometimes I even find that just from a day-to-day basis, when you're running around a lot, sometimes you just get tired. When you get tired, you don't necessarily make good decisions. As you say, when you get overextended and you feel like you took your bitten off, sometimes more than you can chew, sometimes it can be a good thing, because it helps you to get out of your comfort zone.

But a lot of times, if you don't make sure that you've done that work to focus, understand your target market, understand what you're trying to accomplish and what you want to be known for your brand and all those things, then a lot of times you can get lost in the sauce, so to speak.

Amy Woods 7:21

Yeah, exactly.

Gresham Harkless 7:23

Absolutely. Now I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce, and it can be for you personally or for your organisation but what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?

Amy Woods 7:33

Well, I mean, I think what we do is very unique in terms of what we offer as a business. But I think I would say that we help to free my business with content. I have the service, as I explained, but then we have our blog and our podcasts where we teach people to repurpose if we don't do it for them. I have the book now as well. So lots and lots of content about repurposing, but I think it all comes down actually to mindset and I think that's what we have within our business. Then that's what we teach people as well.

We hear mindset a lot when productivity, mindset, and mindset for the spots that we want to do well in and all that kind of stuff. Now, I think that you need a content repurposing mindset as well, you need to shift the way that you look at content, and always be able to see the potential in how you can extract the value and how you can squeeze every little bit that you can.

I think our secret sauce in how we work with our clients is that mindset and that way that we can view and perceive content. That's what I teach people as well, that I can teach you a tip and it's a tactic and a tool to use in software teams and all these kinds of things. But if you don't have the mindset to look at content through the eye, of being able to extract the value from it and repurpose it, it will fall down in the end. To think that it's the mindset of how to look at the value and potential I suppose the overall potential of content when it can become.

Gresham Harkless 9:05

I definitely appreciate that. I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I know you touched on maybe some of these things. These are what I call CEO hacks. They could be like apps, books, or habits that you have or what's something that you feel makes you more effective and efficient and can even make us more effective and efficient as content repurposing machines.

Amy Woods 9:23

Well, I guess, at all that I recommend that people can use and you may be telling me that you use that already, but we use Trello for all of our planning and operational process management side of things. Is that something that you, do you use Trello or Asana?

Gresham Harkless 9:41

I don't use it, I use Basecamp. But I do swear Basecamp and I've used Asana so I swear by the project manager, you have to have an order.

Amy Woods 9:47

Yeah, much similar RP, Asana, Trello, Basecamp.

Gresham Harkless 9:51

Yeah, absolutely. Now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. You might have already touched on this as well. But this could be like a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. ain't gonna be around content repurposing, but what's something you would give us as kind of takeaways that we can do to be more effective and efficient?

Amy Woods 10:06

Well, I think in terms of, can I suggest sticking to the topic of content, I think that it's really when we are creating content to market our businesses. So videos, podcasts, whatever it is, and what we really want to do, we want to attract people to what we do and make people know what we do and become known in authority so that if they ever have a problem that we solve, they know immediately, okay, I have this problem. After all this time of following and seeing this person's content, they are the person I'm going to go to to solve this problem. Now, I think you need to ask yourself, if you were to randomly speak to some people who follow you on different platforms, and just say, what problem do you think I solve?

How many of them do you think would immediately say, Well, this is what you do? And I think people are sometimes a little bit surprised that people don't necessarily know what you do, what problem you solve. They might like to giggle at your Insta Stories or listen to podcasts or videos. But in that survey, what do I do? What problem do I solve? What's my business? People might say, oh, what I didn't know. Well, that's so bad, because you've built an audience of people who like you, but when they have the problem that you solve, they don't go to you. Then why are we I didn't even know that that's what you did, seriously. I think it's good to do this, that survey.

I think, I would really recommend choosing a segment of people from your email list from your followers on different platforms, people who listen to your show, or whatever, however, you can get in touch with people on different platforms. Just ask that question, what problem do I solve do you know, in one sentence, what do I do like what is my business? I think you'll sometimes be surprised that people say something different, don't really know and there's a bit of a mismatch of the messaging and it's all great because take up and take those answers and do it regularly as well.

Then look over your future content plans, see how you can change up your messaging to address that, and then ask the same question maybe again, in six months, or whenever, until you are absolutely on the point that people have no doubt. Otherwise, you're creating content that might not necessarily grow a following, but not your business. That's that note God like that's complete, and lack of return on investment overall. So don't address that mismatch by surveying and finding out and I think the question is, in one sentence, what do I do?

Gresham Harkless 10:06

Yeah, I think that's extremely powerful. When you have that kind of Northstar to say, first of all, you understand what problem you solve, and then make sure that everything, people that are following you that are connecting with you understand that as well, too. Because I think if there is that mismatch, then a lot of times you don't get that phone call. When you do something, that you know that you do, but the other people don't necessarily know and can't advocate on your behalf. So I definitely appreciate that. Now, I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO and we're hoping to have different, quote-unquote CEOs on this show. So Amy, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Amy Woods 13:19

What does being a CEO mean to me? Aside from all of the content side of things, and everything, and just being a CEO, I think I absolutely love the fact that when I've been building my business, I've been building opportunities for other people. It kind of blows my mind that people have jobs, support their families, and live off. An idea I once heard, that has now created opportunities for people created jobs for people. I guess for me, it's that smart leadership, and being able to build a team and create possibilities that would never have existed for people if it wasn't for us all being daring, aren't we doing something that is quite scary and very risky averse and we're going the CEO route. So I think for me, it's that it's creating when you are CEO, you create opportunity, not just for yourself, but life-changing opportunities for other people as well.

Gresham Harkless 14:17

Yeah, absolutely. I love that perspective and it's truly it's humbling to be able to think that. You have an idea, you have a vision, and then it manifests itself into people being able to feed their families and to take care of their homes and do all those things and of course, put out phenomenal content. I think that is extremely humbling and puts everything in perspective. So definitely appreciate that definition. Appreciate your time, even more. What I wanted to do is pass you the mic so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and listeners know and then of course, how best they can get a hold of you. Get a copy of your book, listen to the podcast, and see all the awesome things you guys working on.

Amy Woods 14:52

I think I would just say that. Don't try and do everything at once when it comes to the world of content and just to your business as well, just take it one step at a time, and don't become too overwhelmed. It's better to be consistent with a small amount of things that will move the needle than inconsistent with hundreds of different things that you don't know are working or not. So I think it's just to try and not be overwhelmed and take it one step at a time.

Gresham Harkless 15:20

Absolutely, yes and Rome wasn't built in a day, as they say, and a lot of times. You have to take it step by step and understand that even running a business or creating a content strategy, it's a long term, it's a marathon. So having that approach in that mindset helps out so much. So definitely appreciate that and for people who want to follow up with you, what's the best way for them to do that?

Amy Woods 15:39

Well, I would say, head over to content10x.com, my website, because that has links to everything really to all my social media, and the book. So my social media platform that I guess I hang out the most on is the Instagram app and I am @content10x there, I'm at content10x on all the platforms and my book is on Amazon, and most of the online places that you go these days for books as well. So yeah, do check that out as well.

Gresham Harkless 15:39

Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Again, I appreciate that. Amy, we will have the links and information in the show notes as well, so that everybody can follow up with you but appreciate you, appreciate all the awesome things you're doing and I hope you have a phenomenal day.

Outro 16:22

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community.

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Thank you for listening.

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