How to Create Leadership-level Content

Today we’re talking about one piece of advice: stop being a content consumer and start being a content creator. And not just any content creator, we’re gonna be talking about Leadership-level content.

This is going to transform the way you approach your content. Leadership-level content is content that is basically the rallying cry to your community. It’s the content that becomes a banner that you put out in the marketplace, allowing people to come and join you, building a community around this content.

It is difficult to make this type of content. It takes courage to make this type of content. So I think it’s helpful if we talk about the different levels of content you can make to help you kind of wrap your head around and imagine how you can use Leadership-level content in your marketing strategy for your business.

The Three Levels of Content

So I like to classify content into three different levels.

“How to” Content

The lowest level, the easiest to make is “how to” content. This is like if you’ve ever done a search on YouTube or Google, and said, “How do I update my LinkedIn profile,” for instance, and found a video or an article that walked you through it.

The internet is swimming in “how to” content. It is the easiest to make. It is the easiest to find. And this is probably where you and 90% of your competition are living right now in terms of messaging.

Results-oriented Content

The next level up is the “why” or results-oriented content. So this level is about connecting to why we do things. Like saying, “Hey, here’s my service. And this is why you’d want to use this service.” We’re talking results and ROI which is better and more engaging than most people are doing. But it’s not quite the top level of content yet, which is Leadership-level content.

Leadership-level Content

Leadership-level content is content that really connects with your audience and drives action. And it’s something that you can build a community around. It’s something that drives identity even. And if you want to look at great examples of this, we could pull out examples from all sorts of different industries. Though it may be overused as an example, Apple is the epitome of this. Apple uses this type of content all the time when they talk about being creative. We could look at tools like ClickFunnels with Russell Brunson talking about being a funnel hacker, right? That’s Leadership-level content for his tribe.

We can look at civic leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. talking about equal rights for all races. These are ideas that can change the world, change an industry, and help people take their businesses and lives to another level.

How I Create Content

It’s good to have a mix of all three of these types of content. And let me give you some examples of all three of these levels of content using myself as an example.

The way I create “how to” content is sometimes I will do a podcast episode, a Facebook Live, or a blog post, where I’ll talk about how to get clients on LinkedIn or about how to host a webinar that converts. It’s very step-by-step: Here’s how you do something. Or even once you are a paying client and you’re inside of my coaching and consulting, I’ve got training content about how to optimize your LinkedIn profile so that clients can find you and want to connect, or how you build your Results Success System. This is material that people actually need.

“How to” content is not bad. But if you only use that in your marketing, you’re going to blend in with everybody else. If I do a YouTube video of “How do I optimize LinkedIn for getting clients,” guess what? There are already 500,000 videos that say the same thing. So if that’s all I did, no one would ever find me because I would just blend into the crowd.

Let’s move up one level and talk about the “why” or results-oriented content. Now, this is particularly useful in sales content because you’re helping connect the actions or the services you provide to the results or outcomes that your clients experience or your audience experiences.

This is important content, especially when people are making a sales decision because they want to know that there’s ROI associated with what you’re doing. This makes your sales so much more effective. And that’s why if you step up, even just one level, and start doing some “why” oriented or results-oriented content, you’re going to be doing a lot better than most of your competition because so few people are creating this type of content.

So, if I were to do this, it might be me talking about the ways relationship marketing will make you more money or the reasons why raising your rates and retaining more clients is the most sustainable way to grow a business. Those are really results-oriented. We’re talking about making more money or getting more time, and why that’s important.

Now, if we take it up one more step, for me, my Leadership-level content at its core is to inspire every entrepreneur to have both a thriving business and a full life. For instance, not giving into the two extremes of what I call the two big lies: hustle culture where it’s like “You’re going to have a million dollars, but you’re going to lose your personal life.” Or at the other end, the loser culture, which is, “You can be happy, but you’re not going to have any money.”

Both of those extremes are ridiculous. My Leadership-level content says let’s get rid of them. And let’s use systems. And let’s use a framework to create a business that is both financially successful and allows you to have a family, go on vacation, and have hobbies while you live a full life.

So when I express those ideas through my content, people can look at me, compare me with my competition, and say, “You know, Craig is very similar to this person over here. But I really like what he’s saying about what I can do with my business. That I can use my business to support my life and I don’t have to be in cut-throat competition with everyone. I like that. That resonates with me. I’m in Camp Craig. Let’s go.” That’s what Leadership-level content does for you.

Now, what’s cool is that Leadership-level content will permeate all those different levels. In one piece of content, you may have all three levels of content. My point here is that 90% of people in the marketplace do not attempt Leadership-level content. And if they do attempt to do it, they just try to mimic somebody else who’s already been successful with it.

Your Mission

My challenge to you, if you want to go down this path, is that you’ve got to have the courage to actually stand for something. You do that by looking at your industry and saying, “What is my vision for my clients and for my industry? Where do I want to take them? Where do they want to go?” And that’s where you start with Leadership-level content.

Articulate that vision to your audience and you’ll start to really find your voice when it comes to Leadership-level content. Once you start creating this way, it reverses the whole idea of you chasing clients. Suddenly, people are chasing you and you’re building a community and fan base, rather than just doing marketing.

Until next time, take some fast, focused, imperfect action. I believe in you. I got your back. We’ll talk soon.