This is the show for creative entrepreneurs who have a message to share and want to live a life of freedom. Learn how to grow your network and net worth. Hear from exciting guests, and more. My name is Dylan Schmidt and Welcome to Digital Podcaster. I'm excited to be back with a solo episode today, it feels like it's been a while I was in the groove for a bit of just recording solo episodes and then publishing them. And then I last few episodes have been just me repurposing content. And I was actually going to use today as a another repurposed episode, because there's a lot of gems I've been, I feel like I've been dropping in interviews and other people's content that I have a hold of, and I'm like, this needs to be released as a, you know, thing on its own on my podcast, because it's helping people. And the feedback has been great. But I'm just grateful to be with you today. Essentially, what I want to talk about during this short episode, is how complexity is holding you back. Now, what does that mean? A common theme that has come up with podcasters and content creators across the board lately, when I'm speaking with people is how complex their podcast is, or their content strategy is. And it is funny, because, you know, people, you know, I can tell by the way people are talking, they perceive me to be this machine, making all this content. And well, I guess that is true, in a sense, the idea or if you look behind the curtain of what I'm doing, it is rather straightforward and rather simple. It's just as efficient as possible at this point in time. And I'm always trying to make things as efficient as possible. And so what I'm seeing people do is not necessarily It's funny, when I, you know, in consulting somebody on their podcast or content, a lot of times they'll come to me and say, you know, I think they expect that I'm going to give them a bunch of things to do. And my goal is to never, with most not never, my goal with most people that I'm talking with isn't to give more work or anything like that. It's really to, it's like, I would say 90% of people I talk to you already are putting forth so much energy on what it is they're doing, that it's not like doing more, it's usually tweaking what they're already doing to be more effective, or doing less, instead of trying to recreate all these things. And for this, it's like, how about, remove that, and do it this way, whether it's the design of something, whether that's their back end processes, or whatever they're doing. And so it looks like a few different things. For example, as you might know, probably know, by now, I have two main companies. That is what I'm doing at the moment I my podcast, I'm a podcast coaching consultant. And then I also have content clips, which is making micro content from long form content for entrepreneurs, creators, businesses, things like that. And the micro content, when I get in discussion about that, naturally, it kind of goes back to long form content. And long form content goes back to short form content, because they play off each other so well. People want more of something, you give them a podcast, people aren't listening to the full thing, give them just a taste in the short form content. You don't need to do all one or the other, I recommend doing both. And when it comes to discussion about short form content, a lot of people get tripped up on the they make things complex when they're making short form content. And it's funny, like two school of schools of thoughts that I've been coming across lately. One is just like, they come to me and they're like, alright, I trust you. What you do, we like what you're doing, we want you to do that for us. Another is like kind of skeptical. times, I don't know exactly how I do know where they find me, it's usually an Tiktok. But they'll come across and they'll be like, cool. I seen the example. I want you to do it this way. And the way when we're talking a short clip or something of like, do it in this way. I'm like, naturally, I have to take a step back and just be like, Why? Why would they want me to do it in this way? Because they came to me for a specific solution for a specific problem they have, right? And I've identified that problem through conversation with him. But they'll they'll want to make things more complex than they need to be. And what that looks like is can you add in all these things on the short form pieces of content? Like okay, just so you know, the budget is going to go up about four times what you're wanting, and then that usually either ends the conversation, or they go actually, you know, okay, what you're doing is fine. And I don't just say your budgets gonna go up four times, like, you know, I don't just spring that in that kind of cold way. But I do try to let them know like, Hey, I came to the reason the reason I'm doing these new there are like absolutely unfamiliar with me. But the reason why I do things isn't just out of testing, like, I'm not trying to do a bunch of testing only with client content. I've been doing this for a long time. And so when I come to a reason of why I do something should be done for a certain way or certain reason, right? Because it's effective. And sometimes it takes a little bit of time to get in a groove with a client's piece of content that makes sense. Right off the bat, you know, the more we get better at kind of learning about their content and their audience, things like that, we can better identify those things. But for the most part, when we're talking about content that we're making, for a client, it's best to have a neutral, like if I have too much information going into a client, it's harder to be in the mind of the audience. Because then it's like, well, it needs to be like this. And he's like, that needs to be like this. And it's like, your audience is just coming across it for the first time, like, does it have any context about what you're talking about? So I find that when people have this specific feedback of wanting to make their short form content more complex, they are typically making that assumption based on a comparison of what they saw versus what they believe to be seeing on social media. And let me explain just a little bit about that. So maybe they came across a video that had all this flashy B roll, and text and colors and captions. Maybe it was even one of my videos. But like, why is that video? Why? Let's just use one of my own videos as an example. Why do I do that video in that way? Why don't I just make all my videos like, repurpose, or something like that, because I have like a creative itch to make these videos like this. But if you notice, like from my own videos, like a lot of them are different, all around the all around the way, like they're not the same type of video every single time. Just because I like to kind of flex that creative muscle that doesn't make much sense working with a brand like that. Because I'm using different fonts and using different colors, I'm using things that I make the decision on. But in order to get that signed off, takes another layer of step. And it takes more time to do right. If you make an effective video repurposed from your podcast or content in a systematic way, that's going to be cheaper. And easily, it's going to take less energy on on the person that needs to sign off on things on all that stuff, just to get it up, right, every time you add in a new layer adds in more time. And money essentially, is what it comes down to. So there's a balance between the two things, right? Of if you, if you at the end of the day, if it's not like you could just make something simple and effective. Why wouldn't you just do that rather than like adding these complex layers of, of elements that necessarily don't make anything better or more effective on what it is that you're doing, if that makes sense. And it's easy to get in this trap of complexity. I've been there, where I look at like other people's stuff. And I'm like, I want to add that in. I want to add B roll in I want to add in all this stock footage, all these moving graphics, I heard that every two seconds, you got to change the frame in order to keep someone's attention on social media. And it's like, is that true? And Byron Katie who's like a, I think she might be under the self help personal development. Kind of. She's an author in that realm. She talks about, she has like three questions, two or three questions. I've got to actually Google it while I'm here. Byron Katie's questions for quite for questions. And this totally applies. I'm telling you. So she says. The four questions. This is Byron, Katie, she says, question number one, is it true? You gotta work in these in order? Question number two, Can you absolutely know that it's true? Question number three, how do you react? What happens when you believe that thought in question number four, who would you be without that? That? Really, I'm just kind of focusing on the first two. So when people are like, you know, and I'm saying again, myself, I need to add in all these complexity, layers of podcast of marketing of email of content creation, content, marketing, promotion, all these things. You know, like, if at its simplest form, it could be effective, like if I'm saying that, and is it true? Is it true that content would be simple and effective? Yes. Can you absolutely know that it's true? Yes, because I've done it personally speaking for myself. And so I just know that to be true. And then, you know, saying content, for example, needs all these enhancements made to it for it to be effective. Is it true? I would say no, actually, it's not true. Right? If we if I just confronted that head on and said, Do you need to add in all these things for content be effect Did you know you could simply share a truth. And that could be enough. And I could share you a bunch of podcasters, who are examples of this, that don't have all this flashy graphics and things like that, that still do millions of dollars a year, and are ultra successful and have millions of listeners, we know that's not true that you need in all this stuff. So I just, it's like this interesting kind of content landscape where there's always you know, and I'm not speaking only to the people that are coming back and saying, like, we need to add in all this fancy stuff. I get it like Not, not everything. You know, it's, I'm not only trying to talk to that person by any means, but I'm just saying kind of like, just for the sake of thought that taking the simpler route. If that's an option, take it, like, take it and stand. And actually, I have on my whiteboard over here. Two things. I try to rotate every couple of months with different quotes that keep me inspired. One of them says, Be undeniable, right? Quote, I heard on a podcast be undeniable, like if you're undeniable, at what it is that you're doing like this is undeniably good, or this is undeniably just like smart in the way I'm thinking about this. There's, that's, that's what you want at the end of the day, right? There's, there's no holes in it. And then the other one I have is you being used a business model. And that other ideas like you could simply be you, your thoughts, you what you're saying everything you're everything that you speak about, is good enough to hold weight on its own. If you have that confidence, and some people don't have confidence in what they're saying is enough to hold, you know, stand on its own two legs. And that's a scary thought. Because you're like, well, I need to have all this other stuff, prop it up, you really don't, if you don't have the budget for it, like you really don't need all this flashy stuff, you could at its simplest form, just press Publish. And that might be absolutely scary. But that is just, you know, something that you got to get over. In order to, you know, like, you could, you could say at the end of the day, you could say it's because you don't have all these flashy graphics, you could say it's because you don't have these B roll, you don't have the video production or the fancy camera, you could say that. But I'm going to argue that there are plenty of examples I can think of when it comes to podcasts and short form content, where the piece of content was so good, and it connected with millions of people. And it didn't have any of the things that you're saying it might need. So I say this for myself again. And for someone out there who's if you're just like, similar to AI, where some of your there's got this perfectionist kind of attitude mindset towards it, of it really doesn't need to be polished, it really just needs to focus on connection to the person that's it's intended for, you know, it doesn't need advertisements flashing in at it, it doesn't need a watermark with your company name. That's one thing that's come up a little bit too lately is like people are like, well, I want all these podcast graphics, I'm like, Okay, I, I won't do that. Like, I won't put my own work on that. Because why I know that's not effective. If you adding in all these graphics, at the beginning of something people will tune out, it will feel like an ad. Or people, you know, will say all these things, and I'm just like, that's fine. But also, like, you know, you don't go to a restaurant and expect to tell the chef how to make the food. You know? And if you do, you know, don't be surprised if they're just like, sorry, why can't do it. And that way, you know, what you're asking for is you should go to someone else for that. And I don't know, I guess I just see at the end of the day, it's about simplicity, beats complexity, every day of the week. And it's not about trying to click bait, or, you know, make your thing this thing that it's not, it's like just be confident what you're saying, be confident in the message. Because if you can refine that message, you know, there's proof again, that the message at the end of the day is all people want to hear whether it's a conversation with a guest, or if it's conversation with yourself on a solo podcast like this. You just got to be stable in what you're doing and what you're saying. And trust. It's all about trust and having faith. That's my message for you today. Just felt important to share that because again, it's something that I'm seeing across the board. People are quick to always find a reason why something's not working out, or why something's not effective. And there could be a variety of reasons. And it's important to be mindful of why you're selecting something and really be truthful. You know, if something's not working out, it's not working out. But are you making decisions based on data? Or are you making decisions based on insecurities So that is what I got for you today. And I had the title of the podcast is something else. Actually, I'll tell you what the title of the podcast was, how complexity is holding you back. But I gotta change it now to make decisions based on data, not insecurities, because that is good. All right, I hope you're doing well. If this message resonated with you, I would love to know through a DM on social media through an email. That's really all I got. I really sincerely hope that you got value from this episode. If you did, please, please, please, please, if you could just visit the episode description. I'm going to link to a spot where you can leave a rating and review for the podcast. It would mean the world to me. That's all I ask. And I will talk to you soon. Hope you're good. Hope you're gonna have a great week. Hope you have a great week and I'll talk to you soon