Content Hacks and Time Savers for Your Coaching Business

In this episode, hosts Lexie Smith and Emily Merrell dive into the game-changing ways coaches can leverage AI tools like ChatGPT to streamline their content creation process. They discuss how AI can brainstorm ideas, script reels, refine captions, and repurpose existing content into fresh formats. From generating engaging social media posts to transforming newsletters into multiple assets, they explore how AI is a virtual assistant that makes content creation easier and more efficient. Whether you’re hesitant about AI or already using it, this episode is packed with actionable tips on maximizing its potential while saving time.

Here’s what you’ll learn: 

• How AI can help with brainstorming and refining content ideas.
• Repurposing blogs, newsletters, and presentations into engaging content formats.
• Time-saving strategies for batching and scheduling content effectively.
• Tools like Later.com to streamline content planning and posting.
• Overcoming design struggles with Canva, Etsy templates, and Fiverr outsourcing.
• The role of storytelling in building audience connection and engagement.
• Turning coaching session insights and FAQs into valuable social media content.
• Tips for maintaining consistency without burning out.
• The power of automation in simplifying content creation.
• How to maximize your content’s reach with minimal effort.

Listener Links: 

• Follow Em & Lex on Instagram at @readysetcoachcommunity
• Join the Ready Set Coach Community: www.readysetcoachcommunity.com

Transcript

Lexie Smith  

What's up, what's up, what's up? This Amir looking for, no, I don't know, trying to think of something clever, and then my mind just happens on the other side.  I don't know why I didn't recognize the song from the beautiful voice singing it to me. 

Lexie Smith  

No, thank you. My voice is oh shit, oh god, oh god. Guys, sorry, I moved my podcast. Everything's falling over. How are you guys? Today, we're gonna pretend you're answering. You're great, you're doing great. Feeling like shit. Show like us. Awesome. Welcome, welcome home. 

Emily Merrell  

Do you? I'm curious. I'm curious if everyone you know was able to respond to us in emojis, what their Thursday brain looks like. Because I don't. I think you have the same brain as me at this point. Lex, but on Thursday, it gets to be the melty emoji, where that's also Tuesday and Wednesday. That's kind of like the big eye like, oh shit. What did I sign up for? Emoji? Like, what have I done? 

Lexie Smith  

Yep, that's funny. I'd say Tuesday through Thursday, or Maltese Friday's like a wine glass emoji, because that's where my brain's at. I know on Friday, I'm always like, 

Emily Merrell  

Oh my gosh. You know what we should do? We should go out to dinner. Like, we should have a date night. We should do something and then the real Friday happens. And I'm like, can we go to bed by 845? Is that too early? 

Lexie Smith  

And well, because you've likely hosted an event on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday, and had 50 calls on Thursday, where me, I had like, two social interactions the whole week. And I'm like, Oh God, I need a month. 

Emily Merrell  

I know. I know what happened to us. I do feel like in my youth now I could just feel old. I'm not gonna even go there. But yeah, I think, and everyone listening, who knows you knows that you still have the energy of youth. 

Lexie Smith  

Um, oh no, I'm losing my voice. Here we go. Here we go. It's gonna be a sexy episode, guys. 

Emily Merrell  

It's because I drink from the fountain of youth every day, 

Lexie Smith  

I'm gonna sound scratchy. Emily's still gonna hiccup. That's fine. And we're and then we're gonna turn this into a drinking game. This is, this is a fun a fun show. Drink with us. Stop what you're doing. Grab your kombucha, your coffee, your whiskey, whatever your shrub before shrug. 

Emily Merrell  

Shrub, I don't know what that is. I had it last night as a as a mocktail, and the people I was with were like, What are you talking about? And it's kind of like a kombucha. Um, it's like vinegary in flavor. Let me see, Google tells me what it is shrub, no. And my other podcast pitching in sipping at the end of every episode, there's been over 100 people tell me about their favorite drink, and I've learned so many unique beverages that way. But I've never heard shrub. Okay, is drinking shrub good for you? You could of course, yeah, it's basically like vinegar. It's like an organic apple cider vinegar drink. I mean, it has antioxidants and anti micro bio, something effects, and it can boost your immune system and a digestion. 

Lexie Smith  

Oh, great. Okay, shrub, but, yeah, it's fantastic. 

Emily Merrell  

It's basically brought to you by shrimp. It's basically made with vinegar and fruit. You can drink it as a mocktail or a cocktail. 

Lexie Smith  

Fun, fun value. So anyways, it's like less sugary kombucha, I think is what it tastes like to me. That is my gripe with kombucha. Kam, but with Cam Bucha, you know, when I was in the in the south, we had some kombucha too. It's one of those days. Um, and you know, when you're having one of those days, it's hard to want to show up and do content. I get it melty face emoji. So what we're going to talk about today insert transition are content hacks and time savers for your coaching business. 

Emily Merrell  

I think the content hack. The first thing that we should tell people is just go to Canva and put the melty face emoji and then download that and post it. And that's your content for the day. 

Lexie Smith  

That could probably be an entire account just every day. Post that, I bet it really like that. Yeah, yeah, you guys can have that idea. Just give us at least a 10% commission off any brand deals. It could be melty face emoji holding a pop like I can already see how you can print, wow. I like this. You're welcome. You're welcome, everyone. 

Emily Merrell  

Wow. Lex, our next, our next thing that takes us away from focus. 

Lexie Smith  

I know squirrel, shiny object syndrome, okay, Emily, let's dive into this. We have so many hacks here. And just before we like dive, dive, dive into this, we kicked off Ready Set build yesterday, which is a 30 day sprint with members of our community and some members not in our community who are now in the community where we are building content and visibility for 30 days straight. And. And these are some of the suggestions we gave them. And so with that said, Now I'm going to re ask Emily, what is our first content hack for coaches? 

Emily Merrell  

Oh, my God, I love it. Okay? I think there's so many things, but since we are in 2025, and I feel like this is one of the hottest topics out there in 20 so hot right now, so hot right now, but it's understanding how to leverage AI for inspiration and iteration. So we've had other conversations about chatgpt, and I feel like our love and appreciation for it has evolved over the past totally seven months, eight months or so, you were a far more early adopter, like acceptor than I was. I definitely took a beat to, like, get on the bandwagon. Oh, you were an angry elf about it. You were not so angry. 

Lexie Smith  

I was like, Yeah, making journalists lose their jobs. Fuck this. Excuse me, little ears, but now I use it. It's my it's my virtual assistant. 

Emily Merrell  

Now it's my boyfriend. I'm like, make me feel pretty knowing how pretty I am. Tell me I'm pretty and make me tacos. But truly, I feel like chat GBT is I'm still more on chat GBT, but there's chat GBT, there's Claude, there's things tools like Opus or cast magic, but chat GPT is an incredible place to start, especially as a sounding board, as you're trying to figure out, like, what the heck should I post? So as a coach, something that you could do is to go into chatgpt and say, you know, what is a time relevant post or content idea for a coach who helps people with eating disorders, and then it can spit out a bunch of ideas, and who knows, it might bring something up with ozempic, which is also timely and, you know, hot topic and whatnot. So just thinking and using it as a as a tool to kick things off. And yes, it can even go further. Sometimes, when I'm getting really stuck on a real idea, I'll have it script out a reel for me and and pop in like, you know, I want a reel that is going to deliver this type of message, and it'll kind of give me, like, it'll give me an outline or a script of what to do. And that's been an easy way for my brain to process the next step of action, which is putting the real together. So totally, yeah, well, how about you Lex any other things? 

Lexie Smith  

Another way to use it. So content ideation is huge. Also, like, pro tip, ask it for a certain number. So like, let's say it only spits out one. You can go back and be like, No, give me 20 more ideas. I will sit there and I'll say, No. Hate them. 20 more ideas, I get pretty sassy, but I also use it to I'll kind of brain dump my iteration of a caption, and I'll say, Do you have any suggestions on how to clean this up or give me a new idea for a better CTA? And I don't always use it, but it becomes a great like, when you're feeling stuck right, or your brain just is hitting a wall, it can be a great person, great person. Jesus Christ, a great robot to bounce ideas off of. 

Emily Merrell  

Bye. CJ, see you later. This is my boyfriend. Chat, GBT, I know. I think that's a great thing too. And oftentimes you have done the work already. Like, I'll take all my newsletters and I'll put them into chat. Chat, GBT, and say, like, polish them. And so then that way too. I'm not having to be the grammar police and make sure that my grammar is perfect, and I can be a little long winded in the way that I write, so it'll fine tune it. And then similarly, you could take that same newsletter, and hey, can you make three content ideas out of this? Three social media well,

Lexie Smith  

you're jumping on, okay, so sorry, you're now jumping to, I'm just want to make, make a clear Okay, so number one, understanding AI as a tool for inspiration and iteration. Number two, yeah, you kind of there's a few ways what Emily is bringing up, let's, let's talk about repurposing. I think that's a good place to go from here. So Emily was just saying, and you can use tools like like chat, GPT to help in this process, if you would like, or you don't have to whatever, you could still be an angry elf. It's not going away, though. So come welcome. Take a newsletter and turn it into a blog. Take a blog. Let's actually talk about this example. We won't say who it was for, but in Ready Set build yesterday, we had one of our members of the group say, I have this blog, like, what are what can I do with it? And Emily spit out one idea, and then I spit out one idea, I said. Or Emily went, first, Emily, you can share your idea. Or when you remember it, what was my Emily's, like, do a cares. I think the blog, yes, five tips for x. Emily's, like, do a carousel. Like, with swipe, swipe, swipe. And I'm like, great. And then give it a few weeks and turn that into a reel. 

Emily Merrell  

Absolutely 

Lexie Smith  

you can take the same idea and recycle, recycle, reiterate, reiterate. And AI can help you learn how to reiterate. Pop that caption in and go look, here's my like, like, blog that did really well. Or my caption, like, give me another. Been on how to repurpose this use the tools at your disposal. 

Emily Merrell  

Yeah, I think that's a great reminder for everyone, too. I think, oh gosh, we've all been so guilty of this where it feels like you were you were promoting or you were seeing the same message over and over and over again, and then you have that one conversation where they're like, you're doing X, Y and Z, and you want to shake them really, really hard, but it's a reminder that as much as we think that we are the center of the universe, oftentimes people are have their attention focused elsewhere and aren't like consuming your stuff like it is the Bible. So just remember to regurgitate and to reiterate and to refine and to retest, especially if something did do well, that that's your permission slip to to make it new again. 

Lexie Smith  

Yeah, and thank you for pointing that out. I think one pro tip or hack that you know, we don't take credit for inventing this. But go back through your let's just pick your platform of choice, we'll say Instagram, for now, and find one of your best performing reels and just make a different iteration of it. I know that sounds silly, but I promise you, someone doesn't remember your reel from five months ago, and maybe if you're really feeling self conscious, you're like, I don't want to do a reel again. Maybe turn that reel that did really well into a slide and use the exact same language. Honestly, you can say it again. Say it again for the people in the back. 

Emily Merrell  

No, I think that is such a good point. And also, you can take the same language and pop it on a different video. Or you can take the same like what you said, taking the language of a real and then turning it into a carousel. So there's seven different ways to communicate, the same different thing, the same thing. So don't be shy about it. And when you do get stuck, or if you do get stuck, definitely leverage a thought partner, like an AI tool to help you get creative. 

Lexie Smith  

And I want to talk about some other like less obvious ways to repurpose, less obvious to some, maybe obvious to others. But beyond repurposing, you know your new your newsletter or your blog post, go to your website. Use some copy on your website. Do you have an event recording? Pop that into a tool like opus.ai. Dot O i open something open, not AI, and it'll spit out a bunch of short reels for you. So think a little bit more creatively. Do you have a sales brochure? Do you have a cool like quote from that you can repurpose? Start looking at all the content you've created, even if it wasn't for social media or marketing and see if you can. Can borrow from that. I on the agency side, have a client who's in the manufacturing industry, and I go to the website all the time. I'm like, Oh, interesting. Like, oops, my video went off. I'm back. I go to the website and I'm like, okay, and I read about a product, and I let the website inspire stuff we're going to talk about. So that's another like thing to remember. 

Emily Merrell  

Yeah, I like that angle with it, in terms of tools to I think, you know, or other things to pull from our presentations. So if you have done a presentation before, and you just taught a 45 minute presentation on X, Y and Z, don't just throw it in the trash and walk away from it. Same thing. Like, can you pull any of your script and then pop that into chat, G, P, T, can you pull the whole presentation and pop it in and say, make three compelling visuals for this? Like, there's so many ways to make the effort and the stuff that you were thinking about go further, turn it into a freebie, turn it into an ebook. 

Lexie Smith  

We've done that too. You've heard us, if you're longtime listeners, a good example, I think, like pat on the back to us. We wrote an article for Create and Cultivate. We then turned that, expanded that into a mini ebook, then turned that into a freebie, then talked about it on social, then sent it on our newsletter. And so really, I think people make content like they have to reinvent the wheel every day, and that's hard. Guys melty face emoji, who can do that? Not unless it's like your full time job, which it's not. If you're a coach, you're coaching. 

Emily Merrell  

No. I also just kudos to like bloggers and influencers out there who people totally are like, that's such an easy job. If you have any friends that are influencers or any friends that are food bloggers, it is so annoying and so genius to be around them, because they are such perfectionists, and they're capturing the perfect image, and then they have to write about it, and they have to put it in a blog and so on and so forth. So just saw a side note that is, that is more of a real job than we give them. It's a very real job. 

Lexie Smith  

Okay, so we've talked a lot about repurposing. 

Emily Merrell  

I have a question for you. Lex, okay, okay, okay, no, I get asked a question this time. So my husband's a designer. Sure, and I was always and you are such a designer, like such a visual person, and what do you recommend for people to do when they're not a designer and they are overwhelmed with making content look pretty? 

Lexie Smith  

Okay? So three thoughts here. First, I don't think at this point in time, don't feel called out if you're like, the one person who doesn't know what I'm about to say. But I don't think people utilize Canva to its full ability. There are so many template libraries, okay? They also have a whole um Learning Center. If you're like, I don't know how to use it honestly, like, time block 10 minutes of your day and watch the How To video. I promise, promise you, you will be able to figure it out if you refuse. Then you can also head to a platform like Etsy. People pre sell packages, designed things. You can head to a site like Fiverr. You can get really affordable design help there. What am I missing? 

Emily Merrell  

No, I think, I think Etsy is also a great reminder, too. And even yesterday, in our visit visibility sprint, there was someone that was looking for a particular idea, and I just popped it into Google, and it brought up an Etsy thing that was like exactly what this individual could use for like 1299 and so for 1299 she could have these pre branded, perfectly designed for her niche templates without having to recreate the wheel in in Canva, 

Lexie Smith  

if you're on YouTube, you're watching me have a cough attack and like my eyes are crying too. If you're on podcasts, you had no idea because I was beauty. But if you're on YouTube, Hi, oh my god, it gave a thumbs up. I don't know YouTube unintentional YouTube plug. You can see me struggling through life. Now I'm the emoji with, like, the little mask over its face. 

Emily Merrell  

Oh God, Lex, 

Lexie Smith  

gotta like masks, but like, I think that means you're sick. Anyways, I digress. Okay, so don't let there's enough accessible options. The whole point here to not let the designing component hold you up. 

Emily Merrell  

Um, the or way, I would just say, in addition to that, too, find someone younger to help you. Like, find, No, it's true. I'm, you're, you're younger than me. And I feel like I'm still like a boomer compared to you sometimes. But I think about like is there is, do you have a niece? Do you have a nephew? Do you have someone that you know in college? They all are so native to these tools that I think they could help explain it to you probably faster than most. 

Lexie Smith  

I'm going to very lovingly offer an alternative to that, find someone creative, because any interns who cannot do well in Canva, and I am almost, oh yeah, I am much older than that, than them. I think it's you have a creative eye, or you don't find someone young and creative, you got the unicorn lobby. But then my mom's an art director, and she's brilliant and older than me, so you know why that's true? Is she good in Canva? Um, probably she would be. Yeah. Hire her as an it's all about I to me, in my opinion, at this point, like overseeing enough marketers, it's like, you have the eye or you don't have the eye, yeah? Period. Yeah. Sorry. 

Lexie Smith  

I will say so we just got canceled and unsubscribed by like multiple generations. So now we will move on to another point we want to bring up. So Emily talked about presentations also turning to your actual coaching sessions, turning to your coaching notes, right? Can you Was there a question that came up today? Now we're not saying publish your coaching sessions. Those are very sacred spaces. But did a topic get brought up? Was a question asked that can inspire you to create content? 

Emily Merrell  

Yeah, I think that's a really good point. Back to like, what are the what are the learnings that you can also turn into stories? I want to say that with content, it is two parts. It's one part, often the design, the visual, but I think also a compelling message. And a lot of times we have incredible stories that we discredit, because we're like, oh, that no one wants to hear about my X, Y and Z thing. So thinking about like, what are the stories that can hook people? What are the stories that you can tell that really can articulate and help sell your program or help people understand how you are as a coach, you would be surprised. And I'm sure Lexie experienced this as well. It's like, sometimes I'll post something and you'll post it on deaf ears and and then all of a sudden, like weeks later, someone will quote back what you said on social media, like, oh, you know it was like that post that you posted about loneliness. I'm like. You read that no one engaged with that. You read that that resonated with you. So just because it can feel like no one is paying attention, it often is worth also. You. Using that long form storytelling to convey who you are. 

Lexie Smith  

Yeah, and you just, like, prompted, like, five more ideas that I'm writing down. So don't forget them. So bear with me, guys, first off, too, if you really can't get past the visual, then go to a platform that doesn't need visual. Go to something that's text only. There's a lot. Go to substack. Go to LinkedIn. Go to I mean, LinkedIn, you can have images and stuff, but you don't need them. So you don't need there are routes, newsletters. You don't need imagery there, if that's your vibe. So don't let that be a hinderer. Now we also promised you some time saving hacks. I want to talk a little bit too about more structuring. We are big believers and teachers of having content buckets so themes to post on. I also think Emily brought up storytelling. If you're feeling hung up on storytelling, start with a how to. You're a coach, I promise you know a how to. There's content that's going to entertain, engage or inspire. What makes sense for you start with the lowest barrier to entry and work your way up. So, and I'm speaking this a little bit personally for me, like how to is significantly easier for me than telling a story. Telling a story, even though I have them, is something that involved a lot more mindset work. So while they're important and they absolutely serve a purpose, start with the least past resistance, so you can start to build that muscle and that habit. 

Emily Merrell  

And you know, to that point too, you can use chat to BT as a thought partner and be like, hey, I want to write five how to posts that equal this transformation. And then you can have them write those how tos, or they can get bullet points, or they can give you inspiration. And also, the more that you've talked to it, the more it knows you. So you can be like, what would be something that you would want to learn from me and ask it questions to remind you what you know how to teach totally.

Lexie Smith  

 And we also suggest this is going to be different for every personality type. So I guess first get to understand what works best for you. Some people love to batch. Some people don't. Emily loves to batch. I don't. Some people like having like rigid. Every Monday, I'm going to do this kind of post. Every Wednesday, I'm going to do this kind of post right. There are a lot of different structures and formats that you can create operationally to make this feel more streamline, streamline, just like any other part of your business, their schedulers, like Emily, what are some of your favorite tools? 

Emily Merrell  

I mean, I love later.com I, for me, I find it really easy. I'll, I'll sit down and I'll work with chatgpt, and I'll batch a whole bunch of writing, and then I will marry it to a picture, and then I will pop it into later.com and then for Instagram or Instagram, and then for LinkedIn. I will look at my old newsletters. I will pop it into chatgpt Say link to find LinkedIn. Ish at LinkedIn, find it. I don't know the wordify link to find new words. And then I will batch out LinkedIn as well. I'll like look at what I'm trying to to sell or promote or spotlight, and then I'll usually batch it about a month in advance. 

Lexie Smith  

Yeah, you can be as simple or as high tech as you want. Here, there's no shortage of systems. There's project management systems. There's things like Hootsuite that go cross cross platform. You can use the schedulers in app, like you can schedule posts in Instagram. You can schedule posts in LinkedIn. You know, for my agency, where we do done for you content, we have, like, full spreadsheets and systems. But if you're not there yet, you don't have to be. 

Lexie Smith  

It's about finding a system that works for you and not letting someone else's system create this perceived barrier to entry 1,000% and I think that's a really important thing to remember. 

Emily Merrell  

So Lex, I'm also curious for you in terms of recycling old prompts. I know you do that a lot. I know you also repurpose across platform. Is there anything else that you have been utilizing that I've we've totally failed to to touch it like, 

Lexie Smith  

well, there's, we're barely scratching the surface here, you guys, the last one I'll throw in, and then we'll like, you know, wrap, wrap this bad boy up. Is depending, again, on the platform of choice that you're using, tuning into trending news for relevant and timely hooks and hacks. So, you know, in PR, we call this news jacking, which can kind of have a a negative connotation. But I'm going to use LinkedIn, because I think LinkedIn is a really great example. On the sidebar of LinkedIn every day, it says what's trending on LinkedIn, and that's something that you can look at, and if it's relevant to you as a coach, tie into the conversation, share that article, use the hashtag. Let that inspire what you talk about on a given day. You obviously can't batch that, but if you want to be more topically timely, that's how you do it. 

Emily Merrell  

I think that's a great, great thing. To do. And in our Ready Set build, we give the gals a news, trending news, things and books in which you can use into your blogs, into your newsletters, into your social media, as well as some relevant hooks, just to make you think about writing content that much more in your language. So like, can you give an example of one of the hooks that we did Lex? 

Lexie Smith  

yesterday. We had, well, yeah, we had evergreen, timely and news. One of the news we did was open seek, deep seek, deep seek. Deep seek is coming out. Since we've talked so much about AI, deep seek is like the new thing make like, making news everywhere. So the conversation started as we had for our coaches in the room, where, you know, how are you using AI? Is AI something your customers are using? Is it impacting their job? If you're a career coach, can we talk about AI in the career force? You can usually, you know, if it's something, you know, we also talked about, there's a new admit. New administration to politics. Pay up play a part of your brand. You know, we had some sex and intimacy coaches in the room. So there are definitely things topically that are relevant to their clients, if they want to, to go that route. So you can usually find something of relevance. My favorite thing to subscribe to is the skim. I read it every morning, s, k, i, m, m, and it gives me a really quick, digestible lowdown of the last 24 hours of the news cycle. I'm also in P, R, so I'm like, obsessively reading the news, but that gives me a good sprinkling of like, things to start thinking about for the day. 

Emily Merrell  

Yeah, and that's why your anxiety level is so high, because I'm kidding, but not really. We're not kidding. So what's our homework? Em, so I think our homework is to challenge people to, you know, as we embark on a new month, as we embark on and the still New Year. You know, we had a trial month with January, but thinking about, what do they want to do to work smarter, not harder? How can they take, like, a hard look at their content, and I would say, audit What did really well, and how can you make it go further? I would also say same thing with like a newsletter, if you send out newsletters, what newsletters were well responded to and turn that into multiple iterations of things across different platforms. And then lastly, if you're not already using these tools, as we recommended as a thought partner, play around with them. Pick a hack, any hack we gave you, yeah, and then, and we will heed our own advice as well. So it will,

Emily Merrell  

but it's really fun, and I think it's we're so lucky to live in a you know, it's per the news like it's so doom and gloom, but we are so lucky to live in a time and place that we have these resources available to us to share our point of views. More broadly, we don't have to be published in a magazine to be heard. We don't have to be seen on the Today Show to be seen, I think, take advantage of them and think about it as an opportunity to educate people and that you're fortunate, versus like you have to do. 

Lexie Smith  

Let me underline that as my last kind of sign off for today to Emily's point. Mindset hack we share here is think of your content as an opportunity to serve. You are a coach. You want to create impact. Here's a beautiful way to do so. So with that, mic drop, Double Mic drops. You mic drop, then I mic dropped. Your mic dropped. We will see you next time on the red coach podcast, bye bye, bye bye.