More than the Brand
A podcast about what goes on behind the scenes of building brands, businesses, and personal brands. Real conversations around marketing, content, branding, and the decisions that actually shape growth. Sometimes it’s just us, sometimes it’s other founders and creators, but it’s always honest, practical, and rooted in real experience.
More than the Brand
The Solution to Every Content Problem You Have
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Wearing too many hats, no budget for a content team, can't stay consistent, and still stuck under 400 views? In this episode, Matt and Liv break down the most common pain points they hear from business owners every day — and the real solutions behind each one.
From blocking off time to actually create, to understanding the content funnel, to why jumping to the next trend is keeping you stuck — this one cuts straight to it.
A podcast about what really goes on behind the scenes of building brands, businesses, and personal platforms.
We talk marketing, content, branding, community, and the uncomfortable middle between idea and execution.
Built for founders, creators, and business owners who want honest conversations, not recycled advice.
Hosted by Matt and Olivia. Audio-only for now. New episodes regularly.
Listen & subscribe
→ Apple Podcasts
→ Spotify
Follow along
→ Instagram:
@Mattortlieb_
@oliviamckerrow
@ortliebmedia
If you're wearing too many hats in your business, if you're taking on too many roles in your business and you're not giving enough time and energy and effort to your content, and you think it's falling short and it's not hitting, and you might be stuck between 200 to 400 view jail. This episode will be for you. We really want to talk about the pain points and solutions to how you can keep stay consistent while still maintaining some level of high quality content. Yeah. Better content, smarter content, that whole shebang. So yeah, let's talk about the first pain point. Let's say you're wearing too many roles in your business because you might be a local business, small business, and you just don't have enough people on your team.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I think when it comes to wearing so many hats, as any small business owner or independent business owner, we all know that it's easy for our priorities to shift from one thing to another, but at the cost of something falling short. And a lot of the times content is the last thing on our mind when we have so many other moving parts. And I think what we've done in the past and from our experience is that we know that there's going to be weeks where you don't have the energy to create content. But what we've talked on and touched on in the last few episodes is that it's really important to find and block off time to create. And that is your only focus, that's your sole focus for two to four hours once a week. Yeah. It's easier said than done, but it is easy to create content within that time. Yeah. Especially if you've worked with a videographer or photographer, you already have the bank of content there. It's just how you're delivering it. And so it's important that you block off that time in order to not reach that point of burnout.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Even down today, it's like you could be spending the first two hours or three hours in your morning to creating content so people see your business. There's been so many examples of us launching something or a client releasing something and we're creating content behind it, but we're not creating enough. And so people don't even know what's happening. Even for you, you walked into a studio and you're launching this event and you're you've created so many pieces of content around it. People are still asking what you do.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's because you're not creating enough content. It's because you could be creating more content.
SPEAKER_00That's calling me up.
SPEAKER_01Down to the first two to three hours of your morning should be working on creating content on your business because the reality is people don't know who you are and people don't know what you do. That's you're not getting enough leads because that is the reason.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And you might be posting once a day and you think that's enough. It's not. So do more. What is our solution to that? When someone is ready to invest into our us, basically, instead of doing that yourself, you're basically hiring a team to come in and handle all of that for you. And so you need the four hours a month, basically, that's it, to create content for the following month. And so we break down an entire strategy for you so you know what is exactly being posted in May, for example. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So we're creating content.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we're creating content in April for May, and so on. And so you're not stuck on a Wednesday afternoon thinking, oh, I gotta post something today, but I have nothing. We've already mapped that out for the next month.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So you can focus on the tasks that need to get done in the business.
SPEAKER_00And not so much on the content itself.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Pain point number two. Let's go price, cost. Cost of not having the budget or not wanting to spend X amount of dollars on content, sourcing someone who can manage that, a social media manager, a content team, an agency.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01If you still want to take on all of it yourself as a business owner, what's the first thing you should do?
SPEAKER_00I think the first thing you need to do is to map out a plan. I think that's really important. And I think your why is a big reason. Why are you creating content? What type of content works well for you historically? And I think you need to really find what works and what aligns with you in the business. And then everything comes naturally after that when you actually build out a strategy and a plan. Yeah. And sometimes it's not an easy thing to come up with a strategy, especially if it's something that you're not familiar with. But once you really sit down and redirect your focus into what that might look like, that's when everything falls into place.
SPEAKER_01Yep. I think the easiest way to look at it is looking at content as a funnel. So you have tofu, top of funnel. Yep. Mofu, middle of funnel, funnel, and you have bofu, bottom of funnel. Top of funnel is typically trend-based content just to get eyes on your stuff. Yep. Middle of content funnel is it could be a mix of things. It could be more niche, it could be educational, it could be something that has to do involved into what you do. Bottom of funnel is typically CTAs, transformations, case studies, proof. Yeah. Do that for the next month or two. I think you would see a better result with your content if you're doing it yourself.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01What's typically another pain point a lot of business owners have when creating better, smarter content?
SPEAKER_00Consistency is a big one.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I feel like a huge one.
SPEAKER_01I think you have those waves of doing consistent work and creating consistent content for a week to two weeks, and then you have a busy week doing something else and everything falls apart.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And I think that's something everybody experiences, whether you're very successful in content creation or if you're just getting started. What would you suggest for people who struggle with that consistency?
SPEAKER_01Like you said from the beginning, map it out, figure out what you need to post. Yeah. And repeat that process over until you have a better idea of how to do more.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01A lot of it comes down to repurposing content. And so if you're trying to be active on every platform, take one post that you're using for Instagram and use it across Facebook, LinkedIn, newsletters, Substack, anything that you post onto blogs, websites, stuff like that. I think if you're really just starting out though, you need to focus on one until you master that and then go on to the next platform.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I was gonna say that. It's very important that you don't try to juggle so many things at once when you're starting out because that's when it becomes overwhelming and that's when you will notice that drop-off happens a lot quicker. You'll get exhausted by the idea of even creating content rather than excited about it.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So hone in on one thing and kind of drive that, and then everything else will become a lot easier to create for. And again, like Matt said, like repurposing some of that content is easy.
SPEAKER_01I think the easiest way to think about how to create more content, more pieces of content. Let's say you're doing uh carousel about something to do in your business.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You can take that topic and you take the I the general idea of what you're saying, turn it into a reel with just text on screen. Yeah. You can turn it into a reel if you're talking about it. You can turn it into some lifestyle experience of what it feels to do that specific thing. Yeah. Down to using that transcript into a newsletter post or a LinkedIn article post or just a photo with that as a caption.
SPEAKER_00Totally.
SPEAKER_01There's so many different ways of creating the same pieces of content, just in different ways.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And I think that's a really good piece of advice for anybody starting out too. It's just you have one thing and you can create so much more from just that one thing. And that makes your life a lot easier. Yeah. When you don't overcomplicate it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Let's talk about the other pain point. There's two that come to mind. The first one is the comparison between letting AI do a lot of your idea generation versus sitting down yourself doing some research into your industry and mapping out what you should be doing and what works for you.
SPEAKER_00I'm just gonna go based on my personal experience with AI and trying to come up with a strategy for my business. It has not worked. I'm gonna be perfectly honest. The best thing that I've realized that is important is just do the damn work and research on your own. Look at other businesses that are doing things similar. What are they doing well? What is something that you align with or don't align with? What can you do differently? I feel like AI has just created a very generic and general strategy. You have to be very specific. You really have to understand how to use AI. And some people are very good at that. Some people just don't have the time and energy for it. But for me specifically, and you might feel differently, but for certain businesses and industries, I think it's really important that you do take the time to really research and figure out what is the best strategy for you and your business.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I agree. I think there's pros and cons to both of them. I think there's models that you can get very specific, like you said, and it can talk very tailored to what your brand is and who you are, basically having that brand book. But if you I think if you take it too far and you don't exactly know how to structure it, I think that's where you can get lost. And if you try to follow it, even happen to me. Like I've tried to create all of these scripts, but it just doesn't sound like me. So I never shooting the videos.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And that's how I feel about like certain captions and stuff too. I would use AI for like general descriptions of things and just like condensing it in a way that's very easy for people to read and learn about something, but I recently have realized like the art of like writing, and there's something very beautiful about someone creating a blurb that you can tell has come from that person. Yeah. And that is what I'm starting to see. I'm actually looking at people's captions now, and everyone's looks the same. And it's not even the double dash anymore, it's the tone. You can feel when a tone is automated or created by AI, and it's become the lost art. Yes. Creating a gap.
SPEAKER_01There's reasons why there are copywriters out there. It's because people don't know how to write stuff. I'm one of those people.
SPEAKER_00But I even I was talking to a girlfriend of mine recently, and I was just saying that when I have depended on AI a lot more than I should have or should recently. And I used to write like nobody's business, and I used to journal. I used to just write everything and take the time to curate stuff, and that's just how I used to be. And I actually miss it. I would used to I read some of like my old writing, and it's this is how someone should sound. Yeah, it separates you, and I think AI can be, like you said, be good for some things, but also just be human at the same time.
SPEAKER_01100%. Last pain point is people will create content, these business owners will create content, and it won't work. It'll fall short, and they don't know why. They don't go deep dive into the analytics, they don't understand why something's not performing, and they just compare what they do with maybe some competitor of doing it right. And so they end up just basically jumping to something new. Yeah. Let's say that's newsletters, trends, trial reels. Why is that sometimes the worst way of doing it?
SPEAKER_00Like jumping to something else.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Jumping to new thing after new thing.
SPEAKER_00What like you're never really learning anything. You're never understanding why something's not working. It's okay. If it's not working, why? Figure I think it's important to figure that out. Yeah. Because you're just gonna continue to do the same thing. It's gonna be a constant cycle of doing something and not working, doing something not working. So it's okay. You have Instagram as like your sole source of social media or marketing, and it's okay. You have some post that is just not performing. Figure out why. Where do people fall off? What was it? Did you post a reel that was three minutes long? Did you post a carousel that had low quality videos or visuals or too much text? It's what is it that's not working for people? Yeah. And I think that's where it comes down to the importance of looking at the numbers and the analytics and because it will tell you.
SPEAKER_01If you're doing content yourself as a business owner, the first 10 to 100 pieces of content, it's gonna suck and it's gonna look terrible. But the five hundredth time you do it, or the one thousandth post, it's gonna get a lot better. Yeah. And so you kind of have to do the small things for longer.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, be patient with it. Things don't just happen and grow over and over.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. The reasons a lot of reasons we stop doing what we're doing is because we're not willing to put in the work to get better at something. It doesn't work with a snap of fingers.
SPEAKER_00And I think that's what we see a lot of late lately. Um I don't want to sound like a bad word, but it's it's laziness. Yeah. Like content is lazy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I th i uh it's one of the a lot of the conversations we have is talking to these business owners and learning about their experience and the fall-off rate after three months of working together because they think after three months you're gonna see this spike of results. And content is a long game. There's different ways to make it shorter and more valuable. Yeah. And quicker for you. That's what you're looking for. Yeah. But you gotta be in it for the long run and you need it to you need to let it grow organically too.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you need to be willing to invest the time and energy into it too.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Hopefully, if you're listening to this, you're a business owner, if you're creating something new, or if you're been in the space for a long time, hopefully you pulled a lot from this conversation. We really want to do more of these shorter episodes, but more educational in talking to the pain points of the day to day people that we talk to.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for listening.