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Andrew Ryder is a writer and entrepreneur who is reimagining content creation for online educators so they can highlight their uniqueness and build relationships with their audiences. Andrew\'s work has been recognized by Entrepreneur Magazine for demonstrating leadership in business.

https://www.andrewbryder.com

www.marlanasemenza.com

Audio : Ariza Music Productions

Marlana: Andrew Ryder is a writer and entrepreneur who is reimagining content creation for online educators so that they can highlight their uniqueness and build relationships with their audiences. Welcome, Andrew.

Andrew: Hey, Marlana, thanks so much for having me.\\xa0

Marlana: So that\'s really the key, isn\'t it about building relationships with our audience, because I know if we are entrepreneurs, and we are creating content, it\'s really marketing at its core. And so in the mix there, we have to come up with ideas and create content that people actually want to consume, and still promote ourselves because we are a business well, in a way without feeling icky. So the question is, I\'m going to hit you with it all at once. How do we do it? Is it different things or is it all kind of woven into the same thing?

Andrew: For me, it\'s all woven into the same thing. And perhaps the place to start is in defining what content is, a lot of people think that it\'s, the first thing that comes to mind would be your social media, or your blog, or maybe even your email list. I also include any paid content, you create courses, coaching, it\'s really any way that you\'re communicating with your customer, or your audience or with people who you want to be in your audience, it\'s going to be the stories that you tell, it\'s going to be the analogies that you use at any scale, right? If you\'re doing a social media post, you want to use some kind of analogy or story to teach a lesson, right? But you can still use those same analogies and stories to make a breakthrough in a one on one call with a private client. So everything that you do even down to the color schemes and the graphics and the way that you present your website is content that your audience or your prospective audience is consuming, right? They\'re going to your website, they\'re looking at the services, you provide the things that you do, the language that you use, and comparing that to a competitor or to a software solution that claims to solve their problems, right. And so we touched on the idea of creating content that builds relationships. At the end of the day, that\'s what it comes down to is your prospects, your customers looking at all of these different potential solutions. And they\'re gonna go with whatever the person who they trust, the most says to do. So if they just came across you, they don\'t really know anything about you. They\'ve probably been burned in the past, they\'ve made mistakes, they\'ve bought things that aren\'t what they seem to be, they\'ve gotten ripped off, you know, everybody\'s gotten ripped off by sleazy online marketer. That\'s just the reality of the market that we\'re in today. So what if you build trust with them through your content, and you say, hey, you know, I know you\'ve gone through all these problems, you\'ve had all these issues. Here\'s what worked for me. I, you know, overcame this, personally, I had all these issues, I figured out how to solve it, and I want to share that with you. If they trust you, they\'re going to go with your recommendation, even if it\'s more expensive, even if it\'s harder, they\'re gonna go with what you recommend to them, rather than going with something that they don\'t trust or they don\'t fully understand. there\'s really a big there\'s an immense value in creating trust in your marketing. And I think it\'s becoming a necessity in the climate that we\'re in. But I think where people get caught up is content creation is such an interesting aspect of what we do in business. Because if you\'re sitting down to write, every day, or every time you sit down to write, you\'re confronting the limitations of, of your knowledge limitations of your understanding. And writing is sort of it\'s so I have a love hate relationship with it, because some days, I really hate it, because it\'s just showing me how limited my understanding is and I can\'t get the right words together. And I just keep thinking, you know, this is not the high enough quality for what I like to produce. What you know why standards are on the other side, it\'s fun, and you just start pulling together ideas and you get into a flow state and just have this amazing experience and you create something super valuable for your audience. But if you don\'t structure it in the right way, you end up spending most of your time, just sitting there staring at a blank page, right? You\'re trying to get some momentum, you\'re trying to force yourself through it. But there\'s all these hurdles that come in, you maybe get a couple sentences and you think, you know, no, this isn\'t the right, this isn\'t the problem that my audience really struggles with, I\'m not using the right language, in this, I\'m not speaking to their problems. And you quickly get into this place where you take it out on yourself, and you think I\'m not a good writer, I don\'t have what it takes. Maybe I\'m not cut out for this business thing. After all. Those are all thoughts that I\'ve had personally and had a lot. And the solution that I found to all of that was getting away from what I would call traditional content creation advice, which is a lot of content, calendars. It\'s a lot of templates and swipe files, and, and things that are designed to make content creation, easy. But they end up just making it complicated and making it harder. There\'s this sort of four quadrant exercises that you can do. And basically you\'re putting on one axis you\'re putting, how hard is it is it you know, the spectrum goes from easy to hard, right, and then the other axis that you\'re comparing against, is ranging from simple to complex, and so on, on one end of the spectrum, you\'re going to have hard and complex things, those are probably not things that you want to be doing in your business. Or, you know, maybe you want to find a way to take something that\'s hard and complex and develop a solution. That\'s easy and simple. Right? So how can you make things easier? How can you make things simpler, but not everything moves in that direction, I have found personally that a lot of content creation advice, templates, content, calendars, those types of things. They try to make it easier, but they end up making it more complicated with having to keep track of a bunch of things and you end up writing things that don\'t really sound like your voice or using headlines or calls to action that are supposed to be high converting or they\'re supposed to build a better relationship with your audience, but they feel canned. They feel kind of salesy, you know, a lot of those things, I would be writing these things and thinking to myself, you know, this isn\'t me, there\'s no way that this is, like I don\'t believe these things that I\'m saying I\'m just doing them because that\'s supposed to feel like that\'s supposed to be the best way to do it, or the highest converting way to do it. And I think that\'s where a lot of people really get that. That feeling of emptiness, or being salesy or inauthentic in their content, is they\'re trying to do what they think is the quote unquote, right thing to do. But they\'re not doing the right thing for them. And I think that\'s a really important distinction to make. And so that\'s really where I help, specifically, coaches and course creators. Those are the folks that I\'m really passionate about helping to, like you said, connect to their uniqueness, and to tell stories and to create content that\'s really authentic. Because ultimately, that authenticity is what\'s going to drive that relationship, it\'s what\'s going to build the trust, that then makes the sale makes it so much easier too.

Marlana: so if we are, let\'s say writing our own content, how do we get past the dreaded blank page?

Andrew: I believe that there\'s more than enough ideas in your life. To have an unending supply of content, there\'s really two places where a lot of people get hung up. The first is in lacking momentum. So if you are producing content every single day, if you are writing, if you are interacting with your audience, and you are you know actively looking for ideas, you\'re going to generate more and more ideas just through the act of sitting there and writing and thinking and taking that time to do it. It\'s difficult to explain in sort of a scientific sense, but I just find personally that the way I structure my morning routine is very specific to try to get me first thing in the morning before I start introducing social media before I start checking email before I introduce my mind to other people\'s thoughts and other people\'s hopes and dreams and desires for me. I want to wake up and you know, over the course of sleeping that night, my brain has made a whole bunch of new connections. I\'ve processed all the information from the previous day. I want to take that and I just want to start writing and get into a flow state where I\'m just generating ideas and making connections with trying different things and discovering what happened in my brain over the last, you know, 24 hours. And I think so the first thing to do, if you\'re struggling to come up with ideas, is to make sure you\'re structuring your time in a way to where you give yourself the freedom to explore things that you may or may not know that, you know, connections that you may not know, that you\'ve made in your brain over the last, you know, over the course of sleeping. And there\'s a lot of new neuroscience that particularly being done at Stanford that backs up a lot of these things. Andrew Huberman, in particular, as a researcher, Dr. There at Stanford, who\'s doing a lot of this stuff, not just for the side of content creation, but he\'s really interested in peak performance. And there\'s a huge link between performing well, you know, your nutrition, your sleep, your exercise, your ability to focus, and then being able to sit down for an hour or however long you take to write. And to create something, you know, your ability to focus has a huge impact on your ability to create new things.

Marlana: You know, it\'s interesting that you say that you get up in the morning, and you write, because I remember reading a book years ago called The Artists Way. And that\'s what they recommended was before you do anything, before you have a sip of coffee, right, just right, for 10, solid minutes. And they said, in doing that every day, you will start to see themes and patterns develop. And, you know, we can always use those to help do what you\'re saying.

Andrew: Yeah, that\'s interesting. And I think that, you know, for me, I do a couple of other things before I jumped into riding, but there\'s also a, so it\'s going to depend on your circadian rhythm. And there are quizzes that you can take, if you don\'t know what, basically your circadian rhythm is your internal clock, so it\'s going to tell you, Okay, it\'s five o\'clock in the morning, it\'s time to wake up, or maybe it\'s going to tell you, Okay, it\'s 11am, it\'s time to wake up. And depending on your own individual\'s circadian clock, no, some are longer than 24 hours, which means you\'re going to end up generally sleeping in and staying up later, some are shorter than 24 hours, which means you\'ll be an early riser, you\'ll get up and you do your most productive work first thing in the morning. So one thing that I say all the time is, you really have to know yourself, and you have to know your strengths and your weaknesses. If you are a night owl type of person, you\'d be much better off creating your content later in the day, you know, I know, a lot of people who have written their, their books between like midnight, and 3am is when they do all their writing. And to me, that\'s just unthinkable, you know, I do, I\'m the opposite, I do my writing from like six to nine in the morning. And that\'s, you know, that\'s the best time for me to think and to focus. So there\'s free quizzes out there where you can take, figure out what your circadian rhythm is. And there\'s sort of a, I think a lot of people may think that they are lean more towards the night owl side of things, you have lighter side of things, because of other factors that influence their energy. And, you know, if you just are sort of lazy and you just let yourself sleep in, you\'re going to start to push your schedule back and go later into the day. But that doesn\'t necessarily mean that it\'s the optimal condition for you to work in. So even if you think that you are a morning person or a night person, you know, it\'d be valuable to take one of those quizzes and like I say, you can just Google it and find a whole bunch of them and see what they say and see how it compares to your own experience, and maybe try different routines to see what works best for you.\\xa0

Marlana: Okay, so now let\'s say we have some content, we think it\'s great. How do we, because at the end of the day, it\'s fine that we think it\'s great. But what matters more is that our audience thinks it\'s great. So how do we bridge that gap?

Andrew: I think it\'s combination of iteration and just prolific publishing. And by that, I mean, for me, it\'s an email every single day. The more that you can create content, the faster you\'re going to learn, you know, no one\'s going to create a perfect article or blog post or social media post every time. Most of the time it\'s going to be average, right? It\'s going to be okay. It\'s going to help a couple of people that you know, maybe are longtime fans, they read all your stuff. But the reality is, a good percentage of your content is going to fall flat. And so it\'s about how can I get through and find out The best articles right? You create something that you like you post it. And it\'s like, it\'s okay. It gets a little bit of response. Yeah, or you gets crickets, right, that\'s gonna happen. And the key is to just keep publishing because then you\'re going to find something that gets above average response. You\'re like, wow, okay, that\'s an interesting idea. How can I expand on this? What are the comments saying, What can I do to improve this? And then you\'re gonna get, you know, every once in a while, you\'re gonna get one that just goes crazy, and everybody loves it. And you look at that, and you think, okay, what are the key points here? What is the language that I\'m using? What can I take from this piece of content? And how can I expand that into or expand that piece of content into sub articles? Or how can I expand it into a book or combine it with something else that I\'ve written that also did well, and make a longer form blog posts or something like that. So that\'s where the iteration side of things comes in is, the more you do it, the more data you get, the more feedback you get from your audience, or from social media, or wherever you\'re publishing, that\'s going to tell you what people are interested in. And you can sort of follow that path and continue to expand on what\'s working and cutting back on what\'s not working. I guess, there\'s a word of caution there, though, that I would give is that the greatest visionaries, in our lifetimes have ignored, predominantly ignored market feedback. If you look at someone like Steve Jobs, he didn\'t say, you know, how can I create a way to listen to a CD on you know, your that, you know, how can I create the next CD ROM, you know, player Walkman, I couldn\'t think of the word. He didn\'t try to create a better cassette, right, he wanted to have every single song that you would ever want to listen to, on a small enough device that could go into your pocket. And so he didn\'t set out to improve what already existed, he set out to create something completely new, something that then when he goes to uni, creates the iPod, and he goes to, to sell it, he says, hey, look, you don\'t know that you want this, this is going to change the way that you experience life. Because you\'re going to have every single song that you\'ve ever wanted to listen to with you in your pocket, while you\'re cooking, while you\'re doing laundry, while you\'re driving in your car while you\'re doing anything in your life or going for a run or you\'re working out, you can always have that perfect song, ready to go. And he convinced that, you know, everyone is like, yeah, you\'re right. I don\'t want another Walkman or a bigger CD carrier, I want an iPod. The same can be said for Henry Ford, you know, the famous quote, he says, \\u201cif I\'d asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse\\u201d. But he didn\'t want to give people what they wanted. He wanted to give them what they needed, which was a safer, faster way to travel. Right? It created, you know, a way to make the automobile widespread. And that changes the course of history. So

Marlana: Let me just jump in, say that we have a product, or we have a service, and we are convinced about that product or service, yet it\'s new to other people, how do we effectively communicate that in a way that they will understand its value?

Andrew: So this really comes back to leadership, which I would separate into basically three different baskets, it\'s demonstration, it\'s what I would call leading by example. So you are going and you are implementing your system, your solution. And you\'re really just communicating back to back to your audience or to others. Yeah. And you can take this you know, you can go get interviews, on podcasts and talk about it, you can go get magazine articles written about you or you can do whatever kind of press or publicity that you want to share this, but really just documenting the results that you\'re getting, and the lessons that you\'re learning as you develop this system. And you know, that comes back to all the things we\'re talking about the content creation, the market research and the feedback you\'re getting is definitely important. Don\'t get me wrong, you want to take that into consideration. But you don\'t want to just give them you know, a better Walkman or a bigger CD carrier, right? You want to create something completely...