Avoiding the Content Trap | Casey Helmick

Casey: Hey, everybody. Well, welcome to our session here on podcasting at the Main Street Summit. Um, today I've got a little bit of time with you, um, but I'm making a big promise. My promise today is that I'm going to answer the question. Should you have a podcast? That's going to be a little difficult without knowing each of you.

And I only have about 15, 20 minutes here. Um, but I'm, I'm going to try to do that for each of you. So we'll get there, uh, here at the end of my talk, [00:01:00] um, a little housekeeping here before we start. I'm a visual person. I'm going to be using some. Slides as we go here on my iPad. If you want to follow along with that simple deck, you can find it in two places.

One is on the Main Street app. If you just go to my profile, you'll see a link to it there. Uh, the second is if you click the link on my, uh, pinned tweet. Um, you just search for Casey, C A S E Y, underscore, Helmick, H E L M I C K. If you look for that on Twitter, you'll see my pinned tweet. You'll be able to get the deck there.

So let's jump in, um, because I've only got a few minutes left here. So, um, you know, pretty much every small business, every main street business we talk to has been told that they should be making content, right? The problem is many main street businesses find this to essentially be a waste of time or a waste of resources.

In fact, this morning I just talked to an attendee who admitted that they love making their podcast, but the cost and the time it takes. [00:02:00] Uh, constantly has him on the edge of shutting it down. Uh, the group I spoke, uh, the group that spoke right before me talked about the value of creating a book, you know, we believe in that too.

But even the best authors in the world can't make a new book faster than every couple years. Um, and for those of us who have done that. It's a lot of work, right? Um, so is there truly value in content, uh, for you and your company? Or is this actually a major waste of your resources? You know, let's take a little breath.

Um, I'm going to take you through a presentation I call the content trap. Um, that'll make good on my promise. It'll tell you podcast or not. Um, it's also going to give you this critical framework we use to know what your true relationship with content. Before I get there, let me introduce myself. My name is Casey Helmick.

I'm with a group called Content Capital. You know, we exist to help people just like you turn your content into [00:03:00] capital. And that first starts with deciding what your relationship with content should even be. How many of, uh, you believe that, uh, to create content, Uh, around your business is necessary this year that you have to do it.

Yeah. Um, everyone in America consumes content, you know, almost every single day. In fact, the numbers show that it's like the main thing that Americans do is consume, um, more contents being produced now than ever before in history. Uh, so we at content capital believe every main street business has to have a relationship with content.

If not, you're missing a relationship with your customers. Um, our goal is to help you figure out what your relationship should be. Um, so we're going to look at that now. No more waste. Um, our firm's about four years old. Uh, amongst other things that we do, we publish nearly four or five hundred million podcast streams.

Um, so what I'm sharing with you is based out of some pretty substantial data. [00:04:00] Um, we've got this first hand experience with all different genres and content types of what the consumers really want. And I'm excited to give that to you. So last night, we came into Kansas City. You know, it's not the easiest part of Missouri to get to if you're here.

Um, but it was awesome, because before we made the trek over, we got to stop and do our duty and eat some Kansas City barbecue. Um, While we're sitting there eating the barbecue, we did what most people do, we talk about a bunch of weird stuff. And, uh, we got into talking about aliens, of all things. Um, and it hit me last night.

Uh, that our relationship with content is, uh, you know, making podcasts and books and social media posts. It's probably a lot like your view on aliens. It's just this incredibly polarized thing. You either believe aliens are real and they're here and they're going to like destroy us or something. Um, or you think I'm a complete lunatic for even mentioning it right now.

There's not a lot of middle ground if we're being [00:05:00] honest. Your view on content creation. Um, as a leader of your business, it's probably a little bit like this. You've likely bought into one of two ideas. That there's either some hidden fame and fortune in content creation, or that it's gonna lead you to bankruptcy and burnout.

There's not a lot of middle ground here. Well, at Content Capital, we believe there is, you know, a true middle ground. Um, and this is a paralyzing thing we find a lot of business leaders falling into. Because of the fear, they, they just don't engage with content. They avoid it like an alien conversation. Um, so my challenge today, uh, you know, before we get super practical, is to get you thinking about this.

Like, is your relationship with making content, um, a bit alien like? Is it something we stay away from? You know, we do our core business and only that, you know, when people come to me and say we need to make TikToks, or podcasts, or YouTube, or write a book. I, I secretly think I could be Joe Rogan, or I think if I open that black box, [00:06:00] it might destroy us.

Now, why did we name our company Content Capital? We're, we're pretty simple people. We're from Austin, Texas. So we like to keep it simple. And we have one core belief that every single piece of content you and your business make should have a connection to capital. All of your content should be connected to the growth and the development of your larger mission.

When you write a book. When you do a podcast, when you create YouTube videos, even when you post on TikTok, although you probably shouldn't do that, it should be tracked back to the growth of your company. Disciplined business owners should constantly be focused on growing their business, right? I visualize this like, um, we're one of those police detectives standing in front of the big boards trying to catch a serial killer, and their picture's right in the middle, and we have all these.

Strings and threads, you know, shooting out, trying to connect the clues. Every single piece of content should have a string attached that connects to the mission of the business, right? And if there isn't a connection, we should rip it off the board. So that's what [00:07:00] we do as a company. We help people solve the problem of connecting content to capital.

And today we're going to decide if podcasting, uh, is right through this content trap presentation. So we've got six quick things. We're going to go through a quick comparison, two at a time. Um, let's go ahead and jump in. So the first comparison in trying to avoid the content trap, actually, before I share that, let me ask you, how many of you have been told you should be a thought leader?

Yeah. You're successful at creating and running your business. You know, I'm sure someone's told you to be a thought leader, yeah? What I want to suggest today is that the world has too many thought leaders. Maybe we're a bit overpopulated right now in that area. So let's avoid the first content trap, which is becoming a thought leader.

Instead of becoming a thought leader, what we want to compare that to is I want to challenge you to become a community focused leader. That sounds fluffy, but let me give you some data. Gallup came out with some recent, with some really interesting data in [00:08:00] 2022. They measured Americans confidence in our major institutions.

How confident are we in the major institutions in this country? You know, things like politics, religion, media institutions, you know, on and on. Any guesses in what we're most confident in? Well, we're short on time, I'm going to give you the answer to the test. It's you. It's small business. It's Main Street.

Almost 70 percent of Americans have an extremely high level of trust of the Main Street business. So why is that? Why does it matter in this conversation? Well, my hypothesis is that we can trust you because you have no hidden motives. We know that you're here to help your community. Uh, to make a living, you're focused on the things of us, not just the things of you.

It's a pretty simple relationship that we have with Main Street. Whether it's a coffee shop or a complex Main Street business that some of you run, we can understand why you're here. The opposite of that, [00:09:00] you know, what do we have the least confidence in? Okay, remember, we're short on time, so I'm going to give you the answer.

It's Congress, TV news, big business, newspapers, the president. These are institutions that have ridiculously low confidence numbers. 10, 20 percent of Americans trust these things. My hypothesis here is that these institutions score incredibly low because they're over complex. They're completely full of, I'll quote, thought leaders.

Most of these institutions are led by people behind pulpits and podiums who are trying to convince you, me, that what they believe, we should too. They want you to buy into their ideology. It's complicated. But most small business, that's not your purpose. It's not how you operate. It just isn't what we do.

So I think based on this data, we shouldn't be asking you to become something different. The main street business hasn't figured out. We should be learning from you. You are community focused leaders. A good example of this is one [00:10:00] of our best clients, a guy named Mike Beckham. Mike's actually here speaking.

Uh, you guys are crazy to be sitting in here with me when you could be learning from Mike right now, but I won't hold it against you. Uh, you know, Mike is actually the owner of the company. If you got a cup from the general store, um, that's his company. Uh, it's called Simple Modern. It's huge success. I got a call from Mike about three months ago.

Mike said, Casey, I want to do a podcast. My first question was like, why do you want to do that? I'm like, you know, what do you want to talk about? Why would you want to waste your valuable time podcasting? Um, you know, here's a guy running nearly a billion dollar company and I'm wondering why he'd want to jump into creating content.

You know, Mike replied, I want to focus on us. Uh, nobody says that but Mike, you know, he's truly inspired the way we look at content creation. We recognize that his community, his volunteers, his spouse, his non profit partners, his vendors, that's [00:11:00] what is most important for him to bring to the world. He easily could have made a show where he talked about how he created a successful company, his thought leadership, right?

But he recognized that what people needed from him was a conversation about us, not to us. And a month into Mike's podcast, which is called Scaling for Good, he already has hundreds of thousands of streams. And by elevating the us, Mike is already feeling real business impact because he's made his Main Street business even more understandable and relatable to us.

So go check it out. Um, okay, the second of the comparison is having an almanac style versus having an algorithmic style. It's no surprise here that we live in a world that's surrounded by algorithms, right? You log into your Instagram and it's feeding you something through an algorithm. If I asked one of you to come up here and define almanac and algorithm, you probably would not be able to do it.

These are kind of rare [00:12:00] words that we don't use, but here is, you know, kind of what I mean by this. You should have an almanac style of content creation that makes deep, rich, and meaningful things that niche audiences Have to seek out, for example, just real basic example here, the Farmer's Almanac. It's been around forever.

In fact, it's been around since, uh, 1792. These guys are my content heroes. Uh, uh, I don't even remember the last time I held a Farmer's Almanac, but they're my heroes. What company out there can make something every single year for like 200 years? Uh, content that feeds their business. It actually makes them money.

I mean, it surprised me when I was prepping for this presentation that these guys sell four million of these every year. It's crazy. Uh, do you know any authors that sell four million physical copies of a book every single year? Uh, you know, in this digital world we're in, these guys are my hero, [00:13:00] you know, being a bit tongue in cheek here, but.

Have you ever even seen a Farmer's Almanac billboard? A TV ad? I haven't. As far as I know, these guys don't have to spend much on advertising at all because they've, they're making content that is community focused and their community has to seek it out. You know, they have to have it. They've been able to do it for longer than any of us have been around.

So this Almanac system is something that That is critical to keep us out of the content trap of the algorithm. Make something that serves a niche so well that they have to have it. That they have to have it consistently. The algorithmic style is constantly thinking about the process, not the product. It forces you to think about how to distribute, how to get it to more people, how can I cut little clips or book segments or just make a TikTok dancing video, uh, whatever I have to do to get it out.

If you find yourself thinking more about the process than the content product, you're going to lose. And so just to [00:14:00] recap the top two, the first two tips to avoid the content trap, the world doesn't need you to be a thought leader. And we need you to look around your community and figure out what's good about it and figure out how to tell us those stories and bring that to our people.

Second, the world doesn't need you to think about how to TikTok ify your ideas. We need you to think about how to make content so deep and rich that we can't live without it. It's a high bar to set, for sure. Last thing here is really our company's calling card, which is the idea of vital versus viral.

Again, we live in this world that sort of lifts up virality. What if I post something, maybe a million people will see it? I hope that helps my business if that happens. You know, for most people, virality is a major content trap. I'd like to share a story that happened years ago with one of our team members.

A part of our team helps people create, sell books. One of our clients woke up excited to realize that Justin Bieber had [00:15:00] tweeted out a link to their book. You know, I, I don't know how many followers Justin had at the time, but rest assured it had to have been tens of millions. So you'd think this would have resulted in thousands of new sales, right?

Fame and fortune. Unfortunately, the tweet reached millions, but only resulted in a few dozen sales. Going viral rarely produces the results you'd think. What we actually want to become is a vital part of people's life. I can't help sitting here and looking at my friend Lauren, who's right here in the front, who created and runs a group called 21 Hats.

You know, here's someone who's making a newsletter that for many entrepreneurs has become a weekly must read. We wake up and click open as quickly as possible because the information Lauren develops is rich and deep and critical to our growth. We want to make sure that we're creating rhythms in people's life.

where they look to us and they want us to be in their daily routines. They want to take us to the gym [00:16:00] on their commute to work. They want to share us with their closest friends. We want to be personable to people. We want to be vital in their life. So, last example here and I'll wrap up. You know, I'm gonna do something and it works about 50 percent of the time.

You guys holler out the first thing that comes to mind here. So, I want you to name a tire brand. Yeah, somebody just said Goodyear. Uh, nope, not that one. Yes, Michelin is what I was looking for. Thanks for calling that one out, phew. Um, okay. So, attire company, Michelin. This couldn't be more of like a sweaty start up main street business here, right?

At least when it started. You know, rubber on asphalt. This isn't a glamorous Hollywood production house. Uh, but in, in 1900, the owners of that company that started in France, They looked around and noticed there were only 3, 000 cars on the road. That's not a whole lot of tires. We could probably fit them in the room right now.

So the, the owners had some options. And I'll be a bit silly here to prove a point. [00:17:00] Um, option one, right? They could throw out a bunch of the nails on the road, pop some tires and boom, more sales instantly. No, remember, we're small business. We have the trust and the confidence. We're not going to do that to our people, of course.

Option two. They could go over to the Eiffel Tower, set up the world's largest firework show. Is that what going viral in 1900 would look like? I'm not sure. No, as far as I know, they didn't do that to grow their company. You know what they chose? They chose option three. They chose content creation. How can I take content and encourage people to get on the roads more?

To buy a car out of jealousy of their friends? You know, many of you know where I'm headed since 1900. Uh, Michelin has published the Michelin Guide to help us figure out where we should head next. Talk about a vital need for me, my family, you. Where should we go to find rest and relaxation? Uh, so you know my challenge to you.

You know what it's gonna be. Who's gonna [00:18:00] make the next Michelin Guide that not only helps people with a vital need But presents a reason for them to consume your content and then invest capital within your business. So, I just got three, uh, final challenge statements here. And this is how I'm gonna deliver my promise, uh, to help you decide if you should have a podcast.

So, real briefly, should you make a podcast? I believe you should make a podcast if you agree with all three of these statements. Number one, you're excited to make content that is less about what you know and more about what your niche audience needs from you, right? Second, you're excited to make content and spend less time gaming the algorithmic world we live in and reaching the masses and spend more time crafting an almanac that your people can't live without.

It's a super bar, a high bar, right? [00:19:00] Last thing, last one. You're done trying to reach virality. It doesn't work. It's about becoming a vital part of your audience's life, every day, week, month, quarter, whatever the time frame is. So again, I know it's a really high bar, but I think it's one chasing. I'd love to have a conversation with you if you find yourself excited about that.

I'm told my time's up. So that's what I have for you today. Thanks. 

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