This week we have an incredible interview with my lovely friend Natalie Hailey, where she will be sharing all of her top tips for using content to its full effect. As entrepreneurs we spend so much of our time producing and working on our content, but how do you make the most out of the content you’re creating? Whether you use social media, run a blog or host your own podcast – this episode is perfect for those who need that little bit of an extra push. Natalie talks us through her tried and tested process, telling you how you can make the most out of your content in a fun and practical episode.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• Although you may spend hours perfecting your blog, podcast or social media, creating your content is actually less than 50% of everything that needs to be do when it comes to making the most out of your incredible content.
• It’s important not to be over ambitious to begin with, as you’re leaving a standard of expectations your followers will start to expect. Ideally, you want to start small and know your limits.
• Having a process in place is the best way to ensure you’re doing exactly what you need to, every single time.
• Repurposing the content you have created for one platform can be incredibly easy. For example, if you create a YouTube video you can use Rev.com to request a full transcript.
• When creating new content, make sure you’re thinking about whether or not you link back to content you have previously created. Whether you do it throughout your content creation or you spend 5-10 minutes adding it in at the end, it can be incredibly beneficial.
• Create a content audit sheet. This will detail everything you need to know about each episode you have created.
• Create your processes before you need to create them.
• No one is going to see the amazing stuff you have created if you don’t put it out there.
• If you’re not skilled at something, outsourcing is a great investment. There is no shame in outsourcing parts of your processes.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…

If you take anything from today it should be that once this episode is finished you need to sit down, grab a pen and paper and start planning your processes. If it helps, set up a spreadsheet that your whole team can get involved with.

HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Introducing Natalie – 07:48
• A Step by Step Guide to the Steps That Should Follow Publishing a YouTube Video – 17:20
• Repurposing Content for Other Platforms – 30:00
• Linking Back to Previous Content and Using A Content Audit Sheet - 35:45
• Promoting Your Content – 43:00

Transcript below

Hello, and a very warm welcome to today's podcast episode. How are you doing? How has your week been? Mine has been good, busy, few trips in and out. I'm recording this right before I head off to California for two whole weeks. I can't wait. Now, I'm not going over for a holiday. I am going over for work reasons, but obviously working in California in the sun is obviously way nicer than sitting in my office in a very grey looking England. I am really, really looking forward to going over there. Also, the other really cool thing about going over there is that I get to meet up and see lots of people that live over there and I only ever see when I'm over in California. That's going to be super cool. Very much looking forward to that. It's my last trip of the year out of the country anyway, so that's cool. Yeah, I'm looking forward to that.

Anyway, onto today's podcast episode. We've got an interview for you today, and this is my very lovely friend Natalie Hailey, who helps businesses basically use their content to full effect. Now, you know I am a massive advocate for you to produce content, I.E., a blog, a vlog, a podcast, a live video show, whatever it is. I am really, really keen for you to do that. Because unless you are a big business that can advertise and get your brand awareness that way, then really content is the next best way in which you can do that. I highly, highly recommend you do it. Also, it proves you're an expert, blah, blah, blah. There's a million reasons I've probably told you over and over again, so I won't go into that now. It's super important for you to actually have that regular content.

We spend so much time producing, as I well know, because I'm recording a number of podcasts today, so I know how much time it takes. I'm going to let you in on a secret. Episode, let me think, episode 87, last week's episode, I recorded, and it was a 30 minute episode, and it took me about an hour. It never does that, but for whatever reason I kept messing up, and stopping, and starting, and stopping, and starting. Even when you're on episode 87 of a podcast, it still sometimes takes way too much time and way more time than it should take.

Anyway. It takes all this time to produce this amazing content. You've written your blogs. You've produced your videos. You've done your podcast. Then you put a post up on social media and it's tumbleweed. That's it, no one's reading it. I remember when I had a blog and no one read, or hardly anybody read my blog. I am much happier now with the podcast, because obviously I can see my stats on that and it's awesome. That's the problem, you write this content, you do this stuff, and then how do you make sure that people actually know that it's out there and how do you make a point of really making the most of that content?

Natalie works with business owners and entrepreneurs from all over the world who have podcasts, or produce videos, to make their content happen. She takes the initial content and takes the pressure off the content creator and handles the entire publishing, promotion and repurposing process in order for them to keep producing top quality content consistently, and to grow their audience. Basically Natalie will take someone's video, and then she does everything else.

What's really good about this episode is I haven't necessarily brought her on here to promote her services to you. I've brought her on here to talk you through the process that she uses. What I discovered during this episode, as you'll hear, or what I kind of mentioned, is that it's taken me a long time in business to realise, and maybe I'm just a bit slow, that actually if you can put a process behind something, it makes it so much easier. Natalie doing this week in, week out, for various different people on various different platforms, she has obviously had to bring in a process. Also, when she's working with people, they have had to follow her process so that she can do the work with them.

What's really great about this episode is Natalie talks us step, by step, by step how she makes the most of their videos on YouTube, how she makes the most of their podcasts, what she does with blogs. She talks you through all the things that she does in order to publish them. How do you make the most of putting a video on YouTube? She gives some great tips around that. Then what she does in terms of creating that content, so the types of social media she posts, and where she posts and promotes that bit of content. Then how she uses that content to then create other stuff, so she's repurposing that one thing.

Like I said, I love this episode. She really just talked through step, by step, by step, which is awesome. She's also got a template as a freebie that is in the show notes. If you go to teresaheathwareing.com/88, the number, then you're going to be able to get the download for her template. That's her process on how to do YouTube videos, and podcasts, and blogs. Also, she gives loads of tools and loads of different systems that she uses to help her find keywords, and to put together her titles, and different things like this.

Really, really useful. Very practical session. I really enjoyed this one, just because I had a few revelations in it, which is always funny and I always enjoy that. One about this podcast, which was interestingly enough. Yeah, really, really useful podcast. I think you're going to find it useful.

The other thing that I want to mention before she gets started is the fact of, like I said, this isn't necessarily for if and when you want to give this away to someone. This is a process that you can use. What's great about you having this process is come the day when the business is grown, that you can pass on these things to someone else, believe me, having done this, I know how useful this is to have that strict process in place. Not strict, but to have that process in place is really, really key in terms of saying to a VA, or to a content manager, or whoever, to say, "Actually this is the process I go through. This is what I do. You just need to follow that process."

She was really helpful in helping you understand about thinking more long term. Because at the moment you might do things all yourself, and there's still things that I do all myself, and yet I still have a process for it. Funnily enough, one of the things I've just put together is a kind of monthly to do list for the academy, because I know that every month I'm adding in additional calls. I know that we have several coaching calls. I know that we've obviously got Facebook Lives, and I give everybody social media updates. If there's any challenges, and that sort of thing. I've done myself a process in order to say, "Right, Teresa, have you done it for this month? Have you done, this, this, this, this, this?"

Because even though it's me doing every step, it's really useful to be able to tick those things off and to remember, okay, once I've done that, I do this. Once I've done that, I do this. Like I said, I really hope you're going to enjoy this one. She's a very lovely lady with lots and lots of good ideas, so fingers crossed this is going to be a good one. Over to Natalie.

Introducing Natalie

Okay. I am really excited today to welcome my very lovely friend, Natalie Hailey, to the podcast. Welcome.

Hello Teresa. I've got a huge beam on my face. I'm very happy to be here.

No. That's good. I'm really glad, and I'm so happy to have you on because not only are we friends, which is lovely, but secondly, what you do is very smart and very helpful. You know how I always have amazing guests on, and I love having amazing guests, but sometimes you think, that's so cool but it's so far away from most people and what they can do, or that's a different level of business, or whatever. Actually for you, and what you do, and what we're going to talk about, I think it's going to be perfect for anybody listening. This is going to be an awesome one.

Oh, good.

Before we get started, why don't you just tell our listeners kind of how you got to do what you're doing now?

Yeah, sure. Yeah, it wasn't really a straight road. I didn't exactly fall into it, but it's funny how sometimes when you start off in business it takes a different path to what you first thought it would. I started off really with the main focus being on copywriting and helping businesses and entrepreneurs create their blog content. From there it became really clear to me that there was a real demand, people who had a blog, or a podcast, or created video, there's such a lot to do behind the scenes.

It's one thing actually putting a blog out there. It's one thing creating a fantastic video or podcast episode. It's quite another thing to then do everything else that comes after that, once it's been edited, to actually get it published, do all of the fraffy things, as I call them, behind the scenes, which most of us hate doing. Then actually getting that content promoted. Because let's face it, we have to work quite hard really most of the time to drive people to watch our video, or listen to our podcast, or read our blog.

It led to me actually helping, as I said, businesses and solopreneurs mainly, to actually get their content out there in a high quality way and on a consistent basis. That's really the key, is helping them do it consistently. Because when we're running a business, there's so many things to think about, and we're so busy that often it's our own content that falls off the end. I'm very happy to be able to help people do it on a weekly, however they choose to do it, to get it out there consistently.

I think that's great, because the other thing is when we do make content, and everybody knows who's listening that I am a huge advocate of you having some kind of regular content, whether it be a blog, vlog, video, podcast, whatever it might be. When you are going to all that effort, because this takes time, obviously, all of this takes time, creating any kind of content. The last thing you want to do is create it, put it out there and have tumbleweeds, or not maximise that opportunity to get it seen by as many people as possible.

I think like you said, sometimes the emphasis is so much on the content, I.E., you've got to create the thing, and putting all your effort into it, and then if we're doing it ourselves, you just shove a blog up on a website and think, oh brilliant, the world, and their masses are going to come and look at it now. It's like, if you build it, they will come. Well, they're not going to, not unless somehow you tell them, and you get the message out to them.

No.

That's where you find a real kind of niche in terms of helping people do that.

Definitely. I mean, I would say that the actual creation of the content itself, in whatever form, probably doesn't even form 50% of overall what needs to be done. Because most business owners are so busy, it feels like a huge achievement. It is a huge achievement to take that massive, oh, I've written a blog this week, or I've put another episode out this week of the podcast. Like I said, there's so much more to be done after that. Hopefully what we can talk about today will help people get some kind of process in place that it doesn't feel as overwhelming. In that sense they're much more likely to remain consistent.

Yeah, and also if they're sat there thinking, "Oh god, so I've got to do a load of other stuff after it." It's like, why not consider then reducing the amount you make of the content? If you are doing something weekly and you think, but literally I'm just checking it off and I don't have the time to do the next bit. Then maybe go every other week and make sure you put that time and effort in.

100%. I'm a huge advocate for doing less but making more of it. Huge. I think there's been a real shift over the past couple of years towards that. People do seem to have that. A few years ago it was like, well, you need to produce a blog every single week, or at one point every single day. I think we have to be realistic about what we can achieve.

My biggest piece of advice to people when it comes to staying consistent with any form of content is not to be over ambitious, at least to start with, or at least when you're in the early stages. Because it's very easy to kind of build up and increase that frequency, but once you've set a certain expectation, not just for yourself, but for your audience, it's very, very easy for them to lose a little bit of confidence in you if they see that you can't keep up with that. Much better to pare it back a little bit, be realistic about what you can achieve, and then build it up from there. Because it's hard, especially in the early days of business, when normally you're doing everything yourself. Outsourcing isn't always an option to start with.

No.

You do have to be realistic. With my own podcast, I decided to publish a podcast episodes fortnightly rather than weekly, and make more of it in between. Focus more on the repurposing and promotion. I do think that's something that people should consider. Then as time goes on, build it up. When you can look at bringing in help from other people, with all of the different elements of it, certainly go down that route. Then it frees up your time to focus more on whatever you need to be doing.

Yeah. No, I totally agree. It is a huge pressure, I have to say. There's a few things about doing regular content, and podcasting, and doing it every single week. Because one, you've got to do it every week. I knew, and this was one of the reasons why I think I did podcasting, because I knew once I started I couldn't just not do it. Whereas with the blog I was never consistent. I was never, because I knew no one was paying that much attention. With the podcast it was like, no, if I'm going to do it, I've got to commit to doing this every single week. Don't get me wrong. Some weeks I am right on the nose, or I have been. Literally, anybody want to work on a weekend? Because it comes out on a Monday. That bit is, it's not that that doesn't happen, but every Monday, without fail, a podcast will be made.

It's staying consistent, but also it's finding content. Don't get me wrong. We are in an industry that is massive, and there's so much to talk about. However, not every industry's like that. Also, it's just so much content. If you wanted to go back and listen through all the episodes I've done, so when this episode comes out I think, well we're going to be mid 80's. That is a lot of content. Again, if you're just doing it and you're not maximising each one, then you're losing out, or you've put so much effort into doing that content, and then it's just, oh, move on to the next thing. Oh, move on to the next thing. Yeah, totally agree. Starting lower, then if you want to do it, move up. It's like I've always, and I talk about this all the time, that I always have this idea that I'd like a YouTube channel, I'd like to do a YouTube thing.

Yeah. Me too.

It's like I can't, because one, if I can't be consistent, I'm not doing it.

No.

I just know that I do enough. This is a lot of content, and I'm glad people love it, and it's great. Yeah, I do like the idea of a YouTube channel, and maybe one day I might.

One day we shall both have our own YouTube channel.

Exactly, and we'll be like YouTubers, and be cool.

We will.

My daughter will be unimpressed.

The kids will think we're amazing.

No, that is never going to happen.

Rather than embarrassing.

Yeah, so I think to keep consistent but small, but then make sure you put almost as much effort into the promotion of that thing, rather than just literally kind of just getting it out there just to tick the box and go, "Look, done my content. How good am I?"

Definitely. I think a lot of people are, they lack confidence when it comes to sharing their content. They think, okay, well I'll promote it once. They're fine with that. Yeah, I'll put another, a second time with the social media post out. I'm fine with that. Then after that they're a bit like, "Oh, I don't want to-"

Don't want to talk about that again.

Yeah. I don't want to talk about it again. I don't want to annoy people. I don't want to bombard people. I think 99.9% of the time people are not promoting their content enough, because there's just so much out there. The risk of somebody actually seeing more than one of your posts, if you've done three for example, is not that high anyway. You've really got to put some welly into the promotion of it for sure.

Yeah. Exactly. What's so great about today is that you're going to talk us through, step, by step, by step, which I love, and hopefully my audience love because I do it all the time, exactly how to take something from, okay, here's your finished content, to putting it out. We're going to talk about YouTube, but obviously this is