Ep 47. The Content Gap: Why your work is better than your content suggests

There’s something I notice almost every time I start working with a new client, and it happens so consistently now that I’ve started to expect it.

So I’ll get on a call with someone and they’ll start talking about their work, like what they actually do with the clients, the transformations that they get for them, the specific way they approach things and it’s absolutely brilliant (because I only attract brilliant people).

No, but really, the work my clients do is so specific and considered, and you can really feel the depth of it.

They really make a difference to the lives of their clients, but then when I go back to look at the content it’s like looking at a completely different person, because usually it’s generic, safe, and it could have been written by anyone in the industry.

That gap – the gap between the version of them the clients get and the version that shows up online, that’s what we’re talking about today.

If you’re new here, hello and a very warm welcome to Quiet Confidence with myself, Anita Popat. This is a podcast for introverted entrepreneurs who want to market their thing without changing who you are.

Today we’re going into why that gap exists and what’s usually going on underneath it.

Because the thing is, the people in my world are good at what they do – often really good.

Like they get their client results and those clients rave about them, but somehow none of that magic makes it into their content.

I don’t want that to happen to you. But most people don’t even know they’re doing it because you’re so close to your business you can’t see what I can see from an outsider’s point of view.

The most common thing I see is that people underestimate totally how amazing the information you know is. When you’ve been doing something for a few years, the way you think about your work starts to feel obvious to you.

The frameworks you’ve developed, the specific lens you bring, the things you might notice that other people in your space don’t. All of that just feels like the way things are because you’re living it. It’s your world every single day.

So you don’t talk about it because you assume everyone already knows it and your content ends up staying at surface level because the deeper stuff doesn’t feel like a big deal to share.

But to your ideal client, that deeper stuff is gold. It’s exactly what they’ve been looking for and couldn’t find anywhere else.They just don’t know that you’ve got it yet because you haven’t told them.

So share more of the things that are obvious to you because I guarantee they won’t be to everyone else. 

The second thing, (this one is really common for introverts) is that there’s a voice that kicks in when you go to share something with more depth or with a bit more of your opinion behind it.

That voice that says, oh, what will my old boss, or my old colleagues, or that friend down the street think?

It’s that, “does this feel too much?” voice or, “who am I to say this?”

And so you stop and pull back and write the safer version, because that’s the version that won’t ruffle any feathers.

Don’t get me wrong, I completely understand why that happens. I do it too, but the content that actually builds trust, the content that makes someone feel like they found the right person isn’t the surface level stuff.

It’s the post where you say the thing that you nearly didn’t say. It’s that specific opinion or that observation that nobody else in your space is making. That’s the content that stops someone mid scrolling and makes them think, oh, she really gets this.

The third thing is that a lot of people are actually writing for their peers rather than their ideal clients without realising it.

The content sounds impressive to someone at the same level. So you might be using the right language or the right references that people in your industry might get, but to the person that is actually meant for, they can’t quite see themselves in it because it might be pitched slightly too high, or it might be framed in a way that assumes that they’ve got the knowledge that they don’t have.

So again, they’ll scroll past feeling like it wasn’t for them, even though it was.

This is where your dream client work really, really matters.

It’s probably one of the areas I spend the most time with when I’m working with clients because we’re not keeping it surface level.

I’m not here to give you that exercise on like what age they are, where do they shop or create a made up avatar with a name and their favorite coffee order – that’s keeping it really surface level.

We actually want to get into the head of the real person that you wanna work with, which means we take the time to do actual market research.

So we talk to real humans to figure out what are their desires and what are they struggling with and what kind of things are keeping them up at night? What kind of advice are they sick of hearing and what’s stopping them from investing in the thing that you offer?

When you’ve done that work properly and you’ve spent time on it, you’ve taken the time to look at the results and really, I don’t want to say dissect, but really like, translate their thoughts and the things they’ve said to you into your content, your thinking will start to come through because you’re basing your content on real evidence and conversations you’ve had with people rather than thinking you know what they’re thinking, if that makes sense.

That’s really what closing this gap comes down to – in the translation.

I know you already have the depth and the specific way of seeing things that makes you different. The work here is learning how to translate that into content your ideal client can really receive and feel.

So here’s what I’d invite you to do this week. Go back and look at your last five or six pieces of content and ask yourself, honestly, does this reflect the depth of what I actually do? Or is it a watered down version of it?

If it’s watered down, where did you pull back and what’s the thing that you nearly said but didn’t? Because that thing is probably the most valuable thing you could have shared.

So why don’t you rewrite the post again with that in it and see what happens?

If what I’ve spoke to you about today has resonated and you feel like there’s a version of you in your work that hasn’t quite made it into your marketing yet, I would love to work with you one-to-one inside Silent Storm, because this is where we close the gap.

It’s my signature one-to-one program where we do the messaging foundations, the sweet spot client work, and then we work on translating all of that into content that actually sounds like you, like the full version of you, not that edited one you’re showing up as at the moment.

Applications are open now. so please do go and take a look.

Until then, keep showing up with your quiet confidence so you can make a loud impact and I shall see you next time. Speak soon.