Ep 67. Chocolate or broccoli? What to lead with in your content

If you saw two posts in your feed, one that said, “Let’s talk about your brand values,” and another one that said, “How to get more leads from social media,” which one would you stop and read? Yeah, me too.

Which is a bit awkward for me, and you’ll get why in a minute, because today I’m going to talk about chocolate and broccoli, and I am very much in the broccoli business. Which I know probably sounds like I’ve wandered off into a nutrition podcast, but stick with me, because it’s one of the simplest ways I’ve found to explain why some of your content gets read and some of it gets scrolled past.

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

[00:00:43] 1. The chocolate and the broccoli

I came across this analogy a few years ago, and I really wanted to share it with you, because when it comes to marketing, we need to draw people in with what they want, which is the chocolate, rather than the thing that you know they need, which is the broccoli. And when you sit down and think about it, a lot of the work you do is the broccoli, right? But they might not know that that’s what they need yet from the way that they’re seeing what you help them with in their world.

So if you think about the people I work with, for example, the chocolate for them is getting more leads from their content wherever they post it, or clients finding them without having to post every single day. So that’s what they’re craving. But to get there, I know that they need to be really clear on their values, who their sweet spot client is, the language that the client uses, so their messaging, and then create a content strategy that makes sense to them in a way that’s engaging and doesn’t feel icky.

Now that’s the broccoli, and side note, exactly what we do inside my messaging programme, Silent Storm, which is really good for you, and it’s going to make all the difference to your business. But not a lot of people are going to wake up on a Monday morning and think, “Ah, I really fancy sorting out my brand values today.” Unless you’re one of my clients, of course, then you probably do, because you’ve seen what a difference it makes.

But what I’m trying to say is if you don’t know you need something, you’re probably not going to be interested in reading a post about it, right? Whereas if I write something about getting more leads from social media, I’m guessing you’ll want to know.

[00:01:55] 2. Why introverts are drawn to the broccoli

Now as introverts, I think we’re naturally drawn to the broccoli. We love depth, right? We can see the real reason something’s not working, and we know that the surface-level fix isn’t going to last. So when we sit down to create content, naturally we’re going to talk about the thing that actually matters, because that feels more honest and more valuable.

Leading with the chocolate can feel a bit shallow or a bit salesy, or like we’re dumbing down what we do, and I hold my hands up, because I’ve felt that too. But what really happens when we do that is that we end up writing really useful posts about the broccoli, and the people who need to read it most just keep scrolling because they don’t realise it’s for them yet.

So for example, they’re not thinking about their values. They’re thinking, “Why is no one booking a call from me?” Or, “Why am I not standing out from the coach who’s doing the same thing as me?”

[00:02:37] 3. Chocolate in the hook, broccoli in the post

So I’m not saying that you should stop talking about the broccoli altogether. The broccoli is your expertise, and you need to talk about it. What I’m saying is that the chocolate is how you get someone to stop and look at your stuff in the first place.

So think of it like this. The chocolate is what goes into your hook. It’s the first line, the title, the bit that’s going to make someone stop scrolling and think, “Oh, that’s for me.” And then the broccoli is what you serve up once they’re there.

And this works for whatever you do, right? So say you’re a bookkeeper, the broccoli is something like getting your receipts organised and reconciling every month, which no one’s going to be excited about. But the chocolate could be something like knowing exactly how much you can pay yourself this month, or not having that horrible panic as to whether you can pay for something.

Or if you’re someone like a menopause nutritionist, well, the broccoli might literally be broccoli, but the chocolate is sleeping through the night and feeling like yourself again. So when you’re writing a piece of content, you’d lead with the chocolate in your hook or your title, and then inside the post, you’ll serve up the broccoli.

So it’s the same thing, you’ve just made it a bit more tempting. If the chocolate is genuinely what they want, they’re going to stop and read, and then they’re going to get served the broccoli, which is going to be how they get to the thing that they want. So you’re just meeting people where they’re at and walking them to where they need to go, which, if you think about it, is exactly what good marketing does.

[00:03:49] 4. I don’t always get this right

I’m not going to pretend I always get this right, by the way. If you have a scroll through my episode list, you’ll probably find plenty of broccoli titles in there, and that’s fine, because some people are ready for the broccoli and actively go looking for it. But if I’m trying to reach someone new, someone who doesn’t know me yet and doesn’t know what they need, the chocolate is what’s going to get their attention.

[00:04:07] 5. How to figure out what your chocolate is

So how do you figure out what your chocolate is? Well, I’d start by thinking about what your sweet spot client says that they want, in their words, not yours. What kind of questions are they typing into Google? Or what do they moan about to their friends? Or what are people saying when they jump on a discovery call with you? That’s usually the chocolate, and then the broccoli is everything you know that they need to get there, which is probably your offer and the thing that you could talk about for hours.

So once you’ve got those two things side by side, writing content gets so much easier, because you’re basically joining the dots between them, and every post becomes a little bridge from what they want to what they need.

And the lovely thing is that once someone reads a few of your posts, they see that you get what they’re craving, and they also see that you know how to get them to where they want to be. And that’s when they’re going to start to think, “Oh, she’s the one I want to work with,” and they’re also going to become much more open to the broccoli because they’ve seen it working.

[00:04:56] 6. A simple exercise to try

So this is something that I do in my messaging programme, Silent Storm, which you can try for yourself. You can grab a piece of paper, draw a line down the middle, and on one side write down all of your chocolate, so everything that your sweet spot client says that they want, in their words. And on the other side, write down all of your broccoli, so everything you know they need to get there but they don’t know yet. And just seeing them side by side is usually a bit of a light bulb moment, and also a load of content ideas.

And obviously, if you fancy working on this together, come and join me inside Silent Storm, because it’s a big part of the work we do in there when we’re writing our content. And to be honest, I’m usually most of my clients’ sweet spot client, and I also love chocolate, so you know, my head is always full of ideas for you. I’ll pop a link to that in the show notes as usual.

Next time you sit down to write a piece of content, I want you to ask yourself one simple question: am I selling the chocolate or the broccoli? Until then, keep showing up with your quiet confidence so you can make a loud impact. Speak soon.