A YouTube transcript in which George Kao explains why he does not create content primarily to promote upcoming product launches. He frames content as ‘ministry’ aimed at personal growth and service to humanity, describes a three-stage content process (exploration → repurposing → product development), and recommends creating offers periodically based on audience response rather than forcing promotional content.
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Question here about whether I connect my content plan to upcoming launches or existing products, and my answer is no. And I'll tell you why. Because I feel that if I'm. Well, first of all, you have to understand my overall philosophy about content is I see content as ministry content. The. The primary two purposes of content is exploring my experiences and ideas and philosophies and way of expression, experimenting and playing and exploring. So on one hand, it's for my own growth, and on the other hand, it's for humanity. Service to humanity, whoever happens to catch it, if they are blessed by it, if they find some benefit, may they continue on. And whether they ever, ever buy from me. This is important because if, and obviously a third purpose of content, which I try to stay light, light on is, sure, some people who watch my videos or read my blog posts or whatever may one day buy from me. But I notice for me at least, if I hold that third purpose too tightly, I tend to become, you know, less genuine in, in exploring my thoughts and in being of service to someone who may never buy from me. And let's be clear that the more successful your content is, successful in market terms, meaning the more it goes viral and this video was shared by, you know, watched by 10,000 people, or this blog post was shared 50 times, right? The more successful your content is, the lower the conversion rate on that content. Because if a video is seen by 100,000 people or 10,000 people, do you expect those 10,000 people to become your clients? No, of course not. Right? If a video was seen by a hundred people, maybe three out of those hundred will eventually, or maybe 10, maybe 20 of the out of those 100 may eventually become your clients. That makes sense. Seen by 10,000 people, you don't expect the same ratio. It's not going to be 200, 300 people, or what. What is the percentage? Do you see what I mean? So, so this is why having clarity about the purpose of content liberates me, to create authentic content. Because now I know I'm doing it for my growth and for your growth, whether or not a single dime is ever exchanged or you ever become my client or even you, you ever tell me if whether or not you even, like, click like doesn't matter. Okay, Please click like, subscribe and comment below. You notice I don't say that because again, that's attaching it. You know, there's a, there's an attachment there. So back to the question. Usually when you hear of content marketing training, it's like, well, what's your Upcoming launch. All right, then that's the previous month or two. You really should be creating content, you know, educating people about the context of the, why this product is going to be so great and, you know, sharing how great you are about the area of expertise. And I say no, because again, I'm too attached and it's not going to come across as impactfully for my growth and for yours. So now you might say, well, isn't there some kind of overall plan? Yes, there is. The three stages of content. You know, look it up. Three stages of content creation. If my article doesn't come up, you can Google three stages of content creation. George Cowan. My article will come up. The product is the third stage, whereas the exploration is the first stage. The second stage is the repurposing of good content from the first stage. You can read all about that. But so in other words, we don't create product separately from content. I know some of you do. And sometimes you're inspired to create a new product or service based on nothing you've created content on. Okay, it's okay. You could do whatever you want, experiment. I'm all about that. But of course, you don't have the benefit of the fact that you've built trust in your audience and in yourself, grounded trust and confidence in the topic of that product or that service. You don't. So this is why the three stages of content makes so much sense. Because you're exploring, experimenting on stage one, different, a variety of topics, many different things that interest you. Right? You could be as, you know, diverse and those as possible in stage one. And then stage two, you look at what touched the market, what impacted your audience, and you take the most impactful, engaging things and you bring it into stage two and go, all right, let me make this even better. Edit the article, or let me turn the article into a video or video into an article and let me reshare it even more broadly, for example, using Facebook ads, Instagram ads, LinkedIn ads, et cetera. Let me just distribute that good stuff even more. Okay, now stage three is let me take the stage two stuff and let me turn it into a product. I mean, maybe integrate some pieces from stage two into. So therefore, this whole flow is great because over time, you have been educating your audience on the topic that you're now creating a product or service or subscription or what membership, whatever to. Right? So I think, in other words, why do people believe you? Why do people trust you about your life coaching or about your leadership advice or about your healing, or why do People trust you because over time you have built up your own self trust in showing up regularly with content, exploring all these different things and then noticing, oh, they really like it when I talk about healing in this way. Interesting. That's why you have to study the data. Interesting. Let me go and take that idea because that, that did. Well, let me say more about that. Let me create two or three or four more pieces of content around that in service to human and also in service to my own explorations about that way of thinking about healing or that way of looking at leadership. So then by the time you create a product around it, it's very natural flow, like, okay, great. You know, I, I hope at least once a quarter you're creating some kind of offer. Once a quarter is, is not too often, right? Once a quarter you go look at your stage two stuff, you integrate that and go, all right, I know what my next offer is. I know what my next coaching frame is, how I'm going to sell my service now. Because based on all the stage two stuff, this is why it's so important, I think, to create content consistently. Because every single time you. I heard one time from Tim Sanders, I was deeply influenced by his book Love is the Killer App back In, I think 2000 or 99 when I know long, long, long, long time ago, Love is the Killer App by Tim Sanders and he said, I think this is one of his blog posts. He said having a blog is like having a focus group consistently. It's like, it's brilliant because he, he's like a marketing guy as well. He's like, yeah, it's like in other words, translation. Having content out there on a consistent basis is continually understanding your market better and better because you notice what's coming through. Like, oh, this is. They, they really found your way of being in this way really impactful versus that way they didn't find as impactful. So therefore, back to the original question. Should you create content for an upcoming offer? You, you can if you want to. I know a lot of people that's a product launch, very traditional way of launching online products. But to me, it just doesn't have the genuine feel and the genuine sense of childlike exploration that the three stages of content has. So I hope this helps. Like I said, you can always break the rules. Even my rules. I like Rebel. So experiment with what feels right to you in, in the relationship between your content and your offers and, and go with what works for you and for your audience, right?
