5 Ghostwriting Templates To Write For Silicon Valley Founders, CEOs, Investors (Anyone Can Use!)

What's up, digital writers? My name is Nicholas Cole and today I want to walk through this Twitter thread that I wrote about ghostwriting. A couple years ago, I built a ghostwriting agency. It was me and my best friend. We grew it from both of us on his couch in his apartment, all the way up to 2022 full time employees, several million in revenue, and about 80 clients at any given time, all at the same time. And over the course of two and a half, three years, we ended up working with hundreds and hundreds of different C level executives, startup founders, serial entrepreneurs, New York Times bestsellers, even Grammy winning musicians, Olympic athletes, I mean, speakers like every type of industry leader you could imagine. And the thing that most people don't know about ghostwriting is that the worst way to do it, or the most manual way to do it, is to think of each individual person that you're writing with or writing for as their own individual use case. That's actually not true most of the time. And if you're a writer, you do this with your own writing. When you sit down to write, you're often pulling from templates. You're pulling from previous formats or styles or techniques that have worked for you in the past, and you're just reusing them over and over again because you know that they work. And the content might change, but the format's going to change, it's going to stay the same, or the way you approach, it's going to stay the same. The cadence that you use for the intro is going to stay the same, the outline is going to stay the same. A lot of those underlying things don't change. And so the whole secret with ghostwriting is actually creating these templates where it doesn't really matter who you're writing for or even what industry they're in, the underlying template stays the same. So most people don't know, and this is what this thread was about, and I assume why it went so viral, is because most people don't know that for all of these different people that I ghost wrote for, and in the beginning, I was the one doing all of it, as we scaled and hired more writers and editors, I was the one who was overseeing every one of the pieces. I mean, on any given week, we were writing and publishing probably upwards of 100 different pieces, pieces. And I, and the team that I ended up training would use these same five templates over and over and over again. And so I want to walk through these templates so that you can steal them too, because they're really helpful and it's. It's one of those mental models where once you see them, you realize that the content can change, the story can change, the industry can change, the type of person you're working with can change, but. But the underlying organization of it doesn't change. You know, it's like the. Like the bones of the house, it's not changing. You can change the interior, you can swap out the furniture, but the bones of the house aren't gonna change. So the first template is this. Mistakes and lessons. So as the easy. The easiest way to think about this is every single person. And I was focusing on people in business, but every single person experiences a mistake, and then as a result of that mistake, they take away a lesson. So, simple example, when you're a kid, you put your hand on a hot stove. That's a mistake. What's the takeaway? Don't put your hand on a hot stove. Right. So one of the questions that I would ask, and then when I would go and train the editors that we hired, you know, and they were the ones conducting interviews with the executives or the founders or whoever had hired us for. To help with their writing, when we would do these interviews, one of the questions would be like, what's a mistake that you made building your business? And it's really funny when you ask that question, because some people are really willing to divulge the mistakes. You know, they're very honest with themselves. And other people, they get kind of stuck in PR speak, you know, and they're were so trained to be like, no, I don't make any mistakes. No, of course you do. And a lot of the education that we would do with clients is actually telling them and showing them that if you want people to read your work, if you want to increase engagement, one of the best things you can do is actually talk about the mistakes, right? Because if you're someone who is trying to learn, one of the things that you want to learn is, I don't want to make those same mistakes, right? So we would start with, as you were building your business or as you were writing your book, or as you were making an album or as you were training for the Olympics or as you were pursuing anything. What's a mistake that you made? And once we got past the education phase, they would start to open up and they would share a story, you know, and they'd say, oh, when I was first trying to build my business, you know, one of the first big mistakes that I made was, you know, I gave too much equity to Our. Our VP of engineering, you know, and you're like, okay, interesting. So mistake, you know, and then you frame it for the reader. Mistake. Don't give too much equity to your VP of engineering. Right? Because I made this mistake. Little personal story, okay? And then the second half is. And so what's the lesson? Right? Well, and then in this case, you know, if you're the founder that's sharing this, the founder might say something like. And the lesson, what I learned is before you go make a hire like that, before you hire someone above this certain level, someone that's going to be more in a managerial position, you want to make sure to have this sort of conversation. You want to interview them with these questions. You know, you want to put some of these checks and balances in place to make sure you're hiring the right person, Right? So now what is the reader getting out of this? The reader is getting. You told me about a mistake. I now know to look for that mistake in my own career. So thank you for pointing it out to me. And you're giving me the lesson and the takeaway, which not only helps me avoid the mistake, but now I have a framework moving forward, I know what to look for. You're letting me live on the other side of the mistake without me having to actually experience it. Super high value, right? So if you think about this as a template, I could go to any person in any industry and just go, tell me about a mistake that you made and tell me the lesson, tell me the takeaway, and you could just reuse this over and over and over again, right? And every person's story is going to be different. Every person's mistake going to be different. Every person's lesson is going to be different. Every person's industry is going to be different, but the underlying template of it doesn't change. So super powerful. That's template number one. The second template is this idea of people having their own frameworks. So a framework is really just saying, here's how I do something. And I've reverse engineered it into a set of steps. I've reverse engineered it into a set of decisions. And so when you give someone a framework, the reason this is so powerful is because it feels like you're giving them something tangible, right? You're not just giving them a bunch of information. When you give them a framework, it feels like you're giving them a box. Like, you know, when you order an Apple product and you pull the thing off the top and it makes that suction sound, you know, right? You, you feel like you're getting something special. That's what a framework is. And so that's why it's so helpful for readers. When you say I'm giving you a framework, it feels like they're being given a cohesive full object that they can put in their pocket and take with them on their journey. So what is a framework? A framework is literally just you want to do X, here's how in a set of steps, or here's how in a set of decisions, or here's how in a set of circumstances, choices, whatever, right? It's like a bunch of if then statements. If you do this, then this. If you do this, then this. So a really great framework for sharing frameworks is this little outline right here. You name the problem. So this is what you're struggling with. Slash. This is what's keeping you from accomplishing or achieving or getting whatever it is that you want. The outcome, then the meat of it, right, is the actionable steps. So how do you overcome that problem? Step one, you do this. Step two, you do this. Step three, you do this, and so on and so on, however many steps it takes. And then at the end you celebrate the outcome. So you go, great, now you're on the other side. That's amazing news. Here's all the benefits that are going to come right now that you've overcome this thing. Here's what else you can expect to unlock in your life. So if you just take this little outline as a template, this thing is going to be the exact same for anyone that you work with. It doesn't matter the industry, doesn't matter what they do, doesn't matter what their skill is, doesn't matter their job title, right? It's like, what's your framework? You could even go to your mom and go, what's your framework for being a parent? What was your framework for changing my diaper when I was a kid? Right? What's your framework for getting your screaming child into a car seat in a minivan? Right? Well, okay, step one, you put them in the car seat. Step two, you use your elbow and you hold him down and you grab, grab the other, you use your other hand, grab the seat belt. Step three, you click it in. Step four, you get in the front seat and you take a sip of your coffee and you just let your child scream. Step five, you drive home, right? Like anything can be reverse engineered into a framework. And so all you have to do is name the problem, pinpoint the actionable steps, solve the outcome. Congratulations, you Got your kid home, you got a store, amazing job, right? Next time you can do X, Y, Z. That's all it is. Okay? Template number three is the future. So here's the interesting thing, and I noticed this after I've got written thousands of articles. To be honest, if you read anything in the business world, chances are you've probably read something that I wrote. My name probably wasn't on it, but you read it. And so the thing is, one of the pieces of content that is most likely to perform well is what I like to call futurism content. And futurism content is basically just you look at what's happening in the world today and you start making some predictions about where it's going to go. And the best part about future content is that you don't have to be right. You can literally on where you believe the world is going to go. And by the time the world becomes that way or doesn't become that way, pretty much everyone forgot you made the prediction in the first place. But in the moment, we all want to read about what people think is going to happen, right? So for example, because my category is digital writing, I write about digital writing. I educate other writers on how they can start writing on the Internet. One of the big things that I like to write about is where the digital writing world is going to, because I can start to look at, well, here's where we were, here's the innovation that's happening now. Based on what I've seen and what I've experienced, this is what I think is gonna happen. So you're just kind of playing it out now. You can do that for every single industry. You can do that for E commerce, you can do that for health and wellness, you can do that for spirituality. You can just go down the list. It doesn't really matter what the industry is. All you're doing is taking the data points of today. Sometimes you can pull on some recent studies, some data points, even just things that you're noticing other companies do. You're noticing shifts in behavior, you're noticing the way that things are changing around how people are communicating in your industry. It could be anything. And all you're doing is just looking forward the future and saying, this is what I think is going to play out. So as I put here to position yourself as an authority on, all you really have to do is speculate, where's the future of your industry headed? What's your thesis? Right. Why do you believe that? And then cite some examples. They could be really formal Studies. Or they could literally just be examples. Hey, look at how these couple pieces of content recently went viral. I think that's signaling something. So that's what's cool about this template is all you're doing is you're taking your industry and playing it forward. Okay, now let's go to the fourth one, category point of view. Okay, so this is a little similar to futurism content, except it's less about predicting the future, and it's more about moving people's thinking out of where it's been in the past. Okay, so category thinking is basically saying, here's the way the world has been and here's the way the world is or is going to be. And your job as a writer is to move people's thinking from where it is or where it has been to where it is or where it is going to be. And so, for example, I do this in the digital writing category. A lot of writers still believe that the measure for success is getting a book deal. Their thinking is rooted in a Hemingway model. I am only a successful writer if I get a book deal, if I have a major publisher. And so for me, template, my job is to educate them on this new category called digital writing. Digital writing is you have total ownership over your work. You don't need a major publisher. You are in full control. You can monetize in 12 other plus ways besides selling books. There's all of these things that make digital writing very different than legacy writing. They're two different categories. And so my job is to move writers thinking from legacy category. I need a book deal to new digital writing category. Wait, I can republish and monetize my work 12 different ways, all of which are on the Internet, all of which I own myself. I actually don't need anyone else. And this thinking exists in every industry. It exists in every niche, right? Because the world was one way until someone came along and made it a different way. So as a template, this is. What's. This is a really easy outline to use. You first, you share what's wrong with the old category. Here's how life used to be, right? Or here's how people are still stuck in the past. Then you name the new category, right? There's legacy writing, and there's digital writing. Okay? There's gasoline cars, there's electric cars, right? So you name the old category and you name the new category, and then you start describing all the outcomes, right? What's different about the new category? If someone leaves the old world and moves into the New world? How is their life different? What problems do they no longer have? What new benefits do they unlock? What different outcomes do they experience? How is their life fundamentally different? And if you do this, this template isn't just a content template. I mean, this is how legendary web copy, legendary sales pages, legendary newsletters like this is. One of the most powerful writing mechanisms is learning how to meet people where they are and move their thinking from where it's been to somewhere new. If you can do that, you possess an extremely high leverage skill as a writer. And then finally, this is maybe a personal favorite of mine, is the myths template. So the myths template is basically you pulling back the curtain and saying, I have some insider information. This is what most people get wrong about this industry. So you're kind of showing up to the party and you're like, hey, everyone thinks this. Let me tell you, things are not what they seem. So an example how I did this was I wrote, I had a column with Inc. Magazine for about two and a half years. And during that whole time, for about two and a half years, I was one of their most read columnists. I brought in millions and millions of page views for Inc. Magazine. And what was interesting is when I had my column, I would get tons of messages and questions from people saying, how do I get a column 2? And when I would talk with people, they all had these assumptions of what they thought happened. They were like, oh, if I get a column, I can write about whatever I want. I learned that was false. Inc Told me basically what I had to write, what vertical I had to stay in. You know, they think, oh, if I get one piece in a major publication, I'm going to get millions of views. No, for me to bring in millions of views, I had to write basically an article a day at every day for two and a half years. I mean, it was relentless output. So if you think that just one article in a major publication is going to get you millions of views, that's just not true. You know, people think, oh, if I get an article in a major publication online, it also gets printed in their print. Their print magazine too. No, that's not true at all. Their print magazines completely different than their digital. So I. I started to become aware that there were all of these myths surrounding this thing that I had personal experience doing. And so over and over again, I would have to have these conversations with people being like, no, what you think is not actually true. That is not what's going on. So it took me a while, but I ended up realizing Oh, I have some insider information, right. So what is insider information? It's just you experiencing something more than the average person. So this is the framework. This is the template. You tell people what do most people think, but get wrong. So when I would write about this, I would basically list out all of those same things. I'd be like, the average person thinks, if you get a piece in a major publication, it gets millions of views. The average person thinks, oh, if I get a piece in a major publication, I'm also going to get republished in their print magazine. No, that's false. Right. I would just list out all of these myths and then I would go into, well, and here's why they're wrong. Here's what you need to understand. Here's what most people don't understand about what's happening. So I would break down, you know, here's how much I'm actually writing to bring in millions of views. Every time I want to write a piece. Here's the approval process I have to go through, right? I would explain, I'd pull back the curtain and I would explain, here's what's actually going on. And then the last part is, and so what do you do with this knowledge? And where I ended up landing was me actually saying, you don't want a column with a major publication. And after two and a half years, I stopped writing for Inc. Because I was getting 10 times, 50 times, 100 times more exposure writing on Quora and Twitter and LinkedIn than I was writing on Inc magazine. So I would write about these myths, and then I would try and steer people down a different road. And I'd go, hey, this is not what you think it is. A column with ink, a column with Forbes, a column with Fortune, like, that is not going to get you what you think you want. Instead, you should go this direction. So you think about, why is this so powerful? Because when someone's starting on their journey, it doesn't matter if they're a beginner, if they've been at it for a while, or even if they're a total expert. We're always trying to figure out what is the next path that I need to take in order to achieve something. And one of the big benefits of writing about myths is you're earning trust with readers by saying, hey, trust me, I took that left back there. Didn't take me where I thought it was going to take me, right? So what does the reader feel? The reader feels like, wow, you just saved me a whole ton of time because I was Going to take that left. And I'm really glad that now I know that it doesn't go, doesn't lead where I want to lead, you know, so that's, that's the whole point is you're building trust with readers by saying, I did it, I went through it. Let me save you the time, Let me save you the effort. Let me save you the money. Don't do that, do this instead. And so, again, doesn't matter. The industry doesn't matter. The person doesn't matter what you're writing about. Anyone can write about myths. Everyone has that sort of quote, unquote, insider information of something they've experienced. And it could be something as simple as, like, I hired a personal trainer in this city for six weeks and here's what I thought was going to happen, but really, here's what actually happened, right? Everyone has insider information. And so the reason I wanted to go through this thread, aside from the fact that obviously, you know, it went very viral, and I think more and more writers are starting to realize that ghostwriting is very lucrative. You know, I mean, this, this was my introduction to working for myself. I fell into it. I ended up building. Aside from the fact that obviously, you know, it went very viral. And I think more and more writers are starting to realize that ghostwriting is very lucrative. You know, I mean, this, this was my introduction to working for myself. I fell into it. I ended up building a company, a ghostwriting company around it. But, but more and more people need help with their writing, and the stigma of using a ghostwriter is going away. You know, there's no stigma around hiring a videographer because you want to make videos, right? No one would expect you to do that yourself. You're not a videographer. Right? So you hire someone. Well, the same is true for writing. Not everyone is a proficient writer. And if they, even if they are a proficient writer, they don't have the time to write. They want outside help. They want someone to help make their thinking better. They want someone to take their thinking and refine it. And so these templates, I think, are really helpful ways of cutting through all of the unnecessary noise and just pinpointing. This is the goal. This is the goal of our conversation. This is the goal of the thing that we're writing. If we are successful at this, readers are going to find value. If readers find value, they are going to trust you. They're going to see you as an authority over and over and over again. So, wanted to break this down. If this is helpful, let me know, I want to spend a lot more time talking about ghostwriting. I'm very passionate about it. I still do it in very, very small amounts, but I've spent years as a ghostwriter, and I learned a lot. And I think more and more freelance writers would benefit from moving out of freelance writing and getting into ghost writing.