Ep #217: 7 Reasons Why You Should Be a Content Creator

Hi docs, welcome to The EntreMD Podcast, where it’s all about helping amazing physicians just like you embrace entrepreneurship so you can have the freedom to live life and practice medicine on your terms. I’m your host, Dr. Una.

Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to another episode of The EntreMD Podcast. Super pumped I get to be in your ears today. And today we’re going to talk about one of my favorite things, and that is the topic of content creation. Okay?

Now, I want to start off by reading a review of The EntreMD Method book. This is from Emerald and it has those beautiful five stars that I love. It says, “A must read for all physicians. Whether you are happily practicing in private practice or dreaming of launching your side gig, Dr. Una has provided the framework for your success. Embrace your brand, own your space in medicine. I only wish I’d read this book years ago.”

Thank you so much, Emerald, for that amazing review. I truly appreciate it, it does help us get the word out there. And yes, I wish I had known these things years ago and that is exactly why I wrote the book. So if you’re listening to this and you haven’t got your copy yet, entremd.com/book, go get your copy.

And if you have but you’re like, “Man, I wish I knew about this years ago,” I want to challenge you to do what I did. I went back to my residency program, I’m like, listen, how many residents are there in the pediatric program? They’re like 32. I sent them 32 books. And that way I don’t have to go like, I wish I knew. Because now I’m paying it forward and I’m making it happen for other people. So thank you again, Emerald, for that. And if you haven’t written us a review, please do it. It really does help us get the word out there.

All right, today we’re going to talk about fun stuff, content creation. And I know, content creation does sometimes seem like it’s a lot of work. Sometimes you wonder if you’re getting a return on your investment. And sometimes you’re like, can’t I build a business without it? And the answer is, of course, you can build a business without it, but the return on investment of it is so huge, so huge.

And I want to talk to you about seven reasons why you should be a content creator. Now, there are podcast episodes on creating your content calendar, your three month content calendar in less than 60 minutes. We talk about how to start a blog, why you should start a blog, YouTube channel, or a podcast. We have all of those and we’ll link to those in the show notes so you can check those out. But today I’m going to be talking about seven reasons why you should be a content creator. Okay?

Now, when I talk about content creation, I don’t necessarily mean social media. And the reason I say that is because you don’t really own that platform, one algorithm can change everything. And you want to have a place where you can house your things. Okay, you can house your content, those are business assets. And so I am referring to a podcast, a YouTube channel, or a blog.

Now, having said that, there’s nothing wrong with social media, I’m on social media. We want to leverage the tools that we’ve been given, but you want to have something that’s more searchable, that you’re more in control of and things like that, okay? So I’m referring to a podcast, YouTube channel, or a blog. So here are the seven reasons.

Number one, number one is credibility, okay? There is a difference between you the entrepreneur and you the entrepreneur who owns a successful podcast, or YouTube channel, or blog. It just elevates your brand, the end, okay? You have a podcast, it’s a big deal. You have a YouTube channel or a blog, it’s a big deal.

And sometimes, if you’ve been around content creators for a long time, you feel like well there’s nothing special about that. But think about it, if I can use the statistics from the podcasting world, there are so many podcasts that never make it beyond the seventh episode, right? There are so many of them. And so, you’re on episode 23, 50, 100, 200, that is not a normal thing, okay? And that’s something that you should be proud of.

And the mortality rate of podcasts is about 50%. Right, so 50% of the people start, don’t continue. And so it’s not an easy thing to do and you should be proud of the work that you do. But understand that it gives you credibility. Hi, everybody. My name is Dr. Una, I am the founder of EntreMD, I’m the host of the top 100 podcast called EntreMD. We have over 220,000 downloads. You see, that’s different from I’m an entrepreneur, it gives you credibility, the end.

All right, so that’s one. Two, it is the foundation for endless content. Like when you start creating content, you are creating a foundation that makes sure you never run out of content. So let me give you an example, in the EntreMD Business School we did a challenge and it was called the 30 in 30 challenge and they had to do 30 videos in 30 days. And the videos could be as short as 60 seconds, right?

And I encouraged short videos because there is a principle, like if you have a lot of time to speak, you speak well. But if you have a shorter time to speak, you speak so much better, right? It’s kind of like if you’re tweeting, you don’t have a lot of characters so you learn how to pack a punch in 140 characters. So it was like 60 seconds.

Now, this was one of the hacks that I gave them. I said listen, if you already have content, so let’s say you have a podcast, you can literally go to your podcast, look for the most downloaded episodes, because that’s the marketplace, that’s your audience telling you these are the kinds of things we like to listen to. Okay? You can find all of those and then for those videos, you’re literally just making videos based on that.

So do you have to go figure out brand new content and all that? I mean, you could, but you see, now you have something to build on. You see what I’m saying? You have something to build on. So I can just pull like the top 30 most downloaded episodes and all of that, pull them and just do 60 second videos based on that topic. And I can use the same topic as I used for the podcast episode. And it has the same resonance and people are listening and downloading, it’s what they want anyway. They ask follow-up questions and I get more content. You see what I’m saying?

So it becomes the foundation for endless content. Now, that’s if I want to repurpose it in that way. Well, what if I had a team? They could take podcast episodes and turn them into social media posts, they can turn them into blogs, they can use it to do TikTok videos, they can use it to do reels, they can use it to do all kinds of stuff. They can make worksheets, they can make lead magnets, all kinds of stuff, right? So it can be repurposed one gazillion ways.

So when you create a body of work, it becomes the foundation for literally endless content, okay? Now I gave the example of if you wanted to create more videos, but it’s the same if you want to do Facebook Lives, you want to do joint ventures, all of that. I mean, this is your body of work, okay? So how do you get endless content? By creating content. Just start the process, start with what you know. Right?

Okay, beautiful. Number three, it helps you clarify your message. And this is so powerful because a lot of times people are like, “I’m not sure what my audience wants. I’m not sure if the way I’m saying it, if it’s resonating.” One of the ways to get clarity is to start talking, right? The clarity doesn’t come from thinking about it more. The clarity comes from having conversations with your audience, okay?

Your audience knows whether your message resonates or not. And the thing about talking is that the more you talk, the clearer it becomes. I’m sure you’ve had this thing happened to you where you’re talking and you’re like, “Wow, that’s good. I should write that down.” Right?

If you are speaking, or you’re doing YouTube videos, or you’re doing a blog, the more you do it, the clearer you get, the more you’re able to say what you want to say. Because your message is in you, in a way it is walking around with you, but you’re not clear on what it is. You’re not fully clear, but the more you talk, the clearer it becomes, okay?

Why is this important? Because there’s so much noise, so much noise in the world, okay? Think about social media, a lot of noise. YouTube, a lot of noise. There’s so much noise. Your message is like the axe that cuts through the noise. That’s what your message is, it’s like the axe. And so the sharper it is, the sharper it is the better you will be able to cut through the noise and get to your ideal clients or your ideal audience, okay? So it helps you clarify your message.

Number four, when you become a content creator, you become discoverable. Okay, people need to Google stuff and find you. They need to Google stuff and find your stuff. And many of you, this would have happened to you, where you Googled for something, you found a blog or you found a YouTube video on it, you watched it, and then you watched some more and then you decided, “Man, I need to work with this person.” You bought their stuff, right?

And so where did it start from? Becoming discoverable. Okay, so you produce content, people can find you. If you produce content, there’ s stuff for people to share so more people can find you, all right? Now remember, the biggest problem every business has, well, most businesses have is obscurity. The people who would love to work with you and pay you to work with you have no idea you exist, okay? And so you produce content, you set yourself up to become discoverable so they can work with you. All right?

So that’s number four. Number five, you become bingeable. Now this right here, I mean, this alone is a reason to really become great at being a content creator, okay? You become bingeable. We live in a binge economy, okay? A lot of people will not watch shows that are live because they do not want to wait to watch an episode every week, okay?

They wait till it gets on Netflix and they sit in one weekend and do all of it. That’s the economy that we live in. Okay? We live in a binge economy, please understand this. Now, when you create content, you make it possible for people to binge on your stuff. Okay?

I cannot tell you how many people binge on The EntreMD Podcast. Maybe you did when you first found it, and if you did, let me know. Right? Let me know so I can shout you out. But after we had hit about 50 episodes I started getting people telling me things like, I’m almost done. I’m like, almost done with what? I’m almost done with your podcast, I started from episode one and I have about seven to go.

So what they started doing is they start from episode one, now we’re at episode I don’t know, we’re over 200. So some people start in the middle and work both ways. But they start from episode one and keep at it until they get to, you know, until they get caught up.

And then what was happening is people would listen, and listen, and listen, and they would make the decision that, you know what? This content is working for me, I am getting wins from this content. I mean, this is the free stuff, right? So imagine what the paid stuff is like. And I want to be in that community, I want to be live with Dr. Una the rest of the business school every week. And I want that accountability, I want to do the challenges that I hear her talk about. I want to be in the business school. And they sign up, right?

And so when you make your content bingeable, what you’re doing is you are giving the people who would be a perfect match for you and you for them, you’re giving them the opportunity to make the decision to work with you. Right? Giving them the opportunity to make that decision. It grows your know, like, and trust factor like crazy, right? And so this is something that you want to do so you can become bingeable. Right? And the more bingeable you are, the better it is for your business. Okay? So that’s number five.

Number six, it opens other doors of opportunity. Like when I say that, I mean things that were probably not even on your radar, but it opens those doors. So for instance, you do a podcast. Well, if you do a podcast, someone who’s an event organizer listens to a few episodes, they’re like, well, this person can you know, speak well. The topic is what we would want to hear about. In fact, this particular topic on this episode, I think that would be great if he or she could do a deeper dive in that. So it opens the doors to speaking gigs. Okay? It opens the doors to speaking gigs.

Say you have a blog and someone is like, yeah, the audience that this person’s blog reaches, that’s who we’re trying to reach. I wonder if she would be willing to be the spokesperson or a brand ambassador for our product, right? And it may be something that you didn’t have on your radar, okay? But now that’s what they want.

I had a client, Dr. Toomer, she’s talked about it on the podcast, where hers was a Facebook Live that somebody had seen and said, “Hey, you want to do a TED Talk?” Right? And so it opens doors like that. It opens doors to be on boards, opens doors to be paid medical advisory positions and stuff like that. There’s so many students in the EntreMD Business School who have had opportunities like that, all kinds of collaboration.

So if you’re seen, then you can attract more opportunity. And one of the best ways to set yourself up to be seen is to become a content creator. Okay, so that’s number six. And the thing about that is, you never know what it will be. That’s the beautiful piece of it. Okay? All right.

Number seven. Number seven is you get thought leader status, okay? Now, who’s a thought leader? Well, according to the dictionary, a person whose views on a subject are taken to be authoritative and influential, okay? You get thought leader status.

Now, if you think about it, thought leader is thought, you have to put your thoughts everywhere. That’s all content creation is about, is you downloading your thoughts and putting it in a way that other people can consume it, right? Now, the requirement for this, though, is that you have to be the person who is disciplined in content creation.

What that means is that you talk to your ideal audience, your ideal clients all the time. And you talk about the problem they have that you solve. For instance, on The EntreMD Podcast I talk to physicians who are entrepreneurs. You may want to start your business, or you may be looking to scale your business, right? That’s who I talk to.

And because I have been disciplined over more than 200 episodes to talk to that person, then I can be known for that, right? If I’m random and you can never predict what I’ll talk about, then I can’t get thought leader status, right? Because I have to sit on something.

So maybe your thing is weight loss, or maybe your thing is meditation, or you’re like Dr. Michelle Quirk and you’re a run coach, right? Or you run a private practice and like Dr. Karen, you’re an allergist, right? You talk about what you do. The discipline of doing that year in and year out is what will, over time, put you in thought leader status, okay?

So the prerequisite for that is discipline. We talk about it a lot on the podcast, we talk about focus and all of that. It’s discipline. But if you do that and you promote your stuff and you do all that, it brings you to this position where you are the go-to, okay? When somebody asks a question, say in a Facebook group, you get tagged. Or if somebody says, “I’m dealing with this problem,” they say, let me connect you with this person. This is the person you need to talk to. Thought leader status.

If there’s an event that needs to happen and that is the topic, you get invited, right? Thought leader status. So think about it, if you’re a content creator, yes, it will take time. Yes, you do it consistently, sometimes you won’t be in the mood. But it will give you credibility, it gives you a foundation for endless content, it helps you clarify your message, it helps you become discoverable, become bingeable. It opens other doors of opportunities, and it gives you thought leader status. What’s there not to love, right?

And so I want to invite you and challenge you to either start or level up on your content creation, okay? Start or level up. Whether that’s a YouTube channel, whether that’s a blog, whether it’s a podcast, own it, right? Own it, do it, treat it like it’s your legacy, your body of work that will change the world, your body of work that you leave behind when you’re gone and it will be the gift that keeps giving.

Treat it that way. Treat it as your pathway to credibility, your pathway to endless content, your pathway to clarifying your message, having a razor sharp message, your pathway to becoming discoverable, bingeable. Treat it like this thing that I put out there that opens up doors of opportunity really wide for me and it makes me a thought leader. Treat your content that way.

Every time you go to produce a video, you got to produce a podcast episode, treat it that way. Understand what you’re doing. Do it on purpose. Do it intentionally, do it big, do it well, okay? Give it your best shot. All right? Because it is no secret that I love physicians. And it is no secret that I’d love to see us as the leaders in health care, inside and outside the exam room, right?

What is one of the ways we do that? Content creation. It doesn’t matter if you’re an employed physician, or if you’re a private practice, or a coach, or a different kind of service, or you do a product, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. You can become category of one there. And one of the things you have to do to do that is become a pro at content creation.

Now when I say become a pro, I’m not talking about starting off with the best equipment and starting off building out your own studio starting out. You may even go like I still have ums and all these things. Yes, I still have ums, okay? I still have ums. Now, I’m not talking about that.

I’m talking about being excellent, which means doing the best with what you have right now and applying the 1% principle. Every time you do it, do it 1% better. That’s all. Start from where you are right now. Do the best you can right now, and every time you do it get 1% better. Okay?

All right. Now, I do want you to share this episode with the doctors in your life. Why? Because as a physician community, imagine if our voices were all amplified. Imagine that, imagine a new level of credibility, being discoverable. Think of all the opportunities we could create for ourselves as a community. Think of us being the thought leaders. This is the pathway to get there.

So take this episode, share it with another doctor in your life and tell them, “Listen, you have to listen to this. And let’s do this together.” Okay? And I will see you, my friend, on the next episode of The EntreMD Podcast.

Hey, if you love listening to The EntreMD Podcast, I want to invite you to join EntreMD On Demand. It is my signature subscription program that gives you access to a library of business courses designed to help you do one thing as a physician entrepreneur, and that is to thrive. Just head out to entremd.com/ondemand and I’d love to have you join us. See you on the inside.