TSS #023: 5 Questions for Endless Content

Read Time: 4 minutes

In today's issue, I'm going to show you one way to create 5 pieces of content from 1 idea.

If you can learn to implement this technique, you'll immediately see a few benefits:

• More content

• Faster content

• More diversified content

• Content that makes sense together

By following this 5-question process, you're more likely to stay consistent and on message.

Unfortunately, most people don't have a system for squeezing out different content from one idea. Because of that, they talk about several ideas and confuse their readers.

They end up saying 1,000 different things, 1 way. You want the opposite.

Learn to say 1 thing 1,000 different ways.

The best creators on the internet are able to take their content and push it through a number of different lenses to make everything seem "new".

Today, I'll show you an exercise that you can go through by asking yourself 5 different questions:

• What can I teach someone?

• What did I observe during the journey?

• How is this different than what others say?

• What tools or lessons can I share in list form?

• Why did all of this happen?

I'm going to show you how I wrote 5 Tweets in two days, all based on one idea, and then published them over the course of 7 months.

Let's dive in.

Question 1: What can I teach someone?

My favorite content is educational.

People love to learn how to tactically do something they've always wanted to do.

Many people come to me and ask, "How did you build out your business over the last 3 years?"

So, I started by writing my flagship Tweet thread, which breaks down how I did it over 14 steps.

Last week my little one-person business crossed $1.3M in revenue.

It took 810 days, I ran zero paid ads and operate at a ~98% margin.

Here are the 14 steps of my strange journey:

Hope it's helpful to someone.

[🧵 thread]

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) October 26, 2021

Question 2: What did I observe during the journey?

After writing "step-by-step" content, I like to think through all of the interesting observations I've made during that journey.

One observation I had was that a lot of solopreneurs were attempting to build online courses before they even worked with clients.

So, I decided to share an observation about how I believe it's better to build a service business first. So, next came this Tweet:

Counterintuitive observation:

Building a service business is a great way to eventually build a product business.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) December 6, 2021

Question 3: How is this different than what others say?

Observations are one thing, but presenting a contrarian viewpoint is another way to stand out.

This is often called creating "non-obvious" content.

Most content that you read online is super obvious. "Sales is hard", "Networking is good", "Treat people nicely", etc., etc., etc.

If you want to stand out, try bringing a contrarian viewpoint to the table. And to do so, you don't need to say "unpopular opinion". You can just state your viewpoint.

One of the most common pieces of advice is to go "all-in" on your business. To not have a "plan B". I flip this because it's what I believe in:

Treat your career like a VC.

Build a portfolio of revenue streams, knowing one will hit big.

The diversified entrepreneur.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) March 21, 2022

 Question 4: What tools or lessons can I share in list form?

Sure, building my business past $1.3M was an interesting story, but what were some things related to that build, that I could list out for my audience?

The first thing I thought of was the different tools I use to support my business.

And since the first Tweet thread did well, I used a similar opening Tweet but listed the tools instead.

Then I updated the revenue number before publishing.

I’ve done $2M in income in 2.5 years as a solopreneur.

And I didn't write a single line of code.

My 14 "must use" no-code tools:

[🧵 thread]

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) April 19, 2022

Question 5: Why did all of this happen?

The last question I ask myself is not how I did it, what tools I used, or what I observed, but...WHY did this all happen?

The answer for me is a pretty simple one: I started writing online.

That led to another really simple, short Tweet thread about how I write online.

I made $0 online in 2019.

3 years later:

- 100M+ impressions
- $1.7M in online income
- 4 successful revenue streams

What changed?

I started writing online every day.

Here's my simple 4-step process.

[Short 🧵]

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) January 26, 2022

And that's it.

TL;DR

5 questions to ask yourself around 1 idea:

1. What can I teach someone?

2. What did I observe during the journey?

3. How is this different than what others say?

4. What tools or lessons can I share in list form?

5. Why did all of this happen?

If you want to set up a content system that consistently and predictably produces 1 newsletter and 6-12 pieces of unique content each week, then join 2,500 other students in my course, The Content Operating System.

Whenever you're ready, there are 2 ways I can help you:

1. If you want to build an online business, your best bet is to start by building an audience. Here's how:

→ The LinkedIn Operating System: The exact system I use to go from zero to 325k+ followers and $3M+ in income with no paid ads.

→ The Content Operating System: A multi-step system for creating a high-quality newsletter and 6-12 pieces of high-performance social media content each week.

2. Promote yourself to 61,000+ subscribers by sponsoring this newsletter (Booking into April 2023)