Read time: 3 min, 47 secs

Hey there - it's Brian 👋

Are you time starved?

But still want content to get you customers?

Same.

So we’re hiring a content writer.

But, I have one big fear with hiring a content writer…

How do we keep quality?

My content is unique (just like yours is).

I share:
➟ Stories from building the business
➟ Lessons from client work
➟ Personal stories

So how can a writer from LatAm know enough about me, the business, and our niche?

If you’d like someone to write for you, but worried about quality, this issue is for you.

Let’s make your business an outlier: 👇

P.S. this week I moved the “For my friends” section to the end. Read to the end for an update on life and TalentHQ.

(Hint: fired agencies. Hiring sales reps. And got stuck by a strike in Colombia)

5 tips to get your writer creating quality content

I’ve been writing online every day for 2 years.

Actually if you put all these issues into a book that would be 615 pages long!

Here’s 5 tips to help you scale your content and get customers too (even if you haven’t started writing):

1) Your writer owns reach content. You co-own depth content

You’ll need a blend of both reach content and depth.

Reach content is easy for your creator to write. It’s not as technical. So get them to do most of it without you.

Depth content will need more of your attention.

I’ll explain: 👇

Reach content
Things that go viral. It’s slightly broader than your target customer.

Virality does two things:

1) Tells the algo that your account creates good content.
Makes the platform boost your content in the future.

(Every platform is different but this is true for LinkedIn + Twitter.)

2) Gets your profile (& offer) in front of a wide range of people.

If your profile is set up right for conversion it will get some calls / demos / sales.

One way to tell is that 30% of people who view your profile should click “follow.”

Example reach content:
“10 quotes from Richard Branson that change how you think about people”

This type of content will be much easier for them to write on their own.

Depth Content
Things that make your target customer go:
“Oh this person knows what they’re talking about. I trust them”

This type of content is harder to outsource.

It’s content about lessons learned from your lived experiences.

The best way to do it is to have the creator interview you once a week.

They’ll ask you a bunch of questions about you, your business, and lessons you want to share.

They’ll spend the week writing. You get to fit in a few rounds of feedback.

2) Monthly: Idea Roasting 🔥🔥🔥

Your content creator should have content ideas 1 month out.

So good news: you only need to do this once a month.

Your creator needs to share a list of ideas. Pick your favorites. Put them in your calendar.

Ideas = topics + angles.

Here’s an example:

Topic:
5 Myths to bust about hiring in LatAm.

Angles:
➟ Story about a client who faced same issue in US
➟ Quote from Elon Musk on hiring
➟ Stat about LatAm hiring

See how it’s one topic but could be fed through different angles?

Then the hook is the actual words used in the intro to the content.

Review the hook when you give feedback on the actual content. You don’t need to review during the ideation stage.

You’ll want to be more specific than I just was (use an actual story, quote, or stat).

Here’s what my content calendar looks like: 👇

3) Weekly: Content Roasting 🔥🔥🔥

Now we review the actual content.

Spend most of your time on reviewing depth content and the hooks for reach content.

Check for accuracy, insight, and alignment with your brand.

🧔🏻‍♂️ Brian’s nerdy side rant:
Don’t have a brand framework?

Primal branding is my favorite.

It’s just 7 pillars of your brand. Sneak one or two pillars into each post to make sure people who consume your content know what you stand for.

Builds trust and superfans.

4) 🎙️ Weekly Content Interview

How do they actually know what to write for depth content?

🎙️ The content interview

Once a week they’ll interview you about your life, business, and lessons learned from the stories.

Nerd out here. They’ll use this info to write your content.

5) Ethically “Steal” Ideas

I call this my swipe files.

I have a Notion page of Twitter + LinkedIn posts that I love the hook, topic or angle for.

Then use that as a base for ideas to build my own.

Your content creator will be far more effective with their own swipe file.

So do we find content creators?

Last month, a reader from this newsletter asked us for a content creator / writer in LatAm.

So we filtered through 616 LinkedIn applicants in 48 hours (we also had candidates from ads, socials, emails, groups etc).

We interviewed the top 30.

Then, we asked the top applicants to share their portfolio with us and write us 2 newsletter issues.

Your fellow reader was ecstatic with her writer.

She ended up asking for 4 more hires over the next 3 weeks.

How do you find your content creator?

Now, we use multiple channels - ads, influencers, groups, job boards etc.

But if you want to find a creator yourself just start with a job board like LinkedIn.

Boost your LinkedIn job posting to get at least 300 applicants.

(From LinkedIn: usually ~18% of applicants have the background you’re looking for)

Make sure you interview at least 10 people to make sure you find someone who’s good at the job AND a culture fit for your business.

Ask them to write you sample content as a test (pay ~$150 per test to increase the number of people who actually take the test).

If you’d like tips on hiring a creator or want us to find your creator for you, I’m happy to chat.

See you next Thursday 👋

Brian
[email protected]
Twitter
LinkedIn
TalentHQ

P.S. Whenever you’re ready, I can help you find your own creator in LatAm. Let’s chat

For my friends: what’s going on with Brian?

Our inbound leads are great.

But the outbound agencies we hired failed to get us more leads.

So we’re moving our outbound campaigns in-house.

I believe you need both inbound and outbound.

Inbound scales better AND has higher conversion rates (50 - 70% close rates for inbound, 25 - 30% close for outbound).

But outbound is more predictable.

So we expect 3 meetings booked a day with outbound, but when inbound works I’ve had up to 7 calls booked from one LinkedIn post.

We hired a BDR to run our outbound. I’m ecstatic with the quality.

Anyway. On the personal side - I’m still in Medellin. We were going to visit the tallest palm trees in the world, but there’s a strike blocking the roads. Damn.

Off to Buenos Aires next week!

Reply with any tips for Argentina.

See you next Thurs 👋

🙋 Vote: How did we do?