Escaping the Content Hamster Wheel: The Idea Impact Matrix (Part 2)
This is Part 2 of a series on how to craft higher-value, more original content — without magically adding more resources. Find Part 1 here. It’s the introduction to the visual framework, the Idea Impact Matrix.
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The best way to describe the genius of Michelle Warner is with a smile, a wink, and a quick, "if you know, you know."
Michelle is one of those "secret weapon" types for entrepreneurs and executives who, like me, earn a living by selling higher-ticket things, like 1:1 or 1:team services, premium education, and memberships for discerning professionals. To do those things well, you need to focus on relationships much more than traffic.
But that's not the way most people think about marketing. That means Michelle is in the business of helping many people (including me, frankly) un-learn some things first. She appears on other people's podcasts (including mine), writes a newsletter, and hosts roundtables to talk strategy -- all for free to build relationships for her own high-ticket business. (As she says on her site, "I'll design you a tiny company that's built to last and teach you how to build the relationships that will power it.")
But not all of her content was effective. Not at first.
At first, Michelle Warner -- that "secret weapon" who needs no introduction -- very much seemed like the kind of marketer who needed to constantly explain who she was. Because if you removed her name and logo from her content, it could have come from pretty much anyone.
For instance, I found an old article of hers talking about relationships. She opened the piece like this:
"I talk a lot about intentionally building relationships and connection and..."
Blah.
Anyone could say it. Anyone could offer it. The article felt like a commodity. Low on value. Low on originality. Michelle was stuck in the commodity cage:
When we feel stuck there and we're not seeing the results we want, it's tempting to think, "We need to REACH more people."
This never made sense to me. We can all reach SOME people immediately -- some of whom even like and trust us already. If those people who already like and trust us are signaling to us that the work isn't working, why the heck do we automatically thinking, "Well, shoot: I better put this in front of way more people!"
We think we have a reach problem, when far more often, we have a resonance problem.
Reach is how many see it.
Resonance is how much they care.
Resonance is the urge to act that people feel when a message or moment with us aligns so closely with their own lived experiences, they feel amplified.
We resonate, they care.
They care, they act.
No resonance, no action.
No action, no results.
So when we want more results, instead of thinking, "reach more," we might find more success thinking, "resonate deeper."
That's exactly what Michelle has learned to do.
Today, Michelle doesn't write generic posts anybody could write. She doesn't create commodity content. Instead, she's having a higher impact (that is, creating things that are more valuable + more original). She's running free in the field of favorites:
For example, I recently received her newsletter in which the opening line sounded a lot less like a commodity and a lot more like, well ... Michelle.
Here's how the piece begins:
Pop Quiz: What’s the first thing you should do when you’re sitting on your couch late on a Saturday night and out of nowhere a bat flies over your head?
Answer: Not what I did.
What did I do?
I googled (obviously).
I was freaking out and looking for strategies to get it out of the house NOW.
But the advice was mixed.
She goes on to describe her harrowing adventure trying to get this bat out of the house using the expertise found online, none of which aligned, all of which was presented as "correct."
Later, she reveals why she's telling a personal story about a bat in her home in a newsletter focused on relationships, marketing, and entrepreneurship:
The next morning, when I could think more clearly, I realized I’d fallen into my own trap: I chased strategy, demanded immediate results, instead of prioritizing sequence.
I worried more about what to do instead of focusing on what order to do things. Which is always the wrong choice. You want to think sequence over strategy, NOT strategy over sequence.
Sequence first. Always.
It was a far more valuable, far more original way to say something she could have said in predictable, forgettable fashion.
I asked Michelle how that email performed, and without hesitating, she said, "It was my best-performing email in months."
+600% in replies compared to the average email
+150% in qualified leads for Michelle
All with the same constraints as before (500-word post to teach something practical and speak to prospects and clients)
Michelle even sent me some of the replies -- all of them, passionate outpourings of support for Michelle's ideas and interest in her services. One woman even said "thank you" FIVE times in just six sentences. She even said the email was "resonant."
Michelle knows how to resonate deeper to see better results. She has escaped the commodity cage. How can we do the same?
My friend, I think it's really simple -- and for that reason, it has me geek-level excited. Because we don't need to magically find more time or budget. We don't need to overhaul our entire strategy or convince anyone (or ourselves) to focus on a new goal.
Escaping the commodity cage to produce work that is both more valuable and more original can start in a simple place:
Tell small stories with big meaning.
We're surrounded by tiny moments and lived experiences every single day that could be used to craft powerful stories, metaphors, allegories -- and the lessons derived from each. In the hands of an effective storyteller, everything is inspiration.
Think of it this way: both A.I. and humans are powered by LLMs.
A.I. is informed by large language models.
YOU are informed by little life moments.
(I know, I'm proud of me too.)
The issue is, most humans do not actively draw upon their LLM, so they get trapped in the commodity cage, saying things and sharing expertise that feels remarkably similar to everyone else like them, because they're not using the one thing that makes them DIFFERENT from everyone else.
Not Michelle. She draws confidently and consistently from her little life moments -- like a bat getting stuck in her home.
Although she may not have proactively considered it, Michelle used a powerful-if-hidden storytelling framework to share that small story and arrive at big meaning -- thus escaping the commodity cage.
Here's the framework:
"This happened..." (share a personal memory or moment)
"Which made me realize..." (an idea sparked by that)
"That's the thing about..." (your topic >> your insight)
Let's overlay this template onto Michelle's bat story.
["This happened..."]
Pop Quiz: What’s the first thing you should do when you’re sitting on your couch late on a Saturday night and out of nowhere a bat flies over your head?
Answer: Not what I did.
What did I do?
I googled (obviously).
I was freaking out and looking for strategies to get it out of the house NOW.
But the advice was mixed.
...and she continues to tell us what happened.
Then, later in the piece:
["Which made me realize..."]
The next morning, when I could think more clearly, I realized I’d fallen into my own trap: I chased strategy, demanded immediate results, instead of prioritizing sequence.
I worried more about what to do instead of focusing on what order to do things. Which is always the wrong choice.
She even uses the word realized!
(Seriously, this isn't costing us more money. This is just a tweak in our typical approach to communicate with greater power.)
Then, Michelle arrives at a crucial moment. Some stories say the phrase out loud. With Michelle, it was implied, but effectively, she says this:
["That's the thing about..." finding solutions to your problems]
You want to think sequence over strategy, NOT strategy over sequence.
Sequence first. Always.
A personal moment, pivoting to a powerful insight. Michelle recognizes what more of us need to embrace:
Your stories aren't about YOU. They're about the meaning that connects you and others.
By using "that's the thing about," we prompt ourselves to do the things necessary to escape the commodity cage, every time we create.
The cage is formed by two limiting beliefs:
On our value: if we don't share "how-to" content, we're less likely to connect with others.
On our originality: if we don't start from the audience's perspective, we're also less likely to connect with others.
But understanding why things work is far more valuable than simply knowing what works. How-tos are commodified. How-to-think is more precious, and you can even use your how-to-think insights to frame your subsequent list of steps, as you continue to share how-tos. They feel more valuable as as result.
Likewise, instead of wondering, "What do THEY want to hear from me?" or "What stories do THEY care about?", what if you asked, "What do I have to say about this?" and "What stories do I have to share?" What if you started from your own personal perspective and drew more consistently from your own lived experiences, your own LLM?
"That's the thing about" is a forcing function to do that. It's a prompt for yourself to increase the impact of your work, as much or even more than it is a piece of a well-structured story.
Your work becomes more original, because your ideas originate in a more personal place: your perspective.
Your work also becomes more valuable, because you go beyond informational content and even instructional how-tos to arrive at an insight -- yes, even as you then shift to the instructions and how-tos.
"That's the thing about" is a tiny moment you can include inside your small stories to arrive at big meaning.
Escaping the commodity cage requires no additional resources. It requires a reframing of how we typically communicate. That's why Michelle can compete on the impact of her ideas rather than the volume of her content. We're so obsessed with the number of things we create. What of their power?
Remember:
When your work matters more, you can beg for attention less.
Give them something that matters. Make it more valuable and more original.
Stop trying to compete on volume and learn to compete on impact.
Tell small stories with big meaning.