How to Write Broadly (Without “Dumbing Down”)

You’re an absolute stone cold killa.

When it comes to your field of expertise, you know your stuff.

You’ve been doing this for 5 years, 10 years, more even. You’ve failed, you’ve succeeded. You’ve questioned everything that needs to be questioned and you’re always prepared to service your clients better than any of your competitors because of that.

You’re an expert.

But you’re annoyed, asking yourself:

“Why does my content not hit like theirs?”

I hear ya.

You’re dishing out pure GOLD and getting under 50 engagements.

Then some goon who’s talking to beginners and putting out amateur stuff that any self respecting {insert field of expertise} would know goes viral, daily.

The masses lap it up.

It’s fine though, seriously.

Because you:

Get 1-3 qualified leads a month
Get comments from your ICP every day
Get DMs from respected industry peers

It’s all good.

…or is it?

Are you happy staying dialled in writing content for your ICP?

Or do you want to:

Write broader content
Expand your audience
Get more eyeballs on you

The problem: “dumbing down” to appeal to the masses.

Because the majority of people out there don’t understand the level of detail you go into in your niche/industry of expertise.

But here’s the thing:

You don’t need to “dumb down”.

Instead, you can take 3 approaches:

Write about your story
Write to problems, not people
Write with a strategy in mind

Writing more broadly is all about zooming further out.

And finding how far you can zoom out before you start turning off your ICP or attracting the wrong audience all together.

Let’s dive in deeper on all 3 of these approaches, so you can get a better understanding of how you can apply each one to your content (today)

1. Write about your story

I know, I know.

Writing stories cringes you out. You think of all the things you hate about social media content:

Pointless nonsense
No context selfies
Sob stories

It’s almost endless.

Scroll your LinkedIn feed for 30 seconds and you’ll find at least three hooks about how ‘2 years ago I was broke, depressed and lost but now I run a blah blah blah’.

It seems like everyone was once broke and depressed and lost these days.

But if you take a closer look, these stories aren’t the stories that industry experts are telling.

These aren’t thought leadership stories.

These are amateur stories. These are the stories that a freelancer turned solopreneur who’s 1/2 years into their entrepreneurial journey tells because, well, they just haven’t done much.

What are the stories that entrepreneurs and thought leaders are telling?

Lessons
Mistakes
Turning points
Discoveries

They’re sharing stories from when they achieved something incredible in business and how you (their audience) can learn from it.

No sob stories.

Here’s an example of a brilliant post from Adam Robinson, CEO of Retention.com:

He doesn’t ask for sympathy. He doesn’t add no context selfies. He doesn’t need to dumb down his content.

Because all he is doing is highlighting an event/journey.

Then reflecting on all the micro-events (lessons, mistakes etc) within that.

It creates an intersection of what broad, but thought leadership content, looks like:

You telling your story
You sharing your expertise

Your ICP will love it. A beginner will love it.

Takeaway:

Think about your journey as an entrepreneur and all the events that have happened. All the moments of growth.

Document it for everyone to learn from.

2. Write to problems, not people

Imagine your ICP are CMOs.

If you keep talking to CMOs specifically, you do 2 things:

You attract mainly CMOs
You exclude everyone else

That’s not a bad thing.

If your sole purpose for social media channels is to build and grow a network of ICPs, you are going to be just fine.

But you’re putting a cap on your content.

By excluding everyone else, your content doesn’t generate the same amount leverage that those goons you hate who post basic, generic stuff generate.

We’re not going to start building an audience of beginners who will never buy from us.

But we are going to start talking to problems, not people.

What do I mean by problems?

If you know your ICP well enough, you’ll know they have problems. One problem could be that they don’t generate consistent lead flow. And they desperately want to solve that problem.

Here’s the exciting thing:

Every single business owner in the world wants to generate lead flow.

Not just your ICP of CMOs.

And the way you approach this is simple:

Write hooks that state the problem, not the person.

Here’s an example of a hook calling out a person:

‘3 reasons CMOs are failing to generate consistent lead flow:’

Here’s an example of a hook calling out a problem:

‘3 reasons you’re failing to generate consistent lead flow:’

Now, the only people this hook excludes are people who are generating consistent lead flow and don’t have this problem.

You still attract CMOs with this problem.

Do the CMOs feel as ‘seen’ or ‘called out’ as before?

No, they don’t.

But now, you’re able to write broadly without dumbing down your content.

Because you are still able to talk to your solution to the problem that your ICP has.

Takeaway:

Call out the problem broadly in your hooks. Then use your CTAs to generate conversations or encourage DMs from your ICP.

That way, a broad audience has got value out of your content. But your ‘ask’ in your CTA is exclusively for your ICP.

Hooks get attention. CTAs get conversions.

3. Write with a strategy in mind

Writing content around random ideas?

I’m afraid to say: that ain’t it.

The biggest reason that:

I’ve grown my LinkedIn to 100k+ followers
I've generated 50k+ followers for clients
I’ve driven multi-6 figures revenue for my business
And driven $2M+ for my clients and customers

Is because of the strategy.

The problem: there are creators that can help you to ‘start writing online’.

But what’s the strategy?

That’s where you’re able to:

Maximise your output
Minimise your input
Feel less pressure

Because when you recognise that each piece of content has its own place in an overall, long term strategy, the engagement doesn’t matter.

You feel less anxious about how a piece of content will perform on surface level.

You start looking at more than just likes, shares and comments.

And more at:

Who is DMing you
Who is commenting
Who is enquiring to work with you

And you start to see that a piece of content that talks specifically to your ICP might generate a lead.

But it will get 10 likes and 5 comments.

On the flip side, when you post a story about how you started your business, it will get 100 likes and 70 comments.

That doesn’t mean you double down on the latter.

It means that format of content works and you recognise it deserves a spot in your content strategy.

It’s your broad content that attracts a wider audience. It builds your personal brand. It familiarises your audience with you on a deeper or different level.

Not just on a business level.

Here’s the content strategy I apply for my content (and my clients):

1 x bottom funnel content per week
3 x middle funnel content per week
1 x top funnel content per week

The top funnel casts your net far and wide, building recognition.

The middle funnel builds trust in your knowledge/competence within your niche.

The bottom funnel shows your ICP exactly how you’ve helped clients just like them and how they can get the same from you. This is where you make an ‘ask’. You CTA for them to reach out.

Now, you can see how each piece of content has it’s place.