Ep 024: Your Content Is an Asset (Not a Treadmill) – with Hailey Dale

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Welcome to the Shannon Acheson show, Real Business Talk for Real Life. I’m Shannon, creative business coach, digital product lover, and your strategy sidekick. I’ve built a business that fits my life, and now I help other women do the same. No hustle, no fluff, just smart, honest conversations about building a business that works for you. Let’s dive in.
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Hello and welcome back.
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I am so excited today to have on the show Hailey Dale from Your Content Empire. At least that’s where I know her from. uh Hailey, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for coming on today. Oh, thank you for having me. It’s such a treat to be here. Yeah, I love this. So to kick things off, sort of I really love to have my guests introduce themselves because I feel like you can do it so much better justice than me, than me just reading like a bio, which bios are awesome. Don’t get me wrong. They can be really great. But I’d love to hear sort
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of a little bit about how you got started with your content empire. Basically, we’ll go through some other questions after that, but introduce yourself. Yeah, sure. So I run your content empire. I am a content strategist, but I also call myself a coach sultan as well in the way I do. So YCE is one part, teach you everything I know, courses in digital products.
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very much inspired by the things that make my life easier and people just tend to respond to them as well and want to adopt some of those systems. kind of a systems geek. And then I also work like one-on-one with business owners too, to kind of tailor those strategies and business model alignment stuff and systems to their business because courses and that are great, but like that’s no substitution for like come in my business and like, let’s break this down. Yeah.
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Some things, yeah, some things you can totally learn from a course, but a lot of the times you actually need a little bit of, I’m not gonna say hand holding, because that sounds like I’m talking down. That’s not what I mean, but you need that one-on-one and the extra eyeballs on things, right? The extra opinion. Yeah, because there’s a million and one ways to, there’s no doing something right, right? But there’s, you know, tailor, there’s the right for you. And I think that’s what, like where that tailoring comes in.
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Yeah. And I think we get in our heads a little bit sometimes, right? And we need somebody to sort of just pull the strings and sort it out for us. Yes. And sometimes like even I need that. Yeah, we all do. Because it’s impossible to do that for your own business, even if you’re really, really good at doing it for other people. Yeah. You can’t see the forest for the trees, right? You’re just, yeah, you’re so in it. I also love what you said about like your content empire being, you know, all the things you’ve learned and then then you’re sharing them. And that’s, I think that’s…
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so key as entrepreneurs leading other people that you don’t have to be a gazillion steps ahead of someone else. You just need to be a little bit ahead of them and then you can share what you’ve learned. And that’s such an amazing, amazing place, I think, to run a business from. I love that. agree. Yeah, I don’t think there needs to be a ton of separate. I think there’s almost better if there’s not a ton of separation between you and the people that you’re working with. Of course, you need to have experience and you need to have like, I don’t know.
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frameworks or whatever the processes to kind of back up what you do. But I think like the further and further you get removed from it, the further it is to like, put yourself in the shoes and like, you know, what’s actually coming up in terms of obstacles and things getting in the way. I think you forget a little bit to like how hard it was at whatever stage. Yeah, for sure. So how did you first get into the online business space? Because I’m pretty sure not that we’re going to talk about this, but I’m pretty sure you have other business stuff outside of online too. Yeah.
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Yeah, yeah, I do. I got a couple of things, a couple of little side businesses and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So how did you first get into the online business space? And then, what was the spark that sort of first made you start? Yeah, oh my gosh, it’s like going back so far. I actually started, I’m coming up to my 11th business anniversary. I started on November 11th, which for us Canadians, being in here is…
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you know, remembrance day and I started it because I was like, it was my day off work, right? So it was like the day to finally hit live on my business that long ago. But I was working in, at that time I was working in government and I was also working um as like a consultant for these kinds of big businesses with massive budgets and massive teams. And like, I was like so inspired by all of the frameworks and all of like the
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budget and the time and the runway that they had to like do this work. so I
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making these big frameworks and distilling them down for online business owners and like small online business owners and making them the right sized fit. And I was doing a work. I remember I was, I remember really clearly I was doing a work exchange with a copywriter who was helping me write some stuff for my website and I was helping her with her content strategy. And she just had like the big, the big thing and like the inspiration for the name, your content empire is that I truly believe that as
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online businesses, the content we create is really our empire. it has so like, it’s such an asset and it has value and we get so I see so many business owners get trapped in the cycle of creating content. Has to be new always has to like create, like publish something new, find something new, have something new to say. And so I wanted to like slow it down and like your content really is an asset. And so I just saw such like a lightning like.
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light bulb moment for her. And she just started growing so, so fast and had so much more time to do it when she wasn’t so stuck in like every single day creating a new post or a new, there weren’t even really podcasts back then, we didn’t want posts back then. And she just had so much clarity. I remember I’m like, what else, what other frameworks and what other like strategies can I take from, you know, my
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masters in communications and all that stuff that like you learn academically, but how can we take it into the real world and actually use it? so yeah, in a long and short of how your content empire and online, my exposure to online business came to be. Yeah. And, apply it. Yeah, for sure. Like take that education and apply it. Um, coming from, you know, the old school blogging world, right? I’ve been online 15 years. And so like, it was like I
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put out content three to five times a week, at least on my blog. It was always doing something new. was always, in my niche, was always another home tour, always another free printable, always another project. Yeah, your audience can’t get enough of that new, new, new, new. I think it’s still the same for influencers, but I think the big distinction here is what is the difference between a blogger back in the day and an influencer now than a business owner when we start to treat our content?
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and business like a business versus trying to run it in that like brand deals followers kind of metric space. Yeah. Yeah. And that can be a really hard mindset shift. I feel like sometimes for some people, like it’s always been there a little bit for me, but I’m still finding because of the ingrained practice of it, I’m still finding sometimes I’m like, no, that’s not what I’m doing now. Right? Like that’s not what it is. So I love that you’re, you talk about your content being an asset that
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you know, works well works for you that like you create it. So looking back then, so that’s one of the early wins, obviously, but are there any other early wins or even missteps that sort of shaped how you run your business now? Oh, gosh, well, I started originally as a web designer. And so was kind of doing like content on the side. I think like getting that pivot kind of early on, it was about six months into my business journey. And that was like, everything slid into place kind of thing shifting and
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content at that point. And I think I just, um, like just put out the 10th edition of like the content empire planner and that, yeah. the printed one just got here today. Okay, cool. Yeah. I’m so excited. That was a huge win. Like figuring out like that planner and it’s changed so much in 10 years, obviously, but like,
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That was probably that early win. And then in terms of missteps was just like starting to treat my business like a business and not just from the content standpoint, but also from the money standpoint, like I think figuring out profit first and like my biggest win right now is that I have 12 and this, took me a long time to get here, but I have like 12 months of paychecks saved and 12 months of business expenses saved. So even if I don’t make a penny for 12 months,
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And there’s something about creating from that place of safety rather than crap if I don’t make it this month. Yes. Yes. That would probably be lesson misstep wins. Yeah. Cause that’s a really hard place as a creator of any type to create from. And I say that from experience totally too. Like it, that’s a really hard place to create from. Cause you’re like panicking and so much energy is going to that and not to creating some.
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Well, that’s the other thing is like, didn’t go full time in my business till maybe 2017. So three or four years kind of in and like, much as like, even now you see so many people starting side hustles and it was like, as much as we want to complain about there, that’s also that sense of gratitude. Like it allowed me and this like savings and treat like treating my business money, like a business as like,
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not only given me that safety, but it’s allowed me the freedom to design the business that I want. And I say no to a lot of things and a lot of clients to work with them because it’s not right and I don’t have to. Yeah. There. Absolutely. Yeah. So you mentioned Profit First. I assume like you’re talking about like Mike’s… Mike McAlewitz. It’s pretty powerful. And like Mike Wazowski. No, that’s not right. That’s like a kid’s… Anyway. Yeah. Mike’s… Okay. So Profit First. Yeah.
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And yeah, to everybody listening, that’s if you can get your hands on that book, it’s super awesome and super helpful because we do tend to run on the well, this is what’s left. So that’s what I’m going to make or that’s what the business makes instead of saying, no, this is what I need. This is what I want. And then build the expenses around that is sort of the gist of that, right? Yeah. You may not take the percentages as is your actual like Canadians, pay higher taxes. So we just got to rework those percentages a bit, but that has been a lifesaver.
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Yeah, no, that’s awesome. So you’ve sort of built this incredible tongue in cheek content empire. What does your business sort of look like today? Yeah. Well, I work so you’re kind of catching me mid pivot a little bit, not mid pivot. I’m kind of out of it, but like, kind of like quiet. ran an agency for a really long time. So when I went full time in my business and I left my
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government public sector job and I’m like, this is what I’m going to do. was like a kid in a candy store. All of a sudden I went from being so productive and being able to get so much done in these little pockets of time to like almost getting
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time and so from there I started the agency and just really within the last and it was a sales funnel agency specifically because one of my beliefs around content is like you almost shouldn’t like waste your time with content and especially as a business owner until you have a purpose for that content and some kind of like sales pathway to your offers.
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And so that’s where the federal agency came in, but I just kind of quiet quit that maybe in the last two years. So now I’m just like, I’m doing the courses and then the other side is like this coaching or coach-salting, which I also like to tell people what to do, right? I’m not going to just coaching. No, that’s great. I’m reclaiming bossy is a good word. There you go. That works. That works. Absolutely. Okay. So you’re sort of on this side of that now.
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Yeah. And so how are you feeling about that? Yeah, I’m feeling really good about it again, that like, you know, that, runway that I have kind of financially helps things feel really good. I’ve never had like a bad month, but I truly feel like it, well, I have had a really bad month earlier this year, like when I was just making that pivot, I’m like, Oh crap. Like AI was coming in. It felt like so much was in the air or it was like really like, okay, I got to either do some pivots or I got to like.
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give myself that year kind of gap year to figure out what the heck I’m going to do with the rest of my life kind of thing. things settled and that that clarity that came from that space was, was really good. And yeah, I just spend my day kind of creating content and creating tools and helping behind the scenes of a lot of different businesses, which is exciting. Um, I noticed, um, so I’m doing your, obviously I have your 10 K monthly content sprint. And I think
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Was this originally like your content, your empire? Was that something else or you sort of, okay. Cause I was so confused when it was named something else, but I’m like, no, no, I have that. Um, but I love what you said. Like you said, AI is coming out, which is affecting cause I still have a lot of like, you know, blogger friends who are like ad revenue is, was a thing like that’s, you know, it hit me too. Cause I took some time off and I’m like, Oh, okay. But then, um,
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I love how you sort of you mentioned, and I think I can say this, like you mentioned like information is just so there’s so much of it. And so the content we share needs to be different now. Like it can’t just be here’s all the information it needs to in some way lead them to buy and or help like once we get to the place of you know, whatever we’re selling, it needs to help them into implement.
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and apply what it is that all that information is, right? Like it’s not just, here’s more information. Yeah. I’m sorry, my observation is really, yeah, the big piece there because yeah, we can get information just from chat GPT or perplexity I use every single day asking questions. that part is way information has become really cheap basically.
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Which is hard, which is hard, I think, for some people, because I’m like sort of a teacher at heart. Like that is my like, even when I blogged, that’s what it was. It was from a teaching perspective and giving information. And so sort of like how, this isn’t a question on there. If you don’t want to answer it, that’s okay. Like how would you help someone sort of shift from that? Like what would you say to them in that case? Yeah, that was me too. Like I’m a big how to like.
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my mantra up until here was like, don’t hoard the how. That was the mantra I said. Because you had this big people saying, don’t teach the how, save that for the paid, and just teach the why and the what. And I’m like, no, no, no, be generous, and it will come back to you, I promise. And that has certainly shifted. I still operate from that place of generosity. It’s definitely a core value of mine. I think it’s
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We have to basically, like, I don’t think how to or educational content is dead, but I do feel like we need to shift it slightly. So that way it not only relates to our offers and we’re making sure we’re reverse engineering everything from our offers, especially for a business and not necessarily like an influencer or a blogger where you’re setting the trends, right. um But for a business owner, right, we’re responding to the things that our customers are actually saying. And that’s reverse engineering and all tying back to whatever it is that we’re offering.
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paid in our business. in terms of like shifting that content, feel like one of the easiest shifts low hanging fruit here is instead of how to teach how I or how Rachel or a client name, insert client name here, how this client got this result. And then so in that way, we’re personalizing it. So I think there’s really three things we can do to personalize our how to an educational content that has been working really well for me and kind of breaks through.
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that kind of just information kind of surface level. So personalizing it by sharing your stories. So sharing it into like how I personalize it by giving like real use cases in terms of how to apply it. So even if your client isn’t that specific scenario, right? There’s still, their wheels can get turning. One of my most popular posts this year was this idea of like, cause I always do in the live round enrollment of the 10K monthly content system, I do these business alignment sessions and I do it as a bonus.
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And I added those in a couple of years ago because what I saw happening are people coming into this program and it wasn’t like their business models were quite literally working against them from hitting that 10 K a month mark or whatever their, you know, monthly revenue happened to be. But it was like their businesses weren’t, they didn’t have the capacity to work in that way with that many people to hit that goal. And so it was never going to happen. so bringing those in and one of my most popular posts was I did a recap of like here, here are five business models.
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from last year’s bonus sessions that have gone on, know, niches, want to say genres, I’m thinking books in my head right now, but across different niches and different models. ah And so what does that look like? And so again, that’s bringing in that personalization level. And then the third one would be this idea of like sharing your client’s stories. how and name instead.
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What’s beautiful about that is you can go through your content bank, you can go through your past assets and simply layer on that personalization to rework kind of the front end packaging of your old posts. Right. Right. It’s true because the personal, so I’ve been talking a lot, a lot of the podcast interviews I’ve done, we’ve talked about, you know, personal branding matters more now, not, not the, you know, the pretty logos and the pretty colors. Like there’s that part of branding from the graphic design side, but like,
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I mean, like personal branding, like who you are and what you stand for and core values and things like that. And I think you’re right. Like one of my most popular posts is our review of the IKEA ecotouric couch, which as we know, IKEA doesn’t even have anymore, but it is still like one of the most popular posts because people want to know what our experience or my experience was with it. And so, yeah, that makes so much sense to personalize then what you’re teaching, one of your students did with it or how it affected you.
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And that’s not something that AI can truly genuinely replicate, right? So that, you know, I love it. I use ChatGPT all the time. Like I’m not, I’m not slamming it, but from that perspective of, you know, sharing information and content, the personalization, it totally makes sense that you say that that’s what, that’s what a good shift is for sure.
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I love that you said that. Yeah, this is in no way slamming AI and I use it and I teach how to use it as like getting your first draft so that you can spend, have more time to spend on the editing and making it really good. But like I’m a big
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content is like feeding it in good source material. Like you know what you put in and because it’s like a language predictive model, it’s just going to tell you what everyone else is saying. So we’re kind of creating this vacuum. as much as possible, if you are going to use it and you are going to use it, right. Most people are going to use it is like focus on the source material that you’re feeding into it again later on the personalization level and make it your own.
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Yeah. Let it know how you talk. Let it know what your thoughts are about what you’re teaching. Let it know that. And that makes it so much easier. It still won’t get rid of the darn M dashes, but you know. And I love M dashes and I don’t get to use them anymore. And I’m very upset. Every time they’re in there, I’m like, Draaatt, how did I forget to like, as I’m editing through this, how did I miss it? Well, anyway, whatever old eyesight. don’t know. You’re going to go back to like 2015 posts of mine and be like, AI wrote this. And it’s like, no, she was just obsessed with M dashes.
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love that. That’s so funny. My daughter actually said the same thing. She goes, love them. They’re great. I’m like, okay. That’s so cool. That’s so fun. Oh my goodness. Okay. So was there a moment at all that you knew you had to like change direction? I think we sort of touched on that at the, like you, you found that at the beginning of this year or whatever, or try something new and sort of, was there anything else aside from, from that? Yeah, I think.
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You know, I think that really is the big one. The start of this year was really kind of rough where I was like, I don’t know if this business is going to survive where I need to kind of go back to the drawing a little bored a little bit. And I think what I realized is like, I had kind of lost my own way. like, again, like part of this freedom is like the freedom to design the business and say no to the things that you don’t want to say yes to. So I had to like almost remind myself and come back to that piece of things, but that’s really the most recent one.
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I can think of shutting down the agency made sense at the time. Cause like what I found is like with the agency work and like, feel like agencies are really struggling right now. One of my mentors and friends, Maggie Patterson works with agencies and she said, she’s like, this might be kind of the last year or so for these micro agencies. Um, but along with that, right. Is like, I’ve found that by me doing the sales funnel for people and my team doing the sales funnel for people.
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They didn’t get as good results as when I was coaching them through creating it themselves. And so there’s this idea of like owner. comes back to what you were saying about personal brand. You can’t source that. have to be integral in the DNA of everything that you create, especially with so much AI and nonsense, like for lack of a better word. don’t use AI, but don’t use it as is right. The editing. Cause that piece needs to be in there.
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I think probably the most recent little bit. So, okay. So how do you manage, I kind of know this, but just based on learning from you, but how do you manage to share on social and on your own platform? Like where do you choose? How do you, how do you choose where to focus? Yeah. I think like, I think right now I’m probably like, I probably show up in a lot more places.
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Then I would recommend other people showing up. And it’s because I have this clear delineation between amplification channels and like focus platforms. And so there are platforms that I really focus on showing up on. have like a daily content system that I do that includes like daily writing, daily publishing, daily engagement. And that engagement piece, we want to talk about what’s working in 2025 and 2026 personalization pieces, like make connections with people. Um, so.
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Instagram would be my platform of focus things like Pinterest and resharing over to LinkedIn and even resharing over into like YouTube, like shorts. thinking like the social side of YouTube would be more passive kind of items and the AMP we use them for amplification. Um, and then in terms of my long form core content, I’m a writer first and foremost, but I found that it’s a lot easier to create video and then repurpose from there. So
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I write the script, but then that main focus kind of format is video. So I think it’s just, having clear systems. It’s like knowing the ones that I’m going to be really good at versus the ones that I’m okay, not being really good at, but still showing up kind of passively. think that speaks to, we have to choose because while we can barely
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you know, shoot it out to everywhere through like a scheduling app or something like that, right? Like buffer, whatever it is that you use. And you can put like vertical video, can put like everywhere. It doesn’t mean that you can actually interact on all of those platforms because there’s just, there’s just not the time. And again, I think that’s one of those things where you can have someone else look after some things, but it’s your voice and it’s you that people are talking to if they’re engaging with you. And I think they know if it’s not you to some extent, I feel like.
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Yeah, I this term, like, I think was uncanny realness. It’s like, and I’m thinking about that a lot with like AI photo shoots that you see everywhere in AI, where it’s like, there’s just something about this where you can’t put your finger on it, but it’s not real. This is not a real person. Yeah. Yeah. And nevermind the ones where they have like six fingers or seven fingers, like not those ones, like even the ones that are done well, it’s like, something is just not quite, not quite real, not quite right. Um,
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Okay, so go back for a second. You said, for social, you said you think something that’s really important and really working right now is connection and engagement. So can you expand on that a little bit? Like, why is that working? How are you doing that? Yeah, I think it comes down to, I think there’s a few things. think number one, it’s like, it’s the thing that, you know, we have been, I don’t know how I want to say this, we’ve been kind of like conditioned.
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to think that if you are a successful business owner, you do not have to do this, right? Everything should be automated. Everything should run passively. You should not have to really spend any time in your business and you should be clearing 10K, 50K a month, kind of no work, no effort involved. And so I think that’s one layer of it, right? Is that you’re doing the thing that other people are unwilling to do because we’ve kind of been conditioned through 2019, 2020, 2021.
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to do things with as little effort as possible. But where can we put the effort back in? Still have systems behind it. I think that’s going to go a long way. It’s like, maybe you should call this episode personalization. Everyone take a drink when I say personalization. Make it a drinking game. Right? No, I didn’t say that. Never mind. But it’s like that same idea, right? It’s like, can we even personalize? Because through those conversations, you get to personalize your content.
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to the people that you’re talking to. So like one of my metrics is like for my daily engagement and one of the core metrics I track is like, how many conversations did I have each day? And I set a target of five. And if I do more than that, fantastic. But if I only do five, then I can back away and I’m done. there’s a, there’s like a, a clear you are finished kind of binary goal kind of thing. Um, and even like, if I have clients who are having really quiet launches, we
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bring it back to like, okay, let’s get in convert, let’s think how many conversations we can have. Okay. And you’re, are you, talking like conversations in the DMS, you’re talking conversations, even just comments. think DM conversations, I think if people don’t use social media, like LinkedIn conversations for some of my more corporate clients, but LinkedIn conversations with context, not just showing up kind of out of the blue, right? Also email conversations, I think for some of my clients do that really well. I think um
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One of the things I try to put in as much as possible is like, anytime I am like on my checkout pages, I have a like, what is your social media handle? And it’s optional. But like that goes a long way too, is like when somebody purchases a course, unless we have like a one-on-one call booked, like I’m usually going to show up in your inbox. If you put that in there and be like, Hey, thank you so much. Like how is it going? And that goes a very, very long way. And same thing with.
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if you’re doing workshops or webinars as part of a launcher promotion, like having a chance for them to ask questions, but also connect with you outside of that. And because not everyone is doing it, goes a long, way. It might not be forever, but for now, this is super effective. Yeah. And I think, yeah, the personalization thing, but with the, know, so I think, yeah, we have been trained to think as a CEO of our business and for those not watching the video CEO and like hashtag like finger.
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quoting that, as the CEO of our business, like we should work like two days a week or two hours a week or whatever it is and have everything be automated. And I just think that that’s not, you know, great for those who are doing that and that’s what they want. But I think for them from 99.9 % of people, that’s not realistic. That’s not, that’s not even what we want. Even though, you know, every once in a while we get this little, oh I should be doing less because I’m whatever.
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But I think the flip side of that is so that you’re not run off your feet as like a solopreneur, an entrepreneur, like you do have the systems and the, you know, the SOPs and all the things in place so that that stuff can run so much more smoothly while you take care of the front end. This is my face. This is like, you know, you are your business side of things and connect with people for sure. Cause I think that’s a lot of what’s missing is the connection for people, right?
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And that’s the work that you should continue to do. And I think unless you have a massive ads budget or unless you were coming into 2025 with like a massive engaged audience, you know, I feel like this is, this is what is working now is like everyone wants to feel seen and have it be personalized right to them. Right. Well, and think too, because, um,
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You know, because there are so many ads, because there is so much stuff, people are just weary of, know, and leery of, guess, of, you know, just another thing, just more information, just whatever, but who’s the person behind it, right? Like, who am I buying from? Who am I learning from? Things like that. Okay. So what does your team sort of look like right now? Like we talked about, like, you are the face of everything. Obviously you talk to people, you whatever, like, but who helps you? Like,
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with the behind the scenes stuff, I guess. Like, do you have a team? Yeah. So I have like, my team is much smaller, obviously, because I did have an agency. So I had copywriters and designers all working for me. So for now, kind of like, I bring a designer on kind of ad hoc as I’m doing projects or as I kind of need it for my, but the need for it is a lot lower. I also do all of the copy myself now, which I actually really like.
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Um, I have a, an admin person who does my inbox for me and deals with like payment plan issues and like that frontline kind of questions because again, it’s just about knowing yourself, but I know that when I am responsible for doing like, can’t buy my password. need to reset my like.
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That makes me hate the business. uh That steals my joy from the creation, creativity side of things. So that part is really, really essential. So I had someone who’s been in that role for years and years. She was actually my very first web design client 15 years ago. And now she, yeah, she does that. And she does work for a couple other clients that way too. And then I have a video editor because we create content like that way and I don’t want to do that. Absolutely not.
31:23
And then the third thing is I have a VA who helps me with like, when I say like the amplification channels and getting it on those other places, like following my SOPs and doing that. Yeah. Like you don’t need to be the one who schedules those things, right? Like you’re in those things. You’ve said words in those things. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Again, anything that I can kind of find.
31:45
What do I need to be involved in from a voice perspective or a brand DNA kind of perspective and my fingers need to be on it? And I do all the daily engagement myself and I want to do that. ah But what are the pieces that are just gonna steal my time from where it needs to be? Right, right. When a lovely, friendly Canadian asks how to get the Canadian version of the planner.
32:12
I think I got an email from your email person for that, which is totally cool. It answered my question. okay. She’s better at it than I am anyways. Yeah. No, I hear you. That’s like one of my least favorite things is I lost my password or my emails got deleted and my hard drive got what? Can I have the PDF again? like, yep, sure you can. Anyways. Okay.
32:38
Do do do do do. You already told me what’s working for social media. I’m just looking at my my list of questions. Are there any platforms or strategies that have surprised you lately? Ooh, I think a big one really lately is like, Pinterest has always been a powerhouse and I’m sure you too has always been like, yeah, that has kind of taken a huge
33:05
Nose dive really. I think it’s coming up because they’ve come out even like within the last couple of weeks and said like we are going to do what we can to remove this AI spam. Oh my god. That’s all I see. don’t even go on it anymore. Yeah. All you would see is Amazon ads and like it just stole from that platform. did. Yeah. Like even as a user, like I use it for like clothes and hair and stuff like that. I’m like, I don’t want to see a 50 year old who’s airbrushed to look like 20.
33:32
To show me a hairstyle. Like can I have a real like a real person? Yeah Exactly come back to that. Yeah, something’s not quite right here. Yeah. Yeah, I think that that has been a big shock and a big kind of evolution I feel like it’s gonna come back in it, but also like our methods of using it have had to change so much Okay, that’s kind of like on the negative side. I oh You’re fine. Sorry. That’s okay. me I’m just gonna put it on
34:03
Do not disturb. Okay. was a spam caller. wasn’t even a real call. Of course it was. Yeah, of course. Right. uh So I saying Pinterest, but then I also feel like on the good side, YouTube has been such a powerhouse kind of lately in terms of views and the features that they’re rolling out. I think Instagram has been, I think, I think the thing about Instagram is like being an early adopter of some of those features. So some clients are doing very well with that.
34:31
And then I have other clients who just continue to kill on LinkedIn and they use it really smartly. So yeah, not too many. think the only real surprise is that Pinterest kind of like this year because we all rely on it so much. Yeah, yeah. I’m looking forward to that. was like, that was like, well, I’ve been on blog, like my other like homemade lovely on that side of things since 2010. And so back then Pinterest didn’t exist. when it then, when it
34:58
did, it was by invite only. Like you had to get somebody to invite you to it. Like I told I am how long I’ve been on there. But like, it was, it was amazing. It was such a powerhouse for traffic and then not so much. So I’m looking forward to them sort of figuring out who they are and what they are. Cause I feel like they’ve really struggled with where we, you know, we’re an idea place. We’re a social media network. We’re a search engine. We’re a, like, I hope they.
35:27
can figure that out and then, yeah. There’s no one that does what they do really, really well. You think about how meta takes over everyone’s features. They’re all just adopting. Pinterest is the only real one. I can’t think of another alternative that works the way it does. Hopefully, they just get back to what they do really, well. Yeah. I hope so too, for sure. oh
35:54
You teach so much obviously about content and marketing, but in your own business, how do you decide to focus on what to create next? I know you’re obviously big on your content works for you, your 10 years for the content planner, or the planner. How do you know what to build on and focus on next, creating next? Yeah. I think it’s at this intersection of like for me,
36:19
I teach business owners, I am a business owner, so it’s always going to relate in some way to my offers or reverse engineer. then I also teach, I think one of the mistakes is people will get so many different offers and so they’ll be giving their audiences whiplash by trying to switch from one to the next. So I feel like you should stick with one offer for at least three to four weeks and that you’re released. oh
36:45
For me, when I’m deciding, I’m like picking what offer and then I’m reverse engineering the topics and that’ll be the theme for three to four kind of weeks or for the month. So that’s like the first kind of strategy layer. And then the second strategy layer is like, I have a really healthy ideas bank and ideas and inspiration system where I like collect ideas kind of on the go. And then I have a process once a month where I come and I organize them all and I go through them. So I shop.
37:12
that first. The other thing is like because we are business owners, like if you have a week that you’re really busy, go and shop your old content and maybe you need to give it a little spin. So I’ll certainly do that. And then other than that, like, I’ll go into like, I’ll use chat GPT for like idea generation, but like, it’ll end up some Frankenstein of some different ideas. I don’t ever really use anything directly is that it pops out. um And then, yeah, I don’t even know where I get ideas. But so it’s not this in
37:42
What ends up happening are the things that I’m excited to talk about, but they still relate to my offers. I need to be excited about it. Yeah. Yeah. No fair. And then as far as like what your offers are, like, have like, how do you decide when it’s time to create a new one? Or, like, or go back and revise one? I’m in the
38:04
I’m in the stage right now, business of killing my darlings. And so I am like getting rid of a of different, lot of leaders and really simplifying things. And I want at least on the front end for things to be incredibly simple, right? So you can join, you can grab the planner or there will always be kind of like some small accessible way to get support. Cause I don’t want price or the ability to invest to be the thing that’s going to stop you from using. And I think like the planner is probably, cause especially the planning club, it’s like,
38:33
You get to hang out with me all year for $97. And like we get to plan together on a monthly basis and you get the planner. I feel like that’s kind of like, I don’t want to say public service, but it’s like my, don’t care if I make money on that one, basically. So there’ll always be some little accessible, very accessible way. And then the 10 K monthly content system and then like either signature 50 K, which is basically one or like one-on-one coaching. I want.
38:59
very simple on the front end business model. And if anything pops up, it’s always going to be behind the scenes. Right. Okay. That makes sense. Yeah. Cause I’ve noticed obviously being a student, the backend of like, what is there has changed over the years, but yeah, like the messaging is still anyways, I’m enjoying the live rounds this time to go through it all again. Um, okay. So then, so we talk a lot on like,
39:28
this show about sort of building a business that fits your actual real life. So how do you personally make sure your business supports your life? I know you said you’ve, you know, you’ve saved up 12 months. Like that’s obviously one way, but like in the day to day in the, you interact with people in the, how you, guess, guard your time in all of those things, how do you, how do you build your business and work on and in your business in a way that sort of works for your actual real life?
39:58
Yeah. And it must be, I don’t know if it’s like coming up on turning 30 or 40 or what it is, but I have like, I have a lot more personal goals, I think, than I like ever have before. And I’m not as fulfilled to work like 10 hour days. like I used to just be voracious with it where I could not get enough and don’t get me wrong. I still love and enjoy my work, but I’m just craving so much more on the personal side and the lifestyle version of it than ever before.
40:26
m And so yeah, I’m very serious about guarding that time. like that you said that the way you did. So systems certainly helped me get more outsourcing the pieces that don’t bring me joy or that don’t save me the time to be exactly where I need to be in the business. I’m also a massive introvert. And if I have, if I have an appointment at 2pm or if I have a meeting at 2pm, like I won’t get anything.
40:51
done early. Like even this interview being at 1245, like, I just went and got my dog toys and got coffee and like answered emails. There’s something where I can’t, I can’t, I just can’t focus on really anything. exactly the same. me, this interview was at 345. My whole day was, I mean, besides running kids around in a car appointment, like, I didn’t, I watched some videos, like, actually from your content empire, they’re from 10k.
41:20
so that I can be caught up for this week. like, I didn’t do anything. I didn’t create anything. I’m glad I’m not alone in that. I feel like I am too, because not a lot of people are like that. Yeah. So I have one day, like I have Thursdays and like some days I will have like five hours of meetings on the day and it’s exhausting, but it’s kind of on the back end of the week. So I’ve gotten a really good like Monday to Wednesday. I don’t say yes to a lot of things as well. And then um
41:48
So like having like one specific meeting day is huge for me. Um, and then if I have any person, I try to do them on Friday. So again, I’m guarding that front half of my week. So I get the progress that I need to on things. Um, and then I work, I work about five hours a day on the other days besides Thursdays. Um, and I’m really disciplined about that time. use time blocks and that helps my brain. So when an idea comes up or something I need to do,
42:16
I can be like, okay, that belongs on Wednesday on blog or right, or, whatever it is. So what I will do is I time block my time and I do one hour kind of a day for content. do one hour for that daily power hour where I’m doing my daily engagement. And then I have about, you know, about 30 minutes to an hour, kind of like with my one-on-one coaching, like people get unlimited reviews and questions.
42:42
No one abuses it. like, so I’ll have like 30 to 45 minutes that I dedicate for like responding to those questions. And then the rest are just like power pomodoros on like my bigger priorities. No, that’s awesome. Time blocking. uh I used to be really good at that. And then the last couple years, I sort of let it slide. And I’ve had a hard time getting back to it. But I know I need to because that’s how my brain works too. It’s like in those one hour chunk blocks of time for sure. Yeah, otherwise, it’s super
43:10
gathered. I get so much. It’s so funny. But like, by setting a timer, like on my tomb, on my gravestone, it’ll say she lived and died by timers. But it’s amazing because I get so much done in a 30 minute chunk that if I had not set that time, it would have taken me two hours. Right? Yeah, because you’re like, Oh, let me check this. Let me do this. Let me write this down. Let me Yeah, no, that’s true. Yeah. Okay, so
43:39
What are you then most excited about in your business right now? What are you sort of, are you experimenting with anything? Are you loving anything? Well, I think we’re like in the middle, behind the scenes of like a big kind of like rebrand of the business. So it’s, that’s, that’s exciting. I’m excited to roll that out. It’s probably going to be the um most like the
44:07
the most chill, the chillest. In terms of like, not gonna like every time we’ve done a rebrand and we’ve done one like maybe every three, four years, like this is probably the fourth rebrand that we’ve done. And normally we go back through all of the content and we rebrand all of that too. We’re not doing that this time. We’re gonna maybe go back like a month or two, but then we’ll just be kind of moving forward. So that’s gonna be really chill. um
44:35
So the rebrand I’m very excited about. um have a solo business retreat planned and it’s like this condo that is like on the rocks overlooking the ocean where literally see whales come by. So I have like four days dedicated, like walk there by myself to kind of like plan 2026 uh right at the start of December. Cause I take most of December off anyways. um So that, yeah, those are the two.
45:05
things. I’m excited. I love those retrieves. Those are great. I’ve done a couple of them when I was writing each time I wrote a book, I took a weekend and I was like, okay, so that’s awesome. That’s so exciting. I’m so excited for you. Something like getting out of your space for that type of planning that doesn’t happen when you’re hearing Netflix on the dogs and yeah, yeah. And I have like right now we have like our three kids and our friends daughter lives here and they’re all in their early 20s. So like
45:32
Our house is full all the time. It’s amazing. Like it’s amazing. It’s totally amazing. But I, we add like for that concentrated long blocks of time of not being interrupted to think and to daydream and to, you know, plot out things like that. Yeah. Yeah. That’s awesome. And having the ocean there, that’ll be like super awesome too. I went to the same place last year and I’m like, Oh my gosh, I’ve never felt like so at peace anywhere. Massive storms. So cool. Yeah.
46:02
That’s so awesome. love that. um Okay. If you could give one piece of advice to someone listening who feels totally overwhelmed by the content they could create or maybe, and I’m saying this from perspective backwards, have a gazillion million pieces of content they have created that maybe isn’t so useful now. What would you tell either of those people to start with? Yeah. I mean, I think I would challenge them on isn’t so useful now, first of all, and like,
46:29
My first place for people to start is like go and create or set up some kind of content bank. So you start to see your content as an asset that you can reuse. like, even if something is like really outdated, right? It’s much easier. find edit something and start from something that is to start from a blank page and create something there. So unless you’ve massively, even if you’ve massively pivoted and let’s say you have.
46:55
no content, you’re starting completely from scratch. Set up that content bank first and just be very intentional about the pieces that you are filling with it. It would be amazing if I could start my business from scratch today, right? The amount of focus and intention that I would bring to those pieces of content would be so I think like the content bank because that also layers on like starting to think of your content like an asset.
47:20
And so what if someone, so I get it from starting from scratch and being deliberate about it because that’s so much easier. But what if someone say like, have like, I have gone back and gotten rid of lots of old stuff that really believe me was not useful anymore. uh You know, from before Instagram and stuff like that, where I gave daily updates of what I was doing with the children. uh Like what if someone has like hundreds of posts? Like that’s kind of daunting to try to organize into a content bank, right? So like, what would you suggest for that?
47:49
I would just start the system moving forward and then I would just slowly work back. So it might even be, I’m looking at what are all the pieces I’ve created so far in 2025? And then I can start to dive into, and even just cherry pick 2024 and 2023. Because you’re right, there’s a lot of content where it’s like these daily updates. Your kids aren’t teeny tiny anymore, right? So that’s maybe not so relevant. don’t pull those in.
48:19
pick the ones, but I’m sure there’s some good little nuggets in there, little tips that you dropped, or even that just need to be modernized a little bit. So I would just like use the system moving forward, but then like slowly work your way back. And once you get past like a year or two, right, start just cherry picking the most beautiful pieces. makes so much sense. That makes so much sense for sure. And it is like, I love like your content bank. I love your inspiration bank because
48:47
It is so easy to have all these scattered pieces everywhere. And then I don’t know about you, like you said you’re about 40, I’m almost 50. My brain just doesn’t hold onto things the way it used to. so to remember all the things that I have and go back and go, what am I using this season? What do I have to use in the season? The content bank is so great for that. And then the inspiration bank, yeah, because.
49:16
million photos on my 46,000 photos on my phone of screenshots and everything else. That’s useless to me, right? Until it’s organized. mean, RIP to all the brilliant ideas we just didn’t write down. We’re through it at our inspiration bank, right? Yes. Or that we talked to Chad about and now it’s buried like 5,000 conversations down. Yeah, no.
49:42
The systems that you teach are so helpful for stuff like that, for sure. getting that. Yeah. So helpful. We’ll always look for everything we can turn into. If you’re doing it more than once, turn it into a system. Yeah. And SOPs, for uh my daughter was my VA for a while. And so to have those written out for her to know exactly, like, here’s the raw video, go create like the, you know, the whole core content kind of thing for it. So.
50:12
Okay, do you have anything else that you want to share with anybody? I’m sure there’s lots up there. I’m so grateful to be here. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much. Okay, so then where can um my listeners find you and connect with you and learn from you? Yeah, it’s over your content empire, your content empire kind of everywhere. um YouTube, Instagram, the email website. Yeah. Awesome. So yourcontentempire.com.
50:41
and then at your content empire for the social media. Perfect. Thank you so much, Hailey, for being here. Thank you for being generous with your time and answering my questions. And um yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, thank you.
50:57
oh That’s it for today on the Shannon Acheson Show. If you found this helpful, follow the show and share it with a friend. And hey, if you’re not sure what kind of business actually fits your life, take the free quiz at shannonacheson.com. It’ll point you in the right direction. Thanks for listening. Talk again soon.