How to create valuable content for your audience as a service-based business owner.

Value. noun: A mystical thing you are supposed to give your customers as a service-based business owner until the end of time.  

As in: “Deliver value to your audience so they see you as an expert.”

Or

“The way to increase engagement with your clients is to deliver value.”

For a long time, I have been smiling and nodding over here, pretending I know just what the bleep this means. 

It seems like everyone else understands value except me.

So, I felt afraid to raise my hand and ask.

But, I’m raising it now.

Until very recently I had a completely skewed idea of what delivering value meant for me as a business owner.

Sometimes I thought it was synonymous with educational content. Meaning: Everything I create ever has to educate, teach, and educate some more. 

Got it. No pressure. I’ll just like….lesson plan and build a curriculum then. Cool. Cool.

Other times, I thought value meant pouring out my heart and soul in hopes that my story connected with someone else, and then spending the rest of the day hiding under my bed because my diary was all over the Internet. 

Good news for all, though! Turns out, value can be educational content and personal storytelling…but it does not have to be.

When thinking about delivering value to your people, think about it more like this

1: What does value actually look like for my clients? What would make their life better?

Is it educational content? Stories from a friend they can relate to? Is it tips/ideas/hacks? Is it tiny wins they can take away right now? A laugh? Inspiration? A kick in the butt when they want to quit? Answers? Recipes? Hope? A plate of tortilla chips and homemade guac? (Sorry, that last one snuck in because I’m kinda hungry!)

And here’s the super important second part to all this:

2: What value can you give consistently?

Is it two educational blog posts every week? Sooo amazing! If not, also amazing! What else can you do? A daily prompt or quote sent via email? What about a weekly tip on LinkedIn? A one-time, Evergreen video series or podcast series? A new quote or idea to ring in each new month? A quarterly mini-challenge on Instagram? A testimonial or client project every other Friday? A live video on Mondays? 

Hopefully, you are picking up what I’m throwing down, here. 🙂

Value shows up in so many ways. You can deliver it by teaching, demonstrating, being brave, making someone laugh, being honest, passing along wisdom to help another, sharing something inspiring or beautiful, showing your work. A combination of these? The list goes on.

How often you deliver that value? 

There are no rules. No industry magic standards you have to put yourself into a pretzel to meet. It’s just you and what you can reasonably commit to. Whether your value is delivered daily, weekly, monthly, or whatever ~ it’s all good. 

The question of value often comes up around your email list. What is value to my subscribers, and how often do I send this said value?

I hope now you have your answer. 

Your emails can be anything from a monthly letter to a daily prayer to a weekly hack. You can’t go wrong. 

Deliver whatever makes your people’s life better and in a way that works for you. No matter what you put out or how often, the value is automatic because it comes from you.