Stop Proposing On The First Date: How To Nurture Leads With Content

Ready to turn content into clients instead of noise? We unpack a clear framework for creating content that aligns with business goals, speaks in a consistent brand voice, and lives on platforms you actually own. From homepage copy to service pages and blog articles, we walk through how to build a website-first strategy that earns trust, supports SEO, and gives every social post and newsletter a meaningful destination.

We talk about the power of brand voice guidelines—defining tone, values, ideal clients, and banned words—so your message stops sounding like everyone else’s. Then we map the buyer journey with smarter calls to action: why proposing a consultation at the end of a first blog post can backfire, and how to use lower-friction steps like newsletters, resources, or webinars to nurture interest into intent. Along the way, we show how to repurpose one strong piece of content into multiple formats and channels without reinventing the wheel.

SEO gets practical here. Learn how to research long tail keywords, balance search volume with difficulty, and build internal links that move readers from answers to action. We compare LinkedIn articles and other rented channels with your own site, and explain why WordPress remains a strong choice for ownership, flexibility, and search visibility—plus how to avoid giving away your logins to “managers” who lock you out. We also explore AI as a brainstorming partner rather than a content crutch, using it to surface ideas while keeping your stories and expertise at the center to avoid bland, forgettable results.

If you want content that positions you as an authority, filters out poor-fit leads, and makes sales calls easier, this conversation delivers a practical playbook you can use today. Subscribe, share with a friend who’s stuck on content, and leave a review telling us which page on your site you’ll upgrade first.

Transcript

Why Create Content At All

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Okay, what is the goal of creating content? Because a lot of people hear, you need content, you need to be blogging, you need to be podcasting, you need this, that, and the other. And so they they try to take action without really understanding how it fits into the larger picture of their business. Does this really make sense for you? How is this really going to impact your bottom line? So I always start there with what is the goal of your content? Um, and then once we have the goals clear, then it's all about okay, what's your branding? Um, I I work with a lot of solo printers. So I always, before I write anything, I ask for the brand voice guidelines, and I tend to get a blank stare and a brand voice what now?

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Welcome again to the Commission Code Podcast. We appreciate you taking the time to listen and join us here today. We're here to help you increase your business revenue and have time to enjoy it. I'm your host, Maurice Sims, and I've been consulting and training business people for, well, let's just say over 40 years. We're focused on increasing revenue and having time to enjoy it. After years as a professional salesperson, I spent 32 years in the corporate world. I retired as vice president and chief learning officer of the sales department of a large insurance company where we designed and built and delivered training for over 12,000 professional salespeople. Now, I get to consult one-on-one helping people grow their business and organize themselves to make the most of the time they have. We also build online courses to support business owners in their work as they strive to build the business that they've always wanted. Our objective is really very simple. It's this. Thanks so much for having me. Tell us a little bit about what you do and how you utilize your specialty.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Yeah, I like to say I write the words that go onto your website to tell everyone who you are, what you do, and why we should all care. And I work in SEO best practices as well as marketing and branding strategy into the content that I create so it can be as effective as possible.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Boy, that first sentence is a great elevator talk. I mean, I can teach people how to sell, Allison, and that's that, oh man, that was right on target. You did good. You did good. I I've I've worked on it quite a bit. And you did it just perfectly. It was great. Thank you. So tell us a little bit about where you begin with with folks. When you get a client, where do you start uh with with somebody that's running a business and they come to you and say, gee, I'm just not sure. I don't know what to do. What is it? How do you begin?

SPEAKER_01 3:14

I always start with their goals. How are they currently using content to grow their business, if at all? Um, and if they aren't, or even if they are, then okay, understanding how it fits into the larger picture of their business. Does this really make sense for you? How is this really going to impact your bottom line? So I always start there with what is the goal of your content? Um, and then once we have the goals clear, then it's all about okay, what's your branding? Um, I I work with a lot of solo printers. So I always, before I write anything, I ask for the brand voice guidelines. And I tend to get a blank stare and a brand voice what now? So I realize, okay, we got we got to start from square one here.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

So that is work that when you mentioned that, that's kind of where I was was okay, now what does that mean?

Defining Brand Voice Guidelines

SPEAKER_01 4:02

Yeah, the what brand what now? Um, yeah, so we we really have to start there because I want to make sure everything that I write sounds like the client instead of sounding like me or one of my other clients, because that's the only way we're gonna get you to stand out. Otherwise, you're just more white noise. Um, and that's what's really going to attract the right people to you is making sure that you have a really strong brand and it is communicated throughout all of your content in everything that you do. So let's that's essentially what the brand voice guidelines are. It's, you know, what's the tone? How do we want people to feel when they encounter us? Who's our ideal client? What words are we consistently using? What words are we never using in our content? It's just defining how you use language to talk about your business, about your services, to communicate that to your clients. So that's what a brand voice guideline is. So it is, it is that that document that lays that all out so that when you do hire someone like me, you can just hand that over and say, here's what we want, makes my life so much easier. Um, but when they don't have that, then all right, we got to start from square one and kind of lead, I lead people through the process, which is harder than you might think to really think about your business and how it's defined and how you want people to feel when they encounter your brand and who's your ideal client and how are they finding you? And how do you want them to find you? And where do they tend to hang out? What questions are they asking about your business? All that good stuff. So the more of that information I can get before I ever start writing, the more effective that content is gonna be.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

So when you get the content, what do you where do you put that? What do you do with it?

SPEAKER_01 5:38

Always start on with creating content on your website because that is the only real estate online that you own. So yes, social media is great, yes, newsletters are great, but they're out there and you don't control them. Um, so always, always build up that content on your website first and foremost, and then use things like your newsletter and social media to distribute that content and and use that to get people to your website.

Put Content On A Site You Own

SPEAKER_00 6:08

That that makes perfect sense to me. My my main challenge with website is that my website is built in oh, what is it, Word, something or another? WordPress? Oh yeah. And I don't know it, I don't want to know it, I don't have time to learn it. So that means I have to pay somebody to deal with it. And consequently, my website is old and needs a lot of work. But what what do you think about that? I mean, did you what what kind of website should you have? And how do you how do you get there? Or how do you how do you recommend people get there?

SPEAKER_01 6:46

Yes, I do always recommend WordPress. I know it's a hassle, but again, it's also the only one that where you own all of your content. If you want to use something like Wix or Squarespace, yes, they make it super easy for you. But the flip side of that is if you read the fine print in the terms of service, they own all of your content. Um, so I I always, always recommend WordPress. Also, it's better for SEO purposes. Um, yes, it's a hassle. It's worth it. Yes, you can get someone to manage your website for you. And if that's, you know, what makes sense for you, I do recommend it. I do have to warn everyone that there are bad actors out there who will take over your website um and say that they'll manage your website for you. And they won't hand over the keys if you want to fire them or if you want to change anything to your website. They go, nope, we we control the website. You nothing you can do about it. Um, so don't ever, ever completely hand over control to the website. Yes, you can have a manager, you can set them up as an admin of your website or an editor, but don't ever not know where your your login information is for your website because that is too valuable to mess with.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

Well, that's great, great recommendation. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

It's like handing over the the keys to your office and not keeping a copy for yourself. Don't ever do that.

WordPress, Ownership, And Bad Actors

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Yeah. I mean, that's that's uh I've learned a lot already, Allison. Thank you. Tell us more about where we go from there. Okay, got a website, got good content on that, social blog, email marketing. What what do you do next?

Prioritize Pages That Sell

SPEAKER_01 8:27

Yeah, so start with the landing pages, uh, your sales pages, your homepage, your bio, all that good stuff. Make sure those are really strong because eventually people are always going to end up there. You will have the occasional person who like meets you at a networking event and then wants to look up your website and they go to your homepage. So, yes, the homepage should be strong, but it's not usually the first place people will find you. Usually people will either do a Google search for your product or service and find their way to your service page or your product page, or they're gonna Google how to something. Um, and they, or you know, what is this, or what do I need to know about such and such? Those informational searches are you're gonna assuming they get out of Chat GPT or out of Claude or or what have you, they're gonna make their way to a blog post. Um, so make sure that that those pages are really strong. But again, once they get to your blog post, what next? Don't just be like, okay, great. I I showed up in searches, I got them to click through, they're on my blog. Awesome. Um, depending on your industry, sometimes you can sell directly from a blog post. Okay, here's what you need. Here's, you know, here's the thing that we sell, here's how this solves your problem. I tend to work with a lot of professional service providers, so other marketers, attorneys, financial planners. Um, and if you try to sell at the end of a first blog post, I compare that to proposing on the first date. They are just getting to know you. They, they're just exploring their options, they are nowhere near ready for a sales call. So that that can really turn people off if you go straight to let's have a consultation, because they know that means sales call. Everyone knows that at this point. So um hold off on that and instead be like, here's another piece of content, here's a webinar, you can sign up for our newsletter. Find a way to capture that lead so you can get that uh their contact information, their email, so you can continue to put content in front of them. Not spam, but something they requested, like signing up for your newsletter or following you on social media, so you can continue to educate and nurture that lead until they are ready to buy, at which point they will know where to find you.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

So none of these things are a big electronic billboard. There are things where you want to put content that's gonna add value to the reader, is that correct? Yes. So how do you where do you hmm you mentioned blogs? You mentioned blogs, and that's something that that I wanted to go down that path with you for a moment. Today, in today's world, what counts as a blog? What what would you put under the topic? Here are the things that are gonna be considered a blog. What is that and how do you begin in that world?

Lead Nurturing Over Hard Pitches

SPEAKER_01 11:12

Yeah, I still consider your blog to be a page that lives on your website where you can publish new articles, I think is another word that has consistently more and more so lately replaced the word blog is article, um, if only because it sounds more official. Um I've seen, you know, this is our insights page, this is our news and resources page. Um, I still call it a blog just because I think that's uh honestly partly because I've been calling it a blog for 15, 20 years now. So that's part of it, but also because I I still think that nothing else has really dominated. Like, okay, it's not like everyone now calls a blog this other thing. Some people call it news and insights, some people call it updates or resources. So yeah, for me, a blog is a page on your website where you can publish new content regularly as opposed to a static page, which is going to be your services page or your landing page, which is you can make changes to the page, but you can't publish a new piece of content that will then rise to the top of that page. Um, so yes, and again, always, always have it on your website. Um, you can always break it down and post snippets of it on social media. You can put a teaser to it in your newsletter with a link back to your website. You can and absolutely should make a video to go along with it or a podcast or both, um, and share those as much as you can. But that your your website is home-based. So everything needs to drive the funnel back there.

SPEAKER_00 12:49

So we're using the same content to do several different things. Yes, repurpose that content.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

Don't don't think you have to reinvent the wheel by going, oh, I just wrote a blog post. Now I also have to post on social media. Well, yes, but you can post the same thing in multiple places.

What A Blog Is Today

SPEAKER_00 13:07

Content becomes king, is what it sounds like to me, right? Absolutely. So I I I create some content and then I cut it up and I use it in different places. Where do I begin to create content? I mean, that's your specialty. I know you can do that, but where what would I what would I do to begin with creating content?

Repurpose One Idea Many Ways

SPEAKER_01 13:33

As far as the topics or the topics are a great place to start. I I mean the easiest place to start is conversations like this. Um, every time I'm in a sales call or at a networking event or talking to a prospect, there's always something that comes up. Usually it's something I have written about because I've written a lot of content, so I can point them in that direction. Um, but a lot of the time it'll be something I haven't thought about. You know, AI is a big one, right? That's something that, you know, people will have more and more questions. It's like every day we only have more questions about AI. So anytime something comes up that I have not addressed, you know what? I can write a blog post about that, or maybe a quick video or a short social media post about that, um, just to answer people's questions. That is a great place to start. Um, who are your ideal clients? What are the questions that they're asking? How do you help them? And then how can you create content that does all of that? Obviously, you're not gonna sell your secret sauce and your free content, but it has to establish you as an expert and educate that lead a little bit so that they understand the value that you're providing. So by the time they reach out, by the time they're ready to hire you, they're already halfway convinced you're the one they wanna, they want to talk to. So understand those topics and and what are the questions and concerns that they have, but also have that um that funnel laid out. Understand, like, okay, if they read, if they find you on social media, what's the next step? If they read your blog post, what's the next step? Um, because you always, always need a call to action for every piece of content and it has to lead them to the logical next step. If you, like I said, if you propose on the first date, they're gonna click away and you're never gonna hear from them again. Um, but if you go, hey, if you liked this, want to go on a second date, and again, that second date can be subscribing to your newsletter or following you on social media or whatever, whatever makes sense as that next step. So make sure that that piece of content, the whole piece of content needs to ultimately lead to that call to action.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

So I write a blog, put it on my website, but I'm not forcibly, not forcibly sounds like a bad word, but I'm not actively pushing that out somewhere. I used to be there were blog servers or something like that.

Choosing Topics From Real Questions

SPEAKER_01 15:50

Does that work?

SPEAKER_00 15:52

Is that necessary?

SPEAKER_01 15:53

Like a medium?

SPEAKER_00 15:54

Yeah, whatever. I don't even know what you're but it but I feel like just putting it on my website is kind of up to uh I'm I've lost control. I don't have anything pushing it out there.

Calls To Action And Next Steps

SPEAKER_01 16:11

That's why you need a uh first of all, SEO. Um anytime you create content, yes, you need to make sure it's aligned with your ideal client and the questions that they're asking. Um, but it also needs to have those those keywords in there so that when people are looking for it, if it's something where you get a question once or twice and and you do the keyword research and it turns out, yeah, one or two people a month are asking this question, you go, okay, maybe it's not really worth it to cover this. Um, or maybe thousands of people are asking this question, but also it's been covered to death already. Maybe, maybe don't focus on that. You need that sweet spot of a keyword or phrase that has a decent number of searches, but is also not super competitive, which means not a lot of people have already used it in their content. So that's that's gonna help drive content, uh, drive traffic to your website. Um, but again, social media, your newsletter, have definitely you should actively be promoting every piece of content you create. Find ways to get the word out so that you can use that to get people back to your website. Don't just build it and assume that they will come. You have to go where they are, which means again, you have to understand who your ideal client is and where are they hanging out. Are they watching YouTube? Are they listening to podcasts? Are they on LinkedIn or are they more of an Instagram person? You need to know that.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

So speaking of LinkedIn, how about LinkedIn articles? I mean, that okay, great. I'll I'll fess up here. That's where I have in the past thought I would blog would be in LinkedIn articles, and I've played with it a little bit, and it seems to be fairly easy and straightforward, and then somebody else deals with it and it goes out to all these people. Good.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

That's a newsletter.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

Okay.

SEO, Keywords, And Promotion

SPEAKER_01 17:57

So you when you say it goes out to all those people, it gets emailed to them, just like a newsletter would. Yes. Oh and again, you don't own that content. LinkedIn can shut down your your um your account, it can delete articles that you've written if for whatever reason, and you will never get an explanation as to why. Um so yeah, it's super easy if when it works. Um, and we've all heard that LinkedIn is constantly playing with their algorithm and making it more and more difficult to get in front of people. Um, so yeah, if it makes sense, you can use LinkedIn as part of your distribution strategy to promote the content that lives on your website. But don't ever build a house on rent rented ground.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

That makes good sense. That makes really good sense. Let's talk a little bit about the SEO thing and keywords. How do you know what those are and where you go with that?

LinkedIn Is Distribution, Not Home

Long Tail Keywords And Intent

SPEAKER_01 18:59

I have a tool. Uh, the tool I use is called SERPstat.com. Um and it shows me searches, the average number of monthly searches that a keyword gets. Um it also shows me like CPC cost per click data and all that stuff, which is on you only deal with that if you're doing ads. Um, but over there is uh sometimes it's called competition or SEO difficulty or keyword difficulty, um, which is a score of one to 100, one being um no one is using this word. So go for it. It's all yours. Uh 100 being everyone is using this word, you you have no chance of ranking for it. Um, so I tend to aim for, I mean, if I'm really being aggressive, I'll to aim for something that's like less than 20, certainly less than 50. Once it gets above 50, unless you're a really solid website with a lot of traffic and domain authority already. Um, you don't want to go over 50. Um, but the yeah, less than 20 and certainly less than 30 is what I tend to aim for.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

So it I the only examples I have are my own. I I wish I had others, but I don't. So the only examples I have are my own. I teach business owners how to run the business and how to sell. So I would bet that the word sell or sales is probably way over 50.

Authority, Positioning, And Differentiation

SPEAKER_01 20:26

Probably, especially if you use just that word. Um, if you're gonna use something like sales coaching, I mean it's also probably pretty high up there in the SEO difficulty. Um, but it's lower because now it's more specific. Um, so now you've got fewer people using that word. Um and by contrast, you're also on the flip side of that, you're also gonna have fewer searches. But those searches are gonna be more specific. Um, if someone is looking for like, you know, a sales course or sales coaching, they're looking for something different than if they're just looking like, or what is sales, or what do I need to know about sales? Or, you know, I've heard this thing about sales. What do I need to know? Um, whereas if they're looking for something a little more specific, they're gonna use more words. Um, so the flip side of that is usually lower search volume, but also more intentional searches. Um, and again, lower competition. So um always, always recommend those. We call those long tail keywords. A short tail keyword is something that's one or two words. Um, and once you get into the three to five words, that's a long tail keyword. Um, and that's where you really get into the lower search volume, but also lower competition.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

Boy, howdy. I I am learning so much today, Allison. Thank you. What do you what do you think is is probably the most important part of this whole process of becoming visible and marketing? Because that's really what we're talking about. We're talking about marketing, right? It's getting out there and becoming visible.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

Yes, but it's not just. Just visible. It's positioning yourself as an authority in your industry. It is branding yourself so that the right people are attracted to you, the right people find you and go, Oh, that she seems like she knows what she's talking about. I want to follow up with her. Um, whereas the wrong people will find me and go, yeah, no, and they'll click away. So having that good content and again, that strong brand and those that brand voice really well defined will help the people self-select before they ever get on a call with you, um, which makes the the sales process so much easier.

Brand Voice As Antidote To AI Slop

SPEAKER_00 22:35

Oh, it really does, I would think. If you can get out there and do that, it's is that the most important thing that you can work on, I guess? Is what the most important thing.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

The the branding and and I think branding is increasingly, I mean, it's always been important. I think it's even more important now that we have uh the chatbots uh regurgitating content that some people are just posting, copying and pasting without any discernment. Um and the more you do that without discernment, the more you get the the AI slop that it's just um garbage that's not doing anything. And the way to stand out, because so the the downside to that, I think, is we have more content than ever. So it's getting harder to break through the noise, but the key, it's also getting easier if you're really intentional about your brand voice and who it is you serve and what it is you do for them and that problem you solve for them. And if if you zero in on that it throughout all of your content and your brand is really strong in all of that content, it's gonna be much easier to stand out because now you don't sound like all of the other, you know, AI slop out there.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

AI slop.

SPEAKER_01 23:47

I gotta I gotta write that down. It was someone's word of the year last year. It might have been Miriam Webster.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

AI slop. Oh, I like that. I like that. Chat GPT has become um a friend of mine. She says it's her best friend forever. Her BFF is now ChatGPT. I'm not sure how about that. What do you think about AI?

Ideal Clients And How To Connect

SPEAKER_01 24:15

I mean, it's like anything else. It's a tool, and there are helpful ways to use the tool, and there are not so helpful ways to use the tool. Um I mean, from my perspective in what I do, there are kind of two prongs because there's the content. I always put AI generated in the generated part in air quotes, because AI does not generate anything. AI takes what it's been given and it regurgitates it for us and goes, here is this, is this what you want? Um sometimes it is, sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's helpful, other times not so much. Um, so I always say, you know, it's AI regurgitated or AI repurposed content. It's not ever really generating anything. Um, so there's that side of that from my side of the business, is is the content, you know, regurgitation. And then there's the SEO. There are the people who are saying, well, this is it. We're done. Google is dead. It's all about the chatbots. And that is not even remotely true. Um, Google still has 80 plus percent of the online search market. So, yes, there are some people who use Chat GPT as a search engine. It is not even close to the majority of people yet. So I would not rule out Google just yet, especially as they work in um, you know, the LLMs, the large language models, into their content, into their algorithm more and more. Um, on the jet uh again, on the air quotes, generated side. Um, again, there's a right way to use it and there's a wrong way to use it. I absolutely love using it for idea generation, for brainstorming. I used it one time. I had a client who wanted me to write a blog post and she wasn't sure what to write about. Um, so I took her blog link. And Claude is my favorite, by the way. You can play around with whatever LLM you want. My favorite tends to be Claude. So I dumped in her the link to her blog and I told it to give me five blog post topics for that blog. You know, what are topics that are in line with what she's already written about that have not already been covered on her blog? And it gave me five really good ideas, and we ended up going with one of them. Um, I do always take that kind of advice and then go back to um my my a my S my SEO tool to do the keyword research to make sure there's a good keyword somewhere in there, or I can finagle something into a good keyword. Um, but that that off the cuff, like, I just need an idea and I don't know where to go. And I personally don't want to comb through every this is a newer client. I did not want to comb through every single blog post of hers to see what she had and had not written. It was so much faster to have AI do that for me. So that's the kind of thing where it can be really helpful to have AI. Um, but if you're just having it, you know, again, air quotes generate, if you're having a regurgitate content for you that has already been covered everywhere else online, and you're just copying and posting that as though it's new content, it's just not going to be as effective as you want it to be.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

And then there's I could say that makes perfect sense to me. It really does. That makes perfect sense. Allison, we're about up on our time load here, but it tell me who your ideal client is and how we can find you.

Closing And Listener Resources

SPEAKER_01 27:23

Yeah, attorneys and financial planners, it is certainly not limited to those, but those are that's my sweet spot is working with those professional service providers who, yeah, need to separate themselves from the hundreds of other people out there providing what they provide. Um, and that's what I do. I love the ones who are in the process of going from, you know, kind of DIYing it. They're they're going from a small firm to a medium-sized firm. And that's really where the rubber hits the road in terms of marketing and branding. That's where, you know, their assistants have been writing their social media and their daughter's been doing their blog posts for them, and they realize they need an overarching market. They uh they need what I call big kid marketing. They need an overarching holistic marketing strategy, and they need a professional to implement it to take them to the next level because they can't get to the next level by doing what they've been doing. So those are the people that I love working with because that's a fun sandbox to play in.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

Big kid, big kid marketing. That's another one. I love that. That's cool. That is really, really good. So you I'm out there, I'm a big kid, I want to do some marketing. How do I find you and engage your services?

SPEAKER_01 28:33

Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn, Allison Verhalen, Allison with a one L. I think I'm the only Allison Verhalen on there. Uh, YouTube, Allison Verhalen, content marketer. Um, and my website is A V, as in my initials, Allison Verhalen. That is avwriting services.com.

SPEAKER_00 28:50

AVWriting services.com. All righty. Allison, thank you so much for being a guest today on the Commission Code. Appreciate you being here.

SPEAKER_01 29:01

Thanks so much for having me.

SPEAKER_00 29:08

Well, that does it for this episode of the Commission Code Podcast. This is the place where we want to help you find the Commission Code to success in your business. Remember, go to MorrisStims.com for more information. And in the meantime, hey, have a great week. Get out there and meet somebody new, and we'll see you again next time right here on the Commission Code. Best wishes, I'm Morris Sims.