I remember the day it clicked. The day I changed the way I teach content creation.
I'm still not completely sure why it fell into place when it did. I just realised that I'd been creating content the same way I'd made music for years. As a DJ and producer.
Start with a sample
Great DJs start with a hook. They drop it into the mix and see what moves the room.
That's how I start content too. With a simple idea. A sample.
Usually it's something I've read or heard while I'm going about my day. It might be:
A comment someone made in a meeting.
A line from a book.
A post that grabbed my attention.
Something in the news.
On its own, a sample is only a starting point. A few bars that make you think, there's something in that.
Turn it into a song
Next I use that sample to make a song. In content terms, a song is a short piece. An anecdote, a story, a rough framework, a post like this one.
Then I share it, to see whether it's a hit.
This is the part most people skip. They sit on their ideas, polishing them in private, waiting until they're perfect. A DJ would never do that with a new track. You play it out and watch the floor. You see whether people move, whether they drift off, and whether someone comes up to the booth to ask what it was.
Content works the same way. The comments, the messages, the questions people ask afterwards all tell you which songs are worth keeping.
Compile the mixtape
When I'm putting together something long-form, like a keynote, a course or a webinar, I don't start from scratch. I compile my best songs into a mixtape.
The stories that landed. The frameworks people asked about. The lines people repeated back to me. They're already tested, so I know they work. My job is to put them in the right order, with the right flow, the way you'd build a set.
It takes a huge amount of pressure off. A 45-minute keynote feels like a mountain when you're staring at a blank page. It feels much more manageable when you've already got a crate full of songs you know people like.
Where's the sample?
If you regularly run out of ideas, I'd bet the problem sits with your sampling. You're simply not collecting enough starting points.
Don't wait for lightning to strike. Just ask yourself one question as you go through your day: where's the sample?
Later that year I started building this into a method I call the content sampler, which grew out of everything I learned as a DJ and music producer. There's obviously a lot more detail to it, but those are the cliff notes. If you want the practical side of turning one idea into lots of pieces, I've written about that in Record, remix, release. There's more on what the decks taught me in What estate agents can learn from DJs.
If you want to try it, keep a note on your phone called Samples. Every time something catches your ear, a phrase, a question, a story, jot it down. When one keeps nagging at you, turn it into a song: a short post or a two-minute video. Share it and watch the floor.
