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Turning Your Ideas into a Profitable Product with Jack Butcher

May 12, 2021 // by michaeld // Podcast // No Comments

Jack Butcher is the Founder of Visualize Value, an agency that helps other businesses turn their ideas into a scalable profit. Jack is also the Founder of Opponent, a marketing and advertising company that uses design to drive results.

Visualize Value began as a Twitter account focusing on visual design to sell concepts to their clients. Now, Jack utilizes multiple platforms to help businesses and creatives design their brand, build their network, and share their ideas.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

Jack Butcher discusses how he started Visualize Value.
What moved Visualize Value from 0 followers to over 150,000?
Using Twitter and other social media platforms to endorse your brand.
Finding your own strengths and optimizing them for your business.
Jack talks about balancing quantity and quality with deadline-driven work.
Redefining your work environment.
What are the powerful habits of creators?
Jack’s “build once, sell twice” methodology.
Creating a timeline for your goals—and how to achieve them.
The future of online education and digital product marketing.
Jack shares his advice for entrepreneurs looking to sell their products.

In this episode…

As a novice entrepreneur, it can be difficult to gain a following and get your business widely recognized. According to Jack Butcher, who has successfully launched two of his own companies, you can build off of your unique ideas and promote yourself through digital platforms. So how exactly do you begin your launch and build your brand?

In this episode of The Michael Simmons Show, host Michael Simmons sits down with Jack Butcher, Founder of Visualize Value and Opponent. Together, they discuss Jack’s entrepreneurial success, and how it can be attributed to his optimization of Twitter, and his expert strategies for utilizing social media to promote your brand and measure your progress. Plus, Jack shares how you can turn your ideas into a product, stand out from other businesses, and build your network to develop your brand.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by my company, Seminal.

We help you create blockbuster content that rises above the noise, changes the world, and builds your business.

To learn about creating blockbuster content, read my article: Blockbuster: The #1 Mental Model For Writers Who Want To Create High-Quality, Viral Content

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:02

Welcome to The Michael Simmons Show where we help you create blockbuster content that changes the world and builds your business. We dive deep into the habits and hacks of today’s top thought leaders. Now, here’s the show.

Michael Simmons 0:14

I’ve been really looking forward to this one for a while. Today, I present you Jack Butcher, I first started following Jack, just about two years ago, near when he’s just starting writing online. Though he started in January 2019, just creating quotes, and then visualizing those quotes for top thought leaders. He did that for about six months. And then he started doing his own quotes. And just about a year and a half later, the first year, he didn’t make any money. The second year, he made over a million dollars in revenue. And this next year 2021, he set the really top that. And he’s an example of number one, the power of consistency, and just shipping things and just getting better. And it’s awesome, because on Twitter, you can really see that improvement over time. And then number two is an example of the blockbuster method, even though he’s just doing a visual and a quote, which theoretically, could be done very quickly. From this interview, you can really see he spent hours just to create one sentence or two sentences. And we’re also talking about how he’s monetized his knowledge so effectively, and his skill set, and how you can too. And then finally, I think Jack is a great example of what I call craft innovation. He didn’t just pick an existing format, like long form articles or videos, and just do them better. He’s created his own category, he’s a category of one, if you haven’t already seen his work. It’s very distinct. So you actually probably have seen it. Because right away, you see, okay, that’s a Jack Butcher style. So without further ado, I present to you one of the most in depth interviews that Jack has done, and you’re gonna take a lot away from this. I know I did. Jack, welcome to the podcast.

Jack Butcher 2:09

Thank you for having me on.

Michael Simmons 2:10

I am so so excited on multiple levels. And so I want to jump right into it. So it’s January 2019. You’re about 30 years old. You’ve been in New York City for eight years. And you’d been through a bunch of agency jobs until you started your own agency. And then in January 2019, you start a Twitter account called @Visualize Value, where you’re creating these visual, simple ideas through through tweets, you’re basically starting from scratch on it. And your goal for my understanding is to be like a proof of work for your agency clients. That’s right. Can you walk me to where you were at the time? or What the What did you make a commitment to just do it once a day? Where were your mindset, then?

Jack Butcher 3:03

Sure. So the the project itself, as you rightly diagnosed was basically a response to this like unwieldy agency beast that I’ve created, right? saying yes to all of these, like different projects in different industries with different deliverables and just a crazy mess of stuff that was obviously impacting our spending my time, stress levels off the charts, all of those things. And the process initially was basically a byproduct of the the agency work that was really like moving the needle was the like, visual design stuff we were doing behind the scenes. So we would like depict these ideas visually, that would sell a concept or explain an industry to one of our clients. And more often than not, this stuff didn’t actually, like ever see the market was all the stuff that we use to communicate our value proposition. So it’s like, hang on, there’s something here, and it kind of comes naturally. So maybe I can turn that into a product by itself. And the initial attempt to kind of share that work was let me like take these projects and put them out into the world. So it was like is how to visualize a supply chain or here’s how to visualize the reason why this cryptocurrency is going to succeed in this market for examples like these really dense, only really applicable to people who are in that industry, people are looking for a very specific thing. And then one day, it just sort of hit me Why not? Why not use the same methodology of visualizing ideas on ideas that are more widely appreciated and likeable. So that’s the shift came as like, Okay, what have I read what have been the ideas that have moved the needle for Me, how can I, you know, put them through this same filter and potentially create this aesthetic that is going to function as?

Michael Simmons 5:10

portfolio almost. Yeah.

Jack Butcher 5:13

Exactly. And and like, even though we had proof of work in the industry specific applications, it just wasn’t compelling enough to get people to be like, I want that done for me, because they didn’t I, this is anecdotal, but I don’t think they experienced the same epiphany when it’s like not subject matter that is relevant to them. They care

Michael Simmons 5:33

about. Interesting, interesting, really interesting. And so did you make a commitment that, Okay, I’m going to do this for a year, or I’m just going to do 15 pieces, or what was your commitment?

Jack Butcher 5:44

Yeah, yeah. So I think, a loose commitment of at least one a day to begin with, I think, actually launched it with 20, or 30. So I just like I had this, like sketch document that I’d built out 20 or 30 of them. And then I was like, I’m gonna put this out into the world. And I just started exploring, getting back into Twitter as a social network, I was doing all of my business development on Facebook before that organically. And that’s like, it’s such a closed network in comparison to something like Twitter website, this thing could just be amplified and right ends of the earth. So Twitter was like, okay, maybe it makes sense to do that. Also, a lot of the ideas were,

Jack Butcher 6:28

Were belong to people that had Twitter accounts. So if I could take an idea that somebody had that, you know, has a Twitter account, visualize that reference them in that idea, then they see it, you know, maybe they share it, maybe they don’t, but that continual process of like, finding great ideas of people that are already in the network, building visual representations of those ideas, and then, you know, potentially having them amplify them was what grew the network. Yeah. bigger and bigger.

Michael Simmons 6:55

And yeah, question for you how many Twitter followers you basically had zero followers for Visualize Value? I’m guessing. Yeah. Did you get those initial people? Did you just send it to your friend?

Jack Butcher 7:07

No, I think honestly, the, the trick was a, like I just mentioned, finding people who would see it, like it. And then, you know, that would be exposed to their networks, which likely appreciate their ideas, which further amplifies that idea. So you’re kind of doing something this this is like a term coined retro actively but the permissionless apprenticeship to the idea that you can go and take somebody

Michael Simmons 7:39

interesting

Jack Butcher 7:40

say, Hey, I’m going to spend a day with this person’s ideas, and I’m going to turn them into something like I’m going to add some context to them, or I’m going to perform a service on behalf of this person to help spread these ideas whether you’re, you know, video editor or writer.

Michael Simmons 7:57

Do you literally started from 01 second? I think I said I said something on that I activated my Siri phone. Alright, I gotta turn it off. Okay.

always listening. Alright, now it’s activated one of my YouTube. There we go. All right. I love I love Siri sometimes, and not all the time. All right, it’s off. Okay, yeah, keep going.

Jack Butcher 8:37

So I’m trying to remember I was

Jack Butcher 8:43

Started from zero on that account, and really the network effect of tapping into you know, taking that permissionless apprenticeship model and finding people who I can essentially work for free create stuff for them on the back of their ideas. There’s a reciprocity there, where they’re connected me to their networks. And then those ideas obviously resonate within those networks, because these people are following sets of people because they appreciate their ideas. And then you just have this calm, okay,

Michael Simmons 9:12

if that makes sense. So normally, somebody might, when they’re starting a Twitter account, just invite all their friends or their network there and say, Hey, I’m creating this account, check it out. You basically didn’t do that. And you just, you attack other people’s work. And then the assumption was, you’d be able to create enough value where they’d want to retweet it themselves, because it helps them are overweight. And I went back to your early post, I can see every day. I think you’re posting one thing a day, and you’re tagging someone in everyone.

Jack Butcher 9:39

Yeah, yeah. So that was and there’s like an outsize return on like one or two of those two, you know, like, like when the

Michael Simmons 9:47

ball tweeted or Right,

Jack Butcher 9:49

exactly. It’s like this huge, like, disparate outcomes and all of them but one of the interesting things I think is obviously the the advantage accrews with the amount you post, so it’s like the credibility of the page grows with the number of people that follow it. And obviously, the recognition of the style grows with how many times you’ve posted. So it’s really difficult to get that uptake in the beginning. Because, you know, this might be a six hour project that somebody is going to abandon. And I think there’s like, you know, there are a lot of these tactics on social networks that are trying to bait big accounts into engaging with their cons. Yeah. And it’s Yeah, I feel very like, yeah, it’s a very nuanced thing, right has to legitimately be something that either they can produce themselves, or they haven’t produced themselves, or has, you know, a, like, has a benefit to them sharing. So yeah,

there’s an interesting nuance there. And it’s like, in hindsight, I had no idea that it would, it would reach the number of people it would in the in that short amount of time, but clearly, there was something there. So just kept playing with it.

Michael Simmons 11:05

Okay, if you have questions for you, at this point, how long is it taking you per image?

Jack Butcher 11:12

About probably about 15 20 minutes?

Michael Simmons 11:14

Okay. 15 20 minutes. And so let’s say it’s February, so far, you posted 30 images? Did you have any tangible benefits there that you remember where you were? Or does that and I only ask this, because I’ve noticed people have a lot of trouble starting things going from zero to one. And there’s, as I called the valley of death, where you’re basically working in obscurity, and you don’t really have any external tangible benefits are not made. The show does curious is What kept you going.

Jack Butcher 11:45

Yeah, so the at this point, the agency business is still kind of on its last legs, you have a few agency clients, and

Michael Simmons 11:55

and how many Sorry to interrupt you there, but just get the contact? How many hours per week? were you working on the agency at this point?

Jack Butcher 12:01

At least 40 or 50? I would think, yeah, those are full time thing. And this was like, this was an attempt originally to just like pivot the work of the agency to be more specific. So to get, you know, to be able to do twice as much in those 40 hours, as I was doing a month ago, but obviously, the direction changed with how the project laid out. In February of I think we probably had started to get inquiries from people that wanted, you know, Visualize Value as a service. So the initial hypothesis was correct that if we just pivot to this one thing, we’re going to create enough demand for consulting services that are refined, like constrained purely to this, this deliverable, which is the set of visuals that that articulate value in some, like non visual concept.

Michael Simmons 13:03

And that’s amazing that so you’re proving your hypothesis, how many within that first month? How many do you think you got just a handful of inquiries? Yeah, I would science or old clients are actually complete strangers,

Jack Butcher 13:15

some, like some people in my network, but the majority was cold outreach on Twitter. And

Jack Butcher 13:25

That probably translated to one or two service clients. A lot of people assumed that, I think, like the difference in income from the agency, job, I’d work because I had, like a decent roster of clients worked in corporate and like, these are like six bigger projects that you’re working on in that world. And then when you come over to like soliciting business on the network, like Twitter, people expect that they’re gonna be able to hire you for 25 bucks an hour. All right, yeah, that took a long time to kind of make that transition and build up the, like, build up the kind of train the market that this is, you know, this is a service worth paying for. So I a lot of those early inquiries, like, Hey, can I buy the use this for free? Or can I like, I have 50 bucks, can you help me make a pitch deck, like stuff like that early on, which is like, discouraging in some ways? Because, you know, you’re like, there’s a market really valued this enough that I could live off it. But it’s also, I think, a byproduct of just how early you are and like, you’re not really attracting people who are perhaps more serious or more established, because you’re only a month into this experiment, if that makes sense.

Michael Simmons 14:49

Yeah, and at this point, are you like, is your mindset like, Okay, we got a few inquiries at this price. I just keep doing this, then you’re fast forwarding. We’d grow at this rate in a year from now. We’ll be at this size, or were you just focusing more day to day and showing up and enjoying the process?

Jack Butcher 15:05

I think there’s I think there’s a hybrid definitely enjoyed the process. Like the the, the act of making these things was just very satisfying. And, you know, building the portfolio up on the side, it was almost like this hedge that worked either way, right? It’s like, I’m getting better at my craft by doing this every day. If other people see it, and like, I win new business off the back of it, then that’s a win win, right? So constructed this environment where your skills are improving, regardless of the direct outcome. I think that has a part to play in. Why I kept going, because like, if you think about it that way, you really can’t lose.

Michael Simmons 15:46

It’s just right. You enjoy and you’re learning though.

Jack Butcher 15:49

Yeah. And you get like, if you want to, like, talk about the like, headedness stick piece of it, as well as like a dopamine trigger associated with posting every day, which is like you can leverage that the right way. You know, I don’t know, there’s different view on this from every angle depends, like what you subscribe to. But there’s definitely a poll there that keeps you coming back and publishing like, the insane. Like, that’s really

Michael Simmons 16:19

Likes, retweets

Jack Butcher 16:20

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So that that becomes a game, right? It’s like any video game where like, you want to keep getting to the next level, keep getting your experience points up. And this is why all this stuff is so addictive. And you’re kept in that engaging loop, because you can measure your performance day to date, they have some semblance of progress happening.

Michael Simmons 16:44

And in some of your posts, you shown the dashboards of what you know, this turned out to be a good post I’m looking at the stats that I took from that is you’re looking at the stats. And there my question for you is, when you’re looking at the stats are seeing the progress we just seeing, what were you really looking at the feel that sense of progress we’re looking at, okay, the number of likes increasing? Is it the like rate that for every 1000 impressions, we get x number of like,

Jack Butcher 17:10

Yeah, I think that’s like, there’s like some gut measurement there where you can tell like, this is like the speed at which this thing grows, you actually had a conversation with someone who runs a massive meme account last week. And they have this methodology where they post memes to Twitter individually. And then by the they look at the ratio of likes per impressions. And then the ones that pass a certain threshold, they compile into a sequence and put them on YouTube. The others like Twitter is just this really like powerful valid, like content validation tool. And then you know, you can use what you learn there to perform like the tweak your performance and other platforms. For me, though it was it was definitely just pure, like vanity metrics as some consideration, which is, you know, how many people like it, how many people retweet it, retweets are obviously, such a powerful endorsement, it’s like, I am essentially putting my name behind this thing and amplifying it. So that’s huge. We also have an Instagram account. And I’ve been, like interested to see the Save stats on posts. So you can see who just saving stuff, which that’s really interesting. And that sometimes vastly differs from the front end metrics. So you might have a, something that leans a little bit more education or a little bit more like you have to sit with it a little bit longer to get the takeaway. And generally those gets saved quite heavily, but not necessarily amplified or, like liked, publicly at the same volume. So there are different metrics, I think, obviously, like when you have a call to action, like the click through rate is a massive way to measure how compelling your words and images and assets are, which you know, that’s what drives sales and conversion ultimately. So that’s a, that’s an interesting one. And that can vary like just so enormous lis it’s almost bizarre, much of a lever, those little like, you know, the sequence of words can drastically change the outcome of a

Michael Simmons 19:19

post. One thing I’ve noticed is that when people are starting an account, you’re going out, you’re obviously start with a smaller number of people. You can see, okay, I got to like, and that that doesn’t feel that exciting. You know, they’re like, Oh, this is failure. versus when I look at it, I think about the like ratio, that if they got you I’m just making this number up for let’s say, 2%. Maybe it’s just a big platform that’s actually really good. It shows that they’re doing good and they just need to keep doing it and overtime is gonna build up. Is there a metric for beginners that you feel like it’s good one to see? And what’s a benchmark that you think, you know, given that Twitter’s here or Yeah, Twitter? What should I

Jack Butcher 19:59

think That’s a good framework, I think. I don’t know what the number should be, I think, but like contextualizing it based on impressions is, is small life is a good way to think about it. I think the real measure is like, you have to ask yourself, like, Am I getting better at what I’m doing as a result of undergoing this practice every day. And that’s like, that requires more work on your part to not rely on the external measurement that will come as a result of this process making you better at your craft. I think this, I don’t even remember where I heard this, or what were the reference is from? Like, if you chase the thing directly, you don’t get the thing, right. Yeah, it has to be like a byproduct of you becoming more focused on the craft or becoming better at the thing you’re doing. And you can see examples of this everywhere. You know, like, if you’re a, you also like run the risk of you run the risk of building something. That is, I think, I think after a period of time, you can definitely you can start to maybe, um

Jack Butcher 21:24

maybe this is not totally accurate. But I feel as though I know how a post is going to perform now before I post them. Like, you kind of get the the instinct for the platform. And that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s what I should be doing every time because you’re kind of building a business that, you know, potentially is taking you in a direction that you don’t want to be going right, right. Yeah. There are definitely considerations on like, internally that I think are more important than, you know, just finding ways to get people to like and amplify your stuff. Because if that’s your goal, just go and find the most outrageous thing you can and stop

Michael Simmons 22:03

me copying it. Right, right. Yeah, I think how we measure progress is really underestimated. And I started to actually realise this, because as you teach, you know, learning how to learn and mental models, and a lot of the things that, as one advances are the highest leverage, feel like you’re wasting time. So on a scale of a day, it feels like spending two hours reading a book feels like a waste of time. But if you’re gonna use that for the rest of your life, or if you take a break or going for a walk, it feels like a waste of time, I’ve noticed that a lot of the top performers or heads of industries, they like Ray Dalio will stop a meeting. And right away, we’re gonna solve the issue rather than walking over it, that they’ve learned how to have their measurement of progress, tied to something that’s often a little bit more abstract. You’re talking about the internal feel, and long term, not just whatever is most obvious in the short term. And you said something interesting on the sandbar podcast related to this, that stuck out to me, he said, the gold thing puts me on an aggressive path, where I have to make compromises for an arbitrary reason. And there’s no five year thing that here’s what needs to happen for you.

Jack Butcher 23:17

Yeah, and I got it, you know, I’ve been asked that many times, I think it’s like, it’s kind of the almost the antithesis of how this project started, and how it kept going, you know, like that. The reason it started was, like, backed out of a lifestyle goal was like, I’m burning out, I need to fix something, like, let’s do, you know, let’s narrow our focus and try and like really dial in the type of people we work with and type of work that we do. And that, you know, led led me to another set of circumstances which I asked another question. It’s like, okay, we’re still doing service stuff. Now. No, this is we’re at capacity, how do we get out of that? So there’s always like, things that the journey is kind of teaching you man, right, I would say change, like, change the guard. And you know, in some cases, like, if you’re looking for a cure for cancer is a different, there’s a different game and you’re trying to launch rockets to Mars, different game as you go. This, like this project is as a combination of like, you know, figure out how to balance like, producing, producing things that really move the needle and people’s lives, but also, like, figure out how to optimize the business against like, a decent lifestyle in the process. So it’s like setting a goal any further than a couple of months or setting a goal that’s like, like you say, like some type of like, arbitrary number, it just, it doesn’t really make a ton of sense to do that. Like, if you investors, if you had like, things to hit, because you have external pressure telling you to hit them, then I think some people operate Well, I think I operate well under those circumstances. But I don’t know if I would drive the business in a direction where I would enjoy it in the same way as I do now.

Michael Simmons 25:17

It’s very easy to create a business that you don’t enjoy being an I’ve been in there. It’s like trying to start a business for the freedom but then you’re the you’re your own worst boss. Yeah,

Jack Butcher 25:26

yeah. Yeah. And I like the agency model, just because that’s the world that I came from was like, I tried like, five, six different iterations of that model and just could not get it right. And you know, some people do it. They love it. They like hiring people that like all that stuff. I think like acknowledging some of your strengths and like optimizing around, you’re like, how are you most effective in any given day? If your business doesn’t align with that, then you’re in trouble? Hmm.

Michael Simmons 26:02

So what I hear is, you’re optimizing the things, the leading indicators for you or the lifestyle. Now, is that what it takes for you to have the optimized day enjoy the work, then also, output seems like you are getting your, okay, one day, one time a day. And then the learning one is really interesting. Because a lot of people, you know, there’s different research, like, you don’t actually learn from experience past a certain point, we reached this okay plateau, where we’re good enough to get the result like typing, and then you don’t improve. Sometimes we have to, this is where Anders Ericsson works to come in and deliberate practice, we have to structure things in a way where we can keep growing, what did it I can see a huge improvement from as the beautiful thing about Twitter, I can go back to your first post, and just see the changes, though. There’s parts that are the same, but you’ve also really improved a lot. What about how you set up the work allows you to keep improving you think?

Jack Butcher 26:57

I think a lot of it after a after the period of just hitting it consistently comes down to like, your judgement improving, right? Like after a certain point, like once you know, this idea is resonating? Is it more important that you post every day? Or is it more important that you post things that you’re very proud of? So it’s almost like that balance shifts, it’s like when you’re in those like, like amateur putting the reps in learning the platform, like you have a smaller audience of people way more forgiving earlier in the journey, then, you know, you you reach a point, I think, where you can take more time with your decisions. And you know, convincing yourself that it’s okay to take time with your decisions is kind of the biggest mental barrier to like, this is what you mentioned before, about, you know, taking a walk or sitting down and reading a book for eight hours, or just doing nothing on one day, right, as opposed to just ploughing on when you know you’re not in a great space to produce something is like, it’s a really hard instinct to resist as well, like, especially the environment I came from. It’s like, deadline, you have to produce this. Like, if you don’t, we’re not going to get paid. So like, yeah, becoming okay with that is really like I think mentally one of the weirdest and hardest barriers to overcome, especially if you, like grew up and learn those skills in a totally different environment.

Michael Simmons 28:31

Yeah, yeah, I got a great tweet on this. That was just the three steps, one, focus on quantity at first, then find something that resonates step two, and then focus on quality. It’s interesting how the advice changes based on the step. It’s not a universal, always focus on one or the other.

Jack Butcher 28:48

Yeah, I think that that idea is, again, like applied in hindsight, I think the maybe the most famous example is a Steve Jobs thing as they collect all of these experiences, and then connect the dots looking backwards. Yeah, and one of the things like I actually, I’m curious about is, like, when I started my career in 2010 11, ish, like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, they’re all like in their infancy, right? They’re not, they’re not pulling you off your like, main focus for eight hours a day, like we are potentially now, right? Like these social networks engineer to the point where people live on them at this point. Yeah. And it’s very hard to build these skills, I think that I think generally take like periods of intense focus and challenge and all of those, like, experiences that you you kind of stitch together as a product of working the job or starting a different business or whatever else. And I can’t, I sort of acknowledge my advantage in that respect where I didn’t have that distraction when I started, and now I can leverage the stuff I learned when I wasn’t distracted in this new environment. Does that make sense?

Michael Simmons 30:07

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, it does. And so on an improvement rate, you know, I think number one, I could you know, you’re in a medium where you’re getting direct feedback all the time. Yeah. Versus that you could be another world, maybe there’s parts of the agency world where you create something, and it’s never sees the light of day. So you don’t even know if it works. You’re getting feedback all the time, then you mentioned quality that at a certain point, not just about output, and like, Oh, I need to get this out today. But it’s also How could I make this really good? And also just being a producer rather than a consumer? Did you do any research where you start? You read books on this or found that books or quotes and how to get better? Or was that were those the three main ingredients?

Jack Butcher 30:49

majority of his practice? Yeah, so I think like the, the body of like, ideas that began the project, were all things that I’d like stumbled into that had, like, slowly helped me change my mind and, like, helped me like, optimize the business very gradually, none of them was like, there was no one magic bullet or one like single idea that changed everything. But I think another try, like, I’ve tried to figure out what it is about, like how you select the ideas, and I think it’s a it’s really about like, this is this is true of writing or visuals or anything is like, if you can take an idea and essentially filter it through all of the experiences, you’ve had to like to, like stress test, essentially, it’s like, okay, I’ve written this statement. Is that true in this environment, where I spent 10 years is that true in this environment, I spent two years is that true in the context of this project, I think a lot of those things, like your ability to like stress test, an idea against all these different experiences you’ve had, the experience when you’re having it in the moment may not feel useful, but it’s going to, like improve your ability to write things that are more that resonate with more people, because you’re collecting experiences that other people are going to be able to relate to.

Michael Simmons 32:21

Right, the one that when I hear that, I feel like in general, I love the mental model of feedback loops. And there’s external feedback loops. But then there’s internal feedback loops. Edward de Bono has the idea of six hats that you can wear. If you’re editing your own work, you can look at it from different perspectives. And even though it’s still you, you can still get unique insights from each perspective. So are you kind of using that approach of your credit, different feedback perspectives on your own work? Yeah,

Jack Butcher 32:50

you know, I don’t I think I’ve heard of that. But I haven’t studied it in any depth. But yeah, I think one of the other things on public platforms is like, try and shred this from the perspective of your biggest critic. Now, if I imagine that I’m, like, I believe the exact opposite of what I believe as a person. And I’m reading this thing that I just wrote, how would I tear it apart? Like, what would I, you know, how would I approach like this assembling this idea? And if there’s a really easy way to destroy it, then throw it out? Yeah.

Michael Simmons 33:25

Yeah. devil’s

Jack Butcher 33:26

advocate person. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So that’s, I think that’s a powerful, a powerful model for your writing, too, which would just be one of those other hats.

Michael Simmons 33:37

Yeah, you know, James Clear had a list of the tips for tweeting. And what I liked was just after you write the post, pick it let it sit for 10 minutes, then just try to make it better. When you were focused, you mentioned you start to focus more on quality. Is there any little things like that, that helps you just go a little bit further quality wise?

Jack Butcher 34:00

Yeah, I think this comes back to a theme we’re discussing earlier is like, the writing of the tweet is really not the work right there. Right? All the work is happening in your head. And then the, the writing of the tweet is really just the, like, the transcription of the idea as you’ve like, built it in your mind. So I think being okay with like, yeah, I’m gonna go on a walk for 45 minutes. And if, like, if I’ve produced three sentences on that wall, they’re gonna be better than like, me sit down at the keyboard for 45 minutes and just like going back and forth and editing and editing. So I think like, that that redefinition of like where work happens has been big for me, like especially coming from like billable hours environment, whereas like, if you’re not in software x with your screen recorded and you know, doing six hours of work, you’re not working. I think Morgan Housel says this as well as like most of the process of writing A book is like lounging around thinking about how to connect this idea with that idea of flicking through a book. So yeah, I think becoming okay with the fact that you’re working, even when just wandering around and like trying to refine the structure of a sentence in your head for 10 minutes is the most valuable work you’re doing. It’s not the act of just putting it into the keyboard.

Michael Simmons 35:23

Really interesting. And it’s hard I find, you know, part of what’s hard about learning how to measure progress, based on abstract or not directly, at least to be but kind of when it’s in your head, just taking a walk, it’s a little bit unpredictable, is dealing with the guilt of like, Am I just joking? am I fooling myself? And yeah, was that is that was that hard? How did you work through that of get convinced, okay, these walks can be productive for me. And I think you start to collect

Jack Butcher 35:51

evidence that they’re productive after a while. So like, if the, if the habit produces a thing that you put into an external feedback loop, and you get good feedback, then you just like, look back and be like, okay, that thing produced this asset that I can eventually validate externally. And, and you know, a lot of the intangibles are just like, do I feel better on any given day, if I do this versus, you know, force myself to try and write something when I haven’t got it fully figured out? There’s some, you know, I don’t have enough of a biological understanding of how it works. But the idea that the levels of processing in your brain are like, it’s like defragging a disk of some sort, like, you’re not going to write great stuff. If you’re scrolling through a feed, you lose constantly having like, a new idea inserted, every, you know, half a second or less, subconsciously, just like keeping your mind very, like surface level, in essence, and then going out where you don’t have all of those like inputs and distractions. I think, you know, neurons start to connect and fire and you come up with a lot of sounding stuff.

Michael Simmons 37:11

Malcolm Gladwell has said that for every hour of writing, there’s three hours of thinking, what do you think that ratio is for you? If it takes 15 minutes for you to

Jack Butcher 37:21

put it on Twitter? Probably 50 to one.

Michael Simmons 37:25

Really? 50? zero to one?

Jack Butcher 37:27

Yeah.

Michael Simmons 37:29

Wow.

Jack Butcher 37:29

I don’t do a lot of walking, though. Yeah, a lot of doing nothing.

Michael Simmons 37:35

And you when you’re let’s say, You’re going on a walk, do you go with a notebook, and you start with your five sentences, I want to, tweak and get better? Or

Jack Butcher 37:45

it’s just I know, it’s weird. I think it’s like, I think the interesting thing is like, it will be a there’ll be some like real life trigger for like, how can I surmise this thing that I’m feeling at the moment, right? Like, whether that’s something that, like a change you implement in the business or a mistake you make, or like a friend reaches out to you with some dilemma that they’re facing, or you know, someone in your family is going through something like that, to me is like, the one thing that’s occupying my mind while I’m like not directly doing something else, like reading something else, like whenever your mind is, like, disengaged, in some respect, feels to me like I start going into this mode of like, Well, how do I? How would I package this in a way that makes it relevant to more people? It’s the same, like process, I think, is the visual. You know, how do you codify a concept into a visual that makes it more accessible? I think that that same process is happening says like, there’s no specific strategy, like my phones in my pocket, are that maybe that’s a way to say it, write that down. You know, and then just like, keep iterating on that, and then maybe that leads you down another path, you write something else down. I honestly wish I had more of the like, long form. I wish it was, like more attractive to me. I do enjoy it when I get into it. But I think pulling on some of those threads and writing articles off the back of some of those ideas could be another powerful habit to get to work up to.

Michael Simmons 39:27

Yeah, it’s interesting. I remember the very first time I wrote in college, I was with a group of friends that we were just in our dorm. And I was I started a business in high school at Cal Newport and I started a business together. It changed my life in so many different ways. I was at that time, I was just an evangelist. I just like, everyone’s got to start a business Trust me. And I was frustrated because I couldn’t get it across the people. So at the after the night everyone got home literally is 1am. I wrote an email to everyone. Here are the seven reasons you need to start a business. And then I actually got really good feedback from them. One of them even started a business. And so I published that an entrepreneur calm. But it’s kind of similar. Just there was a conversation that was triggered from a conversation where I was like, I couldn’t get it across the network hated me what I was feeling. And I just want to solve that puzzle by getting down the words is that feels similar to what you’re talking about.

Jack Butcher 40:20

Yeah, I think that’s it spot on. It’s like you’re trying to externalize these things that you believe to be true. And it’s like you just like searching for people who also believe that as like, that’s the process of like, producing content and putting those things out there. It’s like this network building device. It’s like, here’s how I see the world. Do you agree? Or like, is there merit in this that maybe, you know, we could come to some common understanding of or is it totally nonsense? Like, you feel free to debunk it as well? So? Yes, like, it’s an itch that you feel like you have to scratch your eyes, like, this thing is, like frustrating me that I haven’t put it out into the world, and especially when you’re doing something that people are asking you questions about, like, how do you think about like, in your case, how do you think about starting a business? Why would you do that? Why aren’t you, you know, applying for job X, Y, and Z? Like I could have this conversation 100 times or I could just write something and say, read this

Michael Simmons 41:24

could be a question or dilemma. Yeah, really interesting. The way it’s like a FAQ frequently asked question a person?

Jack Butcher 41:31

Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s a great way to think about it. Like, in the same way you would automate processes within your business. It’s like, you try and use content to just like, answer questions that people keep asking you like, in some of our community discussions and Visualize Value, we’ll get, like, we get a question asked three times, it’s like, Okay, it’s time to write an article or make a video or do something that we could just send people to? And that’s not to say that the question has been completely fully answered, but then the questions we’re going to get off the back of that video are going to be even more pointed, which is going to give us way more direction to, like, refine it even more. So. Yeah, it’s like trying to this like internal and external feedback loop that you’re requesting people’s input to just further tweak the answer.

Michael Simmons 42:24

Really interesting. Well, I’m so fascinated by the world of thought, you know, one way I think about it is, you know, one of the big things in the last 10 years has been the sharing economy. So Uber or Airbnb, are based on these ideas that you have this asset that’s expensive to buy, but doesn’t cost much to own and you’re barely using it, though. You know, you can have somebody else use it, at least in the case of car, for example, or Yeah. So, you know, I think I always think that we spend our whole life building up all these ideas, and then they’re just sitting there in our head. And everyone has ideas that could be helpful to someone else. And then when I hear you saying, the other side of that, that’s kind of just sitting in your head. But the other one is, there’s some ideas that you’re you have for whatever reason, you’re explaining the same idea over and over. So why not spend extra time explaining it once really, really well? And then have that as your answer?

Michael Simmons 43:20

Absolutely. Three acts rule of I don’t know, there’s some naming opportunity.

Jack Butcher 43:26

Yeah. Agreed. Agreed, like, yeah, the FAQ is a good. Like, instead of a product FAQ is like a personal FAQ, maybe that’s the way to think about it.

Michael Simmons 43:37

Yeah, I like that. You’re one thing I obviously you’re well known for first, you have the Visualize Value course, teaching people about how to use design visuals, which is awesome. I’m a student and and then your second, your other course, is more about these ways of thinking and the mindset to produce and be successful online, let’s say, I think the thing that you’re most underestimated for, although now you’re really well known by millions of people, is quotes, or at least I’ve haven’t, I think you’re a genius at creating quotes. I personally really value the craft of how do you create a sentence that’s that so valuable to people that they remember it? They share it with friends, it stands the test of time, and I think it’s one of the highest value things one could do with their thoughts because most sentences are just forgotten. You say it once and you never hear it again. And I was just curious, how did you get good at quotes within all this equation? So

Jack Butcher 44:42

good question. I don’t think like you know, I have no formal training as a writer or like even grammar is not my strong point. Like my wife is way more qualified to like, you know, police the the structure of a sentence or like, did I say this right is the apostrophe in the right place? But I think the I think the craft is like there is this self reinforcing feedback loop to that use that concept. Again, that design is a powerful teacher of. So design, I think teaches you the, the skill of removing what’s not necessary, right. So just

Jack Butcher 45:33

Just say, say what you need to say in as few words as you can, or like, make something happen with the fewest with the fewest elements that you can like everything that everything that doesn’t contribute to the end goal is superfluous in design. And the same is true, I think, in copy. And it’s a really difficult thing to master on both sides. But I think, for me personally having the, like, having the ability to filter by would I be able to visualize this idea? Or does this have the same qualities of these, these quotes and these, these concepts that I would pick out to visualize? Is there like the, you know, the semantic structure or the the hierarchy of information in there that really lends itself to this, like visual context? And, you know, there’s no very formal process for that. But I think, you know, you almost developing a bit of an instinct by going through that process hundreds 1000s of times at this point where it’s like, okay, the original, the original, I think, impetus for me getting better at writing was, I don’t want to, I don’t want this page to be purely everybody else’s IP, right. Like, I want to know, to all of the great thinkers and writers that helped me I want to like, give back and amplify those ideas. I think they’re incredibly powerful. But yeah, I want this thing to also be a vehicle for me to express the things that I find valuable and the things that the ideas I’ve developed over the last few years and that feedback loop between my like personal Twitter account and Visualize Value as where that like where that refinement came in, like, right, yeah, amplify on Visualize Value, then maybe translate it to a visual, though. Yeah, that’s one of the big parts of I think,

Michael Simmons 47:32

a few questions for you. Well, one, just an observation, I for a while I went deep into linguistics, studying linguistics, just that I love research. That’s my thing. And just the patterns of it is that we use, you can think about it in the from the mental model of the law of thermodynamics, and you’re just trying to be as efficient as energy as possible. The overtime language often involves the use fewer and fewer words to describe something. And then you like that is because basically, when people are saying if it works hard to stay, then they’ll abbreviate it. And a funny example is in high school, you know, kids being kids, there was one teacher that was just just a little older, she had trouble moving her neck to the side. So she had to burn her whole body to the side. And we’ve all had this situation where we pull our neck or something. And then for the day, it’s hard to turn so her last name was Miscrufal. So people just call it the if you have that, rather than saying, Oh, my next door. You just said I have a shortcut roughneck basically.

Michael Simmons 48:40

So now, I’m not this is just the high school version, it actually stuck for, you know, the people in that group still actually use that to describe that. And so I wonder if we could try something real time where? Okay, so we talked about this idea of the personal FAQ, or you saying something? If you get asked the question 3x times, then that’s a good time to create an answer. How I know it’s instinctual and often happens for you now to unconscious level. But are there certain a ways of passive thinking you would you would use to try to break that down into a sentence that you could share? Oh, this

Jack Butcher 49:17

this three

Michael Simmons 49:20

personal fashions? Yeah.

Jack Butcher 49:23

The way I would probably think about it, or the way I would write it up is would probably refer to like, a lot of the consistent ideas that I talked about. So this idea of like build once sell twice. Yeah, as the you know, the masthead of this product and this philosophy of use top use technology and media to divorce your inputs and outputs and scale your income. I think that same idea is like

would apply here where you’re essentially writing something once and like sending it out for consumption as many times as you, you know, as you get asked, so, um, the actual structure of it, I would, I’ll keep it cooking in the back of my head, but I think the this idea is maybe more like, like your answers become leverage, you know, like you’re, you’re able to turn the things that you get asked frequently into, like a different form of leverage. So one of the one of the questions we get all the time is how to build community. Yeah, like we always like, we have a reasonably successful community 1000 members, and it’s like, pretty vibrant as people like going back and forth all day long on all these different channels. And we get a ton of questions about, well, how do you build a community? And more often than not, it’s like, that’s the wrong question to ask, right? A community is a byproduct of something you did that a bunch of people appreciate that they want to, like, be near. So

Jack Butcher 51:22

I think that same, same idea applies to same idea applies to this concept that we’re discussing, which is like, if you have this like, common

Jack Butcher 51:40

this is the feedback we were talking about earlier. So you have this common validation that this is a concern for a ton of people. Hmm, yeah, thank you, you almost have is a is a way to think about is like answer market fit, right? So you have Oh, I identify Yeah, identify the loads of people want to know this about you. I think the personal FAQ is maybe a good little like branded way to think about it, but in the same way that like, people raise their hand. This is this is another like, another way to think about product development, right? where people are like, I’m going to make a product. And then I’m going to go out and ask people if they want it. If you get the same question three or four times people are telling you what they want, right? Whether that right hand turn product, like depending on the nature of the question, that might just be a video that might be you know, a piece of software, that might be something else, but I think, yeah,

Jack Butcher 52:43

I would, I would say like a lot of people probably already have insight, if they just answered the questions that a ton of people already asking them. So I would go down that route to try and distill that into.

Michael Simmons 52:56

So it’s almost like other people’s questions or your product are?

Jack Butcher 53:00

Yeah, that’s

Michael Simmons 53:00

your idea of leverage. Yeah, I

Jack Butcher 53:03

think that’s interesting, like baked in, you just haven’t, you just haven’t. You haven’t taken essentially the final step, right? You’ve already given the answer. You’ve already figured it out. I sort of like to go back to our earlier conversation, like, your thoughts are sitting there in your head, your answers to questions are sitting there in your head. But until you turn that into something that can answer the question without you, you don’t have any leverage.

Michael Simmons 53:30

Yeah, and what I had heard slightly, I’m reading between the lines of what you said is, number one, there’s different formats or ideas that you’ve used, that you could go back to like the build one sell twice. That could be a format, like, theoretically, you could run the equation of like, get out. Why is the answer once or something like that? So that’s exactly right.

Jack Butcher 53:49

Yeah. A good way to think about,

Michael Simmons 53:51

it made me think about there’s research from the 1980s. I don’t know I remember the date, but around the early 80s, where they studied how expert physics students, answer questions versus novices. So novices they go right to the first thing that like that immediate hack, where the the advanced expert, the experts, they have a pool of different physics principles. And they think, Okay, what principle would be relevant here? So it’s like you cycled through some of the ideas that you’ve worked with over time of like, the leverage as an idea or other things. Okay, how does this fit into those ideas? Those are that

Jack Butcher 54:30

Yeah, I think that’s like, that’s an interesting model, especially when you’re creating content or you’re building internet businesses like, what are people coming to me for specifically? And then how do I basically put any question I’m asked through that frame, like, you know, the content that I’ve put out over the last couple of years is almost exclusively focused on this idea of Content Marketing, education, training, like separating your time from your income. So pretty much any question that comes in, can go back out through that filter, and you like, make it your own in that way, you know, we’re all kind of asking the same questions of one another. And when you get back to like, the foundations, there’s really not that much that’s varying under the re re surface. It’s like all stylistic and like, the way you deliver it. I think this is another thing that struck me as interesting over the course of like, building an audience is like, people are really buying the way you say things and not necessarily buying the things you say, because that stuff’s out there, right? Like this. Look at the bookshelf behind you. There’s like 1000s and 1000s, of versions of these ideas that have been communicated in different ways. And like, one person’s story really helps somebody grasp a principle where it might not resonate whatsoever with the next person. So I think, you know, that’s another thing that is, I think, difficult for people to do in the beginning is like, really value their own perspective, to the point where they’re not emulating what they see, or, you know, you’re not, you’re not,

Jack Butcher 56:20

you’re not producing stuff, because you believe it to be true, necessarily just producing it, because you think it’s gonna create, you know, result x is going to happen. And this goes back to what we were talking about the very beginning, which is like, if this isn’t, if you’re essentially pretending to be something, you’re going to build a business that you hate running. That’s, I mean, I’ve proven that theory. True five or six times, like I see an economic need for this. I know people will pay for this, but I absolutely detest doing it. I know how to get people to click on it. But as soon as they pay me, I’m like, why did I say yes to this?

Michael Simmons 56:59

Yeah, I’ve been there too many times as well, previous businesses, I started giving myself permission to write about the things I was interested in four or five years ago, where it’s like, yeah, and then you realise, for me, that the whole goal paradigm for me, starts to become stale. To create these goals, and I can’t predict it, not only can I not predict what the future environments going to be like, because there’s gonna be all these feedback loops. But also, I can’t predict how I’m going to be that the goals I have now are different than even though I’ve gone through big changes, personally, right now doing just into meditation, and, you know, learning about self compassion, somatic experience, all these different areas, I can feel it changing me, I could not have predicted the beginning of January 2020, that I would even be interested in these things, or the person. And if I said on January 1 2020, okay, on December 1st, I’m going to write an article on XYZ, that’s just, I don’t want to burden my December 1st self with what I wanted in the past. So

Jack Butcher 58:05

yeah, that’s a great, that’s a great way to think about I’ve been thinking about the like, the personal shift, too. It’s like, you plan five years ahead, like you have no clue what you’re gonna value in five years like that, I think I might have read that. In something you posted. It’s like we just drastically underestimate how much we change and how much our preferences change. And

Michael Simmons 58:27

exactly, we think we kind of once we’re an adult, we stay the same or no, like, there’s actually we go through huge changes.

Jack Butcher 58:35

Yeah, I think there’s like, there’s more flexibility in, in

Jack Butcher 58:43

the options that exist by like building a business now than there ever has been right. And that continues to, that continues to be more and more true, you can essentially build a business around like, if you like playing video games, you can build a business around teaching people how to play video games, or having people watch you play video games, or whatever else. And the interesting thing is, that goal doesn’t have to be 10 years out from what you’re doing today for it to be like, you know, a worthwhile venture. If anything, like the closer you can align, and the more nimble you are with your ability to pivot the direction of the business, the more peace of mind you have with a friend of mine, we used to have this concept we called MRR, which was monthly recurring responsibility, exactly what you just mentioned, it’s like if I’m going to agree to this thing, let’s let’s just say timeline ahead of it. Like it’s not just the money that I’m getting. I’m like signing up for this incredible amount of responsibility in the future. That, you know, once you know, x unpredictable event happens, I don’t know how I’m gonna feel about that or like if my relationship with this person goes in a different direction. So you’re trying to optimize for I’m not to say don’t take responsibility for what you’re going to do. But in scenarios where you really have no idea what that’s going to morph into. Reducing that, like, burden of like getting in a situation where you have no way to adjust or control those levers is, is a hard lesson to learn. But once you learn it, it’s like, you know, no becomes the best, like, the most powerful word in your vocabulary at that point.

Michael Simmons 1:00:28

Yeah, it’s interesting that there’s been this playbook that’s been created in the technology space, where you raise a lot of money. And a lot of it’s based on that, and a lot of it works for that industry. But I think it’s so much different for in this world of thought leadership, people who want to express themselves do podcast videos, writing, that the personal element is so much more important, because you’re not just coming, having a company to sell it in five years, you’re building a lifestyle, you’re, you’re building a point of view, instead of Yeah, I almost have to do the opposite of some of the things that you’re supposed to do. And that other playbook.

Jack Butcher 1:01:02

Yeah, I like good friends that are, you know, in astronomically different financial circumstances as a result of like, building companies selling companies raising money, but we have conversations that are like, yeah, it’s cool, for some reasons, but like, the grass is always greener. You know, like, I wish I had owned 100% of this thing. And it was, you know, it could be 10 times less valuable. But if you own all of it, and you know, you’re optimizing for how you want to live versus like, what your investors want you to return, then it’s just a different game. And some people, you know, depends on the game you’d like playing?

Michael Simmons 1:01:43

Yeah, exactly. So I think that I think about the thought leadership field, as almost similar to the field of software, in that, you know, that let’s say this field of software really started in the early 80s, there wasn’t, you know, huge funding, how to do it, there wasn’t tons of courses that you can take in college, how to do it, there wasn’t much specialisation. And it just became the, there’s just a new industry. But the thing that was powerful about it is, you could take something from in your head, create a program, and then run the program anywhere at scale. And I think thoughts in terms of thought leadership and putting into images, videos, words, are very similar in terms of scale. But the industry didn’t have a way to monetize. For decades, there hasn’t really grown that much. In many ways. There’s not a place you can go to really get a, you know, a four year degree in thought leadership, yes to journalism, but not really to what we’re talking about. And there’s not much of a there’s just the beginnings of a funding ecosystem, just in the past few years, with substack, and things like that people are buying courses, subscriptions. So I personally feel like we’re an inning one, what it means to be able to develop thoughts in our head and then beam them out into the world to millions or you know, the YouTube videos. And that’s billions of people. Yeah, my question for you is, how do you think about in contextualize? Where this field is right now? And where it’s going?

Jack Butcher 1:03:06

Yeah. So when I got when I got into it, I was like, wow, this is like, you know, as a supersaturated thing, right? There’s, when you’re like, when you’re really close to it, it’s like the elephant thing, right? It’s like, everybody’s, like, building courses. And, you know, there’s like this online education space is so saturated, how am I going to stand out what makes me different. But the more I’ve stayed in it over the last couple of years, I realised like, this is not that big at all, you know, like this, there’s really like, a few dozen people in the world that are, you know, really the go to go to characters in this space. And like the speed at which I think I’ve even been able to, like, have conversations with some of these people. It’s like, wow, the barriers to entry for this thing are not significant. You know, like, if I if you wanted to pick up, I don’t know, some entrenched industry that you wanted to become like a reasonable size player, and it’s just like, you can’t get it, right. It’s like, you don’t know this person or you didn’t go to the school. So you can’t do this sorry, like, go through the traditional path of like, meeting on gatekeeper at a time. I think, like, this thing is inherently like anti gatekeeper, right, it’s like, especially when it’s like personality driven. And like, there’s like this skin in the game component to like your reputation, your product scales with your reputation. So the incentives are very interesting in this space, and I think, create, like very long term thinkers and like very product and customer centric companies, because you really have no other choice. You know, it’s like, if you don’t Do the right thing, then you’re gonna be in business for very long. So yeah, I think there’s gonna be a ton more of like, I do agree with you your hypothesis that it’s in its infancy, I also think the, like the set of skills needed to do it on your own is prohibitive for a lot of people to like to run a run a,

Jack Butcher 1:05:27

like a full on, if we call it thought leadership business with like Product Marketing, like marketing automation, like curriculum development, all of that stuff, like the number of people that can do all of that, by themselves is very few. So I think we’ll see platforms, we’ll see. We’ll see people that are trying to facilitate that at scale a lot in the next few years, I think.

Michael Simmons 1:05:55

What do you do I agree that there’s a lot of skills that are involved in people are just starting to get those differentiated. What do you think, causes people not to be successful? What’s missing? Is that Is it just nurture versus nature? Like, there’s only so many people? Or do you feel like we’re just, we don’t have the infrastructure yet, like there is for software?

Jack Butcher 1:06:17

I think I think there’s, there’s that that plays a part, I think one of the things that is fascinating to me is like marketing is such a massive lever and this thing, like there’s so many intelligent people in the world, I am not like, by any means, like, exceptionally intelligent in any area. But I’ve had so much exposure to marketing that any like, I think the small amount of success that I’ve experienced in the last year or so, is largely attributed to my ability to like the press, I’ve got amazing feedback on the product is a great product. But if I didn’t have the ability to market it the way I did, based on my experience in agencies and with the network I have, and all of the like iterations I went through on the marketing side, there’s no way it would have would have sustained itself as long as it has. And just knowing how much it really takes how often you have to go out there and be like, buy my stuff, buy my stuff, buy my stuff. Most people are, I’ve never been an environment where, you know, you say that twice, and nobody buys your stuff, you think I’m done. Most people give up. Because it’s just been like, you’ve never been in an environment where it’s, you know, this is what it takes. And even if you’re a billion dollar company, you’re spending hundreds of millions of dollars a month, putting yourself in front of people every day, buy this buy this buy, like, I think there’s this really huge misconception of, hey, if my product is good, then it’s just going to take off and I’m going to be fine. It’s just not true. In any sense of the word. Like you have to learn to promote yourself, they’re really difficult thing for a lot of people I think is you know, if you do it yourself, and you have to, like take the licks of getting it wrong and upsetting people and you know, all of those things that come with, yeah, yourself on the internet, you get, you get a little bit of that. And like you have to build a thick skin to get through that component, especially early on when you have no like body of proof or like evidence for this thing. Working when you get that then. And there are ways of like, there are ways to get around that right. You can give people your stuff and get great feedback and to convince yourself that it works to the degree you need to, in order to go out and promote it. That’s really I think, where a lot of people kind of skip that step of like, Hey, you can give your product away to 100 people get great feedback, and then you’re gonna feel great about promoting it, because you know, it works. And you know, people had a great time using it. But if you skip that step, it’s really hard to build that confidence. And the other thing I was gonna say is like, there are maybe a few exceptions to this. But if you hire people to market your stuff, you never build that skill yourself. So you really, again, you just don’t feel like you have you don’t feel like you have control, I think like agencies or, you know, marketers that again, don’t translate. Don’t do. And this is not true of everyone. But typically, you know, it’s a we’re going to deploy this tactic that we know is going to get someone to buy something, not necessarily we’re going to have this like holistic product content marketing strategy that makes people buy into Michael Simmons as a person over the long term. So I think they’re like the full stack set of skills you need to be you know, one of the best examples of this in the world is David Perell. You know, who David Perell is

MIchael Simmons 1:09:51

well. Yeah, yep.

Jack Butcher 1:09:53

Like, right. I think he’s, I think he’s got one employee for like running like the logistics of the course. But the entire David Perell ecosystem functions off the back of his business being completely aligned with what he loves doing and what he’s great at. And that happens to be stuff that you can produce on the front end that people love to consume. And it’s just this natural, flowing ecos ecosystem that that happens as a result of that. And I think you’d have to go back, there’s millions of people with incredible knowledge and amazing things to teach. But preparing that for the market and getting people to buy into that at scale. That’s the last thing where the real language comes.

Michael Simmons 1:10:38

Really, really interesting. And from a marketing part, what do you feel? If you were to just do a course on that? and break it down to the 80 20s?

Michael Simmons 1:10:51

What’s the actually don’t answer that yet. Sorry. Want to go back to more your, your story, and use that as a case study? So first 12 months, you don’t make any offers, you’re just pumping out things,

Jack Butcher 1:11:06

and your product, selling prints for a couple of months. So it’s just like, hey, if you like this by the canvas of it, but that was that was all there was pretty much for the first

Michael Simmons 1:11:17

like, physical things people could print out or you ship it through them.

Jack Butcher 1:11:22

It was dropped shipped by a vendor. Yeah, you just walk into Shopify, and they’ll deliver it, I probably sold 2000 3000 of them in three months.

Michael Simmons 1:11:32

36. And so how much are you selling them for?

Jack Butcher 1:11:37

There are different sizes, I think the most expensive one was 150 bucks or 200 bucks, some of the margins were pretty brutal on themselves making now $25 a print or less on the smaller one. So it was you know, a little bit of beer money, but nothing significant at all.

Michael Simmons 1:11:56

And when did you start making your first offer to do that within the

Jack Butcher 1:12:01

When did we start selling the prints?

Michael Simmons 1:12:03

Yeah. So you started January 2019? Just

Jack Butcher 1:12:05

I would say probably? probably at least five, six months into the Okay, into the Twitter feed. Yeah.

Michael Simmons 1:12:12

And so basically, it wasn’t a success for you. What, what made you keep going and Well, I think

Jack Butcher 1:12:21

I saw like, I just saw the appetite for the content itself. It’s just like, if people like this thing, I’ll eventually figure out a way to, you know, align it to something that I am producing, like, this is not the iteration of it. That makes sense, I think. Now, it’s obvious in hindsight, it’s like, why would I buy a print of this thing when you’re posting one of them every day? You know, right, right. There’s still a market for it, but it’s just not one, it’s like, it just doesn’t really excite me. I’m not really that interested in it. And too, it’s like, yeah, there’s like, it’s kind of the, the, the speed at which people consume information, the amount of stuff people want, like getting somebody to commit to one print is just kind of a sad thing to do. I think, and this doesn’t really align with the content strategy on the front end. So yeah, we just there’s like, ask cool experiment, but no, I’m gonna do it.

Michael Simmons 1:13:19

And then what’s your next plan? Was your next offer planner? Was that about six months later?

Jack Butcher 1:13:25

Yeah. Yeah, I think maybe two or three months later, yeah. So towards the end of 2019, I think.

Michael Simmons 1:13:32

Okay. And how did that go?

Jack Butcher 1:13:35

That went pretty well, I’m trying to like, think of all the milestones, I think we launched it for like nine bucks or something. And, you know, that was significantly better than the prints one, because you had, you know, it was just delivered digitally. And like, the margins were great. So I think we probably sold 100 or so in 2019, maybe a little more.

Michael Simmons 1:14:00

About $900.

Jack Butcher 1:14:02

Yeah, something like that. I think we put up to 90 bucks at one point. And then we started messing around with communities on the back end of it. So everybody that got the manifest, join this thing, join this telegram group join this whatsapp group, we eventually settled on slack. And then that is really where the, this is one of the like, insights, I think that group with that product is like, okay, the reason the community works, because everybody was using this tool. You’re not just trying to build a community for community sake. Everybody’s like waking up and doing the same activity. So they’ve got value to exchange between one another because hey, how do you use it at night? What do you put in this box? Like what When have you found the most effective time to do X? So that’s where that community component scaled off the back of that

Michael Simmons 1:14:49

interesting at all. Now, I know you’ve since gone to, you know, have product launches where hundreds of $1,000 and your business is on track to do over a million dollars. But I feel like that when you’re saying, okay, I’ve done all these visuals, and then I’m going to create a productivity tool, the great productivity tool, but it feels like the alignment, isn’t there as much as for your other things where you’re telling people, I’m going to show you how to do what I did, you know, that feels like, how, what did you learn from that experience? And subsequently about how to align, create a product? If you have interest? How do you create a product that sells itself from the content?

Jack Butcher 1:15:28

Yeah, so there is a piece of the story that I think informed the development of the daily manifest that we didn’t talk about, but we didn’t talk about directly, but we did sort of refer to so the I was, I was doing this on Twitter and Instagram, but by, you know, a few months into 2019. And the one thing I would do on Instagram, like almost maybe every week, maybe a little bit more frequently than that, at the start, I would just post these questions, what do you need help with on my Instagram story?

Michael Simmons 1:16:01

Jack Butcher 1:16:02

I’ll get like 100 replies really can’t like I’m procrastinating or I struggle with time management, or I can’t, can’t seem to get anything finished. Or, you know, I can’t set goals or like, there was just this really interesting like the Matic responses again, you just keep getting the same questions over and over again, it’s like, well, you know, what, what do I have? or What have I done that has helped me, like, get on this schedule of producing stuff every day. And when I was in that early stage of the business, when I was running the agency, I had my days, like, this hour, I’ll be doing that this hour, I’ll be doing that. When I’m finished with that. I’m going to do a Visualize Value, like,

Michael Simmons 1:16:45

Sprint, okay. Okay.

Jack Butcher 1:16:47

So I had this tool, and I’d use like a combination of different, like, habit trackers and stuff in the past. And I just distilled it down to this one page that worked for me. I was like, Hey, this is what I use, if you’re interested, like, you can download it. And that was again, like, answer market fit or like, question market fit, like, everybody’s struggling with this. And the way in which the content is presented as kind of align them with the way I think and the stuff I’m talking about. So then you get an opportunity to create a product.

Michael Simmons 1:17:24

Yeah, it’s interesting. So you’re, you’re basically going off of the questions or challenges your community has, that could be helped that you could solve that you have an answer for. Exactly, yeah. But at the same time, relative to other products, it doesn’t seem like it did nearly as well, by an order of magnitude or so. Oh,

Jack Butcher 1:17:45

yeah. Just in terms of volume? Yeah, I think we haven’t really promoted it that significantly, either. And it’s now a, it comes with the membership. So it’s kind of exists with this product. And you can buy it separately, but I think this year, it did it did reasonably well. I don’t know the exact numbers, but you know, as a as a portion of a product revenue is probably 5 10 percent, I would think.

Michael Simmons 1:18:15

Yep. Yep. Yeah, that really adds up over time. Yeah, yeah. It’s interesting. I’m partially what I’m getting in thinking about is the alignments between things. And I think you talked about this on one of your interviews as well, that it’s, you know, you have free content, and then you have what people pay for. And it’s really valuable when just by virtue of posting your free content that’s valuable, that there’s people want there’s a product that could be really into alignment with that. How, how do you think about that now that if you were advising an entrepreneur, who has a following to create a product?

Jack Butcher 1:18:56

Yeah, I like it inflammation specifically, like if you’re building a inflammation, inflammation or transformational product, so I’m going to go from knowing nothing about x to knowing enough about x to do y, or, you know, whatever that transition is. So in the case of how to Visualize Value, I know nothing about design. And then on the other end of this course, I’m going to be you know, equipped to visualize ideas and start to refine my design chops, right? That’s the transition we want you to make. So in the case of that product, again, that was like a reverse engineered from this thing that people were excited about on the front end. So are these these, like these really helped me get my head around this idea or this really helped me? This really helped me understand this thing. I would love to be able to, like communicate my ideas or you know, speak to my boss in a way that really like present ideas to my team. With the same efficacy as this, so there’s a couple of ways I think about it. And like on the disk, like the design example is so specific that maybe it doesn’t serve, it doesn’t answer it as comprehensively. But that is like, you know, you just keep producing images on the front end. And the marks like, well, How’d you do that? Like, he go, you go, you go. So this is like, so if I was to reverse engineer that for someone like you, that’s like, I wrote this amazing blockbuster article, and I think you already do this. It’s like, I’m gonna teach you how to like, write an amazing article over the course of three months, that’s an obvious, you know, an obvious way to do that. The second part of the answer, I think, is like, when you think about something as a curriculum, or you can like, you know, build one sell twice as this curriculum or this philosophy or this organizing principle. There’s so many things that sit underneath that, that the paid product is almost the it’s like the Encyclopaedia of that concept, right. And then your content on the front end is just you referencing an article or pulling out an image from the encyclopaedia tearing out a page and showing it to someone. So like the product and the marketing, again, most people think of those as like separate disciplines, but really like, the closer you can get your content in your product to your marketing, the better off you’re going to be. Right. It’s like, this is literally a lesson from insight, like some of the most effective assets for selling build on sell twice have been read on Twitter that are verbatim pulled from the course. This is a lesson from the course. Here are the six concepts. If you want the rest of the course, here it is, like it’s the ability to like, think it’s where meat settee says move the free line, have you?

Michael Simmons 1:21:57

Yeah, I do. That was Eben, originally, Eben Pagan?

Jack Butcher 1:21:59

Yeah. Oh, really? Yeah, the free line, amazing concept where it’s like, I think I’ve been in this position like a few years ago, where it’s like you, you, for some reason, extrapolate marketing into this exercise that is like, different from the thing you’re selling. So I have to, you know, there’s some truth to that, right, you have to position it in a way that is like explaining the transformation. And there is this layer that sits on top, but the most compelling thing you can do to marketing product, if it’s information is show people what the information is, right, the quality of the writing, the the way in which the chapters the structure, the way the lessons fit together, there’s like, you have all this marketing material as a product of just building the curriculum itself. So that would be like some of the like, most boilerplate advice is like, Hey, your curriculum could be out there on the internet and all these different pieces, people are going to pay you just to have access to it in order.

Michael Simmons 1:23:06

Right, those these you’re sequencing it? You’re Yeah. Cyclopedia. So it’s all in one place. Those questions? Yeah,

Jack Butcher 1:23:15

yeah, like that, that’s hosted on a platform where they have access to you like, that’s another piece of, you know, the value proposition that exists outside of just consuming content on YouTube or wherever. And the other thing is, I think we get really, in our heads about oh, my God, this is, you know, I can’t show this because other people are paid for this, or, you know, this is this exists behind a paywall, so I have to just allude to what it is, as opposed to what it is. Yeah. Which is, I think, like, you know, it’s a mistake, honestly, because you are, you are way more sensitive to like the entirety of your story being out there than anyone else, right. It’s like you evaluate other people’s experience of your content through your experience of it. And to be honest, it’s barely ever true, right? When I get on to conversations with people that have even consumed everything I’ve put out, there are still things that they’re like, Oh, I didn’t know that. I haven’t seen this. I didn’t know that, like,

Michael Simmons 1:24:16

you have photographic memory of right. Oh, posts you did.

Jack Butcher 1:24:20

Yeah, they haven’t experienced it in the same way you have. But we like extrapolate that it’s very difficult to like, I don’t know, again, I’m terrible at like, the attributions of these quotes, but like this linear experience we have in an exponential world, right? We’re linear creatures. And we live in this like crazy internet environment where we’re just saying, like, I everybody else must be experiencing the world the way I am. And it’s just like, not even remotely close to true. So yeah, you can say something 10 times and most of the people that like are intentionally trying to consume all of your stuff once it.

Michael Simmons 1:25:01

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I feel like there’s two lessons there. And we can end here. Number one is just you can move the free line much further than you think that it’s not going to cannibalise your course. And one of the reasons is that it’s not like people are taking all your free stuff, and like putting them into a file and organizing it. Yeah, they might come across it and they might even like it and then even forget you wrote it in a year. They’re just having all in one place. is just works really well. Something can package.

Jack Butcher 1:25:33

Yeah, yeah, just like under arrest or overestimating the, like, mental bandwidth of your average internet citizen is, I think, where people get hung up on promoting themselves, and like, overthinking the marketing, exercise, and all of those things that are just like stumbling blocks that don’t need to be in place like the product. If you have if you have like,

Jack Butcher 1:26:00

great knowledge to share, turn it into a compelling product and just show people the product. That’s your marketing exercise.

Michael Simmons 1:26:07

Yeah, yeah. Well, Jack, this was awesome. We covered we covered a lot of really, really good stuff today. So people can learn about you at Twitter at jackbutcher.com or at Twitter at Visualize Value. And you have your courses as well. He shared more about where people can follow you sign up for your courses, which I recommend everyone listening do.

Jack Butcher 1:26:30

Awesome. Yeah. So you can go to visualizevalue.com, and I’ll give you a short description of the products you can shoot after all different product pages from there. One is a one’s how to how to Visualize Value. So explains the process and the thinking behind how to turn an idea that isn’t visual into a visual representation. Build on sell twice is more focused on this journey of productizing your specific skill set into something that works without you. So a lot of what we just talked about in the last 10 minutes or so this conversation. And then we have a community where we bring people on on a weekly basis that is doing all sorts of interesting stuff on the internet. And the daily manifest is a one page PDF helps you get control your time. So go find all of it, visualizevalue.com and get at me on twitter @JackButcher.

Michael Simmons 1:27:27

All right, wonderful. Thank you very much, Jack.

Jack Butcher 1:27:29

Thank you. This was fun.

Outro 1:27:32

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