The Art of Authentic Content Creation

Jeffro (00:01.186)
Welcome back to Digital Dominance. Today, I’m joined by Amanda Kaufman, founder and CEO of The Coaches Plaza. Amanda is an expert in helping high performing professionals grow their businesses using a balance of authenticity and strategic business skills. In this episode, we’ll dive into how service businesses can harness digital tools to spark genuine connections, scale their efforts efficiently and build lasting authentic brands. So Amanda, welcome to the show.

Amanda Kaufman (00:27.247)
Hello, I’m so excited to be here.

Jeffro (00:29.774)
And I’m excited to have you. You I was honored to be a guest on your show, the Amanda Kaufman show not too long ago. We had a great conversation about websites and first impressions and all of that. So if you’re listening to this and you’re a coach, you should definitely go check out that episode. But today on this show, we’re going to focus on Amanda’s zone of genius. And a big part of what you talk about is authenticity. So I’m excited. Now many, service businesses from consultants to marketers kind of struggle with appearing authentic while staying strategic.

Amanda Kaufman (00:52.016)
Me too.

Jeffro (00:59.546)
How can a business show up as their authentic self while keeping their messaging sharp and effective?

Amanda Kaufman (01:07.141)
this question because it really is the question for a lot of my clients because we are starting from where we are, which is a level of success, and we desire to go where we want to go. When you look left and right, you see all these examples around you of people who are being really successful, and it’s just natural to be like, okay, well, I want to be more like that.

But when you’re thinking I want to be more like that, then it’s only natural to be like, well, maybe I should change my hair and I should change the colors that I like and I should change my tone of voice. And maybe I need to like change my body language and I need to change all these things because I observe around me all these people who are doing it different. I look nothing like them. So, you know, I think one of the first things to really understand is, that when you’re learning something new,

The first place you go is imitation. Right. And, and I’m thinking about like when I was a figure skater growing up, I would learn by repeating patterns and just kind of like going through the motions more slowly, but it wasn’t really like an authentic performance yet. Right. Because I was still learning. was still picking up like the pieces. I’m like, okay, I got to be, I got to move my body in this direction. And then I got to kind of turn it like that. And I’m going through all these different motions and it’s

awkward because you’re kind of watching, watching the pattern. You’re watching yourself. You’re, you’re, you’re watching the results and you’re, you’re going, you know, this is trash. It doesn’t even look good. I wish I was already in the new place. So how do you bring the authenticity into it? Well, I think first you’ve got to give yourself a level of permission to imitate and you know, imitate in a, in a, in a studio, imitate in like a place where it’s safe to do so. Right.

create the drafts that are sort of mocking or kind of copying what you like, but the authenticity part comes from when you give it some space, you come back to it, and you ask yourself the authentic question, if I was to really make this mine, what would be different here? And I think that when you adjust from that place,

Amanda Kaufman (03:25.977)
you’re going to be more successful overall because you’re probably going to keep all of the main elements of what makes someone successful in your space. But then you can add your flavor. you know, I was so Jeffro, I was attracted to talking to you because your, your, your brand, it was actually even through your website brand on Instagram, it wasn’t even your personal brand. And I was like, fro bro, that’s hilarious. Like it just, it struck me as kind of funny.

And I think a lot of authenticity is more about the connection with the people that you want to have connection with. So it’s like, well, what do you find funny that a friend of yours would probably find funny? What do you find annoying that a friend of yours would probably find annoying? You know, what’s joyful and so on. And when you go through all those kinds of emotions, it’s that expression of those things that make you someone that someone else is going to have affinity with that is perhaps

not the standard norm and that’s exactly what you want.

Jeffro (04:27.52)
Yeah, and I’ll interject here too. think part of that is it feels safer to do what somebody else is doing because they’ve already proven it, right? And it also means I don’t have to reveal as much about myself, right? Maybe I still have insecurities about how people are going to perceive my quirks if I bring those into the way I’m talking or presenting and stuff. And so, yeah, I think that plays a big factor.

Amanda Kaufman (04:35.203)
Mm-hmm. Sure.

Amanda Kaufman (04:51.609)
Yeah, I’ve got a episode coming out on my show, just a solo one where I spoke all about embracing vulnerability in your content. And I think a lot of people confuse vulnerability with weakness. And so we don’t want to show where we struggle or we have a dissenting opinion or where we have had to figure something out and we felt like we were late to the game. But the thing is, is those are those are the human

connection points. If you don’t share your emotional journey or your emotional why along with all the logical things that you lay out, it’s harder for somebody to connect with the brand and the personality. So I wouldn’t look at vulnerability as weakness. Look at vulnerability as a choice to share. And I think one of the ways that you can do this really effectively as a business owner is when you share, say, a weakness or a flaw or a mistake, something that you did and like,

go for the things that were real gut punches, know, that were real hits, but then pair it with, what? You know, so what did you do about it? You know, what research did you do? What studying did you do? How did you try to solve this? What were all the failures along the way from that first failure? And then ultimately, how did you succeed? Because people really want that part, but they don’t believe you.

when you tell them that this is the successful thing, if you’re not giving them anything that they can actually connect with on a vulnerable place.

Jeffro (06:28.383)
Right. And it’s also so important, like you mentioned, having that perspective of looking back after going through it. Then it becomes a more meaningful share and something that can actually be a helpful part of your business content that’s resonating with someone. If you’re still going through it, you’re coming across different, right? Because you might be kind of vomiting out this turmoil or stress that you’re dealing with as opposed to if you’ve come through it, you can still talk about how it felt and the terrible, you

how hard it was, all the stuff you went through, but then you get to keep talking about what you did and how you came out of it and how other people can avoid that or improve or whatever the case may be.

Amanda Kaufman (07:08.463)
Yeah. And I mean, like, just thinking I should probably be eating my own dog food here, you know, I’m talking with you here now and I’m pretty relaxed, but when I started my business eight years ago, I was so scared of being seen online that I didn’t have an Instagram account. I delayed on starting my email marketing by like years, you know, and it was all kind of rooted in this fear that it was going to get judged because I’m overweight.

I’m judged because I’m a mother and I’m balancing business and I didn’t even want to entertain the conflict or the judgy opinions of other people. And I saw all these mean things happening on social media and I thought, I want to be a part of that. I don’t want to have to defend myself. I don’t want to have to endure all that. So I didn’t. I just hid. And like,

Jeffro (08:01.386)
Yeah.

Amanda Kaufman (08:02.843)
What I did about that is I enrolled in really expensive masterminds. I hired very expensive coaches to help me and they taught me amazing skills. But you know what they never did is they never gave me the courage to just like show up because it turned out that I had to cultivate that. I had to decide that showing up and being here and telling the story was more important than me worrying about some stranger on the internet having some dissenting opinion from mine, you know.

Jeffro (08:33.257)
Right. And you hear people talk about finding your voice and, practicing putting in the reps is the way you get there. But finding your voice is another way of saying, getting past all your hangups, right? And getting rid of that stuff. Turns out it’s the same process. You just got to work through it. And as you butt up against it, if you keep pushing, okay, you’ll figure out what the issue is. You can work through it, get around it or whatever. So you got to do it.

Amanda Kaufman (08:44.131)
Yeah, I love that.

Amanda Kaufman (08:56.763)
That makes sense.

Jeffro (08:59.593)
So what are some first steps that a service business owner could take to start creating this authentic content that actually resonates with their target audience too?

Amanda Kaufman (09:10.511)
I love this. So I’m a big fan of balancing consumption with creation. And so what I would generally recommend is start a journaling practice. I’ve got my journal right here in front of me and I’m always like jotting down little notes. But I’m also a big fan of just plain old Google Drive, you know, and I have a folder called a Story Vault where when

Big things are happening in my life. Just even right now, I’ll take, I’ll just create a Google doc and I’ll put like a little one sentence in the title of like, what was the incident or what was the aha or what was like that big thing? And I’ll come back to it later and flesh out the story. So I would just become a big collector of your personal stories. How did it make you feel? Why did it matter? What did you do about it? What was the conclusion or the arrival state? And just like become this collector of your own content.

Now, I think that one thing you can do is you can become an echo chamber. So I do think that it’s a good idea to consume, but I want you to like be very judicious about how you do consume because it can be very addictive. And so when I’m in a consumption mode, especially for my business, I’m doing it with my marketing goggles on, you know, and I’m observing not just what they’re saying, but it’s like, how did they present that?

How did they, like what was the first few frames of a video and what were the first sentences out of their mouth? What’s the dissenting opinion that they’re sharing or what’s the how-to that they’re sharing and how frequently have I seen other providers in my space share the same kind of content over and over again? So I’m really like when I’m wearing those marketing goggles, I’m looking for what are the repeated patterns over and over again, but then also what are the,

What are the differentiations like when somebody is really blowing up, it’s usually because, not because they’re talking about a different core subject matter, but because of how they chose to present it and their personality and their personal stories that go with it.

Jeffro (11:13.641)
because there’s so much there that you can take away. And like you said, it’s easy to get sucked into the vortex of consuming. And so you have to have that intentional perspective of this is something I want to learn from, not just learn about. I want to take something away so that I can apply it to my own content.

Amanda Kaufman (11:29.594)
Yeah.

Amanda Kaufman (11:34.451)
And I’ve struggled with that consumption thing. So just a couple of really quick tips is, you know, I’ll do something like I’ll set a target number of influencers that I’m going to study and I’ll make a short list of who they are and then I’ll set a timer. You know, I’ll have an actual timer. like you get 10 minutes to look at how this amazing person does their thing and then you’ve got to move on to the next person and treat it like a checklist because it is.

Jeffro (12:01.565)
Yeah. And I’ve seen other marketers actually do this and turn it into content. And they’ll post and be like, I studied all 200,000 of so-and-so’s LinkedIn posts, and here’s what I learned. And they got some checklists. They made a big spreadsheet of like, they all started with this, or they had this call to action, or something like that. And then if you want it, send me your email, and I’ll send it to you. OK, great. So not only were you consuming and learning, you’re now growing your audience as well, which I think is a great way to do it.

Amanda Kaufman (12:07.173)
Totally.

Amanda Kaufman (12:31.651)
Exactly, keep asking yourself, what, so what, so what? And write it down and make it shareable.

Jeffro (12:38.545)
Yeah. So what are some common mistakes that you see a service-based owner might make when they’re trying to get into this world and get into this mode, trying to create this content? How do they, you know, what issues do you see?

Amanda Kaufman (12:54.895)
I think number one is just being in the wrong head space of it. So if you approach coming into the social media world, the internet world with a very selfish perspective, you’re not going to last very long because you’re going to be so, this is why I didn’t even start, right? I was so obsessed with what other people thought of my body, you know, and I just stopped. And I see a version of that with a lot of people.

You could just short form call it perfectionism, but I think kind of on a grander scale, the solution, the flip solution to it, and the reason why I ultimately came online was the recognition that when you do, then people get to hear and see your perspective that it was the exact way they needed to hear it on that day. Like that’s what gets me up in the morning and turns on the camera and keeps on.

you know, sharing if I’m sweaty spaghetti or, if I, if I’ve got no makeup on whatsoever, or any of those things is I keep thinking, I’m like, I needed to see me years ago. I needed to see a woman who lived in suburbia with kids being successful with a business. And I needed to see her do that, you know, without feeling like she had to form fit into a box because like that’s exactly what I needed and I didn’t have. So like,

find that kind of a mindset for you of like, how can this be a service action? And I think the second piece of this is when you’re doing a really good job of service, I’m gonna use a weird example, cooking. There was a time I didn’t do a very good job in the kitchen. And the main reason why is I spent no time in the kitchen. And when I decided, hey, I’m gonna…

take a couple cooking classes and I decided that I wanted to get good at it, I went into the kitchen and you know what I did? I burned stuff. You know, I burned stuff, I undercooked stuff, I had things fall, I had things break and you know, it was a mess. But now when I go into the kitchen, because I allowed that messy season, I can make a beautiful omelet. You know, I can do a really good job in there. So.

Jeffro (14:56.231)
Yep.

Amanda Kaufman (15:13.229)
Approach social media and email marketing and your SEO and all of those things at the same, you know beginner mindset and a huge amount of forgiveness, especially in the early days and the more you can hang on to that actually the better you’re gonna be over time because what happens is we get good enough to get a result and then we just kind of stagnate and keep doing that but the problem with that is the rest of the world is doing the same thing. So although you’re kind of staying flat in your performance

What’s happening is the rest of the world is getting better and it actually has this net negative decrease on your performance because you’re not pushing that envelope and staying creative. So I would say like harness that beginner mindset. Be okay with burning stuff in the kitchen because it’s all clean up a bowl that you know, did digital is amazing because you can update anything. I was just going through my YouTube channel myself and I was like, you know what? A lot of these videos.

don’t really represent our brand anymore, I’m not gonna list them anymore on the channel. And it was literally a few clicks, boom, hundreds of videos, organized, beautified, gorgeous, and that’s what digital marketing is like. I mean, we build it in our head like it’s a big building, but it’s just not.

Jeffro (16:31.11)
Yeah, and I like that you talk about the focus on just pushing and growing and pushing the envelope, right? Because we say, get comfortable being uncomfortable, right? That’s what it is. If you’re comfortable, that means you’re probably not growing. So you’ve got to keep trying stuff. Yeah, exactly. And be okay with that. And then the learning happens so much faster when you’re trying and failing, in my experience. so…

Amanda Kaufman (16:40.431)
Mm-hmm.

Amanda Kaufman (16:45.733)
Yeah, danger zone. Yeah.

Amanda Kaufman (16:55.717)
Mm-hmm.

Jeffro (16:57.616)
Just gotta be okay with it. Even if you don’t like it, nobody likes feeling dumb. I hate it, but I have to become okay with that in order to push forward and grow.

Amanda Kaufman (17:07.021)
Exactly. And one of the things I really had to do was learn to stop calling myself stupid and stop calling myself dumb as I was in that kind of messy kitchen phase. And because that was actually my habit. And the thing is, is if you tear yourself down for doing your best and showing up to your best ability, then again, that’s a non-starter and we’re staying really in the ego instead of producing something really incredible. So.

Yeah, give yourself permission to mimic, you know, and then make it yours and give yourself permission to, seek the mentorship. That’s another big secret of mine is that I’m always in mentorship with someone like always. And that mentorship doesn’t replace the courage that’s required. doesn’t replace the creativity that’s required, but what it does do is it gives you a level of confidence that there’s a path. And when it’s not working and you’re

frustrated because you can’t figure out why it’s not working, you can take an example of your work to a mentor and they can go, have you tried and give you like three or four new things to try? And that’s been huge in my own growth and what I noticed helps the most successful service providers.

Jeffro (18:25.443)
Yeah, my background is computer science and programming. So oftentimes we try writing a bunch of code and then you run it and give it a test scenario. And if it crashes, that doesn’t mean it’s a failure. It means you had a successful test because you figured out what didn’t work and now you can go fix it. It’s the same thing. We look at SpaceX and all their rockets. they had so many failed rocket launches. No, no, they were testing and learning every time they got better and better until they nailed that landing. Right. And so

Amanda Kaufman (18:47.747)
So?

Jeffro (18:53.955)
Now they’re like, wow, they’re so great. Like, yeah, they weren’t afraid to try and break these rockets and spend the money to build new ones until they got it right. So that’s the mindset that we have to have with business and our content online and everything else. So let’s move on. I mean, I hope people have taken this point to heart. We’ve hammered it pretty hard. So how do you personally maintain the balance between operating at a high level where you’re pushing yourself and growing and how can…

Amanda Kaufman (19:02.867)
Mm-hmm.

Jeffro (19:22.445)
entrepreneurs do that because there’s so many we’re we’re tugged in so many different ways, right?

Amanda Kaufman (19:27.791)
Totally, yeah, I am a big fan of cultivating your own high performance. you know, have a lot of clarity about what is it that you’re working on now and what is your priority right now. You know, when we as entrepreneurs tell ourselves the story, I have to work 24 hours a day or 25 hours a day ideally, and I have to be available in all these different capacities all the time.

And what that actually leads you to is being kind of mediocre or okay in a lot of areas and you don’t build a lot of excellence in any particular area. So, you know, when it comes to developing this brand, this personal brand, think about it in the context of everything else. If you don’t have a strong personal brand,

then your marketing is going to be more challenging. It’s not impossible, but it’s going to be way more challenging. Your sales are going to be way more challenging because having an established personal brand and having presence online and having curated content that’s been recently updated and continuously updated basically is like pre-solving objections that people are going to have to the sales call down the road. So that’s why I prioritize personal brand and why I prioritize

the consistency of content is because I recognize that the downstream effect of having that as a priority saves me so much time, so much anxiety, so much worrying about where am gonna get the next lead? know, when I was not working on my personal brand as much, I was always stressed about leads and I was always stressed about where they were gonna come from. Well, guess what? If you’re stressed about leads, you’re gonna be stressed about sales.

because then you’re stressed about your money and then you’re stressed, right? And it’s just like this huge domino effect. So bringing it back to the balance conversation, no one wants to buy from a hot mess, you know? So I’m not saying that you got to be totally done up and, you know, pretend to be somebody that you’re not. But I am suggesting that if it’s important, then it’s probably important enough for you to get a good night of sleep.

Amanda Kaufman (21:44.653)
and to eat well and to move and to take the time to do things that are actually fun and unplug and have friends. You know, I like to tell, I work with a lot of coaches. I tell them, I’m like, your highest paid priority is to be in growth and in learning and in thriving. Because if you can do those things more consistently than another coach, you’re going to, A, feel really good, but

B, you’re gonna be able to offer way more value to the people who work with you, and C, you’re gonna have fulfillment and alignment, which is good. It doesn’t matter what the algorithm does when you’re good.

Jeffro (22:22.617)
Yeah. Well, that comes through with every conversation, right? If I get on a sales call and I’m dragging tired, like, yeah, we can do this pack because you’re that one. They’re going to be like, okay, I’m going to keep looking. But if you’re excited about what you’re doing, you’re talking about the ways you can help them and confident in the results you can get for them, like, you don’t, it’s not a hard sell. And especially if they’ve seen your videos before, like you were talking about, you’re greasing the skids, you’re removing objections through your content. So by the time they’re on the call with you, they’re pretty much ready to go and just.

Amanda Kaufman (22:43.195)
Totally.

Jeffro (22:52.483)
looking for, you know, how do we get started?

Amanda Kaufman (22:56.097)
Exactly. You’re dealing with like a couple of hangups. You’re not having to be like, well, let me tell you where I went to university and why I have credibility to do what I’m doing. do you really have the problem? Like all of that goes away when you have really wonderful systems and branding in it.

Jeffro (23:13.349)
Yeah, I had a conversation today with someone who’s referred to me and she hasn’t been happy with her ads and SEO. And then, you I told her some options and some prices that she was asking about. She’s like, that’s almost like twice as what I was paying. And so I got to sit there and be like, are you happy with those results? She’s like, well, no, that’s kind of why I’m talking to you, right? Like sometimes it costs a little bit more to get better results. And so

Coming from this place of authority and confidence and having the background, knowing what I do works and I can help you, so much better to come from that place instead of being desperate and like, need to make, if I don’t close this deal, I’m not going to make my expenses this month, right?

Amanda Kaufman (23:49.957)
Totally.

Amanda Kaufman (23:57.517)
Right. Too many service providers are kind of operating from this place. And I’ve done it too, where you’re trying to like squeeze blood from a stone. You know what I mean? Like it’s just, you’re so freaking cheap and you’re either being cheap financially or you’re being cheap with time. And the truth is, like, Hey, I get it. know, money comes and goes. Sometimes we make investments that don’t totally pay off. That happens. Right. And sometimes we find ourselves in a tighter cashflow place.

Jeffro (24:05.09)
Mm-hmm.

Amanda Kaufman (24:25.935)
But you know what everybody has? Everybody has 168 hours a week. And so, you know, what I see a lot of service providers do, and I was the same way. I was an employee for a decade. So I thought, hey, let me be an entrepreneur so I can have time freedom, thinking that time freedom meant a blank calendar. And, you know, TBH, today was a pretty blank calendar, but I blocked it to be a blank calendar.

because I knew I needed space to think and to breathe and to brainstorm and to study. So I built that in. And when you kind of flip it from panicking because there’s a demand on your time and another demand on your time and another demand on your time and you flip the script and you become the curator and arbitrator of what goes on your calendar with priority in mind.

That’s freedom, man. And everybody has 168 hours to play with. So stop being so cheap.

Jeffro (25:26.818)
Exactly. I love that. Well, thank you for joining me today, Amanda. I really appreciate it. I can’t even talk right now, but I love how passionate you are about helping people be authentic. And I hope this episode inspires some of our listeners to bring more of their personality to the table. For those of you guys listening, go connect with Amanda, especially if you’re in the coaching industry. Her links are all in the show notes. I have one last question for you. What has been your favorite transformation that you’ve been a part of?

Amanda Kaufman (25:55.349)
That is a big question to wrap with.

Jeffro (25:57.694)
I know, just you don’t have to go too deep.

Amanda Kaufman (26:00.909)
My impulse is to say that the transformation I get really excited about is when someone steps into the confidence to say what they really think in front of a lot of people and they find out that they won’t die. And they find, know, sorry about that. They find their voice. And I think that’s the, that’s the.

Jeffro (26:17.181)
Ha ha ha ha ha.

Amanda Kaufman (26:26.255)
That’s the one transformation that I’m the most excited about because when you find your voice, it empowers you to have influence, which empowers you to do anything that you want. So yeah, it’s my favorite.

Jeffro (26:38.53)
That’s awesome. Well, thanks again for being here, Amanda. Thanks to all of you for listening. If this episode was helpful for you, please leave a review for the show on iTunes or Spotify or whatever app you use to listen. Now take care and I’ll see you in the next episode.