Build A Bigger Following On Social Media w/ Dakota Robertson

I have this formula for writing virals you need those like four elements make the benefit huge make the perceived effort really low make sure it's relevant to your audience and then make sure you have good reach distribution I found out about you through my friends sign up I'm like who's this guy now first of all your profile picture on Twitter you look a lot older you look like you're in your 40s and then I follow you on Instagram like this guy is not 40. he's like barely out of college it looks like so for the record how old are you I'm 24. that's funny because that picture that picture was when I was 19 and I get flock for all the time but yeah I'm 24. I just don't take you get Flack for it because of why because it's because they say I'm catfishing you know like I look like one thing but I mean in reality I mean I got this long Jesus hair and I learned completely different but I'm just too lazy to take pictures I get it you have a couple different looks that's for sure that that was like your your like uh Studio headshot for like casting call in case you're ready to go in for the role of like the young executive or something like that yeah that was perfect for it yeah okay so I I did a little research about you but mostly I know about you from your thoughts and your writing and you say things and you have a very strong perspective and I think a pretty clearly defined personal brand since the podcast is really geared towards helping people develop their brand or do marketing I think you're the perfect guest for this especially because you're so of the the moment and using these platforms I also have to just quickly give credit where it's due it is very difficult in my experience to grow on any social platform especially on Twitter Twitter is made for writers you do writing so it's like it's no surprise then that you have a really good size following in a relatively short amount of time so let's start by going into the past before I go into the present into the future tell me a little bit about who you are like if you can introduce yourself and tell us a little story about you my name is Dakota I catfish online and uh not only yeah like growing up I'll just like briefly go into it I used to be a chubby fat kid a super socially anxious did grew up with a father he chose smoke crack instead of raising me that caused all kinds of like insecurities and stuff growing up common theme throughout my life was like just doing uncomfortable things and like a lot of different personalities I had to put on to kind of adapt to different environments long story short I mean at the age of 18 I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life um so I was like okay I'm gonna just be an electrician because there's a program where you can just kind of graduate early I'm gonna learn a trade make some money while I figure things out and then I'll go from there actually started reading self-improvement stuff like Rich Dad Poor Dad I kind of got and I just fell in love with it and just always had this in the back my my head like oh like I really want to do something where I have control over my own life I'm very big on freedom yeah so I was working as electrician I was working 12 14 hour days up in oil rigs in Canada and I was just absolutely miserable I was making great money seeing all these people they just look absolutely dead in size like they've been doing this for 40 50 years I don't want to be that person during that time I was like okay I need to figure something out listen to podcasts all that uh Jordan Harbinger he mentioned how he went to Vietnam I want to go travel like screw it I gotta find myself and so I went there absolutely fell in love with just traveling and the freedom of that and I knew like I need to make like this part of my life or like having that freedom after that trip three months in Asia came back started working again but like way more intent of like saving money and like trying to figure out ways to have my money work for me found crypto in 2018 started investing heavily everyone thought I was freaking crazy actually turned out to be one of the best decisions in my life because that gave me the freedom around two three years later to drop out of college quit my job and kind of like pursue writing full-on you know after two years of like investing in crypto and all that I was like screw this I'm gonna be a teacher I was going to college to be a high school English and psychology teacher but yeah I ended up dropping out because I was learning more from Twitter than I was in class it was it was actually crazy like I was paying thousands of dollars but the the people on Twitter were teaching me more than anything else to begin with like I was on Twitter because I was keeping up with crypto and I stumbled across of course I'm like oh grow your account and all of that stuff and I took it and I just kind of stumbled across that section of Twitter from crypto and yeah I just took it and ran with it made a lot of mistakes along the way you actually I studied you like religiously when I was uh first starting out on the entrepreneurship game like branding I was doing web design all that stuff and I absolutely loved your content so it's it's kind of crazy how it kind of went full circle for me it's it's really surreal but uh yeah lots of mistakes along the way and lots of learnings pretty wild ride from from profession to travel to college to Twitter self-educated now creating a business for yourself there seems to be like one pretty consistent theme your willingness to say yes to just about anything and figuring it out later it's not a pretty accurate description there yeah I mean I did a lot of uncomfortable things growing up so I was forced into dance class I was forcing all these other sports like Jiu Jitsu all of that stuff I was just like putting me in these positions where it's like oh I'm very uncomfortable after first I didn't want to do them but I was forced into it and I think that set my Baseline for things it's like oh like discomfort isn't that bad when you lean into it you kind of adapt get used to it and all of that I do have a tendency to say yes to a lot of things just I mean for the story see where it goes uh to learn all of that jazz you mentioned something about your dad if you don't mind I'd just like to go back to that because it helps me to understand the person before we get into all the tactics you said that your dad wasn't really around in absence absentee dad he had an addiction problem is he still around is he in your life today what is that like yeah so it's it's been an interesting relationship so my mom gave my father an ultimatum when he had me and my brother you either keep partying just doing drugs and all that or you take care of your sons he didn't have a father growing up and he was very scared of like oh I don't know like if I can raise these kids so he chose the alternate route and I mean he he would come to visit sometimes like growing up uh he would get sober come visit all that but then here to relapse and then there's like a constant cycle but to this day it's like I'm the father it's like I gotta take care of him at certain points like I literally just bought a car off him because he's in so much debt I actually lost my [ __ ] for the first time ever on him just tell him to get his life straight I see him more as a friend but he's in my life sometimes like for a few months and then like leave and it's never I've never seen him as a father as more of like a friend but I don't hold any resentment towards him I'm actually very appreciative that it happened this way because I wasn't abused I wasn't sexually assaulted or anything like that I just didn't really have a father in my life I mean sure there's definitely disadvantages to that but at the same time I got to forge my own path I wasn't like emotionally abused or anything like that so I'm very appreciative of that when did you find yourself when did you discover your own inner confidence and strength what age and did anything happen man it was this was one of the biggest things I've had to overcome I used to be fat for contacts and like a little fat not severely obese but like a chubby chunker some people call me and I got made fun of for that and when you're young especially when you hear these narratives spun at you many times other people tell me oh you're fat you're like what you're whatever you hear it enough times and since you're so young I mean that's pretty much your only input and you play enough times and you start to believe it you're like oh like this is what I'm hearing this must be true and then you start to identify with how other people may see or mean things they say and then over time it's just your default narrative you adopt that identity I was super socially anxious and all of that so I just started telling myself all the time it's like I am socially anxious I'm fat I'm not good enough so I mean I've ran that for years 12 years or whatever like that caused me to start going to the gym and like wake up at 5 30 a.m because I was just sick of not liking myself and actually like hating myself in a lot of ways not feeling good enough so that drove me to the gym at age 13. I lost the weight I actually got like fairly muscular and I'm High School age 16 I was known as the Jack kid and everyone thought it was charismatic like all this stuff I didn't feel it inside because I was playing that narrative for all those years so I mean you can change your exterior but I mean I didn't do any inner work so I still had that that narrative like I'm not good enough like I'm kind of like worthless I am socially anxious all that and I felt like I was going to get found out at any moment so I carried that narrative from age 13 to age 22 and no matter what people told me like oh you're so great at this or you've got this going on it's like I didn't believe it because I was so ingrained in that thinking where you're not good enough you're this you're that it wasn't until I read the book I think it's six pillars or seven pillars of self-esteem by Nathan something I read a part in there where it was something along the lines like don't identify with your your thoughts like your thoughts are not reality your feelings are not reality it was the way phrase there or something that's when it kind of clicked for me it's like oh like I'm running all these narratives I have all these beliefs but I never thought to actually challenge them and it wasn't until I started challenging those beliefs that I was socially anxious that wasn't good enough that I was this or I was that it wasn't until I started challenging that narrative that I made those changes so it was like okay I'm socially anxious and then I'll be like wait wait I recognized it it's like socially anxious no no no no I I'm not socially anxious maybe I'm experiencing feelings of social anxiety but that does not mean I am this fixed way so it wasn't until I started challenging those thoughts and recognizing them that that's when a lot of the inner work started I reframed these narratives so first you gotta recognize it and then challenge them reframe and then then it takes the rewiring you rewire rewiring your thinking and that's super powerful that was age 22 age 21 I found that book and it's been a powerful tool for me but it definitely wasn't an easy road and it took some time and some struggle for our audience who might not know who you are the few pieces of content that I've consumed from you you pretty much say it as it is and you're not too worried about filtering your thoughts so it might seem like he's really vulnerable but he's this way all the time everybody so I'm gonna keep asking questions I want to spend a minute here talking about this because I find what you're saying to be exception versus the norm I have lots of friends in my community people I coach and try to help it seems like they know what the problem is they even know what the solution is but for some reason they just can't put it together and they spend a lot of time sitting in the problem more so than taking action towards the solution here you are having grown up maybe you were teased and you didn't like the way you looked and you transformed that so you're the kind of guy who's like wakes up one morning it seems like who decides today's a new day and I'm gonna just change my life because I don't like the way it was you go to the gym you lose weight you do your thing and then at what'd you say like 22 you decide you know what my outside my inside don't match up you seek the book you read the book and you start to change the a narrative almost instantly what is it about you or how do you see the world in that you seek the information the information presents itself when you take immediate action because if we can unpack that I think it's going to help a lot of people honestly I don't think I am I don't think I'd take instant action I've actually probably glossed over it too much um too fast sorry um but yeah like I struggled with being chubby for a long time before I took action it wasn't until like I just I just felt so much pain I just didn't take action I didn't take action I just because my mom was dating someone at the time her boyfriend and I think he might have suggested like let's go to the gym and all that or something so I started going with him he was a big influence on me yeah it definitely was an instant or it's like oh I recognize the problem it is definitely like a gradual I felt that pain and then also with the social anxiety stuff I wasn't active like I actively like didn't know how to change myself as well it wasn't like oh I gotta read this book or whatever it was like I just knew I felt this pain I was reading these books on like uh body language and persuasion and or what ever and I just so happen to come across that book because of a recommendation from a YouTube video from a channel Charisma on command I I just yeah yeah so I like I I was like okay I'm gonna try reading this book and I mean I've tried all these different solutions in the past but yeah it was it was a lot of trial and error and then I think some things just clicked because I just tried so much stuff well not even try like I mean I read a lot of stuff and um yeah it was definitely not an instant switch it was baby steps I mean to overcome my social anxiety too even before that book I was too scared to really ask women out or whatever so I would just make small talk to people at like a cashier desk and I just ask like oh hey how's your day going and then that was a small win for me and then I would like continue to do that and force myself to do that and then once that was my new Baseline I've approached people just random strangers I remember old man at the mall one day I was just I literally just walked up to him like how's your day going I just had a nice conversation so you're just kind of pushing your boundaries each time and I mean it's definitely not a flick of the switch at least it wasn't for me it was it was just kind of like okay let's inch forward a little bit lean into that discomfort there's definitely a lot of discomfort you're gonna have to lean into I think that's a that's a good sign if you're feeling discomfort because I mean that's growth I mean you don't really grow without uh kind of putting stress on your body I related to the gym you need to like break yourself down a little bit to grow like come back recoup and grow I'm doing the math here it says you you went to college on your LinkedIn profile says you got your bachelor's degree but it doesn't seem like you got your master's degree how far into college did you make it yeah I'm such a boomer with LinkedIn I don't even know how to operate that so it's definitely false um I got two years in so I was on my second year my first semester of second year of college and the moment I knew I was going to drop out was when I was forced into a certain class and I was in this class and the professor had these slides up first slide I saw was it was introducing everyone to whatever the blah blah all right class we're gonna go round and we're going to introduce ourselves as a weather system and I want you to mime the weather system that you're feeling today and at that moment I was no I'm not into this I mean I was I was getting an arts degree but still like I think that's that's not for me at least I don't think that's yeah that was that was kind of weird I think there's a place for college and university but I think for many people especially creatives I I don't think it's needed especially with the resources that are out today like I learned more from your channel the future than any other like college class I learned and it was way more applicable not fluff and it was actually people that are in places where I wanted to be I think that's one of the biggest things is like a lot of these professors or teachers they they haven't really done much out of outside Academia but there's definitely a place where it just wasn't for me well it doesn't seem like that decision hurt yanny because you started your own company I believe it's called growth ghost and I looked at the website so there's a couple of remarkable things that you claim on the site one is that you guarantee a minimum of 20 000 organic Twitter followers in 60 days or you'll do it for free and then get you another 10 000 followers at no extra charge and then you when you click on the see if you qualify it says you're not taking on any new clients so you have a busy roster of clients presumably that's why you can't take on any more tell me what it is that if you were taking clients what is it that you do for your clients yeah so I always like to say I pretend to be people on the internet what I do for clients is there's two parts there's basically writing and distribution so I create content for different types of people that I want to take on that I think are interesting and then I distribute that content on those social networks with my my networks of people that I know so they'll retweet their stuff their content but yeah basically I get to know the the client can we talk about a little bit about business like if you were taking on clients how much would you charge to be able to do that for 60 days I've had different offers so I I had it where um one was 10 000 followers in 90 days I charged twenty five thousand dollars for that that was crazy to me because at the time I just didn't want to take people on so this guy DMS me hey I want your service I was like oh I I mean I'll refer you to someone else like I'm super high tickets it's just because I I was like I just don't want to take anyone on right now it's got a lot of work he has music what's high ticket and this is on the DMS by the way this guy never had a conversation it's like oh twenty five thousand dollars to get you to ten thousand followers just like okay screw off I'll refer to someone else and he says okay put me on the waitlist it's like holy [ __ ] really like this is crazy I mean I realized the power of a personal brand and building an audience but it was like that's when it really clicked like this guy doesn't even know me and I mean he probably knows of me the only reason I I'm able to do that in the DMS is because I mean I built a brand I've built to trust the authority all of that and he's willing to pay me that amount of money um ended up working with them gone to 10 000 followers in two days he's at 65 000 followers and like 30 days was stupid so yeah I've charged 25 000 for that I've also again like I had some some people reach out because they knew me from Twitter hopped on a call with them and they wanted my services like no you just need to do this this and that like just follow this strategy do what I said and they're like okay okay but if we wanted to hire you how much would it be I was like thirty five thousand dollars uh it's like okay and then after the call we want to work with you let's do it let's like send the invoice it's like are you serious like this is crazy um but typically I do month to month and I'm right now I'm charging 7K a month um and that's just to like grow their account no crazy guarantees the person that you did the thing for 25k that you got them the results in two days you're like do you are you done for the rest so you got got you your goal or how does that work then so I'm such a people pleaser and I think that comes from just trying to be liked as a as a kid and all of that but I'm also a big proponent of like over delivering so like when I reached that that Mark I mean I could have cut it and then stop I think you're supposed to cut it by the way you're like I guarantee you followers and you you delivered you over delivered you delivered in like what is it uh 58 days faster than you're supposed to yeah it was it was he was so mind blown uh it was so cool to see I really like I really like him I continue to work with him uh but yeah I was like let's see how far we can take this I mean it's a good case study too right you can leverage that down the line to land more clients or or if you have a different offer you can just like hey I got I've done this in the past so that's a huge asset for me to say I've grown someone's uh brand to 60 000 followers Plus in 30 days like it's absolutely nuts and that's going to be a huge asset for me when I create other offers down the road but yeah like I just went absolute balls to the wall with his content and I wrote a thread every day and uh yeah it was it was pretty crazy it was cool to see because it like pushes your boundaries you're like oh this is what's possible I can do this and then yeah for future offers like okay I can have I can let's see how far I can push this I can probably charge more down the line for some result like this so yeah it was it was crazy while we're on this line it says you're not taking any more clients how many clients are you actively managing right now yeah right now so I've been bottlenecked by my my systems uh that's something I've been really working on lately so I can take on more clients right now I think I have seven and we'll probably be upping it to nine real quick because we're onboarding new people but yeah it's uh it's been crazy I want to get that to around 20 by like within six months but yeah it's it's uh it's definitely intense I'm trying to get out of the agency work I'm I've hired some people to kind of like take my place I've trained them and all that but yeah I see so is this the case that the Ghost Rider has a ghost writer I mean kind of in a way I mean I've I definitely I've created all these Frameworks and I've trained my main guy Joey Joey Justice um on how to run everything and uh do this and do that um but yeah I guess I guess I kind of do have a go straight but I also come in and I'm just like double checking like making sure like the final product okay maybe we need to change the hook hooks here and all of that right um but yeah actually yeah it's kind of fun it's like an MLM well you're gonna service the function of the editor or the creative director at this point right yeah yeah you have a system a framework you vet and test people you do quality control you're growing a business and it's not just a business of one person anymore exactly yeah okay 100 now you said something and I need to come back to it and then we'll I have more questions about content and how you grow on on social but you said that you do two things you ghost right for people and then you deal with distribution and you said that you send it to a network of people that you know that then also share it tell me a little bit about how that works and why that works big secret a lot of people don't know about you can pay for retweets you can pay for IG story shout outs and all of that you can go the organic route and you can comment 100 times a day if you want but like the biggest secret is like secret is you you just pay people to retweet the the content um like everyone you see on Twitter typically like the big creators they're either trading retweets they're buying retweets they're selling retweets all of that so like that's what I mean by distribution is I'm paying people to retweet my clients content uh because to get that kind of results like I'm not commenting 20 000 times a day that's absolutely crazy um but yeah like it's it's uh that's the way I see it it's like paid ads pretty much but you're just getting shout outs they're amplifying the message by sharing it with their networks right exactly I mean and and the thing is like it's not it's not a ticket to oh you're just gonna get all these followers it's like no you need the content to be nailed on because otherwise if you have bad content and you get 100 retweets it's like putting whipped cream on dog [ __ ] it's not gonna be appealing like people you need to nail those two aspects and then like vice versa I mean you can have the best content in the world but if no one sees it it doesn't matter so you need those two elements what does it cost for this kind of distribution I've never used anything like this before so if I wanted to grow my following and somebody who's listening it's like okay I get it if I believe my content is good I need help with distribution and more retweets how do I go about doing this what does it cost if you want to get retweets from a more like broad platitude General motivation account it's cheaper because you're more of a commodity don't have as much Authority it's just it's kind of like a broad audience you know you're looking at between 10 to 35 dollars typically for one of those accounts that has 100 to 200 300 000 followers uh typically like 25 and then when it comes to more authoritative Brands like people that have an audience of a certain Niche like maybe a business Niche it's going to be more expensive because they have a higher quality audience they have more Authority stuff like that in that aspect you're looking probably between how it can range like 40 to 70 dollars per retweet um and that's for probably 100 to 200 000 followers when you get to this Stratosphere of 500 000 followers you can charge like crazy crazy prices on Twitter Instagram's crazy too Instagram's even pricier I'm not too too you acquainted with Instagram buying I've never bought in a share on Instagram but for myself but yeah I think they're pricier so a 500 000 follower audience that's niched what would that cost to retweet I would probably say you're probably like 200 a retweet or something I'm just ballparking though I I know a Creator I think he's got 500 000 followers and he's decently well known I think he's charging like six thousand dollars for 20 retweets or 30 retweets like it's just nuts this is probably the easiest money ever to make once you develop your audience right yes because literally you just don't or do they have to say something no they don't have to they just hit a button I it blows my mind still to this day I just hit a button I just I just made forty fifty sixty dollars it's like what maybe I'm working too hard these days I need to rethink my strategy here and for people who are like the Creator Academy now followers don't equal dollars you just heard a way that you just make money right then and there okay all right so let's get back in time though because you're on Twitter you're learning you're watching Youtube you're doing what you're supposed to do you read books and you're sharing your information at what point in which you're able to trade on your following for a client who's like I want you to do what you do for me yeah so I started my ghost writing agency in November of 2021 and within 28 days of launching I was at 11k a month I only had I think 5 000 followers at the time just absolutely because I think that was the Inception wow yeah dude it was nuts um holy cow that was around the start of like before ghost writing was really well known I mean it's still not really well known right away I was I was charging 3K a month out the gate I didn't even promote my landing page not until this day like not even once it was just a Lincoln bio here's my website here's my copy on my landing page yeah I had someone fill out a form line of them for 3K a month and then again 5K a month and then again I think another guy 3K a month it was absolutely nuts it was kind crazy it shows the power of you know if you're if you're in the right Market you can charge higher prices and like how you position yourself because if I was just a copyright there's no way I would be able to charge that because there's so many other copywriters but since there's so few ghost writers it's just yeah it's a lot easier would you attribute to your success in landing that first client to get them to go to the page and then do a call with you before we get into the call on how you handle the sales yourself what was it because 5 000 followers is pretty hard to do on Twitter but it's not enough to say like you're the guy let me give you money what was it about you can you pinpoint anything that triggered someone to like oh I need to look into Dakota right now yeah it's actually funny so I use the website appsumo a lot I like it's it's a Marketplace for agency owners or Market marketers to get softwares and all that but I bought this this software and I was a big fan of it I love it I still use it to this day it was slowing down my computer a bit so I messaged the founders on Twitter I said hey love the app all this blah blah blah I just want to let you guys know like this is what I'm experiencing I don't know if it's my side of your side and that was it I wasn't trying to land him as a client or anything like they got back to me like okay cool cool but I guess they checked on my profile and they saw my landing page and they filled out my form so I was like oh that's pretty cool right on like within a week of launching my business so yeah that's that's kind of how I got my first client in the door um I definitely dm'd man I was dming these really big names on YouTube and stuff and I was like I'm gonna shoot my shot and like cold DMS and cold emails and all that but nothing came to fruition out of that but yeah it was funny I wasn't even trying to land a client or that client and uh they filled out my form is it was pretty funny wow that's pretty wild okay so you're on the call presumably selling a creative service you've not been able to charge other people for how does the sales call go down that you can land a client so I work at coffee shops a lot I just love going to coffee shops and it's kind of my my happy place but I took the sales call in the middle of a Starbucks with this microphone phone and it's just loud as [ __ ] in the background super unprofessional and I took the sales call I I had no idea what I was doing I was so nervous like I get so nervous on sales or I used to on sales calls and basically I just asked questions like just try to get a good idea and all that I was just I don't know what to say like you're just gonna ask questions and get a good idea yeah basically pitched my service and just said it so I asked him all these questions to get a good idea of his situation and then I was like okay like I feel like I understand everything uh do you want me to like run you through what I do probably set it really nervously and uh because I [ __ ] my pants in my head but yeah I ran through my process and the price is three thousand dollars per month I shut up I shut up and he's like okay so I'm gonna talk to my business partner and get back to you and like I know that's not a good sign I knew in my head but I was just too scared to kind of like push them for the sale uh so it's like okay that's cool that's cool man uh but turns out he actually needed to talk to his business partner and then they came back to me like two days later yeah let's do it I was like oh so sweet so uh yeah that was uh that was that was cool um but super nervous it wasn't just a story that was he really needed to talk to you yeah he actually yeah yeah he wanted to move forward yeah 100 yeah the first man first dozen sales calls were so nerve-wracking for me but I again like I just leaned into that discomfort and I knew like okay this is like I'm feeling these nerves and it's a sign I need to do this like I need to lean into this because in order to become the person I want to become I need to develop these quality traits and I know taking these actions are the way to get that so I just leaned into it writing for yourself is one thing and for some people that's the biggest challenge they have to overcome but writing for someone else when you said you have to pretend to be someone else and it's what you do for a living tell me about your process uh what what do you do to get in someone's head and what is it you're looking for to be able to mine so that you can start to become like them but more interesting because obviously if they just do them it's not going to go any where with each client I hop on like a one hour call with them and what I'm mainly looking for is okay like what are The Vibes of this person are they super serious are they playful are they funny uh maybe they have a certain pattern of speech where they're like gentlemen or they say these things like oh hey guys or like stuff like that so I look for stuff like that the biggest thing that has helped me is talking about their story because when you talk when they start talking about their story and things they've done you get a better sense of their personality like me talking on this this podcast you probably got a better sense of my personality because of the things I've some of the stuff I've shared so that's a huge thing is talking about people's story and that also gives me content to write but I just get a really good sense of who this person is what are their values stuff like that I don't have this crazy process I was just like okay he's kind of more serious so I'm gonna write in this tone and then what I found at least by writing their story that kind of does the heavy lifting for you I mean because you people if you write in a certain tone and you write their story I think people fill in the blanks about narrative or the way the person saying it and so I put less emphasis on oh I got a nail like this person's like pattern of speech like to the T and more focus on their story their their tonality in a sense their personality a little bit um and focus on that but yeah it just I I think a lot of people over complicate it and they're like oh I just need to nail it to the T and all I need to study them day in and day out I haven't run into the issue where people think oh this isn't that person it's mainly just okay write the story what's their main Vibe is it serious funny all playful all that maybe do they got a certain pattern of speech where they say gentlemen or whatever like they talk in a certain way so a lot of people say I don't have a story I don't have an interesting thing and so when you say I'm gonna tell your story what kind of patterns have you seen that make for compelling stories I love to teach stories and talk about stories so I'm really curious about what you do as a Ghostwriter I think the most important part is all stories revolve around change so all great stories from my perspective let's say how I started from socially anxious and ended up confident or I started out broke and I ended up wealthy you want to look at the the where you're at now and then that gives you a good idea where to start so usually most great stories are about transformation if you see like at the any good movie like okay where are they starting like who is this person maybe they're a naive boy that doesn't value hard work and at the end of this end of the story okay now they're this more mature person they understand the value of hard work and they've evolved in all this way it creates that Arc you know you start here Arc okay I learned this it's the hero's journey kind of thing uh so that's the biggest thing I I always look for is like okay what's the worst spot you were in and then I get them to talk about it and then how they overcame that it's overcoming that struggle that really resonates with people so maybe people don't resonate with my story of like Father smoking crack and not being there but they they resonate with the the struggle of oh my father wasn't wasn't emotionally available for me and it's that struggle people relate with emotions and overcoming struggles so if you can Target that sure maybe not the exact context they won't relate to but the the feeling of it they do when you find that story and you're able to tell it across I assume some kind of thread on Twitter what else are you writing about then like how do I mean now I'm enrolled in your story does it have to be an exchange of values because when you write you write about here's 40 things that I learned that you won't learn in college or here's how you write better and get more engagement here's how you get a lot of people to look at your con whatever it is so you're exchanging value for their time and attention in your framework so far it's like we get the tone of voice the patterns of speech and their values and their story what is the next pieces of content revolving around I look at it through the lens of like three pillars so people either want to be validated so you can like validate their opinions or use tone it's okay to be like this or a confirmation bias you can do stuff like that they want to be educated so that would be more value you know this is how you do X Y and Z so validated educated or they want to be entertained so that could be memes [ __ ] posts stuff like that but like those are the three pillars I kind of think of it just to simplify it and like the way I think of it is okay so you got personal content so that's your stories that's your opinions your world World Views stuff like that that's your personal the personal pillar and then you have authority which is more the educate the value stuff this is how you do XYZ it can even be like how I did Big achievement step by step so it's kind of like a personal end an authority so you can see how you mix the two and then there's the growth content that's more of the general broad stuff the more General stuff that gets eyes on your account but mix mixing those three the personal Authority the growth content and just kind of rotate those I feel like that's what gives you the best bang for your buck because you're you're also developing a relationship with your audience through the the personal you're giving them the value which is raising your Authority and then you have the growth content that mainly gets eyes on your account so if you just think of it through that lens and just rotate then I think you're good so the the growth piece is kind of like the candy because it's like everybody likes candy and you'll come in for that and then the values uh when in terms of Education that's how you build your Authority because ultimately you you need followers who are interested in what it is that you can help them solve right and and then your story and invalidating them it's like you said affirming them maybe it's a little bit of confirmation bias like it's okay to fail because sometimes we hit that point it's like we've all failed okay I get it I feel seen and heard and you're rotating between these three pieces of content are you able to ghostwrite based on just one hour interview yeah so I try to do once a month with clients um but I can also do it without interviews so I just pretty much need okay what are the topics you want to write about so if I have a fitness account and like I want to talk about productivity I want to talk about sleep blah blah blah blah it's like okay I have all these content pillars now I'll just do research and produce content on that I have my Frameworks my writing Frameworks I follow so I just need the ideas in there and then I just apply the Frameworks and Bob's your uncle but uh yeah there's some clients I I just never hop on a call with them I just like okay I just know what this person wants stuff written about and I'll write that I mean sure I can't really write a bunch of personal stuff about them in that case if I can't interview them I mean that's definitely not needed it's definitely a great thing to have if you want to build a strong personal brand is sharing your story but some people they just don't care they kind of see it more as a business rather than having a mission with their personal brand that's totally fine if you want to really impact people's lives and really move them emotion I think you do need to talk about your story that creates the community not a following so what you shared with me was pretty insightful because for a long time I'm just mostly focused on the education part I just want to give value I don't want to talk about myself I don't tell my story and then there was this barrier that I was building between who I am as a human being and the content that I create so I incorporate the stories and then I'm doing more content these days about affirming and validating saying you know we all we all suck we all have low points we all fumble We All Fall and to kind of just let people know that we're all human and it's this Human Experience that we're living through the thing I don't do enough of is this growth content and now I know why my account is not growing Dakota you're a genius you don't do growth content that's why you're not growing yeah I get it go viral right yeah just go viral so that's you know it's like you and and you know we're all guilty of this we'll see something in our feet it's kind of funny it's not going to change our life but it's just like okay I get it and you see like it's got 4 000 likes or retweets or whatever and like okay we need to have the candy from time to time if we want to grow right exactly yeah like I think about the mission okay what am I trying to do here and that's how you get like the way I see Twitter or social media it's top of funnel so a lot of the stuff I read is more basic I mean I definitely do the personal and Authority stuff but you need to get people into your ecosystem and once you have them in your ecosystem that's when you can start raising their level of awareness it's it's like marketing right as you start talking about these Concepts and introducing the different stuff because if you just start talking about oh like you need to do XYZ and then overwhelm like what is this I don't even know so you slowly bring them in maybe you bring them into your newsletter where you can talk to them a bit more intimately or you get them funneled into your podcast where you can go more in depth with stuff but it all starts with that like top of funnel where you just bring them in first and it's like okay like kind of introduce them to this and then you can really start to impact them in my opinion what is the greatest stretch you've had to make in terms of pretending to be someone else look you look at you and you say this guy goes to the gym so a Health Fitness person does not much of a stretch there it's like what you do and are interested in anyways tell me an account that you've written for that is so not you so I can see where you take this and then give me some examples of telling their story or how you were able to take a piece of content that is Broad but make it in their tone of voice relate to a lot of my clients in like different aspects one notable one is like uh award-winning male porn star this is the Big Stretch right I mean I got my only fans I subscribed yeah um I mean like there's definitely like like stuff like that like just kind of outlandish I kind of I relate to his personality in some ways and I'm not posting like any not safe for work content it's like self-employment stuff but I kind of gotta definitely gotta lean into like certain aspects of my personality and beliefs and kind of exaggerate it in a lot of ways for some people um I've I've written for Ecom people in the past and I I stopped working with them because it's just so Bland and uh like I don't know like if you can tell like I'm more like I don't know I just I like being more out there and like saying more interesting things other than just Bland Ecom stuff like there's not too many clients I'd say it's been a crazy stretch oh I've had some holistic people where they're the like more holistic health and I'm writing this stuff I'm like oh I don't believe this at all like but whatever if this is is what they believe like that's what they believe and I'll write it yeah like one guy Sons his balls um I'm like okay yeah she called raise your testosterone or whatever so I don't know about that well you had said that the reason why you knew College wasn't right for you when your instructor said hey my weather system it's pretty out there weird stuff so you do wind up potentially helping people who are like I don't believe any of this but I could I could pretend yeah do you take that as a like a badge of honor that I could pretend to be something I'm totally not or do you feel like that's not that that does a poor fit for you you shouldn't be doing that for so many years I pretended to be someone that I wasn't so I felt like an imposter and I pretended to be confident in a lot of ways and just like that so in in a sense it's kind of natural it sounds bad to say but I also recognize like I don't know everything I could be completely wrong with my perspectives on the world and who am I to say oh your perspective is wrong so it's it's my job as a writer to best convey that person's perspective regardless of what I believe and I want nothing but the best for my clients like I want to over deliver and I believe they they have the right to tell people what they believe and again like I my biggest value is freedom I'm so open everyone's different perspectives I may not agree with them but I think everyone has their right to try to impact or change the world in how they see fit as long as it's not hurting anybody or or bringing anyone down I do like my ability to kind of morph myself into these different positions but I'm gonna compartmentalizing uh it's like okay I believe this but I gotta write in this character it's kind of like actors you know yeah I wrote that word acting down because you said pretend and the people that don't like that term but that's What actors do they embody the person and they leave themselves aside they become very emotionally vulnerable and then they react to what's going on right and that's what you're able to do I want to ask you this question and and I think as Blair ends who said this he sent out all strategies autobiographical we recommend people do things that have worked for us so this worked for us and therefore it might work for you who knows so what is the correlation between physical fitness and health and success I was running away from the person that I I currently was I was as fat I was very socially anxious I didn't like myself and so that motivated me to go to the gym and I I had that deep pain and so I went hard at the gym I I worked out till I threw up I was going to YMCA boot camps and it was crazy it was I just went balls to the wall and all the time and I didn't see results for like the first few months really I just knew I'm just gonna do this I don't know where this is gonna lead I just need to take some kind of action and just go hard at this so I was probably like five six months in and I remember looking in the mirror one day and it was like around my stomach I saw some definition I was so blown away I legit just I looked in the mirror for a good 20 minutes like just flexing like yeah like no big deal like all that stuff I was so proud of myself that's when it really formed a new belief in me it's like okay if I put in all these hours of work just to get one percent better like that's that's huge like that just meant the world to me it formed a new belief for me it's like if you put in all these hours of work just to get one percent better I mean that's that's huge and it's and it showed me okay you gotta have a long-term vision and play the long game if you really want to be successful because so many people they just quit after a week or two that's why they don't see results because they're just not consistent they just go really intense and then just stop but if you can have that longer term vision and really just put in the work and sure maybe it's a one percent difference but it's it's a difference and you're moving towards the person you want to come and that's applicable to all areas of life that's 100 like that shaped my whole life was just having that moment where it's like oh my God like okay if I put in all these hours and you get this result like let's keep going with this and then it just compounds over time it's the same with Twitter first three months I only grew to 750 followers and that's when I just took a step back it's like oh okay like this isn't that good but I'm gonna keep trying and figuring this out and then that's when I just kind of took a step back changed my account to a writing account and then within 40 days I was at a thousand followers so if I didn't if I just gave up like oh I'm just not meant for Twitter like I wouldn't be here today like Twitter is for my whole like business and most of my life right now so it's just having that ability to I mean just being consistent and being consistent at the right thing too A lot of people they'll they maybe they're consistent but they don't use the feedback they're getting from their environment to change things and then they're just hitting their head at a wall if people don't follow you on Instagram then they'll know exactly what you're talking about how Twitter is the foundation of your Social existence and your business because you essentially just take your tweets screen capture them and string them together to make a carousel on Instagram and I believe you have more followers on Instagram than you do on Twitter right yeah that was nice so you're getting way more love on Instagram than you are on Twitter yeah I yeah it blew my mind how fast you can grow on Instagram it was crazy I mean less so now but it was nuts basically what you put in your body and how you spend your energy are one of the few things you can actually control in this world I think all the other control is an illusion and you're saying if you put in the work if it's just one percent Improvement I don't know if you've seen this math formula before but they take one and they improve it by one percent so it's 1.01 and they take it to the 365th power and it equals some big number and like isn't that amazing and then the opposite is true too if you do one percent less then it's 0.9 whatever 99 or whatever it is and to the 365th power and you see that it's it's diminished and it's a power just show showing up every day just looking for that small Improvement and before you know it you've got abs then you've got muscles then you have a whole new life and a new outlook right you were able to rebuild yourself and I think I think there is some correlation here between really successful High net worth people and how they take care of their this Mortal coil their frame you know Jeff Bezos was like a really nerdy dude became the world's richest man for a period of time then there's pictures of him emerging it's like the guy's yoked walking around it's ridiculous and Dana White recently uh was just spreading the rounds on the internet about when he took off his shirt and he's like oh my God I thought he was a fat dude but he's really muscular under all that so there's this thing about performance discipline motivation playing the long game so if anybody's looking to reinvent their life start with the things you can control it'll teach you a lot about yourself and probably like what you're capable of I got two more questions they're a little bit more tactical because we heard your story we were inspired and we've we even had business models now to think about that we weren't aware before so you're really good at writing copy what are five things that people need to do to avoid writing really crappy copy yeah so first off you need to simplify so a lot of people they want to try to sound smart I think college and school does a bad job at encouraging people but I mean do you want to replace like any big words like non-plussed I mean that means confused like you say confused not non-plus say use not utilize like use Simple language and ideally use language that fifth grader below could understand and the way you can use that is use a software like my favorite is pro writingaid you can analyze the grade level of your writing there's also the Hemingway app so I'd use those to get that feedback and just write out a simple and clear manner because if people are confused they're not going to understand your message their attention spans will go on to the next Tick Tock or tweet or whatever so that's very very crucial storytelling using stories in your writing because people are attract they're emotionally moved by stories and it it resonates with people a lot more when you can present information with stories because if people wanted information they'd Google Google stuff cut whatever doesn't move your message forward using the words you and your like talking to your reader not at your reader so hey people like do you want uh to lose weight or like you instead you could say hey are you looking to lose weight see how it's way more engaging when you're talking to someone not at them like it's a lecture how powerful is the active voice versus the passive voice I find it more engaging to use active but there's also time like people like to [ __ ] on passive voice but there is a place with passive voice so if someone's a victim of something if you use passive voice then it's more impactful because it just feels like it's happening to somebody opposed to them doing something so that's the I think the one exception so like a car hit the woman opposed to the woman was hit by the car like one's more impactful than the other others like I don't know like that's a horrible example I'm like holy crap I cannot figure this one out Dakota because I saw that on your list I'm like I I'm unfamiliar with this active and passive voice yeah can you find an example where that's like really clear yeah like the boy ate the apple so that's active voice because the boy is performing the action instead of the Apple was eaten by the boy um so there's if you go passive the apple is eaten by the boy then I mean it's longer it's harder to visualize too because when you look at somebody uh you typically see the person taking the action not the action being performed by the person it's a hard rule to kind of conceptualize but like that's yeah it's like yeah like that okay maybe maybe we don't use that one yeah give me another fifth one give me like the no-brainer here we go use numbers in your writing that's what you it's a huge one so people are attracted to numbers uh specifically odd numbers like three seven I forget the reasoning behind that but use numbers because say if I'm on Twitter and I'm scrolling and I see all this text but if I see a number that's gonna stand out same with like a dollar sign or a percentage sign it's like a pattern disrupt so if you can do that that's huge I use numbers in pretty much all my headlines and uh get really good at capturing attention get really good at headlines because that's like probably number one is get really good at headlines because if you can't capture attention you're just done if they don't read your first line they won't read your last line or your second line so you really need to study headlines and there's I would study the great copywriters uh and go that route but yeah so that's kind of like the example is 23 sentences that'll improve your writing more than 12 years of English class you used it twice it was such a good rule you went you double dipped on that one okay let me break this down Okay so I have this formula for writing viral viral headlines you want to make the benefit as big as possible 47 sentences that will make you more money than a four-year marketing degree so big benefit is make you more money than a four-year degree you want the effort to seem really low so 47 sentences that effort so low like oh I just got to read 47 sentences to get this big benefit so it has to be relevant to your audience so if I start talking about basketball to an audience full of writers they're not going to care so you have to make sure your content matches your audience oh and then reach you just need to distribute the content so you need to get eyes on it because if you have the best content in the world and no one reads it doesn't matter so you need those like four elements so like make the benefit huge make the perceived effort really low make sure it's relevant to your audience and then make sure you have good reach slash distribution so without seeing the distribution your example 47 sentences that'll make you more money then for your marketing degree puts all those principles in play the big benefit make a lot of money the low effort is 47 sentences relative to four-year Market degree and relevant is people who are looking to study marketing are just looking to make money so it's just it's tied together right yeah exactly I'm targeting a benefit right like I'm not gonna like making money is the benefit um opposed to like here are 47 marketing tips like it's more appealing to say oh it will make you more money so you always want to look at okay what's the impact of this what's the impact of whatever you're talking about and think about the end result because at the end of the day that's what people want is the benefit they don't want to get fit they want to increase their status or they want to become more confident or they want to get more energy stuff like that last question for you Dakota thanks for doing this with me yes here we go this one should be an easy for me what are three books someone can read to learn to write better to be a better Storyteller and then why your three favorite books if I want to improve writing I knew it was like throwing you aside on this uh so my number one favorite book is writing tools by Roy Peter Clark that one there's a lot of writing books but that one I think just Nails it on the head uh with how it explains different rules it teaches you how to cut the fluff uh teaches you different roles Like rules like how to structure your writing in an engaging way it just it's it's a master class I would highly suggest just writing in general that book is amazing for storytelling story worthy by Matthew Dix I'm re-listening to it right now that is absolutely amazing for showing you the theory of Storytelling but also giving you the tools of how to apply it and how to think about it so that's amazing and then if you want to go more copywriting and learn the psychology behind writing capturizing is absolutely great a great beginner book and I mean covers like pretty much most of what you need to know and gives you a great overview of like why people do things and so much actionable stuff in there that I Incorporated in all my tweets and writing so I think if you read those three books you'll you'll learn a lot you'll you'll you'll be like 80 there I'm curious when we began this episode you introduce yourself a certain way but in the real world how do you introduce yourself if somebody's like oh I'm I'm Bob I do this and how do you introduce yourself I just say hey I'm Dakota nice to meet you like I don't uh I try not to but what do you do Dakota I well I literally tell them I pretend to be people on the internet okay so you do say the same thing yeah yeah oh yeah I'm pretty I try to be the same on like everywhere like my friends know me like I moved in with my buddy's Dan uh for five months and like I'm they know I'm the same person online and I mean maybe different a little bit like dial back in some aspects online or maybe not I don't know but I'm pretty I'm pretty open I and my mom had a huge impact on me in that aspect so it rubbed off well it's really fun having this conversation with you for people who are intrigued by this young person who's got all these ideas about writing who's been able to do a whole bunch of different things that are really relatively short amount of time how do people find out more about you since you're not taking more clients you mentioned you're trying to get out of the agency work so there must be something else you're thinking about yeah I'm actually working on done with you offer so instead of doing the work for people I'm gonna just do it with them give them all the everything I know and just grow them like crazy that way um but yeah I'm still working on that uh but I will is that a course or something no I want to do I want to really get people results so I'm going to actually like have a it's going to be a group where like I'm gonna actually hop on calls with people maybe a course down the line uh but right now I just want to really like find out people's pain points and struggles and all that and really help them and get great results for them and I will still have the agency it's just like I won't be as involved but we'll still have that going uh but yeah I'm on Twitter at wrongs to write like you're writing w-r-i-t-e and then I'm on Instagram I'm changing my username because people are getting scammed so I'm I'm buying a username uh will be at dkota so that will be my Instagram when this gets aired I imagine absolutely yeah I really appreciate you having me this is this is actually really surreal for me to like be on this podcast I really appreciate all the content you put out and I still consume your content so really appreciate it thanks so much how you've been moved Paving the way for a lot of creators thank you do you do public speaking by the way no I do not do you desire to uh maybe someday I know that's like down the line but right now I know I need like I actually started my own podcast to get better at speaking because that's something I want like I'm leaning into that discomfort again I want to get right better at it um but maybe some someday down the line because I heard that you are five foot eight yes how much do you currently weigh yes I'm 190. 190 okay you are bulky dude oh my God yeah yeah yeah at one point at 220. I heard about that that was crazy yeah in your big day right yeah so it's like I was if I was when I was 19 I just got really kind of not depressed super jacked no I got lazy I got a fat engine oh okay okay the other way I'm about five eight myself I think I'm a buck 35 right now damn so there's a 60 pound child between us so I asked you about public speaking because maybe one of these days we'll be sharing the stage and I'll walk up to you I'm like there's the 60 pounds of muscle in another person I'll give so I'll give some to you oh yeah I am Dakota Robertson and you are listening to the Future