In this episode of Show Up Real, Cat discusses the critical difference between human content and business content, emphasizing the importance of authenticity in content creation.
The conversation explores how to engage audiences effectively by treating marketing like dating, ensuring that content resonates on a personal level.
Cat provides actionable strategies for creating genuine connections through content, encouraging listeners to practice being themselves and lead with value rather than sales.
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What is up y’all? Welcome to Show Up Real Podcast. I am so excited that you are here. Look, doors are open to Show Up Real right now and they are closing by the end of this week on Friday, end of day. If you know that getting consistent with content, with elevating your content is a part of your strategy in 2025 and you are a person that gets in your head about your content or you deeply desire to just be more authentic online, come join us. This is exactly what this program is about. I want you to have a marketing go-to, a content go-to, a place to go to get coached, to get you in action versus taking giant breaks from content. So doors are open right now and they close this Friday. If you’re listening to this episode, the week it comes out. So join us, it’s gonna be so fun.
Now, today’s podcast episode, I wanna talk about human content versus business content. There is something that happens to content and copy and captions when someone is creating it for business purposes. And I’ve noticed this a lot within my clients. I was recently, I did a whole bunch of content reviews. We do them inside Show Up Real. And I was reading some copy. I was reading some email. I was reading some captions. And what I was finding is for a handful of these clients, what I was finding is they were sounding so businessy. And I wanted to create an episode just for that to talk about what really differentiates content to make it likable, approachable, and sellable that actually converts.
So that’s what I want to talk about today. I want to break down the difference between human content or human talk almost and business talk and why it’s so important to write, create, and market like a human, especially if you’re a coach, service provider, entrepreneur, or anyone looking to grow their business by growing an audience online or create content that actually converts, OK? It is so, so simple.
Human Vs Business Content (02:27.914)
So here, I’m just gonna dive right into it. Here is what I find that is missing. Well, here’s the thing. I just told you a little bit about why I created this episode, business content versus human content. What I find is when your content gives chat GPT vibes, when it is giving, like when you actually use chat GPT to write your copy, or when you are writing from this, place of sounding like someone else or you’re trying to sound like trying to like do this correctly as a business owner trying to write captions correctly. What happens what I find happens sometimes is the content when you’re trying so so hard to do it right and to sound right and to you know, make yourself look right and make your business look great when you do that. What happens is the actual content lacks personality.
It lacks information sometimes, and it just lacks overall depth. It lacks depth. And I see it so much, and I want to just talk about it so that I could describe as best as possible how to make your content sound like a human wrote it and not like chat GPT wrote it, okay?
So let’s start with talking about, well, no, actually before I talk about like human content versus business content, I do want to give like a scenario. I, I was reading some content and it reminded me of like the thought I thought of, what I thought of was dating. When you are dating somebody, right? It’s kind of like the relationship you want to build with your audience.
You are basically dating your audience and your audience is dating you and your content, your content is how you communicate to them. Okay. And what I find is when you’re so focused on doing it correctly, when you’re so focused on creating content that is, you know, going to convert whatever it feels infomercialy, like it feels like you’re being sold to. And here’s a problem that I see a lot is if the first two sentences of your copy sounds like you are going to sell to them, that’s a problem. That’s a problem. I don’t want you to write like that. I want you to write like a human. And this is just not the type of content that is going to sell, at least on a regular basis. Because there are times where you need sales content. Like when I’m launching, there are times when my content might feel and sound very salesy, but it’s because I’m selling and it’s because I’ve warmed up my audience to sell. But overall across the board, your content just shouldn’t feel like that. People buy from people, especially online, especially right now. People buy from people. They want to know who they’re buying from, especially if you’re a coach and especially if you’re a therapist or have any type of one-on-one services, people want to buy from people. So just writing some chat GPT caption, it doesn’t cut it. And let’s talk about the dating example really quickly, because I really do want you to consider that anybody reading your emails, reading your captions, experiencing your content, they are
If they are your ideal client, they may be even considering working with you. Maybe they just found you and they’re like, huh, I haven’t ever met a person like this who can help me with this sort of thing, right? A lot of your audience is in that realm. They either know you and maybe they like you and they’re interested in working with you. They’re just not there yet. Or maybe they’re new to you and they just found you and they just followed you, whatever.
I want you to treat your marketing, especially your writing, okay? I want you to treat it like you are dating your audience, okay? And I want you to think, if it was like dating, here’s what you would be doing if you’re doing it right. Coming from a person who I actually don’t date a lot. I don’t date a lot. I never date. I’m married for almost 11 years. But when I was dating, right?
Human Vs Business Content (07:17.878)
When I did date, and even when I dated my husband, these are the things that you likely wanna do. Like when you’re doing it right, you’re doing the following. One, you’re showing up real. You’re showing up as you are. That is the goal for you to go to a date and just be a real-ass human with another real ass human. That’s the goal to come as you are, not try to be someone you’re not, just be you. That’s important to a dating relationship. It’s important to all relationships, including the one with your audience. Number two, not trying to be someone you’re not, which is kind of like the first one. But like, I think about this specifically when it comes to business, because so many of us, and I am so guilty of this, you will try to put on this facade of trying to teach people and trying to create content that’s helpful. What could happen is your content becomes like, feels like you are on a pedestal and that you have to be this expert when you don’t even believe you’re an expert. It’s like, if you want to make human content, if you want to make content that converts, you have to practice being a human and not trying to be someone you’re not or talk a different way or be a different way or look a different way. Like it works better when you are doing you. Number three, in terms of like how this is related to dating, right? Just like dating, you want to genuinely be interested in getting to know the other person.
I think this is really important when it comes to content. When it comes to content and you selling with your content and creating community with your content, you have to genuinely care about getting to know your audience. You have to comment. When someone comments on yours, you got to comment back. You want to be in conversation. You want to be friendly.
Human Vs Business Content (09:37.322)
One of the concepts inside show up real is you have to be social on social media. That’s the point. That’s why we’re all here. You have to be social and not just social for social sake, right? Genuinely interested this. I find this a lot with people. I’m sure a lot of you who are on social media, whether it’s LinkedIn, Instagram, Tik TOK, I don’t know about Tik TOK if they experienced this, but I still get so many people who will reply to my Instagram story and it’s clear they don’t follow me. It’s clear that they have an intention behind talking to me. And they might even say something like, how did you start your business? Or this is so interesting. I love this. Ha ha ha. And I could instantly tell that they are going to be selling to me based off of the ingenuine approach to them communicating with me. If you really want to create content that builds community and sells your services, you have to be genuinely interested in your ideal client. You have to be genuinely interested in solving problems for them. You have to be genuinely interested in growing your business. Those are important.
And when you’re creating content, I want you to be genuinely interested in helping the other person or else it comes off very businessy. It comes off very fake, right? That’s important. Another thing I have on the list, this is number four. When you are dating, if you’re doing it right, right? If you’re doing it right, you consider that they may have not heard every single word of your story that you said on the last date. And it’s the same for content. It’s the same for content. One common mistake I see a lot of people do in their content is they assume that people know who they are. They assume that people saw yesterday’s Instagram story.
Human Vs Business Content (12:02.326)
They assume that the same people are engaging with them all the time. This is so, I mean, this is a big one because I get this from clients all the time. They’re like, but it’s only the same people watching my stories. Look, if 75 % of the people who are watching your stories are the ones that are typically watching your stories, cool, I get it.
But what about the 25 %? They wanna feel welcome. They wanna feel invited. They want to feel like this is a genuine, know, like I’m actually getting to know someone who’s also genuinely interested in getting to know me. And when you say things like, I know all of you guys know about da-da-da-da-da, and then don’t tell the full story, right? Like you just assume that someone knows a whole story about you. That’s not nice.
That’s not nice. And then it also pushes people out. You’re like, and if you don’t know, none of what I’m going to say is going to be relevant to you. Stop. Stop assuming that people, the same people are looking at your Instagram stories, your content, reading your emails. Like, it’s not the same people all the time. And even if it is, just 20%, let’s say 15% of people are new and 85% of people are, is that the right math? 85% of people are the ones who watch your content and consume your content on a regular basis. I want you to write to the 15%. And I want you to talk to them like there is someone standing next to your client who you’ve never met.
You don’t want to just be rude and talk about like you’re in, you know, inside jokes and things like that. Want you to give perspective and care about the people who are actually new to your, in your audience and getting to know you. That’s how you warm clients up. That’s how that is exactly how you build trust with your audience so that they buy from you later. But you have to stop assuming that people are, are watching everything you do and reading every email. They’re not, they’re busy. They have lives.
Human Vs Business Content (14:23.286)
So when you do go out there and create content, do it as if you were speaking directly to one person, and then right next to them, they have a friend with them who you’ve never met. You want to be respectful. You want to give some context when you’re giving that content away. OK, another one is, and growing an audience is like dating your audience, right? So if you’re dating right, if you’re doing dating well, right, you get to know them before bringing up marriage. Now for your audience, what I mean here is you’re not leading with sales. Imagine sell, actually selling to them is the, it is the marriage, right?
That’s the way I want you to think about it is like selling in your content is like bringing up marriage. Before you bring up marriage, you wanna be cool with someone. You wanna warm them up. You wanna make sure that they kind of get a gist of who you are and a little bit about you. You don’t wanna just sell right immediately. Now this could be a little bit funky because we’re putting out content all the time.
And of course we want to sell in our content, right? Yes, but the context, or I should say the copy of your content should not be about your offer, should not be about your business. It should be about solving your people’s problems. It should be about building trust in the relationship you have with them.
Human Vs Business Content (16:41.736)
And when you’re bringing up marriage right away, so like this is especially important for folks who are, I’m just thinking of people who, for example, they have an opt-in, right? Let’s say you have a freebie and people sign up for the freebie and then they get an email right after that freebie. I don’t recommend immediately selling to them always. There are some times you do, okay? There are some times you do, but you want to lean on value, not on selling, selling, Because that’s when it becomes very, it feels fake. And you have to remember there are different audiences experiencing your content. The last thing are some topics you just want to ease into. Some topics you want to ease into. With your audience, it’s like, you want to give context when you are telling a story about your, I don’t know, your expertise or like whatever you do your niche. If you are talking about your niche, you want to not use business jargon. You want to try not to use these.
Like little phrases that like only people in your industry make sense. Now, if your ideal client, right, is a specific person who’s very proficient, then maybe that makes sense, right? But you also want to break things down and make things simple. You wanna make it simple. So that’s what I mean by like, you wanna treat your audience and building your audience like you’re dating your audience.
And I want to be clear. Of course there are nuances. Of course there are nuances to this, but I’m speaking to the person who really struggles with being, showing up authentically. I’m talking to the person who really struggles being a full human online. And so they lead with like very businessy content and they lead with a lot of business jargon.
That’s who I’m really speaking to in this episode because that is likely what is slowing down your sales. So what is business content? What do I mean? Business content, I mean, it’s really sales content. And it’s not that sales-focused content doesn’t help you convert because it does help you convert. But what I always want you to consider is that you don’t want to lead with sales content.
Sales content should not be every post on your Instagram. Sales content shouldn’t be every article that you post on LinkedIn, okay? You want to lead with value. You want to lead with value. You want to lead with genuine connection. And here’s how you know your content is very much business content or very much salesy, let’s say. Business content, it feels like you’re being sold to. It almost feels like you’re being sold to right when you start reading it. You’ve probably experienced that feeling where you open up an email and like the first sentence is like, have you ever felt this way at nighttime? I know how you feel. Da da da da da da da. Like it is.
Like we know what it feels like to be sold to and when that like when those first couple sentences are very salesy That’s how you know, you’re being sold to and this is even more specific to copy and captions that’s businessy content. The way I want you to think about this too, it’s like business talk and human talk. Because it’s like, you want to talk like a human in your content. When you’re writing captions, you want to be a human behind it. That’s how you build a connection with your audience. That’s how you build trust. That’s how you convert in your content. So business talk feels very much like, I wrote on my notes, I wrote business jargon and then I wrote chat GPT vibes. So if you were to go on chat GPT right now and you were to put your website and a little bit about your niche, about who your ideal client is, et cetera, et cetera, and you say write a marketing email for me for da da da da or write an Instagram post where I’m selling one-on-one services, la la la. Whatever it comes out with, will probably be business content. It’ll probably be this like business talk.
Human Vs Business Content (21:25.228)
Business talk business content, it gives chat GPT vibes. It gives fake. It gives that feeling you get when you meet someone and you know, they’re like either don’t like you or they’re being super fake or phony. You can’t really get a good idea of like what you’re getting from them. It’s that feeling on in content. That’s the feeling people will get. And that’s what I don’t want you to do. I don’t want you to lead.
With selling, selling, selling, selling, selling. I want you to lead with helping people, with actually trying to start a conversation, actually trying to help a person get a result through your content. That’s how you create a connection. So here’s some commonalities I see with very inauthentic content, inauthentic business talk – business salesy content.
One, it assumes people saw yesterday’s IG story or read your last email. It overuses industry jargon. So it doesn’t really matter if it’s like personal development industry or relationship coach or hairdresser or I don’t know, whatever, but it uses language that’s very, very specific to that environment, like to that industry. And it also could be like overly generalized, like find your passion. So sure, some people might understand what find your passion is, but also that’s a very, like that’s a very personal development thing, right? Like you’re not going up to people and be like, have you found your passion? No, what are you really saying to people? How are you really talking to people?
You might say something like, what do you do?
Or la, la, la, right? You want to not use the same type of language that the entire industry is using. You, the go-to rule for me is you wanna say it like you’re talking to a person in front of you. I always tell my clients the way you wanna write captions is exactly what you would say to a friend over dinner and drinks. You want to write it that way, right? You’re not going to go to dinner and drinks and be like, have you ever thought about being financially free? Like, what the fuck? No, nobody’s saying that to each other in life. They are saying, my God, have you heard about retiring early? I know someone who da, da, da, da, da, da. That’s the way they’re saying it. Or, and I’m so guilty of this.
Because one example I wrote down was be more authentic, right? Be more authentic is something I probably say so much. But if I really were to kind of be critical of that type of language, it’s like, what does being authentic mean? What does that mean? Give me more. Give me more. You want to not use that overused personal development.
Industry jargon. Also, some commonalities I see for business talk in captions and content and copy is it doesn’t give content. I’m sorry. It doesn’t give context. It feels short and it feels rushed to the selling piece. Like it’s very much like very quick. I don’t want you to be afraid to write, especially if you’re writing an email where you have space.
Tell people the story. Assume that they don’t have the full picture. I think a lot of people need to be comfortable sharing their story over and over over and over again. Because the truth is, everybody isn’t seeing the piece of content you created that was like introduction to me and my business. Not everyone saw that. So you’re going to have to repeat those stories over and over and over again. Now, it might be uncomfortable to you, but it’s respectful to the person who’s actually engaging with your content. When business talk feels very like it could have value, but it feels scripted. It feels scripted. It feels like they’re reading something and that it’s not really them.
Now, I’m not against scripts, but what I am against is you feeling rigid in your writing and you not feel I’m not against you feeling but you Trying to write in this perfect certain way so that all of your Personality is just gone or it’s just not in it because it’s so business focused. So here is now let’s shift. Let’s talk about how to create more human content. And when I say human content, I mean how to talk like a human how to write like a human.
How to create content like a human.
Human Vs Business Content (27:02.092)
When you are creating human content, it feels like you’re getting to know someone. When you are writing human content, it feels natural. Consider it, it consider, like you consider the person reading it. Human content makes the other person feel something. It makes them feel something.
And also for you, it feels and sounds like you. So if like your best friend were to read that piece of content or read that caption or email, whatever, if they read it, it would sound like you. They could hear it.
Human content creates connection. And here’s why it’s so important. Because people buy from humans, especially coaching service-based businesses selling online. People buy from humans. They want to know you’re the right coach for them. They want to know you’re the right person.
Human Vs Business Content (29:18.738)
They want to know what your personality is like. They want to know a little bit about you and your life and how you handle things, right? What’s your process in what you do? They want to know these things about you before they give you money for the service. They want to know. So here’s how to shift your content from very rigid and structured and professional, right? How to get it from there to extremely authentic and genuine, to extremely authentic and genuine, so much so that it keeps them coming back and that it keeps them wanting more. And when you continue this kind of content, that is when you warm up your audience so much that they not only count on your content, but they look forward to it. They want your advice. They want to know what you’re going to say next. And that’s when they get ready to work with you.
So here’s how you do that shift. I have one, two, three, four, five, six points here. Number one, learn how to be yourself in your content. Learn how to be yourself in your content. You have to practice this. You have to practice it in your writing. You have to practice it in your video, audio, even on podcasts.
Learn how to be yourself in your content. I want you to be able to watch your content back or listen to your content back or read your content back and for you to read it and feel like this sounds like me. This sounds like me. That’s what I want it to feel for you. Number two, how to shift your content from businessy professional to human that is here to serve you and help you, whatever the goal is, whatever your service is. Number two is create content daily. It is so important. Like the way you show up as yourself is to practice. Because it is awkward showing up online. It is awkward, right? It feels weird trying to write emails and talk about all these topics, especially because no one asks you, right? Like you’re just doing it. That’s what it feels like. But what I want for you is to practice content daily, to shake off those nerves, to get comfortable on camera, on your IG stories, writing emails. It doesn’t matter if it’s video or not. I want you to do it regularly so that you become better. That’s the only way you get better at this. You practice.
Human Vs Business Content (33:47.81)
And if you are a person who’s like always taking these giant breaks from content, join Show Up Real. That is the point of this program. I want you to get coaching every time you are stuck in content. I want content to never be a problem for you because you do it daily. You do it regularly. You take breaks when you need, right? I’m not saying every single day, but…
It has to be a part of your regular routine. That’s important. That’s how you become better at this. It’s how you convert clients. It’s how you become better at being a CEO, at growing your business, growing your audience, growing your revenue. That’s how you do it. Okay, number three, try new things and repeat what works. It is so important. This is extremely important actually.
When you find something that works, repeat it. I want you to repeat it so much that you get so bored with it. I promise you that is how you will grow your audience. I’m so excited. We’re doing this in December. We are starting a new challenge within Show Up Real. And what we’re doing is everybody is going to be challenged to create a signature content series. Meaning, I’m going to challenge every single person in my group, Up Real, I’m going to be challenging them to repeat the same type of format and deliver value in one way so that it’s simple, it’s repeatable, it’s doable, it’s familiar to them.
And just with different topics, but the same series. Every single person who’s built an audience has done it with a signature series. And that’s what we’re going to be doing inside Show Up Real. So I’m so excited about that. But for you, you want to be able to try new things, and you also want to be able to repeat what works. Like, you have to look at your content, look at what works, and repeat it. And if you’re not doing the work, if you’re not actually taking action, then you need to get coaching. You need to get help. Because I don’t want you to go into 2025 with the same content drama, with the same shit that’s stopping you. Okay, let me move on. Number four, I want you, this is how you shift out of businessy, professional, fake feeling content. You start conversations. You start conversations regularly. I want you to be the person who, when you have an idea, a concept, right? Like just like I did, I was looking at some content, I was reading it and I was like, why are they writing so freaking professional and perfect? It takes all the authenticity out of it. So what did I decide to do? I’m gonna record a podcast episode and tell them immediately, right? You wanna start conversations even if you don’t have it fully thought out. Like even if it’s a brand new concept, even if you might stutter a little bit, even if you might talk in circles a little bit, even if it’s just not perfect. Do it. Start the conversation. That’s how you really become known as a leader in your space. You bring up different conversations. I want you to be the leader who’s willing to start a conversation and really stick with it.
Because you know how important it is for your community and your ideal client. If you want to shift away from this like businessy professional, you got this, have you ever felt this way, la la la. Like if you want to get away from that kind of content, start conversations that you’re actually interested in. Listen to your clients, hear what they need more context on. Hear like, I need to write a whole episode on this, like ask yourself better questions about your clients. Ask yourself why they’re not taking action. That’s like my favorite question to ask myself. Why is this not hitting? Like, why is, why is everything I’ve told this one person every time we’ve coached and they still have this problem? Why? That’s my job as the coach. That’s my job to figure that out.
And then I want you to go to your content and want you to start that conversation. I want you to start that conversation. Number five, make people feel something. Sorry, I’m going off notes. Make people feel something. You know when there’s a genuine connection when you meet somebody at a networking event or you meet them at a family party or you…
Just like a little connection, right? And you get a feeling. You’re like, I like them. I like that person. You don’t even know what it is, but you know what’s there. I want you to be so yourself, so yourself that every person that interacts with you feels that. They feel how real you are. They feel that you are authentic because you are. Because you are. Because you show up that way. That alone, like if you can get good at that one skill, that’ll help people go from zero to trusting you as an authority in your industry quick. If you’re able to get people feeling something with your content. Okay, number six. How can you get them to take action in their life, not in your program. I think so many people are focused on selling their program and selling their one-on-one that what happens is content will lose all of its depth when you are focused on getting them into a sales call or when you’re focused on getting them into your program. I promise you, if you could take three months
Human Vs Business Content (38:19.506)
Lay all of your, you know, I need to grow my business. I need these clients. I need, need, need, need, need. If you could just put that all aside, you could just help people take action in their lives. You could still make an offer to help them, of course. But if you made your content about them taking action in their life right now, right now, like if that was the intention behind your content, like, look, this is what you got to do.
And you tell them, right?
If you do that, you will make more money. You will have more sales calls. You will build more trust and you’ll do it quickly. You’ll grow a reputation for yourself. You’ll be known as the person. I promise you, I promise you, I remind myself this all the time because even I get into my head about content, right? And when I’m in my head about content, I’m always going back to…
Let me just help my people. Let me just help my people. One of the rules inside Show Up Real is we make content for our clients. We make content to solve our clients’ problems first. Like, that’s what we’re really creating content for. When I was selling one-on-one especially, I always thought about my content as I want my clients to see my content as this additional place they get value. I want my clients to feel like they get value on calls They get value in any type of like videos or resources. I give them they get value on my podcast They get value in my content they get value in my email and they’re getting it from all different directions That’s how I like I think about it, right? And that’s why I’ve been able to grow my business because I’m always focused on like well, how can I help them
Now, how can I help them go about this differently? Like, I’m asking myself those questions, and then I’m creating solutions with my content. I’m not like, you know, well, I mean, when I’m in a launch, it gets salesy, and that’s OK. Because here’s why it’s OK. Because I’ve done the work to warm them up. I’ve created so much value ahead of time that when I get to selling my offer, when I get there, the people who have been paying attention, the people that I’ve been warming up, they already know it’s coming. So to them, to my hottest leads, it’s not sales content. It’s not businessy content. It’s me telling them what I was going to do. But across the board, I really, really, really want to help. Like, I really encourage you to show up more real. Stop trying to pretend you need perfect hooks on your reels and trying to sound this way or be this like ultimate expert of this. I get it. I’m guilty of it. You’re not alone.
But what I want for you is to always be challenging yourself to show up real, to build connection through your content. To build connection through your content. Start conversations. Talk to your people. Give them solutions. Be you. Be natural. Be considerate. Be genuinely interested in helping people solve this problem that you solve.
And when you can get there, when all of your content is extremely authentic and real, and all of your content is helping people get a result, and all of your content is regular, you’re doing it on a regular basis, I promise you, you will grow your sales faster. Because people will trust you faster. Because people will feel like they know you faster.
Human Vs Business Content (42:45.922)
That is today’s episode. I hope y’all will take something away. And here’s what I want for you. This is like, here’s what I want you to do now. I want you to create a piece of content, choose one format of content, and I want you to show up real in it. I want you to write it like a whole ass human. I want you to write it like you’re at dinner and drinks with friends and you’re talking about a certain subject and you’re explaining it whatever way you are.
I want you to write that way. I want you to talk that way. If you’re recording with video or audio, I want you to talk the way that you talk. I really want to challenge you to show up authentically. When you do that, people will see the difference. It’s exactly what’s going to make you stand out even more.
All right, y’all. Show Up Real is open for enrollment right now and doors are closing this Friday. If you want to grow your audience in 2025, if you want to grow your conversions in 2025, if you want your content to feel more authentic and simple, join Show Up Real. We have a lot happening in December. We have a whole like a long training all about planning 2025 and reflecting on this year so we could really learn what we took action on, figure out what we’re not doing again and what we are doing again. And then we’re also going to do a series, I’m sorry, a challenge all about creating your signature series, meaning your main piece of content that you’re going to do on repeat that’s going to feel repeatable and doable. It’s going to be so good.
All right, y’all, have a great day. You have any questions, hit me up on Instagram and DMs, okay? I’ll see you later, bye.
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