E50 – The Content Strategy That Actually Converts with Ben G Kaiser

E50 – The Content Strategy That Actually Converts with Ben G Kaiser

In this episode of the Pipelineology podcast, Gary meets with Ben G Kaiser, owner of Kaiser Media Group. Ben shares how he built a YouTube tech review business over 8–9 years by publishing 2,200 videos, growing to 140,000 subscribers, 50 million views, and 16 million in tracked tech sales, which led to brand work with companies like Intel and Lenovo. He explains how small businesses can apply the same principles without big production budgets by focusing on a specific target audience, telling client success stories, and creating direct, intentional content rather than “vanity” pieces. Kaiser outlines his “Pillar Content Flywheel” framework to organize content into pillars that keep audiences engaged and help dominate a niche, tying it to StoryBrand’s guide/hero concept. He also describes how extensive content can help AI tools like Claude “vet” and recommend consultants, and notes his LinkedIn 30-day content prompt challenge and how to contact him via LinkedIn DM.

Discover:

00:00 Welcome and Introduction
00:19 Ben’s YouTube Origin Story
02:57 Landing Big Brand Deals
04:34 Content for Small Businesses
07:28 Storytelling That Connects
11:33 Pillar Content Flywheel
16:07 Content That Sells for You
17:49 AI Discovery and The Peacocks Echo
20:55 Avoiding Vanilla Content
22:56 Who Ben Works With
24:55 How to Contact Ben
25:30 Wrap Up and Takeaways

linkedin.com/in/bengkaiser

Transcript:

 

[00:00:00] Gary Ruplinger: Hello and welcome everybody to another episode of the Pipelineology Podcast. And today I’ve got a very special guest. Today I’m excited to be joined by Ben Kaiser. He’s the owner of Kaiser Media Group. Ben, welcome to the show.

[00:00:15] Ben Kaiser: Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here and talk with you.

[00:00:18] Gary Ruplinger: Yeah, me as well. So, for anybody who’s not familiar with you and your work, can you just give us a little bit about, of your background and kind of how, how you got here?

[00:00:28] Ben Kaiser: I started a YouTube channel about eight or nine years ago, and that YouTube channel became a tech review channel around laptops for creative professionals. During my journey of posting on YouTube, I’d wake up super early in the mornings. I’d post three to five videos per week, and so over the past eight to nine years, I’ve posted about 2,200 videos on YouTube around

laptops. And during that time, I’d have people come to me, say hey, I want to make some videos. Like, can you help me make videos for my business? Or how do you make content? Like I want to get on YouTube, I want to make videos for social media. And so that was kind of always a part of the DNA of what I did. I would, I worked for a SaaS company for a while doing marketing.

I worked for a actually marketing agency, and so during the journey of creating this YouTube channel, which now has 140,000 subscribers and we’ve hit 50 million views and done about 16 million in tracked like tech sales, I was also like had my hands in helping businesses grow on different social platforms.

And it wasn’t until this last year that I really wanted to take that part of the business more seriously because it had come to a point where those interactions and those engagements were almost even more fun because it kind of took me back to the genesis of my channel when I first started posting, when I first started getting traction.

Seeing people have that aha moment, seeing people start to gain, I don’t want to say popularity, but start to gain traction on social platforms, start to get business and engagements, and really it becoming a strong part of their business. That’s a lot of fun for me, and I love helping people do that.

[00:02:07] Gary Ruplinger: Oh, that’s very, very cool. It’s always, it’s always kind of fun bringing on people who’ve who, you know, have been kind of working on the YouTube stuff. Especially that have been doing it a while. I’ve, I think personally, I’m, I’m always interested in kind of getting those insights because I’m one of those people who started a YouTube channel 20 years ago and haven’t done, haven’t done anything.

I checked recently and I haven’t uploaded a video in five years. So it’s like, I want to , I want to get kind of back to doing that. So I’ll definitely kind of want to pick your brain on some of the, the insights, insights for that. But kind of in a, in a broader sense, definitely kind of interested in kind of figuring kind of,

before you even kind of record the video, like what goes into, into doing some of that stuff? Because I know you’ve worked with some, some of the big, big names out there, like I think you said Intel and Lenovo and some of those others. Can you, can you tell us a little bit about that?

[00:02:57] Ben Kaiser: So in order to be able to work with big brands, you have to have the audience that aligns with their interest, that if we’re talking specifically about, you know, working with brand deals. And so for me, it was always my goal that my YouTube channel would be a business. Like I didn’t do this because I wanted to be an influencer,

I wanted to be popular. I did this because I had a growing family and I needed to provide for them, and I was in art background. And so art, I looked at all the jobs and your graphic design positions and your, you know, publication artist positions were paying like $35,000 a year. And I was like, that’s not gonna be able to cut it if I’m the ultimate breadwinner.

And so I went into this with the vision of being able to have it be a true business. And so really the first thing you have to think about in regards to working with brands is like, what unique value do you offer to them? Do you have an audience that they’re looking to reach? And it just so happened that I got it, got in on the beginning of this kind of creator economy taking off. And so I was talking about devices for creators, and so it’s, as I’ve been building this audience, the demand has actually increased alongside of it, which has been really interesting. So, brands that like the Lenovos and the ASUSes and the Intels of the world weren’t really talking about, you know, their computers for the creator.

When I started, I was kind of the one talking about it because I had a need and then through that, now there’s this whole need for creator powerful laptops, and so it’s a bit of kind of the stars aligning, but also I had intention when they were looking for people to partner with. I showed up as the person because that was the niche I was representing.

[00:04:33] Gary Ruplinger: Gotcha. And for, for kind of people who are, maybe they’re not, they’re not intending to be, a, a YouTube creator. They’re, they have a, a, a bus-, a business, like a consulting business or a brick and mortar business or something like that. For, for those people, how are you kind of taking the lessons learned from, from that type of work and I guess bring, bringing it to, you know, the, the, the smaller, smaller firms who are not, you know, don’t have a hundred thousand dollars worth of video equipment in their, their studio.

I’m not saying you do, I’m just saying, you know, because I think that’s, that’s what people picture is, oh, I’m gonna need a whole studio. How do I do it?

[00:05:11] Ben Kaiser: The beauty of the internet right now is that it is more relational based than ever because of all the AI content feeling so trashy. People are looking for real people who are posting content, and that’s what I said to you when we, before we get on the call, is that there’s this, a kind of perfect point for these small businesses, consultants that can really capitalize on posting real authentic content.

And the way in which you do that is you just start telling the story of the people you’ve helped previously. One, I would say the biggest problem people have when they’re making content is they think too much about themselves. The way in which I took my 50 million views and apply it to how I coach small businesses is that every time I hit record, I was thinking about who I was talking to.

I wasn’t trying to sell my services or my laptop. I was trying to sell the right product for that person, and so I went into every video with a laptop in front of me, knowing its ultimate,

knowing the ultimate person it would serve, and I would talk to that specific person. So if I had a laptop with a strong GPU and a really high quality screen, I would say if you are a videographer or a 3D modeler who’s looking for color accuracy, and you need top performance because you’re in a professional setting, this is for you.

If you’re a digital artist, this screen is not touchscreen, so it makes no point for you. So just ignore this laptop. I wasn’t trying to sell everything to everyone. And that is the way in which content is most powerful, is when it’s direct and it’s intentional. And so as a consultant, think about the stories, success stories that you have in the past.

Tell those stories because somebody else is going to have a similar story and they’re going to then be able to relate to that piece of content you’re talking about. And it’ll be very personal, very direct. And they’ll be like, Marcus is the right consultant for me. 

[00:07:03] Gary Ruplinger: Yeah, I, I, I’dd love to kind of dig deeper more into this, kind of, tell, how to tell a good story because I think

[00:07:10] Ben Kaiser: Yes.

[00:07:11] Gary Ruplinger: I, I know, especially in, in my space where I’m, I mean, my company does outreach, so we’re trying to tell the story very, very briefly, but it’s, you know, I, I run into things all the time where everybody’s like, just broadcast.

It feels just like they’re broadcast and yelling at you, and that doesn’t work.

[00:07:29] Ben Kaiser: Yeah.

[00:07:29] Gary Ruplinger: Spoiler. It doesn’t work. But I, I’m kind of curious to get your, insights into how, how you kind of pull people into these stories, because I think you do a lot with, short form as well. So I’m, kind of really curious to kind of hear more about that process and actually how, you make it a, good story that somebody wants to watch versus I’m just doing it.

Because I know some of this stuff is just vanity projects for people. And it’s, even pitched that way. It’s like, you do this and you’ll be on, you know, all these videos or we’ll get you on, you know, a featured on Forbes, just pay us, you know, a hundred thousand dollars and, and all of that. Where whereas it’s like, nobody cares, nobody’s interested.

This is just a puff piece for you. How, do you actually do, do the, storytelling to get viewers engaged 

[00:08:17] Ben Kaiser: the

secret to storytelling on a individual small business level is to have an intentional target audience in mind. When you’re, you know, you mentioned doing like a puff piece for Forbes or like this really nice polished video, those are more vanity pieces. They don’t actually connect with anybody.

They’re overproduced. Think about what you click on. Think about the stories that you interact with, you engage with. Those are the stories that you can look at and take inspiration from. Usually they’re things that are deeply meaningful to you. Somebody saying something that you connect with that matters in a specific and personal way to you.

And so you have to realize when it comes to content that you’re not going to capture the entire world. But the beauty is small businesses don’t have to. I only have to serve 25 clients to have a wildly successful videography and consulting business, you know, at a time. So think about how many people you need to serve, what the cost of your product is, what the, the, number one people who get the most value out of your product.

And again, tell their story. I always use this example because storytelling has often felt elusive and confusing to me because I’m not making, I’m not writing a book or making a cinematic movie. I’m not Christopher Nolan, or whoever’s making these major motion pictures with stories, I’m somebody who’s trying to communicate how I can help somebody in business.

And the way I kind of bring this, break this down is like give somebody something to daydream about. I am planning on hiring a podcast consulting agency and she, it’s her pitch to get me on 30 podcasts in 90 days. And not only is she going to do that, but she’s going to help me create my brand media kit.

She’s gonna help me create like a small offer. All these little nuances of things that I want and need. So you know what I daydream about working with her because I think about what my life will be like when I hire her, when I start doing these podcasts, when I show up in a more professional manner. And so her pitch, her story for me is super niche.

It is extremely niche. But she told a story about somebody I know in my network. He’s about 13,000 followers ahead of me. And you know what? I want to be him. He’s the story I want to be. And so just like, and so I am settling into that story. I’m daydreaming about that story. It’s simpler than trying to write this, you know, beautiful book or write this movie.

It’s just understanding. How to make somebody want to work with you or use your product, and ultimately when you’re telling that, settle into a daydream until they actually make it a reality.

[00:11:08] Gary Ruplinger: Excellent. Can you, can you walk us through your Pillar Content Flywheel?

[00:11:12] Ben Kaiser: The Pillar Content Flywheel is how I was able to organize and make sense of all the different distribution pieces that I was creating for my YouTube channel. Over the past eight years, like I said, I’ve posted 2,200 pieces to YouTube and making sure that all of those go out in an organized fashion and that the channel makes sense.

I created a system, which you can see behind me, which I call the pillar content flywheel. So you have. Whoop, which way? There we go. Pillar, pillar, pillar, pillar. So four pillars. You can have more, but four pillars is a good start that all feed into this flywheel. And once the flywheel gets spinning, you then are beginning to dominate your niche.

And remember you, want to go for a pretty tight niche, and then over time you might be able to widen that, that view over time. But you want to be known, you want to dominate. When somebody searches for said topic, you’re the person that shows up. If you go right now and you search for best laptops for video editors, or what laptop should I get for video editing or anything along those lines, you’ll see my face because I have dominated that niche using this technique.

And so how the technique works is you have pillars. And the pillar could be, for me, it was laptop dedicated reviews, it was educational videos about how to use the tech specs in a laptop. dedicated lineup videos, so selecting a certain amount of laptops, so on and so forth. And then I would write the individual video topics within those pillars.

That way when I needed to record a video, I knew how to release videos in a succinct manner at a specific time, and they would all feed into one flywheel. And the flywheel is basically somebody getting caught up in your channel. You want to get somebody caught up in your content. The algorithms work when people stay on the platforms. That’s the ultimate goal of the LinkedIn algorithm, the YouTube algorithm, the Instagram algorithm. They want people to stay on the platform, and if you are somebody who’s keeping them in the platform, that means your flywheel is spinning.

You’re keeping them in the network. So the more content that you have around your topic, the more angles that you cover, the more pieces you give people to consume, the happier that algorithm is. Now, I tell people, don’t focus on the algorithm. Focus on the person that you’re trying to help get all the information

they need. Information and the stories that they need to understand how this information will best serve them so that they can become successful. This all rotates around StoryBrand. If you’ve ever read StoryBrand, great. If you haven’t, you should. If you have read StoryBrand, you should reread it. If you haven’t, you should read it for the first time.

[00:13:42] Gary Ruplinger: It is a great book.

[00:13:43] Ben Kaiser: yeah, it’s fantastic. And it’s all about how businesses communicate information in a way that brings people into the story of you, the business, being the guide for the hero, your ideal customer profile. And that’s, what the flywheel does.

[00:13:59] Gary Ruplinger: And when you’re working with, with a client on that, is it kind of the same process for, for them even if they’re, you know, not necessarily trying to get, you know, hundreds of thousands of views on, on laptops?

[00:14:14] Ben Kaiser: The way in which the flywheel works for say, small businesses and consultants is it kind of breaks down into the types of content they create. So one of my clients, he’s really, really good on LinkedIn, and so he has kind of his individual buckets. He goes on podcasts. He does video content with me where I’m asking him specific questions that relate to his niche, how he serves his clients, stories from success, stories from his clients, what he thinks about in regards to different leadership principles.

So those are the, those are two pillars. Then from there he has like his just random traveling around, thought bubble LinkedIn content. So just weird, quirky things that he does, or sees, he posts about. So it’s kind of like that more personal touch to his content. And then he has his, his different events or meetup groups that he hosts.

So those are each of his different pillars and they all feed into his flywheel. So somebody who might not care what he does when he’s on vacation will ignore that. But somebody who really wants to go to one of his meetup events, they’ll tune into that and be like oh wow, that’s what happened at the meetup event,

that’s who was there, that’s what value I can get. And so each of the pieces feeds the flywheel that ultimately introduce him to his future client. Introducing yourself to

your future client is extremely underrated through content. You have the opportunity for somebody to know exactly who you are, exactly how you work, the value you’ve created for past clients, and the future value you could create for them if they choose to work with you. That’s what content has the possibilities to do.

You just have to show up and post enough of it for people to be able to consume it and know you. I had the same client. He met one of his largest clients that he now works for, and they never asked for a resume. They didn’t ask for a reference. They didn’t even interview him. They called him and said, I want to  hire you.

I’ve been watching your LinkedIn content. I know exactly how you’re gonna help us. I know exactly the way I want you to help us. When can I hire you? Because they had consumed hours of his content and they knew he was the right person. So.

[00:16:22] Gary Ruplinger: That’s, that’s awesome. I think that’s, that’s the dream, right? Is you, is, is. You don’t have to pitch them, you don’t have to hard sell them. It’s just, essentially at that point it’s not quite, but almost order taking at that point. Yeah, when would you like to start, which package? Yes. Okay. We’ll, we’ll have that, we’ll have that ready for you next week.

[00:16:41] Ben Kaiser: Absolutely. And the funny thing is, like with this client who wanted to hire him before really ever meeting him for the first time, is he says, okay, well, you know, we have to talk about price. He goes, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. How much, how much are you? He goes, well, this much per day. Can we do it for two days?

Like, you know, it’s like, that’s literally the conversation, what happened. No, like, no storytelling, like all real, real things.

[00:17:03] Gary Ruplinger: I think when we were talking about bringing you on the show, you’d kind of mentioned that this even has an, an AI benefit where all of this content now, right because it’s all, right, AI sucking up all of our

content. But now it can spit it back out and, you know, your, you’ve got clients who are, Claude is telling them, use, use this person because it found all their content.

[00:17:27] Ben Kaiser: I have a book I want to show you. This one of my, another one of my clients, he had somebody who wanted to hire him. They found out about him on LinkedIn and they went ahead and they went into Claude and they said, tell me about Darren. And they gave it, you know, the LinkedIn URL, and. Because Claude ingest all of our content, and because Darren had hours and hours and hours and hours and hours of content, Claude responded, what do you want to know?

Well, we’re struggling with this problem. How would Darren solve it? Well, according to what Darren says about what Darren does, this is how he would solve it. Okay, well, what about this problem? Well, well, this is how he would solve that problem. Well, what about this problem? Well, this is how we solve that problem.

Well, what if we do this? Well, this is how he would do that. And so literally, Claude interviewed, prospective client interviewed Claude on if they should hire Darren. And at the end of that conversation, they called up Darren. They said hey, we want to  hire you. And they told him about that process. 

[00:18:32] Gary Ruplinger: That’s wild. 

[00:18:32] Ben Kaiser: Yeah, not only are you gonna be found possibly by the AI because you have so much content out there that you know who’s the best consultant for X.

Oh, well this person is, they have LinkedIn content all about this, blah, blah, blah. But if your clients are doing research on you. Have you given the AI algorithm enough information to properly sell you to that person? And if you’ve never heard of this idea, definitely read this. It’s a short, like 60 page book called The Peacock’s Echo.

I picked this up, I saw a random LinkedIn post about it, and basically it’s about, the title is A Fable For Marketers Who Want To Be Found, Not Just Seen In The Age Of AI. This is very eye-opening to that exact concept. And even at the end of it, it even has like a whole workbook section that I’ve actually yet to go through.

That’s on my to-do list for how to effectively produce content and tell your story in the world of AI because it is a new way in which we’re being served and products are being selected. It’s not about who shouts the loudest or who has like the brightest feathers, so to speak, but it’s about who has the most specific message.

AI is more of a whisper than it is a shout, and that’s what, The Peacock’s Echo covers. I highly recommend that short read. It’s, it’s amazing.

[00:19:50] Gary Ruplinger: That’s, that’s going in the Amazon cart. I’ll wait until we finish the interview to to order, but.

[00:19:55] Ben Kaiser: Okay, good. You’re hooked. Yeah, it’s great. Yeah, it’s awesome.

[00:20:02] Gary Ruplinger: Oh, very cool. And what I kinda like about what you’re, you’re talking about here is, right, I, I, I talk to a lot of people about AI and I consume a lot of content around AI because I’m interested in it. But so much of what comes back out from people is their takeaway is produce more slop. It is like then I’m like, no, we’re not. Let’s not make slop.

[00:20:21] Ben Kaiser: Okay, here’s the thing about producing slop. The problem with producing slop is, as Gary V would say, it’s vanilla. And if you produce vanilla, you’ll only ever, you’ll never show up because everybody’s producing vanilla. So this book really highlights that, is that when you’re producing vanilla. You just get caught up in the mess, the slop, and so you just get ignored.

And so when you produce content, you have to produce content. So you’re so hyper specific that when somebody comes looking for you, either the AI or their inquiry into your content speaks so directly to their needs that they can’t help but say yes. To the offer that you have presented. You might as well just not even post if you’re gonna do that.

Like you have to be producing real, authentic content. And that’s why video’s so amazing because when you produce video. You have the video clip, you then have the audio, and then you can produce the audio into written and they’re all your original thoughts. Right there. Well, if you are not just reading off some AI script that you had right for it.

But one of my great, one of the great hacks for this is have somebody sit down and ask you questions about your business. I just put out a 30 day challenge on LinkedIn. If you want to check it out, follow me, Ben G Kaiser on LinkedIn, and you can check out all of the 30 posts that I’ve put out that asks you questions about yourself and about your business.

They’re little content prompts that you can either write a written post about or you can film a video and people can start to get to know you exactly who you are, what you do, and the problem you solve by those 30 day prompts. So,

[00:21:56] Gary Ruplinger: Well, that’s, that’s pretty cool. I, I’m gonna check that out too. I’m, I’m curious what that’s all about, because that sounds, that sounds, that sounds pretty interesting to me. So for someone who is kind of looking for help in this space, they know, they know they want more visibility, they want to get their story out there, but they know they need help.

Who, who are kind of the right people for you, Ben? Who do you like to work with? Who’s, who’s a good fit? 

[00:22:22] Ben Kaiser: I work with people who have a long-term vision for their company. Let me, basically somebody who has a a 90 day, six month, one year, three year, five year plan. Because content is not a sprint, it’s a marathon. And so I want to work with people who realize that and are willing to put in the laborious, taxing, but very rewarding work of building a content library.

I consider what I do, helping people build brand so that they, we can be the ultimate voice in their industry and niche over time. You’re not gonna hire me and you know, sell a hundred thousand plush dolls tomorrow. You’re gonna hire me because you want to be the expert in your, in your field. I work really great with people who have like intellectual type of products, so consultants, and even more physical stuff.

If you’re in my network, I love to tour job sites with builder supply companies or builders. You know, the thing that I do is I’m, I help people consolidate what they do and relate it to the person that they’re targeting, and make it a story that they can step into. I help them become the guide rather than just spitting off about how they’re the hero.

Everybody is a hero in that they do what they do well, but they often don’t know how to frame that as the guide, and so there’s no room for their ideal customer profile. Because they’re fighting to be the hero, ideal customer profile wants to be the hero, and now you have a battle rather than a relationship or teamwork.

And again, that’s the StoryBrand concept. And so I ask the right questions and filter the information, when helping them film content in a way that makes them the guide so that people can fit into there.

[00:24:02] Gary Ruplinger: That’s awesome. If somebody’s looking to get in touch with you, what’s the best way for them to do that?

[00:24:09] Ben Kaiser: You can just DM me on LinkedIn, Ben G Kaiser and that’s really the best way to get in touch with me. I’m there, I’m on there pretty much every day. Or you can even, nah, that’s really the best way.

[00:24:19] Gary Ruplinger: All right, well, we’ll make sure we put a link to your, profile in the show notes. Otherwise, it’s, Ben G Kaiser. Linkedin.com/ in/bengkaiser for anybody who’s trying to, to, try and figure out what that was. So. Well Ben, really appreciate you coming on the show today. Love the insights.

I’m looking forward to kind of checking out your 30 day challenge and, like I said, that book’s going on my, my order list, about 10 minutes from now, as soon as we can finish up here.

[00:24:52] Ben Kaiser: Thank you for having me. I’ve loved talking about this and I hope somebody got some value today from this episode.

[00:24:57] Gary Ruplinger: Well reach out to Ben if you need some help, getting, getting your story and vision told.