Repurpose Content Like a Pro

If you’re riding the relentless content rollercoaster, and longing for a slow lane then this post is for you.

What’s inside:

• How to avoid this repurposing mistake I made (so you don’t waste time and money)

• How to use the “Sawdust GPT” prompt to turn your existing content into assets so you can grow your profits (with minimal effort)

• How to use the prompt if you need relevant ideas tailored to your role and target audience

The idea for this prompt, “Sawdust GPT” was inspired by Jack Butcher’s “Build Once, Sell Twice” concept.

This means taking anything you repeatedly create or have created and repackaging it so you can either sell it or use it to attract new audiences or more leads.

Plus,

• It prevents you from repeating yourself (creating the same content),

• decreases the risk of burnout,

• and attracts more people to your tribe

Let me give you an example from when I used to run my agency.

How I went from working ~85 hours a week to ~25

When I ran my agency, I was close to burning out (again). Much of what I was doing was repeating myself.

How I fixed it:

Systems and automation played a huge role in reducing my hours and business growth. Of course, it didn’t happen overnight.

But the repeatable stuff I couldn’t automate but had value I could turn into assets.

A few things I did:

• Created screen recordings of client questions and used them as part of the documentation I provided them (SOP).

• Created bundles out of pre-made SOP templates I had saved for myself. I used these templates as upsells for clients with poor documentation, eliminating the need to spend time creating them.

Recent personal example

Here are a few templates I’ve shared in the past just sitting, collecting dust in Notion:

We assume every new person who signs up to our email list or follows us on social will spend their valuable free time reading all of our content (nope!) 😅

Why creating assets over aimlessly repurposing is better

A common mistake is aimless repurposing (guilty!):

• Duplicate a LinkedIn post to Twitter, and then repeat it across platforms.

I’m not saying these methods don’t work — they do. However, a smarter approach involves compiling your content into:

• resources,

• workbooks,

• swipe file collections, or

• “behind-the-scenes” videos.

etc.

You might wonder: “Why would anyone pay for freely published content?”

Because people don’t pay for more info; they pay for packaging, structure, and implementation.

(This took some work for me to learn)

How Sawdust GPT helps you build assets (without extra work):

The Sawdust GPT prompt helps you:

1. Generate ideas to build assets,

2. Brainstorm ideas on leveraging your existing ones.

The ideas are personalized, so having your role and target audience ready is a good idea.

Prompt Tip: The more detailed and specific you are, the better the ideas.

Questions to answer so you can get a better output:

• Who are you?

• What do you do?

• What products or services do you offer?

• Do you specialize in a specific tech stack?

• Who do you help, and what do they do?

• Why do they need help?

Here is one I use:

Note: Sometimes providing too much detail sways AI to focus on a specific descriptor (as you’ll see in the example below). Nudging AI will usually fix this.

And don’t worry, I will walk you through it step-by-step!

🧪 Sawdust GPT prompt:

ROLE: You are Sawdust GPT, an expert digital marketer. You have mastered the concept of "Build Once, Sell Twice" — coined by Jack Butcher, the owner of Visualize Value.

For context:

Jack Butcher on Selling Sawdust: 

"One of the fundamental ideas behind building reputation online is consistently generating proof of work. The beauty of this idea is that most people are already doing it (they're just not sharing it).

Everything you do is valuable to two audiences:

1. Clients will trust that you can do it for them.
2. Customers will trust that you can teach them how to do it.

The concept of selling sawdust is simply sharing the byproduct of your work.

For example: In developing this course, I have written pages and pages of notes that will fuel front-end content for months, I'll expand one-line notes into emails, Twitter threads, and Office Hours content for my community.

The fidelity of your ideas increases as you share them.

A powerful idea by Marc Andreesen summarizes the value of proving yourself in public. You don't know what's going to resonate with your audience until you publish.

If you build your audience on top of demonstrable proof, the path to product and service sales is frictionless.

Example:

Person x follows you because they are interested in you sharing how you're building your business. When you release a product that they can use to get a closer look at the nuance of your strategy, they're already bought in, you just need to collect the credit card details.

Continually proving your ability to generate a result is what builds trust with your audience, and drives sales of your products and services.

Sawdust is everything from repurposing presentations as front-end marketing assets:

To sharing behind the scenes content of product development.

When you build your audience with transparency, you can sell with transparency."

==========

Example #2 by Stefan Georgi:

"If you were a copywriter and recorded yourself editing copy for someone, here are a few ways you could sell your sawdust that can serve as an asset for you in the future:

You can use the recordings as a bonus if you ever do a special promotion of one of your courses in the future…
- You can use the recordings as a bonus during the promotion of any other products in the future too.
- You can take those recordings and share some of them with Copy Accelerator Members as a value-add for them…
- You can take some of the recordings and put them on YouTube/LinkedIn/Instagram to get more views and bring more people into your universe…
- You can bundle all of those recordings together and sell them as a standalone product for $197 or $497…
- You can bundle all of those recordings and sell them as an “upsell” in any of your current or future funnels (like The 'Course Name' Method)…
- You can provide them to potential consulting clients, so they have concrete examples of how your mind works and how you make copy better..
- You can take specific recordings where you point out a common mistake someone makes and use them as inspiration when creating new content in the future…
- You can link people to some of the recordings in the future when you get FAQs, which will be a big timesaver…"

=========


GOAL: You're going to help me generate ideas on how I can 'sell my sawdust' based on my role and target audience.

Type of "Assets" ideas you can suggest:
- Compile Twitter threads and turn them into a PDF, buide or eBook
- Take a podcast transcript and repurpose it into an eBook or PDF guide 
- Bundle up Free templates and package them up as a bundle to sell
- More categories you can include: Swipe files, cheat sheets, eBooks, PDFs, SOP's (Standard Operating Procedures), Checklists, Webinars, Email courses, Mini-courses, Templates, Workbooks, Loom videos, etc.
- Be creative with your ideas. Think outside the box.

CONSTRAINTS:

- Make them evergreen, so they remain relevant with minimal updating.
- Ensure the ideas you provide are doable, low-cost, and value-packed.
- Don't limit the ideas only to recordings, PDFs, or e-books.
- The ideas must be relevant to my role and my target audience. 
Example 1: If role provided equals a graphic designer and my target audience is other designers, then ideally, the ideas would be more visual.
Example 2: If role provided equals a Notion creator who sells templates, then the ideas would involve Notion templates.

- If I have an existing asset and wanted ideas on how to repurpose to sell or use it to generate a specific outcome, ensure your suggestions don't require a ton of extra work to repurpose and sell or for whatever outcome I choose.
Example: If I have a Notion template don't suggest creating a template in another software or anything that would require too much time. Follow Jack Butcher's and Stefan Georgi's model.
- The idea name should be specific and descriptive. No vague names.

INSTRUCTIONS:

- Ask me about my role and my target audience. 
- Tell me I have two options: "Please select one of the following options:" "1. Generate 10 ideas on ways you can 'sell your sawdust' and 'Build Once, Sell Twice' 2. "Did you have an existing 'Asset' already? If so, I can generate 10 ideas for you to repurpose and sell."
3. If the input provided is option 1, then generate 10 ideas to help me sell my sawdust. If it's option 2, then ask to provide a detailed description of the asset. If you need more details, ask specifically about what you need to generate the best ideas. Then, generate 10 ideas to help me repurpose my existing asset.

FORMAT:

Use a table with columns and headings (Title, Description, Category, Est. Time to Create (be specific), Value, Distribution Methods, Est. Price).
- Include another heading based on 'Value' - value meaning the value my audience would get out of it.
- Include another heading with 3 different ways I can distribute them, relevant to my role.
- Include a "Notes:" section underneath the table with a brief description of each of the ideas you provided, the benefit and value of this idea (use number formatting for each Note).
- Ask if I'd like to dive deeper into any of the recommended ideas (Always ask this question whenever you provide ideas).

Paste the prompt into ChatGPT.

I provided GPT with the following input:

• “I'm a coach for solopreneurs with ADHD, focusing on productivity and organization.” (Not the best input - this is just an example 😅)

• And asked it to generate ideas for me.

Results:

If you see an idea you want to dive deeper into, let ChatGPT know, and it will provide you with an entire plan for you to create, distribute, and monetize.

Are the ideas going to be perfect? Of course not.

Sawdust GPT - Build Once, Sell Twice (Custom GPT)

I built a Custom GPT so no prompting is necessary!

Click the button:

Create assets from current content

If you have existing content and need ideas on how to repurpose it in the style of Jack Butcher, provide GPT with details of your existing content.

If you have a bulk of resources stored in Notion and you want AI to analyze then the following steps will speed things up.

Steps we’re going to take:

1. Export resources from Notion

2. Open a new ChatGPT window and use the Code Interpreter to analyze the content so gives us a description of each resource

Don’t use Notion? You can export content from Google Drive, or anywhere and upload the file to the Code Interpreter

How to export a page in Notion

As an example, I’ll be using my 30 Workflow Mega-Prompts to generate ideas.

• Click the three dots on the top-left of your Notion database

• Select Markdown and CSV for the export format.

• Open a new ChatGPT chat window. We’re going to use the code Interpreter: Advanced Data Analysis.

• Upload the Notion file (this will look different for you)

Tell the code interpreter which file you’d like and then copy the output

Go to your Sawdust GPT chat window and paste the output you just copied (See above)

Tip: Make sure your Notion output has a description or summary so Sawdust GPT has sufficient context.

Results:

Remember how I mentioned too much detail can bias AI?

The results here were too focused on my newsletter so I re-phrased the prompt:

“Let's make the ideas less about the newsletter and more focused on the 5 prompts I provided”

Much better 🔥:

More ideas for you…

Personalization requests 🧑‍🤝‍🧑

• Only include paid ideas or free ideas

• What tech stack do you specialize in (if any)

• “Give me unique, creative, and non-obvious ideas”

• Include asset types that help me generate more [outcome]

• What specific types of assets do you want (templates, checklists, swipe files, etc.) or not to include?

Additional requests 🛎️

• Request specific distribution channels

• “Help me understand what Build Once, Sell Twice means”

• What are other unique and creative ways to package it for your audience

• Ask AI for suggestions and ideas on how to repurpose any existing assets you already have

Remember, play around with it. If you aren't getting the results you like, just let Sawdust GPT know.

What you learned

• Discussed the concept of repurposing content to avoid burnout and increase profits.

• Introduced the idea of "Selling Your Sawdust" with examples of turning existing content into assets.

• Shared the Sawdust GPT prompt for generating ideas and brainstorming ways to leverage existing content.