With any piece of content, you need to have a Content Library organized around your Topic Wheel. Most people create blogs or produce other content randomly with no connection to other messages. But if you want to be a true marketer and grow sales, everything that you do needs to be a concept that then ties into your overall framework. If you take all your content, organize it by topic and connect those topics to
the appropriate people of authority, now you have the ultimate targeting engine. Within the structure of the Topic Wheel, you’re assembling authority. The Topic Wheel is how you structure all of your content into six topics, which is your HOW (sharing your knowledge).

Topic Wheel
The Topic Wheel

The 3 Layers of the Topic Wheel

The topic wheel has three layers. So, think of the outside as the Why, the middle as the How, and the very inside as the What – the hub of your wheel (the stuff you’re selling). So, we have why, how, and what.

Start with ‘WHY’ sharing stories, generating identity, and connecting with emotion. We’re telling stories people can identify with and what we believe.

For example, maybe you got cut off at Whole Foods yesterday in the parking lot. Instead of yelling at the woman, you realized she might be struggling with internal things. You should always be kind, or maybe yesterday you went scuba diving for the first time and what was that like to overcome fear and how once you overcome fear, you can enjoy the things like seeing sharks and seeing colorful fish.

The ‘HOW’ is you sharing expertise on how to make a one-minute video, how to optimize a landing page, how you coach a small business owner to sell their website, and how do you do whatever it is.

And then the ‘What’ is this is what you have to sell.

We understand the what. We all understand, “Give me money for a particular product or service.”

But to earn the right to sell, you have to sequence them from the Why to the How to the What

We’re going through emotion first into logic later.

People buy your Why’ people don’t buy What you have to sell.

Think about any purchase you’ve made. It’s been because of the relationships or because you believe in that doctor, the consultant, or the person you’re hiring.

It’s always based on relationships.

Dennis Yu
Dennis Yu
Dennis Yu is the CEO of Local Service Spotlight, a platform that amplifies the reputations of contractors and local service businesses using the Content Factory process. He is a former search engine engineer who has spent a billion dollars on Google and Facebook ads for Nike, Quiznos, Ashley Furniture, Red Bull, State Farm, and other brands. Dennis has achieved 25% of his goal of creating a million digital marketing jobs by partnering with universities, professional organizations, and agencies. Through Local Service Spotlight, he teaches the Dollar a Day strategy and Content Factory training to help local service businesses enhance their existing local reputation and make the phone ring. Dennis coaches young adult agency owners serving plumbers, AC technicians, landscapers, roofers, electricians, and believes there should be a standard in measuring local marketing efforts, much like doctors and plumbers must be certified.