Anything you own with any value is an asset: your phone, laptop, car, and even your home (if you own it).
Some assets hold their value, others become more valuable, and others lose value over time.
We factor an asset's value (current and future) into our decision to purchase it or not. That's why many people won't buy a new car but will invest in real estate; they see cars as depreciating assets and homes as appreciating assets. It makes more financial sense to invest in an asset that holds its value or appreciates in value.
Creators are in the business of creating assets.
This is incredible – we create value from nothing. Well, technically, it's not "nothing" – we "purchase" these assets with the time or capital it takes to produce them, so they still have a cost.
And like other assets, your content also varies in terms of whether it maintains, increases, or decreases its value over time (and to what degree).
But most creators don't consider cost and value when prioritizing content creation.
Consider these different content assets:
- An Instagram Reel
- A YouTube video
- A video-based course
- An email broadcast
- An email sequence
- A post on X
Six different assets, each with a cost to create (time or money) and each with a value in both the short and long term.
Instagram Reel
Cost: Time and/or money to produce the video
Short-term value: Audience attention, engagement, and growth
Long-term value: Minimal; mostly dependent on the value of the followers it attracted
YouTube video
Cost: Time and/or money to produce the video
Short-term value: Audience attention, engagement, and growth
Long-term value: Variable, but potentially quite high if the video continues to attract viewers
Video-based course
Cost: Time and/or money to produce the course
Short-term value: Variable, but potentially quite high with a successful launch
Long-term value: Variable, but potentially quite high if it continues to convert customers (such as a Signature Product)
Email broadcast
Cost: Time and/or money to write the broadcast
Short-term value: Audience attention, engagement, potentially product sales
Long-term value: Minimal, unless captured and published as an evergreen asset (like the essays on this blog)
Email sequence
Cost: Time and/or money to write the sequence
Short-term value: Variable, but potentially quite high if it converts to action
Long-term value: Variable, but potentially quite high if it continues to convert
Post on X
Cost: Time and/or money to write the post
Short-term value: Audience attention, engagement, and growth
Long-term value: Minimal; mostly dependent on the value of the followers it attracted
In these examples, there are both written and video assets that will require the same type of creative input (e.g., the Reel, YouTube video, and video-based course). Similar costs but much different long-term values.
You can think of the distinction between these assets as perishable and non-perishable assets. Does the value persist, increase, or does it diminish?
Viewing your content as an asset impacts what you create.
That's not to say you NEVER invest in creating perishable assets – they serve a crucial role in new audience discovery. Without that, it's difficult to build an audience; hopefully, those audience relationships increase in value over time. But that will be much more likely if you've prioritized the time to produce non-perishable assets on the backend (in the form of products and sales systems).
This is why I emphasize restraint in joining discovery platforms.
The fewer discovery platforms you join, the fewer "mouths" you have to feed with perishable content. You can master a small number of discovery platforms while dedicating most of your time to creating non-perishable assets.
