Your Million Views Mean Absolutely Nothing (And Deep Down, You Know It)

Here's the hard truth about your content strategy:

You're optimizing for vanity metrics while your competitors are optimizing for actual revenue.

I sat down with Jake Isham—filmmaker-turned-brand strategist who's worked with 150+ entrepreneurs and created content with over 1 billion views—and he absolutely demolished the "more views equals more success" myth that most of you are still worshipping like a golden calf.

His framework is brutally simple:

"If you had a million views, but none of them are going to ever become clients, what's the point? But if you have ten views and all ten of those people are going to buy from you—and each customer is worth $1,000—that's $10,000 right there."

Not all views are created equal. But you're out here celebrating going "viral" while your bank account stays the same.

Let me tell you a story that's going to make your dashboard-obsessed brain explode.

The 700-Follower Millionaire

Jake shared this story from Alex Hormozi about a woman with an Instagram page.

700 followers. Not 700K. Just 700.

Her videos got a couple hundred views. Nothing impressive by social media standards.

And she was making $1 million a year.

One million dollars. From 700 followers. Because she spoke to a very specific niche on a very specific topic, and her audience knew instantly that she was talking directly to them.

Meanwhile, you're over here with 50,000 followers, celebrating your "engagement rate," and wondering why you're not hitting your revenue targets.

The difference? She understood her audience. You're performing for the algorithm.

Your Corporate Content Sounds Like It Was Written By Lawyers

Let's be honest about what's happening with most B2B content:

It's been homogenized, sanitized, and focus-grouped into oblivion.

Every piece sounds like it came from the same corporate playbook:

• Industry jargon ✓

• Buzzwords that mean nothing ✓

• Zero personality ✓

• Nothing controversial ✓

• Impossible to tell apart from your competitors ✓

Jake nailed it: "When companies try to corporate-ize their messaging, it doesn't sound like a human and we can't relate to it. We can't identify with it."

You know what people connect with? Humans.

You know what they scroll past without a second thought? Corporate speak that sounds like it was approved by the legal department.

This is why insurance companies—literally the most boring industry on the planet—have been eating your lunch on brand recognition.

Jake from State Farm. Flo from Progressive. The Geico gecko.

These companies humanized their brands by giving them a face. A personality. Something people can actually relate to.

And what are you doing? Publishing whitepapers with titles like "Leveraging Synergistic Solutions for Optimal Stakeholder Value Maximization."

Nobody cares. Nobody's reading that shaet. Nobody's sharing it.

The Golf Course Strategy That's Actually Brilliant

Here's where Jake's approach gets really smart:

He worked with a commercial real estate broker who loves golf and needs to network (because real estate is relationship-dependent, in case you forgot).

So what did they do?

Created a show called "Fairways and Founders" where the broker plays nine holes with prospects, referral partners, or industry leaders.

Think about the genius here:

He's going to golf anyway. He's going to network anyway. He's going to create content anyway.

So they married it all together into one activity that serves multiple purposes:

• Building relationships with prospects

• Creating content for social media

• Establishing thought leadership

• Actually enjoying the process

This is what authentic client connections look like in practice. Not scheduling another Zoom call to "connect." Not sending another templated LinkedIn message.

Actually doing something you both enjoy while building a real relationship and creating valuable content in the process.

Meanwhile, you're wondering why your content feels forced and your networking feels transactional.

Your CEO Shouldn't Be Your Only Face

Let me address the Steve Jobs and Elon Musk worship I see everywhere:

Yes, having a strong founder brand is powerful. Yes, these CEOs built incredible personal brands that helped their companies.

But unless you're selling exclusively to other CEOs, you need more than one face representing your brand.

Jake brought up a critical point that most B2B companies miss:

If the only person in your content is the CEO, you're limiting who can actually connect with your brand.

The VP considering your software? They can't relate to your billionaire founder.

The manager evaluating your service? They need to see someone at their level succeeding with your solution.

The frontline employee who'll actually use your product? They need to see people like them in your content.

This is why employee-generated content (EGC) is blowing up right now:

It's not overly polished. It's not reading from a script. It's real people who actually work at your company, sharing real experiences, in their own voice.

And it converts better than your $50K brand video that looks like every other corporate video ever made.

The Values You Claim vs. The Values You Live

Here's the test nobody wants to take:

Look at your "company values" poster in the break room (you know, the one nobody reads).

Now look at your content. Look at the people you put in front of cameras. Look at what you actually publish.

Do they match?

Jake put it perfectly: "It really helps when people can see how what the business cares about is actually reflected by the people and supported by the people."

Not just what you say you care about in your brand guidelines.

What you actually care about, demonstrated through the people you platform and the stories you tell.

Most companies fail this test spectacularly.

They claim to value innovation while their content is risk-averse and boring.

They claim to value diversity while every piece of content features the same demographic.

They claim to value transparency while their messaging is so carefully controlled it says nothing.

People can smell the bullshaet from a mile away.

And they're choosing to do business with companies that actually walk the walk instead of just talking the talk.

You're Chasing Influencers Who Can't Influence Your Buyers

Remember when everyone lost their minds over influencer marketing?

"This person has 500K followers! We should partner with them!"

Then you spend $10K on an influencer campaign and get... what? Some likes? Some comments from people who will never, ever buy from you?

Jake's framework destroys this approach:

It doesn't matter if someone has a massive following if that following isn't your target audience.

That Instagram influencer with 500K fashion followers isn't going to move the needle for your B2B SaaS company.

That TikTok creator with millions of Gen Z fans isn't going to help you sell to enterprise decision-makers.

Stop chasing reach. Start chasing relevance.

Better to have 100 followers who are all potential buyers than 100,000 followers who will never spend a dollar with you.

This is stakeholder engagement 101, and somehow most of you are still failing it.

The Content Trifecta You're Not Leveraging

Jake broke down his approach to digital shows (podcasts, video series, etc.) and it's a three-pronged strategy:

1. Guests who are prospects You're having conversations anyway. Why not record them and create content?

2. Guests who are referral partners Build the relationship while creating content that positions both of you as industry leaders.

3. Guests who are industry leaders Association bias works. Being seen in conversation with respected leaders elevates your status.

Every episode serves multiple purposes:

• Building trusted advisor relationships

• Creating content for distribution

• Establishing authority

• Deepening connections

But most of you are treating content creation and relationship building as separate activities.

They're the same activity if you're doing it right.

Your Overproduced Content Is Killing Your Authenticity

Here's what's happening in most B2B content creation:

You script everything. You get legal approval. You do 47 takes to get it "perfect." You edit out anything that might be considered "unprofessional." You polish it until it shines.

And the final result? Content that nobody wants to watch.

Because it doesn't feel real. It feels like a commercial. And people are really, really good at ignoring commercials.

Jake's talking about employee-generated content and user-generated content because that stuff actually converts.

Why? Because it's real.

The employee genuinely excited about the project they're working on.

The customer actually explaining how your product solved their problem.

The team member sharing behind-the-scenes of what it's like to work there.

That's the content that builds trust and drives business relationships.

Not your overly-produced corporate video that looks like it cost $100K and says absolutely nothing memorable.

The Storytelling Gap That's Costing You Everything

Jake's background is in filmmaking. And he brought that perspective to brand strategy:

"It all comes down to storytelling. The ability to communicate well to that audience."

Most B2B companies suck at storytelling because they think storytelling is:

• Making things up

• Being "creative" for creativity's sake

• Adding fluff to their messaging

Wrong.

Storytelling is about:

• Understanding your audience deeply

• Knowing what they care about

• Speaking directly to their challenges

• Making them the hero of the story

• Showing transformation, not just features

Your target audience isn't sitting around waiting to hear about your "revolutionary cloud-based solution leveraging AI-powered analytics."

They're looking for someone who understands their problem and can help them solve it.

Story first. Product second.

But you're doing it backwards. And then wondering why your content doesn't convert.

The Identity Connection You're Missing

Here's something Jake said that's absolutely critical:

"That's how we make decisions, how we feel safe—if we're around people that we identify with, that we feel like we belong with."

Your B2B decision-makers aren't just evaluating features and pricing.

They're asking themselves:

• "Are these my people?"

• "Do I trust them?"

• "Do they understand me?"

• "Would I want to work with them?"

And they're answering those questions based on the content you put out.

When all your content is corporate and polished and impersonal, the answer is: "I don't know who these people are. They could be anyone."

When your content features real humans with personalities and perspectives, the answer becomes: "Yeah, I could see myself working with them."

This is how you build relationship-driven revenue growth instead of just grinding through transactional sales.

Watch the Damn Episode

This conversation with Jake went deep into creating content that actually drives business results, why humanizing your brand beats corporate polish every time, and how to turn storytelling into a strategic growth lever instead of just another marketing activity.

If you're sick of creating content that gets likes but doesn't drive revenue, tired of your messaging sounding like everyone else's, or just want to understand why the gecko has better brand recognition than your entire company—this episode is your wake-up call.

Watch the full episode here because Jake's frameworks for building authentic client connections through content are the difference between going viral and going profitable.

P.S. That woman making $1 million with 700 followers?

She's not an anomaly. She's proof that speaking directly to the right people beats broadcasting to everyone.

Your obsession with growing your follower count is exactly what's preventing you from actually connecting with the people who matter.

You don't need to be everywhere. You need to be where your buyers are. Speaking their language. Addressing their actual challenges. In your authentic voice.

But that requires knowing who your buyers actually are. And most of you are so busy chasing vanity metrics that you've never actually stopped to deeply understand your audience.

Fix that first. Then worry about content strategy.

P.P.S. If your immediate reaction to "put more employees in your content" is "but what if they say something off-brand?"—that's the problem.

You've created such a rigid, sanitized brand voice that you don't trust real humans to represent you.

Which means your brand voice isn't authentic. It's a performance.

And people don't buy from performances. They buy from people.

Go watch the episode. Learn from Jake. And for god's sake, stop optimizing for dashboard metrics while ignoring the only metric that matters: revenue from the right customers.

Karl Pontau hosts The Human Connection Podcast, where we talk about the stuff that actually matters in business: the humans running it. Because whether you're B2B or B2C, it's really H2H—human to human. Subscribe so you don't miss the next episode where we probably say something that'll make your HR department uncomfortable.