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Years ago a client asked me a question that changed what my knowledge was worth, without me learning anything new.

I forgot that lesson completely, and my wife had to remind me of it last weekend. Here's the whole thing, because the move works on whatever you already sell.

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The question.

Back in the day I was a Facebook Ads account manager. Small local businesses, a few decent-sized ones. I ran their ads and charged around $100 an hour for it.

Then an agency asked if I'd come in and teach their team how to do it themselves.

Not run the ads. Teach the people who run the ads.

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Three things happened. I only expected two.

The first was the room. In person costs more than remote for the same knowledge, because I was in the building.

The second was the math. I wasn't managing one account anymore, I was training a team, and a team is worth more than an account.

The third I never saw coming. They kept bringing me back. Agencies hire constantly and nobody has time to train the new person, because everyone is buried in client work. Which is probably why the last person left.

That's worth sitting with if you know something narrow and know it well. Big agencies have expensive gaps in exactly the niche you know cold. Filling one takes the skill you already have, in a room you haven't been in.

What I learned there, and then forgot:

The value of your knowledge is contextual. If you want to make more money, change the context. T. Rice

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The one thing I still couldn't do.

I've been geeking out on Claude since December. It sharpens an argument before I post it, cuts the throat-clearing off a draft, and tells me when a headline isn't doing anything.

All writing. You've heard that one from everybody by now.

Images came next. My carousels started out as text on a slide, then I worked out how to pull good stills out of video and build carousels around them. Engagement moved, and I'm fairly sure the reason is that people could finally see me.

Video was the next step and the one I kept failing at.

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Beautiful footage I couldn't do anything with.

I've been recording a new series at my studio. The plan was always to hand it to my editor and let him build the long-form out of it.

Then I thought, let me see what happens if I try to make a reel out of this myself.

Each session lands as three video files and two audio files. That is not something I turn into a reel in an hour.

So I sat with it for days. Several attempts, several failures. I kept going until Claude could take that footage and cut reels that hold up next to the ones on the big podcast channels.

I tested them where a bad result costs nothing: YouTube Shorts and Instagram trial reels. Trial reels only go to people who don't follow you, which helps twice. You reach new people by default, and nobody who knows you has to watch you learn.

The best ones cleared 10,000 views. Some did about the same as my image posts. What changed is that I now have a repeatable way to make them, and that gives you a floor to work from.

I'll show you one at the bottom.

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Why I wanted video in the first place.

Writing shows people what you think. Video shows them how you think. Your personality, your worldview, whether you're funny or serious, how you handle a question you didn't expect.

That's what gets you podcast invites, stages and media requests. Nobody books you off a well-written paragraph.

My partnership and podcast inquiries went up when the photos started appearing. Video has moved it further than the photos ever did.

Information is free now, so anyone can sound informed. Discernment is what people actually want from you, and they have to watch you work through something to see it.

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Then my wife looked at me.

When I finally got one working, she gave me a look I couldn't read, and I braced for it. I'd been half watching the kids all weekend while I sat there vibing out on video files, and I had my defense ready.

She said she would have paid a lot of money to learn how to do that. Then she said that watching how hard I worked on it, a lot of other people would pay too, because they could put in the same weekend and still not have it working.

I was ready to argue about my weekend. She was three steps ahead of me on the business.

My instinct was a course. I said it out loud and then talked myself out of it. You need somebody in the room the first time, and this is the kind of content that gets people onto podcasts, onto stages and in front of publishers.

So she flipped it. Sell the session, then give them the course afterward.

You're a journalist, she said. You know how to get the good material out of somebody on camera. You're tactical, so you can show them exactly how it gets cut. Then they do it themselves going forward, and you were there for the first one.

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Why that mattered more than it sounds like.

I'd already run that process with four people, in person. They raved about it. One of them brought a friend.

So I knew the thing worked. What I couldn't see was the offer, because I went straight to course-first, the same way I once went straight to account management.

Same blind spot, years apart. The material was fine both times. I kept treating the delivery as fixed.

I'm turning it into something you can buy now, and I'll show you at the bottom. First, the part that works whether or not you ever set foot in Brooklyn.

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Here's the part I want you to take.

Look at what you already sell and find the one piece of it only you can deliver live. Then attach it and charge for it.

If you coach online, add an in-person visit. If you consult, add a working session where the thing gets built while they watch. You already have the knowledge. You're changing the room.

One, run it with people who already know you. Four, in my case, before I had a name for it or a number on it.

Two, then put a real number on it and let people apply. Not a free discovery call. A price and a date.

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Now, I know what you might be thinking.

That this doesn't scale, and on the math you're right. One room, one afternoon, one person.

But almost every large thing I've landed came from a relationship rather than a funnel. Two hours across a table from someone scales in the way that has actually paid me.

And I like doing it. I drop my kids off, go record something good with somebody, then sit down and edit with 90s rap on. That part gets skipped whenever people argue about scale.

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A test you can run this week.

Take something you already deliver remotely and write one sentence describing the live version.

Send that sentence to three people who have bought from you before and ask if they'd want it. Don't build anything first.

You'll know by Friday whether it's real, and that beats another month of wondering.

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I'm turning this into a thing. It isn't a thing yet.

This is moving fast enough that I don't have a landing page for it. But I am going to offer it as a service, and here's what it would look like.

Before you come in, I help you prepare, so you're not improvising on camera.

Every question I ask you is built so the answer leaves you with a hook and a soundbite you can use.

Then I teach you the whole editing process while we're there, so you can keep doing it without me.

An afternoon at my studio in Brooklyn. The view from my office isn't bad either.

I'm on step one of my own advice here. Four people, nobody who didn't already know me, before I put a number on it. So I don't have dates or pricing yet, and I'm not going to make one up to get you to reply.

One of these, cut out of five raw files. That's a guest on the show, with her own booking link on the bottom.

If you'd want one, hit reply with three lines.

What you'd want to make. A show, a series, a set of reels, something you haven't named yet.

Why that and not something else. This is the one I actually care about, because it changes the questions I'd ask you on the day.

Whether you'd come to Brooklyn to do it. If that's a no, say so anyway and tell me where you are. I've traveled for this kind of work before.

You'll hear from me first when it's real.

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And if you'd rather just talk through what you're building, that's what the sessions are for.

Thirty minutes, $100 Bring me the thing you're building AI systems, warm leads, pricing, or a decision you keep circling. Book a session →

Keep building,
Terry

P.S. If you want to be one of the first through the studio, reply with those three lines and you'll hear from me before anyone else does.

P.P.S. If you'd rather be on the other side of a call like that, you can sell what you know on EveryExpert too. One thing you're good at, one price, one link: start your EveryExpert profile