The argument in one line.
Social platforms now run a semantic algorithm that understands what content means rather than just measuring engagement, so creators who post clearly and consistently get matched with fewer but far more qualified viewers who are ready to become leads.
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
- You post content regularly but can't connect it to actual leads or sales.
- You run a coaching, agency, or software business and want a repeatable content-to-lead pipeline.
- You're competing on price in a crowded market and want to escape being compared to everyone else.
- You're curious how AI tools like Claude can be used to analyze audience data and find underserved niches.
SKIP IF…
- You're a hobbyist creator with no business or offer behind your content.
- You want tactical editing or hook-writing advice — this is strategy and funnel structure, not production craft.
The full version, fast.
Social media has quietly moved from a friends-first feed, to an interest-based recommendation engine, to a semantic algorithm that actually reads and understands what content means, then routes it to the exact people who should see it. That means fewer but far higher-quality views. Daniel Priestley lays out the resulting funnel: short form content to get noticed (people need to see you eleven times before they register you exist), long form content to explain your value proposition, and a lead form (assessment, quiz, or calculator) to capture and qualify. Layered on top are elite moves — segmenting for buyers with actual budget, anchoring your price against a more expensive comparison instead of competing shoulder-to-shoulder, marketing beyond your capacity so demand exceeds supply, and using Claude to mine survey data for hidden customer segments and correlations.
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Create a free account →Who's talking.
00:00guestDaniel Priestley
00:00hostNeel Dhingra
Where the time goes.
00:00 – 00:31
01 · Intro
Cold-open teaser built from later lines in the interview, before the actual conversation begins.
00:31 – 04:11
02 · Social → interest → semantic media in 2026
Priestley traces three algorithm eras — friends-first chronological feed, interest-based recommendation, and now a semantic algorithm that reads and understands post content — and explains why that means fewer but higher-quality views.
04:11 – 06:20
03 · Why people notice you on the 11th view
The brain's reticular activating system filters out most content; research shows people consciously notice a creator only on their eleventh exposure, so frequent posting isn't optional.
06:20 – 07:46
04 · Repost & repackage your old content
Because the semantic algorithm re-evaluates content fresh, old high-performers can be resized, recolored, recaptioned, and reposted for a second life.
07:46 – 12:35
05 · The framework: short form, long form, lead form
Priestley lays out the three-stage funnel — short form to get noticed, long form (6 minutes to an hour) to explain the value proposition since considered purchases take 2-7 hours to understand, and a lead form to capture interest.
12:35 – 13:01
06 · What to post: pain, prize, problem + news
The three short-form content pillars — pain points, prizes/desired outcomes, and problems — get sharper when tied to current news trends.
13:01 – 14:36
07 · The "magic phone" & what the new algorithm does
Using the thought experiment of a phone that auto-dials only people ready to buy, Priestley reframes the algorithm as already doing exactly that — most creators just aren't posting enough to use it.
14:36 – 15:23
08 · Clarity trains the algorithm
Posting about too many unrelated topics confuses the algorithm's understanding of who a creator is for; staying clear and consistent trains it to find the right audience.
15:23 – 17:24
09 · Why a fresh account can win
Follower count from the friends/followers era no longer matters — a brand-new, clear account can outperform a large legacy account that confuses the algorithm.
17:24 – 20:00
10 · No mouse-flavored cat food (segmentation)
Using cat food as an analogy, Priestley explains market segmentation and why elite marketers target the buyer with the budget (the cat owner), not the end user who merely wants the product (the cat).
20:00 – 23:35
11 · Using AI for audience insights
Priestley describes exporting quiz and survey data into Claude to identify customer personas and run correlation analysis that surfaces hidden micro-niches.
23:35 – 27:07
12 · Take the Rolls-Royce to the boat show
The famous Rolls-Royce anecdote illustrates price anchoring: the same product looks overpriced next to cheaper direct competitors, but looks like a bargain next to a far more expensive category.
27:07 – 29:32
13 · Market beyond your capacity
Businesses that market as if they want double their target customer count, then turn people away, achieve profit; businesses that dial marketing to match capacity only achieve wages.
29:32 – 34:36
14 · Lead forms: assessments, quizzes & calculators
Priestley details a 15-question lead-capture assessment (5 situational + 10 best-practice questions) and why low-friction calculators and quizzes outperform demands for a call.
34:36 – 36:17
15 · The "second door" for buyers who won't call
Neel shares a personal example of nearly losing a life-insurance sale because the only path forward was a phone call; a self-serve assessment would have kept him engaged.
36:17 – 37:24
16 · Sell by thumbs: closing over text
One of Priestley's businesses now closes 16% of five-figure sales purely over text message, after questioning the assumption that big purchases require a live conversation.
37:24 – 38:34
17 · Kill the funnel, build a marketing playground
Citing Google research that the marketing funnel is dead, Priestley closes with the 'marketing playground' model — multiple parallel entry points instead of one forced path to a decision.
Lines worth screenshotting.
- Social media has moved through three algorithm eras: a friends-first chronological feed, an interest-based recommendation engine, and now a semantic algorithm that reads and understands what a post actually means.
- Because the algorithm now understands content instead of just measuring clicks and watch time, creators get fewer total views but far higher-quality ones, matched to people who are actually the right fit.
- People notice a creator for the first time only after they've already seen that creator's content eleven times, so 'I already posted about this' is not a reason to stop posting.
- Old high-performing posts can be resized, recolored, recaptioned, and reposted, because the algorithm re-evaluates content fresh each time rather than penalizing repeats.
- The funnel for 2026 is short form to get noticed, long form to get understood, and lead form to capture and convert — jumping straight from a short clip to a lead form is too big a gap.
- Buyers need two to seven hours of cumulative research to understand the value proposition of any considered purchase, which is why six-minute-to-hour-long explainer content is what actually builds buying intent.
- The top 1% of buyers in a market control about 15% of total spend, the top 10% combined control roughly 60%, and the remaining 90% fight over the last 40% in a crowded, low-margin zone.
- Elite marketers target the segment that holds the budget, not the segment that merely wants the product — summarized as 'there's no such thing as mouse-flavored cat food,' since cats don't hold the credit card.
- Feeding survey or quiz data into Claude for correlation analysis can surface hidden customer segments and buying signals that used to require an in-house data team.
- Rolls-Royce sells poorly at car shows, where it's the most expensive option next to direct comparables, but sells on impulse at boat shows, where it looks cheap next to a $5 million yacht — the lesson is to find the venue where you're the best value, not the most expensive option.
- Profitable businesses market as if they want double their target customer count, then deliberately turn people away, because demand exceeding supply is what creates margin, not hitting your capacity exactly.
- A 15-question lead-capture assessment, built from five situational questions plus ten best-practice questions, gathers enough data to segment and personalize follow-up for every prospect.
- Some of the most qualified buyers self-assess and fill out lead forms at 10pm, after hours, when they finally have time to research on their own terms.
- One business now closes 16% of five-figure sales purely over text message after questioning the assumption that big purchases require a live sales call.
- Marketing funnels are being replaced by a 'marketing playground': instead of forcing prospects down one path, give them multiple parallel options (assessment, long video, book, webinar, live or recorded) and let them convert whenever they're ready.
Post to be understood, not just to be seen.
CONTENT STRATEGY
The platforms now understand what content means, so the winning move is a deliberate funnel — short form to get noticed, long form to get understood, lead form to convert — aimed at the segment that actually has budget.
02Social → interest → semantic media in 2026
- The semantic algorithm reads what a post actually means and finds the people it best matches, so expect fewer total views but a much higher share of them to be genuinely relevant.
- Vanity engagement hacks (engagement pods, coordinated likes) stop working once the algorithm understands content instead of just measuring activity.
03Why people notice you on the 11th view
- A person needs roughly eleven exposures to a creator before they consciously register who that creator is, so repeating a topic is a requirement, not a mistake to avoid.
- The brain's filtering system (the reticular activating system) screens out most content by default, so audiences genuinely don't remember most of what scrolls past them.
04Repost & repackage your old content
- Reformatting and reposting old high-performing content is a legitimate strategy, because the algorithm evaluates it fresh rather than penalizing repetition.
- Small edits — resize, recolor, new intro/outro, added captions — are enough to give a proven post a second life.
05The framework: short form, long form, lead form
- Route content deliberately: short form earns attention, long form earns understanding, and a lead form earns contact information.
- Considered purchases take a buyer two to seven hours of cumulative research to understand, so a single short clip can't do the job that a proper explainer video does.
- Long form doesn't have to live only on YouTube — LinkedIn supports up to 15-minute video and keeps attention tightly on the creator rather than recommending competitors.
06What to post: pain, prize, problem + news
- Short-form topics that consistently cut through are pain points, desired outcomes ('prizes'), and concrete problems — especially when tied to a current news trend.
07The "magic phone" & what the new algorithm does
- The algorithm is already finding the exact people most likely to buy — the bottleneck is usually posting frequency, not targeting.
- Treat every post as a chance to 'dial' a ready buyer; posting once a day (or less) means leaving most of that matching capacity unused.
08Clarity trains the algorithm
- Posting about too many unrelated subjects confuses the algorithm's model of who a creator is for; narrow, consistent posting trains it to find the right audience faster.
09Why a fresh account can win
- Follower count from the old friends-and-followers era carries little weight now — a brand-new account with a clear first ten posts can outperform a large, unfocused legacy account.
- A confused legacy account (mixed topics, inconsistent audience) can actually underperform a small, clearly-defined new one.
10No mouse-flavored cat food (segmentation)
- Target the person who holds the budget, not just the person who wants the product — the same logic behind selling premium cat food to the owner, not the cat.
- The top 10% of buyers in a market control roughly 60% of total spend, so building for that tier is usually more profitable than chasing volume in the bottom 90%.
11Using AI for audience insights
- Exporting survey or quiz responses into an AI tool for correlation analysis can reveal customer segments and buying signals that used to require a dedicated data team.
- AI-assisted segmentation can also flag who to stop targeting — customers who want something a business doesn't actually do well.
12Take the Rolls-Royce to the boat show
- An offer looks expensive next to cheap direct competitors but looks cheap next to a much pricier category — find the 'boat show' comparison for your own offer instead of competing shoulder-to-shoulder with rivals.
- Repositioning around a different comparison set (like a coach rebranding as a paid conference speaker) can raise prices without changing the underlying service.
13Market beyond your capacity
- Marketing to exact capacity only produces wages; marketing as if demand will be double capacity, then turning people away, is what produces profit and pricing power.
- Turning marketing on and off in response to how busy a business feels creates lumpy, unpredictable cash flow — the fix is to leave it running and let scarcity do its job.
14Lead forms: assessments, quizzes & calculators
- A structured 15-question assessment (5 situational + 10 best-practice questions) makes an effective lead form because it captures enough data to segment and personalize every follow-up.
- Self-serve calculators outperform demands for a call for prospects who aren't ready to talk yet — including a meaningful share who do their research at 10pm.
15The "second door" for buyers who won't call
- Give prospects who won't book a call a lower-friction 'second door' — a self-serve assessment or calculator — so people who aren't ready to talk can still take a step forward.
- Forcing every prospect through a phone call or office visit as the only next step loses buyers who would have converted through a simpler path.
16Sell by thumbs: closing over text
- Question the assumption that big-ticket sales require a live conversation; closing over text ('sell by thumbs') can work for high-ticket offers and is increasingly automatable with AI.
17Kill the funnel, build a marketing playground
- Replace a single forced funnel with a 'marketing playground' of parallel options (video, book, webinar, assessment) so prospects choose the path that matches how they actually want to engage.
Terms worth knowing.
- Semantic algorithm
- The current generation of platform recommendation systems, which read and understand the actual meaning of a post (not just engagement signals) and route it to people who match that meaning.
- Reticular activating system
- A filtering mechanism in the brain that screens out most incoming information so people can function without being overwhelmed — the reason audiences need repeated exposure before they consciously register a creator.
- Short form, long form, lead form
- A three-stage content funnel: short content to get noticed, long content to explain the value proposition, and a lead form (quiz, assessment, calculator) to capture and qualify interested people.
- Market segmentation (luxury / mid / mass)
- Dividing a market into the top 1% of buyers (about 15% of spend), the next 9% (about 45% of spend), and the remaining 90% (under 40% of spend), used to decide which tier to build an offer for.
- Take the Rolls-Royce to the boat show
- A price-anchoring strategy: position your offer next to a much more expensive comparison so it looks like great value, instead of standing next to cheaper direct competitors where you look overpriced.
- Sell by thumbs
- Closing a high-ticket sale entirely through text message exchanges rather than a live sales call, made increasingly automatable with AI-assisted responses.
- Marketing playground
- An approach that replaces the linear marketing funnel with multiple parallel ways for a prospect to engage (assessment, video, book, webinar), letting them self-select their path to a purchase.
- Correlation analysis
- Using AI tools like Claude to find non-obvious relationships in customer survey or quiz data, surfacing hidden audience segments and buying signals.
Things they pointed at.
20:25toolClaude
16:34channelDiary of a CEO
Lines you could clip.
02:18
“Semantic algorithms actually understand what it is that you're posting.”
05:04
“People notice you for the first time when they see you for the eleventh time.”
17:35
“There's no such thing as mouse-flavored cat food.”
23:38
“Take the Rolls-Royce to the boat show.”
28:45
“You know when you push the engines on and the boat comes up out of the water, and then you turn the engines off and the boat sinks back down? That's what happens to lumpy-cash-flow businesses that turn marketing on and off.”
33:14
“You don't want more leads. You want better leads.”
37:03
“We call this sell by thumbs.”
38:00
“Stop thinking about marketing funnels where you're forcing people towards a decision. Start thinking about a marketing playground.”
Where the conversation goes.
00:31 – 07:46denseThe three algorithm eras and the semantic shift
07:46 – 17:24denseThe short form / long form / lead form funnel
17:24 – 23:35denseSegmentation and targeting buyers with budget
23:35 – 29:32densePrice anchoring and demand-exceeds-supply pricing
29:32 – 37:24steadyLead capture mechanics and closing over text
37:24 – 38:34sparseClosing reframe: funnel to marketing playground
Word for word.
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metaphoranalogystory
00:00There's and where it goes on the planet. What we used to call social media has not been social media for a very long time. If we know this, how can we take advantage of this as creators?
00:12As soon as the algorithm understands what you do and what your business does, it then figures out who is the perfect audience, and it is warm calling that person. These views are translating into real business opportunity.
00:23Everyone here is gonna get less views, but there'll be better quality views. It will be the exact right person who should be doing that content. What's like an elite strategy that maybe only 10% of this room could execute on, but if they did, they would be, like, to the moon.
00:36So the strategy is pretty simple. It becomes
00:39K. So let's get into it. Daniel, what first things first.
00:42Right now, what do you think about the current state of content in 2026?
00:47Well, the first thing I would say is that what we used to call social media has not been social media for a very long time, or what we still call social media has not been social media for a long time. Uh, social media was originally built on an algorithm that would show you what your friends were doing. So you would go on Facebook and you would see what your friends, what your family, colleagues, all of those people, you would get updates in a chronological feed, uh, and that would come to you on the social media platforms, and we called it social media.
01:14And then they replaced the algorithm, uh, with a new algorithm pioneered by TikTok, and that was essentially the new age of interest media.
01:22Interest media is we don't care what your friends are doing. We're gonna show you what's interesting. We're gonna figure out what it is that you actually like, and we will just wherever it happens, whoever shared it, we'll just pick that up, and we're gonna share that with you.
01:33What's happening now, and this is very current, very recent, and we're only just seeing the early effects of this, is that we have something called the semantic algorithm.
01:43And the semantic algorithm means that the AI systems that run social media read and understand what it is that you're posting, and they find people anywhere in the world who really should be talking should be talking to you, should should be connecting with you.
01:59So this is a very different way of doing things. The interest media algorithm, it would basically measure everything based on likes, clicks, comments, watch time.
02:10It it didn't know what it was you were posting. It just could see that it was popular and active. Right?
02:16And that's all it knew. It didn't have any understanding. Semantic algorithms actually understand what it is that you're posting.
02:22Let me translate that all into English. Everyone here is gonna get less views, but there'll be better quality views. Yeah.
02:27So you're gonna you're gonna have half the views on LinkedIn, half the views on Instagram, but it will be the exact right person who should be viewing that content Provided you upload content that the semantic algorithm can understand,
02:41it's gonna find you the perfect person who should be checking that content. Yeah. And I've noticed this on Instagram.
02:46If you guys pull up your posts, you will get a meta AI description of any post. And it will say like, for example, if I upload something and it was me talking about content or leadership, it'd say Neil Dinger's latest thoughts on this, and it summarizes the whole thing.
03:00So it knew everything about everything. Didn't even have to have a great hook or a thing on it. Like, obviously, the packaging matters, but it's learning what you're saying.
03:09And I didn't even write a really lengthy caption on that one. It was just in the video. It analyzed my transcript.
03:14That that's a big deal. And it's a little bit like
03:17you what used to work was just post something that would get lots of engagement, and you could also hack it. You could get an engagement pod and an engagement group and get 10 of your friends to to kind of, like, stimulate the algorithm. None of that's gonna work anymore.
03:30You're you're dealing with something that actually understands. It's it's looking at all the frames. It knows what if there's a cat in the background, it knows there's a cat in the background.
03:38Yeah. So right now, if I was to ask most people, what is the biggest, most powerful technology that's changing humanity right now? Most people would say, uh, large language models.
03:48They'd say ChatGPT, Claude, those kind of things. At the same time that those algorithms are getting super powerful and we see it, there's an invisible algorithm that literally dictates the attention and where it goes on the planet, and that is the recommendation engine.
04:03And that recommendation engine is choosing
04:05who gets to see what, and we need to understand that that's a big trend that's happening at the moment. So I love that. Okay.
04:11So now that we know this change is happening, and, honestly, a lot of this has just happened in the last few months, the shift with the AI descriptions on all the content. So if we know this, how can we take advantage of this as creators?
04:22That way we can reach more people. So the the first thing is we wanna go back to original understanding of how humans work. Humans, when they're overwhelmed with information, we have a system in our brain called the reticular activating system designed to filter information out.
04:38It's the reason that you can walk through Las Vegas and not crash into anyone but not really remember anything that you saw. So if I walked through a crowded room, I can just kind of move through it, and then if you said, who do you remember seeing? I'd say, don't remember seeing anybody.
04:51I can't remember anyone. Right? So my brain filters stuff out.
04:54It's the same with your customers. They're scrolling. They're scrolling.
04:57They're scrolling. Unfortunately, their their brain is filtering it out.
05:01So there's a little, um, idea that that is backed by evidence that is people notice you for the first time when they see you for the eleventh time. They gotta see you 11 times before they notice that you even notice you for the first time when they see you for the eleventh time.
05:16Yeah. So what they did is they they took someone like yourself, and they said, Neil, do you know who that is? And you go, oh, yeah.
05:23I know who that is. Right? And then they looked back through your history, and they said, oh, you've seen them 11 times in the last ninety days.
05:28And then I said, do you know who that is? And you go, I don't know who that is. And they look, oh, you only saw them 10 times in the last ninety days.
05:34So they notice you for the first time when they see you for the eleventh time. So a lot of people, they're posting on social media, they think, oh, I've already said that. Well, they say, I've already posted too many times this month.
05:44You gotta get rid of that mindset to begin with. People's brains are filtering you out. They're only gonna see you for the first time when they see you for the eleventh time.
05:52So you gotta post plenty of times. Yeah. So just basically,
05:56my interpretation of this is much of the audience has brain rot or is not Hold on.
06:02Okay? Is not, like, in high intelligence mode as they're scrolling, and we need to remind them more than we need to teach them. Yeah.
06:08Remind them that you exist. So there's two things. They have to notice you exist and then get reminded that you exist.
06:14Yeah. And I think about you know, uh, this is a great thing you're talking about here because I see you posting on YouTube and even on social, and I'll see a topic that you've talked about for the last year. Maybe a new spin on it, a new packaging on it, but it's the same core topic about personal brand or the I've seen you talk about the power curve and all the escape.
06:32You know? That's part of the why we themed our event escape the middle because Daniel made a whole video about getting out of the middle of that power curve. That's it.
06:40And so but I see you talking about it in multiple different areas, and I'm never bothered by it.
06:46If I'm not into it and I've already seen it, I'm I just skip it. But if I'm in if I didn't fully engage last time, it's important to remind me. And so I just wanna encourage everyone here, like, post your stuff again.
06:58Like, go back to your stuff that you post the 10 posts you made. There's two that did better than 10. Repost them.
07:03Repackage them. You could post the same old video if you want, but you could also make new ones of it. True.
07:07And and with the semantic understanding of that, if it's old content, repost it because a new algorithm's having a look at it. So that's that's powerful. Also, you're saying, like oh, real quick.
07:18If six months ago, you posted something that was a banger,
07:21like Go back and repost Repost. Reshoot it, repost it. Look.
07:25You can do stuff where if something was a banger on Instagram, let's let's say, you can scale it down, make it a little bit smaller, scale it up, make it a little bit bigger. You can change the intro.
07:36You can change the outro. You can re edit it. You can color filter it, color color grade it.
07:41You can add captions to it. There's all sorts of things you can do to to shift it, change it, post it again. Yeah.
07:47And I love this strategy because it's like we're getting more out of the work we're already doing or have done. Yeah. So okay.
07:54Great. So then moving on to the next part. So the next part is that people understand value propositions when they've spent two to seven hours of research understanding the value proposition.
08:06So anything that people in this room have bought in the past where you've purchased something and it's been a considered purchase, uh, it would have taken two to seven hours for your brain to understand the value proposition of a considered purchase. So if you're gonna upgrade your cameras, if you're gonna upgrade your microphones, if you're gonna buy a new car, uh, if you're going to get a watch, if you're gonna get a service like an agency to do something, two to seven hours is the learning time for people to understand the value proposition.
08:34So what actually happens is that they're not noticing you because you're not posting they're not seeing you eleven times, so they don't even notice that you exist. And then they do notice you exist, but they have no idea what your value proposition is.
08:47And they people needed to explain to them again and again. So think about there's content that is for getting noticed, and then there's content for getting known, and that is where you're explaining your value proposition.
08:59You have to imagine I like the term brain right. You are talking to people who've got brain right. You're talking to people who are busy, distracted.
09:07You know, they're confused. If they already understood everything that you know, they would be in your business.
09:14Right? So they don't know what's going on. So you've got to go through and do explainer content, and this could be content that could be six minutes to an hour.
09:23And in that content, you're clearly explaining here's where you're gonna start. Here's where you're gonna finish.
09:28Here's the problems we're gonna solve. Here's the prize, the payoff that we get. This lives on YouTube.
09:33It could be on YouTube. You can do long form content on on LinkedIn. You can do long form content on Instagram.
09:40Most of the platforms, we think of them as one platform,
09:44but they actually they're about 20 products stacked on top of each other. Yeah. I even saw on x people were posting long videos now.
09:50Long videos on x, long audios on x Yep. Long posts on x. But I think, like, if for somebody who's overwhelmed, it's like, okay.
09:57Just pick one place. Because I know it's when you talk about five different platforms, if you are normally posting short form on Instagram, you could post long form there, but I don't think the audience is necessarily as much looking for long form there, but they might be. They can.
10:08They can. I post some long stuff on Instagram. I get, you know, plenty of plenty of people will sit and watch it.
10:14Yeah. So But then the other place would be the main place to be YouTube to take that YouTube is a great place for long form platform
10:21long long form content. The only issue with YouTube is that it does have a great recommendation engine that will put other stuff in front of people as well, so it might introduce them to a competitor.
10:31Long form on LinkedIn is really focused on just you. So LinkedIn does like, it's up to fifteen minutes, and people, they're just watching you on LinkedIn, and they're just getting engrossed in that one thing at a time, which is which is really good.
10:44So if you think short form for getting noticed, long form for people to understand what what you're doing. And then when people understand, you need to give them a simple, easy way to to basically signal that they're interested and connect.
11:00So what you need to do is have a lead form where people fill in a lead form of some sort. So the strategy is pretty simple. It becomes short form, long form, lead form.
11:08So short form to get noticed, long form to educate and get people to understand the value proposition, and then lead form to capture people's details and capture people's data and to to get them into engage.
11:22Yeah. I love that. And one of the things that I'm doing I've got a group of seven different companies, mostly software companies, but some agencies, and I've got, like, education training.
11:33And we just with all of our companies, we just go short form, long form, lead form. And that is the that that's the backbone of the marketing strategy. We produce something like 15,000 to 20,000 warm leads a month
11:45through organic different posting strategies, and it's short form, long form, lead form. Yeah. I love this.
11:50Okay. So short form content, which many people are doing here, but it needs to lead somewhere. And the problem, I think, here or with many people, including myself for many years, is the short form, the only way to move forward was it leads to the lead form, and that is too big of a gap Too much of a in 2026.
12:06Now, some peep it does happen, so I'm not saying it doesn't happen, and it could have happened because somebody's been watching your short form and you stayed engaged, so I love that strategy. But the better, smarter play would be to actually drive them to go watch a longer video. That's it.
12:19A six minute video that'll walk them through the whole process. Even if that six minute video doesn't do that well, you're still getting the conversions. You you're getting the warmth required for people to give you their real data, their real information on that lead form.
12:31Yeah. Yeah. And then when they come through, the lead form is more it's it's a higher quality.
12:36Well, when those leads come in, that's you know that that's someone who's
12:39starting to understand your value proposition. They've been consuming your content. They've gone through a process.
12:45So a few key ideas. Short form content, the best things to talk about. Pain points, anything that people notice as a pain point, anything that frustrates them.
12:55Prizes, the things that people want, the things they wish they could achieve, the outcomes that they desire, and problems, the challenges that they're trying to solve, the actual technical challenges that they're going through.
13:08And if you can link any of those three things to the current news trends, so you've got pain, prize, problem linked to news, that stuff really cuts through, engages, trends and brings the right people across.
13:24Here's a before I move on to what to put into long form, here's a here's a question I've got for everyone, which is if there was a magical phone that was on your desk, and every time you pick up the phone, it autodiales a person whose behaviour in the last week indicates that they would definitely wanna buy from you.
13:46Right? So imagine you pick up that phone, and whatever it is you're selling, someone in the last week has given off a ton of signals that says they're interested in what you're selling. And if you pick up the phone, it's gonna auto dial and connect.
13:59How many times would you pick up the phone? All day, bro. All Okay.
14:04So now that you've said all day, how many pieces of content are you posting per day?
14:11Once. Once. So you're only picking up the phone once a day.
14:14Some people zero sometimes. Right? So you've got the , but you're not using it.
14:19When I say magic phone, this is what I mean by this new algorithm. The new algorithm is not just giving you vanity metrics. It's not just giving you views.
14:27It's figuring out the exact perfect person who needs to hear what you've got to say. As soon as the algorithm understands what you do and what your business does, it then figures out who is the perfect audience, and it is warm calling that person and saying, hey.
14:42Check this out. Neil's got a great piece of content for you. Yeah.
14:45And then the thing that would enable that process to occur more
14:49is I've found a big problem with people is they don't their content is not clear. Yes. So they lack clarity in the video, and so I'm not really sure who this is for, what pain point problem or prize this is for.
15:01And the algorithm is building its understanding of you. So as soon as you start posting all over the place trying to get clicks and views,
15:09the algorithm is confused. So it's sitting there going, I don't really I don't get it. Like, are you into politics?
15:14Are you into business? Are you into fishing?
15:17Like, it's too much stuff. So it's not giving it's trying to find you this weird audience that meets all of it, and it's like, I can't do it.
15:26So as soon as you're just clear consistently for a little while, you've trained the algorithm, Yep.
15:32This is who I'm gonna gonna go for. Now the other thing too is don't be afraid to start a new account in 2026 because in 2026, it doesn't matter how many friends you've got.
15:42The whole the whole audience through friends and followers, that's ancient. Right? You could start a fresh account today, and if you're clear in your first 10 posts, it's like, okay.
15:53I got you. I know who you're looking for. You're looking for this type of person.
15:56Let's put you in front of 10,000 of them. Yep. No.
15:59I agree. It's it it the person in the room who's got 12 followers, somebody's got 1,200, or somebody's got 12,000, we all have an equal chance. It's all been equalized.
16:08Yes. This new algorithm has equalized. I'm expecting to see small accounts of 10,000 that massively outperform on sales for legacy accounts of hundreds of thousands of followers because the algorithm is confused from the legacy account
16:25and it's clear with the new account. Okay. So that's short form.
16:29We'll get into long form. But just before we do, you get to talk to all the major leaders.
16:35He's been on Diary of the CEO. I said seven. He's like, no.
16:37It's eight times, Neil. I'm sorry. Like, know, was like, correct?
16:40Discount me a time. Like, I So you've been on Diary of CEO eight times, which is how I discover so many great people, but there's a reason why Steven Bartlett keeps bringing you back. Right?
16:49And it's because of your marketing knowledge, but also, you've gotten to be exposed to a lot of elite marketers. We had Cody Sanchez here last year.
16:57I noticed you were there with Cody. You're with all these people and rubbing elbows, and and I even saw you weirdly at Richard Branson's Island, you know, recently. You know, you're talking to all these people.
17:06So when you talk to the elite marketers right now in 2026, what are they doing that we need to know?
17:14Because that's what I wanna bring to the group today. Like, yes, we're gonna take we should be posting more, which is awesome, and we can get more clear with it. But what's, an elite strategy that maybe only 10% of this room could execute on, but if they did, they would be, like, to the moon?
17:28So, um, there's there's two things that come to mind. Number one is there's no such thing as mouse flavored cat food.
17:39So Say that again. Hold on.
17:41Say that again. There's
17:43no such thing as mouse flavoured cat food. Mouse flavoured cat food.
17:48Right? And the reason that there's no such thing as mouse flavoured cat food is because when it comes to cats, as much as they would love to have mouse flavored cat food, it would be their favorite flavor.
18:02They would love it. Cats would probably love, like, a little tin that has a dead mouse in it, and you open it up and its legs are still kinda going or something like that.
18:11It's getting a little creepy, bro. I hate my I hate mice mouse.
18:17See, this is the Rats. I hate rats. That's what was gonna say.
18:20And the point is,
18:22the reason there's I can feel, like, crawling on me right now. Just I don't know what just happened.
18:27Cats like spiders and moths. We could do moth flavored.
18:31We could have spider flavored cat food. The reason there's no such thing as mouse flavored cat food is because cats don't have access to credit cards. They don't have any buying power, they're not very good at e commerce shopping.
18:42So, one of the things that I see is that we have this thing called market segmentation.
18:49And market segmentation basically means that there's different parts of the market. There's the top 1% who we call the luxury buyers. They typically have about 15% of the total budget available in that market.
19:01So even though they represent 1% of people, they have 15% of the budget. Then we have the next 9% down, and that 9%, they have about 45% of the budget.
19:13So the top 10% has 60% of the budget, and the bottom 90%, when it comes to having disposable income or disposable budgets, the bottom 90% has less than 40% of the budget, and it's crowded and it's noisy. Now one of the things that elite marketers do is they understand that they're going after the segments that have money.
19:34Right? They they they don't care about getting dragged down. They don't care care about getting dragged away from their perfect customer.
19:41Even though the cat says, I really, really, really, really want the mouse flavored cat food, the elite marketer says, you got no money. Cat.
19:50Right? Sorry. Right?
19:53I'm talking to cat owners. The cat owner has the budget, which is why when you go and look at the cat food, it's got roast salmon and turkey, and it's got, like, pate. Right?
20:04Because they're selling to the cat owner. They're selling to the person who's got the credit card. So elite marketers, they understand who's got the credit card, who's got the budget, what is their buying what is their buying criteria.
20:14Elite marketers are also using AI to better understand their audiences. So one of the things that I periodically do, I get people to fill in online quizzes, surveys, questionnaires, and I take all of that data, and I will export it, and I'll throw it into Claude.
20:29And I'll say, tell me about the people who are in this list. And Claude comes back with unbelievable insights about who's in the list.
20:38So I might upload 500 people who have filled in an online scorecard. Claude will say there's three major segments in here, and it'll give me these.
20:46And I say, talk me through my three ideal customer personas that you found. It says, well, there's this type of person. Their biggest pain point, their biggest frustration is this.
20:55There's this type of person. They're wrong for you. They want something that you don't really do well.
20:59Ignore them. Yeah. Alright?
21:01And then you're basically taking that data, and you could make better content, like, target those people better. Yeah. And and there's this there's this stuff called
21:09correlation analysis, and correlation analysis is normally something that big companies used to be able to do. It's a very tricky kind of thing, but you can just upload some data of quiz questionnaire into Claude and say, are there any unique correlations that I should be aware of that's in this data?
21:26Claude will go, yeah, actually, the people who said that they wanted the product in blue are also the ones that have platinum credit cards. Yeah. Right?
21:35So, like, it will figure out I love the signals. You talk lot about signals, and that's what the elite that's what I really wanted to categorise or hone in on here today.
21:44Now, if you guys heard what Daniel just said, it's I don't know if anybody's pulled the math on this, but I believe last year, first time homebuyers represented the lowest share of home purchases in I don't know if it's ever or is it ever?
22:01Yeah. It's ever. And if somebody could get the percentage, that'd be great, but I think it was under 20% of all transactions, and so it's shrinking.
22:10And so I feel like a lot of people on content, so they're like, let me help that first timer. Mouse flavored cat food. That's the cat food you're talking about, dog.
22:19Like, they can't buy it. Like, you know what I mean? And by the way, no shame.
22:24We should definitely help first timers. We should put it in our content. They should what you'll find is if you start targeting one or two rungs up the food chain, those people will be pulled up anyways because there are people who are resourceful.
22:35There are people who can get, you know, to get we had the largest share of home buyers last year get help from family to get into real estate. They're they're pooling resources. They're doing it together.
22:45So, they will figure out, but they'll they'll be more attracted to that than they would kinda playing in the mud. And I just feel like I I I don't wanna, uh, tell anyone to not serve that group as your main niche, but I'm I feel like you are starting to be swimming against the current.
23:00Yeah. What you will really wanna do if you're especially if you're a small business, like, you're sub 10,000,000
23:05of revenue, what you what you really wanna do is find a tiny little underserved niche niche, and you wanna you wanna go in and you wanna find this little group.
23:15And that's what Claude is really helpful for. That's the correlation analysis. That's where you say that's where Claude says, oh, we've discovered that people in New York are interested in buying a holiday home in Colorado.
23:27Right? And it's like like a micro niche. Right?
23:29So they're just finding these little micro niche opportunities. Now there's another elite marketing strategy that I should probably tell as well, which is called take the Rolls Royce to the boat show.
23:42Dang, bro. This sounds better than the cat one.
23:51So Rolls Royce used to go to the car show, and they used to go out there, and there's 50 different carmakers. And Rolls Royce is the most expensive carmaker, and people would walk up to the Rolls Royce.
24:05It's $500,000. What do you get for $500,000? Oh, it's got an umbrella, you stick it in the door.
24:11And then they go and look at the Toyota, and they go, okay. The Toyota's, like like, one fifth of the cost, and it's got all of this stuff. You know, why would you spend an extra $400,000?
24:22It's luxury branding.
24:25It's a waste of money. So Rolls Royce at the car show were the most expensive and also easily comparable to other options.
24:35Then Rolls Royce discovered something interesting, which is when they took the Rolls Royce to the boat show, it was a completely different conversation. Because at the boat show, people are sitting there looking at $5,000,000 yachts, and they're going, I'm gonna spend one day a month on this $5,000,000 yacht, or for $500,000 for one tenth, I'm gonna drive that Rolls Royce every day.
24:57And people are turning up and they're banning them on the credit card, impulse buying Rolls Royces. Right?
25:03Dang.
25:04That's crazy. Yeah. Right?
25:05So so they're sitting there going, it's a good value. It's really good because of what they're comparing it to.
25:11The price anchor. Now what what I see is I see a lot of businesses, they go, oh, how does everyone in my industry market themselves?
25:19I'll just go and do the same thing everyone else is doing, and I'm gonna show up side by side, shoulder to shoulder with all my competition. I'm gonna get compared on price, and everyone's gonna get confused, everyone's gonna hassle me for can I get more for less? You've gotta find the equivalent of the boat show for your industry.
25:36You gotta figure out where where are people not going where suddenly you are way better value and that you're not being compared to all of your peers?
25:45So I had this, uh, guy who I was talking to who was an executive coach, and he hated the fact that everyone's an executive coach, and I'm you know, there's all these executive coaches. I said, stop telling people you're an executive coach.
25:57Become a speaker at conferences. You know?
26:00Become a speaker. So he remarketed himself as a speaker, and he got booked at different speaking engagements.
26:08People would say, how much is your speaking fee? And he would say, my speaking fee is $10,000 or I do it for $2,000 do an 80% discount if I can, at the end of my talk, recommend that people, if they want to implement with me, I can be their So he gets booked at all of these engagements.
26:26He's the big name. He's the speaker, and he's still getting paid to be there.
26:33But now his executive coaching prices go through the roof because there's hundreds of people who are the perfect people, and they're not comparing to anyone else. Yes. Right?
26:41So he's taking his He found the Bols Royce to the boat show. He found the boat show. Yeah.
26:45Oh, I got you, bro. This is that's big time because I think, like,
26:48you know, it's like that whole analogy with the water. You know?
26:52If you a bottle of water costs, you know Yeah. Different amount if it's in the plane or yeah.
26:57Dang. In Vegas hotel, the bottled water costs $8. Yeah.
27:01Yeah. Same same water. Yep.
27:03Different price. So, I just think of reason why we bring this up, guys, is because we're talking about building a premium personal brand, which would escape competition, which would also escape margin compression, which would also escape, you know, all the things that are attacking the industry, honestly Yeah.
27:18From a price perspective. And you just don't wanna be in the compare like, let me look at all the vendors and see which is the cheapest one.
27:24That's not the vibe you want right now. No. One more thing because you're you're talking about price compression.
27:30You have to market beyond your capacity, not to your capacity.
27:36So let's say you could take on a 100 customers. What most people do is they dial back their marketing as they approach a 100 customers. They wanna hit it just the right amount.
27:46Unfortunately, mathematically, if you look at economic theory, that will actually only achieve wages.
27:54The way that a business achieves profit is when demand exceeds supply. So what has to happen is that if you want a 100 customers, you gotta market as though you're gonna take on 200 and then turn some customers away. And it's so counterintuitive that the businesses that are profitable are the ones that turn people away.
28:12So, for example, I know this, uh, I saw on social media. People wanted to be here but couldn't get a ticket. Yes.
28:18Right? There's a a drug dealer out the front selling counterfeit tickets to this event.
28:23Right? That's true. Yeah.
28:24Because we're oversubscribed.
28:25Yeah. You're you're oversubscribed, and that is what makes the business work. I see people do this weird thing.
28:31Have you ever been in a, like, in a ski boat? Yeah. You know when you, like, and then it starts gliding along the water?
28:40And then you turn the engines off and the boat sinks back in the water. So it's like this with marketing. I see so many entrepreneurs or or business owners, they turn the marketing engines on or the social media engines on, and then the customers start coming, and they go, oh, I've got too many customers.
28:54Better switch that off, and they sink back down. And then they go, oh, I've got no customers. Better put the put the jets back on.
29:00Right? And their business becomes lumpy cash flow because it's like, vroom. Right?
29:05Now I've gotta get it going again and switching it off, turning it on. The goal is to turn it on, leave it on, and let people be disappointed that they missed out, and it's really counterintuitive.
29:16But you you know your business works when people are disappointed that they wanted to buy something and they couldn't.
29:22Yes. I love that because people want what they can't have. They do.
29:26And so this is amazing. I love this strategy because it's all the psychological stuff that goes into being premium.
29:32Okay. So now for this room, you know, that's trying to convert more of this audience that we're getting from short form, long form, now we're at lead form.
29:39Yep. For the lead form, okay, you have a unique strategy on this, and you've been telling me about it.
29:45You actually just made a lead form for me, and you showed it to me, and it was really it was really dialed in in terms of the data points that I would collect from the potential consumer. My objection has always been if I ask a lead and this is why I'm always skeptical of some of the longer surveys.
30:02When I get people to opt in to things, I have found any piece of friction reduces the amount of people that sign up for things. So I try and make it, like, frictionless. It's anybody who's done anything online where you have to sign up, you notice that if there's another step, you have a drop off.
30:16So that's okay because you they weren't serious anyway. So it's actually a filter in and of itself by adding one more piece because then you get the serious people. You don't want more leads.
30:24You want better leads. But you're talking now about having more brand awareness, maybe somebody going to a long form piece of content and then coming, which makes them more serious.
30:34And now we're getting to the lead form. So what is the data points that we need to be collecting that would inform us that we can improve our marketing and we can get more conversion?
30:43So let's start at the start. They've seen a short form piece of content 11 times.
30:48They've noticed that you exist. They've gone to a long form piece of content. They're starting to understand your value proposition, and now it says, I really want you to take an online assessment to see whether this suits you.
31:01I want you to take an online assessment to see whether this is a good thing for you, good fit. Or do an online calculator.
31:09Or I want you to request access to join my discussion group for people who are gonna discuss this and fill in an application to join the discussion group. Right?
31:19So they've seen From
31:20a lead magnet perspective, I think the ones that would apply most in this room would be, like, yeah, quizzes Yeah. To determine your assessment,
31:28to determine if you are ready. Yep. Find out your readiness score.
31:32Are you ready for this? Yes. Is this the right choice?
31:35Which one would you which one should you get? Should you get this or this? So any assessment based thing, now they've seen a piece of long form content, they're ready to take an assessment.
31:44The assessment is super powerful because you've got name, you've got email, you've got location, but then they take the assessment. An assessment is typically about 15 questions.
31:53When someone answers 15 questions, that's when you know so much about them and that's where you can do a lot with the data with AI. So the questions I like to ask is the question which best describes your current situation, which best describes your desired situation that you're trying to achieve, which best describes the biggest problem that you've been struggling to solve, are there any solutions you've already explored, Is there anything else you want me to know?
32:23Those are the first five questions. And then what I would call 10 best practice questions. And best practice is have you done this?
32:30Have you tried this? Have you done this? Which of these is accurate?
32:35So, once you get those 10 questions, you now know all sorts of ten, fifteen questions. You know all sorts of things about them, and you can segment.
32:44You can talk directly to their needs. You can have different emails that go to different types of people. You can get rid of some people who are not right to be talking to.
32:52All of that happens once you've got the data. Yeah. I love that.
32:55Okay. So and then the other one you mentioned was calculators.
32:59I found, like I was just talking about earlier, that people love DIY. They wanna calculate their own stuff. Now we as experts wanna be like, well, we'll do that because we are the expert.
33:08We'll talk to you. But I have found that people are selling the thing that the consumer doesn't want at that point, which is a call or a conversation.
33:14They're not ready if they're in the not yet group. So letting them do their own calculation on how much they could afford or how much they could equity they could pull out of their property or how much they would net if they sold their home, and it's actually an accurate thing.
33:28And I found you guys are using Claude, and many people are using this to create these custom calculations.
33:34You can do custom there's different the thing I will say with Claude and vibe coding is that you can now vibe code initial pieces of software.
33:43Keeping those current, fresh and working becomes a full time job. Yeah. So for a serious business, it's worth spending a little bit on a subscription to someone who figures this out and keeps it up and running.
33:55So there are softwares just for assessments, just for calculators.
34:00Right? That's the sort of thing. So you can do a test run with a Claude coded calculator.
34:06But ultimately, yeah, any calculator, any quiz, any assessment, any self customisation, customers love that.
34:15And when you put one of these live, you're going to discover the weirdest things, which is that there's a whole section of customers who do this at 10:00 at night.
34:25Yes. Right? So, you're sitting there going, give me a call, and it's like, for whatever reason, you know, I'm a surgeon.
34:31I'm in surgery throughout the day. I'm I I I go and research this at 10:00 at night.
34:36So if you give people the tools, some of the best customers
34:40are the ones who self assess at 10:00 at night, and then they go, yeah. I'm ready to go. Yeah.
34:44I'll just take my own example, Daniel, just to kind of wrap up this whole conversation of, like, making it easier for people to start, and I call it a second door. You only have one door to work with you, which is through the hours of these hours, and you gotta call me or text me, but you need a second door, which is this.
34:59Doesn't mean that you shut off the first. It just means that you have another option for the people who don't wanna talk or they just wanna start this way. And I remember a guy in our not in our group here, but a guy who I connected with through a networking group in Reno when I was there, and and we needed more life insurance.
35:14Mhmm. My wife and I, we just like, we have some coverage, but I was like, dude, you know what? I think we should bump it up.
35:18So I just said, hey. I was referred to you. Would love to get more life insurance.
35:22He goes, well, um, here's the next step. My assistant will reach out to you. We'd like to schedule a time for you to come by the office, and we'd like to sit down and have a full conversation.
35:31And I was like, no. I just kinda wanted to buy the life insurance.
35:35You know? And, like you know what I mean? Like and so he was making it super complicated.
35:39And but I meant I could have gone to that if he would have started with, like, how about we take this assessment to determine how much insurance you need? Like, take this assessment to determine how much money you need for this. Or, like, whatever those assessments are would be a great first step for a busy person because then I don't have to go anywhere and do anything.
35:57Yeah. You've to give people options.
35:59So there's online, there's offline. So I could say which suits you best? Do you want to come to the office or do you want to talk on Zoom?
36:06Online or offline? There's one to one in group. Do you want to join a group presentation where I'm going to present all the options, or would you like one to one?
36:14Life insurance would be one to one. You could say, hey, look, we do a group presentation for entrepreneurs about all scenario planning.
36:22Do you want to join? If you want, come along. Or do you want the recording?
36:25There's interactive or there's asynchronous.
36:30So, synchronous or asynchronous. So, is it happening live and now we're talking or is it, you know, those sorts of things.
36:39Strangest thing happened for one of my businesses is that we sell something fairly high end. It's in the tens of thousands.
36:46We had an assumption that people could not possibly buy this over a text message sale, and we started questioning that assumption a couple of months ago, and today 16% of our clients are signing up having never spoken to a salesperson.
37:01It's just text. So we call this sell by thumbs, which is a traumatic thing for me at the moment. I'm literally not one of our sell by thumbs experts, but we have our whole sales team, we've retrained them on how to sell by text.
37:17And it turns out some of the best people, they don't want to talk to you, They just want to jump on text messages and they want to fire off their questions and you fire back your answers and fire off the questions. The beauty of this is that pretty soon that is very automatable.
37:32You can have an AI system that helps and supports the salespeople to get that perfectly dialled in every single time. So, you want to question the assumptions that people, you know Google had some research a couple of years ago and it said that the funnel is actually dead, the marketing funnel.
37:52The way you want to replace your thinking about this is stop thinking about marketing funnels where you're forcing people towards a decision. Start thinking about a . And the marketing playground is there's your business and there's different rides that people can go on.
38:07And you want to put lots of rides around the business, and you say, oh, you want to take an assessment? Yeah. Cool.
38:13Take an assessment. You want to watch hours of YouTube videos? Cool.
38:17That's that's over there. Do you want to read my book? Here's my book.
38:21You wanna join a discussion group? You wanna have a live webinar? You want a recording of the webinar?
38:26So you're just creating what I would call the marketing playground, and people can go on as many rides as they want and then buy from the business. Love that, man.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
The cold open is stitched from lines the conversation hasn't gotten to yet — the algorithm, the warm calling, the elite 10% strategy — before cutting to the actual start of the interview. What follows is Daniel Priestley walking Neel Dhingra's mastermind room through why platforms no longer reward the loudest poster, and what to do instead.
How they asked for the click.
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