Why Most Business Owners Waste Their Best Ideas
I was sitting down with a client of ours last month—a specialist electrician based out in Geebung. He’d just finished running a 45-minute online presentation for property managers about new smoke alarm legislations in Queensland. He was exhausted. He’d spent hours preparing the slides, practicing his delivery, and worrying if anyone would show up.
About thirty people tuned in. He got two decent enquiries that afternoon. I asked him, "What are you doing with the recording?"
He looked at me like I’d asked him to fly a plane. "Nothing," he said. "It’s done. I’ll probably put it in a folder on my desktop and forget about it."
That is exactly where most small business owners lose money.
You spend hours of your life creating a presentation or a video that proves you know your stuff. You share your expertise, you answer tough questions, and you show people why they should trust you. Then, you let that valuable asset sit on a hard drive gathering digital dust.
In the marketing world, people call this "content repurposing." I call it getting your money’s worth.
If you’ve gone to the effort of talking for 30 or 60 minutes about your industry, you haven't just made a video. You’ve created a goldmine. You’ve created enough material to fuel your entire marketing for the next three months without having to come up with a single new idea.
In this guide, I’m going to show you how to take a single online talk (a webinar) and break it down into smaller pieces that bring in phone calls, emails, and bookings while you’re busy running your actual business. No fluff, no technical jargon—just a step-by-step plan to make one hour of work pay you back ten times over.
The Problem: The "One and Done" Trap
Most Brisbane business owners I know are flat out. Whether you’re running a law firm in the CBD or a landscaping crew in Ipswich, you don't have time to be a full-time content creator.
You know you need to be active online because that’s where your customers are. But the thought of writing a fresh blog post every week or filming a daily video for Facebook is enough to make you want to throw your phone in the Brisbane River.
When you fall into the "one and done" trap, you’re constantly starting from zero. You write one post, it gets a few likes, and then it disappears. You run one webinar, a few people watch, and then it’s gone.
This is why so many people think marketing doesn't work. They’re working too hard for too little return. By taking that one big piece of work and breaking it into twenty smaller pieces, you stop the constant cycle of "what do I post today?" and start winning more jobs by staying in front of your customers consistently.
Step 1: Get the Transcript (The Easy Way)
Before you do anything else, you need to turn your spoken words into written text. Do not sit there and type it out yourself. Your time is worth $100, $200, or $500 an hour—don't spend it doing data entry.
Use a service like Otter.ai or Rev.com. You upload your video, pay a few dollars, and it spits out a written document of everything you said.
Why does this matter? Because search engines like Google can't "watch" your video to see how smart you are, but they can read text. Having a written version of your talk is the first step to making sure people find you when they’re searching for help online.
Step 2: Slice It Into "Quick Tip" Videos
Nobody watches a 60-minute video on Facebook. They just don't. They’re scrolling while waiting for a coffee or sitting on the bus.
Go through your transcript and look for the moments where you answered a specific question or explained a single concept.
For example, if you’re a mortgage broker and you did a talk on "How to Buy Your First Home in Brisbane," you probably covered: 1. How much deposit you need. 2. How the First Home Owners Grant works in QLD. 3. What a building and pest inspection actually covers. 4. How to get pre-approval.
Each of those is a 2-minute video. You don't need fancy editing software. You can use a simple tool to snip those sections out. Now, instead of one long video that no one watches, you have four short videos that are perfect for social media.
When people see these short, helpful clips, they start to see you as the local expert. This is how you stop posting on Facebook just for the sake of it and start actually attracting people who want to buy what you’re selling.
Step 3: Turn Your Talk into a Helpful Guide
Your transcript will be messy. We all say "um" and "ah" and go off on tangents when we talk. But the core information is there.
Take the main points of your talk and turn them into a written article for your website. Don't worry about making it sound like a university essay. Write it exactly how you’d say it to a mate at the pub.
If you answered common questions during your webinar, those are pure gold. People are typing those exact questions into Google every day. If your website provides the answer, you’re the one who gets the phone call.
I’ve seen this work wonders for a plumbing business in Morningside. They did a short video on why hot water systems fail in winter. We turned that into a simple written guide on their site. Now, every June and July, their phone rings off the hook because they’re the first result when locals search for "hot water repair Brisbane."
This is the secret to answering customer questions to win more work. You’ve already done the hard part by talking about it; now you just need to put it in writing so Google can see it.
Step 4: The "Quote" Strategy for Social Media
Look through your transcript for "punchy" lines. These are the sentences where you made a strong point or gave a piece of direct advice.
"If your switchboard looks like it’s from the 1970s, it’s not a matter of if it will fail, but when." "Most people lose $20,000 on their house sale because they didn't spend $500 on basic garden maintenance." "The biggest mistake small business owners make with their taxes is..."
Take these quotes and put them on a simple background using a tool like Canva. These are your social media posts for the next month. They take five minutes to make, they look professional, and they position you as an authority in your field.
Step 5: Email Your List (The Money-Maker)
If you have a list of past customers or people who have enquired before, you should be emailing them. But most people don't because they don't know what to say.
Now you do.
You send an email that says: "I recently did a talk on [Topic], and one of the most common questions I got was [Question]. Here is the short answer..."
Then, you provide a link to the video or the article on your website. This keeps you top-of-mind. When that customer finally decides they need your service, they won't go to Google—they’ll just hit 'reply' to your email.
How Much Does This Cost?
If you do it yourself, it costs you almost nothing but time. Transcription: $10 - $30 per hour of video. Video Snipping: Free tools are available, or use something like Descript for about $20/month. Social Media Graphics: Canva has a free version that is more than enough.
The real "cost" is your time. It will likely take you 3-4 hours to fully break down a one-hour webinar the first time you do it. Once you get a system down, you can do it in two.
Compare that to the cost of hiring a writer to create ten different articles or a social media manager to come up with ideas from scratch. You’re saving thousands of dollars by using what you’ve already created.
How Long Until You See Results?
Marketing isn't a light switch; it’s a fire. You have to build it and keep it fed.
Social Media: You’ll see engagement (likes, comments) within days. Enquiries: Usually, you’ll see a bump in phone calls or emails within the first 2-4 weeks of sharing these clips and articles.
- Google Search: This is the long game. It can take 3-6 months for Google to start showing your new articles to people searching for help. But once it starts, it doesn't stop. It’s like an employee who works 24/7 for free.
What’s a Waste of Money?
Don't go out and hire a high-end video production crew to "re-edit" your webinar. It’s a waste of cash for a small business. People today prefer "real" and "authentic" over "polished and fake." A slightly grainy Zoom recording where you’re giving brilliant advice is ten times more effective than a high-definition video of you saying nothing useful.
Also, don't spend money on "boosting" posts that don't have a clear call to action. If you’re sharing a tip, make sure you tell people what to do next: "Need help with this? Call us on [Number]" or "Book a quote here."
What Should You Do First?
If you’ve got a recording of a talk, a presentation, or even a long-form video of you explaining something to a client, here is your checklist for Monday morning:
1. Upload the video to a transcription service. Get those words on paper. 2. Pick the 3 best questions you answered. Write those down as separate titles. 3. Find one 60-second clip. Just one. Post it to your business page with a caption that explains why it matters to your customers. 4. Put the full recording on your website. Even if it’s just the video and the raw transcript, it’s better than nothing.
The Brisbane Reality
We see it all the time with businesses across South East Queensland. The ones who win aren't necessarily the ones who are the "best" at marketing. They’re the ones who are the most helpful.
In a city like Brisbane, reputation is everything. Word of mouth is powerful, but digital word of mouth is even bigger. When you show up consistently in people's feeds with helpful advice, you’re building that reputation at scale.
You don't need a massive marketing department. You just need to stop throwing away your best ideas. Take that one talk, break it into pieces, and let it work for you while you’re out on the tools or in the office.
If you want to grow your business without spending forty hours a week on your laptop, this is the smartest move you can make.
Ready to get more customers without the headache?
At Local Marketing Group, we help Brisbane business owners turn their expertise into more phone calls and bookings. We don't do fluff, and we don't do jargon. We just do what works.
If you’re too busy running your business to worry about video editing and blog writing, let’s have a chat. We can take your ideas and turn them into a system that brings in customers on autopilot.
Contact Local Marketing Group today and let’s get your phone ringing.