Tim Sprinkle of Layup Content

Share:

Listens: 0

Talk With The Top: Colorado

Business


Tim Sprinkle Tim Sprinkle founded Layup Content in 2014 after nearly 20 years in journalism, writing and editing for a long list of national publications including Wired, Outside, Entrepreneur and many more. He made the transition to digital content early on, with editorial stints with sites including Seeking Alpha, a content community for financial services professionals; Yahoo Finance, the #1 business and finance site on the web; and more. He is also the author of a few books, including “Screw the Valley: A Coast-to-Coast Tour of America’s New Tech Startup Culture: New York, Boulder, Austin, Raleigh, Detroit, Las Vegas, Kansas City.” Today he’s taken this experience and, along with a talented team of like-minded writers and editors, turned his attention to corporate communications, helping startups and established businesses craft content programs that make sense for their markets and drive real results. This includes everything from email campaigns, to blog posts, to thought leadership, to content strategy and much more. What made Tim go off on his own? (0:49) Tim says that he is not sure if he actually made the transition, or if the transition was made for him. He has been a journalist for a long time and being laid off, and the risk of being laid off, as well as the immense amount of upheaval in the industry all played a role in him moving on. Tim explains that he also experienced personal changes, such as moving to Colorado, and not wanting to leave. He mentions that there are not many opportunities for traditional magazine journalists in Colorado. In order for Tim to keep doing what he loves, he needed to find a way to do it without working for a large media corporation. What does Layup Content do? (1:46) Tim explains that what they do varies from day to day, they help clients get their message out using various platforms and mediums, depending on what the client is most comfortable with. Tim tells us about how he fell backward into finance and his experiences that brought him to what he does today. He mentions how he had the opportunity to actually see “content” become what it is today. What does Tim see happening in content (8:36) Tim says that the main thing that he has noticed about content is that more people seem to be getting into creating and understanding the need for content He explains that even smaller business understand the need, and are putting content out. Tim explains that when he decided to go into content writing, he did not expect it to be the next big thing, and that is exactly what it was. He says that there are a lot of great platforms to get yourself out there, but if you poorly, everybody sees that and it’s hard to come back from that. How does Tim deal with working in an industry such as finance that is tightly regulated? (14:05) Tim explains that he appreciates the fact that the industry is so well regulated. He does not think that anyone would want to live in a world where “boiler rooms are advertised on google” Tim indicates that being tightly regulated opens doors for alternative marketing solutions such as content. He uses crypto backed ETF’s as an example of how getting information from experts and creating content can bring people together who have similar interests, but would otherwise never find each other. Tim’s tips for someone who wants to get into content (17:23) Tim explains that the first thing you should know is that it is not easy-flow work, and often it is not a lot of fun He highlights that with the endless amounts of content farms out there, you have an equally endless amount of bad writers. He says that if you decide to scale, you will have to bring some help on, and finding good people takes time and tends to be difficult Tim says that you need to create a benchmark of sorts, that proves to yourself that you can write, and create.