The Secret to Top Creators' Success
44sReveals a controversial claim that most AI tools are useless, hooking viewers with a promise of a secret system.
▶ Play Clip"Delivers a solid, actionable system with real time-saving techniques, though it's essentially a long ad for Sandcastles."
Callaway, a top creator with over a million followers, reveals his five-step AI-powered content system that helps him generate high-quality videos in a fraction of the time. He emphasizes that the key to success is not just using AI tools, but building a system that combines AI with human oversight to maintain quality and uniqueness. The video covers ideation, research, scripting, recording, and editing, offering practical tips and tools like Sandcastles to streamline the process.
Top creators and brands generate more traction by building winning content systems using a specific combination of AI tools. Most AI tools are too general, but a workflow combining AI and human effort can significantly speed up content creation without producing 'faceless AI slop'.
The universal content creation workflow consists of five steps: idea, research, scripting, recording, and editing. The secret to winning on social media is building a system that allows you to move through these steps quickly while maintaining unique ideas, novel angles, winning hooks, and attention-holding edits.
There are three places to generate content ideas: original ideas from imagination, ideas from other content platforms outside your home base, and ideas from other creators in your niche on your home platform. The third source is the highest signal and the 'cheat code' for ideation.
Instead of 'just-in-time ideation' (scrolling feeds daily), use a systematized approach. Focus on 'outliers'—videos that outperformed everything else from creators in your niche. Study and reverse-engineer these outliers to create your own winning content.
Callaway uses Sandcastles.ai to build a watch list of top creators in his niche. He filters videos by watch list, post date (last 30-60 days), and engagement rate (minimum 0.5%) to surface top-performing organic videos. He sorts by outlier score for smaller channels or views for bigger channels.
For each winning video, extract seven core variables: topic, angle, hook format, story format, visual format, visuals, and audio. Jot down a few words for each to map the components that make the video successful. This builds a 'superset' of options for each variable.
To create your own video, find an existing video that worked, look at the seven variables, and decide which to keep the same and which to change. For example, keep the topic and angle but change the story and visuals, or keep the format but use a new topic.
The goal is to make your ideation process like 'Grey Goose vodka'—four times distilled. Raw social feeds are the least filtered, newsletters add one layer, content creators add a second, Sandcastles watch list adds a third, and filtering by engagement adds a fourth, minimizing noise and maximizing signal.
To find a unique angle, ask three questions: What did I find interesting that the original creator missed? What unanswered questions do I have? What would a beginner want to know? This helps frame the idea differently without deep research.
If you lack knowledge on a topic, use ChatGPT with a specific prompt: 'I want to make a video about X, summarizing what is going on, breaking down the most interesting aspects that will induce max shock, and sharing a super contrarian take on the implication. Assume I know nothing, but I want to know 99% after reading.'
AI-generated scripts are not perfect; they lack consistency and personal voice. Sandcastles' Vault feature saves hooks and styles from outlier videos, allowing you to modularly combine validated components. The AI generates a first draft, but human editing is still needed for the last mile.
With the AI + human combo, scripting takes about 5-10 minutes per script. The first generation is 95% good out of the box, but manual editing ensures quality and personal voice.
Callaway personally records manually, as AI avatars and voice clones sound robotic and lack trust. However, some creators use AI avatars successfully, which allows a content operator to handle recording. For beginners, it's not recommended to start with AI avatars.
With the system, ideation takes 1 hour/week, research 3-10 minutes, scripting 10 minutes, and recording 10 minutes. With a content operator and AI avatar, you can spend zero minutes on these steps.
Editing is the hardest to automate. Options: edit manually (time-consuming) or hire an editor. The reality is you pay for editing with time or money. Hiring an editor is recommended once you have resources, as it's the biggest time sink.
Give editors access to AI tools like Nano Banana, Veo3, Cling 2.1, and Midjourney via a virtual credit card. This turns human editors into '10x machines' without replacing them.
Callaway went from spending 4-6 hours (sometimes 8) per video to only 15-30 minutes. He emphasizes that even without a team, using tools like Sandcastles and ChatGPT saves significant time.
The key takeaway is that a hybrid AI-human workflow can drastically reduce content creation time while maintaining quality. By systematizing ideation, research, and scripting, and delegating editing, creators can scale their output and focus on higher-value activities.
What are the five steps in the content creation workflow?
Idea, research, scripting, recording, and editing.
01:05
What are the three sources for generating content ideas?
Original ideas from imagination, other content platforms, and other creators in your niche on your home platform.
01:44
What is the 'cheat code' for ideation?
Finding outlier videos that outperformed everything else from creators in your niche and reverse-engineering them.
03:48
What are the seven core variables to extract from a winning video?
Topic, angle, hook format, story format, visual format, visuals, and audio.
08:06
What is the 'four-times distilled' ideation process?
Filtering ideas through four layers: raw social feeds, newsletters, content creators, and Sandcastles watch list with engagement filtering.
13:50
What three questions should you ask during research to find a unique angle?
What did I find interesting that the original creator missed? What unanswered questions do I have? What would a beginner want to know?
16:20
What is the recommended ChatGPT prompt for research?
I want to make a video about X, summarizing what is going on, breaking down the most interesting aspects that will induce max shock, and sharing a super contrarian take on the implication. Assume I know nothing, but I want to know 99% after reading.
17:30
What is the Vault in Sandcastles?
A feature that allows you to save hooks and styles from outlier videos as templates for future scripts.
21:50
Why does Callaway prefer manual recording over AI avatars?
AI avatars and voice clones sound robotic and lack the trust and quality that his audience expects.
28:22
What is the recommended approach to editing for time efficiency?
Hire an editor once you have resources, as editing is the biggest time sink; empower editors with AI tools.
31:20
Universal Five-Step Workflow
Establishes a clear framework that applies to all content creation, making the advice actionable.
01:05Outliers as Cheat Code
Identifies a specific, high-leverage strategy for ideation that most creators overlook.
03:48Four-Times Distilled Ideation
Provides a memorable analogy for filtering noise and maximizing signal in idea generation.
13:50Vault for Modular Scripting
Introduces a novel approach to AI scripting by reusing validated components, improving consistency.
21:50Time Reduction from 4-6 Hours to 15-30 Minutes
Quantifies the impact of the system, demonstrating significant efficiency gains.
33:08[00:01] all you need is a better system. And the truth is, this is the secret for how all the top creators and brands are generating so much more traction than everyone else. They've all built winning content systems using a specific
[00:13] combination of AI tools. Now, I'll be honest, most AI tools are absolute usually way too general to actually help you with content unless you really know what you're doing. But here's the good news. I built a workflow that uses AI
[00:27] tools to speed up the content creation process significantly. It's some AI and some human. And this isn't faceless AI slop content. These are the actual videos that I post that get tens of millions of views every single month.
[00:40] down my entire AI content system. This is my five-step workflow that uses AI tools to generate highquality videos way you don't know me, my name is Callaway. I have a million followers. I've done
[00:53] billions of views. and I'm one of the biggest creators in both the AI and content marketing spaces. So, this intersection AI and content is all I do all day long. All right, the first step, we'll call it step zero, is to define
[01:05] the content workflow. And it's really very simple. You've got idea, research, scripting, recording, and editing. This is the same five-step workflow that everybody has to go through to make any piece of video content. Now, the secret
[01:17] for winning on social media is to build a system that lets you get through that possible [music] while still coming up with unique ideas, novel angles, winning hooks, viral scripts, and editing that actually holds
[01:31] attention. You can't just build an AI workflow that pumps out bad AI content, So, you need tools that will speed up the process while also maintaining the And that's the system we're going to break down right now. Okay. Step number
[01:44] one in the workflow is the idea. Most people have absolutely no process for generating and filtering ideas. And this first step really is where the content three places you can look to generate winning content ideas. The first is to
[01:59] imagination. We'll call these originals. The second is to look at other content platforms outside of your home base. So, if you're focused on Instagram, you might look at email newsletters, X, YouTube, podcasts, linear TV, blogs,
[02:14] really anywhere that people are talking about your topic outside of your home finding ideas is to look at other creators in your niche on the home you're primarily focused on Instagram, this would be looking at other creators
[02:27] in your niche specifically that make short form video on Instagram. Now the traditional process for generating ideas, the nonsismatized approach is what I call just in time ideiation. This is what most people do and why creating
[02:40] time you want to make a video, which is usually every day, you sit down and start scrolling the feed to find new video ideas. Now, this process can take 5 minutes or a couple of hours. And people are doing this every single day.
[02:53] time and efficiency. And that's because when you scroll the feed for ideas, you're getting maximum noise and minimum signal. Even though the algorithms are serving you some good videos in your niche, you still have to wade through a
[03:06] bunch of unrelated nonsense. This is all noise. It's a complete distraction from we all know, is that every time you open the feed to scroll for ideas, you end up unproductive or you feel bad about yourself for the progress that other
[03:21] this is what happens because I did the exact same thing for a very long time. It takes forever to make content when you're searching for new ideas every systematized approach for coming up with ideas that will reduce your ideation
[03:35] time down to 1 hour per week. You can spend more time if you want, but you're as fast as possible. All right. First, you have to understand that the highest signal source for ideas is option three that I mentioned before. Option three
[03:48] niche on your home platform. they've made that have outperformed everything else that they've posted. We call these outliers, and this really is the cheat code for ideiation. Your goal
[04:01] is to find the outliers that outperformed everything else and study reverse engineer those pieces, you can easily make your own and you'll grow a lot faster. So, here's what I literally do when it comes to ideation. This is my
[04:14] sandcastle.ai. This was my content super workflow. The first thing I do is make a watch list of all the creators on my home platform in my niche that are crushing with short form content. So for
[04:27] me in this example that I'm showing you, it's on Instagram for tech and AI. this can be other creators, it can be brands, it can be faceless channels. It you need channels that are doing well, high views, and growing fast. Now, to
[04:41] find them and add them to my list on Sand Castles, all I have to do is search their username or their URL in the channels tab in the search bar. When them to my list. It could not be easier. So, I've already done this for Tekken AI
[04:54] content. I've got these 18 to 20 creators. These are all the best in the one by one following the process I just went through. Now, on the channels tab in Sandcastles, you can already see in the upper left there are over 20,000 of
[05:07] the top accounts across Instagram, Tik Tok, and YouTube already loaded into names, click the card, and they're available right now. But Sand Castles is channels because you can literally add anyone else you want just by searching
[05:21] and importing. All you have to do for anyone on Instagram, Tik Tok, or YouTube is just paste in their username or paste in their URL. If they don't come up, click add to channel or that add to channel button on the right side [music]
[05:33] and then import them. Sand castles will automatically index their entire backlog and that person will be included in the network forever moving forward. So seeing this, you have unlimited flexibility to build any list with any
[05:45] Tok, or YouTube, whether they're already on sand castles today or not. And I'm in Sand Castles is the single greatest time-saving content productivity hack show you why it's so helpful when it comes to ideation and the rest of the
[06:00] have that watch list built, and it's really just a onetime effort, I then go to the videos tab in Sandcastles. On the [music] videos tab, I can filter by the watch list I just made. And this shows me all the videos posted by just those
[06:14] what I do after I filter by the watch list is I go to post date and I restrict the posts to the last 30 or 60 days. I also go to engagement rate and I set the minimum to.5%. So I can filter out all the paid brand deals. And what is left
[06:29] are the top performing organic videos from just the accounts in my watch list over the last month or two. This is the cream of the crop for your niche. These are the only videos you need to study if you want to replicate the winners. Now,
[06:42] if you want to surface the top videos from smaller channels in your niche, any that are growing faster, you just want to sort this list by outlier score. That the flip side, if you want to see the best videos at the top from the biggest
[06:56] channels, I call these the proven winners or the thoroughbred horses, you can sort by views instead of outlier score. This tends to favor the bigger you want the most recent post by the last 30 days, you don't really care.
[07:09] just want to see the ones that have posted immediately. Go change the sort to posted date. So, you pretty much have three ways to sort the videos. They're all going to be the same, last 30 or 60 days from your watch list, not including
[07:22] the list to favor small, big, or recent, depending on what you like. Now, all you of winning ideas that have already been validated in your niche is just watch the videos one by one. You could watch 10, 50, 100, however many in a batch
[07:37] that you want to do at one time. Typically, I like to do maybe 25 to 50 what you're looking at is pure signal, no noise for the tech and AI niche that I've curated over the last couple months because every single video you watch
[07:51] niche. You don't have to look at anything unrelated, anything weak or poor performing. It's all right here. Cream of the crop. Now, as I'm watching the individual videos, what I then do is I extract out seven core variables from
[08:06] each video. And I just write a couple words for each of these. The seven core which is just a oneliner describing the video. Angle, which is a short summary framing the meat or facts or takes, really like what makes up the video. So
[08:21] couple sentences describing the thing that was covered in the video. Three is the hook format and that's made up of the spoken hook, what is actually said, as well as any notes on the visual hook that is shown. Four is the story format
[08:34] or style. This is the way the story flows and how it's written. Five is the visual format. So that's the layout of the visuals. Is it green screen, split visuals actually laid out? Six is the visuals themselves. Are there specific
[08:47] Maybe it's a 3D render or some AI generated thing or some AI B-roll where the background is really cool. And then seven is audio, the music, the sound effects, really like the whole audio vibe of the piece. And I'm just jotting
[09:00] down a couple of words here and there. If I have a format that I know the frame I'll just describe it. Now, what this allows me to do is that I can map the components that make up the winning video. Because when you don't know what
[09:13] it's hard to know why you liked it or why it was interesting. If you break it into these seven components, you can start to understand what went into making up the video that was interesting or good. What this does is it starts to
[09:26] build a supererset of options for each variable. So, for example, let's say I watched 25 videos about Tekken AI and these were the best 25 from the last 2 months ranked by views. I went one by one by one. Now, as I zoomed out at my
[09:39] paper and I see the seven variables for each of the 25, [music] I can start to recognize, oh, for visual formats, there are only five different visual formats that show up across the best videos. And those were green screen, [music]
[09:51] faceless, split screen, full screen, a-roll, and yap, for example. There's formats. We'll have a doc on sand castles breaking those down, but let's just say those five were what I saw over and over. This then becomes my possible
[10:06] set of formats that I can choose from when I make my own videos. So, if I'm lost trying to figure out what videos will work in tech, I now see those five should pick one of those to [music] start with on my own version. And this
[10:19] figure out how to make your videos work is to find an existing video that worked. Look at the seven variables and try to figure out which variables to keep the same and which variables [music] to change in your own way. This
[10:32] approach for content and it makes it so much easier for beginners when you I go to make a video, I look at the top of my list and I see this first topic that I've extracted and I say, "Okay, if I'm going to make my version, maybe I
[10:46] keep the topic and the angle and the hook the exact same as the reference, but I completely change the way the story is told, the visual format that I visuals that I'm using. So I keep some the same and I make some different, and
[10:59] now I've got a new version. Or maybe I do the flip. I keep the hook and the story and the visuals and the audio the same, but I pick a new topic with a new angle. And so now I've got their format and execution, but my own topic and
[11:11] angle. See, it's a new combination. This idea phase, this research process is all about figuring out which variables worked in your niche, getting that superset clear, [music] and then knowing which Lego options you have to build
[11:24] your own stack. Now, if you want, I will make another video much slower where I'm literally clicking through sand castles and doing this process idea by idea by idea and walking through how I'm deciding which to remix. I can make that
[11:37] for another video. That'll be a full long tutorial, so I can't include it something like, "Give me the idea sauce chef" with a little chef emoji with the and I'll know exactly what to do. Now, I'm telling you, if you spend just a
[11:51] single hour per week running this validated idea mining exercise that I just walked through, you walk away with dozens of topics, angles, hooks, and formats that are proven to work in your niche. And then you can pick and choose
[12:03] how you stack them up to build your own signature style. So, step one in the the five-step workflow. We're still in ideas. Step one is to just run this to fully systematize this and get yourself completely out of it like I
[12:17] did, you can hire someone to run the process that I just went through. You could send them this video, train them up on it, and then they do the idea Sand Castles is that the person you hire doesn't need access to your Instagram to
[12:30] see your algorithm scrolling history. They can just jump on Sandcastles and build the watch list the exact same way you do. So, it'll either take you 1 hour per week or someone else you hire 1 hour per week. But we've just reduced your
[12:42] ideation time down from 5 to 10 hours of scrolling per week down to one. Now, I for coming up with ideas. One of them was brainstorming originals and the other was looking at other content mediums outside of your home base. For
[12:55] an original idea that you didn't see anywhere else, just jot that down on a Most people are not going to be able to come up with a bunch of original ideas every single day. And so, you don't want to build a system that relies on that
[13:08] raw innovation every single time. When you do come up with an original, what going to have to figure out what all of those seven variables are. When you find an outlier, you can decide to hold some the same [music] and just change a few.
[13:21] But with an original, you got to build the full stack on your own without original ideas are so much harder to make. For the other content platforms to systematize this as well, you could schedule intentional scroll time for 20
[13:35] to 30 minutes per week, or you could use a product like ChatGBT Pulse. I also aggregator of different blogs and newsletters. So, you could structure minimize the amount of time you're scrolling on all of those surfaces. But
[13:50] about ideiation. The goal is to make your ideation process like Grey Goose vodka. You want it to be four times distilled. The raw social feeds like unfiltered. You're getting some algorithmic direction, but you're also
[14:04] that's like the base, least filtered way. Email newsletters give you one writing the newsletters are trying to look at the social feeds and pick out bit. Now content creators in your niche are going to be a second layer of
[14:18] newsletters and other aggregation sources and they're only making videos that's two layers of filtering. Sand castles with your watch list is providing a third layer of filtering because now you're not looking at all
[14:31] content creators that you've hand selected in your watch list. Then when Sandcastles, [music] that's a fourth layer of filtering because now you're creators you've chosen. You're only looking at the best videos from the
[14:45] across an idea in Sandcastles that's at the top of the video's feed in the four times distilled. And that is how you minimize noise and maximize signal right. So at the end of step one, you should have a Google doc that has all of
[15:01] your shortlisted ideas. And for each of those ideas, you've broken down in seven bullets the core seven elements or components that you've extracted. You don't have to go crazy just jotting down a few words or phrases here and there so
[15:13] that you know what the elements were so you can zoom out and see the patterns. next video, you're going to pick the best idea on the top of that list. If can prioritize that. But if you don't, you just pick the one that you're most
[15:25] mentioned, you're not just going to straight copy the topic, the script, the that would be corny and unoriginal. So this is where step two comes in, which research step is to try to find some unique take or interesting angle that
[15:40] can help make your version of the idea a little bit more unique to you. Typically, what makes someone's video original when they're holding the topic constant is by changing the angle, the actual meat or facts or take in the
[15:52] video. Now, the traditional non-sistatized way to approach research minutes deep diving and learning everything you can about the topic so Again, that is a lot of time. Some people are already 2 hours in the
[16:06] even started scripting yet. But here is the systematized based approach that I used for research to get through this piece a lot [music] faster. In step one, writing down those seven pieces, I'm watching the video for 60 seconds one
[16:20] the video, you're trying to extract those original components. [music] But going to go back to that idea and I'm going to ask myself three questions, original creator has missed. The first
[16:34] question is, what did I find interesting about the original video that I wish the question would be, what unanswered questions do I have after watching the ask myself is, what unanswered questions would a beginner have after watching
[16:48] find some additional information, use to frame the idea in a different on a topic you already have a lot of knowledge about, you don't actually need
[17:01] just asking those three questions might pop an insight or a fact, something you becomes your new angle. Boom, research done. But if you don't have experience or original context on the topic, then you're going to have to kick into this
[17:16] perspective. Now, for me, what happens when I'm in this mode? I just don't have the knowledge or perspective on the topic. I'm going to go to Chat GBT andor gap as quickly as possible. First, I start with Chat GBT. And when I get
[17:30] there, I use this prompt every single time. I want to make a video about X summarizing what is going on, breaking down the most interesting aspects that will induce max shock, and sharing a super contrarian take on the
[17:43] implication? Assume I know nothing about the topic, but I want to know 99% after far is this video, and then I'll put the link to the original reference in there. Now, this is really important. The goal here is not to do deep research and
[17:56] spend 20 minutes learning every nook and cranny about this topic. That is procrastination. All you need is a short cliffnotee summary to try to find an creator missed that you can frame your video around. Typically, you can close
[18:09] with ChatGBT. Again, if you want to systematize this even further, you can a template where you paste those and then all you have to do is write in the topic, paste the link, and it will
[18:22] generate the report right away. Now, sometimes if chat GPT isn't enough or it's just like a really complex thing where I need a visual to explain, I will on the research, but I know that if I go
[18:34] optimized. I'm going to end up in a rabbit hole and I'm going to waste a unless I really have to. Now, all you're really looking for at this research stage are one to two non-obvious interesting facts and maybe one
[18:47] didn't have. If you have a unique perspective on what the story means, write it down. If you have a unique take or angle, write that down. Typically, find that you haven't heard before is usually all you need to make the angle
[19:00] compelling. Now, at this point, you should have spent five, maybe 10 sentences written down next to the angle. Right? You've got those seven bullets. Next to angle, you've got three to five sentences featuring a breakdown
[19:12] that you think are most interesting. Now, the AI and the script writing step So, you really don't need to polish it much beyond this. Again, you can go longer on this research step if you want to, but you're not going to have to once
[19:25] you see the rest of the workflow, and it's all about deciding where to spend on my team that does everything we've walked through so far for me. He runs through sand castles a couple times a week. He distills the best ideas. He
[19:38] chatbt and YouTube to close the gap. And then we have a call where he pitches me the ideas one by one and asks me if we should make them or not. This is what So if you've been following along, I've reduced my personal time involvement in
[19:52] research, I don't do them. I have someone else doing that for me following the guy on my team that does this, I call this role a content operator. This ideation, the research, and then ultimately pitch it to you, frame it,
[20:07] ideas to make. Now, if you don't have somebody on your team that can do this, yet, that's totally fine. You don't need to have a content operator. But this is what full systematization would look like. And that's why I broke down this
[20:19] could do it for yourself if you don't have a content operator. So, so far, the per week, and you can do that in a batch. And then the research should take three to five minutes, maybe 10 max per video if you're really dialing it in
[20:32] step three in the workflow. And this is you should have your idea short list. And each idea, you should have those should have the three to five sentences that you wrote down from the research.
[20:46] Specifically, what's most interesting or non-obvious to you about the topic that bullets or sentences. Just write it clearly in a kind of logical way. It Now, here's where I lean on AI a lot for this workflow, but I also have a human
[21:00] review in the loop at the end. I've spent a long time trying to build a script writing flow with AI. If you follow this channel, you know I have writing when it comes to short form and long form content. I'm so deep on this
[21:13] and I've spent so many hours trying to build this fully automated AI workflow. But the truth is what I found is that even the most dialed chatbt or clawed project just doesn't quite get there with respect to the consistency that I
[21:25] want. And if it does nail the flow and the format, it doesn't sound like me. intervention required. But I will say the latest version of scripting we have in Sandcastles is the best AI generated scripting that I've ever seen. It's the
[21:37] best in the world. And the reason Sandcastles works so well, better than built on top of those, is that it doesn't try to oneshot the script. And figured out. There's a feature in Sand Castles called the Vault, which
[21:50] approaches content script writing in a different way than any other platform in the world. We kind of pioneered this. The Vault allows you to save components of outlier videos. Those components that we extracted in step one with the ideas.
[22:03] templates that you can use when you're writing new scripts. [music] As of this can actually save as templates in the vault are hooks and styles. Now, hooks are obviously hooks. is the first few lines spoken in the video. Styles are a
[22:19] the rhythm, the tone, the pacing, the flow, like the way it's written, as well as the storytelling structure, the actual story flow from section 1, 2, 3, combine those two things, the style and flow into one thing called the style.
[22:35] And so, the full workflow for how you do this ideation and use the vault is the videos tab. You start extracting out those seven variables. Again, as a reminder, topic, angle, hook, style, visual format, visuals, and audio. Those
[22:48] those, hook and style, can be saved into Sandcastles automatically. And so, what you do is if you come across a video and you really like the way it's hooked, you get hooked, or you like the flow and structure of the story. All you have to
[23:01] idea detail page, click that button that says save to vault, and then you can save the hook andor style. All you have to do is name it. And for the hook, you transcript that you want to grab as the hook. Now, what happens next is pretty
[23:15] you can see that hook and style that you just saved. Now, the hook, as you can see on the right, shows up at the bottom as the original word for word hook from the transcript, but we've also automatically translated it into a Mad
[23:28] Lib format. That's what you see on the top. We've substituted all of the core words, nouns, emotions, verbs, adjectives into variables that turn this into a template that can be used for other videos. If for whatever reason the
[23:41] translation wasn't perfect, you just hit the pencil icon and you can edit it that you can use over and over. Now, on the style side, we do something similar. It's even easier. We take the entire transcript and we save that as a style,
[23:55] any script. So, it'll make the script sound like the writing style from the reference as well as flow in a story structure in the same [music] way. And in a minute, but I just want to explain how the vault works and why it's so
[24:09] powerful at improving the AI scripting flow. The cool part with the vault is you can also manually add in your own hooks or your own styles. So, if you want to go find a bunch of references in the videos tab, you can just take that
[24:22] database, save it as manual hooks, and then you've got that in the vault. Same transcripts you've already written, save that in, and then that becomes a style where it really comes into play. Let me show you the scripting. When you want to
[24:34] three, you go to the scripts tab, you press new script, and you get kicked course, is to add your prompt. This is where you describe what script you want you to write a novel. All you really need is like three to six sentences. And
[24:47] what I recommend is just pasting in the topic and the angle that you wrote from that on your paper. You don't really even need to format it. just paste that Castle will then generate a full research report based on the prompt you
[25:00] gave it. Now, this report is going to drive the meat of what's in the script, don't have to read it word for word, but you do want to scroll quickly and just including the facts and takes that you wanted to. The sources that are used to
[25:12] drive that script are included in that carousel at the top. But if you want to anything, add anything, you just press the pencil and then you can add that in. press next. And here's where the vault pieces really come in. Step three in the
[25:26] you'll see that all of the hook templates you've saved in the vault, as well as a bunch that we include by default in Sandcastles are there in that carousel. If you click on one, it will generate two new hooks in the exact
[25:38] referring to the new topic that you're talking about for this script. And this is how we keep the exact hook structure consistently over and over, but give you and generate different options. You can
[25:52] to generate new pairs. You can also pick a bunch of different ones and you can basically build a set of 10, 12, 15 hook options in one spot to pick the best one. This is the fastest way to create new hooks that are in consistently
[26:05] write them by hand. Now, once you pick a hook you like, you can move to the next use the styles, but it's even easier because the styles are listed as template cards and you just click one and go. This will apply like a lens or a
[26:18] filter on top of the writing so that the style and flow works to match the style, the script will automatically start writing. It will use the prompt based on the research report. It'll use the hook that you've generated and the
[26:31] style. This is how you modularly use components that were validated to get the script to sound way better on the first rip. What we found is that this flow results in the most dialed first generation short form script in the
[26:44] process does not end here because typically I will spend 5 to 10 [music] goal is to get this process to be automatic and hands-free every single time. And to be honest, in certain niches with certain templates, you can
[26:58] For me, since I'm a perfectionist, I still like coming in and tweaking a for this in Sand Castles, the script editor literally works like a Google it'll save automatically. You could highlight sections and then use the
[27:12] edits to the highlighted piece and leave apply edits to the whole thing, highlight nothing and write those. You hooks. You can swap the facts. You can look and review the previous versions to
[27:26] see the diff mode to see what's changed. We've really built every piece of script writing experience in here. Even though the first generation is good 95% of the way out of the box, this AI plus human combo using the AI and preset
[27:41] template hooks and styles plus my own manual editing to go the last mile is my writing for short form content. scripting takes about 5 to 10 minutes per script. [music] And again, if you
[27:55] of course have your content operator do this as well. All right, step four is actually using any AI tools in my but hopefully you can tell by these
[28:08] in the recording because the costbenefit analysis doesn't really make sense for me. Despite not using a teleprompter and still reading my scripts one line at a short form video only takes me like 10 minutes. But the alternative, using an
[28:22] professional voice clone with 11 Labs, would only save me those 10 minutes. But the cost would be me having a much more robotic monotone delivery in my videos. Now, I know several creators that are fully AI generated when it comes to
[28:35] Instagram. They have an editor somewhere. That editor has access to their AI avatar and literally just prints videos for them saying the script that they type in. Verun Maya, Rowan Chung, Nick Serev, they all do that and
[28:48] in the tech and AI niche. But personally, I haven't been able to get this AI avatar, AI voice workflow working in a way that makes me feel like I'm still delivering at the quality and trust that people have known to expect.
[29:01] I will say a huge pro of figuring out AI automation is that it allows someone like your content operator to actually do the scripting and recording for you I'm kind of a bottleneck in the human process. If I have a horse voice or my
[29:15] and that slows everything down. But with the AI avatar stack, you don't really the exact avatar delivery that you expect. So, for beginners, I don't process to an AI avatar. It's a lot to take on before you have all the rest of
[29:31] better, if you really don't like this recording process and you want to save something you can look to include. All right, step five, the final step in the get into the editing, let's just recap how much time we've saved in the
[29:44] workflow thus far by using [music] this kind of like AI plus human system that fully manual without a content operator, you are currently at 1 hour per week on the ideation, 3 to five, 10 minutes max
[29:56] on the research, 10 minutes max on the script writing, and then 10 minutes on minutes total per rep before the editing, not counting the ideation, which is a lot of hours saved from how you were probably doing it before if you
[30:09] have a content operator and you're still recording manually, then the only time 10 minutes on the recording. If you have a content operator and you're using the AI avatar, so far you've spent zero minutes in this process at all. And this
[30:22] looks like. Now, when it comes to editing, this is the final frontier. I workflow up to the [music] editing, but the loop to do that last piece because there is not a great AI tool stack or
[30:37] the same way as the other things I've talked about. Now, there's a lot of there's a lot of pretty average automated editing tools, but none of it know you think you need. So, if you're trying to go full workflow optimization,
[30:51] you've really got two paths on the editing. Path one is to edit it manually yourself if you have no resources, but just time, but go with something lower, green screen, yap, fewer cuts, more value, more kind of like longer delivery
[31:05] edits tend to work better on Tik Tok over Instagram, especially if you're in this, each edit will probably take you scale that time up with more quality if you want all the whisbangs and flashes.
[31:20] the loop to do the editing for you. The harsh truth and reality is this. No content system is designed so that the creator is editing manually themselves. That's just not how you save the most time. And I totally empathize that
[31:33] different stage. You may not have the resources to have an editor. You may The reality is you're going to pay for the editing one way or the other. You're going to pay with money to buy back your time. So once you have the resources to
[31:46] buy back your time, you should do it because editing is the thing that you the quickest. Now, if you want to hire my editing team that does these YouTube shorts, responsible for like billions of views on Short Form, I've got a link
[32:00] connect you with that exact team. But even if you don't, the last mile of your yourself out is going to be figuring out how to delegate away the editing from workflow that's feasible with AI, I will be the first one on this channel to tell
[32:16] you what it is, to show you, etc., but I don't expect that to come for a while. Now, one small tip I will say in terms of working with an editor to help empower them with AI. There are, of course, tons of AI image and video tools
[32:28] generating visuals used in your edits much faster. things like Nano Banana, Veo3, Cling 2.1, Midjourney, like these are all the staple tools for AI image we do on our team is have a virtual credit card that you give to each editor
[32:43] that allows them to go freely use and try any of the AI tool subscriptions that they want. This gives them the freedom to experiment and also builds into the workflow Veo3, Midjourney, Clling, all these tools that improve the
[32:55] they can do it. So, it's not an automation workflow with respect to AI replacing them, but it is turning your human editors into 10x machines. So, there you have it. This is the latest and greatest as of today, my best
[33:08] five-step workflow for systematizing content with AI tools and different human processes to speed it up. I went from spending 4 to 6 hours, sometimes 8 hours per rep to spending only 15, 20, maybe 30 minutes max each rep myself.
[33:23] fill [music] the rest of the gaps. Again, everybody watching this is going a different place in the journey. You may not have room for the editor. You may not have room for the content operator. Just know this. I personally
[33:35] spent the first 18 months, the first 300 reps editing myself. I did all of this myself manually and then I edited 6 to 8 hours. I couldn't free myself up to really fulfill my potential until I was able to hire myself out of the editing
[33:49] and move forward from there. So, as soon as you have the funds to be able to hire operator, I would do it. But even in the meantime, using tools like sand castles and chatbt will save you significant time, even if you're doing the manual
[34:02] editing yourself. As always, guys, I'm trying to bring the absolute best, the I'm trying to be the guy for short form video and long form video that you look to that just gives so much value, you can't ignore the video. If that's you,
[34:15] trying to use content to grow, you know what to do. Make sure to subscribe to what you want to see next. And of course, I mention this in every video. entrepreneurs and business owners. It's called Wavy World. I've got 65 free
[34:29] organized for you. Everything from YouTube, short form, ideas, algorithms, editing, all types of tutorials is in there. And we have over 37,000 together to improve their own content. So, if you want a peer group, if you
[34:42] more free access, definitely make sure to join. and it's called Wavy World. And the description. All right, we will see the description. All right, we will see you guys on the next one.
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