---
title: "The content system: funnel, process and Truth vault"
description: "The content system has three parts, the Know - Trust - Love funnel that picks posts, Idea - Write - Edit to publish, the Truth vault for facts."
---

> Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://cuongthach.com/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# The content system: funnel, process and Truth vault

The content system is how a brand makes content to sell a product. It has three parts:

- **The Know - Trust - Love content funnel** tells you which posts to write and in what order.
- **The Idea - Write - Edit process** tells you how one post gets published.
- **The Truth vault** holds the facts every post stands on.

The goal of the whole system fits in the funnel line: **write less, sell more**.

This page is for anyone who has a product and wants content that leads readers to it, even if you work alone.

It covers only the part that every brand shares. The data that belongs to your brand lives in your [brand profile](/docs/content-system/conditions/brand-profile). If you only need to post enough times each week, this system is not built for that.

## What are the parts of the content system?

![What are the parts of the content system?](/docs/_astro/illus-docs-venn-he-thong.en.BDWPN5T7_ZTKTiY.svg "Three parts meet in the post on the website")

The content system has three parts. Each part answers one question and puts one thing in your hands.

| Part | Question | What you hold |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Know - Trust - Love content funnel | Which posts, in what order, on what plan? | A list of posts that lead to the product |
| Idea - Write - Edit process | How does one post get published? | One post live on the website |
| Truth vault | What facts does every post stand on? | The brand's docs |

### The Know - Trust - Love content funnel picks the posts

The funnel puts every post on one straight line. A Know post leads to a Trust post. A Trust post leads to a Love post. A Love post leads to the product. **The funnel is the strategy**: it decides which posts you need before you write a single word, and your posting plan is measured by the funnel.

The number of posts each month follows that plan. It is not a number set on its own. How the funnel picks and orders posts is in the [funnel overview](/docs/content-system/know-trust-love/introduction).

### The Idea - Write - Edit process publishes each post

Idea - Write - Edit is **the doing part**. It takes each post in the funnel out into the world in three steps: lock the outline, write in one go, then only cut. One shared process publishes all three types: Know, Trust and Love posts. Only the shape of the outline changes from type to type.

The process gets the post published. Whether the post leads to orders is the funnel's job. The three steps and how to do each one are in the [process overview](/docs/content-system/idea-write-edit/introduction).

### The Truth vault keeps what has been checked

The Truth vault is **the brand's docs**: what the brand has really done and checked, written down. Every post, every page and every AI answer about the brand is made from it.

The docs have two sections: the brand's own method and common questions. What the vault holds and how facts go in and out is in the [Truth vault overview](/docs/content-system/truth-vault/introduction).

## How do the three parts connect?

The three parts connect in a loop, and a published post gives something back to the first two. What one part makes is what another part uses.

The funnel hands out a list of posts. The process takes each post and pulls facts from the Truth vault. A published post sends two things back: sales numbers go back to the funnel, and newly checked facts go back to the Truth vault.

```mermaid
flowchart LR
  accTitle: The three parts of the content system connect in a loop
  A[Funnel] -->|list of posts| B[Process]
  C[Truth vault] -->|facts| B
  B --> D[Post on the website]:::focus
  D -->|waitlist, orders| A
  D -->|checked facts| C
```

The process sits in the middle because it is the only part that makes posts. It needs to know which post to write, and the funnel tells it. It needs to know which facts to rely on, and the Truth vault tells it.

The sales numbers, meaning waitlist sign-ups and orders, tell the funnel whether the list of posts leads to the product. Newly checked facts are what the brand really did through that post, written down in the Truth vault. Neither goes back to the process, because the process only answers how a post gets made.

Without the loop back, the three parts are just three tools used on their own. With the loop, **each post makes the funnel clearer** and the Truth vault fuller for the next post.

- **With no funnel**, you have a process that posts steadily and brings no orders.
- **With no process**, the funnel's list of posts stays in the plan forever.
- **With no Truth vault**, every post starts from memory again.

## How is the content system measured and fixed?

![How is the content system measured and fixed?](/docs/_astro/illus-docs-nga-ba-sua.en.C5uhcYYQ_ZTKTiY.svg "No orders, fix the funnel")

The system is measured by two numbers and fixed in the part the signs point to.

### Two numbers measure the system

The system is measured by two numbers: **how many people join the waitlist and how many orders come in**. A post that many people read but nobody follows to the product has not done its job yet.

These two numbers go back to the funnel, not to the process. When they are low, look again at the funnel's plan, the Love post and the links between posts, not at how many posts you have written.

:::caution[Views are not the measure]
The goal of the system is to sell, so views and the number of posts published do not tell you if the system works. Only the waitlist and orders tell you that.
:::

Views count readers. They do not count whether readers go on to the product. The example in the next section is a website with readers and no buyers: readers took the how-to and left, and never understood what the brand sells.

### Is it broken in the funnel or in the process?

The funnel and the process break in different ways, so the signs tell you which part to fix.

| Sign | Part to look at again | Why |
| --- | --- | --- |
| You post steadily, but nobody joins the waitlist and no orders come in | Funnel | A wrong strategy and plan bring few sales |
| You publish only one post a week and do not know where it slows down | Process | The post is not split into three steps, so you cannot see which step is slow |
| The outline takes four or five days, while writing and editing go fast | The Idea step of the process | Time piling up in one step shows you get stuck there |

- **Look at the funnel when** — Waitlist and order numbers are low. The funnel is the strategy: it decides which posts lead to the product.
- **Look at the process when** — Posts come out slowly or get stuck halfway. Note how long each step takes, Idea, Write and Edit, to see which one to fix.

**In short:** no orders, fix the funnel. No posts, fix the process.

## An example of a website that wrote a lot without a funnel

The website cuongthach.com had about 300 blog posts written since 2017. Every post was written for a keyword, for what people were searching, and **none of them sat in a funnel** that led to a product.

| Fact | Number |
| --- | --- |
| Posts written for keywords, with no funnel, since 2017 | About 300 posts |
| Posts that people still searched for when the website was rebuilt | 11 posts |
| Posts that had to be deleted | Over 96% |

The Know - Trust - Love funnel came out of that result. With a funnel, each post has its place and leads to the product, so you need to write fewer posts.

## When can the content system run?

The system runs when three conditions are met:

- A clear product.
- The website as home.
- A brand profile.

If you cannot picture the product yet, do not run the system, because the funnel has no end point. **One person can run the whole system**: once you know the process, you do not need to hire a writer.

Each condition is one step to prepare, starting with [step 1, a clear product](/docs/content-system/conditions/product), and step 4 is the four rules every brand keeps in every post.

## Which part is the same for every brand?

The method is the shared part. The system has three layers, so a person or an AI agent can read the method once and use it for another brand just by swapping the profile.

![Which part is the same for every brand?](/docs/_astro/illus-docs-ba-lop-he-thong.en.B3BBnqMZ_ZTKTiY.svg "Shared method, own profile")

- **The method** is the same for every brand: the three parts, how they connect, the conditions and the [four rules](/docs/content-system/conditions/rules) of the system. The rules are not tied to any person's name or product name.
- **The brand profile** belongs to one brand: the data the method needs to run.
- **Tools** are what each brand uses to get the work done: a recording app, AI, an editor. Someone else can always buy better tools and more of them than you, so your edge is you and the process you have practiced. Changing tools does not change the system.

The four rules of the method are: each post is exactly one type, make nothing up, the brand's own names stay as they are, and each post follows the Idea - Write - Edit order.

## What the content system does not do

- **It does not write posts for you.** AI helps pull out ideas and trim the words, but the ideas, stories and experience are yours. Readers notice the marks of AI content and judge the whole brand by it. What AI does in each step is in the [Idea - Write - Edit process](/docs/content-system/idea-write-edit/introduction).
- **It does not set a quota of posts.** The number of posts follows the funnel's plan.
- **It does not make every brand sound the same.** Voice, own names and stories live in each brand's profile.

## Read next

- [A clear product](/docs/content-system/conditions/product) — The first condition before you run the content system is to call your product by its right name and write what buyers get and its status.
- [Your website as home](/docs/content-system/conditions/website) — Every post of the content system goes on your website first, so write down your sales page, your waitlist page and where you count the two.
- [Brand profile](/docs/content-system/conditions/brand-profile) — The brand profile is one file of data about one brand, with ten entries and two of them required, so the content system can run for you.

Source: https://cuongthach.com/docs/content-system/introduction/index.mdx