Be the Pork Chop

The great philosopher and thought leader Rodney Dangerfield once said, “I was so ugly as a kid that my parents used to put a pork chop around my neck so the dog would play with me.“ Now that is fantastic advice all thought leaders, speakers, and authors should follow.

Learn to be the pork chop.

That isn’t some new age Zen-infused mantra—it’s a solid strategy that will help you better leverage and monetize your content.

I’m not saying that any of you are ugly; if we used Rodney as the baseline we are all feeling pretty suave and debonair right about now, but you and your content can be used to attract the “dogs” for your current and prospective clients. In the world of business to business, and to an extent business to consumer marketing, there is a lot of noise in the market place. Buyers are more informed today and do not fall as easily for the classic Mad Men tactics of traditional advertising. We all know that if we are invited to a breakfast seminar by a financial services firm or insurance firm it’s a lame excuse for them to pitch product at us. We know that many conferences and user group style events do the same. None of us want to be pitched and we do not want to waste our valuable time held captive to a lame sales pitch weakly disguised as “content.”

However, we are all curious. We all have a desire to continually learn and be exposed to thoughts and ideas from thought leaders that can help us as individuals, as leaders, as managers, etc. So here’s where the pork chop comes in—many large and midsized companies have a substantial marketing budget. Figure out who would find your content valuable as a marketing vehicle or to give away to their clients and prospects to deepen their relationships. Never “pitch” a specific product or solution but speak about trends or patterns.

For example, if you are a futurist you can speak about the “Internet of things” on behalf of a Cisco or a Verizon. If you’ve got great parenting content Target or Honda would benefit from using your work as a way to connect with their customers. Separate the two things in your mind that thought leaders usually blend together: who benefits from my work and who will pay for it? When you can separate those two concepts it will open up a much wider universe of potential buyers (think large companies with healthy marketing budgets) and enable you to get your work out to a broader base. Being the pork chop can be incredibly profitable and a viable strategy that will help you leverage your content in innovative ways.