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Research

Is your content all steak or all sizzle? What’s the right mix of boring to B.S.?

by peterwinick

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Here’s something that I don’t think  folks think about enough when figuring out how best to position their content.  What is the right mix of steak to sizzle or to be blunt how do you balance the “boring” with the “bullshit”?  A common complaint that I often hear about someone that is successfully commercializing their work is that it’s all sizzle, there isn’t any research to justify their work or that they make outlandish claims relative to the outcomes one might expect from their offerings.  And my answer is that’s correct BUT you don’t have to lower your standards and market your content in a way that is inauthentic yet you do need to have some sizzle.

Ultimately all personal or professional development requires hard work, personal responsibility and a commitment from the end user in order for it to yield results that are measurable and impactful.  Have you ever noticed that most really fat people have a library of diet books that promise that they can eat cookies or drink seaweed juice or Acai berries once a day  and the weight will magically disappear? Ever ask someone that’s actually lost a significant amount of weight what it took?  It’s usually hard work and exercise over an extended period of time.  Not quite as much sizzle as the cookie diet but the results are tangible.

There’s a ton of content out there that is all sizzle or total b.s. and it sells quite well.  It runs the gamut from getting rich in real estate to MLM schemes to selling models, negotiation, persuasion, overcoming obstacles and on and on.  So what about the content that actually works?  That can help someone master a skill, eliminate an unhealthy behavior or embrace a new mindset.  What I see in my work is that the folks that have created amazing content tend to be heavy on the steak and light on the sizzle.  It could be because their work is grounded in academic research or years of trial and error or that they just are not great marketers.

What I believe is that if your work is all  sizzle and no steak the market is smart and you won’t have long term, sustainable success (plus you might not sleep that well at night).   You can and will fool some of the people some of the time.  That being said if you are all steak and you don’t have any sizzle than you are doing yourself and your work a disservice.  When I talk to thought leaders I can tell within five minutes how truly passionate they are about the work they have created, how they have seen results that are remarkable and know that they are changing the world (in a variety of ways both large and small) by getting their content into the hands of the right audience.   Than I review their marketing material, websites, blogs, articles, books and the like and it often feels like I just drank four doses of Nyquil.  If your positioning doesn’t convey your passion you’re toast.  If your marketing collateral doesn’t speak to the tangible results that your clients have gained from your work you do not have a shot at winning in today’s hyper-competitive marketplace.

There is no secret formula to get the right balance of boring to B.S.  The mix needs to be authentic and engaging, powerful and credible.  Ultimately what I’ve seen is a polarized way of thinking.  We’ve got more than enough charlatans in the market peddling get rick quick schemes but the reason there isn’t enough credible, solid and viable content.More often than not the folks that have great content are so fearful of being perceived as quacks that they understate the power of their own work. They believe the raw data will do the hard work of telling the story of what their content actually is capable of doing.   Learn from the charlatans, you can make a difference and make money and do it in a way that is aligned with the integrity of your work.  Don’t  be humble when talking about how it has been a key factor in achieving a measurable result. Every dollar spent on nonsense is a dollar that wasn’t spent on content that has the ability to make an individual or an organizations life a better one.  If you combine the power of your passion with the respect your clients have for your work and do it with integrity you will have a far better chance of seeing your work reach and touch the people you created it for.

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Money, Ego and Evangelism- An Important Ratio For Every Author and Thought Leader

by peterwinick

So you’ve got a solid idea, concept, methodology or suite of tools.  You’ve been   refining and practicing it for months, years or decades. You’ve written about it and have clients that embrace it.  Maybe you’ve built a business or a series of   businesses around your work or are considering doing so.  Here’s a simple  exercise that will help you gain additional clarity and better prioritize where you focus your time, energy and resources.

Money?  Ego?  Evangelism? Why are you doing what you are doing?  In my   experience every author and thought leader has three primary drivers that  ultimately have a very strong influence on how they do what they do and why       they do what they do.  Most haven’t taken the time to think about how these  variables impact the decisions they make or should impact the decisions they  make.  There is no “right” way to define how important these factors are to you. It   is however, critically important that you be honest with yourself when thinking    about the role they do play and should play in your work.   At various stages of  our lives and careers different things motivate us in different ways. In fact you   should reevaluate these factors at least twice a year and adjust your strategy and  tactics accordingly. The question is simple, what percentage do money, ego  and evangelism play?  Take a look at the pie chart and create one for yourself.

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Money is how important it is to you that you be able to effectively monetize your content.  This could mean launching new ventures or converting your content into new mediums, or taking the leap into wanting to make a living from your content. We all obviously need a certain amount of money to live and fulfill our needs. Often time our work and content requires us to generate more revenue so that we can make additional investments into refining the content, conducting research, converting it into different modalities and developing our brands and expanding our reach.

Ego is pretty self explanatory; however we tend to be poor judges of how important our ego is relative to why we do what we do.  I tend to double the ego number my clients tell me and it’s usually any accurate metric.  In the context of being an author or a thought leader ego is important, in fact it’s one area that being somewhat narcissistic can often be helpful.  Do you enjoy speaking to large audiences, being acknowledged as an expert in your field? Being recognized for your ideas and thoughts?  That’s ego.

Evangelism can be a scary word, and I’m not suggesting you reach for the mascara and become the next Tami Faye Baker (unless it’s somehow tied to your work).  What I mean by evangelism is how important is it that you get the message out?  That you create a movement?  That you feel deep down in your gut that you were put on this earth to spread the content that you’ve toiled over?  I’ve seen first hand that some of the most successful thought leaders in the business space actually score higher in the evangelical category than any other; they also tend to be extremely successful financially. They are driven by a desire to get their content out so that it can change lives and business behaviors and practices and make a real difference.

Now That I Know How Important These Factors Are What Do I Do Differently?

What you need to do now is take a look at how you’ve been spending your time, energy, money and resources over the last several months across these dimensions and see if there is alignment or if there is a disconnect.  For example if your ego number is 15% and you’re spending 30% of your time on activities that are primarily feeding your ego than something is out of whack.  While many activities can certainly fall into all of the categories the objective is to identify patterns and adjust how you spend your time accordingly.  If you spend a lot of your time on the keynote circuit than being paid to speak would certainly have an impact on money and ego but if your evangelical score is high than you need to make sure that you are speaking to the right audiences and be willing to make some changes and sacrifices.

Identify the area that is most out of line and develop a plan that will bring that number up or down accordingly over the next 90 days.  What this will do is force you to make conscious decisions that are more aligned to your strategic objectives. When developing tactics make sure to ask what component of your strategy they are supporting and if they don’t clearly support them eliminate them or adjust them so that they do.  You’ll ultimately need to make trade-offs and become comfortable not continuing to do certain activities that may have served you well in the past but no longer do.  Is the column that you write for the Left Handed Plumbers Association a wise place to spend your time?  Would it be better to spend the same amount of energy and find a better venue?  Better yet to discontinue doing it and use that bandwidth to focus on what you need to focus on?

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