40 Day Content Challenge

I produce my fair share of content. There is my podcast, Leading Matters, my YouTube show Cap’s Car Cast, my blog, and all of my social feeds. I believe in content, and I believe that telling the dramatic story of what we do and the impact that it has on the lives of our customers. It is a transformative process.

The approach transforms our relationship with our market, our prospects, and our customers. It touches our entire workforce at multiple levels and typically drives a higher level of employee satisfaction and engagement. But it also takes a good deal of time and effort. And while I do generate plenty of content I probably don’t do enough.

So I’m giving myself a 40-day content challenge to deliver more.

The idea is to produce at the same level of quality that I demand of myself, to maintain consistency with the objectives that I have for my varying types of content, and to keep what I develop aligned with my story foundation. I am hoping that not only will new habits be formed, but I will gain a better appreciation for how my narrative plays. I also believe that the 40 day content challenge is going to shed light on the media platforms that I’m using. It could also help me expand my networks, and build new relationships.

This is a challenge because it is challenging. There are times when I simply do not feel like writing, putting my face and voice on another piece of video, or creating a new slide for an upcoming presentation. But if I am going to be serious about this exercise the first think I know that I need to do is plow through those spells of mood inspired avoidance.

My goal is to be as transparent as possible so that anyone who chooses to follow along can gain insight into not just the results but what is going on as I am producing. So with that in mind, I’m introducing the Content Creation Mood-O-Meter (yeah the mood-o-meter)

If the content creation mood-o-meter is in the red, that means that the content you’re reading or viewing was produced during a period where I had to fight to get the piece complete. Yellow means that the production mood was average. Green means I was amped up to get the piece developed and couldn’t wait to share it with you.

Should mood matter? Well, I think it does more than we want to acknowledge. The entrepreneur or solo-preneur knows they need to constantly put their message out there, but they also know that an aggressive high volume content play will demand much of their time. And in some cases it is time they feel they can’t afford to give up. For larger businesses, the obstacle is to fall into the trap of trusting that the marketing team will create all of the content that we need and that it will be right on the mark 100% of the time. When, in truth, it is the leadership that needs to care about content production and voice. If they surrender complete control to a tactical execution something missed.  A level of sincerity.  So the mood of the executive, leader, or natural voice of the organization absolutely impacts content creation.

Mood also matters because in both of these situations how we are feeling in a given day, week, or month could very well lead to a choice of lowering volume or quality. If we fall into this trap, then our commitment to our story wanes.

The 40-day content challenge is going to illustrate one person’s effort to plow through the obstacles that get in the way of content development. Train myself to establish the right mindset about why my story and related content matters, and to put that training into action.

I think it is going to be fun, and I hope you’ll join me. Let’s see where it leads us.