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I recently had two interesting discussions with marketing leaders. Both revolved around the same question: “Where do we start?”
One of them told me that she had created a completely new content plan for her marketing department. She had gotten the green light from management, but everyone was so busy with other tasks that they didn't know how to proceed.
The second leader told me that they were rethinking a project plan that a large consulting firm had submitted. When the firm first proposed it, it seemed logical and straightforward. But now that it's time to put people's names in the project plan, the whole thing seems overwhelming.
How did you do that?
Coming to terms with planned changes can be incredibly difficult. You know it makes more sense to fix your (metaphorically) leaky pipes, but it's so much easier to just keep watering the lawn – even if it costs more.
A common response is to look at how other content and marketing teams handle similar situations, but looking from someone else's perspective rarely produces impressive results.
I have noticed that when people ask, “Can we do what they did?” they usually give one of these three answers:
1. If they did it, surely we can too.
This reaction is often accompanied by a hint of envy. The person or team is dismissed, but the card is praised. I recently visited the Broad Museum in Los Angeles. As I stood in front of a painting by Roy Lichtenstein, which consists of a series of rectangles, I heard a man behind me say: “I could do that too – I would be a millionaire.”
Could he have done it? Maybe. But that's the point. He didn't. Lichtenstein did it – and became famous for it. That's the lesson. Assuming you can do what someone else did (and get the same results) is the surest path to failure.
This brings me to the second typical answer.
2. Give me the card to your content program and I will be just as successful.
I call this response the template model. People look for a prototypical case study, template, or “proven” best practices that they can follow. And they expect to get the same results.
I have rarely seen teams following this approach achieve results that match or exceed the original template or case study. The map never fits exactly what they are trying to achieve.
Why? Because it doesn't take into account your team's unique skills (or lack thereof), goals, or context. I recently interviewed the person who designed one of the most successful content marketing projects in 2014. Today, it's considered one of the OGs of content marketing strategy. But he told me there was NO way he could replicate what they did 10 years ago. “It's just a different time,” he said.
You must adapt each template or card to your circumstances.
This brings me to the third (and most useful) answer.
3. Is there already something similar to what I want to achieve?
The most helpful response is to seek guidance in projects that reflect the essence of what you want to accomplish.
You may find it helpful to look outside your industry and examine what has made these efforts successful.
Looking beyond the familiar forces you to interpret the idea through your creative lens. Rather than duplicating the exact form of the projects you study, take inspiration from them.
One of the leaders I spoke with last week benefited from this approach as she reflected on the challenges of managing new employees, creating new workflows, and producing new results to support a new content strategy.
I advised her to look for recent projects that involved disruptive change in a company that was completely unrelated to her workplace. She looked into how a product designer had implemented an internal design team for a financial services company.
The details were different, but the example inspired them to discover new approaches.
Why the first step is not the best
OK, so you've committed to the plan. That's the first step. But how do you overcome the initial difficulties?
Do you know which tightrope walker says has the most difficult step?
Most people believe that this is the first step on the tightrope. But this is not the case, as the tightrope walker who tells one of the short stories from the collection “Vigilantes of Love” confirms:
“The hardest step was the one after the first. That's when you lost or gained your balance. It becomes a matter of walking or falling. After the second step, there's no turning back.”
It is crucial to take this first step in a way that makes us feel confident about the essence of what we want to achieve. But it is not the most difficult step. When implementing a new content project, the second step is the most difficult.
The second step is to commit to the vision. This is where you either rise or fall. There is no turning back. And when you are the leader, you have no one to blame for success or failure but yourself.
This three-step process will help you prepare when you need to make significant changes to your content strategy:
Step 1: Make the card your own
Start with your vision of what success will look like for your new strategy. Use the inspirational model you identified as an example. Then ask yourself, “What would have to be true for success?”
Write everything down. It sounds overwhelming, but you'll be surprised at how calming it feels to create your visionary to-do list.
Examine the emotions you feel around the uncertainties involved. List all the things that scare you or could go wrong. List the things that could go right and bring you joy. Realize that you can't control how these things make you feel, but you can control how you respond to them.
Then, of course, plan and plan. Go back to your list of all the things that need to happen for the program to be successful, and then identify any “stumbling blocks” that might get in the way. Which ones need to be cleared first? And second?
You have just completed the plan with your vision. You are ready to take the second step.
Step 2: Commit to walking
The first step was challenging. But the hardest part will be saying “yes” to the adventure you have planned.
One thing happens in almost every consulting engagement I do: As soon as we have completed the approved business case and plan, I congratulate the client. Then follows a sigh and the inevitable words: “Yes, but now we have to make it happen.”
That's step two. Commit.
You commit to going. You take the first significant initiative. You give it your all. You don't follow someone else's template. You haven't dismissed those who came before you because you thought you could do it just as well or better. You've developed your own recipe instead of trying to improve on someone else's.
The steps become easier
In the book I mentioned, the tightrope walker talks about more than just the first two steps. He says, “The third step is the beginning. It is complete forward movement on a new course.”
Completing that first initiative or overcoming your first challenge is the beginning. Then you start to see things working out the way you imagined. That's much more satisfying than looking at the next step in a pre-made map.
From then on, the book says, “the fourth step is confirmation. And after the fifth step, it's just moving on.”
They are on the way.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. But the second, extremely challenging step gives you the confidence to go further.
Updated from an article from March 2022.
Need Robert's help figuring out your audience's value? Send him a message to schedule a conversation.
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Cover photo by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute
Create your very own Auto Publish News/Blog Site and Earn Passive Income in Just 4 Easy Steps
