Content is harmful when it’s mediocre. Mediocre content disguises itself as achievement.

Mediocre content is easy to churn out because it’s generic and focused only on one thing: the sales pitch. We spend money and energy on promotions, blog posts, and ads that all say, “Look at how much I know!”, “I’m the best!”, “Buy from me!”.

But here’s the inconvenient truth: nobody gives a damn about our sales pitch.

In today’s hyper-social and collaborative world,
people won’t care about how much we know
until they know first how much we care.

Self-serving sales pitches only add to the overwhelm our audience is experiencing. With only 1,440 minutes in a day and as many as 5,000 marketing messages vying for their attention daily, the only message mediocre content leaves them behind is that we don’t care enough to make a difference.

Which is exactly the opposite of who we really are. No one is more passionate in solving problems than entrepreneurs.

This passion for solutions is the very thing we innately possess that can compel our audience to look our way…but only if we are truly focused on solving the problems that our audience want to resolve.

So why settle for mediocre, self-serving, and intrusive content that ends up pushing away those we want to serve?

This is my proposal: Let’s start treating content as if it were our product. Measure its business value in how well it solves people’s problems or fulfils their needs. Let’s claim our CONTENT ZONE of AUTHORITY — the niche where we can develop media and resources that combine competency, passion, and utility. Committing ourselves to content that educates and elevates people is the honest way of winning them to our side, and the first step in transforming content into an unfair advantage for our business.

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Image source:
1) http://dilbert.com/strip/2010-10-01
2) http://dilbert.com/strip/2012-03-05