Today's Great Value of Content Creation in Sales

Long before the term “Content Creation” showed up on our screens, I was a creator and I want to share the value of being a content creator today. If you’ve read my sales books, you know I have been in content creation mode since my college days. Owing to being part of the media sales business it was just a natural state of mind for me to be in. In short, I was always trying to figure out how to make more money doing things in sales others were not. This set me apart from my peers and built a presence for me in the media business.

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I got involved in customer mapping before we had general use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Internal surveys caught my eye when I discovered that we were not always sure how expenses were being allocated to determine hard profit on some of our newspaper offerings. I asked my newspapers across Canada to chip in to help the collective understand profit and they embraced this positive risk. This content creation made our sales much clearer, strategic and more profitable. I built training tools to help my fellow Free Standing Insert (FSI) Experts speak in one common language to customers across Canada. My system was later adopted by the entire newspaper industry in Canada. Why bother Pat? My simple answer is “I wanted to create an impact on my industry that would increase the value of my personal brand and that of my company”. This in turn gets you called into meetings for your professional outlook on topics others are discussing but not yet executing. This is when you rise through the ranks internally and externally.

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What is available to us today that will create an impact on almost any sales vertical?

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1)?????Articles- If your writing skills are reasonable take a crack at writing a few articles about topics others are not covering. When I started my company Centroid Training, I wrote mostly about sales negotiation to build my company brand and pick up new customers. It worked over and over again because, I was writing about negotiation topics I saw that were edgy. I would get instant reactions from my mailing list. About two years after I started writing, I was shocked to see someone had picked up one of my articles and republished it in a trade magazine. I got published over and over after that. I even had companies such as Thomson Reuters reach out and ask if they could republish my content in their internal publications. Talk about a brand builder!

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2)?????Videos- Shooting videos has been around forever, but now with smart phones and better software, creating video is smarter, faster and better. It takes guts to shoot your first few vids, because of the embrace of awkward positive risk, but then suddenly you learn from your iterations and feedback from your followers. Then, you start to get more and more creative and invest in better mic’s and camera equipment. After this, the sky is the limit. All of the social and business media platforms become your stump. The biggest blocker for many is actually talking to the camera with focus….not everyone can do it. If you can speak to the camera with confidence get all over it. The sharing of your video’s pays dividends. Sharing ideas with your industry creates impact. This is where your table image grows.

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3)?????Podcasts- My entry into the Podcast World was with @Anthony Iannarino in 2016. I had no idea what I was doing but, I decided to give it whirl. To be honest, I thought I did not execute well but Anthony assured me otherwise. The trust that Anthony and I had built over a period of time was the glue and I feel great gratitude for Author Iannarino giving me a shot. Fast forward and through my awkward period and I have been a guest on over 30 podcasts. What I really like about Podcasts is that great interviewers often suss points of view out of me that I had not even thought about. To me, this is the magic of being live and in the moment. Talk about another sales brand builder. Authors, Marketers and Neat Sales Experts have treated me very kindly. This group of Podcasters includes, @Jeb Blount, @Dan Jourdan, @Paul Watts, @Mark Raffan, @Karen Kelly, @Pete Primeau @Crispin Cruz @Marsh Buice @Al Getler @John Bossong @Colly Graham @Harry Spaight @Brian Sexton @Steve Houk @Micah Henderson @Carson Heady @Jon Kronemeyer @Sam Dunning @Rick Denley @Kwame Christian @Tobia La Marca @Jean-Nicolas Reyt @Shane Ray Martin and @Art Sobczak. Here is the kicker. Podcasts generally run from 20 minutes to 60 minutes. When you add it up that is a ton of content creation!

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4)?????Video Panels- The cool thing about Video Panels is that you can be a guest or a quick question poser. I have seen audiences of over 500 participants. This hybrid video is so dynamic, because with several panelists the action can spin in several different directions in minutes. Huge amounts of expertise gets shared in real time. I have been a panelist with greats such as @Lee Salz, @Simon Hares @Joshua Weiss @John Diffenbach @Beth Fisher-Yoshida and so many other valuable, expert contributors. Again, Video Panels generally run from 20 minutes to 60 minutes. Huge content creation!

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5)?????Research- This is where you can take a lead role in creating new content of which you have only dreamed. Beyond the research I did in my corporate days, I have done some consumer, in the field research. On a 50 Chapters and Indigo Book Store signing tour to promote my first two books in Canada, I embarked on some negotiation education research. I wanted to know how business people viewed their negotiation skills on a scale of 1 to 10. Ten being the best. By my calculations, I interviewed over 5,000 business people on this topic. The outcome of the research is something that I had long suspected. Most business people over estimate their negotiation skills by a wide margin. The results? 95% of the business people I interviewed believed their negotiation skill efficacy was between 6.5 to 7.5 out of 10. The problem was they could barely name a single negotiation buyer strategy. Over my career, I have catalogued around 30 buyer and seller negotiation strategies. What a total disconnect. What a great piece of research for yours truly. Now….just imagine where Artificial Intelligence is going to take us in the coming years?

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Lessons Learned- Honestly, I have just scratched the surface of what is possible in content creation. Your imagination is the only barrier to doing bigger and better work that will help establish you as a market leader in your sales vertical. The investment is up to you. I know what content creation has done for my company www.centroidmarketing.com brand and personal brand. If you create enough content you can dream about writing a book. I have written three. Talk about the biggest business cards in the world! Dream big! Grow into the dream. Execute. You’ve got this. #giddyup #negotiathon #content #creation #successmindset

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