Content Design, Zen Koans & Clarity

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Let's talk about content, shall we?

It's been a couple of weeks I think since I've blathered on and on about the importance of content. But, I was talking with a client as part of their initial Vibes, Vision, Value/s + Visibility (we call it VVV+V) interview & they mentioned this idea of content design.

Content design is the process of thinking about content coherently so it projects and protects the medium, the message, and the meaning. You're probably wondering a little bit what that mess of words means. Let me make it clear:

• MEDIUM: Content needs to work where it lives. You can address the same topics on Instagram, a long-form YouTube video, and a web page. But the content needs to respect the medium in which it's presented, so that content needs to fit each medium appropriately.

• MESSAGE: I know you're thinking, "Tim of course content has a message!?! That's the whole deal, right?" Well what I mean by message is the expression of what you're intending to say needs to be matched to whom you're saying it. If you want to get my attention, you might wrap it in a Family Guy or Bob’s Burger’s meme.
  If you want to get my wife's attention, you're going to want to have The Rolling Stones (especially Keith Richards) deliver the message because that's what gets her attention. The message needs to be delivered so that your target audience will notice it.

• MEANING: Regardless of the channel or the attention-grabbing mechanism, the message must have a coherent meaning that flows from the topic through the medium through the message and connects what you want to communicate without getting lost.

After, I thought a long time about this idea of content design. What are the pieces that go into designing content so that it speaks through various mediums to your target audiences and communicates the message, the meaning, that you intend?

This is complex and it is getting more complex as we move into the idea of AI influence and AI-powered communications. As you think about your own VVV + V approach. You need to consider this idea of content design.

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What impact does content design have on VVV+V?

Content design in every meaningful way that I can imagine, allows the content that you create to expose your vibes, vision, and value/s have an element of authenticity and truth.

Regularly, when I'm talking to my youngest kids who are solidly in their mid-teens, I break into my worst Gen Alpha speak. They beg me to stop. It seems almost physically painful to them. But I can't not do it because there is such a freaking disconnect between me, my normal modes of expression, and me saying "hey chat, what’s the tea, fr, fr”.

When I speak that way, my question of "Hey, what are your plans this afternoon?" loses all coherence.

• I use my voice so the medium is right.

• I use an ineffective way to really get their attention, so the message isn't received well.

• The meaning gets lost.

The only thing that they can do is to roll their eyes at me and point towards the nearest door and say, "Get out." It doesn't matter if I get one or two out of the three things right. It has to be all three things for my communication to have impact.

Without some thought towards content design, your VVV + V won't be effective.

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Effective communication also relies on authority

Back to my twins for just a second…if they are being crazy and I say, "Bro…that's mid" They're not going listen because my communication didn't reflect my authority. In that case it's sort of hierarchical authority but when you're building your VVV + V approach, you have to assume the role of a topical authority.

So many of us are afraid to step into the role of an expert or an authority on a topic, because we're afraid that we're going to be wrong. Or we're not going to say the right thing, or the future will change and the thing we said in the past will no longer be correct.

Let me throw a new definition of expertise or authority at you:

Because everything changes so quickly and the pace of change continues to increase, it is impossible to be an authority that derives your power from knowing the answers.

For a lot of us marketers, that's really challenging. Typically, we have positioned ourselves as an expert who knows a particular channel, tactic or framework. If rapid change means you cannot be certain that you own all the requisite knowledge to be “the expert” in a channel, what does that do to your ability to create trust in the market?

Authority now comes from understanding the problem

In so many respects, it has always been this way. When you start a sales process with a prospect, you don't know enough about their landscape to effectively present authoritative solutions.

Now, that fact doesn't stop many of us but that's a story for a different day.

Authority now comes from being able to articulate the problem with complete respect for the complexity and nuance. That isn't just relevant to sales and marketing. It's also relevant to management. It's relevant to hiring. It's relevant to real-world communications that have nothing to do with business. Being able to understand the complexity and the number of variables that anyone has to face forces you to add more to your content design.

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Content design and your VVV+V starts with clarity

Clarity is hard. Clarity demands that you toss away edge cases. It demands that you toss away equivocations. It demands that you toss away fear of your own authority. It also demands mastery of medium, message, and meaning.

Clarity often starts with being still.

In his book "Stillness is the Key," Ryan Holiday talks about a baseball player Shawn Greene. He was undergoing a really horrific slump - 0-for-24 or something like that. But Shawn had incorporated a lot of Zen Buddhist practices into his mental preparation for baseball games.So he didn't panic, he didn't stress out. He just repeated the Zen koan: "chop wood, carry water." That's kind of a shorthand for being in the moment and focusing on the things that your body needs to do so that your mind can be free.

Now in my younger days, I was a baseball player. When I was in the midst of an 0-for-30 something slump, there was not a bit of "chop wood and carry water" in my mind. I was full of "Holy shit, I can't believe you suck this badly!". Shawn Greene busted out of his slump and had a day for the ages, something like 7 RBIs or something ridiculous like that. But he clarity around what he was trying to do. In my batting foibles, I only had fear about the things I wasn't doing.

Clarity allows you to step into your authority. Master medium, message, and meaning. And the result of that is something rare – especially in the world of marketing. The result of clarity is trust.

So when you are thinking about how to develop your market approach and you're thinking about your own VVV + V project, it doesn't start with having a great way to repurpose your LinkedIn post to an Instagram carousel, nor does it start with having a snappy, trademarkable, pithy tagline. It starts with clarity of what you are trying to accomplish.

The goal of VVV+V is trust.
Trust starts with stillness.
Stillness allows you to find clarity.
Clarity allows you to step into your authority.
Authority allows you to master medium, message, and meaning.
Mastery allows trust to emerge.

Speaking of clarity…

I just started accepting direct advertisers to the Agency Inner Circle newsletter - below is the first such ad. But because I respect each of you, I'm not going to throw a service provider at you without understanding that they are excellent at what they do. So, I am writing this ad based on my experience:

Last week I met with João Landeiro from Mesozoic.

He runs these amazing “clarity” workshops. They run 90 minutes - and I went through one. João has this marvelously calm way of rapidly taking your insane stream of conscious answers and organizing them into fantastic logical constructs. He gently asks insightful questions that force you to restate what you just said in such a way that you understand your own intended meaning better.

He does micro-recaps effortlessly & he helps you see blind spots. He uncovers methodologies that are so natural to you that you aren’t aware that you have a valuable process. He challenges you through empathy and alignment.

At the end, he has this amazing way of synthesizing complex information and making it so “handleable” that you can take action and make progress.

This 90 minutes is a mixture of positioning, offer development, personal growth, puzzle solving & language sharpening. It creates clarity. It creates deeper understanding. And it removes obstacles from your path.

Lucky for you, João doesn’t really know how good he is at this stuff…

First, for a 90-minute session that I feel like I received $10,000 worth of value, João only charges $700 (which is crazy cheap). And somehow, I convinced him to give a discount to a handful of Agency Inner Circle readers. He has made 5 sessions available at $380 each.

I have no idea what João’s refund policy is (he is a terribly nice guy so I am sure that it is fair and reasonable), but I will make you a guarantee - if you pay for a clarity session with João and you aren’t blown away with what you’ve learned, I’ll give you a 2-hour agency growth roadmap for $0. That’s a $1500 value. Deal?

Check out João’s page and book a session with him. Seriously, it will help your business…

And yoiu can find João on Substack & LinkedIn, too.

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