The Idea Mill
Insights + Observations About the Power of Content
Ever since the announcement a couple of weeks ago that the Creative Mill has joined the Collideascope “teamlance” model, I've received a lot of questions about what it is and how it works. Curtis Hays, one of my co-collaborators, has a pretty good explainer at the collideascope blog, which I’ll link to here and excerpt below:
Brian Clark calls it the “teamlance” model.
As with just about everything in life, the old model is being democratized and decentralized in the world of marketing and advertising. While the big-agency model is still the right fit for many, others are discovering a new way of client service that offers the best of all possible worlds: experience, bandwidth, resources, flexibility and affordability.
Today we are announcing that we have entered into an informal (and even undocumented) partnership of the teamlance model with a long-time collaborator, Curtis Hays and his team at Collideascope. Meet the rest of the team here.
Brands can turn to teamlancing to maximize the flexibility of their operations with self-managing creative resources that are specialized, right-sized, and timed to their changing needs, whether project-based or for the long term.
The following originally appeared in the Further newsletter, which I highly endorse and what remains one of few things I read each and every week. Do yourself a favor and subscribe.
Written by the outstanding Trudi Roth, this piece captures my own thinking about the future and purpose of writing better than I ever could. With her permission, I reprint it in its entirety here.
As someone who makes her living by writing, you might think I’m petrified that AI will decimate my career.
Honestly, machines don’t scare me. It’s the foolish humans who are okay with completely abdicating their ability to think, communicate, and solve problems that I find alarming.
If you are in the business of selling expertise, a professional service, or consulting engagements, one of the best ways to earn the confidence of a prospective client is to consistently and convincingly demonstrate domain authority and subject matter expertise.
But the goal is almost never to move a prospect into market. Typically speaking, no amount of marketing can, as the purchases are significant, well-thought-out, thoroughly discussed, and of significant scope and dollar value.
So, if we can’t convince someone to buy from us with marketing, why should we bother? Because of the natural lifecycle of a purchase of professional services.
Anyone who knows me knows my love and admiration for #podcasting. I find it fun, effective, immersive and rewarding for so many reasons.
Imagine my joy when Jay Harrington wrote me to tell me we were going to be hosting Jonah Perlin on our Thought Leadership Project podcast to talk about podcasting!
In the most recent episode of The Thought Leadership Project podcast, Tom and Jay provide their take on AI and its impact on service professional careers and content marketing. They define and share tips on building a powerful personal brand. And they address the importance of being interested in and excited by the subject matter of the content you create in order to make content creation a sustainable effort.
In the latest episode of the Thought Leadership Project podcast, Tom Nixon and Jay Harrington describe the new paradigm of thought leadership content marketing for business-to-business professional services, known as the 95:5 Rule of marketing. It’s all about building trust with an audience when they don’t have an immediate need for your services, so that when they do they naturally think of you.
Is it better to focus on SEO-friendly long-form content, or short, more digestible content that audiences seem to have a preference for these days? If you only play the short game, and all of your content lives only in social media posts, it will be invisible to anyone searching for your expertise online or visiting your website to vet you as a service provider. If you only post short-form content, will search engines find you invisible?
The truth is you have to do both if you want to be truly effective—the short game AND the long game. The nice thing is, one overlays against the other.
