When I was a younger man than I am now, I had as sturdy a bladder as the next guy. Now that I've grown a bit older, it's not quite the strength and fortitude that I once had to hold it in. Road trips these days can be a bit interesting. For example, I drove from Virginia Beach to Washington DC a couple of months ago. And even though I make sure that I use the bathroom before I left, it wasn't even two hours before I was viewing the world with yellow lenses if you know what I mean.
I told myself that I was going to wait until I got to the next rest stop. I didn't want to get off at the Flying J, or the McDonald's or anything like that. I had to get to DC, and I wanted to make my stop short as possible. So for about 30 minutes, the only thing on my mind when I was looking to the side of the road was that blue sign that says rest stop, and then it tells you how many miles it'll be before you get there.
I finally saw the sign that said it would be in 5 miles, and then 4 miles, and so on until I finally got there, got out of my car, took care of business and then got back on the road. I probably passed 100 other signs, be it road signs or billboards or what have you. But the only one that I cared about was that blue sign that says a rest stop is coming.
It reminds me of so many times where I have put out a piece of content, and I'm basically that billboard that is being ignored by the market who is desperately looking for, sad to admit it, something other than what I was offering. It's not to say that my content was bad. I take pride in the craftsmanship in my work, and like to think that I put out quality content. And that seems to be the bane of the existence of so many content creators. So much effort put into putting out a product, only to be ignored by the marketplace who seems to be desperate for something other than what they're offering.
Wouldn't it be great if the stuff you were putting out was like that blue rest stop sign that I was so desperately looking for on my way to DC a few months ago? Wouldn't it be wonderful if your audience was desperate for what you have to say, and hangs on the edge of their seat waiting for you to put out your next piece of content?
Wouldn't it be great if your content made people have to pee like a race horse?
OK now I'm getting silly, but you get the point.
Engagement with an audience doesn't necessarily mean people liking your Facebook profile, sending emails, leaving comments on blog post, although those are all great in their own right. Real engagement is when you connect with people on a psychological level, to the point where you're the only solution to what they crave.
Doing this can be scary, because it means you have to step out of your comfort zone, even more so than the stepping out of the comfort zone required to publish anything in the first place. It is not for the faint of heart. But it can be done.
This is a small taste of what I and Sana encourage clients have our production and education business called a GSD Network.
If you want to put out content that will have your listeners seeing the world in yellow, then check us out. https∶//jns.media/gsd-network
