61: You’re The Rockstar Nobody Listens To

You’re The Rockstar Nobody Listens To

Although you have the potential to a rockstar, you’re trying to please everyone which makes you fail in the long run.

You’re more like a crying baby longing for help than a fine-tuned artist who knows how to speak to people and move them.

Permanent Attention & Engagement

Your attempts are amateurish because you’re copying what other people are doing. You’re not unique in your efforts. Some shining moments are there: People commented, liked and shared. They engaged with what you produced. You had their attention for 5 seconds. You had your fame… for 5 seconds.

What you actually want is a long-term, sustainable and calculated engagement with your audience. You also want to define your audience — I will tell you in a second why you don’t.

Back to the long-lasting engagement. Your very first step to having a guaranteed engagement with people who follow your work is by producing content and promoting it on a regular basis. Regular means every week or X times per week. Not every month because nobody cares about you when you show up once only — they will notice you and then forget about you. When you show up weekly you have a good chance that your (potential) audience becomes hard-wired to your scheduled.

You’re (Like) a TV Channel

Imagine you’re a TV channel, like FOX, CNN, ABC. When still on air, children knew that on Saturday mornings and weekday afternoons Fox broadcasted Fox Kids, a programmed block of animation series. Children were looking forward to getting up on Saturday morning and return home from school because they know Fox Kids was waiting for them.

Your content is an animation series for children if your audience is kids. Your audience can be a rich Ugandan businesswoman who wants to increase their sales of wine to global customers. Your audience can be rural Chinese rice farmers who want to avoid a famine cycle though only apply non-artificial and non-toxic fertilizers in their (or government-owned) land.

You are your audience’s primary channel. You are their no. 1 stop. When they “turn on” the Internet they want to see you and learn from you — exactly when you say you would “broadcast“. Obviously, you engage 24/7 with your audience. However, your schedule dictates when you publish new content.

Every Week At The Same Day & Hour

Try to publish weekly. See how it goes for 3 months. If it works well, try twice a week, three times a week, four times, 5 times, EVERY DAY. Your ultimate goal is to publish every day. If you consistently show up every day, you get on top of your audience’s head. You keep returning and with every new piece of content your confirm that tomorrow you’ll be there as well — just as you promised in your program plan.

Speaking of planning. Filling every day (or weekday to have the weekend off) requires you to plan ahead and pre-produce content in advance. You still need to create. That’s why you should start a publication with a regular schedule when you have 4-6 weeks of content pre-produced.

The Editorial Calendar

The editorial calendar (EC) is your friend. With an EC at hand, you’re on the safe side to tell cohesive stories which turn people from passive readers to active buyers (even long-term customers) because your ultimate goal is to sell.

The EC for a 6-weeks weekly plan of content works the following way:

  • Define your month theme, e.g. Every Monday morning I’m in a depressing mood
  • What specific person are you talking to? e.g. 25-years old Jane who has a hard time finding motivation for her job and finds Mondays the hardest day of the week because she doesn’t see fulfillment in her day job
  • What should this person learn from your content? e.g. Jane will learn that there are many ways to find motivation for her job and reach personal fulfillment
  • What steps does this person need to take to reach the goal? e.g.
    • Realize why you hate your job (your hate list),
    • Tackle your no. 1 hate (possible actions),
    • The most prominent thought on your work commute (how you enter the workplace, how you return home),
    • Prepare your mind for your work day,
    • Schedule (work and leisure time),
    • Overlap (from your must-life to your want-life)
  • Now, the steps become the headline of every week’s piece you publish which you fill with four or five sections whereas each section has its own sub-headline and two or three paragraphs.
  • See below for the example (I wrote 6 section with 6 sub-headlines)

Week 1: Realize why you hate your job

Is it your job or is your job being a mirror of what’s happening inside of you…

  • My colleagues don’t value my work
  • My boss is a sexist
  • There’s never tea at work, only coffee (I hate coffee)
  • My colleagues think I’m irresponsible. I’m mostly working with interns and part-time employees, I don’t get the chance to prove myself with the „big boys“
  • I’m the only woman at work, I’m lacking female support

Week 2: Tackle your no. 1 hate

Only if you know your biggest enemy well you know how to fight it…

  • Why you hate (define your biggest obstacle)
  • Hate from outside
  • Hate from inside
  • Managing (channeling) your hate
  • Healing (transforming) your hate

Week 3: The most prominent thought on your work commute

Thinking keeps you in the loop, and it’s driving your crazy…

  • The impact of thinking about work when not at work
  • How much you are at work when you’re not at work
  • You’re mentally busy
  • Releasing your head by expressing yourself in many facets (like an artist)
  • Making notes

Week 4: Prepare your mind for your work day

Your day started yesterday…

  • How you go to bed (what you do and think)
  • How you wake up the next morning
  • The concept of a continuum
  • Remember why you have a job
  • Play in the dirt to dream in the clouds

Week 5: Schedule

Treat your leisure time like your work time.

  • The magic of giving leisure activities a date and execution time
  • Plan the day you have
  • Plan the day you want
  • 168 hours a week
  • You’re probably sleeping too much

Week 6: Overlap

Discovering your passion by starting from a place of calm…

  • Your day job in tandem with your passion
  • Find your passion
  • Protect your passion
  • Nourish your passion by investing
  • Monetize your passion

You can learn about overlapping from seanwes, the originator of the Overlap Technique and the idea of the Editorial Calendar.

There you have it. You just made your first step towards being a rockstar. There are more but this makes sure you will be heard. Go from there. Feel free to use this 6-weeks content plan and make great content!

The takeaway from today: Tailor-made content is the way to success: snackable, evergreen and live content, as Gary Vaynerchuk says. The way to make it requires discipline, planning and scheduling.

_
This was episode 61 of the #weekdaykickoff 🌊 Every weekday (Mon-Fri). Also find me on Anchor so we can talk — literally talk from person to person!


Also published on Medium.

Did you like this post? Tell me on Twitter what you got out of it or what you were missing.