The Pictures on the Refrigerator door

preface: I hope I am not tilting at windmills here, but it is a big deal to many business owners to either take the time to create content, or allow their experts in the  field- engineers, technicians and salespeople, to create content. It is somehow thought of as a possible disruption to the righteous production cycle- more estimates, more  sales, more work done... and there are other reasons here that we will deal with separately, but I want to talk here about people who like to tell stories. Incidentally, creating content is easy. It is not a struggle for those with a story to tell, and you help them tell the story. When you get down to real obstacles, there aren't any. moving on....

So I have a great client who owns a service company- I am not going into great detail here for my own reasons, but he has really great people working for him- true experts at what they do, and they care about customers from their good hearts.

OK, so there is a refrigerator in the shared area, and these guys take pictures of their great work, and go through the trouble of printing them out on paper, and stick them on this refrigerator to show off the great work that they do.

Now this will be really embarrassing to say because it shows how utterly I have failed to influence this great client about creating new content for the company website using the stories of our experts working in the field.

Now, my client agrees wholeheartedly in the idea, but the guys are really busy getting work done and.... well, the content creation just never happens. And I want to make sure you understand that the guys are really busy; this is this clients biggest  constraint getting the service work done. This client is constrained needing more skilled hands to handle the work that comes in through their great website and the repeat business, and the referrals. This company does a really good job....

but there is a disconnect here and it is in the mind of the owner who has his own set of priorities and I will not say he is wrong, but I will make a case that he is not seeking the big picture.

And maybe you can learn from this juxtaposition of points of view and find something of value in this discussion somewhere between these viewpoints.

Now, if guys are printing up their own pictures, and coming into the office to tap these on the refrigerator and write up a handwritten note to describe them; well, they have done the equivalent effort of publishing online. Now, there is a bit of a learning curve here; but that is what extra hands are for, and in this case, it would be a pleasure to help turn these images and a story into useful content which would help a site visitor.

An individual story here can be tuned to a strategic theme to help a web visitor find the answer to a question they have, or maybe understand the process of getting some help, or just find someone who is professional and honest and trustworthy.

A brief note here on Search engine optimization.

Telling a lot of stories right from the field provides the diversity of terminology and imagery that people find useful. There is a lot of BS about SEO and I am not going to pick a fight here; but the biggest way to do SEO well, is to create diverse content in a variety of media formats that people can find and find useful.

Diverse but well fitting content is much more effective that overworking the same old BS that contains every cliche in your particular line of business. There is way too much SEO "optimization" of the most bland ho hum crap because... it feels like work to create useful content. Key people are too busy actually working at production and so it it is much easier to just let someone else have a few brain farts... and stir up semi- unique version of the usual batch of cliches... actually this does not work because no homeowner is interested. Some cogent thinking on hard work vs useful slack is appropriate right here 

I feel strongly that the present marketing environment is still a gold rush for building an ever growing community of people who trust you and buy from you and then refer you to their friends. This market is quite fluid now; but there will be leaders who step forward and gather up the mavericks in this market and build a herd that they are able to keep happy. This gathering of a community of people who trust you and buy from you, will  be acquired through the strategic use of content creation. This is the big powerful tool for business growth in the 21st century. Those with a late start will see leaner opportunity. Those who stay with the tools of the past- advertising and mass marketing and do not create a fusion between old tools and new, will see leaner opportunity. We talk about the importance of strategic content here. LINK

Do you believe in evolution? It doesn’t matter whether you do or not. The basic tenant is true. When the environment changes; it is not the strongest which survive; but the most adaptable to change. Smart business owners will stop and figure out where they are in this present environment and reconnoiter and figure a smart path ahead. And a really great path here is to relax and do some exploring within your own expertise, and find those ready to help tell a story. Real stories  from experts get attention  from the people you would like to meet, that you  would like  as clients.

So what are your thoughts here?
Is there something critical I left out?
Anyone else have any experiences here to share?
Feel free to add any number of objections and observations here.