Help People and Then Get Off Stage
One of the band members asks, "What if they want an encore?" Tom replies, "You unplug and you run. Run off stage."
With content marketing, we can forget that quality is king. Quality means giving really good content without expecting anything in return. Clearly with content marketing we do want a return, but we’re only going to see that when we give our best ideas away for free and really hone in on helping people before they ever become a client.
At some point, you’ll have an influential person engage with you, maybe on social media, maybe by contacting you directly. When that happens, resist the urge to latch on. Help the person, show them your best work, and let it go.
Too many people want an encore. Even a helpful person can overstay their welcome by waiting around for praise or gratitude or a little something in return for their help. But scarcity creates demand. So make yourself scarce and refuse to sit around waiting for some sort of reward. Prove that you’re being helpful for your own purposes by moving on to the next thing without looking back. In other words, get off stage. And mean it.
Influential decision-makers are used to people waiting around with their hands out. On a daily basis they have to wade through throngs of compliments that are attempts to suck up, through relationships that are one-way pork fests in disguise. This is ugly and it’s not what helpeting is about. Help for the sake of helping and leave it there. Not only will you cease to be a bottom feeder, desperate for the crumbs from Miss Influential’s table, you’ll experience the positive side effects.
Imagine you’re a prominent buyer and you see people every day who are falling all over themselves to do business with you. Say they make up problems in the hope that you’ll buy something, pay you compliments via email, tweet at you and cling to your side whenever you go to a party. You know full well they’re hoping to put you in their debt. Now imagine you live with this day in and day out. And then one day, in the middle of a real brain bender, someone comes along and offers a vey helpful solution. Your problem disappears, and so does the architect of your solution. No waiting around, no awkward small talk while they clear their throat and wait for a handout. They’re just gone. That person stands apart from the crowd. You’re more likely to remember them later when they show up and once more solve an impossible problem.
As this hero continues to help and just disappear without asking for favors, you’ll eventually realize that he’s really just helpful. At last, an intelligent person with great ideas and no strings attached. No desperation for your charity. Surely you’re going to start searching for this person on your own time. That’s a huge boost for any helpeter—who wouldn’t like to have influential people searching for them?
That's the difference between helpeters and marketers. People search for helpeters and shrug off spammers. No one's rifling through their jacket pockets for the business card of that one salesperson who wouldn't leave them alone at a cocktail party.
The moral of the story is this: help someone, then disappear before you wear out your welcome. Don't worry, people tend to remember helpful people.
Put this into practice today. Find someone to help and walk away. This could be simple—pull out someone’s chair for them when you’re leaving a lunch meeting. Call someone you know with a tip or a connection and then excuse yourself from the conversation. Walk away and forget about it. This isn't some smarmy manipulation, it's a shift in how you see and approach the world.
Read more at Inkliss.com
