Chris:
“You are capable.” Words spoken from our guest, Melanie Deziel on today’s episode of the Get Over It! Podcast. I love this statement so much because these three words strung together are so powerful. You are capable. What does that mean? It means exactly that. When you have a passion for something, nothing can stop you, and yes, you can do this, and yes, you might fail, but no, it will not be the end of things, and no, it will never kill that passion. So when you feel that fire and you know it’s right, you are capable. Know it’s the right thing, and as long as you know that, and as long as you think it is, you can accomplish anything. What do you say? Let’s talk to Melanie right now. Let’s get over it.
Chris:
All right. So, okay, today our guest is Melanie Deziel and I’m excited to talk to her about, we’ve got a lot of things to do. She’s in content. She is the founder and chief content officer of StoryFuel. She’s an author of a marketing and business communications book, The Content Fuel Framework. We’re going to tell you where to get that in a little bit. She’s an international keynote speaker. She likes to give really, really dynamic talks. She’s a skilled presenter and recognized as one of the world’s leading experts in native advertising and branded content, and if you’re in the game, you know what that means and how valuable it is. So we’re excited to have her on the show today. Melanie, thank you so much for coming to the podcast.
Melanie:
Well, thanks for having me. It’s always good to meet like-minded folks and get to talk about what we all love.
Chris:
This is really the goal of the show. People will ask me like, “What’s the Get Over It! Podcast about?” I’m like, “We just find really interesting people doing cool things and we talk to them about their journey and how they get there.” Because through all journeys, there are things that go wrong and things that go right, and really you learn from both and so that’s what we’re going to try to do today with Melanie. So before we get into the journey, tell us a little bit about yourself, introduce yourself to the podcast audience.
Melanie:
Well, thanks for listening to my story here, which I guess it starts really in the world of journalism. So I’m a former journalist, recovering journalist, whatever you want to call it. Currently working in the content marketing side of things. So I studied investigative reporting, arts and cultural criticism. I was hardcore, thought I was going to work in a newspaper office in the middle of nowhere.
Chris:
You know what’s so interesting about that? I have been really like, thinking about investigative journalism more and more lately, because I’ve been getting more into the news as I’ve gotten older and I totally could have seen myself like getting into that world because it’s like research, right? It’s like really looking into something. So, I have that as a question, I don’t mean to cut you off but what was it that drove you to that sort of piece, the journalism part? Was it that? Like trying to dive in, what was it about it that you liked?
Melanie:
This kind of feeds into what I’m doing now is, I have this insatiable curiosity, like I need information, I’m a collector of information. I have an embarrassing amount of books. I read like a ton of audio books. I’m like a trivia nerd. You do not want to watch Jeopardy with me. It’s not going to be fun, I’m going to shout out all the answers. That’s just like how I operate, and so for me, journalism was like an invitation to become an expert on all these different things. Every time I could work on a story, it was like, cool, I’m going to dig into, I don’t know, how town mandates around traffic happen or whatever the case may be.
Chris:
There’s always information to find, right? Like you can always find-
Melanie:
Yeah. Yeah. For me it was a creative challenge like not only does it feed my soul in terms of, I’m learning about something cool and new, and I get to share that with other people, but it’s also just really rewarding for me to try to figure out how can I take all this information and distill it down and present it in a way that’s going to be valuable for someone else, because I don’t want to sit through the meeting or just listen to the whole thing. So that for me has always been fun.
Melanie:
So I didn’t know I was going to be a journalist, but once I got to college and started taking a few introductory courses, it became clear to me that that’s where that curiosity and that skill of sort of distilling information down was going to be put to its best use. I like to think I’m still doing something very similar, even though I work with brands now, instead of just like editorial content, I feel it’s actually even more rewarding almost because I get to teach other people to love it as much as I did and as much as I do. So that’s really, my mission is helping people tell better stories, helping them fall in love with that kind of reporting about your own brand, about your own customers and products.
Chris:
I’m curious, this might be a little bit of a turn left but related, I’m curious to hear what you think about how journalism has changed or shifted nowadays. So, you know this, we live in this era where especially in marketing, we’re writing to get things out, to attract people to come in somewhere. So it could be inherently flawed as someone who is a pure journalist and writer to not just write for the sole purpose of getting somebody to do something but rather than just a pure article, purely that you’ve spent time on and you put out. I hope that makes sense to you. Where do you feel like journalism, forget about the context of marketing right now, if someone’s going into journalism and is at a very different place right now.
Melanie:
I mean, honestly, I feel like the perception of journalism has changed more than journalism itself has changed because the reality is, the people who get into this work, we don’t get into it for the money, it pays garbage. You could be the editor in chief, the highest possible position at a mid-level metro newspaper and you’re lucky to make 60 grand. This is not something you do for the money, it’s certainly not something you do for the fame and fortune, our whole job is responding to comments. It’s horrible. You do it because you have a love for whatever your topic is, whether it’s sports or politics or the environment that you want to cover, and you want to teach other people about it. It’s kind of like education in a way. So to me, I still see a lot of the same ethics, a lot of the same behavior. We’re just delivering through different mediums. We’re doing it on live video. We’re doing it in a blog post instead of in print. But I think what has happened truthfully is it’s more of a media literacy thing.
Melanie:
I think the fact that there is so much content out there, people confuse actual, real journalism done by trained reporters who follow ethics, who have a style guide, who have editors with anybody who’s just putting stuff out and I think there’s value in everyone having access to a platform, but I do think it’s created a lot of confusion for people where it’s like I think I’m reading something that’s well-sourced, that’s reliable, that’s trustworthy, and really I’m just reading somebody’s angry rant, which is fine. But if I don’t know the difference now as a consumer, I’m confused.
Chris:
Right. I think also too, for the people reading it and consuming it, I think there’s a responsibility I feel at least to know whether or not that is someone’s pure opinion, and it’s solely meant for them to entertain you with an idea rather than this is a very well sourced, well footnoted researched topic that you might not agree with, but I’m presenting you with some factual information. So I do think again, I agree with you. I think that it’s important and I think everybody should have the right to express. It’s just that your purpose should be as clear as the access to it, you should just let people know. So that’s interesting, journalism for me, I think to your point, I’ve always viewed it as you see a report or you’re doing some journalists, but then I really started to really understand how investigative journalism works, the next level where you really don’t. I mean, some big things get unturned because of that work and it’s like a being a detective. That’s exactly what it’s like. Right?
Melanie:
100%.
Chris:
Trying to find the next answer.
Melanie:
So that’s one of the other challenges with the way that journalism has evolved. All of us have seen this, that things you do online are rarely as lucrative as the more physical versions, eBooks are cheaper than regular books, things like that. The same is true for journalism. So as all of these newsrooms, all of these organizations have moved online, we’re not making the same money, you’re not paying the same amount for a subscription. The advertisers aren’t paying the same amount and so there’s a lot less funding for these kinds of news organizations. When we talk about like the big investigative things, the Panama Papers, the Watergate investigation. I mean, those kinds of things that come out of that level of reporting that takes months, months of full time interviewing for tens of hours, hundreds of hours reviewing thousands of pages of documents. This is not something do on the side, this is a full time endeavor, right? So when we don’t have the money to be able to pay someone their salary to do that for several months, we don’t see as many of those big stories coming out.
Chris:
It’s true.
Melanie:
So we are seeing some innovation in terms of like independent ways to support that kind of thing. Just as an example in Connecticut, which is where I grew up, where I went to school, there’s a group called the Connecticut Health Investigative team or CHIT, and it’s a group of independent reporters that do exactly that kind of in-depth work around health, right around the health of the people of Connecticut and the newspapers pay them to run their stories. So they’ve created their own little organization that the newspapers that used to maybe hire folks like them can pay to subscribe and run their investigative story. So we are seeing some interesting innovation on ways to still support that kind of work, because it is really important.
Chris:
That’s cool. That’s really interesting. I mean, so in research and science, you make this incremental change, right? You make incremental discoveries, rarely in science if someone discovers something that just changes everything. So the way they do it, it’s peer review published for the science broader scientific community of anyone else. They take what you did and the goal is to not repeat it, but then use it in advance your own and so we can move forward. The problem is it’s gotten so competitive because everything, your grants, your tenure, all that is focused on those publications. So it gets really, really… It’s not as pure anymore, and then that’s been sort of the real, the problem in like investigating things.
Chris:
I think there’s a balance there to everything, just like in content creation, how do you keep it to a level of a standard? We’ll talk about that in a little bit, but also trying to do things that will appease the algorithms that are going to help you place. So there is a bit of a balance there, like anything they’re always is. You’re not working for a newspaper now, correct? So you got over it. So you didn’t do that, that wasn’t your journey, that wasn’t your route. Why? So tell us why you’ve made this sort of, and how you made this movement to more of this marketing where you are.
Melanie:
Yeah. So I think, honestly, it’s kind of a multi-step situation incremental, like the science discoveries. So when I graduated I had these degrees in investigative reporting in arts and cultural criticism, and those are the first two teams that get cut when funding gets low. We all know arts and culture is always on the chopping block, even school music programs, it’s always there and investigative is expensive like we said. So I had this realization that like, I’m not going to get the kind of job, like the kind of job that I trained for that I wanted doesn’t exist in the same way or at the same amount as it did.
Melanie:
So I had to make that first switch of like, okay, my goal is no longer achievable within the confines of the resources I have. So I need to shift, and that’s how I ended up at Huffington Post. I had applied there for an editorial role that no longer existed by the time they process my application and they asked like, “Hey, would you be interested in this job on our business team? It’s not really reporting, you’re going to work with our advertising partners and create content, but the skill sets pretty similar, you’ll probably like it.”
Melanie:
So that was a big shift for me because I really honestly felt like I was selling out, like I’m supposed to be this objective person and investigate wrongdoing and all this stuff and here I am copywriting for brands. So I had to really kind of work on that mindset to not think of it that way, because I think very quickly I realized I could bring so much value by bringing that mindset and that skillset into this world. Marketers need editors, marketers need content strategists, marketers need someone who can research and report really interesting content with new perspectives.
Chris:
Yeah, of course.
Melanie:
So I think once I got into it, I was able to see like, okay, so I can bring a lot of value here. I could still find honor and pride in the work that I’m doing. Over the course of a few years, I worked at a couple of different publications. So I went from Huff Post to the New York Times where I was their first editor of branded content and built out their brand storytelling team, and then same thing at Time Incorporated, I worked as a director of creative strategy. So I was overseeing the brand content programs for the 35 US magazines. Basically I realized I’m really in a teaching role.
Melanie:
I’m being brought into these teams to set up the infrastructure, to set up the products, to get things going and my reach would be so much bigger if I could do that in an independent way. Rather than waiting for a brand to come to me, I could just train as many people as possible versus just sort of one publication’s clients at a time. So that was sort of the second big shift a few years later where I was like, okay, I’m going to put out my own shingle. I’m going to like jump out on my own, which was like, that was a huge leap for me. That was a real big change. I mean, it is for most I think.
Chris:
Yep. Yep. I’ve talked about that with a couple of guests, people have those decisions where they sort of know it’s the thing that they need to do and all signs are pointing to it and they just know it and they see it, but it’s hard to actually take that final step because you know where you are, you’re somewhere and you can do that and that’s safe. You can do it and you can be good at it, but you really know that if you went there and you do that, it could be great, but will, but, there’s always that but and then the anxiety sort of takes over. So you are able to do that. Was it something as you soon as you did you knew this was right, or were you still like mm-mm, what was that transition like?
Melanie:
Anyone who is in the entrepreneurial space, if they’re being honest with you, they will tell you, it’s not all roses and rainbows. There’s a lot of days where you’re like, what the heck have I done? Why did I do this to myself? This was a huge mistake. Regularly, it’s just part of the emotional journey.
Chris:
It’s true.
Melanie:
But no, I think I had a really strong driver for why to do it. So, like I said, I was working at Time Incorporated, I had this huge job, this big office that was like stupid for the level of work that I was doing. I felt like I had it made so to speak. I was making good money. I had this great job that I liked. I had a lot of power, a big office, but I wasn’t feeling fulfilled in the work that I was doing. I was feeling like a cog in a wheel or a cog in a machine. I didn’t feel like the work I was doing had a big impact, and that’s something that’s important for me. Around that time, my dad had gotten sick and thankfully he’s fine now.
Melanie:
But I remember at the time I took a few weeks off of work to go be with him and help take care of him, and after a few days, the emails stopped coming and I had this realization, I’m not needed, I’ve done what I needed to do. I’ve trained people, I’ve set up systems, they are no worse off for me not being there and that’s a good sign that it’s okay for me to go. It’s time for me to set myself free because I’m not leaving them in alert. I did what I came to do. I set things up, I taught people, I got it up and running.
Melanie:
So I think for me, that was this moment of like, first of all, my dad’s sick life is short, do your thing. But also that realization that like, I’m not letting them down, that would have been something I’d be worried about. I was brought in to do this job, would I be sort of leaving them in the lurch? I think those two things came together at the same time to say, “Life is short, do what you need to do.”
Chris:
Right. They’re going to be okay, I did my job here.
Melanie:
But also, they’re going to be okay. Exactly. So that was around October, November, and then by February the following year. So just a few months later, I was out, I had laid the groundwork, got my LLC. So I had some time to plan, it wasn’t like slam the door and leave kind of situation, luckily. But I think I saw the writing on the wall right around then and the gears instantly went into, “Okay, how do I plan for what’s next now?”
Chris:
So then, I mean, while we’re talking about that, so now StoryFuel. Right?
Melanie:
Yeah.
Chris:
Tell me a little bit about what that looks like for you and then I just want to talk about content, the field of content, strategy and content creation in general in marketing. Like, you’re saying, do you want to try to touch as many people as you can? I know you give talks, so that’s your way of getting more people and at StoryFuel do you have certain requirements of certain things that when you take someone on to work with them, tell me a little bit about how it works.
Melanie:
Yeah. So I think that the best way to describe what we do, what I do is more to talk about the mission then the specific way we fulfill it. So our mission is to teach people how to tell better stories, and that comes in different forms. So at various times in the life of StoryFuel we’ve been heavy on consulting. We’ve been heavy on workshops and corporate trainings. We’ve done, like you said, I do a ton of conference speaking in a non COVID environment, I’m flying all over the place. I’ve spent one, 200 nights a year on the road doing that, and all of that enables us to teach in a very direct way. I’ve also done like masterminds and small group coaching environments that still feels aligned with our mission. We’ve got like printed resources guides and templates and things like that that help people tell better stories, and most recently we launched the book as well.
Melanie:
So it’s really aligned with the mission, whether we decide to take someone on, I think has less to do with who they are as an organization or an individual and more about, are we going to be able to help this person or organization tell better stories? So that may mean do they have the bandwidth, the willingness, the resources, the time to actually allow us to help them? Because not everyone’s ready for that.
Chris:
No, you’re right.
Melanie:
I think as a business owner and again, as someone who’s driven by impact, and by that mission, I’m not going to just take a check when I know I can’t help you because neither of us are going to feel good about that. So it really has to do with understanding people’s goals and knowing is that something we can help you achieve from a content strategy standpoint, if not, then we’ve got plenty of colleagues who may be a better fit for that, other businesses or similar businesses.
Chris:
Right. But you’re not that, right?
Melanie:
Yeah.
Chris:
You know what though? What’s so important about that is that you know who you are, you know what your business is, and you know what you’re going to need to be the most successful because at the end, the customer is going to judge you on how you did for them as well. They’re going to learn, but also that sort of fair broker I feel like you only get that from some businesses and people that know what they are and what their business is. I don’t know if all do, and they’re just willing to take whatever they can get, but that can drain resources so fast and just-
Melanie:
In the early days, I’ll be honest, it’s a privilege to be able to be in a position.
Chris:
Sure. Right.
Melanie:
I have to acknowledge that, and in the early days, I absolutely did things that were not totally in my sweet spot. I ran a Instagram account for a men’s shoe company for several months. You take what you can get in those early days.
Chris:
Sounds kind of fun.
Melanie:
You’re being scrappy. It was definitely fun. But yeah, so like you kind of in the early days, at least, I didn’t get to be so lucky to-
Chris:
Right, but you knew where you were trying to get to.
Melanie:
Exactly. So at each relevant point to be able to say, I mean, I’ve broken up with clients that I’ve worked with for a long time kindly. Mutual disillusion, acknowledging like, “Hey, I’m no longer the best person to serve you for this. We’ve hit it-
Chris:
It’s not you it’s me. You have the it’s not you it’s me.
Melanie:
Yeah. It’s just not the right time for us, yeah. We’ve done great work together, but you’ve reached the maximum ability that I can help you with and now it’s time for you to work with an SEO agency or a video producer, like it’s beyond me. So being able to make those decisions I think makes it a lot easier. I always think my mom has this phrase where she says like, “You’d be a really great cashier at Barnes & Noble, but that doesn’t mean you should do it.” Right? There’s a lot of things in life that you could be very successful at. Like you could be a full-time laundry folder, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you should spend your time there. So when you are clear about where you’re going and what you want to achieve, it makes it easier to say no to those opportunities that are not necessarily the right fit once you hit the point where you have the liberty to do that.
Chris:
We’re talking with Melanie diesel, the chief content officer of StoryFuel. She’s telling us about her journey. We’re now coming from a journalism background, getting into content and starting her own gig, and that’s kind of where we are right now in the journey. I want to talk to you about just where content is, in marketing. What I’ve learned, I started as a trained scientist, I got into marketing through content and I feel that content is the conduit for marketing, good marketing, without it, you don’t have it. What I learned is that, I started in podcasting back in the day, I had a science podcast, and what I saw about it was the power to directly connect with a certain type of person by the nature of the content we were giving them.
Chris:
If you can create something that speaks directly to somebody, that provides them value and as a level of consistency to it, I feel like that’s it, that alone right there will create something and draw you an audience. I’m curious to hear, just in general terms, where do you see content in the world of marketing right now? Do you look at it as really one of the key sort of linchpins and one of the key components in a marketing strategy, in a business place, someone had to build a business plan. Content has to be front and center. I’m sure you agree with that.
Melanie:
Well, look, I’m like aggressively pragmatic about things. So I think it would probably be oversimplifying for me to say every business needs content. I think we all have priorities, especially if you’re a solopreneur, small business owner, you probably need to spend your money on fixing up your storefront, I’m not going to fault you for not having a block. You know what I mean? In an ideal world though, I do think that content is one of the best ways. Like you said, to reach more people, to have a deeper connection with your audience, to help them see your values, to help convert them, bring them down the funnel, whatever that looks like for you and your business.
Melanie:
I think that also we get kind of caught up in content as a buzz word. When I talk about content, I don’t mean like you have to have a fantastic YouTube channel and [inaudible 00:23:49]. It just means you have a menu, there’s stuff on that menu. It needs to convey your values. You send out emails, you send out coupons, you send out catalogs, it doesn’t have to be this super fancy high-tech elite situation. Everything we do from social to email to physical brochures we print, it’s all content. So you have to be strategic about that communication to make sure that it’s giving the story that you want, that it’s sharing the message in the way that you want it to.
Melanie:
I always remind people, we’ve all had that experience where you’re at some sort of establishment that has a brand, a perception that you have about it, and then you see like a ripped piece of paper with like sharpie scrawl, no cash or some sort of sign and it’s like taped with a price tag sticker on a window, and you’re like, “Ooh, that is not consistent. That does not fit what I was expecting here.” We don’t want like our email or Twitter presence or our blog to be like that, where people know us by one voice, know us to provide a certain standard, a certain tone and then all of a sudden out of left field, one of our elements of communication is just way off brand. People notice that, it doesn’t feel right.
Chris:
One of the things I’ve seen and the more I’ve been in marketing is that this notion of being on-brand or off-brand for a small business owner, for some business owners out there that don’t necessarily know marketing well, that’s a concept that’s just a little bit foreign. I mean, I remember that, you’re just doing stuff to get it out, get it out, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it. But then at some point you have to take that like 360, look outside and say, it’s just I would just say for like mindfulness, the only way you become mindful is you have to be able to look at yourself for how other people see you, and then you can start to make the change.
Chris:
Same thing with your business, you have to see what it looks like from a 360 view and keep it consistent, or at least go that way. Content doesn’t have to be expensive though. I feel, I mean, it’s going to take time and time equals money, but there are ways nowadays where like you’re saying, you can add to your menu, but not have to like hire someone full time to generate all this content. Right?
Melanie:
Yeah. Well, like anything else in your marketing, there’s a sliding scale. If you think about other parts of your business advertising, do you need a Super Bowl commercial if you’re a local diner that just opened last week? Probably not, that would probably be super excessive and a waste of all your money and bankrupt you. Might it be useful to put flyers up at nearby grocery stores? Probably. That’s probably the right budget and effort level that makes sense for you if you’re just starting out. So it’s really that same question, when you’re looking at, what do you need to create? What’s realistic for you to create? I think that’s probably one of the biggest mistakes.
Melanie:
You feel this pressure as a new business owner. I need a logo and I need an Instagram and a Facebook page, and we’ve got to start doing videos and we make a blog. It’s like, my God, you’re going to spend all your time talking about what you do instead of doing it and that’s not productive either. So yeah, in an ideal world, would you have a stellar presence in all those different places? Sure. But we don’t live in an ideal world.
Chris:
No we do not.
Melanie:
So figure out where can you deliver consistently at a quality that you can be proud of and if that means you only do it in one or two places, because that’s what you can do then so be it. I think it’s important for us to be realistic, I’m not trying to be a downer, but I just feel like we look at like these Gary V or like these celebrities who have these empires, these media empires behind their brand. It’s like, well, I’m not that I don’t have a 40 person team. I don’t have a designer on staff. I don’t have a video producer on staff. So if we’re comparing ourselves to that level, I think we’re sort of setting ourselves up for disappointment and that bums me out. So I try to just be, if you can just pick one platform and if you can deliver-
Chris:
And do it well, right?
Melanie:
You love it and your customers love it, then who cares if you don’t have a TikTok, but you’re doing it, you’re doing the thing.
Chris:
Yep. That happened to me when I was doing the podcast, people were like, “You should start a blog.” I was like, “Why? Why do I need to start a blog right now? I’m putting all my effort into this show. So many people love it. It’s great. I love it, and I have what I need in it.” Sure, if there’s a demand that becomes overwhelming and we can have the resources to do it, I’ll do it. But why take away from the primary thing that I have going and put it into something else. By the way, have you met Gary V?
Melanie:
Yeah. I worked for Brave Ventures, which was an investment arm, yeah advisory arm.
Chris:
I’ve never met him. Is he like how he’s like is he like?
Melanie:
Oh, yeah. No, he’s a 100% authentic. Like no shade to Gary V, that was not at all the intent there. He’s 100% in real life.
Chris:
No, no, no. I know but when you said Gary V.
Melanie:
Exactly how he is.
Chris:
I’m curious. I’ve always like-
Melanie:
100%.
Chris:
I thought maybe I read somewhere that you’ve interacted with work that I’m always curious to know, someone with a personality like that, is he like that when you meet him?
Melanie:
He’s 100% authentic. Who you see on Instagram and a YouTube video, on stage at a conference is who you’ll see walking through the halls of the office. But yeah, I mean, the thing is like, when Gary started, that’s the thing people forget, we’re starting out now. When Gary started, he had a crappy old video camera, him alone, and an undecorated background doing Wine Library TV, no script, just him. He didn’t have a good haircut. He was just like, it wasn’t like a production. It was just him trying stuff out.
Chris:
Right. But he did it.
Melanie:
Yeah, exactly. So when we’re comparing where we’re starting in our journey, don’t look at 14 years of regular production in a full production team as your marker, look where he started, start somewhere similar and build yourself up to that. It’s like your first day on the court, you’re like, “Oh no, I’m not Kobe.” I mean, so give up? That’s horrible.
Chris:
No, right. You got to start somewhere. These are these statements that you hear over and over again, but they’re so true. I feel like sometimes too at Over It, we’ll get into these debates and they’re really strong and they’re really important, but at some point we have to choose something and you’ve got to go forward with it. Otherwise, there’s always a reason to not do something, I can give you reasons all day to not do something, but what it really takes is someone to say, you know what? We’re just going to do it and this is what we’re doing, and if we fail, that’s all right, then you know what to do differently on the next time around. A couple of things I want to ask you before we end.
Chris:
The first thing in your content approach, I know this is like a very brand dependent question, but where are you in when you’re working with a client or a brand pushing limits? I don’t mean pushing limits like extreme or I don’t want people to think what I mean is to be like rude or some sort of like [inaudible 00:30:33]. I just mean constantly you have a brand and you have like a safe circle, and you live in that circle and the circle could be wide. You’re not always in the middle, you could be further out, but there’s a line in the circle. I’m curious where your stance is on giving your clients direction and trying to push them. Where do you stand in content on keeping it sort of right there in the middle or do you try to push and push and push?
Melanie:
So I think it depends on a couple of different things. First it depends on my relationship with the client. If I’ve known you a long time, I’m more likely to say, “Come on Jerry, you know that’s a bad idea. It’s not going to work.” I’m able to be a little more forward with it, but early on it’s sometimes harder to have those tough conversations, especially if it’s a decision maker that you’re pushing back on someone who ultimately is going to do what they want either way. So I think in terms of like, when I recommend pushing the envelope, I think it’s a couple of things. The first is, does it make strategic sense for whatever goal we’re trying to achieve? Are we trying to make a big splash? Are we trying to stand out or are we trying to kind of fly below the radar right now? Does pushing that envelope-
Chris:
Right. Just do it just because you will have-
Melanie:
Exactly.
Chris:
Right. Right.
Melanie:
Then the second one would be, is the reward worth the potential risk? Because there’s always risk when you’re doing that kind of thing, but sort of like, what’s the risk of one snarky tweet? What’s the worst case scenario that we reply snarky one time? How’s that going to go? What’s the worst? Basically play out the worst case scenario, and if it’s not that serious and the reward that you play out is worth much more than like it’s worth it. I know it sounds very general, but that’s really the approach we take, and I think there’s a difference between what’s acceptable and what’s comfortable.
Melanie:
Sometimes we have to push the comfort line more than we have to push the actual line. We perceive the line to be much smaller, that circle of comfort is smaller than the circle of possibility. So sometimes we have to stretch that comfort zone to get out to where the content is great. But yeah, I think that’s often when it comes down to is comfort, and if I’m being honest, if I get a client that’s doing a lot of pushback and they’re not comfortable with that, that’s assigned to me that we need to focus a little bit more on the education. How can we help them see those potential rewards?
Chris:
Right. Exactly.
Melanie:
Whatever fears are driving that, how do we overcome that? How do we explain what those fears, whether they’re real or not?
Chris:
I think that’s really important because I think the only thing continually pushing on someone does is make them not want to do it anymore.
Melanie:
Oh, yeah.
Chris:
Rather than the approach would be, here’s why I’m going to make you sort of realize or not make you realize, try to make you understand why this is a strong idea and what you could get out of it and reinforcing those things, rather than just saying, “This is what you have to do. This is what you have to do.” Because I agree the difference in approach sometimes makes really all the difference and over time might not be right away, but over time there’s a trust to that I think that that comes out. But sounds like that’s from someone who knows what it’s like to educate, to teach and can see the progression. So I think it takes a mindset to really have that sort of approach when you’re talking to somebody and trying to get them maybe to commit to something that they might not feel to be as comfortable.
Melanie:
Yeah. I think that the other thing that works really well in those situations, if you’re not as comfortable with pushing back, just because of the dynamic is I have often used the tactic of offering two choices and explaining the likely outcomes of those two choices. So in a way you’re sort of cleaning your hands of the results. You’re saying, “Okay, my recommendation would be to do A, I think that’s going to get us closer to our goal because of one, two and three.” It sounds like you’d rather do B, and my concern there is that we won’t hit our page view goal. “Do you think we should still go with B or should we go with A?” So it’s your way of saying clearly, here’s the potential negative outcomes and positive outcomes of both. I’m letting you choose, but here’s where my recommendation lies and sometimes just laying it out like that. They’re like, “Well, wait a second, why would I pick the one that’s less likely to lead to the results that I said I wanted?” Sometimes just laying it out makes it a lot easier to see.
Chris:
Right. I always tell my team that, I’m like speak more to what actually is there, look at the data, present the numbers, present all of that with it so that you’re not necessarily the one saying, “This is it, you’re just articulating what actually is, and that is the data and the stuff that you’ve put forth.” There’s a little bit of a difference, but it’s true.
Melanie:
Yeah. That’s true of science and of journalism, right? We’re the conduit. You got to do what the data and the facts tell you. I’m just the messenger.
Chris:
Right. I’m going to tell you something, but I got it from here and this is what it says, and it’s my best interpretation and demonstration of it. Now, I don’t know if that will continue, but I’m just showing you that this according to this, and then it sort of takes that it’s not taking the onus off of yourself, but it’s putting it more on what’s actually there and showing the person, this is your information I’m just sort of showing it to you. I have two quick questions.
Melanie:
Sure.
Chris:
The first one is a little more to do I have to make sure everybody knows when we’re recording this right now, it’s 2021, the beginning of 2021 coming out of this pandemic, the coronavirus pandemic. How has this shifted what you do? So in content, in the way you create and tell stories, have you had to pivot hard on this, change messaging, change mediums? What has been the most significant change in what you do from what has just happened?
Melanie:
I think, gosh, we’ve all adjusted in so many ways. It’s like, I don’t even know where to start. I’m like exhausted by the amount of pivoting we’ve done.
Chris:
I know.
Melanie:
But if I’m being frank, I used to spend a lot of my time on the road. Like I said, I was speaking at multiple conferences a month. Leading into when we went into lockdown on the 13th, I spoke at a conference on March 2nd, 6th and 12th. So I flew back into lockdown. So that was my life before this. I was on the road a lot interacting with a lot of people. Now, obviously that’s not safe now. I don’t wish we were doing that, it’s not safe at the moment, but that was a huge adjustment for me. Not being on a plane for almost a year is mind boggling to me, like that’s crazy. Not being on stage, I love that feeling of getting to look-
Chris:
Same.
Melanie:
Into the faces of people that I’m helping and interact with them in a social hour. I don’t have that anymore. Everyone is just names in the chat window when I speak virtually now. So that level of energy for myself and for them is a little bit different. So that’s been a process for me, making sure that I show up in this little square on Zoom or whatever platform we’re using with the same passion and energy that I would, if I were on a big stage with a fog machine and like spotlights, and that’s tough to conjure up. So that’s been a huge adjustment for me, and it’s touched some of the other ways that we educate people. I mean, we’ve had to adjust all the content of our workshops and trainings and stuff to be digital first, not just anything but in a square, right?
Chris:
Yep.
Melanie:
Creating a lot more resources that can be accessed asynchronously. So things like the book, or templates and guides, things that people can access on their own time without needing me there to deliver it. That’s definitely a new direction.
Chris:
I try to end it this way. So you have, let’s do this, you have people, people are going to listen to this and like, like we know the brains, they’ll take away one or two things from it, right? Let’s just say these people are pumped up. They’re ready to sort of take life or business to the next level and they’re ready to get over is what we say. So what do you say to them from your experience in your life? What do you say? What do you want them to take away from this as sort of advice on what to do next to sort of get to that next level?
Melanie:
In so many cases in business and in life, you are capable of so much more than you realize, and so whether that’s, I don’t think I’m creative enough. I don’t think I have enough grit. I don’t think I’m personable enough, whatever the case may be, you are capable of so much more than you realize you just have to give yourself the opportunity to show up, and I think that even if it doesn’t go the way you plan, you’re giving yourself the opportunity to pivot, to learn, to problem solve and show up in bigger ways than you still expected. So whatever you’re afraid of, don’t be afraid, you’ve got it.
Chris:
Oh yeah. I love that. It’s so true. So you can go to contentfuelframework.com. Did I get that right to get the book?
Melanie:
That’s right.
Chris:
So you can go there, check it out, check out Melanie. Melanie, thank you so much for doing this. She is Melanie Deziel. I am Chris Paisano and this is the Get Over It! Podcast where we bring people together to discuss the various ways to stop just getting through it and start getting over it.