CMWorld Interview: Ann Handley Shares the Secrets to Her Success (with Sass)
We all have the same number of hours in each day. But every once in awhile you find someone that come across a content marketing maven that seems to have the amazing ability to slow down the clock. It’s amazing to witness the things they are able to accomplish before you’ve even finished your morning avocado toast.
While this year’s Content Marketing World conference is filled with amazing marketers that can do just that, there is one content captain that sticks out in particular.
This marketer is one of my favorite speakers (and humans) of all time and is none other than the amazingly talented Ann Handley.
In addition to being one of the smartest and most accomplished marketers on the planet, Ann is a delightful combination of wit, humor and charm. So if your goal is like mine, “to be a little more Handley”, then buckle up and get ready for the ride of your life.
What does your role as Chief Content Officer at MarketingProfs entail?
I am gently awakened in the morning by the sweet calls of the downy-throated songbirds welcoming me into a new day.
I arise and dine on a firm scramble of eggs laid at dawn by my cluck of heirloom chickens, while I sip coffee from the rarest Kopi Luwak bean, harvested deep in the Sumatran jungle.
It’s hand-picked.
By monkeys.
So, after that… you can imagine that I flit to my desk, dip the nib of my fountain pen in the corner inkwell, and the marketing insights spill out of me onto the page with the same intensity as the yolks of those heirloom eggs spread onto my breakfast plate.
Or: I wake up, sit down at my computer, and force myself awake by scrolling through Twitter. (I have zero chickens and no songbirds. In case anyone is wondering.)
What does your day look like? What do you like best?
Most of my time at MarketingProfs is spent…
- In meetings with speakers, content creators, writers, MarketingProfs staffers (or, as I call that last group, “the Navy SEAL team of Modern Marketing.” See below.)
- Dealing with the relentless crush of email. (Least favorite thing.)
- Focusing on more substantive work in my backyard Tiny House. It’s really a tiny office. But it’s a dedicated space that helps me focus and do the work I need to get done. (Most favorite thing.)
(I’m here right now, in this Tiny House, because you’ve already extended the deadline for this interview. So I need to get my butt in gear.)
You have a fulltime job at MarketingProfs, speak around the world and still seem to find time to write bestselling books. How do you balance all of these priorities?
I have a Franklin Planner and a label maker.
I’m kidding. I have a lot of help on the MarketingProfs front. I have an entire team of whatever the marketing version is of Navy SEALs: highly trained and talented human specimens who are also the finest people I know.
What do you mean when you encourage marketers to “slow down” with their marketing?
Close to 90 percent of B2B companies we surveyed are using content in their marketing. Yet just 34 percent of business-to-business marketers say that their content marketing is truly effective.
What’s up with that?
It’s important to slow down our marketing to get the basics right.
Like developing a documented content strategy.
Like doing the required research.
Like developing robust, non-one-dimensional Flat Stanley buyer personas.
Like articulating your bigger story.
Like investing in quality: excellent writing (and editing) and storytelling.
It’s also important for Marketing more generally to be that voice of reason within our organizations, to be the voice of sanity. We need to be the ones whose hands put up a TIME OUT signal to stop play on dumb plans, non-customer-centric programs, or technology “innovations” that ultimately erode the customer experience and disrespect the very people we need to serve.
And it’s important not just because we want to sell more stuff to people who love us but also because we need to sustain ourselves as people—to be proud of what we create, and embrace our own value at our companies. I believe that a disrespect for Marketing is in part why CMOs on average have the shortest tenure among all the C-suite roles.*
*I know this is a complex topic. But let’s start somewhere, shall we?
Why is it important for content marketers to “find their squad”?
Most every brand needs #squadgoals.
(Side note: I’m tempted to say “every brand” needs a squad, categorically. But there’s an exception to everything, isn’t there? Life isn’t black and white. It’s more nuanced than that, with shades of gray and taupe and rainbow, too.)
But anyway: It’s far more valuable to connect with a smaller squad that loves you—far more valuable to foster a shared mindset—than it is to try to appeal to a broader, less-engaged group of people who can take you or leave you.
Said algebraically:
smaller squad >> broad audience
(a smaller squad is much greater in value than a broad audience)
What are the 3 most important things marketers need to do to create a memorable content experience?
Be empathetic. Develop next-level, pathological empathy for your customer, your prospects, your audience.
Be brave. Take risks. Face your fears. Stare down your critics. Be a little weird.
Zig when others zag. Look what others are doing, and then do the opposite. Or look at what others are doing in other industries but not in yours, and do that. Or what’s the thing everyone says is over, out, done, dead, kaput…? Go for it.
What do you see as the biggest content marketing opportunity that many marketers aren’t taking full advantage of?
Tone of voice.
I’ve been saying this for so many years that I’m starting to hate my own droning, repetitive, broken-record tone of voice on this topic… but still: Tone of voice is still vastly undervalued by almost every brand or company or organization I meet in my daily jog around the Internet.
Has there been a defining moment in your career that you credit for your success, and if so, what was it?
You mean the time Oprah mentioned Everybody Writes in her book club?
Or when my speaker reel went viral?
Or when I sat next to Malcolm Gladwell on an airplane and he was so intrigued by our erudite conversation then he gushed about me on Jimmy Fallon that night?
None of those things happened.
So, no: there was no one defining moment.
Success is less a one-time ignition and more a deliberate, slow burn fueled by love for the work, a need to understand (and to be understood), and the ability to shut off the incessant prattle of the Internet because enough already I need to get stuff done.
By the way, I almost quibbled with your characterization of me as successful. Another key is this: I never think of myself in those terms.
First, because describing oneself as “successful” is like calling yourself a good friend, or a good parent, or a marketing influencer. Claiming such terms for yourself is arrogant: It’s more meaningful when others call you any of those things.
And, second, because calling myself a “success” somehow would mean that I’ve somehow stopped working toward something. I’ve already reached a pinnacle. Or checked a box. Or unlocked an achievement or level in some weird professional gaming system somewhere.
Life isn’t like that. You never really stop trying to accomplish, no matter how accomplished you or others believe you might be.
Which speaker presentations are you looking forward to most at Content Marketing World 2017?
Is anyone still reading this?
I have been at every single Content Marketing World since its inception—which was, what… #CMW1973?
So I’ve seen a lot of the great speakers who have been there year after year like I have… and who are back again this year. People like Andrew Davis, Lee Odden, Michael Brenner, Doug Kessler, Ardath Albee, Jay Baer, Heidi Cohen, Marcus Sheridan, and that’s just off the top of my head.
Rock stars, all of them. Any of them individually is worth the entire price of admission.
But my strategy this year is to go support the newbies and the first-timers. There are a lot of them this year, too.
So I’m going to hit as many as I can, and I’m going to clap the loudest.
Want More?
Thank you for taking the time to share your content marketing smarts with us Ann!
To get more content marketing insights from Ann Handley and 11 of her fellow Content Marketing World speakers, be sure to check out the second eBook in our series, The In-Flight Content Guide: Creating a Memorable Content Experience.
Still need more from your CMWorld flight crew? Check out our recent interviews featuring Adele Revella and Amanda Todorovich.
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