The more I go down the “creativity is a habit” path, the more I realise creativity is all about shipping.

I first made the connection after reading “Tribes”, by Seth Godin. It was like a light bulb switching on. A market leader in any niche is defined by the following formula:

Market Leadership = Content x Consistency

It’s so simple to understand, yet so difficult to execute.

I’m working on a new project with one of my favourite Internet marketers, Michelle MacPherson. It’s all about creating content and shipping.

In fact, Michelle came up with the awesome title “Always Be Shipping”.

It’s a wonderful play on words from the great sales movie “Glengarry Glen Ross”.

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CONTENT IS SCARY LIKE CIRCUS CLOWN DOLLS
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Having failed english at High School. The thought of creating and writing content terrified me. In fact, I’m very happy doing video and speaking onstage, something that usually terrifies most people, because writing an article scares me like circus clown dolls!

The past couple of years have been an extraordinary journey for me. Finally getting creativity is not a gift but a habit.
God bless Merlin Mann and Twyla Tharp for teaching me this crucial point.

I hope I can infuse in you a love of creating content for your markets as well. Not just because it’s fun (trust me, it really, really is…) but because it truly adds to your bottom line and is perhaps the most important thing you can do for your business.

In the mentoring program, we have a concept called CFT. This is short for “Critical Focus Time”. I realised most of my dear colleagues in Internet Marketing (and most certainly, myself) have this one thing in common…

We are barely functional human beings.

Our redeeming feature is our ability to be able to spend at least half an hour a day to work on the stuff propelling your business forward. As Gary Halbert and John Carlton would say… “practising the mystic art of Operation Money Suck”!

You’ll be surprised at the amount of content you can create if you dedicate just one 25 min period a day to this most crucial of tasks.
Remember, It’s all about consistency and momentum!

Once you get into the habit (and I acknowledge it can be tricky) the momentum of producing content each day becomes an all-important habit.

So how does this content production make you a market leader?

Think for a second about any hobby you’ve done. I guarantee you, each market has a someone practicing Market Leadership!

In photography, for example, I think of people like Bill Wadman of 365 fame, Scott Kelby of the National Photoshop Association and David Du Chemin of craft and vision.

The common factor amongst these three is a commitment and consistency in publishing content in their marketplace.
Pick any market you can imagine, give me five minutes, and i’ll show you the market leaders.

You should be so excited about this! It’s not magic. There are no deity given gifts.
Just a commitment to ship on a daily basis.

As I look at my bookshelf right now I can see the collected works of Seth Godin, he publishes every day. His books are simple, to the point and brilliant.

He continuously publishes, he continuously ships.

As you’re reading this, I want you to think about your market. Then I want you to ask a very specific question…

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Do you care about it?
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There are two prerequisites, in my view, that need to be met before you consider practising a content creation market leadership strategy (let alone, a content-based SEO strategy).

The first criteria, is the market commercial?

Now of course, if you’re doing this with your local church, charity group or cause, or indeed, your lifelong passion. Awesome! These strategies and techniques are going to rock your world.

There’s no getting around the fact, however, they take time and dedication. So with my hardheaded commercial hat on, you need to be certain the market offers a significant chance of commerciality. The good news is, of course, we teach you how to do exactly that in the challenge. As always, there is no excuse to guess when creating a business online!

If you adopt the “always be shipping” mantra. And build your momentum, you’ll be amazed where this takes you. Over the next few months I look forward to interviewing people who have successfully completed Market Leadership 365 projects. I hope these stories inspire and give you great confidence.

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Houston, We have a problem.
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When we talk about content creation it’s crucial you have a point of view.
Trying to be everything to everybody in any marketplace will ensure you wind up being nothing to nobody.

You need to have an opinion.

As Gary Halbert often told me, “Ambivalence is the worst emotion any marketer can evoke”.

Of course, having an opinion also means, by definition, you will have people disagreeing with you!

This is the number one reason most people don’t ship.

They’re fearful of what people have to say.

This is totally understandable - but completely ridiculous.

I’ve said many times the first anonymous horrible troll criticism you receive is very hard to take. Trust me, I’ve been there. You can’t believe somebody would be so mean, so personal, and most importantly, so wrong.

Here’s the thing, just imagine if there were anyone in human history who was 100% universally loved. They would be the most terrifying person in history! Dissent is built into our genetics, it’s a good thing! It’s just sad this can be exhibited in the anonymous online world as hateful, dumb and stupid remarks.

The good news, it happens to everyone!

Mother Threasa had critics.

Ghandi Has critics.

The DaiLama has critics.

Even, and I know this must be shocking to you, I have critics.

Letting anonodouche stop you from shipping and telling your story is a tragedy.

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We Are All Publishers Now
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When you think about it, the best internet marketers are simply, publishers. It’s pure physics, if you’re not putting anything into a marketplace, you are by definition, not participating. How can you expect to have any form of influence, if you don’t participate in the market?

Let me leave you with this thought…

If you have a choice of buying a product from two companies everything being equal EXCEPT…
In the case of company A, you’ve read their blog, heard them speak at a seminar, and read forum posts they’ve written. In the case of company B, nothing.

All things being equal, who are you going to buy from?

Exactly.

And that’s why you have to take content creation seriously.

You simply can’t avoid it any longer.

I’d love it if you retweet and like this article if you think it deserves it!

Ed