The Case For Recycling Content

As we're rapidly approaching year-end, I thought it would be a good idea to broadcast a friendly reminder to back up your content... but not just your personal media, your professional content you've created.

Over the years I have generated tons of content in my professional life. Meeting outlines, hundreds of powerpoint presentations, notes, whitepapers, training guides... the list goes on. To be honest, a lot of the stuff is crap, but there are still a decent amount of gems in there. Gems that if I apply a few tweaks, could probably be used later on in different applications.

Recently,  I did a sales engineering training for a client who had just hired two badass SEs that came from the support and engineering world. These guys were sharp and hungry, but without a SE background. To me, this is the best situation I could ask for. Smart, driven students; no bad habits to break.

The obvious next question is, what stuff have I created that can be used? The actual SE profession applies across all lines of business, so IMO it doesn't really matter if you're selling software or snowblowers, the method is going to be similar. That being said, nothing I've created is an exact fit to any new application, so everything requires at least a bit of customization.

People have told me "you reuse your content? Isn't that short-changing your clients?" I believe the opposite is true, if I don't leverage at least the basics of the content I've created that has made my other clients successful, I would be shortchanging my new clients. The concept is called "reinventing the wheel."

You may think you've created something amazing, but you never really know until you can apply it somewhere else.

 One of the things I struggle with is: "Is this a one-off?" After much useless agonizing, the answer is almost always no. The first step is to break down your creation, what do you have? Even something as specific as a pitch has a cadence you created. Is there something effective about this particular cadence? What worked (or bombed) about this method? Even a good call can be repurposed. Break it down, what are the pieces of the call? Every conversation has a beginning, a middle, and an end... what was effective about that approach? Are there any elements in there that can be applied elsewhere? How can you create a template for that call?

More often I find that good training meetings can be reused elsewhere if I keep the topics more or less universally applicable. What are some of the overarching topics that exist across all lines of business or products? There are several that come to mind; competitive analysis, intro/intent, ecosystem/integration, presentation skills, overcoming objections... let's take "finding need" as an example. I wrote a piece about need and the importance of it a few months ago here. There isn't a product out there that people will buy if they don't have a need (or want) for it, so I figure it's pretty universal... all we have to do is template-ize the content.

After you've been doing this for awhile, you'll start to realize you've created a process, and then that process becomes part of your brand. My approach is as much a part of my professional identity as my skill set, and my approach is supported by content I've created. Seems worth it to me...