My favorite part of top marketer Colin Y.J. Chung’s interview process is when he asks prospective new hires about their content diet.
Your content diet, in a nutshell, is where you get your information and entertainment. It might be news sites, podcasts, TV, radio, or a dozen other sources. It forms the foundation of your perspective on the world — and as with any other diet, you can easily become what you eat.
So, pause and take a look at what you’re consuming and why. Try on Colin’s first four content diet questions, and see if you like what you come up with for your answers:
- Name the last 5-10 magazines, newsletters, publications, podcasts, YouTube channels, whatever you currently subscribe to and consume regularly:
- Name a few subject matters you have at least five or more books on:
- What was the last book/audio/video you consumed on marketing, copywriting, or psychology? How did it impact your writing?
- Same question as above, a book/audio/video that helped you grow as a copywriter but… NOT marketing, psychology, sales, or copywriting-related.
What do you think?
For myself, I’m realizing that I’m consuming a lot of commodities trading news, gobs of music royalty rights content, and a positively disturbing amount of Facebook Reels. My five or more books imply I’m into self-improvement but also werewolves and mermaid lore. Selena Soo’s Rich Relationships book fits the bill for the third question, though I’m still working out how it’s changing my writing, while tension escalation in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series is an easy answer to the last one. Reflecting on all of that, I’m suddenly not surprised that I’m struggling to connect with a new B2B client in the insurance industry — I’m not consuming anything from that vertical right now, and I probably should find a book, podcast, or blog to follow that will help me get up to speed on the market faster.
How do you compare? Feel free to drop your mix into our LinkedIn community, or mail it to me at jadams@awaionline.com. I may feature it in a future e-letter issue!