With Giants Like the NFL Signing Live-Stream Deals With Twitter, Fast Is Indeed the New Big Visionary solopreneurs like Kurt Bardella of the Morning Hangover online tip sheet have also embraced how mission-critical evolving is. Are you?
By John Brubaker Edited by Dan Bova
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
The big don't eat the small anymore. Small is an advantage, because fast is the new big. Agility and flexibility are your competitive advantage, because the fast eat the big today.
The game is changing -- are you? You need to, because whether you realize it or not, the playing field has been leveled. There's never been a better time to create your own opportunities. The tools are now the same for everyone regardless of status, size or resources. You don't need to wait for a lucky break or to be "discovered." You can make it yourself.
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Many of the big, established traditional media outlets across the globe are hemorrhaging financially and have been slow to evolve with technology. Look no further than IHeart radio, formerly known as Clear Channel Communications. The company is $20.6 billion dollars in debt and hasn't recorded a profit since 2007.
You can't afford to be your industry's equivalent of a vinyl record in a digital world. If you try to fight the future -- you're going to be left behind.
Case In Point:
Old: Traditional Radio
New: Spotify, Pandora, Podcasting
Old: Network Television
New: Streaming (YouTube-Netflix-Amazon-Hulu)
Old: Print Media
New: Electronic Media, Blogs
Old: Press Releases
New: Tweets
Now consider how your customers consume each of these new content sources. That access to information is available instantly, on demand and in the palm of their hands.
A shining example of an entrepreneur changing the game is Kurt Bardella, creator of The Morning Hangover tip sheet. Kurt is visionary and saw that the way fans seek out and share news is constantly changing. The Morning Hangover is a daily online tip sheet that provides fans with curated content on the very latest in country music news in the most accessible, immediate and portable way possible.
The Morning Hangover idea came from the perspective of a fan who simply became passionate about the country music experience and wanted to share that with as many people as possible. As a result, he has quickly become the go-to, trusted news source for the industry.
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Sometimes, the best ideas we get are borrowed or adapted from other experiences. Bardella is the CEO of Endeavor Strategies, a full-service public relations firm based in Washington, DC. Working in politics, he saw how there was simply too much content for people to keep track of. According to Bardella: "Daily morning tip sheets not only became the key information needed to get through that morning meeting but really drove the news cycle."
Morning Hangover is aptly named, when you consider something happens overnight and you wake up to it the next morning. Like a hangover, according to Bardella, "there's great power in being able to embed yourself in people's morning routine."
Very true considering our cell phones have become the morning newspaper. The genius of what Kurt has created is that curated content provides a connection between organizations and their customers or in his case, artists and their audiences. And he does so at a frequency that new breaking news is available at the precise moment his audience wants it.
Simply put, Kurt Bardella recognized the leveling of the media playing field, changed the game and is reaping the rewards. Answer these two questions and apply Kurt's wisdom in your field:
First, what are you passionate about in your industry? Now, how can you become an easily accessible gateway of curated content?
It is literally a low-to-no cost method of providing value to your audience. Advertising is expensive, dying and it doesn't position you as a resource. To quote Kurt,"Through The Morning Hangover, every day I have the attention of decision makers in Nashville." You simply can't buy that kind of attention with advertising.
Easily accessible, synthesized content is the new advertising. Why? Because people crave authenticity, not propaganda bordering on spam that amounts to clutter. The proof is in the rapid growth of his tip sheet -- from zero subscribers when it began in December of 2015 to over 5,000 subscribers and 40,000 Facebook fans in four short months.
How paramount to your survival is being on demand, in the palm of your audience's hands? One of America's largest, most dominant and most profitable entities, the NFL has even recognized the need to be agile and flexible. The league just announced a deal with Twitter to exclusively live-stream Thursday Night Football worldwide via the social network.
Step back and think about this for a minute. The NFL's 2014 revenue was $7.24 billion, and they're a brand that essentially owns a day of the week in America airing their product on CBS, NBC, ESPN, Fox and their own NFL Network. Translation: Big just realized it needed to become fast and quickly evolved in an agile, flexible way.
Related: Twitter Wins Bid to Stream the NFL's Thursday Night Games
If a visionary solopreneur like Kurt Bardella and on the opposite end of the spectrum an enterprise as massive as the NFL both embrace how mission-critical evolving is, shouldn't you?
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