I'm Never Going Back to Graceland (463)

You can have the best product in the world, but if it's wrapped in horrible content or worse yet, nothing memorable, what's the point? I'm Joe Pulizzi and you'll find out more in episode 463 of the Content Inc. podcast.

My friend and I took a road trip to pay our respects to the King, Elvis Presley, in Memphis, Tennessee. You know, the house as Graceland. I was never a huge Elvis fan. I'm a bit more of a Beatles guy, but for some reason I always wanted to visit Graceland. After all, it's the most visited private residence in the United States, with more than 600, 000 visiting per year.

Now, after a long drive, we arrived at the parking area. 10 dollars said the sign, and I rolled down the window and handed over a five and five ones. The middle aged woman said, as if reading a script, parking is straight ahead. [00:01:00] Our tickets were at will call, and after receiving the tickets, we were pointed to room A.

We waited. Some more people trickled in. Then we waited some more. Then a very young woman entered to give instructions. Her speech volume was so low, multiple people had to ask her to repeat what she said. All I knew was a movie would play, and then we were to go through a door in the back make our way out to the shuttle.

Now, the movie was a tour through all the positive happenings in Elvis career. The hit songs, the hit movies, even his social media reach, which seemed odd to me, but then again, Elvis is still alive.

The movie was excellent. As it ended, no one really knew what to do next. But we saw the door in the back, so my friend and I stood up and the other visitors followed us out.

There was a shuttle waiting outside, but before we could reach the shuttle, we needed to stand in line for pictures in front of an Elvis screen. Now, no one said anything. It [00:02:00] was weird. We waited in line to get our picture or handed what looked like a claim ticket. Then we headed to the shuttle. And before stepping onto the shuttle, we were given an iPad with some headphones, presumably for the tour.

Now, my friend JK and I noticed it immediately. No one was smiling.

When people talked, there was no enthusiasm. Now we chalked it up to the heat. It was also toward the end of the day, so maybe everyone was tired. But it continued. The shuttle driver, the escort from the shuttle, the other workers in blue shirts milling around. No emotion, no excitement, no nothing.

And there it was, the front door of Graceland. It was amazing. Move off the steps, someone yelled. Now is the time to hit the start button on your iPads, someone else screamed. And then I started looking for anyone, in any position, who was smiling. Someone must be [00:03:00] around that looked happy. Anyone. Bueller?. Not one person.

This tour should have been incredible. A once in a lifetime opportunity. But it left a bad taste in my mouth. Now I was glad I went, but barely. I'll never go back. I will never recommend it.

A few hours before going to Graceland, we toured Sun Studio. The place where Elvis first recorded his music, along with legends like Carl Perkins, B. B. King, and Johnny Cash The tour, just 20 dollars, included two rooms. It's hard to explain how little there is to see here. Man, what an experience. From the ticket takers to the human tour guide.

Human tour guide. Everyone was so happy to be there. So knowledgeable, so seemingly grateful. To be part of this history. I would have paid 50 bucks, maybe a hundred bucks for that [00:04:00] tour. We felt special. We felt like we did something truly unique. Now Graceland had the better content by far, not even close.

Sun Studio left the best impression. The experience I will remember. I've already mentioned this tour to over a dozen people. At the same time, I've told twice as many about my negative Graceland experience. Now, here's the point. You can have the best content or product in the world, but if it's wrapped in a sandwich, either nothing will happen or bad things will happen.

Now, think about some of these questions. What's the process to subscribe to your newsletter? What kind of story is your homepage telling people? Who is the person at the front desk of your company? Do they smile? Are they generally happy people? Is the cover design of your magazine making people want to turn the page?

Is the entrance to your [00:05:00] building inviting? Do your employees show their excitement for your company or product when talking to others? As the great philosopher Marshall Mathers, Eminem, has often said, You only get one shot. Don't miss your chance to blow. Don't miss out on some amazing opportunities by creating a first impression of meh.

Graceland, I beg of you time to clean house. Elvis would be so ashamed.

Now, before I got a pretty big announcement, almost a year ago to the day, book publisher Lulu purchased the tilt and content entrepreneur expo. Now the goal was to keep both the newsletter and CEX thriving and growing, but also to create a new product called Tilt Publishing. Tilt publishing would be a service for content creators to help them publish their books and get their ideas out there.

Into the hands of their followers. Tilt publishing is a hybrid publisher with two differences. First, we [00:06:00] take no royalties from authors, not a dime. Second, we want our authors to sell direct first. This means selling their books directly from their own websites, keeping more profit and data on their website.

For themselves. We launched our beta author program in January, and this helped us refine our processes so that today we have a better product to offer with the lowest price possible. Please go to the tilt. com slash publishing and check everything out there. And today we're officially open for business.

We're calling for fall manuscripts and book ideas. So if you have a manuscript you'd like to be, have published, or you have a book idea you'd like our input on, we're offering a free 20 minute consultation to answer your question again, the tilt. com slash publishing submitted there. And you can check out all the books and wonderful authors that we've already had in our camp.

It's truly impressive. I'm so proud of all of them. I believe in this process for content creators and entrepreneurs. And if [00:07:00] you agree, we'd love to publish your book. This is Joe Pulizzi. Remember success in content comes from consistency, creativity, and community. Keep creating, keep connecting, and we'll see you next Monday.

Stay inspired.