We’re motoring through the Content (mothership of all good things) Flagship course, and yesterday in class I talked about some of the tricks and techniques I’ve learned over the years to keep producing content consistently without burning yourself out.
(OK, some of this I learned from totally burning out. But I feel a ton better now!)
I thought you might like to hear about a few of those today:
#1: Understand why we produce ongoing content
When I was starting out, I’m not sure we really understood why we all kept showing up once or twice (or five times) a week to publish blog content.
It seemed, to be honest, like a kind of Protestant work ethic thing. We should definitely keep working all the time, and never take any rest or think about our own needs, because somehow that would magically get rewarded down the line.
I don’t think like that any more.
I don’t find any particular virtue in publishing content every week without fail. Most people either can’t keep it up, so they feel like gigantic failures. Or they do keep it up religiously and then they get exhausted and burned out.
It turns out that understanding why we publish consistently helps us get smarter about how we tackle that.
We publish content regularly because our clients and customers are ready to buy on their timeline, not ours.
I don’t get to decide when (or if) anyone in my audience is ready to benefit from a course I teach or a coaching package I put together.
And if you do manage to learn enough persuasion tricks to push someone into moving before they’re ready? The truth is, they’ll create all kinds of problems for your business.
They won’t get the result you promise, because the timing isn’t right for them. They’re coming from a place of feeling behind and rushed and inadequate to the challenges you present. So they blame themselves when they fail, or they blame you, or both.
And for service providers who publish content to attract more clients, the plain truth is that nothing you say or do is going to make that client hire you before they have an actual project for you to work on.
Understand that your role with consistent content is to remind your audience that you exist, that you’re pretty smart about your thing, and that you’re available to help when they’re ready to move forward.
At any given time, there’s a good chance that the timing is wrong for 95% of your audience to buy.
Which means you don’t have to make or break your business with every piece of content.
That simple understanding can help prevent you from throwing more and more content spaghetti against the wall and hoping some of it sticks.
#2 Stop with the treadmill already
In the early days, I guess we thought that there wasn’t enough content being published. Maybe that was why we kept cranking out as many new posts as we could manage.
These days, I’m noticing that content creators are getting a lot smarter about producing less content, but making it more refined and more useful.
If you already wrote a terrific post about a particular aspect of your topic, don’t write it again. Don’t try to throw it into a word blender and come up with new wording, or wrack your brain trying to figure out a new angle.
Republish it.
Now, you’re going to polish it up. Check all the links and make sure they still work. Maybe put a great looking new image on it. See if you can improve the headline. And change the call to action to something you care more about now.
You can also take a look at all those stale Grumpy Cat references you made, and switch them out for some fresh Squid Game jokes. Don’t be afraid to bring that content up to where we are today.
Then update the publication date (you don’t need to change the URL, and generally you shouldn’t), and get that puppy scheduled for this week.
You now have a refreshed piece of content that was always excellent, and is even better now.
Over time, the very best of your site will just keep getting more polished and more useful. And you’ll be able to get off the incessant content creation treadmill.
#3 Consider working in seasons
If you want to create for the long haul, start to think more like a showrunner than a blogger or podcaster.
Great TV shows need excellent writing, strong actors, and solid production values. And the talented and creative people who make that happen can’t keep working at that pace 52 weeks a year.
Shows work in seasons. They might create a batch of 6 episodes, or 13, or some other number. Then when those have all been released, the creators take a hiatus. It allows them a window of creative recharging time before it’s time to work on the next season.
The advice to keep producing an endless stream of new material — no matter what that does to your mental health or the rest of your life — is why you see content creators who burn very bright for awhile, and then disappear.
Schedule regular downtime in your content publication schedule. If you need something to fill the gaps, you can bring in a guest creator or two, curate some content in advance, or republish great material from your archives.
Get regular breaks into your calendar, before your brain and body make that decision for you.
Didja miss out?
Did you miss out on this cohort for the Content Flagship course? We’ve been having an insanely great time, and getting a ton of meaningful work done. I’d love to teach this course again in 2022, so if it seems like something that you might find valuable, drop your name onto the wait list. Obviously there’s no obligation of any kind.
That’s The Fierce for today. I’m looking forward to lots more Ferocity in the coming year. 🙂
Sonia
