You try to create regular content - like writing articles or making videos - but lately, you’ve been hitting a wall. Perhaps your mind dismisses every topic that arises or maybe you find yourself staring at the screen or busying yourself with tidying your desk or cleaning out the junk drawer.
What’s going on here? There could be a number of things. You might still be unclear about your marketing's foundation. Or you might have a strong Inner Critic, worrying if anyone will like it or that you have nothing new to say.
There is something else, though, that often trips up coaches, healers or other creative entrepreneurs and that's not knowing what to write or talk about when they create content.
The Gifts of Content Creation
Before we go further, you need to know that creating content serves two purposes.
First, it helps your business. Content gives voice to you and your expertise. It lays the foundation for your audience to see you as someone who can help them.
If someone who is the type of person you help and has the type of problem you solve opens your articles or watches your videos on YouTube week after week, they begin to see you as someone they trust. And trust is the necessary ingredient for someone to decide to hire you.
Your content helps your business.
Second, it also helps your potential clients. In reading your articles or listening to your podcast, your ideal clients get your support. They may learn things from you - like how the body responds to stress or how clutter on your desk makes you less creative.
Or they might receive practical, free guidance from you - like how to inject more fun in a marriage or rekindle creativity, to help move them forward in their own journey. Or they might be inspired by you - like when you share stories of your own or others' transformations.
Your content helps your ideal client.
Sometimes when creating content, it’s easy to lose sight of both of those objectives and to unconsciously slip into focusing more on the ‘how this is going to help my business’ aspect. And when that happens, there’s an incredible amount of pressure - pressure to make each article absolutely relevant, wildly insightful or innovatively on point. Which in turn often stifles your natural creative impulse.
But when you widen your focus to remember that second objective - serving your ideal clients - that's what can help you decide what to write, talk or share about.
Three Simple Steps
A lot of my work with clients is on creating content, and as part of that we focus on creating specific, relevant content. Here are a couple of steps for you to follow to point you in the right direction.
Get Quiet
Find some time where you can be alone and uninterrupted. Spend a few minutes grounding yourself and quieting your mind. You can do some deep breathing, a relaxation exercise. For me, doing 10 minutes of stream of consciousness writing, following by some deep breathing works really well.
Visualize
Think about your ideal client and bring one person to mind. This could be an earlier version of yourself, a previous client, or someone you know that you think could really benefit from the type of work you do. It does not have to be someone who paid you or was a client.
Really spend a few minutes here, visualizing this person, where’s she’s at, what’s on her mind.
Write
Now, get out a pen and paper. While still holding your ideal client in your mind’s eye, ask yourself a few questions and start writing about that person.
What is she struggling with?
What’s the hardest for her right now?
What keeps her up at night or fills her with dread when she wakes up in the morning?
Write for at least 15 minutes, but don’t let yourself stop there if you’re on a roll.
Find the Thread
Take a look and reread what you’ve written. Embedded in your piece are the things your clients are struggling with, and these can be used as powerful topics for future content pieces, threading your teachings with the real-world problems your ideal clients are dealing with.
For example, maybe you visualized a friend of the family who you helped when she was in a toxic relationships. You recall how she struggled to make changes so her husband wouldn't be mad at her or how she felt like she was walking on eggshells all the time. No matter what she did, you remember, she felt she was wrong. She worried what would happen if she tried to leave him. She worried what would happen if she didn't.
Each one of those sentences I wrote contains a problem your potential clients struggle with. And with each problem comes the opportunity to share something helpful and offer guidance.
When you get stuck writing content, take a step back and see if you’ve been accidentally forgetting that what you’re writing is also designed to help your clients, and is not just as a vehicle to move your business forward. Then spend a few minutes looking at the world through the eyes of your ideal client, brainstorm their problems to incorporate those into your content piece.
By having considered your ideal clients perspective, you'll have a long list of things you can write about. This will help you content creation become more consistent and relevant - two things key to creating great content.