Written by Andrew Holliday | March 21, 2016
Do you focus on client work that’s paying the bills where someone is foaming at the mouth for their concepts, or do you work on your own brand and marketing where the only one holding you accountable is you?
In most cases, the work for yourself gets tossed to the side without any hesitation. We understand because this has been us until recently. Allowing ourselves to fall into this cycle is a mistake.
New Year Resolution number one was to stop neglecting Harvest and execute our own content marketing plan.
Don’t get me wrong, clients are still our number one priority. However, there are plenty of ways to schedule in time to work on our own marketing. It’s just a matter of making it a priority as well. Once you get into the routine it’s not that difficult.
Here are three simple tips for getting on a roll with your content development:
- Develop A Content Marketing Plan – If you have a plan to follow you won’t have to spend valuable time each writing session (or video, email campaign, periscope, Instagram post, etc…) trying to come up with topics. You’ll know your strategy and overall topic and be ready to execute. A little extra work on the front end will save you hours every week. Success is all about execution. Your plan will prevent you from being frozen with indecision and writer’s block allowing you to execute.
- Schedule Time – This one is so simple it’s stupid. If you just schedule time each day to focus on writing you can produce a ton of content. And the more you do it the easier, faster and more engaging your content becomes. It’s amazing how much you can produce with a little time carved out each day. I personally like to do it first thing in the morning before email and calls start rolling. This is my most productive portion of the day so it’s a perfect opportunity to write. Not to mention, it feels great to start your day off with a win.
- Turn It All Off – Another mind-numbingly simple tip here. Simply turn off your email and any other major distractions that will keep you from focusing on your content. You have all day to put out fires. They aren’t going anywhere. Turn off your email and dedicate an hour to producing your content each morning. The results are invigorating. You’ll start your day with a sense of accomplishment, and I promise those emails and social media will be there when you open your phone. One of the traits almost all billionaires have in common is that they control their day, their day doesn’t control them.
Have you started blogs in the past but let them become irrelevant? Started an Instagram account only to let it sit dormant for months? Launched an email newsletter that only had one issue? We understand your struggles.
Action Steps:
- Commit to focusing on your business. Treat yourself like a client.
- Block out a specific time of day to focus on your content each day.
- Build your content marketing plan.
