What are the biggest problems that you see, Jeff, that people have in creating content?

Jeff: We’re going to talk about this on the webinar. I’m going to give you these 7 things now and then we’ll solve them on the webinar.

We have a slide in there called “The 7 main things that make content marketing a pain in the ass”. Or, you might say, “A pain in the arse”.

List Of The Seven Biggest Problems In Creating Content

There they are:

Number one: How do you create content that we’ve been talking about?

Number two, how do you create lots of content consistently to make a difference and an impact? It’s different from creating one piece of content and the world comes to your door.

Number three is it’s time consuming for the most folks.

Number four is not knowing what to say.

Related to that is number five,– coming up with enough creative ideas to keep it going.

Number six is this curious thing called writer’s block. People sometimes believe this is something we created just to be able to say we’re writers. If I got writer’s block, I must be a writer, right?

Number seven is for a lot of people it’s boring, or even scary. It takes them back to the high school or college when their English teacher gave them back a paper all marked in red. What I tell my students is, “One – look, your English teacher is not here. Two, if you are as old as I am, she is probably dead. So don’t worry about it. Play around with one of those things that give you ahead of what’s coming”.

How Do I Go About Creating Content?

You don’t have to write formally. You should write like you talk. Write conversationally, because that’s what attracts people. What is really important, when you show people how you approach their problems and you show people how you solve their problems, then they are going to be path to your door.

When I first got started in building a business with content marketing, which was in 1994, I was writing a column for the local newspaper when I was a psychologist in private practise. This is hilarious, because I have never finished my PhD in marriage and family therapy, because my professors told me I couldn’t write and I believed them. Here I am getting paid by the newspaper to market my business.

All I did was I wrote conversationally about what I saw in my office, keeping confidences of course. People got to see in a town overrun with therapists – I mean, Tallahassee is a capital of Florida. We used to say Tallahassee was teeming with mental health, because there were so many therapists. In that town overrun with it, I became the guy in the paper, because I showed people every week on Monday morning how I approached problems and how I solved problems.

That was offline and it took my practise to bulging and overflowing. You do even better when you take this online because your reach is greater. When you show people how you approach problems, how you solve their problems, you can really dominate your niche whatever that is.

Alun: Absolutely. Could you indulge me Jeff? Could you give me those seven again?

Jeff: Sure.

Number one is having to create content in the first place.
Number two is how you create lots of content consistently to make a difference and an impact. That’s a big word in what I do, it is “consistently”.
Number three, it is time-consuming. When I first talk to people about creating an article, I ask them how long it takes, and I hear things like “three-four hours”, “all day”. Okay, well maybe when you first start. I’ll pop one out in about 15 minutes. And they are good.
Number four is not knowing what to say. What do I say? What do I talk about? That’s why I gave that three mistakes suggested here.
Number five is related to number four – it is coming up with enough creative ideas. People say, “I’m not creative”. Whenever I hear that, I ask, “Do you worry?” “Yeah…” Well, then you are creative! You just use it in a way that doesn’t serve you very well. Let’s just change that.”
Number six is writer’s block.
Number seven, some people find it boring or scary. You think about those seven things – and no wonder that people don’t do this. But we’re going to fix that on our webinar.

Reserve your place on our Creating Content online training on Thursday:

http://customcontentwizard.com/alunwebinar

Tags: content creation, creating content, Jeff Herring, Jim Edwards