Ep47 Transcript: How to Create Content Consistently – Top Takeaways from Mark Schaefer

Andrea Vahl: One of the keys to success is consistency. And in episode 46, my friend Mark Schaefer talked about how consistency has helped him publish his 10 books, his award-winning marketing blog posts, that he didn’t start until he was 49, and other things that he’s been able to do in his life. We’re going to dive a little bit deeper into consistency in this episode.

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Andrea Vahl: In this podcast, a lot of the things I’m talking about come down to creating good habits around that thing. For example, if you want to work out and be a better athlete. You’re going to need habits to make sure that you’re hitting the gym. If you want to create a new business, you’ve gotta create these habits that will help you build the business, and you’ve got to be consistent in your efforts. I know that when I was blogging more consistently, I was seeing more success.

I fell off the wagon a little bit last year and the year before that, not blogging as much, but we’re going to get back into it this year with renewed vigor, especially after listening to episode 46 with my friend Mark Schaefer. He really outlined how consistency has helped him, and I want to dive a little bit deeper into what it means to be consistent and how we can think about becoming more consistent.

Tip number one is to really make the habit or the thing that you’re trying to do, whether it be writing a blog post, writing some new comedy, going to the gym, having that activity not be a decision every time. It is something that you just do. I am really consistent at going out to the gym, and it’s not a decision for me.

I set the alarm. The alarm goes off, and I get out of bed. I’m not always hopping out of bed. I will say that , but I am getting out of bed really, really consistently. I barely ever miss unless something goes really, really wrong.

Oh my God, I’m so tired.

And then oftentimes I realize that I regret not going to the gym despite what happened.

So again, tip number one is that activity is not a decision. It is a fact that you are going to get it completed.

Tip number two, especially to creating consistent content, is to work ahead. Don’t let that come down to the last minute. I know I do that sometimes as well, but as much as possible, work ahead. Don’t sit down and say, what am I going to write about today? I’ve gotta publish a blog post. No, you at least a little bit ahead so that that can be scheduled out and you don’t have to worry. I know that as I have had to be more consistent with this podcast, it’s been really, really important to work ahead a little bit so that I’m giving my team member, Sarah. Time to get the post ready, the podcast ready, the recording and the transcript and everything like that. So that’s a really important thing to be able to work ahead.

Tip number three is to defend your time. If you are scheduling time to do a certain activity like writing or like going out to the gym, you need to defend that and make sure nothing else gets in the way of that time. One thing that I really admired about Mark was that when I asked him about scheduling a podcast interview, he knew he was really busy getting his book finished, and so he told me he could not have a podcast interview until after that time happened, and he was also doing a recording of his audio version of the book, and he defended that time to work on his project.

If you have scheduled the time in your calendar, defend it. Now I know things come up, I get it. That happens to me as well where you have to rearrange things. And he did talk also about how he tries to take Fridays off as part of his lifestyle. And he did schedule our podcast interview on a Friday just cuz he is a really nice guy.

But for sure try and defend your time as much as possible and keep that schedule so that you can get your work done.

Tip number four, and this is especially for content creation, you need to have multiple ideas going because sometimes you’re going to be more inspired by a certain idea or you might want to think about how your laying your content out for your blog or your book, for example.

And so having multiple ideas written down, ready to go so that you can pick and choose from some things can help you be better at creating content. I know I do this all the time as well. I’ll sit down and brainstorm a bunch of different ideas and then pick what’s really calling to me.

Tip number five is to find ways to make things faster and easier for you. If you find that you’re coming up against a mental block around, how do I write this post. Or I’ve got the idea and now I’m not sure how to structure it. What can make that easier for you? For me, I’ve found that writing out the bullet points is a good place to start. Maybe it’s something like having chatgpt, start your content writing and then get some ideas from that.

Maybe it’s a set of steps that you take to first research some content ideas. Then you create the outline, then you do the video. You take the video transcript to start the blog post. Think of different ways you can make it faster and easier for you. Now, these aren’t always what’s going to be faster and easier for someone else.

I’ve definitely realized that having a super solid outline and talking it through out loud sometimes helps me create that content quicker.

I think creating good content consistently is a great tip from Mark to be able to become more well known, to really build your personal brand and like Mark said, Personal branding I think is so important, especially now.

So realizing why you’re creating that content, how it’s going to help your business, and coming from that place of service, I think can really help inspire you to create that consistent content.

Outo: Hope that was helpful, and make sure you grab the free guide. Top Tools for Late starters on the website at latestartersclub.com, and let’s turn dreaming into doing.