Let’s take a mental trip for a moment: Imagine yourself in a room with ten people who fit your ideal client profile. They’re basically tailor-made for your business. They need your services and they know it. You’re all there to have a conversation about it.

Would you run out of things to talk to these ten people about?

No, friend. I’m thinkin’ that’s unlikely.

Okay, our trip is over—who wants to think about gatherings when we can’t go to them?

You’re back in your office and you know you want to produce content, but you’ve got one or more of a whole list of worries:

• No one cares about what you have to say.

• You’re not a writer.

• It’s hard to think of new things to talk about.

• You don’t want to repeat yourself.

• Fear that the ideas will run out.

Let me just say that your audience cares, being a writer isn’t required (outsource your non-genius work, my friend), make a system to capture your ideas as they come up, and repeat all the nuggets of goodness so people remember them.

You’ll only get past these concerns when you’ve done this for long enough to realize that you encounter content fodder practically daily.

Content on the to-do list

If you’re a business owner, you know the to-do list I’m talking about. It’s long. It includes your bookkeeping, product development, marketing, customer service, client projects, and so much more. You’re juggling a dozen hats but you only have one head, so you wear the hat that’s most important in any given moment and hope like hell you don’t drop any of them.

This is the challenge of marketing a small business. It’s part of that never-ending to-do list and too often, the marketing tasks are relegated to the occasional times when you can give it attention.

The problem? Marketing isn’t part of the flow of your business. And the most time-consuming part of marketing (after strategy) is content (videos, blog posts, podcasts, social posts, web pages, etc.).

The solution? Establish systems and processes

Figuring out how to fit this into the flow of business is tricky. You don’t want to just buy a tool and hope it’s right for you. I’m a fan of finding free-forever tools so I can really test out whether they’re a good fit. The 14- or 30-day trials never seem to be enough for me to decide.

Not everything needs a specialized software solution. But when it comes to creating repeatable processes, the tools we have access to today are great for helping you get into a rhythm as long as you’re paying attention and committed to the process.

I could use a spreadsheet for content processes, but most spreadsheets don’t remind me of anything, let me create alternate views, or lots of the other functionality I get from the tool I decided to use: Airtable. I use Airtable for my content inventory (including ideas), and it’s open every single day, usually on my “Ideas” view.

All in one place, I can see a full list of my entire content inventory, see what content is actively being worked on, what’s scheduled, what’s published, what’s in the ideation stage, needs updating, what key messages each piece of content focuses on, which social networks I want to share to, etc. I can also assign posts to myself and anyone helping me with content.

So, how did I go about figuring out the system that works?

1) Start with what you have.

The first step to building this system was to simply go through my entire inventory of content and with all the basic information. I’m just geeky enough that this whole process was fun.

When everything was in there, I realized I had a solid library of content on a variety of evergreen topics. I was able to narrow down the categories I’m using on my website to the list that’s most important to me.

What you can’t see is the field the enables me to track content by key message. For new content, this is linked at the idea stage so I stay focused on my core messages.

2) Identify the gaps.

I promise you’re going to find them—I still have gaping chasms to work on.

Maybe you haven’t ever created content on a particular topic or perspective. Or, as you reviewed your content inventory, maybe you found that some of your old posts needed some work.

As I was going through this process, I got so many ideas. I’ve always said content begets content. If you’re reading about your industry, talking with clients, and having conversations about your work, you’re bound to come up with ideas.

Get them down! And then take action on the ideas in one of two ways:

• Carve out time to work on them yourself, or

• Hire someone to help you.

3) Decide what you want.

I’m gonna say some things you may not see very often: Not every business needs a blog. Not every business needs a Facebook page. Not every business needs to be on Pinterest. (I could go on and on but you get the idea.)

What every business DOES need is:

• Clarity about the goals they want to achieve,

• Know the resources available to do work toward their goals, and

• Data that shows what works. (Early days in your business are all about research and testing.)

So, disregard what your best friend’s cousin’s sister says and do what works for your business.

4) Make a plan for building the content you need.

Set the frequency you can manage. Doesn’t matter if it’s once a year, once a month, or once a week. You’re getting out of an ad hoc mode marketing. Once you figure out how often it’s realistic to hit publish, decide how you want to keep yourself accountable. Here are a few approaches you can take:

• Outsource to someone who can take the task off your hands.

• Block off regular time that you’re going to do the content work.

• Establish an editorial process using a project or task management tool like ClickUp or Airtable.

5) Make your content creation process your own

Remember that this is all about establishing the practice of discipline. As my friend, Jen, and I spoke about on my first podcast, discipline is what pushes you through when the motivation isn’t there. Discipline is a practice. You won’t be perfect—not right away or ever.

Setting up a system means making a commitment to using that system. I’m not perfect at it and I’ve been doing this for years. My ClickUp account gets pretty messy when I’m busy because non-client work (WOB) gets way off track. 😳😬

It’s also personal. What works for me may not work for you. If you live for using spreadsheets, have fun with setting it up. If you can’t give up your paper notebook for tracking work, don’t.

This is all about making a system that works for you and your business.

Your content matters to the people you can help

Before I let you go, let’s revisit that room with your ten people that fit your ideal client profile: They’re the ones you’re talking to with your content. They need what you have to say.

I know how much time it can take to create good quality content for your business. Building a system that works for you will help you get started and keep the flow going.

When you’re not motivated to share your expertise, be disciplined to help those people so they find you and hear you speaking to them.