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This file was generated by Descript 

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Robby: The branded podcast with Robbie
Fowler, episode 100, conquer Your

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Content Planning Six Key Challenges
and How to Overcome Them Part Three.

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Content creation can feel like a monster.

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Planning it out, knowing what your
content marketing should be and do.

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The demand feels very high.

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If you are a solopreneur, a coach,
a consultant, you know you need

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to be producing content to get
your thoughts out in the world.

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But most of us feel
absolutely overwhelmed.

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We're not sure where we're headed, and
that leaves us stalled out or sometimes

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paralyzed and we're not doing anything.

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And then we'll have a season where
we do a bunch of stuff and then

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we get back to not doing anything.

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All the while we just feel terrible, like
we're sinking further and further away

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from what we should be doing to promote
our brand, our business, and to get our

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ideas out in the world so that ultimately
that brings us the kinds of clients and

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customers that we want to work with.

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That's what we're tackling in this
series, and we're gonna move to our.

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Next challenge.

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I encourage you real quick, go back
and listen to the first two episodes

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in this series to get caught up today,
we're gonna dive into part three,

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and that is the content challenge.

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The challenge is how do you come up
with content for your content marketing?

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All of us have felt this, and
you may be feeling it right now.

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How in the world am I supposed to come
up with content for my content marketing?

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Let's talk about why we
start to feel that way.

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That challenge of coming up with
content often comes from the fact

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that we feel overwhelmed by the
number of choices, by the number of

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topics that we could be talking about.

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And addressing in our content marketing,
and it's like going to a restaurant

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where they have a really large menu.

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My favorite example is where they
don't actually have a menu when

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you walk up and place your order.

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So think of a restaurant that is the kind
of restaurant where you place your order

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at the counter, you look up at the menu.

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A designer has not touched the menu, so
everything is in the exact same font size.

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You're not sure where you're
supposed to look, and there's a

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huge number of options up there.

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My wife and I frequently talk about
this experience when we have it and

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we get so panicked or overwhelmed by
the amount of information, we have

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no idea where we're supposed to look.

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There are just too many choices.

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There are not prioritized choices
for us, and so we just default

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back to something that we're not
sure if we actually wanted that.

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But it was the safe, easy order, and
so you fall back on something like I,

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I guess I'll just take a hamburger.

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I guess I'll just take chicken
because of the number of choices.

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That's how a lot of us feel when it
comes to deciding on what kind of

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content we should be creating and
talking about in our content marketing.

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So you feel overwhelmed
by the number of choices.

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Perhaps the challenge for you is
well, I have an idea of my, of

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what I would want to talk about.

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I'm, but I'm not sure what to say.

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Some of you may feel.

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That you're not sure what you want to
say about a particular topic or choice.

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So when it comes to content marketing,
you know what you could be talking

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about as far as a topic, but you're
not sure exactly what to say or, here's

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another thing that gets in our way,
we're not sure who're speaking to, and

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when you're not sure of who the audience
is, it's very challenging to figure

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out what you want to say, because you
are not sure who you're speaking to.

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So we feel overwhelmed by the choices.

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We're not sure exactly what we want to
say, we're not sure who we're speaking to.

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That causes significant problems and
challenges when it comes to content.

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And then lastly, we're not sure
why someone else would want to

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listen to us, and that begins
to allow that doubt to creep in.

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We say why would someone
want to listen to me anyway?

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However that content gets distributed,
whether that's a podcast, a blog

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article, social media, we get
caught in the question or the fear

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of who would wanna listen to me?

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Or Why would someone want to listen to me?

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So those are some reasons that
stand, or obstacles that stand in

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our way to coming up with content
when it comes to content marketing.

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Now I wanna give you a couple of tips and
then I'm gonna give you an action item.

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We're not gonna take a ton of
time because I think this is

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fairly easy to push through.

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Now I wanna remind us what we
talked about in the first episode.

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I gave a brief pop quiz in the first
episode of this series, two episodes ago,

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and I asked the question, true or false?

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Are there content planning
resources available to us online?

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In other words, are there resources
online that are designed to

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help you come up with content?

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The answer's true.

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There are tons of them.

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There are articles, there are
resources, there are courses, there

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are products that you can buy to
help you tackle this challenge.

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So that gives me an indication that
it's not quite as simple as if I

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just knew what content to talk about
in my content marketing, I could

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plan that out and I could just crush
it because, We have no shortage of

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resources to help us push through that
obstacle, overcome that challenge.

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Here's some tips when it comes to
coming up with content in light of

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where you're headed this quarter of
the year, and that was the previous

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episode, so go check that out.

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It's very short.

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That's the first thing that helps us.

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We have to know where we're
headed, and then we have to

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know what we're talking about.

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What kind of content do we want to
talk about in order to go accomplish

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and get our business where we want
to get it in the next quarter.

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Coming up with content.

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Here are some tips.

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What do people who know
you already ask you?

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What questions are they asking you about?

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What topics are they asking
you in looking for your.

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Input.

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So anyone that already knows you
already has framed you out as some

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sort of an expert or someone who
can help them with certain things.

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And you'll hear that come
through in their conversation, in

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particular, in their questions.

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So just think of some folks that know you.

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They could know you personally, they
could know you from a  work context.

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And just think through what
sorts of questions do people

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come to me for answers.

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Write those down and now you've got a
pretty good idea of these are things

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that I have some sort of a track
record that people want to, they

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come to me for help on those areas.

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A second tip, what did you need
to learn 2, 3, 4, 5 years ago?

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What did you need to learn over the
past three or four years that got you

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from where you were 2, 3, 4, 5 years ago
to where you are in your business now?

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Whatever you needed to learn, there's
a whole group of people coming right

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behind you, likely trying to do the same
thing, or something very similar to you,

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and they're just a little bit further
back down the journey than you are.

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So what did you need to learn
2, 3, 4, 5 years ago to get

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your business where it is today?

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Talk about that, that is a great
source for content for you to decide

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what sorts of things do I wanna be
talking about in my content marketing.

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Here's one final tip.

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If you are pivoting from another, a
career, maybe another work environment,

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so you were in a corporate environment
and you're moving to a solopreneur

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business, an entrepreneur business.

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You're stepping into consulting or
coaching or some sort of creative

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endeavor or a solopreneur adventure.

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When you're pivoting it's similar.

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You want to just ask yourself.

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What are you already an expert at?

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What do you, what areas do you already
have expertise in that you used in that

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previous role or position or even career?

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And just write those down and don't
worry about the specific details.

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So  if you worked as a technical writer,
you wrote technical manuals for a

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product or maybe a software product.

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Or a technology product, and you're a
tech writer, so you write the detailed

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manuals that go along with the solution
that your company sold, for example.

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Then you just write down, I'm an expert.

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At not, yes.

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Technical writing.

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Man.

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I'm an expert at writing and I'm an expert
at explaining difficult things in ways

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that normal people can understand them.

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You are a, an expert explainer.

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You're likely an expert teacher,
you're likely an expert writer.

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So you wanna write down the things that
you are already an expert at, or you have

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skills in these areas if you're coming
from something different and pivoting

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into a new career as a solopreneur,
entrepreneur, coach, consultant creative.

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Maybe you're stepping into speaking,
podcasting, anything like that.

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Take what you are already an expert in.

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Write those things down.

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Where do you already have skills?

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Write those down.

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I talked about my own journey with
that in a previous episode, and

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I'll track that down and I'll put
that episode in the show notes.

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But I had to do that as I
move, for example, from.

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Church ministry back into
full-time marketing and consulting

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and marketing advisory work.

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So hopefully those are some tips to
help you begin to discern what sorts

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of things do I want to be talking
about when it comes to the kind

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of content marketing I want to do?

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So let's jump to action steps.

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Let's keep this simple.

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Let's keep the ball moving.

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Here's your action step for this episode.

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Determine your three to
five content pillars.

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Three to five content pillars.

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These are the three to four to five
subjects or big buckets that you

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are going to regularly be talking
about in your content marketing.

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You're not gonna talk about a thousand
different things, so that's gonna remove

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that challenge we talked about at the
top of this episode where you feel

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overwhelmed by the number of choices.

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We're gonna narrow those choices down and
say, these are the three to four to five

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things I regularly want to be speaking
into, and I want to be talking about these

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things, and these are areas where I would
love to be known as a thought leader so

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that when someone thinks about one of
those subjects, topics, those big buckets,

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over time, they might think about me.

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So let me give you a few examples
of what this might look like.

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What would be three examples of content
pillars that someone, for example,

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like me might write down to help narrow
down the content I wanna talk about?

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So one of those might be marketing,
I am a marketing advisor.

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Marketing consultant.

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So marketing is a fairly obvious
content pillar that I would write down.

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Another one would be brand
strategy or brand positioning.

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And then a third one might be leadership.

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Those are three areas that I regularly am
going to be talking about in my content

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marketing, and that alleviates all of the
other choices that might distract me and

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say I could talk about this also, I could
talk about that also, I could talk about.

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Lots of things.

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No, these are the three things
I want to, I wanna be talking

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about in my content marketing,
brand, strategy, and leadership.

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You can even go the next step.

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And under each of those three content
pillars, you could go one more level down.

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And I could say in the area of
marketing, when I'm talking about

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that content pillar, what are some
specific things I want to talk about?

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I could talk about offers
under the heading of marketing.

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I could talk about launches,
how you launch something under

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the Heading and Marketing.

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I could talk about email and email
marketing and email list building.

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All of that could be under that
content pillar of marketing.

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If it comes to brand strategy, I
could be talking about positioning.

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For example, I have one called
the three Ps of positioning that

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I've talked about on this podcast.

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At least a couple of times I,
under brand strategy, I could be

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talking about the difference between
branding and marketing and how to

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leverage those in your business.

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I could talk about personal branding
as opposed to brand positioning as

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a business and leadership, right?

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I could go one level down under
leadership and say, I wanna talk

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about the idea of, do less better.

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But my little sneaky trick is there,
I put a comma after less, right?

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Instead of do less better, which
sounds like, wait, that's a bad

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way in English of saying Do worse.

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No, do less things, but do them better.

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That's one thing I talk about a lot
under the umbrella of leadership.

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Rest and reflection.

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When I'm talking about leadership and
then a big part of my own brand and my

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own journey, and what I want to bring
to the table is under leadership, what

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does it look like to be a life-giving
leader, leading a life-giving business?

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So that's an example of what it
looks like to take that action step.

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So I want you to  determine your
three to five content pillars.

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Don't have seven or nine.

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It's gonna be too challenging to keep up
with those three to five, and then you can

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take one step further and say, under each
one of those content pillars, what are

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a few specific areas I could talk about?

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That's how you begin to push
through the content challenge.

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You narrow down the choices.

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You make it very simple for you
to say, what do I want to talk

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about in my content marketing?

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You then shape those content
pillars and aim them at where

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you're headed this quarter.

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That's what we covered
in the previous episode.

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And that will start to help you conquer
the challenge of content marketing and

00:14:23.963 --> 00:14:29.593
planning that out, which for so many
of us, Is just a massive challenge that

00:14:29.593 --> 00:14:34.453
we start to feel like we're drowning
under the weight of the demand.

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I hope you enjoyed this episode.

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If so, hit the share button on
your phone or your podcast player.

00:14:41.123 --> 00:14:44.933
Share this episode with someone else
that maybe you've talked about this

00:14:44.963 --> 00:14:47.213
challenge, the two of you about.

00:14:47.613 --> 00:14:51.693
You know how you're trying to market
yourself and create content and get

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that content out into the world so
that it helps you grow your business.

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I'd love for you to do that.

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Join me on the next episode where
we talk about the channel challenge.

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If you've ever said, I'm not a writer.

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I'm not great on video.

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I don't sound great on a audio.

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Join me on the next episode where
we'll talk about the channel challenge.

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Until next time go and
build a life- giving brand