Crunched Blog

We just had a very successful event in Boston with the guys at HubSpot (thanks Mark and Andrew for making it a great night!) and they reinforced the idea that content is king and the best way to increase your sales leads. They recommended every one should start blogging NOW, at least once a week – if not once a day. Many people in the audience seemed a little intimidated by this idea and then there were several questions about when do you find the time, why is it necessary and how do you actually produce content every day.

To help everyone out, we will spend the next week looking to some of our top bloggers and various resources for their tips on the best and easiest methods for generating content for your blog. HubSpot is a great place to start, but there are also many successful sales bloggers that are also happy to share their tips.

Happy Blogging!

Today S. Anthony Iannarino shares his tips on how he creates content:

How I Write Eleven Blog Posts a Week-Part One

More and more, I am asked how I write a daily blog post here at The Sales Blog. Seven posts a week is a lot of posts but, actually, I write eleven posts per week (I write seven here, and four for two other businesses that I help lead).

Here is my method.

Capture Every Idea

I start by capturing every idea I have as soon as I have it. I adopted this practice when I adopted David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) productivity process. When I observe something, when I work with sales people or sales managers on a problem, when I read something, or when I hear something that strikes me as interesting, I catpure it. Immediately. Right then and there.

I use Evernote to capture ideas on my Macbook Air, my iPad 2, and my iPhone 4. Wherever I happen to be at the time, I always have the tool I need to capture the idea. When I sit down to plan or to write, all of my captured ideas are neatly tucked away in Evernote. (The professional version of Evernote costs $45 annually, easily worth every penny)

I also use a service called Dial2Do. I don’t type or text while driving, and Dial2Do solves the problem of how to capture ideas while I am in my car (as it turns out, you always seem to have your best ideas when and where they are the most difficult to capture). Dial2Do allows me to speed dial the service, dictate my note, and Dial2Do records, transcribes, and uploads it to Evernote. (The Dial2Do service costs me $60.00 annually)

Every Idea Means Every Idea

I know a lot of people who should write more. The problem they have is that they don’t really trust their own voice; they lack confidence. They don’t lack great ideas. Writing daily came easy to me only when I made the decision to stop being so judgmental about my ideas.

There is some part of you, your inner critic, that tries to convince you that your ideas aren’t good enough, that no one will care, and that you will be an abysmal failure. The fear your inner critic breeds destroys your confidence, and it makes your life a whole let less than it might otherwise be.

I decided long ago to kill my inner critic, and he died a brutal and bloody death at my hands.

I write the ideas that I believe are important. I write my truths, knowing that my truths aren’t everybody else’s truths, but that they live here on the Internet for those who may need them, whenever they need them. Someone somewhere needs your idea.

I write to share ideas and to participate in conversations about what is really important in sales, sales management, leadership, and business.

I know a lot of people who blog regularly, and each of them has shared the experience of writing the post they believe is a complete throwaway only to have it draw the most comments and emails.

You see, you don’t get decide what other people find valuable; they do.

Questions

What tools do you use to capture your ideas?

Are you too judgmental about your ideas?

What ideas do you have that others might benefit from being hearing and discussing?

Got something to share?

Anthony Iannarino is the President and Chief Sales Officer for SOLUTIONS Staffing, a best-in-class staffing firm, and the Director of B2B Sales Coach & Consultancy. He writes about sales and selling, sales management, the sales process, what it takes to succeed, but mostly the posts detail what he believe to be an effective sales philosophy and a belief system that leads to success in sales. Anthony also works as an adjunct faculty member at Capital University’s School of Management and Leadership, teaching Personal Selling in the undergraduate program and Persuasive Marketing and Social Media Marketing in the MBA program.

Topics: blogging, lead generation