A good business friend of mine asked me this week about my content marketing. It made me laugh at first. Four years ago, I didn’t even know what the phrase content marketing even meant. But reviewing my works over the past three plus years, I am near 200 blog articles, write for two separate online magazines in networking and employee benefits and just finishing my rough draft of my second book. Not too bad for a hillbilly that grew up speaking English as a second language. What the heck happened to me? I simply started to write. This whole content marketing concept has been one of the biggest increases in my web traffic and certainly my life insurance and employee benefits business. It is not that hard, but like everything else in your business, you just have to schedule the time and write things down.

If you have successfully built a business or great at sales, you have valuable information to share with someone else. Stop keeping everything a secret, businesses do not become great keeping secrets. There is no longer the old culture of “Us against Them” in successful business anymore. Be serious, someone will always figure out what you are doing anyway, so why not just be helpful? I find writing makes me sharper with my skills and approaches as I explain things in detail. What I give away in knowledge more than returns to me in business. It is called the Law of Increasing Returns. It is impossible to give and never be repaid “dividends” in the long run.

In order to write, you must make time. I schedule my writing times just like an appointment. Turn off phones, emails and all other distractions so you can focus. Once you create the habit, you will be amazed at how fast you can crank out an article for your blog or book. Another key to writing is to keep a “writing page” of ideas as you come across them. Writers block happens to all of us. I keep a scrap page of ideas as I think of them. It could be something I just read, a client issue, an inspirational story or a new product trend I see. I find if it is interesting to me, that it is bound to be interesting to someone else. I always refer to my “writing page” to find an idea to write about and off I go. The idea of content marketing is to be genuine, useful or helpful, but never “salesy”. People know the difference no matter how clever you think you are. The old quote of “everyone has a book in them” is very true. Imagine how many blog articles are in there as well.

Just start today writing down ideas to write about that interest you and could be helpful to others. Once you have those ideas on paper, tablet or computer, schedule time to start writing. You will be amazed how fast your library can grow just writing an article once per week.

“The best marketing today doesn’t feel like marketing”—Author Unknown

Image by Stuart Miles images at www.freedigitalphotos.net

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Tim Wilhoit is owner/principal of Your Friend 4 Life Insurance Agency in Nashville, TN. He is a family man, father of 3, entrepreneur, insurance agent, life insurance broker, salesman, sales trainer, recruiter, public speaker, blogger, author and team leader with over 28 years of experience in sales and marketing in the insurance and beverage industries.