Overcomplication is the #1 enemy of execution. For example, if you haven’t exercised for a year, you needn’t spend hours researching personal trainers to find the hottest, most cutting edge performance genius who is tuning elite athletes, join the best gym in town, and create a meticulous fitness plan. Instead, you simply need someone to stand behind you and yell ‘RUN’!

Along those lines, if you haven’t published anything in a year (or ever…), you needn’t hire McKinsey. You just need someone to yell ‘WRITE’! Or, even better, you can stand behind a writer and yell at them! Which in my opinion is what makes publishing superior to fitness. Can you imagine how great it would be to have a surrogate Crossfitter raising your game every time they workout?

If you’ve never worked with a good professional writer, get ready to be amazed. Let’s say you want to write an article. You can simply give them an outline or a rambling, stream-of-consciousness voice memo, and in the next day or so you’ll have something ALMOST ready to be published. There are always little edits and tweaks to be made, but compare the handful of minutes it takes to do a light edit vs the hours, days, weeks, or ETERNITY it would take you to accomplish the same thing yourself.

I’ve always considered myself to be a decent writer, but I can’t tell you how much I’ve loved outsourcing that labor of love to others in the past. Not quite as much as I’ve loved outsourcing mopping my floors and cleaning my toilets – but it’s embarrassingly close.  I had a client a few years back who needed over 100 articles written for a new Website they were launching – in only three weeks! Clearly, this was a job for outsourcing. As the articles rolled in I was able to just do some light edits on the 10 or so new articles I received each day, and we launched my client’s site on time. We continued cranking out articles and were amazed at how quickly our site zoomed past competitor’s sites. Content quality, volume, and regularity is incredibly important not only for audience engagement but also for search rankings. Since so few companies are diligent about publishing,  

Once you get the pump primed and your content flowing, then it’s a good time to find an expert to help analyze your strategy and help you tune your approach, tools, channels, and metrics.

How about you? When it comes to your content marketing strategy, do you need the equivalent of Usain Bolt’s personal trainer, or do you need to hand a megaphone and a fiver to your neighbor’s high school kid? If you’re way behind on your publishing, it’s time to scratch out some article outlines on the back of a napkin and find yourself a great article writer. If you need to talk to anyone, we’re here.