What even is 'consistency'?
I was having a chat with someone this week about blogging. I said that I felt somewhere in the last 10 years, someone said “you need to do a weekly blog” and that’s what everyone does.
No one stopped to question it.
They said that they encourage weekly blogs because it’s an easy thing to do and gets you in the habit of creating one piece of marketing a week.
And I get it.
Writing a blog is often the ‘safe’ thing to do.
When you send an email, you have to deal with unsubscribers. And for some people that can be really painful. I know a couple of business owners who have decent sized lists and they still take it personally when someone hits that unsubscribe button.
That’s a whole other podcast episode right there.
On social media, you have to be more ‘you’ because you’re showing up daily.
Podcasts and video aren’t for the people who don’t want to be the face (or voice) of their business.
But you can hide behind a blog.
This causes a few problems:
You struggle to think of ideas
By feeling you ‘have’ to put out a blog, you put out something less than wonderful
You end up blogging for the sake of it and it’s not actually serving a purpose.
Showing up consistently doesn’t have to mean showing up daily or weekly. It means showing up at the same time, every time.
Folks can reply on the thing you do being there when you usually do it.
Case in point - for the second time ever I got a Thursday newsletter sent on a Wednesday this week. Both times it threw me into a panic that it was actually Thursday and I’d not doing my podcast stuff.
Don’t worry - today is Thursday.
But I rely on that email arriving on a Thursday. And it’s a marker in my week. That is a sign of a good newsletter and of someone who shows up consistently.
It could be fortnightly and I’d be conditioned to expect it.
I get a quarterly magazine. I know when it’s coming because I can feel it in my bones. That or I’ve subscribed for years that I’m used to its posting schedule and I like that it marks the turning of a season.
Do you see where I’m going with this? You don’t need to do something because someone said you should do it. You just need to be consistent. In whatever way that makes sense to you.
Do this one thing this week:
If you’re feeling like writing a blog this week is a drag - stop and think about why you’re actually doing it. If it’s because you were told that this is what you should do, think instead what brings the clients to your business.
I’m not saying don’t blog - there is a very powerful reason to write blogs. But doing it better is way more important than doing it often.
I am saying think about WHY you’re creating that blog, or video, or podcast.
Is it really bringing in the leads you want for your business?
If not, what can you do to improve it? Do you need to change it up and do things differently?
It’s more of a thinking week than an action week. But we need those sometimes.
Next week on the podcast, I’m totally made up to be joined by tone of voice expert, Nick Parker.
We chat about all things tone of voice and newsletters.
Plus pigs on skateboards (you’ll have to listen to find out why).
Until next week,
Fiona