The 14-Step Arrows In Your Quiver Content-Generation Strategy

“Oh Todd, I understand that we should blog, but I just don’t know what the hell we would blog about,” he said.

I hear this statement far too often.

Let me offer one simple solution. I call this my “Quiver Full of Arrows” solution. Here is the 14-step process to begin to solve the content-generation problem:

1. Sit down with your sales force.

2. Ask them to list the most common questions, challenges and objections they get when are making a sales call.

3. Prioritize the list, and try to come up with at least 10 to 15 common questions heard on all sales calls.

4. Engage in conversation with sales force about how you deal with the objection. Jot down the answers. Better yet, also video the session. Come up with solid answers to the questions, challenges and objections.

5. Now go through each question, and identify a customer engagement where you have effectively dealt with that question. Quickly jot the story down.

5.5. Or better yet, shoot a quick video of the customer explaining how your company dealt with the question, challenge and objection.

6. Assign each member of the sales team to organize the thoughts on a particular question. This involves the whole team in the process.

7. Prepare an article identifying the question itself, along with a discussion on how the company handles that question, challenge and object. Include helpful videos in the post.

8. Publish the article on the company blog. [and reference the articles on your personal blog too...]

9. Be certain to properly optimize the article with the proper keywords and search query phrases, so that others in the marketplace might stumble upon the content in the search engines.

10. Now, and most important. In the future, when prospects throw out the question, challenge and objection – in addition to addressing the issues yourself, you can select the specific article that addresses the question, and email it immediately to your prospect. And observing an existing customer explain how you handled the issue should be quite powerful for your prospect.

[sidenote: these articles are arrows in your quiver. When a prospect asks a specific question, you can pull it out of your quiver and fire the bolt right away!]

11. You just might see deals move along a little faster with rapid fire ability to address prospect objections with helpful, meaningful content.

12. Observe sales cycles become shorter.

13. Go to the bank with increased profits.

14. Retire to your island.

Any questions? What do you think? Agree? Disagree?

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[photo from flickr]