49 prompts for authentic content WITHOUT brain drain

If creating content for your business feels like a brain-drain and a chore, you’re getting content all wrong.

Creating content that ACTUALLY INTERESTS YOUR IDEAL CLIENTS doesn’t need to be the dreaded ‘extra’ job that you don’t get paid for – it can be PART OF the day job. Aligned. Authentic. Enjoyable.

So today I’m going to give you 49 prompts to help you create authentic, relevant and engaging content for your business, WITHOUT creating a whole heap of extra work for yourself, AND without losing hours staring at the blank page of despair.

Yes, there is a catch

There are a few caveats though. You can ONLY create great, engaging content without brain-drain if:

• You actually know who your ideal clients are. If you’re still at the stage of thinking, ‘anyone could be my next client’ – this won’t work.

• You know what your OWN zone of genius is, and you’re committed to work within it. If you’re still thinking, ‘I could do anything for money!’ – this won’t work.

• You know exactly what you want to sell, and WHY your ideal client wants it. If you don’t have that level of clarity, this won’t work.

If you’re not sure of any of these, I’ve got a batch of free workbooks that will help and you can grab them here.

In order to take the strain out of creating content for your business easier, you need to have all your clarity up-front: your who, your what and your why.  

And there’s one final caveat. There is no magic-wand solution that will get you creating brilliant content without spending any time at all: anyone who tells you that is having you on.

But if you FRONT-LOAD the deep thought and hard work, then on a daily or weekly basis you can BYPASS a lot of the discomfort that makes the job of creating content feel uncomfortable, exhausting, insurmountable, etc etc etc.

If you’re always casting around for clarity – who you’re talking to, what you’re talking about, what you’re inviting them to do, what they need to hear from you – with every piece of content you create, you’re on a fast-track to burnout. You’re exponentially increasing the amount of work your brain needs to do, every time you think of creating content.

On top of that, you’re feeling the pressure and the panic: ‘I need to make some content but OMG what am I going to say? This is going to take ages! This is going to be hard! I don’t know what to say. This is costing time I can’t afford to spend’ – etc etc etc, all of which makes your brain work LESS efficiently, not more. It’s a self-fulfilling creative block.

And on top of THAT, each time you do create content, you spend all that time reinventing the wheel: thinking up a whole new pack of ideas; a new angle; a new graphic – only to watch it disappear into the black hole of one-time-use content, never to be seen again. All that brainpower, fretting and frustration, lost forever.

49 Tried & Tested Ideas for Authentic Content without Brain Drain

So, here goes. 49 tried and tested (by me and my clients) content prompts to help you create engaging content in your business: without creating a ton of extra work.

Section 1: Listen to your (ideal) clients.

Your ideal clients are like your own personal content-ideas-machine: they’re constantly giving you content gold. Record, or take notes, during your conversations with your clients and prospective clients, looking out for:   

1:1 The goals they care about
1:2 The things they get stuck on
1:3 The setbacks they experience
1:4 The things that surprise them
1:5 The things that frustrate them
1:6 What makes life hard for them
1:7 The things they THINK they want
1:8 The things they’ve tried, that don’t work
1:9 The words they use to describe themselves
1:10 The nice things they say about working with you

Every single one of these things is the prompt for a separate piece of content. That means that every day you speak with a client, you potentially generate 10+ separate content ideas that only need to be written up and published.

Section 2: Listen to yourself

Do you hear yourself saying the same things over and over again to different clients or colleagues? Do you find the same issues come up again and again in your conversations? Leverage it as content! Think about:

2:1 Mythbusting: what are the common myths you’re always clearing up?
2:2 Misunderstandings: what you really do vs what they THINK you do
2:3 Questions: what is the first thing EVERYONE always asks you?
2:4 Services: what are the options for working with you?
2:5 Method: why do you do your work, the way you do?
2:6 Process: what’s the process of working with you?
2:7 Pet hates: what winds you up in your sector?

Section 3: Mindset in action

Some days feel harder than others, right? And some days everything just flows. You’re not the only one. Leverage your business owner journey for authentic, engaging content ideas. Talk about:

3:1 What gives you energy
3:2 Routine: love or hate it?
3:3 What drains your energy
3:4 Your go-to bad-day reset
3:5 How you celebrate your wins
3:6 How you keep your mindset positive
3:7 How you plan your work-day/week for productivity

Section 4: Your business-owner life

Your day-to-day business owner life is an unique source of content in its own right:

4:1 Client, collaborator, BFF: who can you give a shout-out to?
4:2 What’s great (or really tough!) about life as a biz owner?
4:3 Full time, flexi-time, part-time: how do you work?
4:4 What podcast do you recommend?
4:5 Work-life balance: fact or fiction?
4:6 What new skill are you learning?
4:7 What book are you reading?
4:8 What’s your commute like?
4:9 Where do you work from?
4:10 What’s your tech set-up?
4:11 What’s your office view?

Section 5: Reuse, recycle!

No (good) content should ever be a one-hit wonder. If you’ve spent time creating something, and it worked – use it again!

5:1 Recorded a podcast? Talk about it!
5:2 Created a video? Make it a carousel!
5:3 Written a great post? Make it a video!
5:4 Written a blog? Break it down for social!
5:5 Created a presentation? Share an extract!
5:6 Delivered a workshop or training? Repurpose it!
5:7 High performing post? Save it, reformat it, reuse it!

Section 6: Look inwards

There’s one fail-safe topic that you know inside out, and which will make your content TRULY outstandingly authentically different, and that topic is … YOU! Look inward, to start putting more YOU into your content.

6:1 Your Big Vision: what future are you building?
6:2 The WHY behind your business
6:3 An obstacle you’ve overcome
6:4 How you LIVE your values
6:5 A victory, big or small!
6:6 A hobby or interest
6:7 Your founder story

These 49 content prompts are not exhaustive! In fact, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Once you start closing the gap between your ‘day job’ and the job of content creation, you’ll start seeing content EVERYWHERE. Because when you’re clear on what your business stands for; what you’re working for and who you’re here to serve, EVERYTHING YOU DO can be translated or repurposed as content.

Over to you to start rethinking your content creation; so that you can transform your day-to-day business activity into engaging content, for less brain-drain, greater authenticity and a more streamlined business.