When Dave and I were first talking about launching Zenpost, we knew we wanted a strong content marketing strategy, and that meant consistently publishing quality content to our blog.

It’s the foundation of everything. Not just a successful business in general, but of our entire ethos as a content marketing automation company.

But we ran into the same problem everyone runs into.

Where do good ideas come from?

There are 830,000,000 results on Google for that question. Skimming through them we saw a lot of the same advice over and over. Things like:

“Search Google results for fresh ideas.”

Okay, but how do you come up with the ideas?

“Get together with your coworkers and come up with ideas!”

Okay, but how do you come up with the ideas?

“Sit down and write out 100 blog post titles.”

HOW DO YOU COME UP WITH THE %$@#& IDEAS???

Don’t have any ideas for your blog?

It’s something we hear a lot. Heck, it’s why we’re creating an automated content creation tool.

But no tool can completely help you solve the hardest part of the content creation process…

… coming up with ideas.

Harnessing inspiration and using creativity to write a good blog post is hard, hard, hard.

A lot of people we talk to come from business or tech. If you’re like them, you might not feel you have much inspiration or creativity in the first place.

Let’s look at what you do have, though.

• You have a lot of subject matter knowledge in your brain.

• You have a unique perspective on your industry.

• You have predictions on where your industry is going.

Don’t have any ideas for your blog?

Nonsense!

Your brain is full of content.

From technical knowledge, innovative ideas, to folksy wisdom based on your years of experience, you have tons of things to write about.

The trick is, they’re locked in your brain. How do you get them out?

A Mind Hack For Endless Ideas

The reason you don’t think that you have any ideas for your blog is that you’re putting too much pressure on your mind to come up with them at the wrong time.

You sit down to write a blog post at 4:30 p.m. on a Friday afternoon and we all know what happens next.

You don’t write a blog post.

Or worse, you write something you’re not particularly proud of and feel like content marketing is a waste of time.

But think about what you’re doing to yourself.

Not only are you waiting until the last minute to write the blog post, you are doubling the job by also waiting until the last minute to come up with the idea of what you want to write about.

Do you know what that’s like?

That’s like eating a giant plate of fettuccine alfredo seconds before running a marathon.

No one can do it. No one should.

Of course you think you’re not creative, or aren’t a good writer, or don’t have anything to say about your industry that people would find insightful.

But none of that is true.

You have all of that subject matter knowledge in your brain. You have a unique perspective on your industry. You have something to say.

Don’t have any ideas for your blog? Sure you do.

If you can unlock them, you’ll have blog ideas to last you a year, just like we do.

Here’s how.

How To Spot A Good Blog Post Idea

Dave and I don’t wait until 4:30 p.m. on a Friday afternoon to decide what to write about. We have an ongoing conversation all day, every day about what to write about.

That might sound like more work than sitting down at 4:30 on a Friday to bang your head against a desk, but it’s not more. It’s diffused.

Let me give you an example.

A few months ago, I was having a casual conversation with Dave about working out. He said, “Content is kind of that way, you put in the work and over time you see the results.”

We wrote a blog post about it.

A few weeks later, I told Dave that there should really be a term for the kind of long-term ROI you see from content marketing.

We wrote a blog post about it (we call it “compound ROI,” by the way).

We were talking over drinks once about how coming up with blog post ideas really isn’t all that difficult.

After all, we were always having these really interesting water cooler conversations about our industry, full of insightful observations, intriguing questions, and creative solutions.

You’re having those conversations every day as well. You can find hundreds of blog topics in those conversations. You just have to realize that everything is content.

Heck, the idea that “everything is content” itself would make an interesting blog post.

I am writing that blog post right now.

Adopt An ‘Everything Is Content’ Mentality

Dave and I spend a lot of time in between client calls, product development, and running a business talking about our own pain points with this industry, the problems we see, how we would solve them, what we wish people talked more about, and more.

We turn those conversations into blog post ideas and, eventually, blog posts like the one you’re reading right now.

Like you, we’re busy. We don’t always have an hour to set aside for a blog brainstorming meeting.

We do our blog brainstorming on the fly, because we’ve adopted an “everything is content” mentality. We’ve trained ourselves to identify moments in our conversations with each other and with clients that could be expanded into blog posts.

Moments like:

• Insightful observations. “You know, people think our industry is about X, but more and more, I’m thinking it’s about Y.”

• Open questions. “Hm, I don’t know the answer to that, let me look into it and find a unique answer that makes sense for us and our business.”

• Subject Matter Knowledge. Explaining what we know about the things we know, i.e., the talking points you use to dazzle prospects.

No conversation is a waste. Not everyone knows the things we know. If they did, we wouldn’t exactly have a business model. And if we have questions, just like in grade school, chances are other people have those questions too and haven’t raised their hand yet.

That gives you the opportunity to step in and be the expert. The thought leader.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”A good blog post idea is a topic that everybody is talking about but nobody is writing about.” quote=”A good blog post idea is a topic that everybody is talking about but nobody is writing about.”]

Dave and I are constantly asking each other, “is what we’re talking about right now interesting enough to turn into a blog post?”

Then, even if we have to wait until 4:30 p.m. on a Friday to write next week’s post, at least we have a BIG list of blog post ideas to pull from.

Half the work is done.

Every single piece of advice on the internet about coming up with blog post ideas is missing the essential mindset shift you need to make. Start thinking about how everything you do, think, and talk about is content.

The questions prospects ask you.

The insights you share with your team.

The stuff you already know about your industry.

The conversations you have around the water cooler.

Train yourself to look for content opportunities everywhere you go, and curate topics from your everyday experience. You have all of that subject matter knowledge in your brain. You have a unique perspective on your industry. You have something to say.

You have blog post ideas.