How do you choose topics to blog about?

I see many of my professional colleagues struggle with content marketing. Some who own small boutique consulting firms view blogging and other content generation as a waste of time and find reasons why it doesn't support a business case. They hold the belief that people should pay for the information they have.

Others are stuck in the mindset of the past when consulting assignments and projects came from who you knew, who you went to school with, who you were pals and golfing and fishing buddies with in your professional association, often referred to as the "good old boy" network. While there is still a little validity in this strategy, as a marketing and growth strategy, this approach doesn't produce the returns it once did. What's happening is that the good old boys are retiring month after month and the new hires to replace them don't use this approach.

Still other set aside marketing budgets to buy name recognition sponsorships, attend trade shows and take clients and prospects out on boat cruises, dinners and other activities at national events. Clients and prospects believe two things about these hosted fetes: The host must be successful or they wouldn't (couldn't) do it, and the client eventually pays for these meals and drinks and activities by way of the rates charged. So they expect to pay more - and they will.

As a small business owner, whether one is a consultant of business advice, a consultant of medicine or dentistry, a consultant that advises consumers where to travel to obtain health services, or a consultant that provides legal or accounting advice, blogging by a professional is a waypoint on the path to more revenues.

It matters not why you started your business (for personal reasons, as an advocacy for some cause, emotional, philanthropic, or something else, it was launched to make money. Otherwise it is your hobby.

Every activity you undertake in your professional life (time not set aside exclusively for family or leisure) that does not generate revenue-- directly, or indirectly for your business is a waste of billable hours. Even if you write the bill off as pro bono time, each minute has an incremental direct value -- and cost. My incremental direct cost is just a little over $2 a minute - and that minute-by-minute meter for my time is running whether I am on a a flight or driving to your location or working at my office or developing slides to present at your next trade show or educational symposium.

But I don't work a 2080 hour year like most Americans in a full time 9-5 job. I tend to work about 4000 hours a year. That meter continues every day, every week. Some of my small business professional colleagues do this and others choose to work fewer hours. This incremental cost per hour is to cover my overheads (business cards, websites, office space, equipment, phone, salary, insurance, legal fees, accounting costs, and more.)

So when I invest an hour writing a blog the cost incurred writing it is a little over $125 per article I've written. I choose content that interests me, but interests my clients and prospects more. The goal of my blogs is to enable people to sample my insights, depth of knowledge and authority on my chosen topics. It is not to write words on the screen. I write in such a way as to familiarize you with a topic and how I have helped others with similar problems, and hint at how I may be able to help a prospect or an established client solve what's troubling them.

If you have a particular acumen with a subject, choosing content for your blog should align with that is to help others sample your insights, your depth of knowledge and your authority on a topic.

If you don't need to do any of those three things to sustain and grow your business, your problem of what to write about is solved. You get a pass! You don't need to blog or create content. In fact, you don't even need a website! Hurray! You're done! Go sit on the chaise lounge with a long tall lemonade! Lucky you!

If on the other hand, you are in business to make money, grow and sustain your small service business, you may decide that content creation and blogging might be an integral part of your marketing strategy and account for the hours as just one more thing on the list of ways you spend your time at work when there isn't client billable work to be done because in the background that minute meter is running.

Content comes in the form of blogs, emails, social media posts, webinars, audioblogs, vlogs, and more. People who buy your services after reading your blog post are early adopters, desperate for someone to help them, or super fans. They are ready and willing to buy from you. Your blog reminds them every time you write something of value to them of why they chose you and why they reward you with loyalty and their business.

You assume risk when you blog

In fact, you assume several kinds of risks:

• Monetary - you've invested time for researching, learning, writing, and posting
• Point of View - You've stated your point of view- which may or may not be popular, and the reader may disagree and believe that you are wrong. If so, they aren't going to call you and may even argue with you in comments on your article.This is a good thing. It allows you the opportunity to check your thinking and maybe consider new perspective, stand your ground, or politely and respectfully draw out their flawed reasoning and point of view and expose their ignorance or incorrect point of view - the thing is, the discourse enables this. It can be a tool when used strategically.
• Political Leanings - You've asserted what you believe about politicians, political agendas, human rights issues, etc. People on the same side as you feel closer. People on the opposing side can accept your position and process it as your choice to think what you want, or they can lash out viscerally and position themselves against you because you din't see things the same way they do. This is something you didn't "cause" and cannot "control." It just is and people are people with human emotion and perspectives. Deal with it or don't write anything political.
• Competitive - your competitors read what you write and they position you in their mind as someone they can collaborate with or someone they contend with as an arch rival or worse: their nemesis. They will deem you weak or worthy of their consideration as a competitor. Some will do things like "link bomb" your articles and content. They missed the memo back in 2004 that stated that the practice of attempting to causing their name, brand or web site to rank highly in web search engine results for unrelated or off-topic (or on-topic) search terms by linking heavily. was replaced by search engine optimization (SEO) and one improves positioning in search engine results page (SERP) listings of web pages by producing relevant and original content. It has been 13 years since google changed the algorithms and these people who utilize this technique still link bomb my articles from time to time. The newest practice I've noticed is typing someone's name in the article here on LinkedIn so that it hyperlinks to their profile. Sometimes, that name is their own and links to their profile. The problem is, most people see it and don't click because it is meaningless to them. The comment adds no value to the article. Sometime it is someone else's name in their firm.

With every piece of content you create, you make it easier for your brand to make an impact. Your content is like a path of breadcrumbs to a bird. with each investment into good quality content, you form a pathway for clients and prospects to follow and hire you. That means some can be a position statement, some must be educational and generous about general information on a topic (rather than uniquely advisory or prescriptive in the specific sense.) Some can be personal and some can be humorous or tongue in cheek.

Your blog should not prescribe specifics to a prospect or client because that is consultative and confidential and based on the clients' or prospects' unique circumstances. So when a colleagues says "Maria, you make us look bad, because you give away all that consulting advice for free on your blogs." I don't even dignify that with a grunt.

That's because it is simply not true. I give away the generic advice on best practices, lessons learned, case studies and examples because I can. I have enough project assignments from which to draw for blog content. I charge clients for specific professional advice, whether the assignment is to review a contract for them, or review their product or strategy and give input.

In fact, I cannot make someone else "look bad". They abdicate responsibility for their revenues, their growth, their brand visibility, reputation, and business sustainability all by themselves. In fact, some are not seen at all - not good; not bad -- simply non existent in the eyes of webcrawlers. That's because they didn't invest time or money to create any content to enable their brand or presence to be located on the Internet, where clients and prospects "shop" for help.

With the right approach and effort, your blog content can become your most tasteful, generous, and top performing sales team member working around the clock for your business and producing excellent results.

I have never engaged in cold calling for business. I have never sent out emails to prospects that are form letters saying "I'm into managed care" or "I'm into medical tourism" and "You should send me some business. Here is my website. so you can see my capabilities. Let's chat soon. I'll call you on Tuesday to discuss."

To do so would cost me the same $2+ dollars per minute during some of my 4000 hours of work per year. But this approach does not produce results at the same level as blogging and creating content that proves my authority and expertise and teaches something whether they buy at that moment or not.

Blog to reach goals

Are you writing to market your business and earn revenue or are you competing in a popularity contest? To begin a strategy for content marketing, you must first decide the goal of your blog or content creation:

• Clicks?
• Likes?
• Upvotes?
• Comments?
• Traffic to your website?

Clicks are not sales. Clicks are not conversions. Clicks to a website that does not support the pathway to revenues or give instructions about what to do after they read your content are just clicks. Decide why you'll blog. What's your goal? To amass clicks or to make money?

Some bloggers tell you that you can monetize your blog by allowing others to place ads alongside your content. Many medical tourism "facilitators" do this by hosting a directory-type website that offers space to hospitals, doctors, spas, wellness centers, etc. to pay a fee to place their display content and information and when a visitor clicks their ad or their call to action, the blog host makes money. That's the blogger's business model. It was popular about 7 years ago. Back then, there were not as many contenders in this model.

Now the PPC model for medical tourism is saturated. The hospital or clinic may get visitor clicks from the same consumers visiting directory after directory. It matters little which one they actually make a purchase through - if they ever do. The blog host gets paid whether the provider closes sale or not. Most charge a deposit in advance, and draw down from the advertising budget until the money runs out or is replenished. If the advertiser does not replenish the advance deposit on account, the ad simply stops rendering on the page and another competitor fills that spot.

In most cases, if you are the intended reader of this article, your blog supports your business. You sell a service beyond your blog content. Just like me, your blog content is not your main revenue stream. It has a different purpose: to get others to become aware of my capability and availability to help solve problems by introducing the problem and potential solutions for consideration -- to start the dialogue.

I don't write for the click, but I love when I get them!

I don't fool myself by telling myself or others that I blog because I want to build my audience. My audience on social media numbers close to 50,000 between followers and connections. That happens on its own as a byproduct of what I write. I welcome new followers and I view their interest in what I have to write and share as a gift, a privilege, and I treat it with respect.

I don't fool myself by telling myself or others that I blog because I want to build a like-minded community. People are busy. They know where I am and how to find me but they may love what I shared and still not comment or click "like" or upvote me.

Some don't engage because it is politically dangerous to show support for what I wrote. They live and work in countries where private sector business growth is subject to massive corruption and oppression. They cannot express freely their opinion. Support for my content and clicking something supportive puts them in evidence and places them in harm's way with their government. So they read and consume my content in the shadows of anonymity. But they get what they came for - to learn, to research, to gather outside perspective.

I understand completely. I am 100% compassionate to their situation, but I still write. Occasionally, they drop me a private note to tell me how much they appreciated what I wrote and nothing more. That's even a big risk for some where an email like that could be deemed "subversive" and is not considered private.

Others are competitors and they would never give me the satisfaction that they liked what I wrote. I am their nemesis. One that I know, a conference organizer, has my face and 20 others in a photo in their "war room" at their event. They instruct their goons to escort me off premises at the event if I set foot in the hotel of the event. How do I know? Former employees have shared the picture from inside the war room with me. They are former staffers of this conference organizer. They had those photos on their phone for ready reference. That's actually quite comical to me.

If I cared enough about competing with them so aggressively, I would pace the sidewalk at the hotel or sit in the lobby and greet passersby. But at $2+ a minute, my time is spent doing other things that will bring revenues to me rather than "trolling" their event. I tend to invest $2+ a minute in ways that generate revenues of $7+ a minute. They just aren't important enough to concern myself over what they do. And there isn't only one of these folks out there. There are several. I view that is insecurity and my real competitors - they aren't so insecure. Only the ones who fancy themselves as my competitors and me their nemesis. I cannot be concerned how or what they think about what I write, what assignments I win, and how they run their business and execute a strategy. There's plenty of work out there for all.

Go deep instead of broad

Post and share content that helps people to do something different, view from a new perspective, informs them to make better choices. Don't worry about the ego associated with getting clicks and likes and upvotes. If people stray off topic (often this is not a stray it is manipulative) choose your response: bring them back into the topic and your direction or choose not to respond. If there's no point that forwards your goal (revenues) don't respond.

Realize there's a cost associated with tracking your blog results

I use a spreadsheet to track my post title, URL, keywords, length, date published, platform published and next to each platform, a space is available to track clicks, likes, follows, questions, comments, etc., at various intervals 1-day, 1 month, 3 months 1 year.

I also ask clients what sparked their curiosity about my services and how they heard about me. If they name an article or keywords in the article, the post gets credit for the revenue. If they name a presentation or workshop I led, an email I sent, or a book I wrote, those pieces of content are assigned the revenue value for the effort.

At each point in this metrics gathering, the meter is running at the same $2+ per minute of effort invested in the tracking, whether I do it or I assign someone at a lower hourly rate of pay to do it for me - or whether I do part of it. Even the time spent reviewing blog performance is on the meter for $2+ a minute. If I pay my niece $10 an hour, the investment for me to assign that to her is $0.40 per minute, so the investment must be justified by a business case where this "busy work" supports my firm's revenue goals.

Foreshadowing trends you want to get in front of is a tactical maneuver

If a topic performs poorly, the metrics tell me straightaway. Either I picked a topic that was not interesting, I was too far ahead of the market, or the article was not properly authored to have SEO value and high SERP outcomes.

Sometimes, articles surprise me in how they perform. Sometimes, I am ahead of a curve and the market catches up within the year. You'll face all these issues and more - just like me. Every piece of content you create must have a purpose that is part of a larger plan.

I blog on a lot of topics: concierge medicine, marketing, branding, content marketing, third-party insurance payer contracting, physician integration and alignment, revenue management, physician employment contracting, medical tourism, and more. Rest assured that all roads are part of the road map I've devised, regardless of how subtle the path to convergence might be. Can you guess what is at the end of my pathway? What conclusion am I foreshadowing?

It is to introduce Maria Todd to new and existing readers, entice them to follow me, connect with me and hire me when the need arises because my efforts to share content position me at the top of their mind. Those who complete the journey along the path reward me with a consulting engagement or speaker appearance. Since a speaker appearance is a "product" I sell, I charge a fee to cover the costs to prepare, travel and present the material. My costs are $2+ a minute, for each and every minute that I am talking to the event organizer, preparing a proposed outline, building the slides, buying licenses for photography and graphics, licenses for software tools, buying the computer to create the content and paying my salary during that time I am incrementally focused on their project. In addition to the $2+ a minute overhead is the cost to buy the airline ticket, the cost to shuttle back and forth to the airport, airport parking, the cost to get someone to feed the cats in my absence, the cost to eat on the trip, the cost for accommodation, the cost for visa fees and applications, the cost to apply for the visa, the cost of immunizations and travel insurance, and so forth.

If you are a business owner, you must think about everything you do at a cost per minute to do it.

I receive requests on LinkedIn from other business owners. They ask me for things like the following message from Monday:

"As you are one of the key influencers in the Healthcare industry, it would be really helpful to receive the initial feedback on our newly launched free xyz product. If you could review the tool usability and its significance to providers, I would really appreciate it. We are looking forward to your feedback and will update the tool to make it more valuable for healthcare organisations."

My response was as follows:

"I would love to help you out. I receive many investor and developer requests of this nature. Most often they come through Gerson Lerman Group and Third Bridge in London. Some add me to an advisory board as a compensated board member while others simply want my review and commentary and that's the end of my involvement. At the present time, I have no more space in my diary for advisory board membership and participation. This sort of request usually takes hours of my time to complete, so I charge for usual and customary hourly fee for this work. If that is ok with you, I will send you a fee agreement and deposit request. Please advise."

I received no further response. So what possible value could my opinion be worth to the author of this email?

I know the value of my time. What is in it for me to agree to do this for them and invest my time and expertise for their business? If not cash value in the form of revenue, is there some other value in kind? Or did they confuse me for one who blogs for ego? I earned my way to become a key influencer by investing in my business. I don't get any return on investment for agreeing to invest $2+ a minute in their business! Why is this so hard to understand by some business owners and startups? You must decide if the reason you blog and the topics you choose are to make money or build ego. If your goal is to make money selling knowledge or treatments, then invest your time and effort in blog topics that further this goal. Be true to yourself. It's not greedy to do that; it's business!

On occasion permit yourself to do something for someone during your work hours because you want to do it. Then open up the Mason jar when you get off the call and place the amount you just invested at your current bill rate per minute into the Mason jar to cover the overheads you incurred while the meter was running - and the profits you could have generated if the time were spent in remunerative work. If you want to know what to blog about, pick topics that somehow lead to someone else putting the money in the Mason jar for you.

It is only when you physically take the bills out of your pocket or wallet and are forced to put the bills in the jar that you will actually "see" the value of the time spent on things like blogging, reviewing things, board meetings on volunteer associations, listening to pitches and product webinars, accepting unpaid speaking engagements, etc.,

Res ipsa loquitur -- the action speaks for itself.

About Maria Todd

Chief Executive Officer at Mercury Healthcare International, Inc.

Clients dramatically improve their healthcare operations, business growth, and profitability after working with Maria Todd. They realize increases in their reimbursement, volumes of new patients, and global brand awareness and appeal.

Her unique skill set comes from over 35 years of experience at all six seats at the table, clinical, administrative, insurance contracting, healthcare marketing and branding, and health law paralegal work. She intertwines these skills in a way that no other consultant can offer because most usually only offer one of these expertise and have to call upon others - each with their own fees and expenses to comprise the other five. She solves problems for clients and shortens time and reduces expenses associated with hiring a consultant. This is an additional value added benefit of working with her.

Maria adds value to every project she accepts. If she doesn't believe she can add value, she turns the project down. She loves watching her clients' successes and watching them grow and thrive. She is also brutally honest with clients which they tend to appreciate when working with her. She is direct. She pulls no punches and doesn't sugar coat bad news or constructive criticisms.

Reach out to her to at +1 (303) 823.4662 (office international land line) or by email. Maria accepts most invitations to connect with her on LinkedIn and at her professional Facebook page. Maria prefers direct email to her @mercuryadvisorygroup.com address or through LinkedIn for all contacts via email.