One aspect of business that I am really passionate about is consistency. When you demonstrate consistency across every aspect of your business, you will be amazed by the results! When I think of the big names in the industry that are really growing their businesses, I take notice of how consistent they are! Providing quality content on a consistent schedule, providing a consistent service or product and more!

So naturally I wanted to do a blog post about this very important topic! But as I went to put together the content, I realized I was writing a short novel! So I decided to break it up into a 3-part series! So in these 3 blog posts I will be sharing the power of consistency and how it can transform your business!

First, let me make sure that you are convinced of the power of consistency. The CEO of LinkedIn said in an interview “trust equals consistency over time”. So in order to gain trust, (trust in your prospective and current clients, trust in your online following, etc) you not only have to demonstrate consistency, but you have to do it over a long period of time. It’s not enough to do something great just once or a few times, it has to be done over and over and over again before you gain that trust!

So what does trust do for us? It makes prospective clients more likely to book us. It allows us to develop a loyal online following that trusts us with their time and engages with our content. And it instills trust in our current clients and sends them raving about us! So now that I’ve convinced you of the power of consistency, let’s start talking about how to make that happen!

The first installment of this consistency series is all about showing up. Showing up to your business and audience regularly and providing quality content on a regular basis. This is what’s going to allow you to really grab and keep the attention of your followers turning them into a long-time loyal following. So let’s dive into how you can do that!

 

Consistency > Frequency

First you need to make efforts to show up at all. On your blog, instagram, facebook, etc. But you also want to make sure that you are providing content on these platforms on a consistent basis. For example, if you were to have a week where you blogged every single day of the week, you would be setting an expectation with your following that you blog every day of the week. But then say you don’t blog again for another 4 weeks. Your followers are going to be showing up in those subsequent weeks expecting a blog post every day and constantly be let down when there isn’t one. This will disrupt your momentum and cause you to lose followers.

Consistency is so much more important that frequency when it comes to the scheduling of your posts. So whether it’s instagram or your blog, figure out what you can handle and stick to it! Maybe it’s 1 blog post a week, maybe it’s 3. By setting an expectation with your audience and then meeting every week, you are instilling trust with them and they will be more likely to show up to view your content because they are expecting it.

 

Quality > Quantity

Just like how consistency is more important than frequency, quality is also more important than quantity. This means that it is better to provide less content that is high quality than to provide a lot of low quality content. Believe me, I understand the struggle when you are faced with a week of no planned content and have no idea what to write about! So you throw together a post just for the sake of having a post, even though the quality of the content isn’t great. But if you find yourself doing that often, you are going to start losing the trust of your followers. They’ll read a few of these low quality posts, not get much out of it and as a result, they won’t click on and read your future posts because they no longer trust you with their time. I know this sounds harsh, but this is really what is happening on a subconscious level!

So if you find that you are having a hard time filling your posting quota with quality content, then maybe it’s time to scale your frequency back. Go from 3 blog posts a week to 2 a week. Or from posting every day on instagram to posting every other day or only monday-friday. Or maybe you just need to go back to the drawing board and brainstorm some new topics for content! Whatever the case may be, you just want to get a place where you are providing a consistent level of quality in your content!

 

Systems & Workflows

Now I know that the idea of putting together high quality content on a regular basis might give you an instant headache. Me too! But if you have a set of systems and workflows in place for putting out this content, then it will take some of the headache out of it! So here’s a few of the ways that I streamline my content creation process and make it a little easier.

Create an ongoing list of topics. Create some sort of master list where you gather all your ideas for content. So if an idea for a blog or instagram post comes to mind, I will add it to my content topic list. This way when I have a week where I need to put some sort of content together or it’s the off season and I don’t have as much work to post, I can turn to this list for ideas! I’d also recommend having a list on your phone so that when a genius content idea hits you while you’re out and about, you can jot it down before you forget!

Content calendar. To ensure that all this content is going out on a consistent schedule, create a calendar for scheduling your posts. So use something like Google calendar and fill it in with all your planned posts. Blog posts, instagram posts, emails to your newsletter, etc. Then you can step back and look at the month view and see where there are gaps that need to be filled to ensure that you are remaining consistent.

Use helpful apps along the way. There are ton of apps out there that can help streamline this process further. A few of my favorites are Trello, Later and Coschedule. Trello is my master task organizer. I can have checklists within checklists ensuring that no part of the content creation process slips through the cracks. Later is one of the many apps that can schedule Instagram posts! I find that I can produce higher quality instagram posts if I doing them at least the night before and typing the caption out on a computer instead of my phone. And Coschedule is a wordpress plug-in that allows me to schedule when my blog post gets pushed to Facebook!

 

So to recap: Post content on a consistent schedule, provide a consistent level of quality within your content and create systems and workflows to make the content creation process easier! So I hope that this post not only convinces you of the importance of showing up consistently, but also makes you feel motivated with some tools on how to get it done!

Want to hear more about this topic and have the chance to ask questions? I’ll be going LIVE on instagram today at 4:00 to talk more about the why and how to show up consistently and how it can transform your business! So set your alarm, get your questions ready and join me on Instagram today at 4! See you there!

And here are some other posts that you may find helpful!

Top 3 Ways Brides Find Me

4 Ways To Create A Personal Brand

5 Way to Make Your Online Presence Inquiry Friendly

3 Steps to Attract Your Ideal Client

 

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