Writing ideas for your blog

Writing often so your blog consistently delivers valuable, insightful information can be difficult. If you are running a business every day, you may find it hard to come up with topics to write about. If you pick one of the following questions to answer once or twice a week, you will have plenty of interesting content for your blog.

• In the past seven days, was there a time when you explained to a customer or an employee "Let me show you how to do this"? What was that training you gave and how is it important?
• You are interviewing a potential new employee and you are explaining what your company prides itself on doing or the most important thing you provide customers. What is that one thing and why is it important?
• If you were to call your best customer and ask them "Why do you like our company so much?", what would they say about you? Why is that important to them? Can they find that anywhere else?
• When you deliver your product or service to your customer, they feel better, can do something better, or something they do is made easier. What exactly is it that your customers find beneficial about using your product or service?
• Other companies, your competitors, provide a similar product or service. Most of them don't do it as well as you do. Why is that important to your customers, that you do this part better or your product is better than the competition?
• When was the last time someone had a problem with your product or service? What did you do to resolve the problem? How did the customer react? Are they still your customer?
• In the last seven days, have you changed anything about the product you deliver? Have you changed anything the way that product is delivered? Is there anything you're saying about it that is different or is there a different way that you describe that product?
• What is the typical day for one of your customers, the person who uses your product? What are they doing when they use your product? If they did not have your product, what would they do differently?
• Everyone has one customer who is different from all the rest, one that does something really different or one that uses your product in an unusual way. Who is that customer for you? How are they different?
• Many of the companies in your industry are changing with the times. What are you doing to keep up and how will that help or affect your customers?
• When was it that you last signed up a new customer? What are they planning to get out of your product or service?
• You've read blogs in the last seven days. What was the most interesting thing anyone said? What was the most outrageous or wrong-headed thing? What was the thing you agreed with most? Pick one and write your opinion or take on this entry.
• There are a few people in your industry that you look up to or follow often. Perhaps in a blog or an article or in a speech. Pick something one of these people said recently and write your take on their statement: agree or disagree, add something they forgot to say, explain how your company or your customers would use this idea.
• What is the current "big idea" or movement or change in your industry? How does it affect your customers? How should they move to this new idea or prepare for it?
• People are always coming out with new products, tools, websites to "help" your customers, generally along the lines that you help them. What is the weirdest, least useful or most outrageous product or service you've heard of? Why is it a bad idea?
• If your customers had 100 times the money or budget they currently do, what would they buy to do the same thing you provide? How much or little real difference would they see?
• The Baby Boomer generation is retiring en masse now and changing their lifestyle and needs. If Baby Boomers started buying more of your product, how would they use it differently or what would they get out of it that would be different from your current customers?
• As the Baby Boomers leave management for retirement, the next generations, X and Y, are coming in to take their place. As these two younger generations start using your services and products, what do they expect from it that is different than the Baby Boomers? How will they use it differently?
• Generation Y is now getting into and used to adulthood and working 9 to 5. How is this generation affecting the way your products are being used? DO they have different expectations from your product and services? What do they want that you don't provide yet?
• Fast computers, fast Internet connections and everything moving to web pages has made connecting to people and products easier and really virtual for the first time. You can have a conversation with people via chat, you can talk over Skype instead of a phone line, you can have faxes show up in email instead of a real fax machine and you can take a class where you see video and audio of an instructor on your screen, at home, instead of having to physically go to a class or conference. How does this help your customers when receiving or asking about your product? How will this new virtual world change the way your customers interact with your product?
• Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Instant Messenger and web forums have changed the way information and tips and instruction can be found and read. You don't have to subscribe to and read physical magazines any more to keep up with your industry. Since you can read all this stuff quicker and easier, which people or magazines or websites have you been following? What is so good about them?
• In the past seven days, have you been to an industry conference or meeting or seminar? What was the most interesting idea or trend presented or talked about? What is your opinion? How will this change, enhance or alter your market, your company or your customers?
• Have you met any interesting or especially engaging people in the last week? What stood out so much?

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