How to regularly create blogs and content for your business

Hello, welcome. Paula here from paularizzo.com and listproducer.com. And I am joined by the fabulous Nicole, who has been the working force behind the scenes of both of those blogs for years and nobody knew. And now we are going to reveal some of the ways that we work because people often ask me, how are you able to produce so much content yourself? And the truth is I don't, I have help. And Nicole has been working with me for the past 5 years. And Nicole, all this time we've been working together, I still don't know how to pronounce your last names. Oh, it's not the easiest.

It's Rouet-Guillet.

Rouet-Guillet.

It's French.

Well, it's wonderful. And you know what? I do mention you in my book, Listful Living, and I recorded the audiobook and I'm pretty sure I butchered it. So I apologize. So if anyone listens, now you know the deal. But I wanted to have you, you know, come on and do this video because It's interesting because as I work with a lot of clients as a media trainer and strategist, they often ask me, you know, how are you able to stay so organized with your, you know, with all the content that you're doing? And the way that I've run listproducer.com and paularizzo.com for years is like a newsroom. And you and I have sort of had a, you have a production background as well. And it, to us, it comes really easily. And we just recently found out, right? Because there's another writer who's gonna be helping me as well that, We have like a second language, the two of us. And right, we really do.

We've definitely come up with a way of working together that's almost, even though everything's via email, it's still kind of like intuitive.

Yes, exactly. So we're trying to explain it to this other woman and we're like, oh, we didn't even know we did that. Oh, we do that too. Right. It's like there's so, so you get in a groove with someone. So I guess the first tip would really be, you know, find someone that you can have that sort of, you know, a little bit of magic with for sure. But as we've worked together, you know, all these years, both of us worked full-time jobs. I mean, you're still working full-time. I had been working full-time at Fox News. And then I was doing the side hustle of the blog and all of this. Why don't you tell us a little bit about, like, from your perspective and just like productivity in general, you know, because that's what a lot of the audience that follows me is interested in. Like, how were you able to do this side gig with your regular job?

Yeah, I think people get like kind of overwhelmed by the idea of doing two jobs, especially a full-time job and a part-time job at the same time. But especially something like writing a blog, you don't actually have to use up too much of your time. Like, if you can condense down the task to like, okay, spending an hour here, an hour— I mean, people go to the gym on a Monday evening for an hour. You can also spend an hour on a Monday evening writing a blog post or filling in the editorial calendar, these kinds of things. So yeah, that's typically how I would do it. Evening work, an hour here and there, and And then weekends is like, that's kind of when you have the most time, so then you can dedicate more like 2 or 3 hours maybe. And just condensing down, breaking— the classic breaking up your time.

See? We practice what we preach. We can't help ourselves. You gotta, you know, I mean, it is very much how TV and Nicole's in film and how we would break down production. Because everything is very, very focused on like, okay, this is what we're going to produce this week. Here's how we're going to get it done. So the other thing too, Nicole, and this is not, you know, has to happen, but we worked in different time zones. I was in New York and she was in London for a very, very long time. So by the time I got home from work, she was like already done with her day. And I always felt like, oh my God, it's like magic. Everything's done. But talk to me about that too, because that actually worked really to our advantage.

Yeah, I thought that was very helpful because as you say, I would sort of come home at like 6 o'clock UK time, which would be sort of your like midday-ish. So if I had questions, we could still kind of message back and forth, but then otherwise I could use then that time to work on the blog or, you know, do things like that, write up drafts. And then when you come home in the evening— now it's like 11 PM my time, so I've kind of gone to bed— but you can sort of take over and you can read it through, make changes, make suggestions, this kind of thing, and it's ready for me the next morning when I wake up.

Yeah, it's just, it's Yeah, good relay. Yeah, we had a good back and forth that way. And you know, I had written a post a while back about, you know, Terri Trispicio and I had worked together for a long time on a lot of projects. And we had a similar thing going on, sort of the ping pong where I would be at work all day and then she would be working on something and she'd sort of relay it to me. And then when I got home from work, I would work on it and send it back to her. And so it is a good way of working with someone. So if you do have that, you know, if you're looking for somebody to work with, It is kind of a good back and forth for sure. But our editorial calendar has always been like our rundown, right? And the best part—

Bible.

It is our Bible, yes. And I do have to say, you know, if you're looking for someone to help you with production or, you know, with your blog or whatever it is, you need someone like a Nicole who understands that you might be doing a million other things. And so to be able to say sometimes, hey, I think you wanted to do this blog post on Monday. Are we still doing that? And do it with enough time to actually write it, edit it, get it done. And so that I've always appreciated, you know, like the idea of looking ahead. I mean, that comes from your production background.

Yeah, I think it kind of, you know, links back to— you've talked before about back timing, but this kind of thing that we do in production basically, where you go, you're looking at what you're doing today, you're looking what you're doing tomorrow, for the rest of the week, but then also what are you doing next week, what are you doing the week after, and you know, you can then bring all of these things into your schedule.

And it's important to have that schedule. So the way that we've worked in the past, we started out doing weekly calls. Every week we talk, every week we'd sort of pitch each other. Remember? I mean, we've become good friends through the years too, so it's been fun. But we would talk about, you know, ideas that we had for the blog. We would write down the ideas and then we would assign it for, you know, a specific week, because I do a weekly blog. And then that way we both knew ahead of time, what are we working on? So there's no question. And I think that's really important. And it's something that people don't often do because they think, "Oh, I'll just write a blog when the mood strikes me or when I have some inspiration," which is fine, but you need a little planning because then if you have something, you can always move it, move things along so you don't run out of things.

You have to schedule your inspiration.

That's right. We like to schedule our inspiration. Let's be honest with ourselves. It helps you to be more creative, I promise. The other thing too is that, as we've worked through like the system. So not only writing, but we, you know, we use WordPress, we use AWeber, we use, you know, social media, all of that. I think if we looked back to how, you know, how it would be easier for us to have like a guidebook, if I was, you know, telling my former self, I would say, write down the stuff that you're doing, you know, right? Because now that we're trying to explain it to somebody else, we like don't even remember what we're doing. And we don't even know like half the stuff. I mean, it's working out, it's fine, but still, like, I would suggest— don't you agree? Like, if we had like a standard operating procedure kind of thing, which we're kind of doing now.

In the same way that when you start a new job, you kind of get like— you get like a production handbook or like a production guide, how we do things at, you know, this location. Similarly, I think it's good even if you have a small business to still have that kind of guide to, you know, where do we post to social media, how often do we post to social media, like, you know, when do we do blog posts, you know, what kind of topics have we done, what topics would we like to do, you know, this kind of thing. It means that anyone can come along, read through it, and pick it up.

Yes, exactly. And, you know, like, from my perspective too, or someone who's looking to get someone to help them with their blog, it's been so helpful to have someone else who understands what you're looking to do. And like, how often do I leave you a voice memo like, does this sound insane? Is this insane? Or do you think we should do this? Right? Like, it's nice to have that.

Yeah, I definitely think, I mean, always at work, you know, during my day job, but, you know, especially with this as well, it's nice to have just someone to just bounce off of because otherwise it's just you and you're like, ah, I know, does anyone care about this?

Or, you know, and it's good to have other people's experiences and things too, to kind of filter and bring into the blog, into your editorial calendar and things. And then the last thing I want to ask you about too is just being able to write in someone else's voice. Because that, you know, that is what I've spent my career as a TV producer doing. I have done that for anchors for years. And so I knew, you know, there were certain words that certain anchors wouldn't say or couldn't say, like literally couldn't say the words. So you could not put those in the scripts, but that's what you learn over time working with people. But for you, I mean, we've worked together for 5 years, so you pretty much know my personality, but how has that, how have you been able to develop that skill?

I think it's funny that you brought up the calls that we did every week because I think at the very beginning, you know, when we're doing these calls every week, you would sort of say, "Oh, I've been thinking about this blog post," and you would tell me the idea in your voice. And so then when I then come to write the post, I like reimagine you saying it and then I kind of like continue from there, if you know what I mean. You extrapolate out from the way you said it before. So it helps to imagine someone describing it, I think.

Ah, yeah, it's true. So it is important to put in that time, you know, to be able to get to know the person you're writing with. And then after that, we started meeting probably about once a month, you know, and everything else was right. It was about once a month we would do a call.

Yeah, I think so. I think once you find a groove, it's then easier to just kind of like just keep kind of going with things. But I think, yeah, initially putting in that time to, you know, set the foundation and, you know, get the voice right and all that kind of thing, it definitely helps.

Yeah. Well, it's been a blast working together. It's been so fun and I've been so appreciative. I mean, you've been there for so many like big turns in my career. You know, my appendix burst and my blog still went up. And that was because of you. We had a campaign going on at that time, I think. I was an affiliate for B-School, if you remember. Yeah. That was still happening, thanks to you. And then, you know, when I left my full-time job, it was a big deal. This is now my full-time job. But it was amazing to have you, you know, here. And 2 books. 2 books. 2 books.

I know. So crazy, right?

Thank you.

2 books.

So amazing. And now you are on to another wonderful job, and you're doing, you know, some wonderful things. Now in Canada.

Yes, I've moved to Canada, very exciting.

Completely different time zone. Yeah, so now it's thrown us completely off because you're on the other side. You're like, I'm ahead of you. It's like a whole thing. It's very difficult. But yes, exactly. But thank you for agreeing to come on and, you know, pull back the curtain a little bit into how we've been able to do this for 5 years. So thank you, Nicole.

Well, thank you very much.