A Shortcut to Writing Your Book

At Shortcut Content, we help you create content. And perhaps the most seemingly daunting content task is writing a book.

Basically, we help you outline your book, figure out what you want to say and how you want it laid out, and then we conduct our recording sessions. It’s more customized than our usual podcast recordings, which are done in a series of five-minute conversations, once a month.

If we’re recording what will become a book, we need to know how extensive it will be to figure out the recording process. We can record an entire book in a…

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How Content Marketing Gives You an Umbrella of Credibility

If someone asked you to name a rock star of geology, could you do it?

Neither can I. And it’s because there isn’t anyone in the field that’s creating content in an entertaining and interesting way.

I maintain that there is a place for a rock star in any academic field. The proof is in an example like Neil deGrasse Tyson. If someone asked you to name an astrophysicist, his name comes to mind, and it’s because he carries what I like to call an “umbrella of credibility.” He’s the scientist everyone talks about most, because he’s creating…

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How to Become a Better Public Speaker While Blogging

We’ve found a hidden benefit to creating content with the Shortcut Content method: you transform into a confident public speaker in your area of expertise.

When you are asked to speak about a specific topic in a five-minute period, over time, it makes you a better salesperson, trainer, and, more than likely, much more interesting at a cocktail party! Because you can tell a story in a short amount of time, it makes you a more effective public speaker.

I think one of the cool things about our service is that if you are an expert in your field, all…

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Why Your Subject Matter Experts Make The Best Bloggers

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Many organizations don’t really think about subject matter experts when starting down the road to social media and blogging.

A lot of times the organization ends up hiring someone who doesn’t really know much about the product to contribute to the blog. The person that is hired often times will have to go outside of the business to research, or rely on asking questions to experts inside of the company in order to acquire knowledge of what they have to write about. This causes a problem because usually the experts in small to medium size businesses don’t have the time…

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How to Add Content Marketing to Your Traditional Advertising Mix

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Recently we’ve been witnessing companies with many years of experience in traditional radio and television advertising now trying to expand their online presence. This is probably most evident with local brick and mortar businesses. When considering different ways to add content marketing to those traditional strategies, one of the best ways is to start blogging. In fact, that’s why we started our company.

For a retail company such as a furniture store, TV ads may briefly mention a few items and sale prices. The problem is, it’s a long-term, considered purchase and customers are being taught to…

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Focus on the True Expert in Your Podcast

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If you are someone who falls in the category of being a guru, a thought leader, or if you’ve created great content in the form of books or other material, you probably do possess the ability to just open up a microphone and instantly command attention.  For the rest of us, however, being interviewed by a host or sidekick places the emphasis or spotlight on our knowledge and expertise.

Think of the great Johnny Carson who still needed Ed McMahon as his sidekick; in other words, you need a host, someone who knows their job is to make…

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Extending The Umbrella of Credibility

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You need to open your “Umbrella of Credibility.”  This umbrella encompasses those who are real experts in your company – the ones who should be leading the charge in upholding your company’s reputation as a leader in its particular field.

Apple is a perfect example of a company who is in need of recovering their own umbrella of credibility.  Since Steve Jobs’ passing, they seem to lack that voice of authority, which leads to my point here, and that is that a company should know who it’s experts are.  Those experts know more about your product or your…

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Blogging in the Heating and Air Conditioning and Related Industries

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Recently, I spoke at a convention where I was asked an interesting question, “Can blogging benefit the everyday, ordinary business?”  This was a very valid question and as I stood in front of 900 or so specialists representing industries such as heating and air conditioning, plumbing, electrical and roofing, my answer was a resounding, “Yes!”

These businesses, although slightly less glamorous than some, represent the backbone of everyday living and are without a shadow of doubt, extremely necessary to just about everybody at some point in time.  We understand people aren’t going to read their blogs from pure fascination – there has…

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Blogging in STEM Science

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When it comes to writing, most people in medical schools or academia are primarily concerned with research and getting their works published in field-related publications. And that’s important. But what happens when that article goes unnoticed by the general public?

Do you want a general Marketing Director to write a piece of content about a specific method or operation or a discovery by a Professor? That’s like asking an electrician to do a plumbers job. They could get it done if they had to, but it’ll be a bit messy.

Promoting what Doctors and Professors discover and practice…

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Increase your credibility – Repurpose your blog posts into eBooks

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One of the best indicators of a credible business owner is if they have published a book. I have a client in my marketing practice consultancy who has published a New York Times bestseller. We used UserTesting.com to have people who were unfamiliar with my client’s website visit the site, navigate through it, and answer a few questions. Almost all of those people said that the graphic at the top of the site promoting their New York Times bestseller made them more confident in the site’s credibility.

If you’re already blogging and don’t intend to write…

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