Here is a summary of the interview written from Shawn's perspective for a personal blog post:
I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed by Nathan from CoSchedule for his podcast, The Actionable Marketing Podcast. We had a great chat where I shared insights into how my business, Trizone, efficiently creates high-quality content with a small team.
At Trizone, it's just me and about 5 other people producing 1-2 articles per day to serve our audience of triathlon enthusiasts. As the co-owner, I oversee operations and content creation, which are my favorite parts of the job. I really enjoy building relationships with professional triathletes and sharing their unique stories.
Once we’ve built a piece of content, we start to go and jiggle it. We use the social media template and then we start building it out. It’s so quick and easy.
Operating with a small team requires us to be extremely efficient and flexible in our work. I talked about the importance of "fluidity" - being able to easily move content around to adapt to changing priorities. This is crucial as a small business when things need to shift quickly. Tools like CoSchedule have been game-changers for automation, saving us time and preventing things from falling through the cracks.
One of the keys to our content being top-notch is collaborating with subject matter experts. We rely heavily on outside experts to provide expertise on topics like sports science and nutrition. I've worked hard to build relationships with these experts so they are eager to contribute to Trizone. Their expertise gives our content more depth and authority.
We spend a lot of time with [experts] talking about their subject matters in depth because they do bring a wealth of information that, clearly, we will never have.
Remote collaboration can be challenging, so we use tools like Slack for team communication and regular check-ins to keep everyone aligned. Trust and open communication are critical when you don't have in-person interactions.
Our content workflow is centered around planning 4 weeks ahead, interviewing experts, writing drafts, getting subject approval, and then scheduling in CoSchedule. This process ensures our team has what they need to execute efficiently.
Stay on point. Whatever you believe is right, stick with it
It was great to share advice on the podcast for other small teams looking to establish themselves as thought leaders through content creation. My main tips are: stick to your vision, find mentors, and engage your audience through genuine conversations.
