Content Pillars Worksheet

A coach posts on LinkedIn when she feels inspired - sometimes three times in a week, then nothing for a month. She has content ideas but struggles to decide which ones are worth pursuing. Each post feels like it's starting from scratch.

Surface the root cause before opening the worksheet. 'The posting problem is usually a decision problem. When there are no predefined topics, every piece of content requires deciding the topic before writing the content - and that decision overhead is often what kills consistency.' Have her pull up her last ten posts and categorize them by theme. The categories that appear most often and got the strongest response are the starting candidates for pillars.

Watch whether her proposed pillars are too broad to produce a clear subtopic list. 'Leadership' as a pillar means nothing until it's specific enough that you can name seven subtopics without repetition. If she writes 'leadership, mindset, communication' as her three pillars, ask her to list five subtopics for each. The ones where she stalls at two or three subtopics are either too narrow to sustain or not yet well enough defined.

After completing the worksheet, ask her to look at the posting schedule she wrote and ask: 'Is this the frequency you have sustained in a difficult month - a month with full client load, travel, and unexpected demands?' The guide makes this explicit: design for a difficult month, not a great one. If the schedule she wrote assumes ideal conditions, it will fail at the first hard week.

A coach two years into active content creation has a LinkedIn presence and an email list. She has produced enough content to see that it doesn't add up to a clear topic authority. People compliment individual posts but don't describe her as 'the person to follow for X.' She wants to understand whether she has pillars and isn't executing them, or whether she has never had them.

Use the worksheet as an audit tool before it becomes a planning tool. 'Before you decide what your pillars should be, look at what you've actually produced. Export or print your last thirty posts. Can you group them into three to five consistent themes? The groups that have the most posts and the most engagement are probably your de facto pillars - whether or not you named them.' Have her do that categorization exercise first, then bring those categories into the worksheet.

Watch whether the categories she identifies from her actual content match the ones she thinks she should be writing about. A gap between what she has produced and what she thinks her pillars should be is a values and clarity signal, not just a content planning problem. If her most-engaged content is about team dynamics but she thinks her pillar should be strategy, ask: 'What does that discrepancy tell you about what your audience sees in your work?'

After completing the worksheet, ask: 'If you commit to these three pillars for the next six months and produce content on nothing else, what would you be giving up?' The answer usually surfaces attachment to topics she is exploring for herself but hasn't yet earned the right to teach. Releasing those for now to build authority on the pillars she is already demonstrating is almost always the stronger strategic choice.

A coach preparing to launch a group program in four months is creating a content strategy for the first time. She understands she needs to build an audience before the launch, but she has no content history to draw from and doesn't know where to start.

Frame the pillars as a commitment she is making for the next four months, not forever. 'You don't need perfect pillars - you need consistent ones. Three topics that you can speak to credibly, that your ideal program participant cares about, and that you will actually produce content on. The content between now and launch should make your ideal client feel seen so that when you announce the program, they already know you understand their world.' Have her identify the three challenges her ideal participant faces and work backward from those into pillar themes.

Watch whether she writes pillar themes that she is interested in versus themes that her ideal program participant is looking for. Coaches in brand-build mode sometimes write content for themselves rather than for the audience they are trying to attract. Ask for each pillar: 'Who, specifically, is this for? What does this person believe when they first encounter your content, and what do you want them to believe after following you for two months?'

After completing the posting schedule section, ask her to identify the specific week she would most likely skip posting - a heavy client week, a travel week, a launch-prep crunch. 'What is the plan for that week?' If the answer is 'skip it,' the schedule is aspirational. Build a minimum version: one post per week on a single pillar is more useful than a detailed four-posts-per-week plan that evaporates in week three.