In a recent post on All Biz Answers Eric Brantner poses four reasons why small business owners may fail at blogging. I can attest that some of what he says was or is true for me. At least point 1 and possibly point 3. Time is an issue for the small business owner whether a freelancer or someone with a small number of staff. At least until you reach the size to employ people to do separate tasks. As a small business owner we wear many hats at once, marketing, sales, accounts, and support to name but a few. So how do we rationalise which one gets the priority? A little bit of business process.
- Whats the objective of your business? To make money? I expect so, which means sales.
- To get sales you need to do marketing, attract the customer.
- Accounts is the tidy up, without the first two there is very little to do.
- Support is actually part of good marketing, see it as such and use it as such. Every support call is an opportunity to get it right and increase the love.
Break it down
Marketing: always the priority but it does not need to consume your time.
Sales: should consume your time but not stop you marketing. You want new and repeat sales right?
Accounts: find half to an hour a day to do the admin, but stay on top.
Support: its part of marketing see it as such not as a cost. It helps the repeat sales.
Marketing is mostly a creative activity, its about ideas and communicating them. Often these ideas are inspired by the sales and support activities. And often they amble around in your brain working themselves out in your subconscious. Then ping they pop up fully formed. And get forgotten because you are busy doing the sales or accounts. So in order to grab those moments of creativity lets take a note from writers.
This is going to be hard as it means forming a new habit (maybe). What is your morning ritual? Could you change it to have some quiet time to think about the last day and the new day? Sit and just note down what ever comes to the surface. Then use your blog as the sounding board. Discuss the issue and the possible resolutions. When it is written re read it to proof. Then decide if you will post that or will you keep it as private.
One thing people forget about blogging, it is a journal, be honest, you do not have to share everything. But by using your company blog as a journal you use it as a creative tool to solve problems and to create your marketing and support to your clients. Thats a lot easier that making time for marketing and making time for blogging. Its also a lot more refreshing for your readers than just reading your sales copy. And because you are not (you may be) good at sales copy and know it you keep putting the blog off. After all you dont have anything to write about!
When actually you do and the real you may just be far more entertaining than you realise.
If you enjoyed this post, great, if not, okay. But I enjoyed writing it and I got something out of it, I just hope you do too.
Take it easy, watch the sun come up sometimes and take time to sit and think. Advice I need to listen to more.
