There’s a statistic out there which you’ve no doubt heard. 95% of all businesses fail in the first 5
years. We take it as a fact, but few of us question why. WHY do they fail? We ASSUME it’s because business is risky. Yet some people start one successful business after another, while the rest of us struggle. I encourage you to look at this a little more closely, because there’s a very powerful truth to uncover.
In nearly every instance, a business fails due to an identifiable and correctable issue. Perhaps you didn’t have the capital necessary. Perhaps you didn’t have a competent management team. Perhaps your offer wasn’t in alignment with the target audience. My point is that almost every business failure can be tracked down to a cause. Fix the cause; prevent the failure.
The same goes for blogging.
Blogging is the same as business. For some of you, blogging IS your business. Are you going to fail? If you do, it’s not because blogging is risky. It’s not because most people simply fail, and that’s all there is to it. It’s definitely not because “blogging is dead”. I hate it when people say that 🙂
The fact is that most business blogs fail for the same reasons most businesses fail. As the old saying goes: “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”
Do you have a plan?
- Does your blog have a written plan?
- What goals do you want your blog to achieve?
- What specifically are you going to do to make those goals happen?
- Why do you think your plan will work?
Do you have answers to these questions? It’s not particularly time-consuming or laborious to answer them, but if you DON’T have these answers, the success of your blog is in the “crap shoot” category. If you’re blogging for fun, then you may be cool with this. If your blog is supposed to be a part of your marketing though, then you may want to step up your game a bit.
Can writing a plan really make that much of a difference? Yes it can!
I don’t know how many people tell me they want more traffic to their website. Let’s just say lots 😉 Invariably I ask the obvious question “What are you doing currently to get traffic?” Too often, the answer is “Well, nothing really.” It’s difficult to know what to do if you don’t have a plan. When you don’t have a plan, it’s easy to get frustrated, because nothing really has any perspective.
I find out by working with clients that a lot of you aren’t very sure what you want to be getting out of your blog in the first place. Sit down for a minute and DECIDE what you want your blog to achieve. It’s really one of the coolest things about blogging. You get to pick! You can use a blog to build your email list, make offers, establish yourself as an authority in your niche, break into a new niche, etc. Focus in on one or two things that you really want to make happen with your blog. Then do some research or hire a consultant to sit down with you for a bit, and put together a PLAN to make it happen.
A well-written plan. It makes a huge difference. This one simple thing will put you in the top 2%.