Should You Blog?

My network is mostly composed of people in a small business of one sort or another. People in home based business, real estate, network marketing or some other small sales-based business. I often get questions about blogging, and much of the time it’s not about any technical aspect of blogging. As much as the “how-to” part of blogging, people seem to be interested in the “why”. For those of you who do not currently write a blog, I’d like to take a quick stab at answering the questions of whether or not you should start a blog.

Blogging is Not for Everyone…

I’m going to say you should start a blog, but FIRST I’d like to give you a disclaimer. I am certainly a believer in the power of blogging for small business. I do it myself, and it’s become a cornerstone of what I do to market my business. I DON’T however think everyone is necessarily cut out for this. Anyone who tells you that blogging is easy or that anyone can do it is full of it. It’s a lot of work. That said, there can be a significant benefit to you and your business through blogging. Truth be told, it has transformed my business from the inside out, in a very good way. I’ve had to work really hard at it. I’ve had to learn a lot of things like HTML, CSS, PHP and such that I never would have thought to learn otherwise, but for me it’s completely been worth it.

The skills I’ve learned through blogging have enabled me to make money from anywhere, on my own schedule, and that is very important to me. So can it benefit you to this degree, and should you start a blog yourself?

Do it Anyway!

Here’s my advice: I would highly encourage you to at least give it a shot. That’s really all there is to it. It’s really the best way to know if you like something. Don’t expect immediate results. You get out what you put in. Of course, if you’re going to do it half-assed, just wait til you’re willing to do it right. If you want to make full time income doing it, you’ll probably need to do it full time…just like anything else. But blogging to me is not about directly making money so much as it is about building  my network, building a community of like-minded people and then proceeding to sell from there.

If you’re in a business and want tot sell more products or services, chances are good that a properly built and executed blog can be a highly effective, cost-efficient, powerful way to expand your business. So give it a try! Dive in, and give it an honest effort. See what results you can get. Blog for a year…that’s my advice to anyone in a small business who really wants to harness the power of this media. By that time, you ‘ll be intimately aware of your competencies and lack thereof.

I could of course write a detailed analysis of the pros and cons…but the fact is that blogging is the most powerful way I know to connect with a large number of people, in a personal, interactive way, for very little money. Will you be awesome at it? I don’t know, but it’s such a highly leveraged and powerful tool to anyone in a small business, that I feel overlooking it or writing it off simply because it will require you to learn some new things is foolish. So should you blog? Yes, at least for a little while 🙂

It’s not the only way to promote your business of course, but it is a very powerful one. Coming from direct sales, I know that I can go out and make money any time I need to…even if the internet died tomorrow, I’d be OK. Blogging is not the end all and be all of success in business, but if you want to put all the odds possible in your favor, starting a business blog as an extension of your business is just about the smartest thing you can do.