When you’re new to blogging, it’s easy to see other successful blogs out there and feel intimidated. I’ve heard from clients many times about how difficult it is to write a blog. Yes, you see others doing it and getting great results, but you feel your writing isn’t nearly good enough. Besides, you’re not a professional writer anyway. Surely blogging isn’t for you.
This mentality is understandable, but it also implies that blogging is mostly for talented writers. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Blogging is not for writers
You live and breathe your small business. You’re an expert in your field. That is the prerequisite for successful blogging, not a talent for writing. Yes, there are professional writers who blog. Of course professional writers blog…every small business owner should, particularly writers. But this doesn’t mean the blogging world is meant exclusively for writers and talented journalists. Absolutely not.
If you’re an expert in your field, that means you have a lot of knowledge about your industry that your customers don’t necessarily have. Remember you’re not writing for the New York Times here, and you’re likely not writing a blog for millions of people in the general public. You’re writing for your customers. That’s who you need to impress.
And guess what. When you’re actively publishing content and sharing your ideas, your customers notice. When you’re blogging and your competition isn’t, guess who wins. You do. Every time.
The reverse causation issue
A lot of times we see someone with a very successful blog, and we think we need to be like them in order to succeed. This is backwards. The truth is the reason they’re successful is because they’re simply sharing their expertise in their own way. You can’t be them. You don’t have the same skills. You don’t have the same experiences. But the good news is that you have your OWN skills and your OWN experiences to draw from. You have your OWN insights to share with your customers. You have your own style.
The successful bloggers out there are not successful because they have a certain formula or way of doing things. They’re successful because they do things their own way, in their own style. This is what attracts their ideal customers.
The reverse causation issue is what happens when we think someone is a successful blogger because they’re a good writer. The truth is they’ve become a good writer from creating a successful blog. It’s totally opposite of what most people think. It’s the act of blogging that makes you good at it, and there is no required education or training to get started.
Getting started
Getting started is often the hardest part. I’ve seen it over and over again. After you get over that initial hump of not wanting to do it, blogging gets easier and easier. In fact it’s very much like going to the gym. It feels like such a horrible idea when you first get started. But after you’ve worked out for even a short time, it quickly starts to feel weird when you DON’T do it. Blogging works that way too. You start to see and feel the benefits, and it quickly becomes one of your most lucrative marketing efforts.
These days, I can send a single email to my list and get new business. It gets easier, and you start to experience more and more leverage after you’ve been blogging for a while. The trick is just getting started.
You have the expertise. You have the experience. You have all the insights to share with your customers. You know more about what you do than anyone else. The only trick is to get the ball rolling, and forget the idea that blogging is just for people who are talented at such things. No one is a natural born blogger. You simply learn how to do it.
If you’ve followed the blog for any length of time, you’ve heard me say that blogging is the new smart phone. We never needed one before, but it’s foolish to ignore how much marketing has changed over the last several years. Many of us cannot imagine operating our business without a cell phone these days. But we never had one before. We simply learned how to use a smart phone, because it gives us a leveraged way to stay in contact with a large number of people. Blogging plays that exact role in small business. It’s quick and inexpensive, and it enables you to market your business in a very targeted, effective way. When it comes to ROI, blogging is the smartest thing you can add to your marketing. Hands down.
If you have any questions about how to get started or about blogging in general, hit me up. At your service 🙂