The First Post
I take the plunge into a small business blog. Can I stay consistent? It’s hard!
Hello reader, and welcome to The Place of Business Blog. For the past few weeks I have been part of a personal branding class taught by best-selling author, marketer, and all-around decent human Mark Schaefer. Ten RISE community members attended for guidance in how to become more known - not to massage the ego, but to reach our goals of being more successful entrepreneurs who bring value to the customers, clients, and colleagues around our area of expertise.
As part of this course, the participants commit to a consistent content development schedule. Consistency, in addition to creating something worth people’s time, is the only way to remain relevant in a pretty noisy world. This is not a new concept - consider musicians whose contracts for decades have included X many albums in X many years. Record companies know that in order to maintain a fanbase and relevancy musicians need to produce in some relatively predictable manner. It’s the same for entrepreneurs who are using content as part of their marketing strategy. Or especially creatives whose livelihoods may depend upon monetizing their content.
So, today is Friday (my drafting day), and I woke up afraid to begin, because once the first characters land on the screen Mark says I cannot stop for 18 months. That’s 72 blog posts! There is something about the 18 months - if done well, it tends to work for most people. This is kind of a marathon, which shouldn’t be a huge deal considering I just watched and supported my friend in completing a 24-hour 100 mile ultramarathon. Writing a blog post per week has nothing on his accomplishment.
I have never written more than a few personal blog posts in my life. Sure, I wrote plenty of marketing blog posts and content for the various organizations I have been part of, but nothing that comes from me, and is a bit personal. That part scares the hell out of me, so for this first post, I am going to knock down my fears down one by one. Then we can move on to more interesting small business topics:
Fear #1: I do not know anything that anyone would care to read about.
This post notwithstanding, this blog is about my observations related to the challenges and opportunities for small businesses today. Can I bring new unique insights? Do I know enough to be of service? I do not know.
I am 52 (life experience), owned a successful buy, sell, trade LEGO retail store (real business experience), have had multiple careers (a range of perspectives and creative solutions), developed a small business education program for a small city (I can teach people). Maybe I can put that fear to bed…
Fear #2: I am not sure I will have enough material to pull from and generate.
Every week, finding subjects to write about requires relentless observation of the world and how my experiences could inform my readers. I have to stay alert, and is this thing actually going to be helpful to a small business owner?
Well, I am a fairly curious person, attend meetups with interesting people often, am part of an active Pacific Northwest food and beverage business community, and stay aware of what is going on locally. I think I can find ideas if I keep my radar on, and I have already cataloged a dozen or so blog ideas to prevent writer’s block. Fear #2, take that!
Fear #3: I am not convinced I can be helpful to people.
There is a lot of information already online and thousands of blog posts being added every day. Can I bring anything new to the equation that is valuable to my readers?
This is my quest - to help small business owners live more balanced lives with successful businesses, so this has to work. Time will tell on this one, but I assure you my goal is not to create more noise for the world, only value. Moving on from Fear #3.
Fear #4: No one will read this.
Certainly no one will read anything I write if I do not publish it. So, I have two choices here - continue they way I have been going (not writing) or click the “publish” button. My approach here is going to be imagining I am writing every week just for one you - even if just one person gets something out of what I write, then I have done my job.
I hope you enjoy reading along.
