Why Do I Blog?

The first busi­ness blog I wrote for a busi­ness was from May 31, 2006. I was work­ing for my father’s paint­ing com­pa­ny, Chism Broth­ers Paint­ing, at the time. I real­ly did not know much about blog­ging when I wrote my first post. I knew enough to know it was a good thing to do, and I was one of the first painters to give it a try. I had not heard of con­tent mar­ket­ing or best prac­tices in blog­ging or real­ly any­thing. I just knew I had to start putting qual­i­ty and help­ful infor­ma­tion on my web­site and hope con­sumers would agree that they liked my post.  My first post was rather quite sim­ple of why I start­ed my father’s paint­ing blog.

We start­ed this blog to help you learn more about our com­pa­ny, the paint­ing indus­try, and home remod­el­ing. We hope you will find our blog help­ful and will come back often when you need help with your house­hold project. If you do not find what you are look­ing for, we are here to help. Please send us your ques­tions, and we will do what we can to help you find the answers. Thanks for visiting.

As I reviewed that 2006 post recent­ly, I real­ized my rea­son for why I still blog today has not changed much if at all. As I stat­ed in the Chism Broth­ers post, we start­ed that blog to pro­vide answers to peo­ple’s ques­tions. I do the same thing on this busi­ness blog today. I write my com­pa­ny blog today because I real­ly do enjoy help­ing peo­ple solve mar­ket­ing and tech­nol­o­gy prob­lems. It is real­ly quite sim­ple. This is my out­let to share inter­est­ing things I am learn­ing in my field of inter­est and engage with folks all over the world who have ques­tions or feed­back.

So What About the Fruit

Are there any rewards and ben­e­fits to blog­ging? Most def­i­nite­ly yes! Besides trav­el­ing to see cus­tomers now and then, attend­ing con­fer­ences and doing a few speak­ing engage­ments, I’ve spent almost noth­ing on mar­ket­ing my busi­ness. I rely almost exclu­sive­ly on blog­ging and reach­ing out to my fol­low­ers, cur­rent and past cus­tomers. Some­times I do not see fruit from my efforts for years. I received a very sol­id lead this past week from my tar­get client (a painter) who said he has been fol­low­ing me online for over 4 years. I had not heard of this painter and not even once did he com­ment or engage on a blog post I had writ­ten. Yet he was a fol­low­er, a fan of the things I wrote about and did online. I did not have to sell myself. He was sold.  I receive calls and emails more this year than any oth­er year in busi­ness of peo­ple ask­ing for advice and want­i­ng to do busi­ness with me, and those con­ver­sa­tions all start­ed because they read one of my blogs. I have had a few not hire me because my cost were more than they thought, yet the doors have been left open with each one I’ve not sold. When I fol­low up, they’ve respond­ed typ­i­cal­ly with, ​“I need more time but I want to find a way to work with you some­day. Keep in touch.” I real­ly like to think that with­out me blog­ging a cou­ple times a month over the past 5 ¹⁄₂ years in busi­ness has been one of the key fac­tors as to why I’m still in busi­ness today. When I get those brief moments now and then where I think I’m too busy to blog or won­der if it is still rel­e­vant, I get anoth­er lead, anoth­er com­ment anoth­er phone call assur­ing me I can­not stop.

Are You Ready To Blog?

I hope this post has inspired you to con­sid­er how you can influ­ence your audi­ence. How can you pro­vide answers to your ide­al cus­tomer’s prob­lems or ques­tions? How can you become the go to help­ful place? The key is to first believe in the prin­ci­ple of blog­ging. Do not doubt it. It works. Then com­mit to mak­ing it hap­pen. Do not stop! Oh and make sure your blogs are real. It does not mean you have to write every sin­gle blog your­self. If writ­ing isn’t your thing, do a video instead (aka vlog­ging). Or tell a good writer what you want to talk about and let that per­son write it for you.