Basic Blogging Business: Do you know what you don’t know?

(Reading time: 6 – 10 minutes)

Lot of smoke and noise in Blogistan lately about how you hafta work your blog like a business.

That’s cool.

But not a lot of light. There’s precious little about exactly how to operate your blog as part of your business.

Which makes me wonder… does anyone really know how to run a blog as part of business?

Hrm… “enquiring minds” and all that.

Let’s back up a sec and think about it: What, exactly, is a blog?

The Dumb Answer: A blog is a personal publishing platform enabling businesses to inexpensively write content for the web.

I can see you nodding along. Stop it.

Because that definition is not very helpful; it presupposes insider knowledge of the overloaded word “content” which an outsider won’t have.

“Outsider.” Maybe, like, your customer.

To get a good grip on business blogging, we need to examine the purpose of each blog post or page, and how each post or page supports the goals for your web site as a whole. Even simpler, we need to look at what kinds of post or page get published.

Let’s try again with The Smart Answer.

A blog is a way to rapidly and inexpensively deliver, to the web, precisely written:

1. Instructional material such as “howtos,” tutorials, and other authority-building material. This material could be internal, or located behind a paywall.
2. Promotional marketing material, press releases, electronic brochures.
3. Information collected (possibly curated) for specific purposes.
4. Sales copy.
5. Business journal or news.
6. More, you tell me, I’m sure I’ve missed something critical.

Note that every one of these activities can delivered using so-called static web pages.

We’re using blogs because blogs provide a lot of leverage on our time when we’re adding a lot of material over a short time span. That is, blogs are cost-effective.

(Confession: I’ve loathed the word “blog” all the way back to when Slashdot introduced it. And I was on Slashdot a long time before Cmdr. Taco required registration.)

Who writes all that trash?

I need to clear something up now, before we get up to our eyeballs in alligators: When I say “trash” I mean “stuff” like “things.” It’s a term of endearment they taught me in the Marine Corps. Your tax dollars at work.

Now that that’s cleared up, who does write all that trash?

The obvious answer for 99.9314152% of Website In A Weekend readers is “Well, I write it.”

And so you do.

But that’s the wrong way (again) to look at it.

You, Inc.

Pretend you’re a multinational conglomerate, offices around the world, limos and jets (with amenities dammit), the usual.

Now who’s writing all that trash?

• “howtos,” tutorials → Technical writer (Hi Holly).
• Promotional material, press releases → Marketing (probably the intern).
• Information collected for specific purposes, intranet → Systems adminstrator (no comment)
• Sales copy, sales letters → Marketing (probably not the intern).
• Business journal or news or (whisper) “blog” → Definitely the intern.
• More, you tell me, I’m sure I’ve missed something critical.

So, what?

Hang on there, Hero… there’s a point, and it’s sharp and pointy.

First, consider:

• Who’s paying these fine folk? That is, from which departments are their salaries budgeted?
• Are they all paid the same wage? (Of course not.) Why not?
• How is their time managed?
• And who in the devil keeps track of all this… this… complexity?

(If you stick with me, we’ll answer all these questions and more.)

Now consider yer fine self; you and your itty bitty bidness and the sharp and pointy point:

• Who’s paying you to be the product developer, marketing copywriter and (you-know-it-fits-don’t-deny-it)… to be the intern?
• How are you managing your time? (you’re not, are you.)
• And how are YOU keeping track of it all? (get real.)

About right now, light bulbs should exploding over your head. You should be seeing that there might just be a little bit of problem here. But you probably haven’t got a good grip on exactly what that problem is. And even though I’ve littered hints all through the article, you are likely a long way from resolving the problem.

Let’s do this:

• Agree you wanna make some coin. If you don’t care about making a little cash, stop here because it’s going to start to really suck, really soon. Frankly, I don’t recommend anyone self-host WordPress unless they want to monetize, and you can see exactly that advice in my Twitter stream replying to Chey.
• Agree you’re building a business and it’s more than the simple-minded “time management” and “focusing on what’s important” tactics which never work for very long. I know it, you know it, we all know. Without a fundamental working structure, time management is a chimera. And without numbers, no way to know what’s important.
• Agree that you need hard numbers. Numbers like “How long does it take me to go through my 9 point daily maintenance checklist.” (About 15 minutes. Per blog.)

Okey dokey.

I like the way you think.

We’re all in agreement

That was the Good News.

Here’s the Bad News: what’s coming is going to Suck Royale for anyone who hasn’t ever clocked time on a consulting gig, or run their own books.

If you have clocked time and you do (or have) run your own books, that sinking-in-your-stomach feeling that just started is exactly right, it’s going to be tedious and boring and sucky, as usual.

If you’re reading this and you ARE clocking time and running your own books, we need to talk. Specifically, I’m going to outline how I do it, and I’d be delighted to get some feedback and suggestions from you, based on your experience.

Ok, we’re all Heroes here, we can handle this, and my trusty Cialdini, Ferris and, uh… “other references” tell me to drop the other shoe.

The good shoe. The last “P” in PNP. The last “1″ in 101.

To wit: get this handled and you are on your way to that 4 hour work week, for real. You will know exactly how much time to spend on what matters most to you, exactly what to outsource, and exactly how to outsource it.

Or, if you prefer, mastering simple businesses operations will allow you to scale. If that’s what you want.

Me, I’m going surfing.

Here’s what’s next…

Blogging business basics

I can prepare, based on my knowledge and experience freelancing for several years, a series of articles on how you want to track and manage your time, and how you want to set up and operate your books. The vital, critical stuff of business.

But it’s kind of boring.

Scratch. It’s real boring.

I want your participation. Questions. Comments.

I want you to take action. I don’t need to write it up for myself, I already know how to do it. This is the kind of material I’m tempted to put directly behind the paywall. Help me help you, and I’ll offload everything I know, right here.

If you’re tired of doing “intern work” and getting paid intern wages, leave me a comment below.

Update: Based on the comments, I need to be more clear about this:

This is too much work for me give away. I’ll set up a sales page. Qualified customers will have, or be willing to purchase Quickbooks and a clocking service (I recommend and use Clicktime.com.)