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You’re a publisher. Did you know that? Likely, you’re also a product developer, a marketer, a promoter (is there a difference?), a writer, an editor, a technical genius (compared to your mother-in-law at least), and a social media maven. You can sling some HTML and CSS, and on a good day, maybe even a little PHP.

You probably wear a large number of other hats, as necessary.

Such is blogging.

Now, scaling up to the Big Time requires outsourcing as much work of this work as you possibly can.

But you’re probably not in the Big Time, yet.

(Note to Big Timers lurking around here keeping an eye on the competition upcoming talent: I know you’re out there. I have evidence! No, I’m not digging around in server logs for IP addresses (snore), but all the same, I know you’re out there. And for you little timers (includes me), don’t assume you do or do not know who’s lurking.)

On your way to Fortune and Glory, you’re going to learn far more – about far more – than you ever expected. Which is probably a good thing. The not expecting part, that is. Who knew this was so much work?

Consider Darren Rowse. He’s been at blogging for years. Daily, for years. In all other fields, this is normal: it requires a lot of experience to be successful. Darren recommends bloggers personally acquire as much of the experience as they can, by building specific skill sets.

Take product launches for example, where Darren tells you the story behind product launches:

You know sometimes we hear about these six and seven figure launches and think there’s no way we could ever do that, but the reality is that you can but, but you need to look it at as a journey, and there’s a whole heap of things that you can do every day to take you a little bit closer to some of these bigger launches that you might want to do one day.

One of the (many) things in the “heap of things that you can do every day” is building your skill set.

It turns out…

…all launches are hard work.

Even a crappy launch that doesn’t go anywhere requires a metric boatload of work.

Take your email list for example.

You already know you need a mailing list. But you might need another for your affiliates. And yet a third for customers! How fast can you set up an effective mailing list? An hour? A day? A week? What does “effective” mean, anyway? In short, getting a mailing list done right requires at least the following:

1. Logging in and setting up the initial list.
2. Creating the necessary list support web pages (3 for Aweber).
3. Writing the first autoresponder sequence (3-5 emails).
4. Building and emplacing the signup forms.
5. Testing. Testing testing testing. Then more testing.

How fast can you do all that work? Do you feel comfortable outsourcing it all? How much would you be willing to pay? How would you know if it’s done right?

Don’t get me wrong: I’m a huge fan of outsourcing. I’ve outsourced 6 figures worth of work in the past (and hope to in the future). But as Darren notes, until you can outsource, don’t be afraid of putting in the work to learn the skills for yourself.

Your turn

What skillsets are you building, right now?

Why did you choose these particular skills to build?

If you’re a VA or a similar specialist in fields related to blogging, please share your experience. I believe well-educated customers are the best customers (on average), and this a great opportunity to help people understand your service and the benefits your service provides.