Making Money and Small Business Blogs

This blog is in response to two claims made this week by well respected business observers with their finger on the small business pulse.
The first is the Daily Telegraph's Business Club's programme director, the redoubtable David Sumner Smith, who says in his latest email to members (24th October 2006) that he (and his bright nephew) have tried and failed to find examples of UK businesses making money out of blogs.
It seems incredible after all that's been written about blogs, and the millions of corporate blogs on the go, but he say that, "apart from http://s1.e-srv.net:80/?s2=01-4-4CWvbgNvkbviLu0-38377, credible stories are rare. "
No doubt, they'll follow up if some good examples are persuaded to crawl out of the woodwork as a result of his email. In the meantime he wants to "make the Business Club a 'launch pad' for business blogs. Reporting frustrations. Discussing problems. Sharing solutions. And hopefully driving business successes too!"
That's very close to the heart of a comment make by a good friend, Simon Allen, MD of Shopfitter, the low cost e-commerce solution, who told me he's yet to spot a good blog on what it's like to run a small business so that people can learn what works.
So, here goes....!
Taking David's point first, businesses may be about making money, but that's not directly what blogs are for. They are about communicating with a business' audiences to deepen understanding and foster a greater feel good factor. And that's exactly the same thing PR does when it focusses on media relations, sponsorships and speaking awareness programmes. It's that feel good factor that creates the climate in which sales and marketing work. In fact, it's so good at turbo-charging sales and marketing that it's commonly claimed that sales go up 50% if the prospective client has heard positive things about the company before the sales or marketing approach.
Of course, sometimes PR is so oversold as a low cost publicity solution that small business owners think they just need to find a PR budget and nothing else. Sadly 50% of zero sales and marketing input is still £0. The sales and marketing effort and spend must be there to benefit from the PR uplift, otherwise you'll just get a sporadic few enquiries from a good editorial piece. Which would be a criminal waste as you'll be failing to capitalise on the thousands of prospective customers that have read the piece and are warm to the idea of doing business with you, but haven't got round to actually contacting you directly. But if you were to follow up that editorial mention by contacting them.....
So maybe it's good business not to be obviously trying to make money from blogs? Certainly, covering the blog in money-grabbing ads is unlikely to improve its effectiveness although it might generate a little Adsense income.
Like everything in the indirect PR approach, the effect of good, honest, clear and relevant blogs will build up over time. Don't expect overnight miracles, but, like PR, look for a good uplift on your sales and marketing efforts over 6-12 months.
Now that leaves Simon's point about the lack of a blog to give the inside track on running a small business. I suspect that most small business owners are too busy running their businesses to stand back from them. Certainly, my business coach, Phil Olley, and many others point out that most businesspeople are too busy working in the business, instead of addressing the important issues by working on the business.
Why me? I'm the first to admit that I run the business to provide interesting jobs and work with reputable clients, so no-one's going to learn how to make millions from me. But I have make a comfortable living in a competitive environment where few last 10 years, let alone the 30 I've enjoyed. In that time, I've worked for banks and had run-ins with banks. I've gone solo, employed people, set up a limited company, written a best-selling book, won awards, punched way beyond my size working with top companies and the public sector, tried to teach others how to do PR, learned about new aspects of business constantly, found a husband through business networking and expanded into a whole new business activity with him, done my bit for charity, operated a transparent business policy, and had a green policy in place since 1986 - long before 'green' was anything other than a colour. As a fellow communicator said, running my business is the best fun you can have with your clothes on. I am still having a fascinating time doing it. I'm well short of perfect, but I do sleep easily at night.
So, I'll have a go at dealing with common business situations I encounter on a weekly basis. Watch this space.