Be Your Own Boss

Life is funny quite often lately, especially given that I’ll be getting ready to write an article when my RSS reader beeps and another site I read happens to publish something on-topic with what I’m writing. Today that happens to be a regular site I like to, Darren the Pro-Blogger. He was asked by a reader about managing a blog for a business. Darren admits he has little experience in the process, as he writes for his own sites and not necessarily for the sites of others.

I have a very strong experience in blogging for others, as I maintain 6 blogs for other people’s businesses. They pay me a regular monthly contract to update their blogs and to do the hardest part of blogging: following through. If you’re a decent writer, can set aside about 8 hours a month per customer, and focus on their industry, this is a business that will blow through the roof in coming months. I’m already finding my market expanding, even though I had only planned on support 4 sites. I’m even getting calls from churches, non-for-profits and individuals who hear about me from the few customers I’m currently supporting.

Since part of my job is to hide the fact that an outsider is actually creating the site, I’m not able to provide links for the moment. In the next few months, though, I’ll be bringing on 3 new customers who said they’re OK with me providing links to the work, in exchange for a better rate. I usually don’t care about having a public portfolio, but in this case I feel it ties in well with this site.

If you want to provide a blog for local businesses, there are about 7 processes I’ve come across that are necessary:

1. How often do they want to update their blog? Less than 4 times a month makes it not worth starting. More than 12 times a month makes it not financially efficient.
2. What information do they what to cover on a regular basis? I recommend setting up the categories early on, and then covering each category in a round-robin situation until the blog is consistent and has a good archive.
3. Who will you have to contact to get information to post a new blog article? At one of my customers, I have to call 6 different managers weekly to get updates (e-mails get ignored). The more people you have to call, the higher you have to charge.
4. Who will be coming to the blog? Will it be previous customers? Will it be new customers? Will it be random people searching for that business? Will it be competitors or suppliers or wholesalers?
5. What is their main purpose in having a blog? Is it for sales reasons, or for customer service (tech issues, updates, etc), or are they just doing it for ego?
6. What is their short term and long term plan? I like contracts, usually 6 - 24 months at a minimum. If a customer can’t agree to carrying me for at least 6 months, I can’t do my job properly. I generally charge my fee over that initial 6 month period.
7. What will you have to do beyond getting text information? Will you have to take photo of jobs, will you have to do face-to-face interviews with the employee of the month, etc?

The 6 business blogs I maintain now are decent but nothing exciting. In the future I hope that I can charge upwards of US$300-500 per month to maintain each blog (which is currently below my regular hourly rate). For someone with good writing skills, a journalistic view of the world and the ability to procure information from those who have it, writing a blog for a business can be a reasonably decent income. If you invest 8 hours a month per customer and can find 20 customers to maintain, you can put yourself in the 6-figure income level fairly quickly. This is one of those businesses that either get you a lot of word-of-mouth advertising, or none because the customers don’t want anyone finding their secret source. It’s like a good plumber — no one wants to share him. I make it a part of my sales technique to demand that I get positive references in exchange for a reduced rate. When you’re new to a market or field, your portfolio is just as important as your contract — without being able to build a customer base from positive reviews of your current customers, you won’t grow and you won’t be able to sell yourself if the market is too new.

The blog market will explode in 2007, don’t miss out on it. I would not doubt that there are millions to be made within 15 minutes of my home, but I don’t have the time or the responsibility to grab all that work. Do you?

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