Guest Blog Column: A Blog is just like a good chisel...

I was recently asked by a good friend of mine, Paul Chaney at Radiant Marketing, to do a stint as a "guest blogger" and talk about my blogging experience from a small business perspective. Paul runs a company and blog that specializes in the needs of small businesses as it relates to blogging, and has also been instrumental in forming a "Professional Bloggers Association".

I was very flattered that he thought of me to contribute, and I am planning to blog for him every Wednesday for the next 3 weeks or so...

"Why my blog is an excellent Tool for my business"

There is something that I have inherently found fancinating about tools, and this is that they tend to have uses beyond the obvious once we have started to use them and incorporate them into our daily lives. A simple example of this would be a hammer, whose primary function would be to pound and pry up nails. But I have always found that if you give anyone a tool they will start to discover and invent new uses the original designer could never have imagined. How many of us have used a hammer to clear ice from something, or open a coconut, or used the side of the hammer to give ourselves better leverage with a prybar?

It is human nature to "become one with the tool", especially if we use it every day, and inevitably the tool becomes more and more functional because of this daily interaction.

WHY MY BLOG IS A GOOD TOOL #1:

When visiting a customer at their business, it is usually standard operating procedure to take the photo album in which I have pictures of many of the signs I have made, but lately I have been actually showing it to the customer less and less. What is more likely is that I will ask them to use their computer, show them where my blog is, and show them signs that I have recently made that are similar to the project we are discussing. I have then educated the customer in how to stay in contact with me as a business AND let them see very current examples of my work.

Now that's a good tool...

WHY MY BLOG IS A GOOD TOOL #2:

When a customer first calls me to talk about a sign project, I have about 3 minutes to convince them I can do a better job that any signmaker out of the Yellow Pages. That's a lot of pressure on those 3 minutes...

What I tend to do now is at the end of the phonecall, I ask them for their e-mail address. I e-mail them a thank you note for taking time to talk to me on the phone, and send a link to my Blog and encourage them to take a look. Now, my Blog can be the "automatic salesman" and sell to them for the next 10 minutes or 6 months (depending if they take a peek every now and then). Using the Blog this way had gotten me jobs, period! and I have not had to do the "sales work"!

Now that's a good tool...

WHY MY BLOG IS A GOOD TOOL #3:

I sometimes use my Blog to show a customer a sketch of the job before we start the production process (like I did here). This usually impresses the customer greatly, helps them form an emotional attachment to the sign right away, and saves me the bother of "I e-mailed you the sketch, did you get the sketch? I don't know why you didn't get the sketch?, can you e-mail my wife the sketch?"

Now that's a good tool...

WHY MY BLOG IS A GOOD TOOL #4:

I also use the blog to keep customers in touch with their projects as they progress through my shop. I do this for several reasons:

1. It's good PR. I have had customers give the Blog address to friends so they can see the sign being made, and they have shared it with others.

2. It educates the consumer about the signmaking process and helps them understand that everything we do is custom and therefore takes time...

3. Keeps me honest. I start to feel bad if a sign is not getting a lot of "airtime" (probably because work has slowed on it) and helps me kick it back to the "front of the stove".

Now that's a good tool...

If you are a business, and thinking about starting a Blog, should you? Yes. Why, for the obvious benefits and benefits you will never expect but soon discover.