Guest Blog Column: "Blazing a trail can be lonely"

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:

==========================

I am the first sign company in the world to have started a blog, I know that for a fact. It is great to be at the leading edge (or "bleeding edge") of something for once, however, as any blogger can attest, it can also be lonely at times. There are mornings that I sit at the keyboard and wonder if anybody reads any of the drivel that I churn out each day, and wonder if my posting pictures of our latest project is just a high-tech type of "busy-work" I have created for myself. I know that I am not alone with these thoughts, and similar musings have probably plagued just about anyone who blogs or has blogged or has given up blogging.

99% of my customer base (that's 99 percent!) have never heard the term "blog" or "weblog" when I first tell them about mine. It can be depressing at times, as I am sure all small business bloggers will agree.

However, small business bloggers take heart!  It will not always be this way!

We are the first one's here, staking out our territory in a wide, wonderful frontier. Blogging was hot in 2004 and will be even hotter in 2005.  Blogging is going to be BIG and we saw it coming before anyone else did and we can take pride in that. Blogging is the "next big thing" for small businesses.

================
What will blogging be in 5 years?

Remember e-mail before the dawn of the spamification of the world? E-mail was all anyone in business could talk about, and how efficient and inexpensive it was to get anything written from here to there, and it was a fantastic tool for promoting your busness to potential customers.

That is what blogging is about to become. It is going to be the new mainstream buzz. Remember when the internet first dawned, and you went from saying "what's this WWW thing next to your address?" to "oh, you have a website?" to "do you have a website?" to

"you don't even have a website.  Should I do business with you?"

In five years, people will ask you if you have a blog.  Will you be ready?