I have a full plate.

As I write this, I’m mid-stream in our BOSS annual speakers’ school with almost 90 students, running SOS with a growing team of content creators, and traveling to speak almost every week. My available time outside work is committed for family, exercise, friends and sleep(!)

And then there’s blogging.

Creating a great blog doesn’t come easily for me – I learned long ago staring at my screen doesn’t make a blog pop out. It takes time, lots of it.

And, truth be told, sometimes I just plain hate it.

Every week I have to come up with a new topic, try to top last week’s results and make the format interesting. Ugh!

But, I do it anyway…here’s why.

BLOGS WORK, IF…

There’s a reason big brands like Colgate, Intuit, Avis, Southwest Airlines and Benetton have blogs. It’s one medium anyone can consume (some offices restrict access to social media, not everyone likes podcasts, etc.) and it builds your brand.

Big brands rely on blogs to build their brand

According to HubSpot, not only do 40% of companies now employ blogs in their marketing, 79% report a positive ROI for inbound marketing – try and get those results from billboards, print ads, or radio.

And in case you think blogs are nice “window dressing”, HubSpot also found business blogging can reduce cost of client conversion by an average of 62%. In other words, the client is pre-sold because you “pre-educated” them with your blog.

I’m frequently told by clients enquiring about my speaking they’ve been following my blog for months, even years. Not bad for putting some thoughts together and hitting “Publish.”

I also like blogging because it puts me on record.

MY VOICE ON RECORD

My day is packed with talking – calls with students, meetings with staff, dealing with contractors, clients and colleagues and speaking on webinars and on stage. 

Don’t get me wrong, talking is great – even necessary, but it’s transitory – here one minute, gone the next. In most cases, nobody holds you to what you say in the moment.

Writing’s different – it’s my voice laid down permanently. Both hard and a bit scary – it’s me saying “Here’s what I believe.”

You can agree with me, or not, but this is what I believe to be true.

I like that and it allows me to experiment.

I GET TO EXPERIMENT

Every week I get to experiment—on you.

No test tubes, or drugged rats running in mazes – my blog is a place where I try new topics and see how you react.

When I wrote “Why $100,000 a year won’t make you rich” I thought readers would be put off with a long post about making money, margins, and getting “rich.” How wrong could I be?

That post has been (by far) my most read post to date. Since then, I’ve tried to schedule a post about revenues, money, or wealth at least once a month.

The same thing happened with “Five mistakes you never ever want to make on stage” – I thought I should only be writing about what-to-do, not about mistakes and what-to-avoid. Wrong again.

The biggest experiment was when I shifted to writing more about the speaking business. As a speaker, I speak on productivity, so you’ll still see articles about Evernote, Plan Like A Pilot, and the practice of Think, Plan, Act.

But because my training is exclusively on teaching the skills of building a business of speaking with our BOSS program, most blog posts are now about speech design and delivery, marketing, mistakes to avoid, and creating revenues as a speaker.

So, what about you?

ARE YOU A BLOGGER?

Maybe you’re thinking your blog could be better (or you’re thinking about sex – ‘course that’s different blog.) Could it be edgier, more successful, more personal?

I still fee like a newbie at this game, so I’ll share insights from some who are blazing their own path in blog-land:

“Be patient with your goals since success will most likely come slowly, if at all.” (Emily Schuman)

“Have a point. Don’t just word-vomit on your audience.” (Jeff Goins)

“Step out of your comfort zone and deliver your content in a different medium than usual.” (Pat Flynn)

“Make your blog posts look awesome.” (Leslie Samuels)

“Consistent posting is one of the keystones to blogging success.” (Darren Rowse)