Whilst surfing the web this week I discovered an interesting fact.  It seems that Richard Branson shares his thoughts on a Blog on the Virgin website.  Also, and I’m happy to be proven wrong on this one, but I also get the impression (from the writing style and range of content) that he seems to write the blog himself and also seems to be pretty consistent with adding new content.

Many of you will know that I’m a great fan of sharing thoughts in the form of this Blog.  I believe that all SME business owners should use Blogging within their businesses….here are my top four reasons why:-

1.  It allows you to develop your communication skills

You’re a really effective communicator, right?  I’m sure you are and I think I’m Ok too.  However I also know that there is also room for improvement and believe Blogging provides us with an opportunity to develop this fundamental skill.

Regardless of your business we are likely to communicate with our families, clients, employees, service providers and fellow professionals each and every day.  I’ve found that whilst writing for this Blog I’ve had to put some thought into how I express and communicate my ideas.  This has allows me to improve the way I communicate (both verbally and in writing) in all aspects of my life.

2.  It allows you to build relationships

One question we ask ourselves regularly is “Why should our clients use our business?”  Whilst we pride ourselves on providing professional independent financial planning there are a number of financial planners out there who we consider to be excellent at what they do.

This leads back to a fundamental question every business owner should ask themselves:-

“Why should your clients choose your service over and above all the other firms proving a similar service?”

Whilst there are a number of reasons our clients and professional introducer’s choose to work with us, one of the core reasons is that they like and trust us.  However in the early days of our business these relationships were developed face to face and I wasn’t sure that writing a blog would help me to build these relationships.

However this event proved that my early thoughts on this subject were wrong.  Due to this event, I’m now a huge advocate of writing to let our readers know that behind our business there are individuals you want to work with.

3.  It allows you to evidence your expertise

Most of us are experts in our selected field.  We know this, however our potential clients and customers need proof.  So, the key question we need to ask ourselves is “How do we show our ‘target market’ we can be trusted to provide our service to them?”

Sharing your expertise in the form of a Blog allows you to prove to your clients you are a trusted source of guidance and advice in your chosen business….and that’s got to be a good thing, right?

4.  It provides you with an opportunity to ‘network’ online

One of the activities we do promote our business is we attend face to face networking events.  We believe this is an important element of our business and continue to build relationships at these events.

However at one of these events a few months ago I had an interesting conversation with a fellow business owner who told me that “I haven’t got time to write a Blog for my business, I’m just too busy!”.  When I asked him how much time he spends at networking events he told me that he spends on average 15 hours per week attending and travelling to these events.  I asked him to consider the following..

*  At a typical ‘face to face’ networking event you are allowed between forty seconds and one minute to explain how your business can help.  Writing a regular blog provides you with an opportunity to share how you can help your clients in more depth and continue to develop and explain how your services are valuable.

*  At a typical ‘face to face’ networking event you have the opportunity to tell around 15 – 30 people about your business and how it may be able to help them.  In our experience (and it’s been validated by the number of readers we know visit our blog) the ‘audience’ you can communicate with regularly can be far greater by writing about your business in your blog

*  If you spend a lot of time at face to face networking events to promote your business, it’s important to consider whether some (not all, as I believe that face to face networking is equally important) of this time can be used to write high quality content which may be distributed to more people who take longer than a minute to understand how your business might be able to help them!

*  Blogging also allows you to continue to build relationships you have started ‘face to face’ by continuing to show these businesses and individuals how your business might be able to help them.

So business owners….why not take the jump and start working on your blog now.  As ever, I’m always interested to know what you think.  What success have you had in communicating via your businesses blog?  Why do you blog? or alternatively if you don’t, why don’t you? and  do you agree (or disagree) with the points I’ve raised in this entry?

I look forward to hearing from you!