Build a Better Business by Blogging

“Build a better business by blogging.”  Say that 10 times fast.

Remember when it was a big deal to be able to fax your resume and it was instantaneously received? How cool was it to be able to e-mail your friends and family right from your own computer at home for the first time? Remember when the World Wide Web was a new term and the hottest topic in the early 1990’s?

You may be thinking, “What is a blog exactly?” and “Why should I jump on board?”  Think of blogging as an online journal… but it has the business potential to be so much more. Blogging is an often overlooked business tool that can take your small or medium sized business to the next level.  As the Internet age revolutionizes the marketplace, it’s increasingly important to be relevant and “findable”.  Now that every one seems to carry a Blackberry or an iPhone, information always available right from your fingertips.  We have to stay current.  Moreover, blogging is a form of interactive commentary on your website.  I recently interviewed Sam Thacker (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/1/310/2a), a How To business blogger in the finance space for www.allbusiness.com. Here he explains the purpose and benefits of having a blog and why it is so important for small to medium size businesses to participate.

Sam Thacker Interview with Financerecruiter.com

Tell me about yourself. Who are you and where do you blog?

I am Sam Thacker and I live in Austin, TX. I have been a banker or been in the finance industry for the last 19 years. I have seen some ups and downs but this current economic cycle is the worse down I have seen in my 19 year career. I blog on a website called www.allbusiness.com. I have a three time a week blog. I am called the credit and finance expert for allbusiness.com. So my topics tend to be banking related, finance related, credit related, “how to” blogs helping small to medium size business owners do things like understand how their personal credit is intertwined with their business credit or how to pick a community bank, for example. What they should be looking at on their banks call report to determine that their bank is not in imminent danger of trouble.

How did you start blogging?

I was honestly looking for a place to create my own brand and I stumbled across allbusiness.com. I liked their stories. They have about 5 million pieces of information on their website. I did my research and I noticed they are the # 1 small business portal in the U.S. Their ranking, although it goes up and down, is about three thousand. I went to www.Hoovers.com and found out who the editor was. I wrote 3 sample blogs and sent them to the blogging editor. I said “I noticed you don’t have a Finance and Accounting blogger and I’d like to be your guy.” She wrote back about 2 days later, said okay and sent me a contract.

Was there a single event that led to start of your blog?

I needed to get my own website traffic up and I thought the only way to do that was to get my name noticed on a more national basis. Honestly, when I signed my first contract to start writing my first blog I am not sure I knew what a blog was. I had to go back and figure out what they meant by blog. That was one year ago.

Specifically, who are your readers?

My readers are small to medium size businesses who find me by Googling a topic. For example, if someone were to Google how to establish credit for your customer base you can find an article or blog I’ve written on the topic. I have noticed that I have some groupies that came back to my blog and read and comment and then write me personally. We have interaction on various topics. Some are Accountants, a few are Attorneys. My traffic was slow for the first 2-3 months. Last month my average daily blog was 5 thousand readers and my average Thursday blog is a little less than 10 thousand readers. My company sends out 52,000 emails to subscribers so they push my blog out to a greater audience for Thursdays so my readership is higher

Did you target those readers or did you simply start blogging and they were the people who naturally showed up on a regular basis?

Having been a banker, one of the things I felt was needed even though allbusiness.com has a lot of good information out there is that most of it is not what I call practical information. It is academic information. So if there was an article on allbusiness.com about SBA loans it followed the company line right down to the letter about the steps you take and how to acquire an SBA loan. I decided right away that I needed to be practical. I need to tell people what the gotchas are. They need to know there are different kinds of SBA lenders.  I want to tell them the good the bad and the ugly.

My blogs can be negative. For example, I am not a proponent of SBA loans in general. So I tell my readers the downside of getting an SBA loan. I tell them how to protect their interest in what are called UCC filings.  In 150 blogs in a year, most of mine are how to type articles. Except for certain times like when the banking crises was at it’s peak my articles were more about how to evaluate your bank, they were more on a macro scale and on a not micro scale.

Tell me about your readers…

What do they fear?

People say small business owners are worried about little access to credit. What I am hearing is a lack of sales is a big problem my readers are having. Meaning, they can make their loan payments and do better in the economy if they can pick the sales level up. I have been face to face with some very fearful and scared business owners and heard in their voices over the last 6 months (it has lightened up the last few months) but there is real fear among small business owners that wonder if they are going to make it. They don’t know what the future holds and if they are going to make it with all the uncertainties.

What makes them angry?

They feel like they are being ignored by government and in particular the small business administration that they think is the only federal government agency out there supposedly to assist them and help them grow their business. The # 1 issue is that the stimulus money is going to the big companies and will not ever trickle down to them or to their level.

What are their top three daily frustrations?

Lack of sales would be the number one frustration. I guess the fact that they are worn down from having had to fight a hard battle for the past year is the # 2 issue. And I would say # 3 is the lack of working capital. Many companies that had traditional lines of credit, those lines have not been renewed by banks. In some cases those loans have been called so working capital is big problem with my readership or lack thereof.

What are their secret hopes and dreams?

Good question. Not sure I can answer that one. Everyone wants to see the bottom of the market and trying to find hope. That there is a bottom of the market. They take every shred of news that things are improving but in reality that doesn’t necessarily mark a trend. I have told tens of readers that they need to turn the TV off and not watch the bad news but focus on the fundamentals of their business. But what I hear now is that they are watching the news and they are seeing signs the situation is over when it may not be.

Does your blog address any of these deeper issues?

I do as much as I can. When I started blogging I made a personal commitment to my self to keep my blog as positive as possible. I would say of my 150 posts 30% of them are negative and the other 70% are positive. When I think a small business owner needs to know something they are not being told on TV I bring it to their attention. I want my reader to trust me. I think that is really important thing in our economy is that we can’t seem to trust our political leaders. We can’t trust our CEO’s and CFO’s of large major banks who are playing games with their accounting in order to show profitability when in reality operations are the same as it was 6 months ago.

I recently read a book by Allen Webber, the founder of Fast Company magazine. Mr. Webber said that when he started Fast Co, he wanted each article to entertain and educate. He thinks each article should have a takeaway.

I totally and completely agree and I have tried to lighten up and learn to be a lighter writer which is in the entertain category. I believe my role is to educate my clients as best as I can what is happening in the market place and what is the best strategy to make it through to the other side so education is my #1 goal but I agree that entertainment does help bring them back.

For FinanceRecruiter.com, just starting as a blog, what advice do you have for me or a new blogger?

The number on thing is that you have to blog consistently. Not necessarily 3x a week like my contract requires me to do, but if you post a blog one time a week that would be sufficient. I would say one mistake I have made is that my average blog is too long. I am being told by several editors who really have a pulse in market that a 350-500 words is as long as it needs to be. I am told that readers much prefer bullet points and very short paragraphs. I suggest keeping it simple. Get a following. The following will not happen automatically. There are plenty of ways to get a following.

What are some ways that you use?

My personal favorite is to hang out in the evenings in front of the TV with my lap top while watching Law and Order and post to other people’s blogs. Not to give away my trade secrets but the best place to post is businessweek.com because it is a very high quality website with good articles and good blogs. You can go in and post to someone’s blog. I write a meaningful reply to a blog – that I agree with this topic or disagree with that one. I sign my name and then put my website under it and then that becomes a back-link to my site.

You have to create back-links which is not an easy process. It is a long process. For my business website, we just crossed the 100 back-link mark which is accelerating now.

If you are blogging on one of the 2 major blogging platforms like WordPress or WordPad there are some definite places to get into communities. FinanceRecruiter.com should get into communities with potential job seekers. For example, on Linkedin.com there are a dozen major banking and finance related communities. I would post meaningful discussions there and sign it and put your blog address below your name.

I know there is a lot of controversy about this but I have been successful driving traffic to my blog by using Twitter. I have gone in and followed people I want to be my readers. When I post a blog, I tweet about it pointing to that blog. It’s hard because I only spend 20 minutes a day total using twitter but I try to re-tweet other people who have good information and hopefully they will re-tweet me and make the process viral which has dramatically improved my readership.

Thank you for your interview and sharing your insight with our readers.

I hope this has been an informative post. I know I learned a lot from Sam and plan on putting his tips to work for me. So go update your website and turn it into an interactive one – start your own blog.

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