Bootstrapping, creativity, maximizing resources…All of these things describe how a business owner survives in their initial stages of business. However, there is a fine line between being resourceful and not preparing yourself for the long term. Blogging is one of those areas where small business owners try to cut corners and travel the path of least resistance. Unfortunately, small business owners learn the hard way that, in some cases, the path of least resistance is a fallacy.
It seems like I have been getting tons of questions about blogging lately and a lot of it is coming from inside my own house. My wife has a business and she started blogging a while back on free hosting blog service. She hadn’t really added content consistently but she wanted to start doing it more and asked me what I thought she should do. I told her she should redo her blog and self host her blog if she was really going to get serious about it and use it as a business tool. My wife was very hesitant to do this.
It wasn’t because she couldn’t do it. It really boils down to wanting to do it. When you don’t enjoy something, in this case technology, it’s extremely painful to do it. Unfortunately as a business owner there are things that we have to do that we don’t like. To make a long story short, I helped my wife set up her blog and got it up and running. The funniest part of the process was looking at the glazed over look in her eyes as I walked her through the process. In the end she is appreciative of the customization that is available to her on her new site.
We often try and cut corners on things especially when we don’t like doing them. Sometimes cutting a corner makes sense but it’s important to think your decision through and assess the long term consequences of today’s actions. Blogging is no exception. It has become an important tool for small business owners to build their platform on and should not be taken lightly.