I’ve always found my background in working eCommerce to have been a major bonus when I began blogging. Despite blogging being a new platform to me, it felt like a lot of the same interactions and goals were shared between business and blogging. As time progressed, I learned new skills specific to blogging that allowed me to transition back into business; I’d like to share those items today.
#1: Understanding ‘customer service’
Customer service is an acquired skill in the world of business. I don’t really know anyone that has been able to easily pick up the phone and help customers on their first go. In blogging, you may remember your first few comments and how thankful you were to receive them – you also responded but it was still amateur hour.
How does this relate? The longer you spend blogging, responding to comments, and building a community, the more you’re learning valuable customer service skills. You’re learning how to deal with every type of individual that comes your way so if you do make a transition into running a business – you’ll have a great understanding on how to deal with your customers.
#2: Product development
One of the tasks of my old job was product development. A lot of this process comes down to understanding what the customers want, acquiring the resources, and then compiling everything together into a valuable package.
Blogging follows same process. Whenever you’re creating a blog post, you are, in some way, doing ‘product research’ about your community to find the topics they want to read. You spend time with online tools finding the right keywords, researching topics, interviewing people, and doing your own research to develop a product (whether it’s a post, ebook, or whatever). This skill can be used anywhere outside of blogging if you choose to start up a business and develop your own products.
#3: Networking
Any business owner can tell you that referrals are one of the most valuable ways to gain new customers because they’ve already been ‘primed’ through your business contact (via trust). Networking while blogging, something you’re doing any time you chat with other bloggers, is setting you up with a highly valuable skill that is one of the fundamental skills of being a good business owner.
Your ability to create a network for support follows the same routine as it does in business. So just remember, you’re not just building a blog network, you’re building a potential business network if you make the leap.
#4: Time Management
Have you ever sat in front of your computer trying to think of what to write as your next blog post yet were utterly stumped? It happens all the time. You feel as if you’re wasting time so you find other activities to fill the void so off you go to your social media account to chat with people rather than knocking down the work.
In business, you can’t afford to push off work otherwise you go under. In blogging, you realize that if you don’t perform than you don’t get the goods. As you invest more time into blogging, you’ll pick up the valuable skill of time managements and truly begin to make the most of your day. You can take this skill anywhere in your life when time is of essence – especially business.
#5: Marketing
Lest we forget, blogging involves a great deal of marketing – a skill so valuable that business owners pay up big money to get found – something you’re doing through a simple blog and your content.
Once you’ve got your post out there, it’s marketing time. You probably have a routine to get your content found such as posting it on social profiles, submitting it to bookmarking websites, blog commenting, and all the other ways to drive traffic. You’re doing marketing!
If/when you make that transition to running a business – you’ve already acquired the valuable skill of getting it found (at least online, that is) so you’ll be off to a running start!
Final Thoughts
All in all, blogging and business go hand-in-hand. The skills you pick up while blogging are some of the very same skills you’ll use in business. In fact, if you create a product, you’ve just completed the final step into business! So whenever someone says you’re “wasting time” writing for your blog – remember that you’re learning some very valuable skills.
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