Of the four Ps that Tom Pick presents in his blog, I think that I have a particularly affinity for the third one – passion. He writes:

To maintain the discipline necessary to be persistent in blog posting, it helps to pick a subject one is passionate about. For example, among political blogs, there are a number of strong blogs on the both the right and the left ends of the political spectrum, but very few in the middle; it’s hard to be passionate about moderation.

Indeed, passion and persistence are closely tied with each other. It is way easier to be persistent about maintaining a blog if you are passionate about it. I think that passion can be identified in two levels – one, passion for the act of blogging/writing itself, and two, passion for the subject of the blog.

For a businessman, the chances are that he would be quite passionate about the topic or subject of his blog. This is because I am assuming that the blog’s topic would be focused on the business and what it has to offer, whether in products or services. Of course, my assumption could be wrong but I believe that many successful businessmen are those who have a certain degree of passion when it comes to what they are doing – their business.

Passion about writing and the blog itself is another story, however. Not everyone is cut out for blogging or writing. For businessmen who want to get something out of blogging, however, I believe that he will get to build up his passion for the activity if he realizes clearly what blogging can do for him.

The second P of effective business blogging according to Tom Pick is Personality:

This is perhaps the most unquantifiable of the four Ps of business blogging – or even blogging in general. Tell me, how do you measure personality? I suppose you can describe the personality of the blogger as reflected by his blog yet there really is not clear measure of how good or bad it is.

I think the more important thing is that the blogger (or bloggers, for that matter) is able to transfer his or her intended personality to the blog he or she is maintaining. More so, there is this interesting thing that I have noticed. There are some bloggers who write so well that they create a whole different personality for their blog. You just may be surprised to find out that the blogger has a totally different personality!

My point is this: one doesn’t have to be all charm and extroverted in person to maintain a good business blog. What is needed is for you to determine what personality you want your blog to have and work on building this image up through your writing. It may not be easy in the beginning but it can be done and believe me, it is worth it.

People like ideas that are easy to remember. When it comes to blogging for business, there are countless ideas that could help one to improve on his activities. I like Tom Pick’s take on the concepts for effective business blogging. He used a pattern that makes it easier for all of us – the Four Ps of Effective Business Blogging. Let’s take a look at them ourselves and see if we can add our own input.

Persistence
According to Tom Pick:

I totally agree. I couldn’t find exact figures on how many dead blogs there are today but I am sure that there are tons of them. There are various reasons as to why dead blogs come about and I am sure that one of them is the lack of persistence. Many people jump into the blogging bandwagon with very high expectations and when these are not met within a month, they give up.

You see, blogging is not a short term activity. It takes time – certainly more than a month’s worth of work. The solution is quite simple – when you start a business blog, make sure you understand what it entails and stick to it till you get the results that you are aiming for.

For those of you who ventured into corporate blogging early on, you might have already read this book. It is not really new – it was published in 2006 – but still has retained much of the edge that it had when it first came out.

Written by Debbie Weil, the book’s full title is The Corporate Blogging Book: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know to Get It Right. Indeed, this book not only provides you with the knowledge you need about corporate blogging but also gives you practical tips on how to do things the right way.

I like how Debbie opens the book with 20 questions that any corporate executive would probably have with regard to blogging. With this kind of opening, the book is perfect for the business man who has heard tons about blogging and yet does not really understand the whole concept. In this manner, Debbie provides quick knowledge and quickly eases the fear of the unknown at the same time.

It does not end there, however. The book provides in depth analysis of the issues that a business might face if it, indeed, decides to join the corporate blogging bandwagon. In addition to that, readers would find tools and ideas on how to go about the business of blogging for the corporate setting.

Just because something is not fresh off the press does not mean that it is old and outdated. The Corporate Blogging Book is a good place to start if you are still vacillating on whether or not blogging is the way to go for your business.

One of the foremost considerations of any blogger is to write blog entries that will catch other people’s attentions. Any blogger wants to retain his existing readers and attract new readers as well. One of the things one could do in order to achieve this important goal is to write engaging blog entries. For some people, this is equated to being controversial – writing about taboo topics.

If you were maintaining a personal blog or a topic-specific blog, then perhaps tackling these taboos would be a perfect way to get those readers to come flocking to your blog. Yet when it comes to a business blog, is it an acceptable practice to talk about taboo topics such as sex, religion, and politics?

A primary point here is the fact that what is taboo to one person may not be considered as taboo by another person. However, we have to realize that a business blog is a blog apart from other “less formal” blogs. Business blogs exist for many specific reasons but one primary reason is to promote a business or a company. Now, unless your company sells products and/or services relating to taboo topics, then it might not be the proper venue for such discussion.

I have to point out that the business blogs I have in mind here are the likes of marketing, finance, manufacturing, and the like. Also, this is merely my opinion. If you have experiences that prove otherwise, then I welcome you to share them with us!

Though you may find blogging for your business fun and exciting, you would have to admit that you started out blogging because of certain goals. You had something in mind at the beginning, something that you want to achieve through your business blog. So when can you say that you business blog is a success?

Quite obviously, this would depend on your goal – or goals for that matter. Here are some specific points that you can contemplate on when you think of your business blog’s success. Take note, they are in no particular order.

Attention from the media
This would depend on whether you are a small business or a large corporation. For small businesses, of course, do not despair if CNN Money does not feature your blog – it would take some time. However, your local online newspapers and magazines would definitely take notice of your blog once it takes off. This can be a measure of success.

Speaking engagements
Another measure of success would be the fact that you get invited to speak at conferences, seminars, or workshops. It is a given that the topic you would be speaking about would be your field of expertise as you have established in your blog. Of course, you would have to explicitly state in your blog that you are open to and welcome speaking engagements.

These are only a couple of ideas on how to measure a business blog’s success – let’s look into a few more in the next post.

If there is anything that business and corporate bloggers should know, it is that we should learn from those who are doing it and doing well. Ever heard of Nuts About Southwest? It is the corporate blog of the renowned Southwest Airlines. Their description:

Nuts about Southwest is all about our Employees, Customers, airplanes, and airports. We really are Nuts about Southwest and we hope that our Readers will share that passion by posting their own comments.

That in itself is quite encouraging and stimulating for their readers, isn’t it? You should make your About Page substantial and relevant with your readers – you can start with something like this.

More importantly, though, the blogging policy of Southwest Airlines includes the reviewing of each and every entry before it is posted. How does it work? So they have different bloggers coming up with their own posts. Before these are uploaded and published, one of their two top people in PR and communications takes a look at the written work.

It is nothing new, really. Most successful corporate blogs follow this in practice. It helps keep the blog in focus and avoids potential problems with regard to content (and the reaction it may elicit) in the future. More so, it goes to show that there is indeed protocol and there are processes that are being followed in the world of corporate blogging. You just don’t do it by slapping and dashing posts as you like.

How about you, do you review your business blog entries before they go live? I should hope so.

If you are a small business owner and you think that going to seminars and conferences is a waste of your time, you may want to think again. While speakers are discussing advances in your field or how to manage your employees, there is also something else important going on. Conference attendees are networking with each other. In fact, many people attend conferences solely for all the networking opportunities they provide. To successfully network at a conference, there are a few things you should be sure to do:

* Dress neatly and professionally, but be sure you aren’t overdressed. Most people attending a conference wear casual business attire. If you aren’t sure whether you should wear a suit, ask someone who has attended the conference a previous year.

* Take along a nice supply of fresh, crisp business cards. Scribbling contact information on a napkin is a great way to make sure other attendees don’t call you.

* Make sure you have a small notebook and a pen to jot down notes. Its amazing how fast you can forget that Joe Smith wanted you to call him after the conference because his friend’s brother needs your services.

* If you usually are in a hurry and aggressive, approach people in a more laid back, casual manner. For most people, a conference is a bit like a mini vacation.

* Take advantage of opportunities that seem to have nothing to do with business, like the line dancing class being offered after dinner that evening, but be sure you don’t have so much fun that you leave people with an unprofessional image of you.

Consummating deals, providing discounts, pricing packages and to ensure faster product or service movement and endorsement is a tenure that will surely be mind boggling. Most of these may entail proper cost allocation after which the proper marketing strategies formulated to be executed shall be next in line. Most of the time, the dilemma lies on whether to choose product movement over profit gains. Whichever the case may be, it will all depend on the purpose of the company and what it wants to achieve.

There are many factors to consider in such. Assessing the entire asset and labor force, operating overhead, financial position and the stature of the market and the consumers are most of the things that are crucial for any business plan. Varied opinions coming from the various managers of every department and the stakeholders will also play a vital role in undertaking such endeavors. Whoever may be caught in such a situation will truly have their work cut out for them.

Truly, being caught in the middle of all of this seems like a big mess. But then again, this is the challenge given to most people who are placed in such a situation, and finding ways on how to handle them is surely something that people in this spot will embrace for the task at hand. Maturity as far as working environment factors and at the same time molding them into enhancing their decision making prowess is something that makes people distinct from one another and in the course of their career, becomes assets for better managerial roles for the present and future companies that lie ahead for them.

I was watching two guys digging a hole to locate a pipe in my yard this morning. They were tossing the dirt out of the hole and directly onto the ground beside it. They went four feet down and dug a hole that was about 8 feet long by three feet across. Then, one of them found a pipe…and the elbow joining it to the pipe they really wanted to find. Anyone want to guess where the new pipe was? Under that massive pile of dirt. This brings me to a great business principle:

Don’t move the same dirt twice.

When you start a new task, take some time to plan things out so you can do the job right the first time. You don’t want to find that you’ve gone in the wrong direction and will have to re-do hours of work. I’m sure the guys in my side yard are wishing they would have tossed their dirt into a few wheelbarrows right about now. Then, they could have just dumped those wheelbarrows back into the old hole instead of slowly shoveling it back in.