Trying to make sense of blogs
As a sole proprietor of a fledgling business, I am always looking for new ways for clients to use our services. Of course, I try to read as much as possible in the blogsphere on new sales approaches and permission marketing to improve my chances of making this business fly. I know, I should be blogging more, but struggle with my own crazy thoughts on what to write without embarrassing myself or damaging the business.
The irony is… We offer an internet managed service that provides the next generation in publishing tools – blogs, wikis, chat, rss, news aggregation with commenting, controlled and tagged vocabularies and web site development, for business to do open innovation, collaboration, and idea management. We make things easier for people to do that they are already trying to get done.
With few options and no money – I focus on cold calling prospects as well as Everthing else that needs to be done. Even with loads of enthusiasm for our services, the simple process of cold calling is the most difficult. Is cold calling more difficult than blogging?
My current strategy is to focus on small to mid-size business (10 – 100 million in revs). I suppose it would be easier if we had the money to hire consultants and try different marketing experiments, but like most small business – we don’t. Maybe I am calling on the wrong people?
What’s funny is that we know the tools really well, but have little experience in new marketing approaches. In fact, most c-level execs, owners, and marketing, sales, and even IT people I call on in NJ and NY, that I manage to talk with, never heard of blogs, wikis, RSS, on-line meeting places, etc., which makes my efforts even more difficult. Yes, it is challenging to explain your idea in 30 seconds. Besides, being a chicken shit about blogging does not help.
So, is it possible for prospects to find us through blogging? Time will tell with a little help from strangers that are able to capture and present the digital world in a more meaningful fashion. Many thanks to James Cherkoff from Modern Marketing for “Can Corperates Blog?” and Shel Israel and Robert Scoble at The Red Couch, for their first chapter of “Blog or Die” as well as “Official & Small Biz Blogs”. Hopefully, more people will read their stuff, pass it around NJ, NY and maybe we will get lucky.
