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About a week or so ago, my team and I had an interview with Don Caprio, who happens to be the chief editor of this blog. During the explosive interview, I asked Don Caprio if blogging was a full time thing or part-time thing for him, to which he answered, full time.
I was like hey, you do this full time, how? He said something that I would have in my mind for a long time to come. He said:
“…yeah, I have an office where I go every morning, there I blog, design websites, do stuff online and go home in the evening”.
Now that’s interesting. You know why? Most of us do not understand the business lifestyle aspect of blogging. I’m beginning to see that if we must succeed in this blogging war, we must approach it like a business.
How?
Have Office Hours for Your Blogging
I haven’t seen a successful business man or woman who does not have office hours. They wake up in the morning and dress for work.
Now, as internet people and the work-from-home preachers, it’s okay if you don’t have an outside-of-the-home office where you must dress up and go every morning, but you must create an office from your house and develop an office culture.
You must craft out work time, family time, pleasure time, and other activities time. Members of your family must know these times and begin to see you like a business man/woman.
Must Read: 7 Signs That Shows When Your Passion for Blogging is Gradually Dying Off
Have a written Daily Plan
One thing successful business people do daily is that they have a daily plan written on paper and they go to the office and work hard at finishing them. You are no different and if you must succeed in your blogging career, you must begin to behave like a business person. You must imbibe these traits of successful business people.
Imagine Mark Zukerberg, Facebook lead shareholder coming to the office and not knowing what he wants to do for the day. Imagine Bill Gates and Richard Branson entering their offices and then asking, what should we do today?
Must Read: 7 Strategies to Improve your Small Business in 2013
As a business and entrepreneurship blogger, my team and I do write stories on these men and one thing we keep noticing is that they always have a plan and work towards their plans on a day by day basis.
Dear blogger, you are not different. You are a business person. Start treating your blog like a business.
Never start a day without a written plan of things you would like to achieve for the day. Don’t just have it in your mind, or wake up and quickly rush off to the computer and start looking for what to write or where to drop a comment.
Have a plan first. Write your plan on a paper. Then proceed to start your day.
Measure Your Progress
All successful business people measure their progress and try to know if they are meeting up with their business goals or not and what needs to be done to change the statusquo. Let me explain.
Suppose your goal for the next 3 months is to fill up your blog with 100 posts or to have 1000 subscribers or to have 10 guest posts (…you must have a goal…) you’ll be able to know after the set time frame if you have achieved your goal or not and then go back and revamp what you’re doing.
In our Interview with Don Caprio (by the way, you need to read that one, it was quite explosive), he told us that for one whole year of blogging, he made $100. But then he sat down and said, “No, this is not the way to do this. Things have to change.”
Try to sit down after a set time, and ask yourself if you are progressing towards your target or not and seek to change your strategies.
Must Read: 5 Tips on How to Write an Effective Blog Content
Develop Quality Relationships
There is an old maxim that says, show me your friends and I will show you who you are and where you are heading to. Blog commenting is good, guest posting is great but more importantly, go after real relationships with successful people, I mean successful bloggers and internetpreneurs.
I’m not talking about waiting for them to call you. You do the calling. Plan a hang out with them. Pay for a treat for them and let them start recommending you.
One of the most shocking truths you have to know is that it’s not the blog with the best well written, original, quality content that makes the most success and money. Haven’t you seen crappy looking blogs (one is zenhabits.net) that is way more popular and more successful than your professional blog?
My friend, the secret is relationship.
One recommendation of a successful person for your business or blog or whatever is enough to launch you into a Google keyword overnight.
In our published story on Noah Kagan, Appsumo’s founder, he said one of his secrets is investing in relationships. Go after relationships.
Successful Business men and women don’t joke with this.
Conclusion
Treat Your Blog Like a Business or You Will Fail.
Cheerio!