Investing in your own business

I had a really interesting conversation with a friend of mine recently. He's a self employed locksmith, and like many friends, he was fascinated to know more about how I make a living online.

We were talking about some of the products I sell, and at one point I said to him (only slightly tongue in cheek) "You really ought to set up a blog for your business, and you should start by buying my Beginner's Guide to Blogging."

His reply was "Bloody hell Mike, I'm not going to spend $47 learning how to set up a blog!"

I was quite shocked at that, so I asked him how much he'd spent learning to be a locksmith. I think we eventually got to about $5000, and then he remembered the annual fees he pays for various societies he's a member of, and the occasional course he takes, so we settled on an on-going cost of about $1800 a year for him to stay current with his market.

And there you have the great blogging dichotomy.

Here's a businessman who has no problem investing $5000 to learn a trade and a further $1800 a year to be a part of the locksmith community, and yet he baulks at paying out $47 for something related to blogging.

And it all boils down to the fact that the image of blogging is that it's:

A/ A hobby

B/ Free for everyone

This is something we have to change.

We have to move the perception somehow. People need to see blogs as platforms for their businesses, in the same way they do any other form of marketing. And I'm not just talking about within our rather insular blogging community, but in the world at large.

It starts with us.

Do you invest money in your own training or knowledge as a blogger? I know of one blogger who makes a virtue of the fact that he has never bought an online product - that would be funny if he wasn't actually selling an online product to his own readers.

So pause now, and set yourself a budget for the remainder of this year. How much are you going to invest in your blogging business to help accelerate your learning or to make you a more successful blogger? Even if it's only $100, make the commitment now. Then when you find a product or service you think will help, you can buy it without worrying or thinking too hard. You'll make mistakes - we all do - but any product worth investing in comes with a guarantee, usually of 30 to 60 days. So even if you do get it wrong, simply get a refund and add the money back into your budget.

Start investing in your business.

Or read these first:

1/ Getting a decent return from Adsense

2/ A billion blogs in a million niches..that are all the same

3/ The biggest trap of all for bloggers