Kill your Competitors with Kindness

I am a professional blogger! That’s a bold statement considering I’ve only been doing it for 23 days. But, I work on my blog every day, and I earn money from it, so I guess that makes the first sentence the truth.

After 23 days, I can say it is the most fascinating business I have ever been involved in, and totally different to any offline type of business.

For a start this has been an incredibly steep learning curve – the steepest I have ever encountered. Twenty three days ago I didn’t know what a content management system was; Google analytics might have been a yoga position; Twitter was what birds did and Facebook was for kids – right?

Now I watch with interest as my friend’s eyes glaze over when I talk about Feedburner, or extol the virtues of Digg. The internet in general, and blogging in particular, is one of those areas where a little more knowledge can create a huge gulf in expertise between those of us who have some, and those who don’t.

Up until 23 days ago, I used to call my “web guy” to add a new link to my work website. Within a week I was writing PHP code in a .htaccess file – and it worked!

What’s incredible is that I have been able to build this knowledge without leaving my desk – through Google and through many new friends from all over the world; I have absorbed all this new information in no time at all. That’s the amazing power of the internet, and whilst I have been using the resource for years, I never stopped to think what an incredible achievement the web has been for mankind, and how lucky I have been to be around to witness it.

Becoming a professional blogger is bloody hard work. I can see that for at least the first year I will remain precariously balanced on this learning curve and I can see that I will be earning very little money and working ridiculously long hours – I’ve probably worked 100 hours since I started and I’ve earned about 35 dollars – you do the sums!

So why am I doing this? Because I believe I can create a sustainable income for my family in the future, because I relish the new challenge and because I love writing and the prospect of being able to help others in the future.

And that’s the best part of all! This is the only business I have ever been involved in where your “competitors” come and visit your place of business every day, make helpful and constructive suggestions, and where you really feel they want you to succeed as much as they want that for themselves.

Can you imagine that happening in an offline business? Can you see a used car dealer calling in to a new dealership in the same town to give them advice on stock, and the names and numbers of a couple of likely prospects for some of his cars. It would never happen! But this does happen all the time with internet businesses and it’s both refreshing and wonderful, and I look forward to the day when I have honed my skills and knowledge to the extent that I can do the same for some other people.

Do you have any good stories of how people helped you when you started out?