3 Simple Steps To Running Your Blog Like A Business

This is a guest post by Srinivas.

For any blogger that intends to make a living from his or her blog, there comes a time when the necessary shift from blogger to entrepreneur must happen. In fact I remember Darren Rowse writing somewhere that his wife gave him 6 months to turn this “blogging thing” into a real business. The results speak for themselves.  Almost every A-list blogger, including David will tell you that at some point you have to start treating this like a real business.

The problem is that most bloggers don’t have a clue how to run a business.  The reason is most of us have always worked for somebody else, so we see something like blogging with its low barrier to entry and think “Sweet. I’m going to make money blogging.”  Let me share some interesting quotes from some extremely successful bloggers that I’ve interviewed:

• You have to be careful. Blogging can be a huge waste of time- Dave Navarro (@rockyourday)
• Blogs are an absolutely terrible way to make money- Ramit Sethi (@ramit)

If you look behind the scenes of many bloggers who actually make money, they have a business behind the blog.

• Mitch Joel, the author behind Six Pixels of Separation runs a digital marketing agency called Twist Image. What do you think the money comes from, the blog or the agency? I think we know the answer.
• Matt Cheuvront (@mattchevy) at Life Without Pants recently launched his new agency, Proof Branding. That’s the business and Life Without Pants is just the platform.
• My first revenue stream of $500.00 a month came from a client after I posted an ad on craigslist with links to my blog and the things I’d done.

So, here are 3 simple things you can do to start treating your blog like a business.

1) Quarterly or Monthly Report

If you look at any publicly traded company, they have an annual report and in most cases a quarterly one as well. If you really want to go nuts with this idea use one of those as the framework for your quarterly report. I don’t think you need to take things to that extreme.That being said, I’m a huge fan of doing a quarterly report on everything I’ve done with my blog. If you look at the comments on any my previous quarterly reports, you’ll see that they not only allow me to give a ton of value to my readers, but they provide me with feedback and insights to keep taking things to the next level.  Going through this process will do wonders for your blog.

2) Marketing Plan

Any business worth its salt has a marketing plan. I’ve written before about the importance of having a marketing plan for your blog. If you are just blogging as a hobby, then it might not be necessary. But if you ever intend to make money from your blog, a plan is something that will really help.

It was only after I wrote my first marketing plan that I thought to go to Craigslist and post an ad in the services section for the things I knew how to do. I’ve made close to $1000.00 in freelance revenue from that alone.  Your marketing plan will actually give you a way to set and accomplish goals over the course of the quarter and you’ll also have something to measure against when you get to the end of the quarter. I went two quarters without reaching my goal of 1000 subscribers.  But continually setting the goal in a written plan allowed me to keep thing about how to get there.  As a result, I finally did.

3) Product Development Plan

Many of us sit around planning e-book launches and other things that never happen. Either that or you get started and then you scrap the project. Spinning your wheels like this is really a pointless effort and if you stay on this path you’ll be stuck for a very long time.

When I interviewed David he actually told me about the idea of repurposing content you already have to create your first product. When I jokingly tweeted about writing a booked called “time Management for Bloggers with Short Attention Spans”, I got about a dozen responses. I looked back at my posts related to time management and they were my most popular ones. So, I spent 2 hours and put together a dirt cheap e-book that I knew had value, and  I didn’t concern myself with the results.  It’s generating a sale or two every few days. Now I have a passive income stream going, even if it is a small one.

So when it comes to a product, think about what you know how to do, what you’re good at, and turn it into a product.

The shift from blogger to entrepreneur is not one that is difficult, but one that is necessary. It’s only when you make this shift that you will truly start to see the potential for a viable business.

Srinivas is the director of Social Media/Editor in Chief for the Flightster Travel Blog. He also publishes a personal development blog, The Skool of Life and is the co-founder/host of BlogcastFM, a podcast for bloggers.