Brainstroming between RBC Member and recent Speaker leads to New Product Launch.

Blog courtesy of Lisa Nielsen of The Next Step 1234

​POTENTIAL NEW SERVICE OFFERING FOR THE NEXT STEP - HOW AN ENTREPRENEUR CREATES NEW SERVICE OFFERINGS
Blogging Service from The Next Step (service idea in infancy stage)
I want to introduce a new service idea that started with my recent speaking engagement at the Richmond Business Connections Group last week.

The Next Step is considering to offer a service to help small businesses or individuals build their own blogs. I talk so much in my new EBook Entrepreneur-ing (click here for information on EBook) about blogging and establishing your self and/or business as an expert.

For me and my business, my use of blogging has been the key to my success. I get over 1400 unique visitors per week to my site without paying any money in advertising. Yes, you read that right – it is without an investment in boosting my posts or otherwise marketing them.

I am now up to 160+ blog posts and sharing this information live with my blog, Instagram and Twitter has enabled me to be noticed in a potentially crowded market place. I am working on building my reputation as an expert and a speaker, which is why I have chosen to also self-publish books in addition to the content I create and share on my blog.  Click here to book me -  The Next Step speaking engagement.
 
My Lessons for You to Blog
Here is some quick lessons of how I use my blog and also a basis for me to use to consider breaking this out as a product offering:

1. Get a website or incorporate a BLOG page on your website
   Most small businesses do not have a website, according to some recent studies I have read. In this day and age, you MUST have a website to be competitive and to be found, too. Once you promote your business, people will look for you online and if they cannot find you, chances are they will not call you.
   If you do not have a website, I have recommended many times my web provider Weebly.com. My site is from their services; I have made it my own but it started as a blank template.
   
   There is a blogging feature included and I love how everything fits together so nicely and is simple to make and update, in my opinion. (Bloggers Note: 1 - no compensation was given to me by Weebly to promote their service and 2 - I do have a “technical” background and comfort level with website development from the past 15+ years of web based project work in my career and previous websites I have built).
   
   If you have a website already, you can look into adding a blog function to it or perhaps if need be use Weebly or another service provider to create a blog and then build in links to it in your current site.
   
   
2. Identify your schedule – this is very important in blogging – you should be consistent. Do not bite off more than you can chew. For me, because I love to write and I have so many “lessons” up my sleeve as an educator, I am comfortable creating new content 5 days a week. That does not mean I always am “ready” for 5 days of content – there are times I hit writer’s block head on but I find that during my weeks, I am inspired by at least 3-5 things for my weekly schedule and then can plan out my posts during the weekend in between hanging out with my kids and doing all the things that need to get done over the weekend. I can help you identify this schedule of posting for you. I plan out my posts on the weekend and then make time to post them throughout the week. This would be a unique plan for you and your business or yourself (more on that next).
   
   
3. You can blog for personal reasons, too. My new EBook about Entrepreneur-ing really pushes people to consider branding themselves as an expert for their career, too. This is not something you should only do as a small business –you should consider yourself and your career as though you are a small business. If you have a portfolio of work you are allowed to share, you can build off of that to create some content. You can share news stories and provide commentary on it to begin with and then move into creating content that applies to what you want to shine for – what makes you YOU.
   
   
4. Blogging is a great way to build your reputation and to share it. I use various tools to schedule and post my content across all of my social media accounts. I use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram as my base to share my content and drive people to my site. I also schedule tweets via SocialOoomph to share my content and other Webpages. I can provide more lessons and information on this in my service offering to create the full blogging process.
   
   

My Potential New Service - Pricing and more
What do you think of this potential service offering? I think it fits nicely into my wheelhouse and allows me to expand to a consulting service. I have already spoken at a local business group on how to blog and I am going to create an EBook on blogging – How to Blog Like a Pro-fessor.   

For this service, I am thinking of beginning to offer it to local small businesses and considering to offer a lump sum option “Full Blogging Turn Key Operation” for approximately $500 – this would include the full website integration, plan for blog posts and content and how to promote the posts - it would be "turn key" in that once the set up was done, I would step away and the business owner would create the content.

I would also offer the option to create content but I would have to charge by the hour for that option. So I would create the site and then offer consulting / writing services for $50/hour for creating new content for the site.

For individuals, I would offer a blogging tutorial / training for $75 and this would include up to 3 hours of review and implementation of a personal blog. What do you think?

Special thanks to Brian Spicciatie from Hospitality 10 Card Inc (www.hospitality10card.com) for brainstorming with me on this potential product.

What do you think of this potential service? Happy Hunting!
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