by Lawrence M. Kohn

Earlier this month, we discussed reaching out to people as a way to weather tough economic times. Another way to generate business in the short term is to start a blog. Blogging is a technology that's new and exciting because it does a couple of important things.

First, blogging helps you condense an important topic into a couple of paragraphs, allowing you to communicate something important in a limited number of words. In addition to communicating something that might be important to a prospect, you're scripting sales dialogue. Writing a blog post clarifies your thinking about a particular issue that could be a need of people with whom you want to do business.

Then you send the blog out into cyberspace, and the world begins to get exposure to you. But that's only the beginning, because you should also send an email to everybody you know, saying, "I've started a blog. I invite you to take a look at it. I've made an entry. Please give me your comments."

The fact that the blog exists is a reason to reach out to people and communicate with them. Then you might begin a dialogue with people that you know or don't know about a particular issue, and we're seeing that turn into business in a relatively short period of time.

For more tips, check out our ABA Publishing Presents podcast "Business Development in Tough Economic Times."

Labels: marketing, rainmaking