Editor's note: Every week we analyze and review a small business blog, to demonstrate how small businesses are leveraging this new format. This is the fifty-fifth in our series of PowerBlog Reviews.
JSLogan is a blog by Jim Logan, founder and President of Accelerate Business Group, LLC. The company helps businesses increase their sales and revenues.
Interestingly, the blog is the company's sole web presence, with no other website. Using a blog as the sole Web presence is a trend I am encountering more frequently among small businesses. Jim explains why businesses like his are choosing a blog format over a traditional website:
"In a static site you get one chance to convince a prospect to engage with you. Once you read an About Us, Solutions, and Services page, why would you ever go back to a website? You get maybe 1000 words to convince someone you're worthy of earning their business.Currently he is using a multi-lingual blogging platform called B2Evolution.
A blog gives a reader reason to return time and again. Your posts give multiple views and perspective of your value and benefits."
The majority of the posts are about sales techniques, either to get new customers or to get repeat business. Jim says he writes the blog as a resource for existing clients, many of whom he is coaching about how to increase revenues.
He gives focused, practical down-to-earth advice. I especially loved one recent post, where he coaches a tech startup how to create a sales presentation, after the company told him it took at least one hour to deliver the presentation: "Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, considered by many to be the greatest American speech of all time, defining democracy and our purpose as a nation, took three minutes to deliver. * * * So, why would it ever take anything more than 30 minutes to describe a company, it's offering, and benefits to a prospective customer? That's 10 times longer than Lincoln used at Gettysburg!" Indeed.
Jim will pick a blog that he admires and extend the conversation. That's part of what is meant when people talk about blogs as "conversations."
For instance, he will link to a post on another blog that gives tips, and then add one of his own tips to the list started by the other blogger. Jim's self-imposed rule is to comment only when he can add something of value.
Jim uses an unusual artifice that I haven't seen used on other blogs: 4 visual labels (images) describing the practical use of a blog post. He will post one of four images next to a post. A thumbs-up signifies a best practice. A light bulb signifies a new idea generator. And so on.
Jim offers this advice for newbie business bloggers: "Keep posting -- even if you think you're the only person in the world that's reading. Dedication to posting and honesty will draw readers. Never give up."
Jim blogs from Meadow Vista, California, USA in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, half way between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe. He has been blogging since December 2004.
The Power: The Power of JSLogan is in the way it provides practical, thoughtful and credible information on how to grow a business -- particularly sales advice.
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