o’neill media

Save the cheesy imagery all you consultants out there, blogging is your answer. I said last time that yes it was possible for people to make money from their blog, but doing this through google adsense is not going to get you there. The people who will be making money (and who are currently making money) off of their blogs are service professionals. People who provide a very distinct service to a certain community can find a fast and simple way to become a thought-leader in their space by simply publishing their expertise on the web. If you know what you are talking about, and have something interesting to say, you will become respected among your peers simply about writing about your experiences in a blog.

Blogging has become a very powerful tool for service professionals. A great example of this is Steve Rubel, who started publishing Micro Persuasion to discuss technology’s part in the marketing and p.r. industries. What a great idea, great content and thoughtful writing allowed Mr. Rubel to have an unlimited audience of professionals who now (I only assume) look to him as the de facto voice of the industry. Venture Capitalists, Design professionals and SEO practitioners have all started freeing some information about parts of their trade to create transparency in their respective processes, as well as positioning themselves at the forefront of the industry. People used to say, “I know everything there is to know about the subject, I wrote the book.” Now, in fact, people would say that “I know everything about the subject, I publish a guide online.” This sort of marketing for your business is something that, if you can dedicate the time and resources to do, will be an invaluable business strategy, assuming you have some sort of first mover advantage.

Some service industries have yet to embrace blogging as a medium to attract qualified leads. Investment Banking is one of the prime examples. And let’s just narrow down the whole Investment Banking industry into a more realistic sub-section, technology Investment Banking. There are a ton of smaller technology boutique Investment Banks that could allow themselves to stand-out from the crowd with a blog. You have to expect that a potential client is going to google your firm before they sign over $1MM - $2MM in potential Investment Banking fees. So why don’t you have a little bit of control over what they are going to see. Any negative press, random bloggers with a grudge, or anything is going to pop-up on a google search with negative information. Blogging can position an Investment Bank with the best foot forward, in a classic client bake-off decision. I would even take this a step further to say that if some of your M&A or IPO Investment Bankers wrote about specific industries they were targeting, for example Security Software, and created landscapes of the industry that begun to get recognized by CEOs and CFOs, I would bet that you can save the plane trips around the country doing bake-offs in lieu of taking in-bound phone calls from highly qualified prospects. Even Companies that didn’t invite you to join the process, and only want to talk to the big boys like Goldman Sachs would be hard-pressed not to at least give a call to the only Investment Bank that publishes regularly on the events of their niche industry.

I will note that I believe Think Equity has attempted this method, but I have not actively tracked their progress, so if anyone knows how they are doing with it, write it below.