Why a Corporate Pro chose to become a Problogger (Part 4 of 4)

6. I’ve found a market niche that is so fertile and intend to become an authority there.

I do understand that there are many authorities that can easily be relied on in that niche, but very-very few of them are into blogging. Nevertheless, it is a great opportunity that I hate to miss.


7. Problogging is a business and a job that you can take and do anywhere.

I am a WAHD. A Work At Home Dad type. In my previous stint, my job takes me away from home most of the time. One fatal result, of which, is a broken marriage. Problogging allows me to dictate my pace and stay at home most of the time. My son deserves my attention, and he is lucky that he is getting more of it. Or should I say, I am luckier because I get to see him grow.


8. Problogging is both an exciting and a challenging feat.

Need to say more? Nah. You know better than I.

Again, let me reiterate: Problogging is not easy. It is not a a quick-money-making scheme as some try to peddle. It is a new business model that requires good planning, continuous learning, resilience, and most of all an ardent love for giving value to your readers. If you are not willing to invest your time, energy, and give your 101% commitment, you have already failed even before you started.

Here's to your ProBlogging success!

Are you a career problogger or a wannabe? What led or inspired you?


* Read Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , and "...why I left the Corporate World"

Read the rest of the post here.

Customer-Focused and Employee-Centered Core Values

Xerox: A case in point

In 2000, Xerox was $17 billion in debt, and by 2001 the company’s stock price had dropped from a high of $63 to about $4. Xerox suffered seven straight losing quarters. The company also faced an accounting investigation by Securities and Exchange Commission into the way it accounted for customer leases on copiers.

Today the company has shifted its main business from small copiers to desktop copiers from offices and high-quality printers for publishers. Xerox has experienced a remarkable comeback. Fourth quarter net income for 2003 rose to $222 million or 22 cents a share in 2002. Recent stock prices have been in the $15 range and are expected to go higher. The company’s operations are guided by customer-focused and Employee-Centered Core Values…and the strategic involvement of Human Resource Management (HRM). (Xerox2004)

Implications in Business Operations

The value placed on people, customers and employees, is the defining brand of a business however the size is. Today, where globalization is no longer a strange business term and where customers are presented with a thousand options for a particular product, the human factor of the business creates the ultimate product differentiation.

Productivity and sales are high when Employees (Human Resource) are given their much-needed attention. Vis a vis, when customers’ needs, wants, and expectations are met, you will have a business that is likely to profit and grow. Xerox and other companies who shifted from a profit-focused business models to HR and customer focused models have experienced a positive turn-around. Your small business can do too.


Implications in ProBlogging

Subscribers, readers, and visitors are the probloggers’ primary assets. No amount of advertising, publicity, contests, social networking schemes, and other gimmicks can replace their loyalty. They will make or break your problogging efforts. Make them a center of your ‘problogging core values’ by:

• Writing posts that create or add values to their reading experience. Post to feed your audience, not the other way around;
  

• Developing and easily navigated blog lay-outs where they can easily find their needs and/or wants;
  

• Responding promptly and sensibly to comments;
  

• Lastly, lesser commercialization more blogging. Meaning, while making money out of your blog is your ultimate goal, do not make it so evident that it drives your readers and visitors away. Make blogging your first priority, the money will follow. This is what is meant by making people, not robots (name the implications –pun intended) your ‘core values.’

Now, have your say please.

Read the rest of the post here.

Why a Corporate Pro chose to become a Problogger (Part 3 of 4)

4. Problogging entails determination and resilience to succeed, without which you are only dreaming of making money and not make any money at all.

Placing an affiliate or Adsense ad does not mean that money will start pouring –you are dead wrong dude. It is much more than that.

Corporate life taught me that success does not belong to the strong and the witty or educated but to those who persevere against all odds, who rise in adversities, and learn in the process. Problogging is no different. I chose this new business venture and career because I knew that I have what it takes. The path will not be easy. But with patience and resilience I know I can make it -you can too!

5. Problogging is still a career path in infancy and is open to all.

Skills, knowledge and competencies are yet to be named and or discovered. I’d like t be in the forefront. While I claim that there are no secrets in problogging success, there are, however, problogging basics to be learned and mastered. In car racing, you need to learn and master first the basic before you can compete. To win, on the other hand, you need to go beyond those. The same principle applies in problogging. Also, I believe that there are still frontiers that were not yet claimed. This is a good opportunity to join those who are trailblazing and probably trail blaze on my own niche as well.

How about you, what are your motivations / reasons?


* Read Part 1 , Part 2 , and "...why I left the Corporate World"

Read the rest of the post here.

Why a Corporate Pro chose to become a ProBlogger (Part 2 of 4)

2. Blogging is emerging as the new platform for products promotion and marketing online.

The window of opportunity is open wide, and beckoning for my kind to enter. It is but natural that we purchase products or avail services which are being endorsed by people we knew. Blogging has brought millions of people together in one virtual community online. Hence, the term web 2.0 emerges to mean the explosion of social media, of which blogging is in the forefront. In a survey released by Nielsen late last year shows that more than 70% of advertisers online are turning to blogs as their primary medium of advertising or promotions.

What used to be an online diary, has now become a commercial, or more aptly, an ebusiness tool. We have read of many probloggers who claimed to have made it in the ‘problogging business’ –allow me to coin that phrase. Yeah. Problogging is a business. While some will take it just a hobby or an additional income on the side, IMO –it is a viable business model. In fact, it is an excellent business model. Allow me to treat that on a separate post later.


3. Problogging is one of few business models that require no capital investment.

Of course, if you are purchasing a new laptop for your problogging activity, then that would be considered a capital investment, and probably adding to that is a broadband or DSL connection. Aside to those things, there are no capital expenditures. Your education, experience, and your command of the English language will suffice to launch this business. With those basic requirements, anybody can actually engage in the problogging business.

However, let me throw a word of caution in the air, while problogging seems to be an easy scheme to earn money online, as some try to sell, it is not in fact easy. Frustrations are higher. If you are in a hurry to make money in problogging, believe me it is not easy as others would claim. I am not trying to discourage you here. I want you to look at hard facts before you join the bandwagon. I told you in my previous post that I earned more than $1,000 bucks in my first 45 days in problogging. I never told you that I picked them up, lest you be misled. I toiled hard for that money –every dollar and cent. In fact, I worked harder than any of my previous jobs to earn those.

With my expertise, I can charge and am charging even more than $100 bucks per hour on consultancy work –that is way easier. I sweat real hard for that $1,000 bucks, getting the traffic, writing quality posts, submitting bids for reviews, networking online, reading literally thousands of blogs. It was not easy. “I traded my sandwich for a kiss” but “I learned.” I think that is the most important ingredient in problogging -learning the rudiments in your own way and sweating real hard.

Have your say please.

* Read Part 1

Read the rest of the post here.

Why a Corporate Pro chose to become a ProBlogger (Part 1 of 4)

Honestly, I miss getting-up early in the morning, polishing my shoes, and driving to office. The hassle-buzzle in the office, which I sometimes resent, now plays like a music in my head as I imagined how I cause panic on my staffs whenever I demand things to be accomplished or delivered on time. Now, that is relegated in the memory lane.

Why I chose to become a problogger? (Thanks to Darren of Problogger.net for coining the term and the lessons, I learned from him on problogging basics, and this is my first professional attempt on this viable business model.)

For some, you might think I am too old for this –I am not. I gave only the fifteen years of my life in corporate affairs after college, do the math, and you are right I am not that old to join the bandwagon of online marketers and rosters (exponentially growing) of probloggers out there. Having that let out of my chest, yeah I am not too old to blog for a living. In fact, with my corporate experiences in tow, I can be a better blogger in my niche (pardon the bragging there.)

So going back, why join the growing rosters of probloggers? Here are a eight (8) things that came to mind:

1. Problogging basic knowledge and skills are easy to learn. The basic skills and knowledge are easy for those who are really bent on learning the rudiments of problogging.

• There are no short cuts to making money off-line or online, as some people tend to buzz about. And there are no short cuts in learning these stuff. You need persistence and open mindedness.
  
• You need to be like a sponge. Absorb the ideas and principles you can muster and use. There are no better tutors than the pros before us.
  
• Learning here, I mean, understanding the concepts and acquiring the skills, and using them. Practice, practice, and more practice. Learn from your mistakes and avoid them.
  
• Please note, that before I launched this blog with my own domain, I experimented with three blogs in different niches until I decided to settle for this particular niche on business and management. Mind you, modesty aside, I earned more than $1,000 in my first 45 days. That is, experimenting. No domain and no self-hosting plans. How I did it? Well, there are no secrets actually, I simply applied the problogging basics and added pure ‘hard work’ into it –something I learned from my corporate stint.

Okey, I have to cut this short. This post will go on a 4-part series, lest I bore you with my ramblings. Mean time, let me hear your thoughts on this. So, why did you chose to become a problogger? Are you doing it full-time or part time?

* Read Part 2

Read the rest of the post here.