This post is by Michael Pollock, the original owner of Small Business Branding. Yaro Starak now owns and produces the latest content for this blog.
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An interesting thing happened recently. Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff invited me to be interviewed for their new project, Build a Better Blog System (I’ve not read it yet, but the early reviews are glowing). To complement the book, they’ve also intiated an audio series they’re calling Conversations With Experts, and they invited me to appear as one of the experts.
Here’s where it gets interesting for me. For the conversation, they asked me to provide a brief description of what I’d like to talk about regarding small business branding. And that forced me to define what small business branding is all about. I had a general idea (my tagline: "build your brand, build your business"), but I hadn’t really put into words what it meant for me beyond that.
It was perfect timing for me really. I’d been feeling unfocused for the last couple of months and not really sure where I’m going with smallbusinessbranding. Only recently has the picture started to come into focus for me, and this little exercise capped it off. Here’s what I wrote for Denise and Patsi:
Title: Small Business Branding in the Digital Age: The New Savvy
SolopreneursThere’s a new breed of solopreneur today. (S)he’s street smart and lives from the heart; nimble and technically savvy. (S)he weaves an intricate web of like-minded souls who feast upon the products of his/her energy and spirit. Like some of the world’s biggest companies, (s)he’s well-known, respected and sought after for the value (s)he consistently delivers to her network. During this conversation, we’ll talk about this new breed of solopreneur as well as some of the skill sets (s)he uses to become a successful small business brand in the 21st century.
So that’s what smallbusinessbranding is all about. With that in mind, I’ve begun to create the infrastructure to develop smallbusinessbranding into a revenue generating, content-driven entity focused upon the success and fulfillment of solopreneurs. Although the business model is still hazy, here’s what I’ve done so far:
1. Set up a separate blogsite for SavvySoloCAST (www.savvysolocast.com) to develop it as a stand-alone revenue stream. No content yet, but the skeleton is there.
2. Set up a separate blogsite for AudioInforpeneur (www.audioinfopreneur) to develop it as a stand-alone revenue stream. Also no content yet.
3. Set up a separate personal blog to voice my personal rantings, ravings and general ideas outside business. No content yet there either.
I’ll continue to update as things get clearer for me.