What in a nutshell do I tell my clients about how to launch and maintain a successful business blog?

If you're a businessperson who wants to blog, clarify your goals and start blogging right now, while you're too busy.

That will compel you to fit the process to your reality, and force you to apply the skills and time you have to your goals.

Plan to blog about issues that actually concern you, because you simply aren't going to have time to do anything else.

Strive to blog in your own voice, because that will give your blog the authenticity readers require.

Don't confuse blogging with fine literature. Write the piece, taking care to get the facts straight and avoiding statements you might be ashamed of later, and get it out to the Web.

After all, you have to make a living, and as a result you don't have time for painstaking attention to the quality of your prose.

Strive to improve as time and circumstances permit.

Training can help you, if it is the right kind of training. Active coaching, perhaps by email, teaches you to do the job under fire, where you're going to have to do it, and is usually most effective for a real, live businessperson.

Don't frustrate yourself with unrealistic goals.

Most blogs never hit the big time or make money.

In fact, most blogs never hit the medium time.

What a carefully tended blog can do is make good information readily available to current and potential clients.

If your business is anything like mine, a blog readership of a few good prospects a month will pay the freight, and that brings us back to goal-setting. Make sure you know what makes your blogging worthwhile.

As with any other business project, you must know when to pull the plug, when to adapt or when to celebrate.

Oh, and if you need some help with any of this, send me email at frink@southernconnections.com.