Rereading Bricklin’s Aug 12 article on small business blogging, I realized that his first example is a pretty close fit for the intangibles I get from doing this blog:
One type of small business is the “consultant”. This covers a wide range of areas, from engineers, to marketers, to event planners, to freelance writers and designers, and more. Consultants are already very common users of blogs. A normal part of the job of many consultants entails going to meetings and conferences and being active in trade associations where they “network”, show off their expertise, appear on panels, etc. A blog is a way of showing your expertise and establishing yourself as a trustworthy authority without doing the travel. The time necessary to maintain the blog comes out of the time that would have been spent at some of the meetings. (A blog is an excellent way to build up your “authority” to move up politically in a trade association, too. Your readers would be others in your field, not customers.)
Related post: Bus Leasing For Small Businesses.