Once you leave the corporate world (or any kind of job where you're an employee for someone else) for the adventure of solo business, it only takes a day or two before you realize that you're standing naked in front of the world hoping that somehow others are going to notice your business.
You're naked because all of the props, network ties, and support infrastructure that typically come with a large organization or business are suddenly gone.
It's like standing on a street corner with nothing more than your naked self to give the world. Yes, you can replace your props over time and focus the attention away from your own nothingness . . . but it will take time and a fair amount of effort.
Before you went out on your own, you had a built-in circle of business contacts that came with the environment (the corporation.)
You were invited to meetings, events, and social gatherings because your corporation gave you status and importance. Your name was tied to the larger company and you relied on the employer resources, visibility, and name to propel you personally into the right circles and networks.
But strike out on your own, and immediately you have no support or credibility because no one has ever heard of you. You have no company history and no automatic invitations to anything.
It's for that reason (and several others) that I made the decision to join the Know More Media network of business blogs.
The credibility and infrastructure that comes with KMM helps me personally to be taken seriously and to be associated with "value" and professionalism very quickly.
Over time, I believe my blog would be able to get the same result on its own; but why wait? Why not hit the ground running and take advantage of the power, the association, and the synergism of the other business-related blogs within the network?
If a customer intentionally comes to KMM or one of it's contributor blogs, chances are pretty good that customer could also benefit from reading my blog - Lone Wolf Tracks.
I recently checked my backlinks and page rank in Google for my blog site. It shows 787 links and a page rank of 6. Both are quite respectable.
I doubt that I could have achieved those same results if I had chosen to strike out with a new blog on my own.
In our next installment, we'll look at specific things you can do as a small business owner to build a network of contacts from the ground up. Stay tuned . . .
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