At the recent Financial Forum in Indianapolis, I picked up an “Advantage Calculator”, a handy little retirement planning device distributed byIndiana Investment Watch.  On the calculator is a cardboard pull tab that investors can manipulate to see how large a retirement account they might have at age 65 were they to invest a certain number of dollars weekly beginning now.

As a freelance blog writer offering business blogging training, I’m always interested in different options for presenting material to readers or to a live audience. The fact that there were two sides to the “advantage calculator” gave me an idea that I think could be useful in corporate blog content writing. You see, I noticed that, while the first side of the Indiana Investment Watch device is titled “Why Save For Retirement?”, the flip side is titled “Why Save NOW?” focusing on the cost of waiting to begin the savings process.  In other words the Advantage Calculator was showing me compelling, positive reasons to take action.  But, on the flip side, I was being shown the opportunity costs of putting off action.

Blog content writing needs to address those two aspects, as well.  One function of any SEO marketing blog, of course, is to provide valuable information to consumers highlighting the benefits to be gained by using a certain product or service or by following a certain plan. But writing for business needs to draw attention to the “flip side of the calculator”, meaning the costs of consumers waiting to take action.

In offering business blogging help, then, I need to help business owners figure out exactly why their potential customers and clients should act now, and what benefits those customer and clients stand to lose by not taking advantage of the products and services sooner rather than later. At the same time, in providing business blogging assistance, I want to steer Say It For You clients away from the kind of order-now-or-lose-it sales tactics we see on late night TV or coupon web sites.

In Tell to Win, sales expert Peter Guber teaches the use of purposeful stories.  “If you can’t tell it,” Guber says, “you can’t sell it.  Blog content writers should incorporate stories that are, in and of themselves, calls to positive action, and deterrents to deferment!.

Four years ago, despite having been a writer for more than 25 years, I found that, in order to prepare for my new work as a corporate blogging trainer and professional ghost blogger, I needed to study up. The learning process, which continues to this day, includes attending quite a number of seminars, lectures, and panels, even paying for many hours of "private tutoring".

Until I read "10 Things About Britain" in Mental Floss Magazine, though, I never dreamed that, in order to become a certified taxi operator in London, drivers must study up for an extraordinarily difficult exam that involves detailed recall of 25,000 streets, along with the locations of clubs, hospitals, hotels, parks, theaters, schools, restaurants, government buildings and churches.  I was amazed to learn from Erica Rex’s article that most drivers take at least three years to master all this knowledge.

From now on, I vowed, I would cite that article in corporate blogging training sessions to make a very important point about blog content writing for business. That article reminded me that online visitors searching for a product or a service typically have no idea what it takes to do what you do and how much effort you put into acquiring the expertise you’re going to use to their benefit.

Just to clarify, what I am not telling blog content writers to do is to "wave their credentials" around just because they are writing posts for an SEO marketing blog.  As Lee Goeller.com puts it, competence trumps credentials every time. But what I do think needs to come across loud and clear in business blog writing is what preparation and effort it takes – on your part and on the part of your employees –  to be able to deliver the expert advice, service, and products  customers can expect from you.

I absolutely love the opening line of the "10 Things About Britain" piece:

            Cabbies are smarter than Google Maps.

As a business owner in today’s click-it-yourself, do-it-yourself world, your content writing  needs to demonstrate to online searchers that, in your field, you ARE smarter than Google Maps, or eHow, or Wikipedia.  What’s more, your corporate blogging for business must make clear, you’re a lot more caring for your customers!