Legal and Business Writing Consultant : Lori Herz : Write For Clients : Professional Writing and Online Content Consulting

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Many service professionals dread the thought of networking. They would love to find a philosopher’s stone for converting their loose business contacts into a golden network of prospects, clients and referral sources. But, fantasy aside, successful networking requires action and persistence. Like any relationship-building endeavor, it also requires mutuality - a healthy combination of giving and receiving that’s organic and not contrived.

As it’s taken root in the service professions, blogging has become a channel for creating and fortifying natural webs of business connections. (If you need an introduction to business blogging, take a look at Kevin O’Keefe’s excellent collection of tips and thoughts on Blog Basics and the Art of Blogging) These networks typically build around useful and relevant information bloggers offer to address their readers’ business needs, challenges and concerns.

However, as Susan Cartier Liebel recently detailed, service providers can also cultivate business contacts by blogging about personal interests. Liebel’s post introduces us to lawyer Michael Keenan. After starting The Connecticut Elder Law Blog, Keenan launched Glastonbury Running to share insights and news with other local runners. Keenan’s blogs link to one another and to his conventional website. As Liebel reports: “Little did he realize [ ] his running blog would get more hits then his professional blog. Because they are linked he gets a tremendous amount of business from people who, first, find him and then relate to him as a runner.”

Keenan’s blogging experience highlights how we can make valuable business connections when we share our knowledge and ideas with people who can benefit from them. The connecting points forged through this kind of exchange are the sturdiest building blocks of present and future business associations.