Simplify, focus, leverage. That’s been the mantra of my strategist, mentor, and cattle-prod, Dawn Fotopulos, founder of the recently-launched BestSmallBizHelp.com. For over 3 years (quite a feat of consistency, in the blogosphere!), I’ve focused this blog on business partnerships, strategic alliances, and other forms of business “partnering.” That’s about to change. Why? Entrepreneurs demanded more. And I wanted more, in a different way. How?
Here’s the low-down: To be consistent with my “Ask The Business Lawyer” brand, I’m seeing the need to address a wider range of small business legal issues. So I’ll be blogging on issues in addition to just business partnership and alliance relationships (as fertile an area as that may be). I welcome your feedback, so let me know which business law issues interest/perplex/frustrate you! Together, we’ll demystify them for small business owners.
For the fuller backstory, read on . . . .
The last 3 years have been a wild ride, spanning my evolution from business partner, to “business divorcee,” to business partnership infopreneur.
During these frenetic years, I subscribed to the spaghetti approach to my blogging and content–as in, “throw enough spaghetti to enough walls and see what sticks.” Blessedly, lots of it has stuck, to the point where this Ask The Business Lawyer site is becoming a destination portal for small business legal issues! That’s where the leveraging has come in. I have you, dear readers, to thank for spreading the word.
Yet, while in England last month (a friend was running for political office in their General Election; my husband and I helped out on the campaign trail), I had an epiphany. I had lost some of the joy of writing. That was rekindled in England, where I took my experiences–even about mundane things, like handing out political leaflets–and looked at them through a small business lens. For all of my writing–Making It Legal, Daily Dose, Business Partnership Central–those kinds of posts didn’t have a welcome home, for various reasons. And that made me sad. They deserved someplace to reside. Ask The Business Lawyer Blog will now be that place.
Not exclusively–they’ll share their home with other business law issues, like factors affecting commercial leases, developments in data privacy and security, social media challenges, using contracts with freelancers, and more. Including, of course, business partnerships and JVs/alliances. That’s where the simplifying and focusing comes in: that more and more content should generate traffic for Ask The Business Lawyer. But now there will also be a place for the bigger, more philosophical issues affecting small business–such as “Why are we doing this?” or “Where can business inspiration come from?”
After all, why be in business for yourself if you can’t have fun doing it? Rabbi Hillel was known to say:
If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
If I am only for myself, what am I?
If not now, when?
That time is now.
Once again, thanks to so many of you who have been reading Business Partnership Central faithfully. I’ve appreciated your comments and trackbacks. For those who just want business partnership information, you can easily search our posts by category, so you won’t miss a beat. I look forward to our continuing conversation.
Hi Nina, I’m very proud of you! Go for it!
Ramon Ray, Smallbiztechnology.com
Thanks, Ramon. It’s a healthy reminder that few things in business are perfect. The best we can to is "correct and continue" and "get back on the horse," as it were.