Blogging Systems – Input from Len Penzo

As you know, I spoke at  FinCon13 in a work session this year. The session was for advanced bloggers and was called “How to Build Systems for Your blog”.

During the conference I shared input I have already received from others. During and after the conference I hope to highlight some of that information and share it with all of you.

In this post, we hear from  Len Penzo at Len Penzo dot com.

Len is an electrical engineer employed in the aerospace industry. He has had great success with his blog, and notes that:

“My blog is all about being personally responsible – not only for our personal finances, but also for everything else we do in life.  As you will learn from my blog, the great thing about financial freedom is that anyone can attain it — regardless of income level!”

Thanks for your input Len!

In bold are the questions I posed to him, followed by her answers.

What blogging tasks do you think are most important to spend time on? How do you stay focused on those? 

This may seem obvious, but writing a quality post — and then giving it the correct headline.

What tasks are your blog’s main time suckers? 

In order: 1. Writing posts – 20 hrs/wk.; 2. Advertising and marketing – 8 hrs/wk; 3. Reading and answering reader emails – 4 hrs/wk; 4. Finances – 2 hr/wk; 5. Blog maintenance 1 hr/wk.

How have you worked towards getting those areas under control and organized? 

Writing – I have an editorial calendar to stay organized, and of course WordPress platform; Advertising/marketing – excel spreadsheet to track clients; Finances – Excel spreadsheet and Freshbooks for management; Blog maintenance – again, I can’t say enough about the WordPress platform, and also choosing a capable WordPress theme for your blog.

What trouble spots have you overcome by defining steps to handle the issue or by automating things and how did you do it, what did you use? 

I really need a personal assistant to handle the business end of blogging. As my blog continues to grow, I have to spend more and more time on business end and that leaves less time for writing. I’ve asked the Honeybee to help me out, but she continues to balk. I may end up recruiting my 13-year-old daughter soon.

Do you run your blog by yourself or do you enlist others?  If others, what roles do they play and how did you define the roles to them?

I run it by myself.

If you were to sell your blog, how would you communicate to the buyer how to run it the same way you do? 

It’s all about the quality of the articles and making them stand out from the crowd. Once you master that, everything else will follow.

Thanks again for your input Len!