Two bloggers, Martins and Smith were walking on the road and the following dialogue ensued:Martins: Smith, how do you consider blogging?Smith: Well, I think blogging is a big businessMartins: Blogging, a big business? How?Smith: Because it is run like any other businessMartins: Don’t you think other businesses are different from blogging?Smith: How do you mean?Martins: Other businesses are operated by real businessmen while blogging is operated by bloggersSmith: Oh! I see! But what makes a business?Martins: Businesses involve investment and they generate profits tooSmith: Really?Martins: Yes!Smith: Don’t you invest time, money and intellectuality into blogging?Martins: Yes, we doSmith: Don’t blogs generate incomes from AdSense, advertisement, affiliate sales, sponsored posts and links, flipping, membership, etc?Martins: They doSmith: Then how are blogs different from other businesses?Martins: Hmmmmmmm! I never considered these questions before. I thought only those businesses with a tag are qualified to be called a business.Smith: Anything that involves investment of any kind and then yield profits is a businessMartins: Oh, I see! Thanks for the clarification. I will start taking my blog as a business from now henceforth.Are you still in doubt?Do you still wonder if your blog is a business? Did you start your blog as a past time? Did you build your blog because you just wanted to share your thoughts with the world? A lot of people started for one reason or the other – share thoughts, update personal album, promote business brand, sell products, solve people’s problems, provide tutorials, etc. So everybody actually started with a dream, and each person’s dream could be different from the next person’s.However, some of these dreams get modified as time goes by. New ideas crop up and get integrated into the dreams. Those who started with the purpose of sharing their thoughts, updating their albums, providing tutorials or solving problems begin to see why they should add a little way of making money so as to keep maintaining their blogs or take care of other personal needs.What makes blogging a business?The following characteristics make blogging a business; and if your blog has any of them, then you should consider it for what it is – business:Generates Income: Businesses generally generate incomes for their owners. Income could come from selling products on your site (profits), earnings from advertisements, membership fees, consultancy, etc. So if your blog gets money from any of these channels, your blog is a business.It’s an investment: Business involves financial investment in order to get make profit or interest. Wikipedia defines investment this way, investment is putting money into an asset with the expectation of capital appreciation, dividends, and/or interest earningIn other words, your blog is an investment because you are paying for web hosting, website design/development, templates, plugins, special scripts, webmaster services, etc, with the intent to make some gains either in the immediate or in future. Apart from investing money, you are also investing your time on a very serious note. Hope you agree with me on this?Employment generation: Employment generated by blogs is a two-fold thing. The blog owner is gainfully employed, and secondly, he employs writers or maintenance engineers to keep things moving smoothly on the blog. To be able to create employment, you are either a businessman or government.Retirement plan: A good business helps to secure the future of the owner. Good businesses are assets for the owners to lean on during their pension years. Blogging also provides that security if it is well handled and given the necessary attention it requires.Similarities between blogging and other businessesWhen it comes to business, there are a few distinguishable types of businesses that readily come to mind, and they include the following:1. Sole proprietorship: This is the type of business that is owned and managed by one person. Decisions making is done alone, and the death of the owner could also mean the death of the business. Most blogs are similar to the sole proprietorship kind of business in that the blogger runs his blog alone. He takes decisions alone, expands slowly and he’s a jack of all trade.2. Partnership: Partnership business involves two or more persons coming together to do business. While conventional businesses can operate on a partnership level, blogging can also be a partnership investment. A good example of partnership blog is the LeapZone Strategies where Isabelle Mercier Turcotte and Margarita Romano have been working together since 1996. Of course they both invest their moneys and also share profits and loses together.Other forms of business exist but we are okay with just these two. At least they have helped us to make our similarities. Now that we have seen the different types of businesses, that takes us to the next point.Why then do blogging businesses fail?Before now, some of us were not seeing blogging as a business. But now that we know, it is good to understand why a lot of blogging businesses fail. You don’t know some blogs fail? Well, they do, really! The nagging question that needs an urgent answer is why do blogging businesses fail?1. Failure to invest: One of the things I talked about earlier concerning business is that business requires investment (both finance, time, intellectuality, etc). Unfortunately, a lot of bloggers who are hoping to make money with their blogs are not investing real money to raise the standard of their blogs in order to make them marketable. Relying on freebies to run your blog in all aspects would at best make your blog a dumping ground for substandard materials.2. Lack of focus: Failing to focus on one’s dream or niche is one of the greatest reasons why a lot of bloggers fail to make it in their businesses. It has happened to me in the past. When I started my blog in 2009, it was pulling traffic and growing by the day. Suddenly I lost focus and began to pursue other dreams. That blog eventually paid the price of my loss of focus.3. Not driven by ambition: If you are not ambitious enough as a blogger, it would be difficult for you to succeed in your blogging business.”There’s no luck in business. There’s only drive, determination, and more drive.” -Sophie Kinsella, Shopaholic Takes Manhattan”To become successful, one must put themselves in the paths of giants!” – Lillian CauldwellThe moment some bloggers attain a particular height, they feel they have arrived and there is no more need to improve or grow. The zeal to add more flavor, innovation and new features is simply not there anymore.4. Neglecting your customers: Customers are the real gem of every business and they must be treated with care and love. Unfortunately, a lot of business owners do not realize that their sustenance is ensured by the patronage of their customers. They simply treat their customers with disdain.”It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages.” – Henry Ford”If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.” – Jeff Bezos, CEO Amazon.com”Quality in a service or product is not what you put into it. It is what the client or customer gets out of it.” – Peter DruckerMy word of adviceWe live in a world of intense competition, and only those who are willing to go the extra mile to do what others are not willing to do actually make it. As a blogger and a businessman, for you to succeed in your niche, you need to add the following to your portfolio:Invest in your business: Stop depending on freebies to run your business. The fact there are freebies and still there are paid versions of the same product is enough to convince you that freebies and paid products are never the same. In as much as you would need some freebies, you need also to invest real more to add some cutting edge to your business.Remain focused: If you chase two rats at the same time, you are going to end up getting none. Once you have a dream, make sure to pursue it to a logical end. Don’t get unnecessarily distracted along the way. Distraction and lack of focus are dream killers, and so they must be eliminated at all cost.Be driven by ambition: Don’t just go into any business because others are there. You must have the ambition and enough hunger to succeed in your chosen niche. If the ambition is strong enough, adequate energy would be released to help accomplish your dream.Treat your customers like gold: Yes, you heard me well! Your customers don’t deserve anything less. They pay the bills, and if they withdraw their patronage, you are nowhere. One satisfied customer brings 20 more; but one dissatisfied customer chases away 100 more. Do you agree with me?ConclusionBlogging is a business and needs to be treated as such. Stop treating it with levity because your future could largely depend on it. If you want your blogging business to prosper, you must be willing to invest money, time and intellectuality into it. Freebies alone can never give you the best in your business. Remember that you don’t pay the bills, the customers do. So never treat your customers shabbily because they are the reason you are still in business.Well, I would love to hear from you. Share your contributions or leave a question. Was this article helpful to you in some ways? Then remember to share it with your friends.

As a means to make America healthier, the health care reform bill includes provisions to provide screenings for cholesterol, diabetes, and blood pressure. These new rules allows for preventative care to be covered under your insurance plan at no additional cost. Under these new rules, if you enroll in a new health plan on or after Sept. 23, 2010, the plan must provide recommended preventive care services without cost-sharing such as co-pays or deductibles.Depending on the type of health plan and other factors such as your age, preventative care will include the following according to sources:· Blood pressure, diabetes, and cholesterol test· Cancer screenings· Counseling on smoking cessation, weight loss, healthy eating, depression treatments, and reduction of alcohol use· Vaccines for measles, polio, meningitis, and HPV (human papilloma virus)· Shots for flu and pneumonia prevention· Screening, vaccines, and counseling for healthy pregnancies· Well-baby and well-child visits up to the age of 21, as well as vision and hearing, developmental assessments, and body mass index (BMI) screenings for obesity· Mammograms for women over age 40· Pap smears for cervical cancer prevention· Colon cancer screening tests for adults over age 50The plan is designed to create a country which will be healthier. This reform represents a fundamental shift in how you are going to be cared for. This reform will place the focus on how to keep you well rather than how to treat you when you are sick. So many Americans go about their daily lives without knowing the status of their well being. Many of you don’t realize that you have a potential life threatening condition such as high cholesterol until it’s too late. In most cases the co-pays and other out-of-pocket costs to help identify these problems are a stumbling block. This plan will provide you with the means to be tested so you can know where you stand so you can know what to do to correct these conditions before it becomes a serious issue. The reason why the health care reform bill has place an emphasis on preventative care is because chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes and others are responsible for seven of 10 deaths among American each year and account for 75% of the nation’s health care spending. According to government estimates between now and 2013, the new preventive care provisions will help an estimated 88 million Americans get preventive care, including those in group and individual plans.What you need to do is check with your employers and their insurance policy about what is covered under those plans, when the plans turn over to a new one the new covered preventive services provisions will take effect. If you have an existing health care plan you are paying for individually, contact them to find what will be the process to implement the provisions of the health care reform bill. In the meantime you are encouraged to go to check out www.healthcare.gov, type in a health plan, and see if preventive care is covered under your current plan. As always to your health!