100


This is my 100th blog post!  While I don’t believe in milestone birthdays this milestone seems worth celebrating (no gifts please)  Celebrating is important so I can recognize the many contributors to this blog and I hope it will be helpful to others who are considering joining the blogosphere as a positive contributor instead of a snarky anonymous commenter. 



Start

In retrospect everything looks obvious.  When we started our new blog in 2008 blogs were not as mainstream as they are today.  Getting an article published in the Wall Street Journal or your local newspaper was still the primary PR goal.  With that in mind my blog partner, Randy Baum, and I created a team with publishing experience. Our first partner was Lori Marshall who is a professional ghostwriter with several best selling books.  We also partnered with an ex-journalist turned PR and Marketing professional, Greg Berardi, from Blue Marlin.  Randy also had some writing chops as an English major in college.  I was the weakest link and positioned myself as the idea guy.  We named our blog BlogOnWealth and coincident to our start an unknown second tier stock broker started his blog The Reformed Broker.  We made the elitist Morgan Stanley - Wall Street mistake of minimizing his blog, but oh were we WRONG!  The Reformed Broker has become a top blog and Josh Brown is now the CEO of a fast growing Independent wealth management firm.  Our first big splash was a blog we wrote on our experience when BofA acquired Montgomery Securities.  This blog’s taught us both an important lesson.  Honest experiences from actual professionals that have lived and survived the event are of interest to readers. 

With Greg’s help we began to build our blog.  The tools every blogger needs are Wordpress and Hubspot.  The other must have is an editor.  While many great bloggers edit themselves we have found the editing skills of Greg Berardi and the discipline of sticking to a publishing schedule are priceless.


Speed Bumbs

Like any successful venture BlogOnWealth hit some speed bumps.  The first was Randy’s retirement from Sanctuary.  Now that we didn’t work together we realized that we had some professional differences and decided to change the name of the blog and go our separate ways.  The next speed bump was my decision to wind down Sanctuary by the end of 2017.  My “pity party blog” was also one of our most popular.  Why?  I think the honesty factor referenced earlier played an import role.  A recent speed bump is my decision to continue to publish blogs while my career is in limbo.  What I have found is that wealth management is not in limbo and there are numerous things to write about.  Writing has kept me engaged and I think it keeps many other bloggers engaged too.



Podcast

While blogging was nascent in 2008 it appears that Podcasts are at a similar stage in 2017.  Interestingly most Podcasts hosts whose name doesn’t start with Oprah also write blogs.  Expanding their blog topics to a Podcast format will allow potential subscribers who don’t have the time or interest to read blogs to listen to a podcast while they commute to work or walk the dog.  Your existing blog topics will also educate potential podcast guests on what you want to discuss and will save you both prep time.  I’ve purchase the podcast equipment and now I just need to turn it on!






Thank you for reading any or all of the first 100 blogs.  I’m an Enneagram 3 so your recognition is an important and essential part of my self worth.  Blog "likes" are made for Type 3s.  One final request, please like this blog or retweet it.  My emotional survival depends on it.

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