Or traveling to Florida for vacation.

Or throwing a party.

Or building a house.

OK, so my point is, you can fill in just about any analogy and it would work.  The desired outcome is an award-winning garden, or arriving in Florida, or having a fun party everyone talks about, or seeing the house in its final stages.  How you get there is by using the proper tools or tactics.

This is mostly inspired from reading a great post by Shel Holtz, co-author of "Blogging For Business", along with other communication-focused books. (Not to be confused with Shel Israel, co-author of "Naked Conversations", another book on corporate blogging)

Gardening Tools
I've talked about the issue of time in several posts on this blog, and you can count this as another.  My biggest issue with that argument related to business blogs is that it's an excuse, not a valid reason.

If all of the sudden, there was a revolutionary new tool that could improve the way I garden, I'd probably want to know about it. I would never say "I have no time to use that tool."  Take the picture above.  There are a lot of different tools that a gardener can use to achieve his/her end goal - to make it the most healthy, attractive garden around.  (if that's not the goal gardeners, speak up)   The end game is the same, but the tools are up to each individual gardener.

It's the same thing with business.  Any business has to communicate with it's  shareholders, employees, existing customers, and most importantly potential customers.  To drive business, you need leads.  You need to introduce your business to a qualified prospect, build trust, prove value and convert them into a happy customer.

Blogging is just a tool.  A simple, easy tool that scales content and allows you to communicate more effectively.

Shel writes:
Blogging is a new communication channel. Before blogs became widely available and accepted, executives made do with the channels available to them: one-on-one phone calls, conference calls, speeches, road shows, letters, email and so on. I have heard from a number of CEOs that blogs are more effective than any of these tools for a variety of communications. Therefore, they have replaced the use of such channels with blogging. In aggregate, though, they’re spending just as much time fulfilling their role as the company’s chief communicator.
And he's just highlighting an executive's reason to blog.  We at Compendium preach to allow employees, not just C-level exec's, to blog for your business. As the Edelman Trust Barometer shows us, an employee blog is "five times more credible than a CEO blog."  Shel also has some good tips on time management, group blogs and ROI.  Read the rest of his post HERE.