The Blog Squad Story

It all started in September 2004. Patsi and I (Denise) had been working together on the marketing for Patsi's Customized Newsletters Services business. She was my client.

One Saturday, Patsi decided to set up a blog on Typepad after reading about blogs in Debbie Weil's ezine. She was so excited that she had been able to set it up by herself -- no tech skills required. She sent me an email and I knew right then I better set up a blog too since Patsi may be asking me questions about it (the way she puts it is that I dove in and got a black belt in blogging and Typepad!). For both of us, it was an immediate realization that this was the perfect Internet tool for solo professionals and small businesses to get their business online and start building those critical relationships with potential customers. We became business blogging evangelists.

For the next few months we both immersed ourselves in all things blogs. By January 2005 we decided to offer a blogging teleclass to our network of clients and coaches. That evolved into a new blog (this one) to document what we were teaching which became an ebook on how to build a blog with Typepad and a private password protected tutorial blog for clients.

As a result of diving into the Blogosphere our businesses have changed dramatically. In fact it was a client who had called on us to makeover her blog that led to the birth of The Blog Squad and creating our extreme blog makeover program!

Patsi and I went from a client/vendor relationship to a business partnership offering ecommerce, newsletter and blogging services; we've produced many blogging products; we've conducted more than 50 interviews with blogging and business experts; we've been invited to conduct teleclasses on blogging for other organizations. Last month Debbie Weil, who was the catalyst for our blogging adventures, contacted us to share the podium with her at a book conference to talk about our Blog to Book Project. We've named her the official Blog Squad Fairy Godmother.

However, beyond the business success, it is the amazing people we've met and relationships that have developed that really have made a huge and positive impact in our lives, both personally and professionally. Blogging is a beautiful tool and an amazing way to make friends and build one's business. There's something about bloggers that they tend to develop a deeper sense of friendship. The excitment of meeting a blogger you've read or whose blog you've commented on, or whom you've given a referral to, is really gratifying. There's a level of intimacy that I've never experienced before (online) even though I've been working and marketing on the Internet since 1996.

I have to make specific mention of Paul Chaney of Radiant Marketing Group who has inspired me from the beginning of this blogging adventure and whom I've now had the pleasure to meet and hang out with when he was at a conference in Beverly Hills and when we all happened to be in Washington D.C. at the same time.

- Denise Wakeman
Founding Partner, The Blog Squad