Why Writing About Your Business Can Help You Innovate
For many business owners, the thought of taking even 30 minutes out of their day to write about their business might seem mind-boggling. Why? They’ll ask. Or, what’s the point? What will I gain?
And the truth is, well, a lot. Just simply writing about one’s own business — not necessarily just blogging — can help you better understand aspects of your business that had, beforehand, maybe been mystifying to you, or that you simply didn’t know how to improve, or that you didn’t understand — why!? — that weren’t working. In essence, the act of simply writing about your business on a consistent basis can help you open up your creativity and possibly help you to view your industry, your customers and maybe even your business in an entirely new light.
It’ll Teach You Where You Fall Short
Typically, there is some aspect of any business that isn’t necessarily what owners would consider as polished as they would want it to be. Although, certainly, any business owner could admit that maybe everything isn’t as polished as they would want it to be, but that wouldn’t really be pointing out specific problems so much as it would be a huge cop-out. 
Writing about your business — whether it be personal entries, blogging, or even posts through social media — can help you discover, specifically, where your business might fall short. And certainly, you might already know where your business falls short, but maybe you’ve been struggling to figure out how to solve that issue. Writing about your business might help you solve issues with your company, and can possibly even get you to improve those aspects of your business.
It Can Help You Better Understand Your Customers
Obviously, without customers, any business is essentially dead in the water. Having a target of customers is ultimately what drives businesses to work hard and innovate in order to better appeal to those customers.
Social media is a great tool for crowd sourcing general opinions on new products, ideas or directions that your business is intending on going. But what about your own thoughts and ideas? How do you expect customers to act? Knowing your own expectations, writing them down, and figuring out why they work or why they don’t is a simple way for you to get a better sense of what motivates your customers, and what doesn’t. Once you discover that, be sure to write it down. Trust me, it’s important.
It Can Help You Think
Your mind can only sort through so many things before your entire body gets bogged down by the entire weight of your brain. That’s why, in a lot of ways, writing about your business can not only help you get those thoughts out of your head (and onto paper), but can also aid you when it comes time to sort out those ideas. By looking at ideas on paper, and connecting them to other ideas that you’ve had, you won’t only be taking a lot of weight off of your own shoulders, but you’ll also be helping your business innovate.
Obviously, being a business owner and an entrepreneur is difficult and undoubtedly stressful. But writing can help you breathe. By getting your ideas out on paper, it can help you see your business in a new light, and possibly convince you to approach your own business objectives in a new light.
As Oliver Cromwell once wrotes, “he who stops being better stops being good.” In sum, writing helps you to constantly be better, because it keeps your mind sharp.