For Jerry Kalish, blogging is a simple, more conversational way of explaining retirement.
“It has helped me communicate better. I am by this point in my career, a storyteller,” said Kalish, editor of The Retirement Plan Blog. “I deal with people for whom retirement plan concepts are complicated. When you talk about pension plans and actuary matters to people, their eyes sort of glaze over. You have to learn how to communicate it very quickly and very effectively so that they understand.”
Kalish, founder and president of National Benefit Services, Inc., has been blogging for 10 years. He uses his blog as an 
educational tool, and it has been more effective than managing a website.
“We’ve never had a website, and I realized back in 2004 that from our standpoint, it’s an electronic brochure,” he said. “We have all of the other accouterments in terms of secure portals and things like that, but a website was never really relevant because we’re in a service business. If you want to learn about what we do, how we do it and our culture, the blog is the best way of doing that.”
He picked the blog over a static website because Kalish wanted a platform that would allow him to build connections, instead of dryly listing his skills as a retirement planner and consultant.
“It has connected me with people who I would not otherwise be connected,” said Kalish, who uses the blog as a reason to reach out to other leaders and lawyers within his industry. “There’s not that many people in your industry with whom you have to connect and be a person of influence. [The blog] is a way of establishing bona fides, if you will, before someone connects with you.”
Kalish does note that he’s never had clients call him directly because of the blog.
“When I first went into it – and I think this is a mistake that people make – I’d thought I’d blog then get clients. It really doesn’t happen like that,” he explained.
Instead, the blog centers building relationships.
“The blog for us has been an efficient way to get our message out there and give people a sense of what we do, how we do business, how we would treat them and how we can add value by decommoditizing what many of us in the service industry has to do,” he said.”How do you communicate the way you do it while adding value to client relationships?”
He does this by writing less about numbers (how much a retirement consultant costs, how much someone should be saving) and more on using real-life examples – like how celebrities show how estate planning shouldn’t be done and how to manage 401k data.
Despite 10 years of blogging, Kalish has no intention of stopping and has updated his blog with a responsive design so keep up with mobile readers.
“It’s part of our continuing use of technology,” he said. “We’re a very small firm, but it gives us a very big presence out there in dealing with a higher-end client. The blog is something that we’ll continue to do, and it’s just part of who we are as a firm and part of my increased use of social media.”
Kalish advises that consultants and lawyers who want to be successful in blogging really take the time to understand the platform:
“My advice is to immerse yourself in social media – one of which is blogging. It’s something that you can’t have the office manager blogging for you three times a week, or going through Linkedin or Twitter. It’s something you’re going to have to do yourself. Eventually it will payoff based on what your objectives are.”