What Blogging Taught Me About My Own Business (And My Teaching Too)

You can spend years working at something you love but sometimes it takes explaining it to someone else to see it clearly for yourself. That’s something I learned twice: first when I started teaching woodturning, and then all over again when I started blogging about it.

Who knew it could be so difficult and yet so simple at the same time?

Photograph of a man in a blue shirt working on a laptop at a wooden desk with a plant, created for the blog post “What Blogging Taught Me About My Own Business (And My Teaching Too)”.

Both have a way of forcing you to slow down, look at your own habits, and really ask yourself: Do I know how to show this to someone who’s never seen it before? It’s not always easy but it changes how you see your work forever.

If you like this topic, you might also enjoy my post Why I’m Still Self-Employed — it covers some of the same themes from a slightly different angle.

Teaching From Scratch

When I first opened my workshop to students, I thought I’d be teaching them how to make simple shapes, basic ornaments, maybe eventually bowls from my extensive experience. Simple, right? But I quickly realised I wasn’t just teaching the how, I had to explain the why, the when, and the what if to people who’d never even held a lathe chisel in their life. This opened the door to a bit of panic early on during my first few classes. I realised I didn’t know this side of things at all and might have to wing it. It's one thing to do, it's quite another to explain how and why you did it.

I had to break things down into plain English: no jargon, no shortcuts. A simple question in between from a student could throw you off completely if you were unprepared.

What felt obvious to me after years of practice was brand new to someone else. And the best part of all this? Teaching forced me to slow down and really look at my own habits, the way I stand, the way I hold a tool, the tiny adjustments I make without thinking. The muscle memory vs the cerebral thoughts and actions. Explaining it all in this way actually made me better at doing it myself.

I had to develop these new skills on the fly and surprisingly, each class still teaches me something I didn't know or wasn't conscious of before. As a result, each class changes from the one before and improves. I'm still learning.

Blogging Is Teaching in Print

Blogging turned out to be the same thing in disguise. When I started writing posts about my business, it wasn’t because I loved writing — it was because I thought I should. I believed it would help my business — even if it hurt me to do it. Once I got going, I realised blogging is just another kind of teaching. You’re putting your knowledge into words for someone who knows nothing about what you do.

I wrote about how my classes work, what people can expect, what tools I use, even how I choose the wood. And every time I sat down to write one of those posts, I saw my own work from the outside in. What do people wonder about when they look at a bowl I’ve made? What makes a piece of Irish hardwood special to someone who’s never held it before? Blogging forced me to answer those questions before they were even asked. I have a related post on getting started blogging for your business if you'd like to check that out and find out about getting your own blog started.

It Made Me a Better Listener

One thing blogging did that surprised me was how it made me listen better. When you put something online, people may come back with questions or they don’t, and that also tells you something too.

I don't seem to get comments on my posts at all but I do have students who read them extensively and then I get a load of related questions on the day of Tuition. These questions were often the simplest things I’d taken for granted and they made me tweak my posts afterwards to include those extra answers. If you want to teach, you need to be able to think and adapt like this!

What kind of wood is best for beginners? How do you keep a tool sharp? How do you know when a tool is dull? Do I need special equipment to start? These questions turned into extra tips in my classes, or new blog posts on their own. It’s like having a conversation with people who aren’t in the workshop yet — but might be someday.

Like what you're reading? You can buy me a coffee — sure it’s cheaper than a pint!

The Perspective Shift

Before I started writing, my business felt straightforward: make things, sell things, teach people how to make things. Simple. But blogging made me see that the story behind what I do is just as important as the thing itself. Many people who read my posts will most likely never meet me or attend my workshop tuition because they live on the other side of the world. I'm ok with that, maybe I will help them — I'll most probably never know. I wish they'd buy me a coffee though lol.

People don’t just want a class, they want to know who’s teaching them, why I care about Irish hardwood, what makes my approach different from other woodturners. Writing about my process opened my eyes to that. I stopped seeing my classes as a transaction and started seeing them as part of a bigger story, one people want to feel included in.

Paths I Wouldn’t Have Found

I’ll be honest, blogging pushed me in directions I wouldn’t have found on my own. Writing about the basics made me realise there were whole topics I hadn’t covered in my classes yet. A single post about wood finishes or tools turned into new demo ideas. A story about sourcing local timber got people asking about the sustainability side of things — so that became part of how I talk about my work, too.

Blogging even changed how I market my business. Instead of just posting a picture of a bowl with a basic description, I now tell more of the story behind the wood, the tree it came from, the lesson I learned while making it. It turns out some people like that. And if I hadn’t been writing about it, I might never have known. It's never online that I find these things out but from visitors and students when they tell me that they've read many of my posts. A comment or two might have been nice. Ah well.

I eventually developed a taste for blogging and that's where this blog came from. I had to hold back on my main website from dealing with external topic but here on Blogger I'm free to deal with any topic I feel like bringing up. No dilution of content here to confuse Google, right?

Would I Recommend It?

Blogging isn’t magic, it won’t fix your business overnight, and some days it feels like talking to an empty room, especially when views are scant and comments are not added. But if you stick with it, it can teach you as much about your work as you teach your readers. It helps you see what you do from a beginner’s perspective. It makes you explain yourself clearly. And if you’re a small business owner, that’s gold.

Another hidden benefit? It keeps your brain sharp. You might be long in the tooth, but you can still exercise your noggin by blogging regularly to the point where you notice your website pages need a bit of work too. I have found that after writing several posts in a row that I am far more critical of my website page introductions, main content, meta titles & meta descriptions. Better writing means better Google understanding of your website and possibly more sales too. It's a win-win!

Closing

Teaching and blogging aren’t so different, really. Both make you slow down, break things down, and share what you know in a way that makes sense to someone else. Both remind you to look at your own work through fresh eyes and that’s something every craftsperson needs now and then.

If you’ve ever thought about writing about your business, I say go and do it. You might be surprised by what you learn about your business or even yourself. Go for it!

Thanks for reading,

David

About the Author

I’m David Condon, a blog writer and small business owner based in Tralee, Co. Kerry. After years of running my own woodcraft business and teaching woodturning, I started this blog to share ideas, experiences, and finds that go beyond the workshop. From everyday life in Ireland to the odd gadget or opinion piece, it’s all rooted in real, lived experience.

If you’d like to know more, you can follow the link in the Note from the Author section.

💬 Note from the Author
This is a brand new post, written specially for Blogger. If you’ve enjoyed it, feel free to explore some of the other posts here — or check out my main site, David Condon Woodcraft, where I focus more on woodturning and handmade pieces.
If you’d like to support the blog, you can do so via the Buy Me a Coffee button below. It helps keep this little side project going — thank you!

Search This Blog

David Condon Finds