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Productizing expertize in a skill set is more scalable than cranking out blog post every day, but blogging is still a great way to build a personal brand for list and lead generation. Thanks for reminding us that popularity doesn't pay the mortgage.
But about people job-ifying instead of business-ifying, or even having the guts to any of it, you're dead on. A lot of people need to hear something that cuts through the happy la-la crap out there.
To work on success we have to take risks. Sometimes we are so scared of the risks we never even get on the path to success.
With that said, I love how you mention how soft opportunities can distract us from what we really want. I have a friend who spend so much time on trying to get high on rankings but never thinking about building subscribers or better yet, having good content.
It is all what you focus on. We need to go after our dreams and make sure the steps we take are truly leading us there.
I must say I felt a flash of anger but said reasonably calmly:
"I put hours and hours into that blog each week. Can people reasonably expect that I'll do that just for fun instead of earning an income?"
Good business advice for those seriously committed to living an authentic, financially-free life.
Ain't that the truth. It's scary to have your greatest strength picked apart by the masses ... but it's also a great way to push yourself to make it stronger.
I've recently moved my blog from a complete hobby (where I just posted for a few people), to trying to create a growing hobby (where the number of readers jumps.) I have always seen the idea of moving it to a business model as a third stage which I would move to once I had a decent readership. Perhaps I have been wrong. Currently I have a couple of ways of generating income through the blog, but perhaps I need to move to new models sooner, rather than later.
What are your thoughts? Do you monitize your blog on day one, or do you build the readership a little and then add in ways of making money?
I do agree though about the soft opportunities sucking up blogger's time and delivering very little reward. I currently have no monetary plan for my blog, it's more about connection and entrenching my writer's voice and getting my fiction out there for some feedback while I slog away at my novel. So I have never gone for the Digg goal or focused on marketing because there would be no pay off for the time. What does it matter?
But I will admit that so many other people do this that sometimes I doubt myself and think should I read my stats and write to popularity? Should I hone a niche? Strategize for taking over social media? It's funny how being different to the crowd can make you doubt yourself.
And I have never heard that study before about low paid jobs versus high paid jobs, but it actually makes sense. In my marketing days in between backpacking trips I would sometimes do temp client service and admin for rent money or even a lower level marketing rle until a management position came up.
The thing was I like the creativity of marketing, but often I was happier doing the low paid jobs. Maybe because I didn't think of them as 'real'. They were a means to the end so I still felt free. When I'd get a career job I'd end up hating it and resent the money as a noose around my neck. I thought I was just weird, being a bit of a un-materialistic nomad and all. But maybe I'm not.
This is your best article for awhile. Thank you, and I'm glad things are working out well for you.
Kelly
That indeed maybe a myth, but this isn't: If You Do What You Love, Happiness Will Follow.
Who cares about money as long as you have your basic needs met if you're happy?
Coming from somebody that earned well over $100k and was miserable to earning less than $20k the following year and being happy, I know where I'd rather be.
People chase money because they think it will make them happy, whereas if they just 'chased' happiness in the first place money becomes way less important. And your job NEVER equals your identity and anybody that thinks it does, is in big trouble.
PS My business doesn't run without me, I guess I must have a job. It's a nice one though ;-)
now - how do I do that exactly???
But I don't agree.
My sense is that passion is a great indicator for talent. So, if you follow your passion, you're likely to develop a strong natural gift...which usually leads to success.
But I will chime in with Michael and Dave to say that content marketing has been the best way to score clients online since well before blogging. My guess is that some bloggers get too caught up in blogging for other bloggers instead of content marketing to their prospects.
The real question is, do you want clients? I jumped out of that rat race three years ago, and I ain't going back. :-)
Regarding that one point, I can elaborate. I personally don
When you don
I completely and 100% agree that content marketing (or information marketing) is THE BEST way to get clients. And no :-), I don
Yeah, I think there are a lot of people who, for some reason, don't want bloggers to make money. And most of us never will if we're just selling page views (as Brian Clark has said, I think).
The whole thing I'm going to be teaching in my Gateway Blogging program is what Brian mentioned: blogging for the right people, with the right content. Most people get this wrong, but it's not blogging itself that is to blame. A blog is the shallow lip of the sales funnel.
However, I am going to move into information products to give me more flexibility with my time. Your breakdown of the money was dead on.
Looking forward to the rest of this series. :)
I've never had the courage to admit to myself that this was in fact a myth. Noone wants to admit it because it sounds so ideologically correct. Thank you for being brave enough to admit it. Thanks also for explaining how you think it might really work.
Greg
I think people want the rewards of having their own business, in particular, a home business, the rewards include freedom and lifestyle, but they forget the hard work and the skills that are required to run a business. The skills I am speaking of are skills in marketing, sells, and communication. Then of course their is the other skill, which you mention, making and managing money.
Thank you for sharing...
This definitely a myth in my case because I love to teach but the money is still not following. I think you like you said, luck sometimes need to be involved. Even professional athelets or artist don't quite make it because while some are very talented, they haven't been lucky enough.
"Note: if you want to become an a-list blogger, talk to other a-list bloggers, not your peers."
Is this an open invitation that I can correspond with you as my mentor? :)
Like Kelly said, this is one of your best post by far. It's even more special because I didn't expect a post like this comming from you since it carries a different theme. You've really shown your great range with this post.
Now, what that means...I don't know. I'm going to explore a hybrid of the two. Maybe it means working for a contract hut that hires me out to different places, but serves as my home base. Maybe it means telecommuting and reporting to a team/supervisor, so I have the structure (and the regular paycheck) but still have flexibility in my daily schedule. We'll see.
Blogging has been great fun and I've been enjoying the hell out of it, but as you so eloquently said, it's far more fun and I'm much more effective when I don't have to earn money with it.
Thanks so much for the clarification. You covered a lot of ground in this pos, and it was all worth the walkthrough.
Buckets of blessings,
Crystal
Right on Clay!
This shows what my experience hasn't been yet but when I do have that experience it will (taking an educated guess here) be a pretty close match to what you must have had...
or you could not have blogged about it so impeccably.
"The E Myth" was a disappointment for me because it's basically a manual for franchising and creating flawless turnkey operations. "We all" (probably) know Macdonalds stopped selling burgers back in '54 and totally deep-ended into the fledgling "sizzle" market a la the 50's Disneyfication-of-the-World business model (justcan'tcount 'em anymore- billions sold daily). "We all" now (probably) know Walt smoked up but "we all" are not too sure if all this materialistic output "we-all're" staggering under wasn't possibly crack pipe generated from the git go (not to finger Walt as a dope fiend or dis Mickey here).
Now psych ops is a good strat to employ in wars and I suppose since nowadays business is war in both the way it - daily drives men apart & campaigns to poorhouse the "enemy" while it historically has initiated most of the real "hot" ones (with the unending help of religion of course).
Clay, products isn't what I ever planned or even faintly imagined I ever wanted to be doing but in this 2008 postmodernburger "business climate" that "weall're" all glob-ally sweating swearshop thru now thanks to Reganomics (talk 'bout glowball warming! - still can't find no 1lb. Haspel suit to wash & wear in all this 100% pysch-ops humidity b.s. going on night and day!).
Having "all" endlessly been thru "that" - idiot proofing of a business stuff, everywhere you go now - thing, should be a strong clue for folks (who aren't dead yet) on how "The E Myth" is "mything". Though to be fair here (& not just slightly less then savagely critical then I initially intended) - "other people" can "E Myth" on automatic (w/o getting out of their cars) now thru mindlessly duplicating, copying, mimicing, playacting, plain sheer idea-thefting, not bainstorning etc. etc. without having to put out for the initial sex/creativity thing. Sort of a money without the sex thing where you can peacefully indulge without the painful pillow talk aftermath fiasco.
In other words, business & a pleasureable life/career/jobber (the kind that should give one's life a tiny little shred of joy in an otherwise hopeless situation) aren't a happily cohabitable couple - ever. I've never heard anyone say that full time work is full time bliss or that once married - lived happily ever after...
Yet these are the myths we live by & delude & gorge ourselves on while our "real" lives peter out before it's far too late to "get one" (without having to pay for it, so exwhorbanetly*). So I'd op-positionally defy the herd-instink here yet again & wisdomgripe: better to face up to the uttermost in total disappointments and accept gratefully all the bitterest of soul destroying rejections, welcoming them from all everywhere always - and not to ever, ever give in to not getting our own way (we never do for very long anyway though we never stop trying to). Now that would be a really worthwhile thing to do and it would really "work"................. but the cost of getting into something that fresh well...
But don't worry Clay! I'm not gonna do it, I'm just a lazy ass blogger (who's gotta go to bed now cause I gotta go to work in a couple hours instead of midddle o'the night bloggin like a damn fool!)
j-
*check spelling could be wrong
I'm pondering this over the weekend... Great points.
Vicky H
I do know how to write, though, and could definitely create a decent info-product. Can people seriously make money $7 at a time for a .pdf of some sought-after info?
How exciting!
This post is strong but I would be careful how you use the word, "freedom."
Where people make mistakes is thinking that "do what you love" brings freedom. It's because social conventions like to use that word. Freedom is liberating and romantic but it is also deceptive...
Let's say an aspiring blogger becomes financially successful and decides to make blogging their single source of income. The blogger is "free" or liberated from their 9-5 job but now they MUST BLOG or their source of income diminishes or disappears. Is this "freedom?" Will the "passion" for blogging stay the same when it is chained by financial demands?
While it is virtuous to "do what you love," the perspective changes when you MUST do it for an end other than the enjoyment of doing it...
I suggest you "do what you love" only if you are willing to do it for free (notice that "for free" connotes "no money"). If money follows, then great. If not, nothing should change. Once money becomes attached to a passion, then the passion is bound by the money, and we can only be free if we are free from the desire for the money...
"Freedom is not procured by a full enjoyment of what is desired, but by controlling the desire." ~ Epictetus
"You have freedom when you're easy in your harness." ~ Robert Frost
"We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it." ~ William Faulkner
Thanks for provoking thought...
Kent (The Financial Philosopher)
Plenty of people love doing their work, but not building their business - and that's where the problems arise, I think. Often, dealing with the business aspect sucks the joy right out of self-employment.
If we do what we love, and also love building a business around it - THEN the money will follow.
Blessings,
Andrea
I actually came here via a Twitter referral since I am writing my book (Escape from Cubicle Nation) and was asking for examples of common concerns about "do what you love, the money will follow."
Your assessment is spot on, and definitely mirrors my experience.
The only thing I would say, in accordance with some other commenters, is that blogging can be a great way to get service biz -- with the caveat that it has to be a part of an overall marketing strategy, and, as Brian was saying, linked to content that your target audience finds exceptionally useful.
I get all my coaching and workshop clients through my blog (in fact, I don't do any other marketing), and almost without exception, by the time they reach out to me in a "sales prospect" context, they are already sold because they feel like they know me from my writing. It is very cool that way -- saves a lot of haggling, and it makes me feel really great about the time I do spend blogging (which is admittedly a lot).
I look forward to reading more, and sharing more with my readers.
All the best,
-Pam
It is also true that instead of adding effort it is sometimes better to change type of actions you take and increase your time efficiency.
The most pressing question for me has been how many compromises I'm willing to make in my blog's content. My natural writing voice and method of conveying content don't usually lend themselves to titles like "Top ___ Ways You Can Get [Money/Productivity] Today" and "[Celebrity]'s Tips for [Succeeding At Some Activity]." Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with people who write that way, but it's never been a natural fit for me. I've struggled with whether that's a sacrifice I'll need to make for business purposes. My current answer is no.
Bert and John Jacobs from Life Is Good didn't have an easy time doing it-- but their slogan is still "Do what you like, like what you do" and they bring in $100m a year.
I want a free 15 minute consultation.
This is a great article. I also think it's important people realize the risks they are taking when they "business-fy" their passion. It's easy to spend endless hours on our passion because we love doing it. But when you rely on your passion as your bread and butter it loses a bit of the "passion" luster.
For example, I love to perform. I love being on stage more than anything, and I get to keep that passion of mine alive by taking acting classes, collaborating with my friends on film projects, doing a community play... It's this part of me no one can touch. I know that once I decide to take my acting as the my sole income source a lot of other emotions will come into play. I will stress about getting the next gig, take on projects/roles that don't inspire me because they pay well, have others tell me I should take my acting here... and the list goes on and on
I've decided to continue pursuing my passion as just my passion and turning my alternate passion (marketing) into a viable income source.
It's different for everyone and sometimes it's really a matter of timing.
I am also loving the conversation here, especially reading Pam Slim's experience, along with other bloggers who provide services.
I'm off to organize a better strategy for doing what I love. :)
Thanks again!
Let rise from their ashes. In a positive, business sense! :)