One big part of monetizing your blog effectively is falling in love with the process of helping people and outsourcing the money-making part through the process of surrender.
I know you may not want to hear this. Why? I read a question on Quora a few minutes ago.
My fellow blogger asked about the monetizing potential of a site geared toward how to build websites. I quickly knew why she asked the money question: she has no idea about all the work, learning, service, and energy that goes into blogging so tries instead to quell her doubts about how much she’d make in a year, blogging-wise.
Knowing you can make 6 figures or millions gives bloggers with NO vision a reason to work hard. Bad idea. Imagine how weak your passion, desire and focus needs to be if you doubt yourself SO MUCH that you need to ask another human being:
“Hey, can I actually make any money with this thing?”
Think about this for just a second. Imagine beginning any venture in life being so ignorant, lost in doubt, and saddled by the fear that your main motivator is asking a stranger 1 week, 1 month, or 6 months down the road if you can make money with the gig. How do you ever expect to succeed if you are this unprepared, doubtful, and void of clarity?
Bloggers who ask the money question fear they cannot make money online. Drilling deeper, most have zero interest in learning how to blog from pros, branding online effectively, and working for thousands of hours before going pro. We need to see people and questions asked as people and questions asked, really are.
Why ask the money question? Stop asking how much money to expect through blogging after 1 month, 3 months or 1 year. Nobody knows how much you will make because every human works differently, commits differently and has a different money mindset. Some have a poverty mindset. For example, someone asking how much they’d make money-wise per year asks from a poverty conscious mindset because no abundant, rich-thinking, person, would set their potential and/or expectations based on the opinion of a stranger.
People asking Quora questions are strangers asking other strangers to answer important, pressing questions. Do you believe a prosperity conscious, abundant-minded person asks important questions of strangers? Nope. Prosperity conscious bloggers invest money in blogging courses, eBooks, and coaching, to get the best advice from the best bloggers.
Getting the best advice from the best bloggers gives you confidence and clarity in making important blogging decisions. Picture the lady on Quora who asked the money question hiring me to coach her or investing in one of my courses or eBooks. Immediately, she gets the 411 on blogging, from finding your most prospering driver, to following the fundamentals, to learning the right questions to ask in order to go full time, down the road.
Rich-thinking, wealth conscious people do these things. Poverty conscious folks – being filled with doubt – ask strangers how much money to expect to make, after a year. Life genuinely follows the quality of your questions. Better ask good ones, to succeed online. Asking good questions demands you get clear, blog for freeing drivers and pick trusted mentors to follow for guidance.
Get clear on your driver. I never asked a single blogger how much money I’d make blogging – expectations-wise – for my first year because freedom, and fun, not money, drove me. Of course I enjoy receiving money but this plays a small role in what I do.
Imagine if money drove me? I would have quit days and weeks into my blogging career because I made zero dollars many weeks and even months into my blogging career. Zero dollars means no motivator. No motivator means quitting. Do you see why most bloggers blog as persistently as a little puppy chasing a butterfly, being pulled from here to there, and everywhere, anywhere except away from his previous path?
Stop chasing bright, shiny objects. Stop chasing money. Follow the fundamentals; create helpful content generously and build genuine friendships with fellow bloggers. Lay the foundation for a successful blogging campaign by keeping things simple in a largely frenzied, chaotic blogging niche.
Expect to be light years ahead of bloggers focused on getting an answer to the money question.
Success is in service, not in asking about numbers on a screen.
2 comments
Awesome post Ryan! Lots of valuable nuggets of truth to benefit those seeking to earn money as a blogger and online. Helping them to let go of unrealistic expectations early on. All my paid work for clients who have hired me happened slowly by showing up and generously helping others with all I’ve learned. 🙂
That learning takes time and I don’t believe it ever stops. Over time we just get better and better. I too highly recommend bloggers take courses and learn all they can. This is an investment that I credit to my growth as a blogger. Have a great day friend!
The income doesn’t just drop out of the sky while we limit ourselves by poverty thinking and fear. Multiple streams of income do happen over time and not quickly. The effort does produce results as we both know.
Hi Ryan,
Super thoughts. I would only work on blogging if all others are making good money out of this. No; it doesn’t work like that. And thinking about the outcome even before you haven’t started with this: sounds fanciful.
And that is where most of the bloggers quit because they don’t see it happening with their blog, what’s exactly happening with other successful blogs. They only saw great profits from other success stories. They didn’t notice their hard work, passion, and consistency throughout the years.
Every new blogger should read your advice before setting any money mindset and actually offer value through their writing.
I just loved this post.
Shyam