People are really a lot like sheep. Not in a necessarily bad way, like they really are like sheep. But they do prefer to travel in herds. That fact is pretty well represented throughout history. If you prefer a modern reference, I give you the millions of members of social sites.
Herds follow established leaders.You want to be one of those “leader things.”
Becoming an established leader, whether you are a politician, a blogger, or a bull elk, requires a long, hard fought battle. Let’s just say you are a bull elk and you discover one day that you don’t want to establish dominance in your herd the old fashioned way. You see the other males fighting, bloodying themselves, and all but the victor being cast out of the herd. That seems brutish to you and you wish to change the status quo.
One way you could go about gaining power and influence without the head butting, turf marking, and strutting is simply using the help of others to help you reach the top. You can approach other males in the herd and say:
“Look, you and I both know you’re not going to beat that guy over there in a straight up challenge. I, on the other hand, have a pretty good chance. But I have a better idea. Why don’t you and I team up to overthrow him. When we’ve taken him out, I will become the leader of the herd, and instead of me kicking you out, you can stay in the herd too. I’ll even give you a piece of the action.”
“We could do it without so much as a head butt and have what we both want without fuss.”
You’re now probably thinking one of two things:
1. “Jack has flipped his lid completely. I’m outta here!” (I get that a lot!)
Or,
2. “How in the world is this guy ever going to turn this into a lesson on making my blog successful?”
I get it. I am thinking both of those things right now myself!
What you want, presumably because you are reading this blog in the first place, is a popular, profitable blog. You want more traffic, good search engine rankings, and to be able to profit from your popularity. But you’re still convinced that you can do it with whatever you can dig up on free blogs.
Again, if you’ve been around to read the most prolific and basic stories of successful bloggers, you know the “age old” story of someone who started with nothing more than blogging software, hosting, and some ideas of their own. And today they are “web famous” and living the “blogging lifestyle.”
The other part of that story…
What isn’t told in these stories most of the time is that the vast majority of these success stories came at a high cost. Most of the now famous bloggers started blogging long ago, in a far away internet that looked nothing like the internet today. Their curve toward success is mostly flat until most recently in their blogging history.
We tend to forget or overlook that part because it is more fun to imagine a very short startup period followed by explosive popularity growth. (Because that’s what we want for ourselves.)
We tend to romantacize successful bloggers and would prefer to pretend their lives before fame and fortune were brief periods filled with introspection and tasty Raman Noodles.
The truth about becoming a thought leader in blogging…
I would be remiss if I were to, on one hand, tell you that blogging on my level and above is really cool and that you should do it, without also letting you know the whole truth. That is, if you plan to succeed at blogging simply by reading blogs like mine and any other free stuff you can find, you are in for a long, hard fight to the top.
That, until fairly recently, was the only choice one had to become a popular, profitable blogger.
Well that, or an insane amount of luck.
The good news is that blogging has been around long enough now that the steps to success have been studied, proven, and laid out for you. Successful bloggers are more willing to give up their secrets than anyone in most any other industry. But they never give the whole story up in a progressive step by step training system. They do it a post at a time and all out of order for someone just starting out to make sense of.
Now the thing that thousands of people have indicated they want so badly, a blog success plan from the beginning, is available. There is finally another choice outside of luck or years of trial and error.
And that choice is much like our bull elk made above. He wanted a better way to become the influential, dominant leader of his herd. A way that didn’t require quite as much work or risk. A way that cut the time from being a mere member of the herd to its leader considerably.
Blog Success is the only blogger training site on the web that, if it were simply packaged differently, could be considered an undergraduate through graduate program for universities. The nice ones with ivy growing all over them.
Just being a member won’t endow you with special blogging powers.
But being a member with the desire to truly achieve the blogger’s lifestyle (no boss, work from anywhere, no restrictions on how much you can make), can take you farther, faster than trying to read the tea leaves of free information found around the web.
And that includes what you read here. My blog is about pieces of a whole. I enjoy writing about new tricks, new sites and resources, and tactics to get something done better or faster as a blogger. And I have no pressure here to put it out in any order that would make sense to someone just starting out. That’s one of the many joys of owning and writing a successful blog. Expectations like that just aren’t there because it is, after all, a free thing to read.
If you want it really badly, and have heard yourself say you’d do just about anything to be job-free, financially sound, and future secure, you’ll be happy to know the barrier to entry to such wonderful things is really not that high. In fact, for the first 30 days, there’s no cost at all.
Now it’s simply a matter of choosing luck, the long haul, or training that can get you there a lot faster and more surely than either of the other choices.
Get help going where you want to go.
Thinking you can do it all by yourself is a fantasy that only comes true for a tiny group of the utlra-geeky and most stubborn of our lot. For everyone else, there’s Blog Success.
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Jack using a reference to your former career as the “Great Elk Whisperer”
made for a great story. Explaing the importance of using a team to establish your credibility and standing in the social media arena.
As a former aircraft refinisher I’d say “you painted a pretty picture”
That’s what keeps me coming back.
Gary McElwain
Gary McElwains last blog post..Weekly Dose of Sunday Comics
Some new bloggers believe that they can make thousands of dollars in less than a week. These people would post 10+ posts per day, and pray that they get lots of traffic. Then a week has gone by, and they get about 5 unique visitors for the entire week. Finally, they get frustrated with blogging so they end up “disappearing”.
Thanks for pointing out the hard work that successful bloggers have gone through.
blogaboutnothins last blog post..Submit Your Blog to Blog Directories
Jack,
You’re spot on with this post…blogging success, or success in any business, requires work (some struggle), and making some mistakes…to make the haul.
And, many think there is an “end point” where the money just keeps coming in, and they can quit working altogether…but the work simply changes, it never stops.
Jack,
This is something I need to be reminded of all the time.
Breaking from the herd requires courage, and the guts to do it. But any would-be leaders cannot succeed until and unless they begin leading.
That sometimes takes to strike out in new directions, generating new ideas, deciding not to comform to conventional idea.
With blogging, things are very transparent. The challenge is every word a blogger says holds him/her accountable. At the same time, that’s a huge opportunity to lead if done right.
Tak Hikichis last blog post..Orchestrated Persuasion
Joseph – true, the work does change. Some things get more fun, others are new things you don’t like any more than the old things that were a pain in your butt. Anything that doesn’t include sitting on the beach all day drinking margaritas is work to me, so I don’t make a big deal about what I have to do to stay out of the recession everyone else is in!
You’re right again Jack…
But we love our “work”, don’t we?
Wouldn’t rather be “making a living” any other way. Buying some land on a lake soon and building my dream house. Can’t do that from the comfort of a cubicle.