Bloggers are killing the web. Because of them, it is no longer easy to set up a site, write a sales page, and make a killing because of this stupid trend of giving information away and helping people for free.
Now everyone wants everything for free, and with the economy the way it is, some even require everything to be free or simply miss out.
All these damned bloggers are destroying business as usual with their best writing, best tactics, and insider info out in plain daylight for everyone to see, consume, and apply. It’s getting so a guy with a sales letter and a dream of unattainable riches can’t make a living anymore.
The problem with the wild assumptions, half-truths, and flat out misconceptions above is that a lot of people believe them. A lot of people, if they had a blog to rant on, would go public with these feelings. There’s deep resentment in certain circles that this new “free” web is somehow pulling back the curtain and revealing the greed, scams, over-priced and under-performing products and services.
Well, on that note, yes, bloggers are doing that. In fact, many revel in the process of undoing all the sleight of hand tactics that unscrupulous marketers have perfected in the last 10 years.
- But are bloggers and social networking enthusiasts who share “too much” really ruining a person’s chance to make a living online?
- And who started this whole “deliver a great product with respect and a whole lot of value by giving most of your stuff away for free?”
First question first…
People are indeed expecting more free, quality information to solve problems and to increase their understanding of processes and issues of all kinds in most markets. But at the end of the day, nothing has changed from the old days of ethical business practices and this new dawn of giving incredible value and building relationships with prospects before asking them to become customers.
In the old days, way before the internet, businesses that thrived gave away all they could. It was just harder back then because they didn’t have the ability to write a well-researched, extremely helpful and desireable post on a blog. They gave out key chains, bumper stickers, free samples, and had customer appreciation sales.
They gave everything they were able to give. But everything they gave, including providing great customer service, cost them hard cash. Having more reps on hand to help customers costs money. And if your only method of providing extra value and great service involves hard cash decisions, there is less to go around relative to what we can easily and affordably give away today on the web.
It costs relatively nothing to post a link, write a killer article, or do a video and post it on YouTube or your blog. It costs very little to research and test a marketing tactic. It’s just time, a little bandwidth, a little hosting, and a few other low-cost incidentals to be in business on the web.
Really, the only high-value thing we as publishers can charge for with no guilt whatsoever is saving people time. Yet there are thousands who are flat out pissed off that they can no longer sell stuff that used to sell really well, but had little true value, because the jig is up.
Nothing has really changed except that it is far harder to scam people these days. The web is growing up. Business is tougher because it is being reset to normal. Or as normal as it can be on the web.
So, who started all this mess?
It takes more work today to make a sale than it did 5 years ago because people can no longer easily get away with selling information that is free elsewhere. The massive growth in blogs, with a competition between them to see who can give away the best tactics to garner larger readership, has ended the “golden age” of selling cheap information at premium prices.
Because of the free sharing of information that used to cost money to get, prospects now know how hard it is to do some things on the web. They don’t know everything. Not by a long shot. But the average surfer is far more adept at sniffing out real value than ever before.
The culprit is not the blogosphere.
In fact, there is no culprit at all. We’re simply, finally resetting back to normal, ethical business practices. We’re sharing information that should be shared and charging for things that are not easy to come by. Things that save people time, solve real problems, and provide serious value are worthy premiums.
If you want to know how to write better copy, you can go a long way for free by reading CopyBlogger and Michel Fortin. But if you want professional insights that will take you further down the road to expert copywriting, you will have to pay for the information at some point. And it will be worth every penny. And you will have no regrets.
The most valuable information is information that took years to become expert at and great expense to put together in a way that helps people learn and apply it. All the rest is or should be free.
This realization only affects the margins
People who are trying to get by with haphazard ebooks, DVDs, newsletters, and valueless services mocked up to look valuable are the ones who are greatly affected by all this.
Anyone who knows an inkling about business and how to move surfers from being prospects to customers through quality service, free information, and finally a monstrously valuable product or service, will have no trouble making a great living online.
The bar has been raised 100 times the level it was even a couple years ago. If you are struggling with sales, don’t blame bloggers for giving away what you’re trying to sell. Don’t blame Google for creating a better, free version of software or services that you are trying to sell people.
Business as usual is now the business of giving extreme value to build a loyal customer base. Nothing less will win the day. The old days of surfing the web, ripping off a couple of experts’ ideas, and compiling a “product” to sell people are long gone. People who are still trying to do that are like ghosts who don’t know their dead and that it’s time to move on.
It’s not easy to monetize a business largely built around giving away valuable information. But to think you have a choice in the matter is the definition of denial.
The biggest example I can give you is Google.
They give everything away for free. Stuff that is incredibly valuable that competitors are trying to charge an arm and a leg for. You’d think Google wouldn’t be the biggest, most profitable web-based company on the planet if you didn’t already know how they are monetizing their free stuff. You’d think the competitors who charge for the same products would be the rich, fat cats and Google would be destitute.
You’d think people like Seth Godin and Michael Arrington would be paupers with all the cool information they provide for free. Yet their names are some of the first that come to mind when I think of profitable, successful online business owners.
The people who understand what should be free and what should cost money in order to succeed online are behind some of the the most successful online properties ever to exist. From one-(wo)man operations to multi-billion dollar corporations, the formula is largely the same.
It might seem like you have to work harder to succeed online today, but remember that you are sitting in a comfortable chair moving nothing but your fingers. You have all the power to do just as great as the person you most admire as an example of success, fortune, and happiness.
I can think of thousands of things that would be worse than staying up late to finish a blog post that will end up bringing you popularity, links, accolades and new prospects for your paid stuff. Really, at the end of the day, it’s ones decision to go to bed and be satisfied with “average” who always loses. This has been true for far longer than the internet has been around.
There was never anything usual about the business of something for nothing. There is no real period on the web to hark back to where that actually existed except for stories told on sales letters.
Bring the quality, creativity, and value that your market demands. Do it at any cost to achieve the success you desire. That’s what’s required. And there isn’t any choice in the matter. It’s truly always been this way.
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