This week I sit down thinking about many steps of my businesses. Usually when I do this I just try to think at what I can offer to others.
A typical conversation with myself would go like this:
me: ok, what can I offer to people using my service?
my inner self: oh, you could just give them some free reports.
me: sounds cool.
my inner self: but you shouldn’t tell them the whole story, otherwise how are you going to make any money?
me: uh.
Can you see a problem with this?
The one I see is that I’m self posing a physical limit to the amount of value I can deliver. By thinking at how I could eventually make some money one day, I’m damaging the whole product today.
I spent quite a bit of time thinking about this fact this week. You see, it makes sense to plan your business or website with the intent of making money. I’m the first to say that launching something without knowing upfront how to make it profitable is not a wise idea. But that should not pose a limit to what you can offer.
Take this blog for example. I could either offer my best content available for everyone, or keep something for myself just in case I’ll write an ebook one day.
I tell you upfront that I choose the first option, and here’s why. If I want to build a successful blog, I have to provide something useful for my readers, so I have to focus on provide value for them and not for me.
The point is that it’s not the reader or customer that has to find what you can offer, but rather it’s you who has the obligation to give them what they are looking for.
So how do you make money?
A question still remains. If you give everything away for free, how do you make any money? There are several ways to make money once you have something that’s really valuable for others people, so I wont really talk much about it.
Keep in mind that the fact that you do your best in your field doesn’t mean you can’t offer a premium or tailored services. In the case of blogging, a specific ebook on a particular subject may be wort both for you and for those readers who are really interested in it. If you have a web application, it makes sense to offer a subscription, as you probably have to face some costs about hosting and development.
But don’t let that stop you from making the most awesome product or service you can.
Don’t pose a limit to the amount of value you can deliver.
The next time you’ll have something to do, ask yourself: “What can I do to offer the best?”
If you do this, and you always do your best, awesome things will happen.
P.S. If you are like me, you want to incorporate the previous question in your life by inserting it in your habits system.
Posted on December 12 2009
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Hey Oscar!
Another way to restate this is, “How can I offer the most value possible?” That gets us about thinking how valuable our material truly is to our readers. If we create high value content, as you said, we’ll end up making money with relative ease.
.-= Brett – DareToExpress.com´s last blog ..Your Most Powerful Tool For Personal Growth: A Notebook =-.
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Hey Brett, that’s another great question!
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Oscar,
I’ve been working on my own transition from blogger to business owner and value is the one thing I asked myself. My focus was more than anything on how I can I deliver the most value to the people I know. Once you ask yourself that question you start to get really creative about ideas that can help people and even have faith in what people will pay for. I think in the first 6 months of blogging you really are going through a learning process of how these online businesses operate. It’s all about having multiple income streams.
.-= Srinivas Rao´s last blog ..Q1 Marketing Plan For the Skool of Life =-.
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Hey Srinivas, indeed I’m learning a lot in this firsts months of blogging. Thanks for your comment.
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Hi Oscar.
I like how you approach your thoughts here. We certainly have to focus on where we can provide the most. When we don’t think about this, we can be providing value, but might be missing out on the big item, like creating a musical composition, inventing a new object, creating a how-to manual, setting up a specific group that meets regularly, or so on.
We can get our results the quickest when we find the item that is suited for us to work on and suited for our audience.
I like that you brought this up.
.-= Armen Shirvanian´s last blog ..Sites To Mention 12-10-2009 Plus Podcast Plus Map =-.
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Thanks for your feedback Armen, I appreciate it.
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I don’t think there is a right or wrong here. It’s just a choice as to which philosophy you adopt. You look at JohnChow.com. John Chow monetizes every aspect of his blog and people are very happy to pay because it offers value to them.
It’s up to you if you want to make your blog a full-time business or not. If so, you’re going to have to sell something more than what’s in your posts. I have come to this conclusion.
What do others think?
.-= Gordie Rogers´s last blog ..Why Deadlines Are For Deadbeats. =-.
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I was not saying that is bad to monetize, just that whatever you do, you should try to give your best. I doubt that if John would not do his best he would be so successful.
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This is like the same scenario I see with some expert bloggers. I don’t think they are sincere in giving us tips otherwise they will have competition and lose earning money.
.-= Rian´s last blog ..Gift Suggestion – Syma Radio Control Helicopter =-.
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Yes that’s one problem with some popular bloggers.
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I disagree with you there Rian. I personally am not a fan of the competitive mindset and I think most successful people have to keep that mindset to in order to stay ahead of the game. I’m a coach and a comedian and I don’t feel like I have to compete with other coaches or comedians. I even give away some of my business ideas on the blog because I they don’t fit with my goals yet the ideas are there so I’ll happily give them away as I’m confident that I’ll just come up with more ideas.
.-= Amit Sodha – The Power Of Choice´s last blog ..4 Years And 6 Key Lessons From Blogging =-.
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Yes, I guess at the end of the day it comes down to,
what will you give away for free, to make sure they come for more?
If what you give away for free is of good quality and useful, people will want more and they will be willing to pay for it.
.-= Persha
DumpedDays´s last blog ..38 Ways To Keep Busy After A Break Up =.reply to this comment
Persha, that’s exactly what I wanted to say. Thanks for your comment :)
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There are numerous ways to make money online and it certainly doesn’t have to be directly through a blog. I think it’s very wise to continually strive to offer the best content possible and not ‘hold back’ because you want to make an e-book in the future.
I do kind of agree with Gordie above. You may not necessarily have to monetize right away, but I think the end goal after awhile is to try to make some money otherwise blogging is a hobby, not a business (not anything wrong with this though).
.-= Nate´s last blog ..Are You Sleepwalking Through Life? =-.
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I didn’t me you don’t have to make money through blogging, on the contrary if you do you are more motivated to continue it! But that shouldn’t penalize your free value ;)
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My bad Oscar! I didn’t mean to imply that’s what you meant. I was more making it as a general comment rather than implying you’re saying that’s the only way to make money. Sorry if that caused confusion!! I actually agree with what you’re saying in the post.
.-= Nate´s last blog ..Review: The Unconventional Guide to Working for Yourself =-.
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Hey Nate, no need to worry, I got what you were saying ;)
Sensational questions Oscar. It’s important to always do your best, no matter what you do. Sometimes you’ll feel great and your best will be scintilating, other times not so hot. But it’s a trait of all successful people.
.-= Ryan´s last blog ..My Quotes: 12/11/09 =-.
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I think there are a lot of different business models online and none are right or wrong, really, just different. But if you are planning on doing something without providing any value or planning to trick people into buying things you won’t last long, so why bother? I think you have a great mindset in trying to provide the most value possible. You will do great if you just follow that in whatever you choose to do.
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Thanks Mary for your comment and support :)
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Hey Oscar,
This is the age old question of the blog really, traffic generation/great blog/making money. Give away your great content and build a following, at what point do you release an information product in an effort to monetize?
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Andrew, I think we can do both ;)
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What I’ve found from running my online blog and business for the last five years is this … content is endless. In five years, I have yet to run out of value and content to offer.
Certainly, I give tons of value in my newsletters and blog posts. Obviously, bigger concepts and detailed processes need a more extensive format – which is where information products come in.
I think lots of bloggers get into scarcity when it comes to content. They want to hold on to the “good” stuff and make sure to monetize it… as if we’re not all infinitely, abundantly tapped into vast amounts of the “good” stuff! I think this basic scarcity-attitude is what leads to the “difficulty” in making money blogging!
Blessings,
Andrea
.-= Andrea|Empowered Soul´s last blog ..Manifesting Money Effortlessly =-.
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Hey Andrea, thanks for your comment! There’s not limit when you do your best!
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Hi Oscar, this is great advice! I think when we start imposing monetary restrictions around our goals as you point out we do, in fact, end up limiting ourselves in what we create. Like many great inventors, authors, and bloggers, it seems that people, though they may have the hope and intent of being profitable one day, start out just by doing their best. And from that, great things are born. Thanks for sharing this wise insight here.
Cheers,
Miche :)
.-= Miche – Serenity Hacker´s last blog ..Is Passion Necessary for a Meaningful Life? =-.
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Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by valeriemondesir: Just Do Your Best http://bit.ly/6cyAzF via @oscardelben…
Also, are you looking for a get rich quick idea or are you investing for the long term.
You are a young, talented kid. You will make money in the future, just invest in your own abilities now. If money comes along in the short term too then all the better.
.-= JONNY | thelifething.com´s last blog ..A Happiness Fundamental: The Social Spiderweb =-.
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Wow, if everyone did their best we’d be all amazed at what we are capable of! “Just” doing my best is my life dream :)
.-= Zoli Cserei´s last blog ..Welcome to Simply Will Do, my dearest readers! =-.
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.-= Henrico Ellis´s last blog ..How to create a website tonight =-.
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