You’ll make more money selling yourself than trying to directly sell products. Mix in YouTube and eBay and you have a perfect recipe for “Personal Profits”.
What I don’t like about other blogs
One of the things that I hate about other blogs is that they don’t always tell you the ways they “make money online”. I think of the web as an appreticeship of web marketing (yes Laney – I stole that phrase from you!). I mean come on – I’m going to figure your “secrets” out sooner or later anyway, if not from you than from someone else. I’m always more fascinated by people that describe how they get things done than those that plastically recite the same old garbage stories. I used to be one of those “news parrots” that posted something as soon as I read about it on the A-List blogger’s sites. Now, I kind of prefer to write strictly about thing I myself do. A good for instance was today everyone was writing about the new google “ad manager” that’s come out. It’s big news, and I did sign up for it. But I’m still on the waiting list, and rather than be “pete and repeat” about the news, I’m just going to wait and post about it when I’m actually able to login and use it. Then I’ll show you experiences with it and how I’m using it. I always value reviews like that instead of “headline” type news.
Online Marketing is Selling Yourself
I just made a post on one of my other blogs just a few minutes ago, and I’ve talked about many different ways to monetize your blog before – but I realized as soon as I posted it that it would be easy to describe how I did it and why. If you’ve been reading my blog awhile you know that I own quite a few web sites, and I monetize them with adsense, eBay, and amazon – amongst other affiliate programs. I’ve mentioned that I’m in a classic rock cover band, I’m writing a series on Build a Niche Store, and I have quite a few web sites. What you don’t know is that I have quite a bit of sales experience. All kinds of sales too, like retail sales, direct sales, insurance sales, telemarketing, and more. I apply that sales knowledge on the web whenever I get the chance, because let’s face it – online marketing is just another form of sales. Any experience you have in any other line of sales can be applied online. I’ve been applying my previous sales experience online for 13 years now.
The easiest sale you can make is by “selling someone” without them even knowing it. I’ve always been quite good at sales, and I’ve sold shoes, food, vacuum cleaners, hurricane survival kits, insurance, lawn care, and lots of other things. When you’re “selling someone” the first thing you have to do is gain their trust. You do this by starting a conversation with them that has nothing to do with the sale itself. Instead of talking about something stupid like the weather you key in on something about them and make it personal. It could be the car they drive, something they wear that tells you about where they work, something that clues you in about their family, and the conversation that ensues builds their trust. The best salesman do this without you even having a clue, and while they’re putting you at ease and gaining your trust they are “selling you” and you don’t even know it. But the main part of this process is the fact that the salesman is “selling himself” to you. No one likes to feel like they’ve “been taken for a ride”. That’s why the salesman wants you to feel like he truly cares about you, and that he’s going to “help you”, and he’s an honest person.
Blogging is Selling Yourself
When you blog, you are that salesman. It’s your job to be engaging and write as if you were having a normal conversation with the reader in person. Use “sales techniques” but don’t talk like a salesman. This should be pretty easy if you use your own experiences, make a “story” out of how you do things, and blog about things you already know about. I’ve read lots of posts in webmaster forums where people are trying to figure out what “niche” is for them. You already have a “niche”, and it’s all the things in life you love and know about already. Nearly all those can be turned into some kind of blog or web site. When you truly know what you are talking about it shows, and the “game” of selling yourself is more natural. This is the vein where you will make the most sales of all.
Turn Your Blog Posts to Conversational Sales
Now that I’ve taught you a slight bit about sales, let me show you how to put these sales skills into action in your blog. I’m sure you’re already blogging if you’re reading this. All you have to do is find something to conversationally sell in each post. Another key to sales is making sure that you have lots of sales “pitches”. For instance, when I sold insurance “door to door” years ago we always tried to make sure that we gave 20 “sales pitches” per day. You were guaranteed to sell something each and every day with that many pitches. Somedays more, and sometimes less – but you always sold. You can’t complain about not making enough money online if you haven’t been consisently “trying to sell”. If you tried to sell something each and every day, that would be 30 “pitches” per month. You would have to make a sale or two that month. But the online world is so unlike traditional sales, because when I sold insurance if I failed to sell on one “pitch”, I still had 19 more to do that day. The next day, 20 more, and the next day….over time I was only as good as my last sale. Online, once you make a post or “pitch” it remains online selling itself for years. If you posted a pitch every day for a year, you would eventually reach a “critical mass” point with over 300 pitches online selling 24 hours a day!
Ok – I’ve explained why constant posts or “pitching” is important, let me show you (finally!) the one I just finished earlier. I play guitar in a band, so it would figure that I have a blog about guitars. Tonight I posted about Blues guitarist Gary Moore on my blog “Guitar Review”. I didn’t have anything to post about today but I heard one of my favorite songs from Gary Moore on the radio on the way home this afternoon. I did a quick search on YouTube – and found a live performance of it. I took 10 minutes to find 3 other videos about Gary Moore. It was very easy to write a paragraph of “original content” before each video about how I remembered it and when I first heard that song, in addition to why I like Gary Moore as a guitar player. At the end of the post I slipped in some eBay auctions with hard to find Gary Moore merchandise. I could have used Amazon or any affiliate for this. This was a quick 15 minute post, but I accomplished a lot:
I used good indexable keywords I used free engaging content from YouTube I wrote about my personal experiences in a conversational style I monetized the post with relevant items from eBay as part of the converstation
It may look really simple, and it was a quick post – but there is a lot of thought behind it based on other successful posts I’ve made. How do I know this technique works? Well I’m glad you asked, because I have a good example. I wrote a post back in December about a personalized guitar strap in the same way, and I make sales from that page each and every month. I should – currently that post is listed on the first page in google for those keywords. I also sold a guitar from my Agile Guitar page netting more than $25 in commissions for just that one sale.
You could have a blog about just about anything and relate items to it at the end without “cheapening your blog”. Blog about it like a value added service, other things readers may like, talk about bargains you’ve bought in the process, etc. Like I said, I’ve used all kinds of affilliate programs to do this in posts, but eBay has consistently worked for me best and paid the most (over time). It’s probably because I have the ability to put eBay auctions live in my posts with a special plugin that I use. Every time you visit a page or post I’ve done this on, the latest auctions show from eBay RSS feeds, so visitors always see the latest deals. I’ve had some people bookmark my post pages and come back again and again because the eBay auctions are live. If you’re interested in placing eBay auctions in your WordPress posts (like me), you might want to read my third most popular post of all time Make Money as an eBay Affiliate in WordPress.
If you have questions or good ways you monetize your posts – please comment now below and share with everyone! If you liked this post, please stumble or digg it so even more people can read it and benefit!
Great post. The thing with the internet is that there are so many ways to make money with….Where does someone start? I think that the problem in most cases out there is someone starts doing something, then the leave that, then start with something else…and so on. It is important to focus ones efforts on one thing, optimize, continue doing what works and keep doing the same thing over and over. I like posts that get me thinking, thanks
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I may have to develop a new approach to my blog. I’ve been very successful with my side hustles when I was younger. I should definitely be selling myself more with ideas that I used in the past to generate additional income. Thanks for the tips!
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Great post, J.T. If people looked at making money online like this, they would never run out of options.
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I may do another blog based on this post alone. You’re enthusiasm inspires me.
Great Post. I am an eBay power seller and user of the eBay affiliate program. The eBay program is one of the best affiliate programs around, and with recent announced changes could become even better.
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The topics of selling yourself are great thoughts and I say that because basically any type of sales are about relationships. Most people do not see themselves as a salesperson but the bottom line is EVERY one of us sell ourselves EVERY SINGLE DAY! When we go to the store, the bank, to our friends and our family and so forth. How do you come across to others? Most people care about what others think about them and for that reason people present themselves in various ways to others and you are selling yourself in that way to that person. It’s human nature. THe bottom line is about relationships. Online, offline, direct marketing, what have you – if someone trusts you, they will more than likely buy from you and they trust you because you have sold yourself to them.
Gaining trust is the most important issue when it comes to sales, once you have it, gates are open. Well, using YouTube as an engaging tool, and eBay links… that’s the best thing I’ve heard in a while. Thank you!
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