![Why You Should STOP Trying to Make Money Online [And What to Do Instead]](https://i0.wp.com/beafreelanceblogger.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/stop-making-money-online.png?resize=640%2C300&ssl=1)
You’ve heard the news: YOU CAN MAKE MONEY BLOGGING.
You can make a living as a freelance writer. Content is king, and the demand will only increase.
Really? You say.
I can blog. I can write all day. I’m a great writer. People will flock to my writing from far and wide.
But coming up to the gate, you might realize you have some lingering doubts about this whole idea.
For example… how will you sell it? By the inch? By the yard? Do people just want “content” to patch in to their websites to satisfy Google that day? Is writing like sewing, one line after another? What will you write about, for heaven’s sake? How will you know this is “good” writing? When will you know that it’s worth a living wage?
The doubts are daunting. And haunting.
But what if you stopped trying to make money blogging?
What if you stopped worrying about making a living as a freelance writer?
What if you solved problems for a living instead?
What if you declared this:
I am in service to the livelihoods of others, providing the one thing they can not survive without online. I solve their problems by confronting their customers’ problems in an engaging way. I am a hero; and my clients are heroes to their clients; and we all change lives every day.
The attitude shift from profit to service can change your life — and it can change other people’s lives. It’s also a lot more fun. That, in a nutshell, is the Prosperity Model.
“How can I help you?”
During the Great Depression, great motivational minds all agreed on one point: If you could find a problem to solve, or an answer to an issue; or a clearly needed service; you’d never be without a job. And that means anyone who’s interested in making a living has a pretty bright future.
Prosperity comes from establishing a connection to people you can help, and who will trust you with their problems again and again.
Prosperity means making a name for yourself as a trusted ally to others who are also building prosperity.
A blogging client doesn’t pay a blogger just because he has the money to spend. What motivates a paying client is his problem: he needs timely, engaging copy that will build a relationship with his customers.
He’s motivated to solve his problem, plain and simple. He’s willing to pay for a solution.
Why? So he can create relationships with his clients, and solve their problems.
Prosperity is the result of cultivating relationships. It’s the result of building trust. And best of all, it stars you, the brilliant, quick-witted hero who is an asset to many livelihoods. If you start asking how you can help, instead of what you can charge for your efforts, an entire molehill’s worth of self-doubt can magically disappear.
In a prosperity model, all boats rise
Your service makes it possible for your client to provide his service.
When you provide service and solve a problem, you’re not just collecting your pay. You’re also contributing to your client’s prosperity.
Both of you profit, both boats rise. This is the famed “win-win” of a million sales seminars. It’s advice that works. This strategy creates relationships, inspires gratitude, and manifests as loaves and fishes.
It brings repeat customers and glowing testimonials — not from people who “decided to give you a chance,” but from people who received the ideal answer to their prayers when they found your services.
With a small attitude shift, you’re no longer casting around wondering who will pay you to write, worried about being good enough, and concerned you can’t make a living. Committing to the prosperity of others can effect a small miracle in your business when your boat rises, too.
Start building your own prosperity
You’ll *feel* your attitude change once you take the Prosperity Model for a trial run. It should also improve your mood, since effectively it’s an instant promotion.
Remember, everybody wins when you promote yourself from blogger-for-pay to contributor and problem-solver. Here’s how to do it.
- Look at blogging opportunities in a new way. Instead of asking yourself what you want to write about, or what you’re qualified to say, ask yourself how you can help a client reach his objectives. When you’re pitching, ask yourself — or ask your client outright — what would be most helpful to them and their audience. Not only are you connecting with your client, you’re also presenting them with what they really want.
- Experiment with a different approach to how you look for clients. Bloggers are instructed to write about what interests them, and often look at paying markets to try to create a tailored pitch to earn the dollars. Instead, try looking for outlets, products and services you believe in.
- Think about making time to help other bloggers — even for ten minutes a day, or one day a week. In Eastern practices this is called “Seva” and is believed to be instrumental in alleviating karma. Practically, though, it can free up your mind and get you thinking about your business from a new perspective.
- Instead of seeing clients as employers, see them as people struggling to survive on their own boats. Get on that boat and imagine the ways you can improve their business with your skills. Be the co-captain, solving problems from their perspective. Don’t just pitch; pitch in. [Oh, you like that? Tweet it!]
Create prosperity. Decide your job is to make boats rise, instead of just trying to get paid.
Join your clients in their great adventure, and you won’t ever have to “make money” again.
Thank you so much for this perspective! So much easier to keep loyal clients when you seek to help!
Glad you enjoyed it, Lori! I agree, it’s a better way to build relationships. 🙂
Thanks Allison.
It came in when I’m planning my first book. I saw the need. I know the need. And I’m creating the solution. Because I’ve experienced it.
Regards.
This is very true. I especially find that when I focus on just giving that little bit of extra to my clients, it really goes a long way towards them appreciating what I do.
They are incredibly thankful, even when I explain that it was something I did just to help them out. It makes for clients who are thrilled to have you – and unwilling to let you go! They feel you’re on their side, and because of that, they want you to stay there 🙂
Right, Rachel! Being appreciated is a nice reward. If you get a “thank you” from a client, you know you’re doing something right.
I have spent time adding value this for new / ecisting clients, as well as other writers and entrepreneurs, for a while. The results are mixed and interesting. I think it has to come from a place of ‘no expectation’ and I’ve found that it gives you a new lens with which to view your clients. Some are thankful, some reciprocate, and some take advantage. What’s more important than any of that is that you stamp ‘integrity’ on your business – both for yourself and for others.
In my experience, the ones that take advantage are the ones who aren’t paying enough, i.e. I didn’t ask them to pay what the work was really worth. In particular, people who pay a “heftier” fee are less of a pain in the neck.
Also, I didn’t tell them beforehand what I was going to do, I just did it. The ones who took advantage soon found themselves getting only what their contract detailed and not an iota more…sad but necessary.
Derek I agree with this. You might have mixed results but you might also in the long run have more repeat clients. Keeping boundaries is another blog post. 🙂
Hi Alison,
True. I think the other long term benefit is that you set out your stall and build a reputation as someone who has integrity. Let’s face it, who wouldn’t choose working partners like that?!
Hi again Derek 🙂 I started on Elance where there is a constant complaint about getting cut out by low bids. It’s true, that does happen. But once the clients looking for cheap content are pacified, a lot of others really do need help that goes beyond just shooting them an article. That’s where the good relationships are, and coincidentally, over time, that can lead to the most profitable situations.
Amen, Alison. I love the idea of asking blogs, magazines, etc. what they need. I have never thought of coming out and asking (probably because I am pretty introverted) . I do use their search button and see what they don’t have. I love the idea that all boats rise…my parents would say if you scratch your clients back they’ll scratch yours. I love the saying “don’t pitch, pitch in”–would make a great tattoo maybe.
Hey Cherese:
One other thing you could think about would be to pitch to the publication’s mission as well as their immediate needs. For example an eco-friendly parenting magazine editor might like to hear that you intend your content to support the ideals that appeal to that target market. That way even if your pitch idea isn’t exactly what they want, you might be able to start a conversation from there about what they do want.
A conversation can be friendlier than a pitch in any event. 🙂
I agree a conversation goes a long way. I took your advice and just landed two articles. Thank you so much!
Wonderful! Congratulations Cherese!
I love this approach. Nicely done, Alison!
Thanks Alicia!
Totally agree with you.
Alison,
I like how you positioned this post. In negotiations, win-win is found by figuring out what both parties truly want. Not just “to make money” and “to get something cheap.” You make this point excellently.
:). Thanks Brett. I liked your post too. Your point about being the “best match for the blog” is kind of a related idea, come to think of it 🙂
Alison
Great post. When it comes to you ability to write, it’s always best to approach it from a prosperity model. Businesses need quality content in a timely manner and they will look to you to help them.
Thanks for this view!
:). Glad you liked it, Elna!
Thank you for this post. It is timely for me and is helping me to rethink the position of copywriter. It has sounded like being such a saleswoman, for things I am not particularly interested in, besides. However, I have been in sales all my life, at bookstores, driving tourists around in a horse drawn carriage, and as a lavender farmer, charming people to buy my product at a farmer’s market. I can do this. I already did with a piece at Penny Hoarder, by suggesting to include a whole contingent of people otherwise not related to the sale. Thanks for opening my eyes to seeing it a different way. Good job!
Honestly sales copy is not really my thing unless I like the product, or at least the company. But if I *do* like it, I’m a completely different writer, totally inspired. That’s why it’s good to find things you believe in; and if not then *people* you want to help and support.
Congrats on your piece at Penny Hoarder — I think that’s a blog with a great mission. 🙂
Helping boats rise… …wow, that’s a nice way of putting it, Alison! So far it’s the best perspective of looking at the blogger – client relationship I encountered this month. Thanks for reminding me about this principle. The feel good vibe it creates makes everything looks much easier. 🙂
Some people see it a different way, I know. They think in a sort of a video game mentality where everybody else gets shot down and they emerge the “winner.” But I think that’s really more for video games. No competition, sure — but also no customers, lol.
Alison,
This is simply brilliant:
“Think about making time to help other bloggers — even for ten minutes a day, or one day a week. In Eastern practices this is called “Seva” and is believed to be instrumental in alleviating karma. Practically, though, it can free up your mind and get you thinking about your business from a new perspective.”
What goes around comes around.
Thanks for this wonderful perspective.
Rohi thanks for your comment. The additional advantage to doing Seva is that serving others is a way to get your thoughts moving with the spirit of generosity. That spirit can illuminate everything we do, including our own business!
I strongly believe that when we help others succeed we succeed. That’s not always easy to live by, especially when people take advantage. I set boundaries so that I keep my passion of helping people without getting jaded by the people who take advantage.
It’s absolutely true that people need boundaries, Elke. But like I said, that’s another post!
Nice post, Alison! When we think about ourselves as problem solvers, we do something that’s really essential to success in this business. We shift the focus from ourselves (Help! I need work) to our potential client (I can help him/her!). It also puts us in a mindset of generosity, professionalism and confidence. We have lots to offer our clients when we simply reframe our approach.
I agree Marianne. These ideas also really help with one’s personal sense of *mission*. Since freelancers are so independent and usually spend a lot of time online and at home, or in a coffeeshop, the sense of connection helps me feel like I am actually *doing* something for someone instead of just scrambling for cash. One is inclusive and rewarding, and the other is pretty depressing in my experience.
LOVE this, Alison. The “hero” part is exactly what I’m hoping to teach my blog’s readers, too.
Alison, this has been on my mind a lot lately and I feel like you voiced my thoughts exactly! In addition to feeling like you’re really doing something and not just scrambling for cash, I think genuinely helping your clients shifts your mindset from “selling” to being a teammate. I was terrified at first of doing consults, but now I come to the table with one goal in mind: bringing tremendous value to my clients. I stopped feeling like I’m “taking their money” and started feeling like a valuable asset. That’s huge as a writer, don’t you agree? It’s so easy to really undervalue what we do.
Hey Allison, thanks so much for this great post. It’s SO easy to get preoccupied with making money that we forget it’s only a byproduct of something else: delivering the best possible service to our clients. Changing my way of thinking to focus on what I’m delivering (instead of a quid pro quo, what am I getting out of this mentality) has had a huge impact on my business! – Corey
Yeah…you know, anyone can buy a bunch of articles. The mindset of getting the most copy for the cheapest price is the same one that gets writers out there scouring the internet for “paying gigs” without qualification. Of course you should get paid for your work but winning a hundred dollars from a client you’ll never talk to again, to me, is *nearly* the same waste of time that writing for free would be. To me it’s chasing the wrong outcome. We want rewarding work, and pursuing anything less is sort of a waste of the only truly finite resource we have. We can always make more money, but no one can make more time. 🙂
Hi Alison –
It’s funny but when you let go of trying to make money and allow your personality to shine through your writing – readership actually grows. I think a blogger still needs a plan for monetization but that goal should be more high level and not be the focus of every post.
I agree Neena! Thanks for articulating that.
REALLY great post! Not only are you helping others, you’re helping yourself in a pretty awesome way. Love the approach and mindset of this. Well done!
This is simply the ‘perspective that leads to notable success’. To truly prosper, one must think in terms of selfless service and not just cold hard cash.
Thank you so much Alison.
#CERTIFIED Absolutely good read.