FBO: Why Should Millions View Your Blog?
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[For “FBO: How to Be a Great Salesperson or Blogger,” click here.]
This part of the “FBO” or “For Bloggers Only” series is actually NOT JUST for bloggers, but FOR ALL entrepreneurs, employees, and nonprofit organizations seeking to raise funds to support their goals.
If you want millions of viewers, readers, customers, clients, members, etc., then you’ll want to follow along as we go through, one by one, the rainmaking secrets provided by Jeffrey J. Fox in his book How to Become a Rainmaker: The Rules for Getting and Keeping Customers and Clients
ASK YOURSELF: “WHY SHOULD MILLIONS OF PEOPLE VIEW YOUR BLOG?”
A. WHY MILLIONS OF VIEWERS?
Let me start by reminding everyone that we’re talking about a money-making blog, not just a hobby blog. Obviously, if you want to blog for a living, the more viewers you have, the more revenue you’ll earn from your blog. Secret No. 6 of the 14 Secrets to Become a Great Blogger is “Show your readers how much money they can save/make with your content.” So, for those of you who don’t know how much money blogging can make for you if you do it right, let me draw your attention to the personal development blogger who seems to have single-handedly started the current and growing personal development blogging bonanza—the one, the only—Steve Pavlina! His world-famous blog, StevePavlina.com, currently attracts up to 2.5 million viewers each month and has earned him up to $40,000 per month! He began his blog in October 2004. As you can see for yourself if you visit it, it’s a pretty basic design and layout. Nothing fancy or flashy, really. And, he typically doesn’t even have any photos or images to illustrate his posts. If there’s ever been a blog to prove the truth of the blogging mantra “content is king,” Pavlina’s is it!
I take inspiration from his blog most of all because he’s a self-made, successful, self-help guru. Sort of like Tony Robbins. No formal education or training in coaching, counseling, therapy, teaching, or even writing. What has held me back for decades from actually pursuing a serious writing career was the daunting and self-limiting belief (obviously an incorrect one) that no one would be interested in anything I had to say unless I had the right credentials to back me up. Well, I knew about Tony Robbins. But, like so many rags-to-riches success stories I had known about before, I put Robbins in the “exceptions” category. Robbins is a commanding figure and an eloquent speaker. Besides, he found a strong mentor relatively early in his adult life who taught him the ropes of personal development speaking and the rest is history. So, I preferred to attribute his success mostly to luck. Then, I found out about Pavlina, who, more or less, did it all on his own. There was no one for him to follow. He blazed his own trail! And, as far as I know, he’s not exceptionally tall nor was especially eloquent as a speaker when he first began his blog—though he reports he’s improved quite a bit thanks to his hard work with Toastmasters.
With the phenomenal self-made success of Pavlina as inspiration, I finally took the leap of faith and began my own writing/blogging career. First, I wrote Cuckoo in Your Nest!, a self-help ebook about how to recognize and get away from users, then I quit my 10-year-plus legal career to start this blog in Fall 2007. I’ve been teaching myself how to blog every since. Thus far, the growing number of viewers and level of income from this blog parallels Pavlina’s own early success stories, so I have every reason to believe I’m on the right track! Ever the enthusiastic teacher, I always want to share whatever valuable knowledge I have as soon as I’ve learned it to everyone who might benefit from it, so I’m already blogging about how to blog!
A. FOX’S TIP NO. 1 FOR ALL RAINMAKERS
Fox’s tip No. 1 for how to become a great salesperson, or a rainmaker, is: “Always answer the question, ‘Why Should This Customer Do Business with Us?’” He writes:
Never make a sales call on a customer unless you can answer the question, “Why should this customer do business with our company, with me?” The answer must be a benefit to the customer. The answer must fit the customer’s agenda, not yours. The customer should do business with you because you will make him feel good, or you will solve his problem, or both. There must be a business benefit and a personal benefit—often interlinked—for the customer.
For example, a business benefit might be getting a new product to market sooner, thereby generating millions of dollars in new sales. The personal benefit might be a job promotion for the customer.
If the benefit makes the customer feel good, then, for example, the effective furnace or natural gas salesperson’s answer might be “The customer will get warm, cozy rooms.” (The ineffective furnace salesperson thinks the customer is buying BTUs.) If your product solves a problem, then the answer to the question should be phrased in dollars and cents. For example, assume a software program enables a hotel to more accurately capture and bill any computer usage of hotel phone lines. If that’s the case, the reason the customer should do business with you is because your product will generate $2 per room per night in incremental revenue.
The Rainmaker answers the question, “Why should the customer do business with us?” by calculating what economic benefits the product will give the customer and by calculating the consequences to the customer of not going with the recommended product. The Rainmaker determines how the customer is benefited directly and personally.
The Rainmaker puts himself or herself in the customer’s shoes and answers the question, “If I were the customer, how would this product benefit me?”
B. APPLYING FOX’S TIP NO. 1 TO BLOGGERS
If you want to become an A-list blogger, apply Fox’s Tip No. 1 above to your blogging business by asking yourself, “Why should millions of people view my blog?” In fact, never publish a single post without asking: “Will this post (1) make them happy, (2) offer them something useful to help improve their lives, or, (3) best case scenario, make them happy and give them something useful to walk away with?”
Would you keep coming back to view your blog? If yes, why? If not, why not? If you don’t know, no offense, but, that’s probably a strong “no” for everyone else.
Find out what the A-list bloggers are doing and (1) do what they’re doing, (2) do it better, or (3) do something else entirely that you just know will be at least as much in demand or greater by the current internet public. Study the successful ones who have gone before you and follow in their footsteps. Don’t reinvent the wheel! Along the way, if you find yourself repeating, “I could do this! I could really do this!,” that’s the green light you’ve been waiting for! If you can say, “I could do it even better!” or “I could do something slightly different, and the internet public will love it!,” then it’s time to buy a domain name and start fleshing out that idea of yours till you’re crystal clear about it in your head—clear enough to prepare enough material for at least 6 months of posts. Remember, content is king! So, make it your best stuff. Then, after you’ve done that and reviewed all your proposed posts, ask yourself if you still love the idea of doing that for 3 - 5 years for your blog to potentially earn $40,000 per month. Of course, you might get lucky and become a huge success in just one year, like Leo Babauta of ZenHabits.net, but I’m presenting the most conservative picture just in case. Even Pavlina didn’t succeed that quickly! He earned $150 per month in his first year, then $6,000 per month in his second year, and, finally, $40,000 per month starting in his third year. And, both Babauta and Pavlina got book deals based on the work they did on their blogs!
CONCLUSION
Going through this series of rainmaking tips by Jeffrey J. Fox is making me take my blogging responsibilities even more seriously than ever before. I hope you’ll all continue along with me as we review each of his secrets for attracting and keeping customers, clients, members, volunteers, donors, or viewers, whether for the old-fashioned brick-and-mortar businesses or non-profit organizations, or for the ever-expanding, exciting new world of internet businesses, such as A-list blogging!
If you would like your own copy of Rainmaker someday, here’s what it looks like
[For “FBO: Treat Your Viewers Like Your Best Friends,” click here.]
[For entire “FBO” or “For Bloggers Only” series, click here.]
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August 31st, 2008 at 8:35 am
This made me think of what im tryin to do with my blog. I know now when i post to make sure that its a good topic and why would people want to come back.
So thank you for this great post.
August 31st, 2008 at 8:44 am
Hi Josten! Thank you for your comment and positive feedback! Those are exactly the questions you should be asking yourself to increase your traffic. Best of luck!