(Reading time: 3 – 4 minutes)
How are you doing this Sunday morning? I’m doing pretty well. In fact, I’m feeling inspired from some email conversation with a regular reader.
Inspired enough to tell you that…
I am now qualified to say, with authority:
It’s easy and I’m going to teach you the secret.
But first, let’s talk about you.
How did you get here, right here, reading Website In A Weekend, instead of doing whatever the hell it is you were supposed to be doing?
‘Cause I bet you dollars to donuts reading Website In A Weekend wasn’t in your plan for world domination. (Certainly wasn’t in mine.)
Is it same as it ever was?
Did it just flow on by?
Why, WHY?
I can’t answer that question for you, that’s your business.
I can answer it for me. And I will, but not now.
Anyway, we’re here now, so let’s be about it.
Ultimately, selling crap on the internet stuff is butt-simple.
Here’s the secret:
- Make it.
- Sell it.
That’s it. There’s nothing more to it.
I’m not being disingenuous. I’m not being flippant. Ask anyone who sells junk on the internet, and I firmly believe they are going to all say the same thing: if you are going to sell, sell.
You may “fail” miserably in your goal for instant riches.
I certainly have. I can’t even sell more than a couple of $1 whitepapers in a week. (Which is why I raised the price to $2.)
Hard to live on that.
But…
I didn’t tell you how to get rich. I don’t know how to get rich. (I have it on good authority that when you do get rich, it happens pretty fast. We’ll see.)
The point is: I am selling.
Which means I know:
- How to take a product from concept to completion.
- How to set up and operate simple shopping cart software.
- How to market via blog, email and word of mouth.
These are non-trivial tasks. At some point I may outsource all of them, but I can’t do that yet.
Can you do these tasks? Why not?
Obviously, what I don’t know how to do is:
- Find a market of buyers.
- Find out what I can provide that the market wants to buy.
Maybe I did it backwards, but I did what I knew how to do. You could do that too. I’ll figure out 4 & 5 soon; working on it now.
Listen, I had no plans to ever sell anything in my life. Yet, I find myself at a turning point in life where the opinions of parents, teachers, friends, strangers, just about everyone… don’t matter very much. What matters most is the opinion of my customers, because they’re paying my rent.
Here’s my challenge: go make something and sell it.
Just do it.
Put your head down, paw the ground and snort, and charge into this. Run it down. Charge it. Trample it. Gore it. Do not give up. You can do this.
If you like, tell us what you have in mind. We’ll help you out.
I am here to rock the party, make friends, make money, and make history. There’s a lot that goes into that. Glad to learn what you have to teach, Doolin.
.-= Carlos Velez´s last blog ..Sunday Short: A Definition, A New Experiment/Series On Conscious Me =-.
I’m on it man.
Make something and sell it, I like it. Like you said though, “What matters most is the opinion of my customers,” so make something they would want! You can’t simplify it more than that.
.-= Patrick Toerner´s last blog ..$1,000 a Month From a Minisite =-.
It’s keeping your eye on the ball.
That’s the hard part.
You can sell anything unless you have something to sell, I’m here becuse you are one of the most influential websites on the net at the moment, I for one need you here !
Top work
.-= TheInfoPreneur´s last blog ..You Still Really Don’t Believe You Can Do It Do You? =-.
Thanks James, but I can’t help but look over my shoulder at the “influential” part… “Who, me? Piffle.”
well i guess it would be knowing what to sell, blogging is one thing but products are another. Making money online would be nice
If you don’t know what to sell, sell something.
Sell anything.
Just sell!
There is an internal belief set you have to destroy and rebuild. The more you sell, the more you sell.
I’m not sure how I got here, I do know that I was lurking for quite a while before I started commenting regularly though. Ah well. Stayed because ya’ll are awesome. ;)
As for selling; there’s no hugely magical secret to it. I just haven’t done it yet. Mostly because I’m stalling while I finish making what I’m making (which may take a while yet) but you know, getting there. Toying with the idea of making wallpapers in the meantime for desktops and so on, that could be fun.
Ideally I want to get to the point where the money I make online is taking care of some of the ‘extra’ bills that crop up (phone, subscriptions, etc) then go from there. Preferably by summer =P Have plans for two decently sized ebooks out by then and a couple other supplementary products.
.-= Heather´s last blog ..The Mayans: Login Part 1 =-.
Heather, I suspect you are going to amazingly productive once you get in your groove.
Meantime, just put something up! Even if you move zero copies, you still have to master the tool chain.
It’s the ‘getting in my groove’ that’s causing problems at the moment; we’ll see though. :)
Could start with backgrounds, those are easy enough to set up and I’ve a few things I could tweak to get things started.
.-= Heather´s last blog ..The Mayans: Login Part 1 =-.
How I got here today, literally, was via Twitter. I saw a tweet and followed it over here because I love reading your stuff.
But as to the more important question of stuff to sell, I’ve just had a brain wave (which is why I’ve jumped back over here to comment via the mac instead of just reading as I did this morning via my phone) which I wanted to get some eyes and ears onto.
I’ve just been playing with Jing, a totally awesome free tool for screen captures and audio. It works soooo effortlessly. Being a non-profit, we use open source stuff almost exclusively so I have lots of little secrets stuffed in my pockets that I’ve found over the last couple of years of slowly building the site.
So here’s my idea: I thought about putting a product together aimed at other non-profits/small business and individuals to help them fast forward through the trial and error I’ve gone through.
When I first built Give A Brick it was without WordPress. Boy, was that site weak! I know that these days almost everyone knows about WordPress but I cite that merely as an example of one free tool.
I’d need to give it some thought but there’s loads of stuff we use as an alternative to paid stuff which could be popped into a pretty little ebook. I had also thought about doing a premium package with some quick start videos too.
This idea has literally just popped into my head in the last 5 minutes so I’ve given it little thought other than what I’ve told you so let me know what I’m missing. Where are the flaws to this fabulously wonderful idea?
Cheers,
El
.-= Eleanor Edwards´s last blog ..Dr Egg’s Hair Shaving Adventure =-.
Here’s the flaws:
1. Announcing you’re “thinking about it” instead of announcing it.
2. Paying the $15 to get the Pro version of Jing and recording your first screencast in mp4 and uploading it to your youtube.com account.
Haha… Am I talking trash… maybe, maybe not:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AYs4hvm9NY
This is my tragic flaw:
1. Announcing you’re “thinking about it” instead of announcing it
So watch for announcements…and products.
Oh hell. Did I just do it again?
“Oops, I…”
Not gonna lie. A guy once had that song dedicated to me in a club. It is my theme song.
Anyways. I really am working feverishly on stuff to sell. It is useful, will be gorgeous, and sprinkled liberally with burlesque photos and drawings, mostly of me. So it had better sell.
I might, in fact, be borrowing from pop tarts: sprinkle your stuff with boobaliciousness girl power. I’ve heard that makes millions.
I will not have a nervous breakdown and shave my head, however. That’s just way too much work.
Yeah, I’m feeling for Hazel. She’s a train wreck, knows she’s a train wreck, and can’t find a way off the train even though she’s looking hard.
I send her happy thoughts on a regular basis. Wish I could afford her stuff.
Kelly, you’re hilarious.
Eleanor, that is brilliant. Do it. That is a good thing that will return good to you, I’m sure. You’re a clever lady, and that’s a clever idea that has potential for growth.
Companies with free and premium products may be willing to donate money, products, discounts or giveaways in exchange for good press.
You may find yourself in a big social circle of non-profit organizers with leverage in numbers.
Can you tell I think it’s a good idea?
.-= Carlos Velez´s last blog ..Sunday Short: A Definition, A New Experiment/Series On Conscious Me =-.
Thanks Carlos :)
Given our dear friend Dave’s bucket of cold water, I’m all in a dither now. I’ll know more later tonight when I find out if my experiment has worked ;)
I really appreciate your encouragement though. Thank you :) As for being a clever lady, glad I have you fooled ;)
Heh… push pull push pull. Hunker down and just do this thing right now. Carpe diem. Speed of Implementation and all that crap. But it works. And it’s the Great Divide between Those Who Do, and Those Who Do Not.
Julie wants to get into doing burlesque photo shoots, she (and I) love that stuff. I’m sure your product will be amazing and will dominate.
.-= Carlos Velez´s last blog ..The Pre-Writing Challenge Wrap Up: It’s Only Just Begun =-.
Ok, while I’m waiting for the video to load, I need to clarify something about flaw #1. Is the flaw the fact that I’m thinking about it when, going by your all guns blazing stance today, I should just be positive and say that this is what I am doing?
Or, is the flaw the fact that I’ve put this potentially lucrative idea out there for some mean cheat to steal? Cos if it’s the latter, surely you’ve not got THAT huge a following on here? ;)
As for #2, you’re right, I haven’t got as far as uploading a video to YouTube via Jing. I (wrongly it seems!) assumed that that would be the easy bit ;) I’ve done a short how-to for The Giving Machine to encourage folk in the UK to use it. I haven’t put it up yet. Do I need to be afraid?!
Well, there really aren’t any “flaws” per se… but you gave me the opportunity to boot your butt to the next level, and I couldn’t resist.
So, yeah, the “flaw” is thinking/announcing/maybedoing rather than thinking/gittenerdun/announcing.
When you execute fast, you don’t have to worry about idea theft.
I have a whole series of articles on Jing on There Is No Box, where I very publicly gnash my teeth. Here’s one: http://tinobox.com/wordpress/the-first-6-seconds/techsmith-did-it-again-with-jing-pro-sort-of/
Poke around in the tags you should be able to find others.
OK, point taken. Stand back, ahem …
“To all whom it may concern,
Please let it be known that I, Eleanor Edwards, on behalf of the fabulously wonderful UK registered charity Give A Brick, to formally announce that the previously mentioned idea is in fact our product.
It is called Boot Strap Branding and the sales page will be found at http://www.BootStrapBranding.com next week.
Thank you for your time.”
;) Check it out btw, you’ll see it really is ours (as of about 3 minutes ago ;))
Unreal score on that domain name. Gotta play me some Floyd.
“Everybody else is just green”
You mean I have been snookered! Website in a Weekend is not the path to world domination! Guess I will go back to Facebook.
.-= Ralph´s last blog ..Saturday Bonus =-.
We’ll be here to warmly welcome you when you return!
Dave,
Very inspiring post — you go.
In fact, this post reminded me of a scene in the movie Apocalypto where Jaguar Paw (the protagonist) finds his ‘mojo’ and screams to those hunting him, “I am Jaguar Paw…This is my forest. And my sons will hunt it with their sons after I am gone.”
Keep up the great work. I have no doubt in my mind that you will arrive where you’re aiming to land.
.-= Lori (JaneBeNimble)´s last blog ..Front Porch: It Should Have Been Fine =-.
“We” Lori, “We.”
Not just me. Hang around here too long you’re going to get rolled up…
Your steps 4 and 5 are key. I learned from my mentor…
1)hang out with people you like
2)ask them what they’re buying
3)sell them some of it (make it or find it)
Pretty simple really, but you have to sell something.
.-= Tim Zager´s last blog ..How To Let Controversy Suck The Life Out Of Your Business =-.
Thanks for stopping by. I liked your article on Controversy. I think you might like quite a few of the articles stashed away in my archive. Try the Week In Review series if you have a few minutes.
Thanks Dave. Yeah I’d love to read more. I couldn’t find the “Week in Review” series you mentioned. I’m a little slow. :-) Would you mind pointing me in the right direction?
.-= Tim Zager´s last blog ..Everything You Know Is Wrong =-.
http://website-in-a-weekend.net/tag/week-in-review/
I don’t write these anymore. Very time consuming and they get no long term traffic. Pity.
How did I get here? I think I followed you from a comment you made on Gabe’s and then I stayed.
I do sell – not enough and not from my flagship blog, but then I am told that that is common. Having said that what I do want to sell before the summer is out is my stable of dog related blogs – need to flesh them out some more, get the stats up a bit and then bundle the lot.
The next sell are the affiliates on internet marketing. Again, have made a few but not enough. The ROI on these is higher than doggie bickies.
Last, for the time being at least, is to review/revise/update my ABCs of Blogging for money, still give it away for free but then have a series of ABCs on various other IM bits and probably have them go at $7.00 each (valued at $17.97 or something like that).
Yeah, I just got another idea … something about maverick bloggers that rock, the stubborn optimistics …that idea needs to percolate, but what do you think, does it get ideas running through your head?
.-= Valentina´s last blog ..Sunday Morn Musings: Old Friend =-.
You know, my question was really much bigger, but I didn’t communicate effectively.
Which is cool! I can write another article!
I think you should follow up on your idea right away.
I also think both of us should develop a suite of products reflecting our expertise, then pony up for some high-powered marketing coaching to nail that final piece into place.
sounds like a plan … :-)
.-= Valentina´s last blog ..Five Basic Steps to Online Networking =-.
I can’t remember exactly how did I get here. Anyway, that’s not a big deal. All I can say is I like reading your blogs. Selling? Well, if I have something to sell- there’s no reason for me not to do it.
.-= Bert Padilla´s last blog ..Weekly Blogging Recap Week 1012 =-.
Bert, thanks. I’m still interested in Field Report on Blogging in Cebu, and how your WordPress transition finally turned out.
My apology but I didn’t understand what you mean exactly about “Field Report”. If you are talking about those business promotions, I’ll send you the links via email. Looks like my WP transition won’t be completed this month. I need to stick to Blogger for at least until those articles from the PWC are published (the articles are related to Blogger). Just another failure for me… my bad…
.-= Cebu Tech Blogger´s last blog ..Best Alternative Commenting System for Blogger =-.
Got the links, thanks.
Folks, Bert and I are cooking up something cool here. Will be another month or so. Stay tuned.