It’s Not About What Content You Provide, It’s About How You Sell It
The concept is simple. Buy an empty lot, build a little office, toss in a desk and two chairs. Go through the newspaper classifieds and buy a dozen used cars. Hose the cars down, put on a fresh layer of wax, buff and shine, vacuum the carpets, Armor-all the interior and kick the tires to make sure the car holds together. Get a bright shiny red pen and write a price on the windshield – add an exclamation point and circle. Then wait for the customers to arrive.
Had I been born 30 years ago I would have tried being a used car salesman. I understand cars, know how to fix and clean them. Nothing about the prospect of selling cars would of scared me. Just like blogging – easy money.
But this website has taught me that I would have been a terrible used car salesman and would not of made any money – just like blogging.
A family walks onto the lot, I approach them. They tell me what they want and I show them a car. They like the color, it is clean and it runs. Does it run well the father asks. Yes, it runs well I reply with honest smile. The man takes it for a test run. Good acceleration, good brakes. The kids like it too. Daddy, buy this car. The man looks at the price, then at the sky, then at his shoes and finally after a short pause at me. The car is a little out of our price range. What is your price range? The man looks at his kids, then at the car and then at me. He coughs out a price 40% lower then the sticker price.
The family drives off in their old car. Another sale lost. Haven’t sold a car in weeks. I would have been a terrible used car salesman because I cannot convince people to buy at sticker price. That is why I am also not making money with this website.
It Is All About The Dazzle, Lights And Big Signs
Used car salesmen do not work with new content. They are selling used cars, not making new ones. Every used car lot has the same bunch of cars. Being successful is all about how you present the used cars.
Successful used car salesmen are flashy, fast talking, excited, and they can convince their customers that lemons are chocolate ice creams with rainbow sprinkles on top. Their lots have blinking lights and neon sings. Prices are crossed out, slashed and reduced. They have the best deals in town. Their deals will not last – limited time offers. They have grand openings, clear out sales, end of years sale bonanzas.
They will do almost anything to sell you a car. No restraint – it does not embarrass them to embellish. The actual condition of the car is irrelevant. It is everything around the car that matters – the salesman’s slick haircut, the sexy receptionist, the bright lights and exlamation marks.
Successful bloggers would be great used cars salesmen. Especially the bloggers in my niche – ‘make money online’. There is no new content in this niche (true for most niches except probably astronomy and Britney Spears) – it is all used content. Everything about making money has been said. There is no new information – it is just repackaged information.
But there are good salesmen on the internet. They can take used information, put lights on it, wax it, call it a limited offer, and make you feel like you need it. They can take something that is free and sell it for $99.99. It is not the information that they provide, it is the packaging they present it in.
Being a used car salesman is a talent. Not everybody can do it. Not everybody can get into the roles of adding value to something by making it sparkle and shine.
Becoming a successful blogger is the same as being a successful used car salesman. It is not enough to just get a lot and put cars on it. You need to get into character. Your content is the least valuable part of the blog. Everybody has content. It is all about how you present the content.
Have a look at the successful bloggers. There are some wild characters out there - successful used car salesmen. Cowboy hat, chest hair growing out in-between his top shirt buttons, proud father of a new baby boy. A college football trophy on his desk. You feel good around him –a friend. All smiles and good news. With all the lights and sounds of the lot every day is New Years Eve party.
Compare that with this blog – a parking lot with a bunch of old cars on it. Someone approaches and asks, can I make money online? In plain black unbolded text I reply, ‘ya maybe, but it’s a lot of work’. No wonder nobody is buying cars from me.
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- Successful Website Advice – Avoid It
- Are You Really Working Hard On Your Blog? Or Do You Just Think You Are?
As I said in one of my earlier comments about six months ago, your website has too much written content and not enough flashing lights and smut. Put up some “click here NOW for a million dollars” buttons and start writing about the latest celeb gossip and you’ll see your traffic skyrocket. You also definitely need a bouncy titty babe somewhere in the corner of the website and for god sakes quit writing in long sentences and paragraphs. Cut everything down to a one-liner like twitter or a facebook feed.
That being said, this whole idea of writing a detailed daily or periodical blog is dead. The online community is moving into packaged, standardized and user-friendly formats like facebook and twitter and the new Google one that has just started. They will kill blogging much like Netscape and Explorer killed the once promising BBS concept.
Moreover, as regulation of the internet increases, you’ll start to see more and more fees, restrictions and taxes imposed on website owners. The purpose and effect of these will be to start squeezing out the little guy in favor of big corporations as the internet is already too cluttered with all these mickey mouse websites all over place. It’s much easier for the powers that be to have the flow of information concentrated in a few places rather than have a disorganized and unpredictable open forum as the internet is today.
I predict that in 10 years most website traffic will concentrated among a few major sites like Wikipedia, Amazon, Google, the big SNS sites and of course corporate websites. Individual blog sites will be the realm of hobbyists only, will operate at a cost and of course be subject to content restrictions.
One hundred years ago, the radio market started out relatively free and open and a lot of homebrew radio operations started up at the beginning with individualized, local and unregulated content. As we see today, the radio market is now solely in the hands of major corporations and the only a few remaining ham radio operaters still manage to broadcast themselves, albeit at their own expense. The same can be said for publishing, a handful of companies in each country control the printed media market and the idea of writing, editing and distributing your own book at a profit is all but impossible. Every form of media in human history has followed this pattern.
The internet is headed in this direction too and if you can’t smell the wind you’ll keep wasting your time posting your thoughts into the empty ether. If you have the spare time to write and post your thoughts I recommend you switch to Ham radio, it’s much funner and you don’t have to pretend that you’re doing it to make money. If you can’t affort a Ham radio license just tweet all your meaningless daily interactions and follow the rest of the herd into the abyss of simple mindedness.