“Nothing happens until somebody sells something.”

Tom Watson

I recently had an ‘unsubscribe‘…yeah I know, cry me a river   The cool thing is the feedback feature that Aweber provided prompted him to leave comments, which I ALWAYS appreciate.  He mentioned that his decision was made because of an affiliate link ‘rambling‘ I had sent out… gee, me ramble

Digging deeper the idea was that I should focus my attention on adding usable content and not promotion.  Certainly a great idea, and it prompted me to do a little math.  The content on my blog is free, as is my weekly podcast which also goes out via email (it’s the thing I enjoy doing the most, plus I figure most people have a few free minutes to watch a video).   That makes my free 12 video coaching course, plus about 12 emails of content and another 8 blog posts in the time he’d been on the list… for a total of 32 content focused pieces.  In that time I sent 1 affiliate offer for a free program with a $1 upsell…which pays me…$1

Have I mentioned the Universe love’s me?

I think the reason most people struggle online, or never get started in the first place is their worry about what other people think, and it’s usually attached to the idea of ‘selling‘.  So let’s look at that…

Whatever it is that you ultimately do for a living, somebody MUST buy something or you don’t live.  You’re a teacher?  Okay, me too.  Taxpayers trade dollars for the value of an education for their children.  No taxes, no schools, no education.  If you send your kids to a private school…that is VERY obvious.  But, when was the last time you heard of a teacher worried about how the taxpayer feels about school fees?  What it comes down to is VALUE.

I was coaching in Denver Colorado this past week at a conference for alternative healthcare practitioners who were looking to increase their value, and ultimately their bottom line.  Not sure if you’ve noticed but people have been a bit antsy regarding the current economic ‘crisis‘, and want to make sure they’re still in business when the smoke clears.  Here’s my words of wisdom…in quotes no less.

“First and foremost you absolutely must offer VALUE.  If what you have to sell is worth 5 to 10 times what you are selling it for, you have no need to be ashamed of asking for money.   In fact you have every reason to feel great about it.  Just focus on giving value.  Offer what you have, give more than you take, and sleep well at night.”

In keeping with that, although I’m sorry to see a subscriber go the likelihood of him ever buying anything from me was pretty close to zero.  Which is cool.  I mean, by my estimation that means he got at least a return of 32 times on the investment of his time.  I’m good with that   He paid me by giving me feedback, and the motivation to write this post, which may very well add some content for YOU.  And who knows, maybe one of these days, you might buy something from me.

Stranger things have happened

Phil Hughes

PS: If you’ve never been there, or even if you have check out www.philandlorretta.com it’s the site I have with my lady love and I just gave it a facelift.  Nothing to buy there   and you might even enjoy the show.