Advice from Millionaires on Blogging

Now that I’ve interviewed over 50 millionaire business owners, I have learned amazing advice on growing your business. What I didn’t expect to learn was how many of them feel about blogging specifically, and online marketing.

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Jaime Tardy interviews millionaires every week, over on Eventual Millionaire. And she has been making waves. I’ve even been sharing some of her great guest posts on other blogs because they’re just… good. 🙂 And today, she chimes in on applying the mindset of successful millionaires to blogging.

Read it – and learn from it. People don’t become millionaires by accident. As I’ve said many times, it all starts with mindset. Now, I’ll leave you in Jaime’s hands…

Now that I’ve interviewed over 50 millionaire business owners, I have learned amazing advice on growing your business. What I didn’t expect to learn was how many of them feel about blogging specifically, and online marketing.

Even businesses that are only offline and have owners who are technophobic still talk about blogs and social media. Why?   I think it’s because they know it’s the way of the future. They have succumbed to the fact that social media isn’t just social–it’s about doing business. They are interested in new ways to do business.   So here are a few pieces of advice straight from millionaires, as well as action items so you can start putting this advice into practice. Enjoy!

You’ll Need Time and Patience

We all want success and fortune to happen NOW. Right now.   So when we start something and don’t see a ton of progress right away, it can feel like we’re not doing it right.   We need to change our expectations on what success is and when it comes.   I interviewed David Henmeier Hansson of 37 Signals (co-author of Rework) and he said this:

Creating revenue is certainly not an overnight thing to do. When we launched BaseCamp, Signal vs. Noise had just, I think 4,000 daily readers which, in the age of people having tens of thousands of followers on Twitter, was a puny amount but it was still plenty to get the product off the ground.   And then yes, it took a long time. Good things usually do. BaseCamp wasn’t a runaway success after 12 months. It wasn’t a runaway success after 24 or 36 months. It only just paid the bills at a tiny company of four people with basically no costs after one year.

It also took a long time to get the Signal vs. Noise blog up to that many readers! We tend to see Basecamp as being a very successful product now, and so we discount how long it took.   37 Signals started as consultants doing projects for other companies and building a strong basis of readers way before they launched Basecamp. And even months after the launch it just paid the bills.   We need to start shifting our focus from results oriented, like 10,000 blog subscribers, and instead change it to action orientated, like doing ten guest posts per month.   That way we can feel like we are accomplishing things and making progress.

Action Item:  Take your current goal and try to change it into a measurement of action. What do you want to achieve this year? How can you make that happen? Make the “how” the immediate goal.

Everyone Makes Mistakes

I’m sure you have already made mistakes. You are not alone. So many millionaires are just like you and have made mistakes over and over. Michael Port said:

I get yelled at by people, like, ‘I can’t believe you’re a New York Times bestselling author and you have typos in your blog. What’s wrong with you?’ I’m like, I’m so sorry. You should read all the other blogs because I’m going to make typos, and if you care more about the typos than what I have to say, definitely go somewhere else. I don’t want to upset you so much. I don’t mean to upset you. I’m not trying to just ruin your worldview about how typos should or shouldn’t be found on blogs.

But just realize that everyone makes mistakes. We don’t know everything. Even best-selling authors make spelling mistakes. Expect that you will make a lot more. And realize that you are doing something important. Something that has the chance of making mistakes with people noticing. The mistakes don’t matter, the fact that you are taking action matters.   So go forth and keep making mistakes! (Unintentionally, of course!)

Action Item:  The next time you receive a criticism that really gets to you, stop, and realize that you are moving forward. The bigger you get the more criticism you get. See it as a battle scar or badge of honor instead of a reason to duck and cover.

Focus on Solving Problems

At the end of the day, the only person that truly matters is your customer. Without them, you don’t make any money. Without people to support what you do, you become a starving artist (which most of us don’t want to become!).   I interviewed David Meerman Scott, a speaker and author of the #1 best seller The New Rules of Marketing and PR. He highlighted a lot of points about creating amazing content (just like I know David does here).   One thing he said was this:

Instead of talking about what your wonderful products and services do, which frankly people don’t really care about, you need to focus on creating things of value on the web, then giving them away for free, which helps to solve people’s problems, so therefore they want to do business with you.

He is teaching huge companies to do this same thing. It’s an amazing thing that you–sitting at your computer at home–are working on the same things as a large company with lots of resources.   So step it up. Solve people’s problems better than your competition.

Action Item:   Next time you sit down to write content, become your customer. Figure out an exceptional way to solve their problem. You have the power to create raving fans. Make sure you use each blog post as an opportunity to do it.     So have patience, make more mistakes, and solve more problems. 🙂

What action item are you going commit to doing?

Jaime is a business coach and speaker and has been featured on CNN, MSNMoney, Success Magazine, Fortune.com, Yahoo’s homepage and more. Each week she interviews self-made millionaires for their business tips, advice and stories.

21 Comments

  5. no one can be a millionaire in a day a lot of hard work and dedications is needed in it…as we are progressing through internet marketing no one can be a billionaire in a day its a bottom up approach to gain the money

  12. Hi Jaime,

    Great information and I like your site, as well.

    What I am hoping to discover is a formula/path/sequence to acquire clients. Really, the advice provided, presumes that someone already has an established business with a customer base (Who have a readily identifiable perceived need).

    Out of hundreds of Millionaire interviews, I have yet to hear or read one who discusses how they started the business (Meaning, from idea to first client). Most of the ‘advice’ provided in interviews is more or less general common sense (At least to most Entrepreneurs).

    Moreover, I am convinced that such a formula does not exist. However, I have listened and read a number of interview conversations, with the hope of discovering a pattern or common thread. Many (Including Fried) have the attitude of “I just put my shingle out and the customers came” or they seem to accidentally stumble into something and thus create a business (Fried again with Basecamp).

    Would love to hear successful business owners to provide square one insight into tough questions that every Entrepreneur asks, “How do I really find a need”, “How do I acquire customers from zero, with knowledge of perceived need?”, “How do I develop and build a sustainable, scalable business model that works?”, and “How do I find need, create a solution, and deliver said solution better than a competitor?”. Note, perceived need does not always equal customers, nor a sustainable business.

    Having said, we need insight from the bottom up, not from the top down.

    Thank you.

    1. I know you were talking to Jaime, but let me just chime in for a minute. Its my site, after all. 😉

      I’m not sure if your feedback was specifically to Jaime’s interviews, but on a general basis, that information *is* out there. It isn’t even hard to find. The problem is that many people don’t see it for what it is because they’re too busy trying to find some hidden nugget that somehow removes the fact that every business is a unique case and there is no step-by-step approach that will work in all cases.

      I highly doubt the people Jaime has interviewed had any kind of step-by-step system they were following in the beginning. 

      But, the insight is out there. Hell, a lot of it can be found right here on this site. 🙂

      1.  Thanks for this- and I’ve felt similarly and that’s one of the reasons why I started interviewing millionaires.

        I felt a lot of it was base level. So I like to ask specific questions, like what was the pivotal moment in starting your business and what did you do to make that happen?

        Funny thing is, when they are reflecting on things, a lot gets lost. We don’t always remember exactly what steps we took. I do my best to look at what the millionaires do as a whole and give recommendations based on those things.

        But like David said, there is no silver bullet. It’s in the trenches figuring out things for yourself. But I do know some of the things that millionaires do, and I do my best to do them. Otherwise though it’s a lot of figuring it out for myself too. 🙂

        Hope that helps. Feel free to shoot me an email if you would like to chat more!

        1. Thank you Jaime and David for your insightful replies.

          Agreed, there is not a “Magic or silver bullet” and without question, every successful business is a unique circumstance.

          My comments/ train of thought, was largely centered around acquiring customers to prove a business concept. The concept of an idea that you hope will attract enough customers to become a business.

          What actions did ‘Successful Millionaire’ take to begin testing their idea, in which they hoped would turn into a business? Again, idea to first customer.

          More specifically, what actions were taken to acquire that first customer? How did they make their first dollar? The question is very specific about a very specific set of actions. Surprisingly, the information is not readily available, as one would believe, as most business owners do not or choose not to disclose. Any smart entrepreneur (Who has been involved from the idea stage to the start of the business), will know exactly how the process transpired and how that first dollar was made.

          For example, I have had successful endeavors within other start-ups – I know precisely the actions we had engaged, in an attempt to acquire our first initial customers (Meaning, exactly the ‘Who, what, where, when and why’ of some of our first deals). Some worked and others had failed (Miserably, mind you:).

          I am hoping to discover whether or not there are easier/smarter methods in which other entrepreneurs have used to acquire customers in creating their businesses.

          Finally, both great blogs. David, really like that you have started podcasting (I can now listen on the go), and Jaime your podcasts are exceptional and enjoyably informative.

          Looking forward to more of your excellent content.
           

  16. I love the focus on “solving your customers problems” advice with respect to producing content, and I especially value the suggestion to “become your customer” when you sit down to write.  I keep this in the back of my mind when I’m creating blog content, because I truly want to add value to my readers, and I want them to come away from a blog post with something actionable they can go off and do right then.  I try to put myself in the shoes of someone who’s searching for a specific resolution to a specific problem, and write from that perspective (which helps me keep things actionable and to the point!)
      ; )   
     

  17. Hi David,

    I like the expansion path you’re taking.  There is no one more on his own and flying by instinct that the small business entrepreneur.  No one really understands our particular problems nor do they really address them.  This looks like good information that can be applied no matter what business or service someone might be in.

    Thanks,

    Susan

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