A Sad State Of Affairs

There is a big problem.

This problem has everything to do with WHY so many people who seek out an income online will fail.

It has been estimated (depending on where the stats come from) that between 50% and 70% of businesses started will fail within the first 18 months. While I don’t have numbers to back it up, I can almost guarantee you that once we go online, the failure rate is higher than that. And, 18 months? Pfft. It happens a lot sooner than that, usually. Most never get off the ground in the first place.

This is a sad state of affairs, indeed.

The question is: WHY?

I mean, you go out onto the Internet and you look at all these people opining about ways to make money with their blogs. There is a TON of information out there about it. There is a TON of information out there about various aspects of online business. There is no shortage of “gurus” claiming to offer the answer to all your problems.

Yet still…

People fail in record numbers.

You would THINK that, with all this information freely distributed, we’d have a different outcome.

What Things Typically Look Like

But, what do we see people doing, usually?

Well, the typical person motivated to generate an income online starts out by seeking out others who have done it. And, at least in my little corner of the world of online marketing, they conclude that blogging is a good way to go. So, what do they do?

They start a blog. In terms of their topic, they’re told to go with their “passion”. Well, to be honest, a lot of people don’t have a big money-making passion. And, while there’s nothing wrong with it, your real passion in this case is just to make some freakin’ money. You’re told to pick a “niche”. And, so you do, based on an interest you have. And, BAM, you have a blog.

From there, you do what bloggers seemingly do: Write. You write stuff you think people will find interesting, but you really have no idea. You’re kinda just throwing crap up against the wall to see if it will stick. You put some social media buttons on your site (everybody seems to do that) and hope for the best.

Thing is, your traffic numbers start out really low – and they sorta stay really low. You’re having a hard time gaining any leverage.

But, why? You’re doing what you see other people doing, right? You’re posting blog posts. You’re sharing on social media. You’re doing your best to “engage” with people, but finding they don’t really engage back.

All this while, you’re seeking ways to “monetize”. After all, that’s what you want: money. You had high hopes about it, but it is starting to look harder than you thought. But, you read the information about monetization. You read people’s income reports and seek inspiration. Maybe if you just copy what they’re doing, the outcome will be the same?

So, you seek out affiliate offers to promote. You end up putting some ads on your blog. You’re told you need to build a list, so you try doing that.

In the end, though, it feels like you’re trying to squeeze juice from a turnip. You’re just not gaining any traction.

What are you missing?

In the hope of finding some answer, you continue to read blogs about blogging. Maybe something will spark an idea. Maybe you’ll gain some magical moment of clarity.

But, in the end, it continues. You’re writing as much as you can (given the amount of time you have to do it). You’re doing the social media thing. But, honestly, at this point, everything starts to look the same. You feel like you’re being yanked around. You have no idea what you’re missing, or even really what is the most important thing you should be doing.

It all starts to look the same. And you’re feeling pretty damn frustrated at this point.

Give it a little time, and…. you find yourself giving up. “Internet business isn’t for me”, you think. You’ll just stick with your day job for now. You think perhaps you’ll revisit it when you have more time. Or something like that.

Unfortunately, this is almost exactly what this path looks like for more people.

And, yes, it freakin’ SUCKS.

And, you know what? I get it. It isn’t as if I’m immune to this. I’ve been there. Whatever degree of success you think I’ve had (and I’ve had some, yes), I promise you that wherever you’re at in this, you WILL feel the glass ceiling. The level of that glass ceiling can change, but it is there. And, busting through it is difficult as hell.

It just so happens that the glass ceiling when you’re first stating out is at a different level than the glass ceiling of somebody who has something established moving along.

When I got started in this business which ultimately became the Academy, I wasn’t the first in the market by a long shot. But, I had a personal mission.

My mission was (and is) to bring order to the subject of building an online business, to make it approachable and doable.

A little arrogance? Perhaps – I don’t know. But, it lies in a deep-rooted motivation that I have – perhaps a skill, even – to make complicated things simple. If I had to pick a “big why” to me personally, it would be that. I tend to go into anything, figure out the “big picture”, then I can make sense of it while others are buried in all the details.

This is just something I’m good at. I tend to do it with everything.

Now, knowing this about myself, I wanted to do the same for this world of online business. I have no ambitions to be famous or anything. I don’t care about any “guru” status. Hell, if I did, I wouldn’t have moved away from my name as the brand. 🙂 I just want to get results. I want people who come and trust me with their time to achieve a real result.

It took me a few years to evolve, but that evolution is what has brought me to the Blog Marketing Academy, and guides how I produce the training here at the Academy.

It guides the very tagline of this site…

Blogging for Business… Simplified.

I’m ALL about “simple”. I believe real power lies in simplicity, and I believe people who make things complicated are either doing it because they don’t truly understand the material or they don’t really want people to get results with it.

Which brings me back to that new, inspired entrepreneur who just wants to build an online business which makes some money…

Obviously, there was an “undercut” which was necessary.

After all, if all that information flowing around about how to make money online wasn’t achieving a high success rate, then certainly something was missing. There was a huge constraint.

There was some kind of prerequisite that was missing. The basics were missing.

It isn’t as if this stuff wasn’t known. Its just that you barely EVER saw people in the online marketing or blogging world talking about any of it. Or they just failed to connect the dots and see just how relevant it was.

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Over the next few weeks, I’m going to be releasing some posts and (most likely) videos about this.

I’m going to get back to basics. And, I’m going to talk about the EXACT reasons people fail.

This stuff forms the entire mindset I have as I’m creating training for my Academy members. I’m not interested in producing more statistics. I want to produce results! And, there’s a good damn reason why the Academy training doesn’t really get into the nitty-gritty of blogging until around Module 6.

I invite you to stick around and pay attention. This is going to be a fun month here at the Academy. 🙂

Register for free below, get some training for free, and I’ll be sure to keep you in the loop.