When Is The Right Time To Ask For The Sale?

As you’re building your blog or online business, are you afraid to ask for money?

Be honest. 🙂

One of the biggest barriers I see when I’m helping people generate revenue from their blogging – primarily when they’re in the beginning phases – is simply the willingness to ask for a sale.

The fear of asking for money then leads many traditional bloggers down the roads of:

• Well, let me just focus on building my audience and I’ll monetize later.
• Well, let me just build up the engagement.
• I’ll focus on building traffic so that, someday, I’ll be able to monetize.

You get the idea.

Look, I know that some other “blogging experts” out there firmly believe and teach the idea of focusing solely on audience and traffic first before trying to make any money. But, I don’t agree with those experts.

If revenue is one of your goals, then you need to cross that line early. You need to begin asking for money.

Don’t look for excuses not to ask for money. They are delay tactics cleverly phrased to sound reasonable.

And, there are TWO primary reasons why I firmly believe you should do it early:

1. To set proper expectations with your audience. Otherwise, the notion of backlash the first time you try to make any money is going to always bother you.
2. To help you get comfortable with it. Otherwise, it will be this self-imposed wall.

So, how does one go about it?

Do you just start hounding your audience (even if small) for money?

Of course not! And, that’s probably why so many are freaked out about this because you’ve personally been exposed to over-aggressive slimy marketing and you’re associating everything with that. Well, knock it off! Nobody – especially me – is advocating to spam the crap out of your people.

As bloggers, the type of marketing that works best for us is CONTENT MARKETING. This means that you’re providing helpful, awesome content. Who would complain about that?

But, that content is written in such a way as to lead the reader to a solution. And, done right, leading them into a soft-pitch for a product designed to do whatever they just read is only natural.

And, that’s just one example of how it could be done. It is done all the time.

In this world, there is a matter of exchange. We all have this innate sense of fair exchange, and when it is violated in some way, it bothers us.

Ever been to a party and somebody gave you an unexpected gift, but you didn’t get anything for them? You feel like a bit of a prick, don’t you? That’s violated exchange. This is why, as a parent, I feel it is very important to let my kids help. Due to their age, their “help” isn’t often actually very helpful, but I let them do it anyway and I thank them for it. Why? Because, my wife and I are helping them all the time. We take care of every need they have. And, even a little kid has a sense of exchange built right into them. I feel as if an imbalance is created if we don’t let them feel as if they’re helping us back.

The same thing happens online. If you’re truly helping people and you’re not giving them an opportunity to help you back, you’re not only screwing yourself, but you’re also screwing them.

And, often, your absolute best readers and fans on your blog will be the people who have PAID you. They’ve bought something from you, or they’ve in some way flowed energy back to you (via money, typically). They are FAR more likely to become your biggest fans. I see it all the time in my business. Many times, when I see frequent commenters on the blog, or people saying cool things about me or the Academy… I see that they are CUSTOMERS of mine.

Fair exchange.

So, to answer that original question again…

The right time to ask for the sale is NOW.

And, by not doing it, you’re screwing yourself – and your readers.