Watch out for the I want something for nothing crowd

I was over at Shoemoney’s blog yesterday and a headline caught my eye. It read

“How I Made Over $1,500,000 Using A Free CSS Template“

Now a title like that can’t help but catch your eye and I went to have a look because I thought “poor love, he’s only gone and put one too many zeros in his title by mistake!“ 

Well I get there and it was actually written by a young man in his 20s by the name of Jonthan Volk - never heard of him before (although I have looked him up now and his “goal” post puts him in a great light for me)  but it seems he makes millions a year with affiliate marketing (note to self : get your teenagers into this game!)

His post got torn apart from all those waiting to be told, waiting for instructions, wanting something for nothing - they wanted him to explain in a post how he made 1.5 million. Have you heard of anything so crazy! Of course he didn’t, in fact he didn’t focus on any “How to” at all, which puts his post in the misleading category really – just missing off the word How would have helped a lot.

His post had more of a message to give and the message was “don’t sweat the small stuff!” – the template he used for making that much money was free. It is easy to waste time on the best templates and getting things perfect but that isn’t where you need to put your attention (remember this is about affiliate marketing now – us authority blogging wannabes still have to look professional!)

I remember having a business building strategy with someone who had spent 5 years being coached by a top internet marketer and he was still just “fiddling with his template!!!”  – it is easy to worry about the simple things but what really matters in all of this?

Well, what really matters is the following…. Are you giving your potential and current customers what they want? Are you solving their problem? Making their pain go away? Helping them through an issue? If you are, you too can make $1.5 million (looking forward to mine ) but if you are still waiting for your product or your blog to be perfect before you get it out there, or if you are spending more time on what graphic to use rather than on research and making sure you are giving people what they want then you are missing the point.

That (for me anyway) was the message that came out in Jon’s post, and for all those who wanted something for nothing. For the crowd of people all disappointed because they thought they were about to get a free lesson in how to do it – they were annoyed, confused and more than a little vocal about it.

I have met the something for nothing crowd – while I am not in the million a year category yet I definitely do alright online and thanks to that I get people emailing me

“I am a single mother too…. so you should help me….. free”

“I am black too…. so you should help me…. free”

“I am from England too….. so you should help me….. free”

“I am a women too… so you should help me…. free”

“I go to your church too…. so God wants you to help me….. free”

The something for nothing crowd are out there – they are alive and well and just waiting to pounce. I usually ignore the FREE part and reply

“Of course I would LOVE to help you….. vist this page and we can arrange to talk for 30 minutes…. I can definitely help you but go here to set it all up first. The url is www.mindsetofablogger.com/mentoring “

Of course when they get there I never hear from them again, because the something for nothing crowd don’t believe they have to invest in their learning to succeed. Its the internet and they have a right to get everything for nothing and if I tell you what I think of that I will have to say 200 hail marys!!!

Related articles by Zemanta

• How I Made Over $1,500,000 Using A Free CSS Template (shoemoney.com)
• Profile of Success – Jonathan Volk (johnchow.com)
• The Great Imbalance in Blogging (johnchow.com)

Tagged as: Affiliate Marketing, Jonathan Volk, Shoemoney, to succeed online you need to put in effort