I observed 2 common blogging mistakes over the past few days.
Each error promotes blogging failure.
Address each blogging boo boo and follow the correction aka solution to accelerate your blogging success.
1: Believing that Pro Bloggers Run a Charity Not a Serious Business
Any time someone pitches me a blog post, sponsored post or link exchange idea, I email them my advertising page. I clearly list prices for all advertising options and services offered. I also clearly, deliberately tell bloggers:
“****Please only reply to my email if you will pay my rates and agree to your sponsored post being disclosed.****
I immediately label all bargaining/bartering/budget emails as spam-junk to respect my time and to respect your time too 🙂
Thank you.”
I copied and pasted that specific text directly from my advertising page.
Sure enough, bloggers sometimes reply and ask me to accept their guest post as an act of kindness. But I immediately label their email as spam and move on. I run a serious business. I do not run a charity based on kindness. Unfortunately, some bloggers believe I am kidding, joking or having a bit of fun after reading the above text but literally, unless you agree to pay me I REALLY, IMMEDIATELY label your email as spam because if you do not respect me enough to read every word of my page and trust me, and trust my words, I have no respect, time or energy for you.
Blogging trust and respect is a 2 way street. Listen, trust and respect fellow bloggers at their word and you will EARN their respect. Ignore, do not trust and do not respect fellow bloggers on their word and you lose their respect instantly.
Solution: When a professional blogger writes words, read the words and trust the blogger and their words 100% of the time. Pro bloggers are not kidding. Pro bloggers are not joking. I have 10 to 15 posts to publish today between blog posts and guest posts. I am not kidding when I tell you that I spam every emailer that does not explicitly either pay me, or, agree to work with me. I have to because I have no time to waste on disrespectful bloggers who ignore my words and who do not trust what I write.
Pros runs businesses, not charities. Pay up or shut up.
2: Being 100% Disingenuous
Bloggers email or Message me out of the blue. Perhaps we last spoke to each other 1 year, 5 years of 10 years ago. But even if we last spoke 1 year ago, I have spoken to 5,000 plus human beings over the past year. I do not remember you. Nothing personal. I just meet many new folks because I hustle and I only remember dear, loving friends who stay in constant contact with me, to earn the right to receive my attention. I give them attention. They give me attention. That’s how it works.
Anyway, strangers reach out to me, ask how I am doing, and after I reply with one word and a smile: “Good :)”, these people reply to let me know about their business opportunity, so I could take a look at it. So they DID NOT want to know how I was doing but they DID want to pitch their business so I could take a look at it. This is referred to as lying to someone, being disingenuous, lying that you are interested, but really wanting to get something from the person.
100% of the time, I block these people because I give no energy to liars, manipulators and people trying to use me for their own ends.
Solution: express a genuine interest in fellow human beings. Be kind. Help people. Ask for nothing in return. Expect nothing in return. Earn their trust. Earn their friendship. These are powerful people that you need to woo, and court, and serve, to earn the right to their attention span. They paid their networking dues by being generous for a long time. Now you have to pay YOUR dues by being generous for a long time.
NEVER be disingenuous. Never try to use people to get what you want from them. Make friends, not enemies. Build warm bonds versus being an utterly foolish, manipulative stranger who looks like a moron trying to trick other strangers who have seen their lame approach 10,000 times, from a mile away.
Trying this dumb approach is like trying to do the disappearing-reappearing dove magic trick, but the dove is sitting on your head, pooping on you, during the entire act. Ummm….we see the dove. We figured out your trick. Time to exit stage left before you embarrass yourself even more, because you already lost all credibility.
Compassion
I have compassion for both types of fools above but unfortunately, I have seen both strategies 1000’s of time over my 15,000 hours online. I can see both dolts coming 2-3 words into reading their emails or Messages, block the people immediately and move on.
How far do you think you’ll get when you alienate every powerful, influential, pro blogger who moves you higher in circles, who opens doors for you and who makes your blogging life incredibly easier? Not too far.
Pay up or shut up.
Generously serve pros to make blogging buddies.
Accelerate your blogging success and worldly freedom.
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