I have to admit; years ago, I felt uncomfortable selling my blogging products.
Selling eBooks felt awkward to me. I despised promoting myself. Selling courses was no better. I felt embarrassed to put attention on myself and on my creations. I soon learned a tough lesson: shying away from selling your blogging products leads to blogging struggle because if you feel bad, potential customers feel bad about your products, too.
I self-published an eBook on blogging lessons learned in Fiji during a near death experience. Hands down, the best lesson I learned clinging to the back of a lumber truck for dear life while speeding around the island was being highly uncomfortable makes for a successful journey. Blogging is no different. Do you crave more profits? Be prepared to get really uncomfortable promoting your courses, eBooks and audio books.
Discomfort Is Fear
The discomfort promoting self you feel is fear. Nothing more, nothing less. If you feel the fear, you release the fear. Then, you promote yourself with clarity and sell more courses and eBooks with less effort. But if you feel the fear and decide to turn around, making fear-excuses and choosing not to promote yourself, you are in trouble. Why? Fear needs be conquered before greater blogging profits. If you feel a fear and decide to turn around you remain in your comfort zone. Failed bloggers live in their comfort zones. Successful bloggers leave their comfort zones regularly, on the way to greater blogging traffic and even greater blogging profits.
Beware Fear-Excuses
I had every reason to fear promoting my eBook above. How could I promote this specific eBook in a post, to be topical? Questions dripping with fear danced around in my mind. I listened to the excuse-fear, felt it, released it, and proceeded to promote my eBook.
Beware fear-excuses arising in mind the moment you consider promoting yourself.
Common fear-excuses:
- people do not like to be sold to
- nobody will buy the product anyway
- people do not have money for the product
- I do not want to be too sales-ey
- why should I promote myself when others will promote me?
- why should I promote my product if I already have a link on a menu pointing to a page promoting the product?
- self-promoting is not my style
Those are a few common, fear-based, uncomfortable emotions arising the moment you consider promoting your blogging product. Face the feelings, embrace the feelings and promote yourself. Unless you have millions of dollars generated in blogging income, honoring these feelings-emotions, the ideas obviously are holding back your sales. If you have not made much money at all, I guarantee you, not feeling clear and good about promoting yourself is one core problem with your lack of sales.
Once you do get comfortable promoting yourself, the sales flow in easily because people mirror back your clarity to you in the form of increased sales. Do you notice how a guy like John Chow promotes himself effortlessly and frequently, in all he does? This my friends is clarity. He is clear of self-promoting fears infecting most bloggers so he makes millions of millions of dollars through his blog, his full clarity reflecting back to him as stunning blogging success.
Get clear of fear. Honestly own uncomfortable self-promoting feelings arising in your being. Increased blogging profits await you.
Well said, Ryan.
Fear is the nearest enemy for most of the bloggers. It pushes away from the success for sure.
Hi Ryan & Vishwajeet,
The is a reason why fear is called “the enermy.” It is because it holds you down and prevents you from moving out of your comfort zone. However, if one can shake off fear, he will have success in his or her blogging career.
Hey Ryan Biddulph,
Great post as usual. You have provided a great reasons that why fear is called an enemy for many bloggers. The list of common fear excuses provided by you are great, Whereas these excuses are the common excuses found in many people. Fear is the only thing that holds down and creates a long barrier in the success path, therefore avoiding these fear will helps a lot to achieve success in life. As this post will motivate many readers to get rid of fear and helps them to achieve success in their life.
Really motivational post and thanks for sharing.