Open up your mind and say, ahh...

I don’t know when I suddenly became the person people would start asking about how to make money. I’m not John Chow or Shoemoney, or even Lynn Terry. I make money via the web, but I’m not exactly “that guy” about it. But hey, if ABC News wants to ask me about it, I’ll answer. But then, I’ll answer with the way that *I* think about money making via the web.

Want to know what I told them?

If you want to make money via the web, my five tips would be:

• Grow bigger ears (listening) – the best way I’ve found to help people make money via the web is to “listen at the point of need.” The idea is that people are offering up their interests and requests and desires via the social web every day. If you have what they need, there are opportunities to get into the selling cycle on the spot, instead of waiting.
• Be protective of your community – this is how Oprah succeeded. She grew a community around content that was helpful to the people consuming it, and then she attracted sponsors who wanted access to those people. She then stayed fiercely in between the two groups, making sure her community was always protected, and that sponsors had access on her terms only. Own the relationship, own the money.
• Add more value than promotion – selling is often heavy-handed and based on wanting to close. The real winners are relationship-minded people who make not only the first sale, but all the subsequent sales thereafter. By giving your community much more value (more content, more things they can use) than just promoting your stuff, you win longer term sales relationships.
• Promote and recognize others – in selling and marketing, we talk too much about ourselves. People want to be seen and recognized. Use your platform to point out the good stuff that would appeal to the rest of your community. Mention them. Talk about your customers more than you talk about yourselves.
• Be clear on your ask – when you finally have a hard ask, a request for a sale, then be very clear about it. Don’t ever sidle up to the sale. Never let there be a confusion between your goodwill efforts and your direct need for a sale. Never flinch about it, and never make it a mushy mix of community warmth and indirect sales requests. Just like relationships, short and clear is better than long and convoluted.

Oh, and want to watch the video? Here’s my spot on ABC News money matters.

It’s how I’ve done it here, and it’s how I talk about it when I talk to others about making money. Have you done it in similar ways? How has it worked for you?

Photo credit Kevin Dooley

When I go to your website (or blog, or twitter page, or facebook page), what do you want me to do? What do you REALLY want me to do? Don’t answer that right away or glibly. What do you want me to do on your site? How do you want me to feed into your systems?

This is what I want to give you: a few questions to consider, from the same side of the fence as your prospective customer/visitor/reader/member whatever. Remember, these questions are not from your side of the fence. They’re from the other side, the important side.

Answer These Questions for Your Audience

Who do you want me to be? – In designing my up and coming new website, I had this great breakthrough. And I started working on it, and then I realized that this design I had in mind would be much more “male” in flavor and I wanted women to feel welcome. I want older people 35-60(ish) to come, so I know I want my font to be large enough and distinct enough. So, that’s what I thought about for my would-be buyer. Who do you want me to be on your site?

How will I know that I belong? – Will I be able to see “me” in your site? Will it make sense? When I go to Runner’s World, I don’t see me. There aren’t any fat trail runners there. I don’t feel like I belong there. (I probably do, but you know what I mean?) How will I know that I’m supposed to be on your site?

What do you want to show/tell me?

You’ve dragged me here. Make it easy to find what you’re hoping I consume. This is your main thing. This is where you want me to get really excited.

What do you want me to do?

I’m here. Now what? You want me to buy your something? You want me to hire you? You want me to sign up for your something? Make that really obvious. This is where things go the most wrong, I think.

How will we keep this relationship going?
– You want me here more than once, right? I’m hoping you do. How can we do that? Shall I subscribe to your blog? Do you want me to do a newsletter? What’s next for us? (This one’s pretty important too, eh?)

How shall I talk of you to my friends? – You don’t want the relationship to end with me, do you? How can we find some of my friends that will also like you? What message do you want me to carry? Is there a way we can do that together?

How Do You Answer This?

I don’t know, but I’m thinking these end up being important questions. What do you think? How does your site stack up?

I just read this bit in paidContent that talks about how Fox is planning to make apps to charge for their content, and it’s got me thinking. Because I’m just recently a citizen of the iPad, I’m buying some new applications to test out what’s interesting and what’s not. I had one for the Wall Street Journal, but I deleted it (don’t feel like paying for news headlines that I get for free from your competitors). I had a few magazine purchases from Zinio (which does seem interesting), but I’m still not sure because I think they need more subscription partners.

The problem I’m bumping into suddenly is that I’m seeing publishers charge at the wrong point. They’re mistaking their mainline content as the value, instead of the value extraction that I get just a little bit more downstream. This is because they are just trying to replicate their offline model (charge a modest subscription and sell the ads) and hack it to fix their mistakes on the internet model 1.0 (charge nothing and give the ads away for cheap). Instead, the new model is even weirder (charge even more for the content and give away the ads for cheap).

Magazine and news publishers of earth: please observe the success of GigaOM (run by Om Malik’s team), and observe some of their models (free content, expensive ads, premium subscription benefits), and also the Huffington Post (free content, celebrity draw, expensive ads, blanket acquisition of eyes from other spaces).

I wrote about the audacity of free before. It’s a tricky thing, considering pricing models. But it’s the only thing. Because as you’re getting new potential readers/subscribers (me!), you’re also losing them just as fast by putting the price wall in the wrong place, or around the wrong parts.