It Doesn’t Matter How Many Side Hustles You Have — If You Can’t Sell
You’ll never be “discovered.” You have to market and sell yourself.
Here’s a tough truth I ignored for a long time: if you want to make money blogging, it doesn’t matter how good you are what you do if nobody else is watching.
For a long time, I hated the idea of selling. I wanted to create pure, innocent, sleaze-free content and have it magically discovered by a rapt and loving audience who’d shower me with income without me having to do any dirty sales. I wanted to make money blogging without any of the actual - you know, money stuff.
Platforms like YouTube and Medium played into this delusion. Thanks to their distribution model, it was easier to believe the fraudulent fantasy that I could make money blogging without sales for a while.
But after three years of writing, I can tell you this: not only is the easiest way to make money blogging is to sell something valuable you’ve created to an audience who trusts you. But it’s also the only real way.
Your blog post, or video, or copywriting skills can be the best on the planet. But unless you persuade other people of that, nobody is buying.
The unspoken secret in all those “how to earn money online” videos and blog posts
I watch a lot of videos and read a lot of articles about how to make money online and make money blogging. They all claim to be easy. They all claim to only need one tool. They all claim anyone can do it. They all claim to be quick.
You know what they all left out? To make money from these amazing side hustles AND to make money blogging, you have to sell yourself.
This video promised that you could make $100–200 a day “just by using Google Maps.” The truth was that you not only needed to use Google Maps, you also needed to advertise your SEO services using cold emails to uninterested businesses.
This video promised that you could make $30 per word you typed. The truth was that you typed the word — and then how to sell it as a logo on a platform like Fiverr or Upwork.
Every single side hustle, no matter if it’s a podcast, a blog, a logo-making business, or anything else, requires that you sell yourself.
The more you sell, the more you earn
It seems ridiculous to have to spell this out, but it’s true: the more you actively learn how to create content that people want, market that content appropriately, build your funnel, and sell it to them, the more money you earn.
The shortcuts like posting content on YouTube and Medium that promise discoverability come at a steep price — the majority of your revenue, and all creative liberties. YouTube takes 55% of any ad revenue. Most (successful) YouTube creators make more money by selling merch and gaining sponsorships, AKA sales. You have to play by their rules, too.
Even then, if you’re posting on those platforms to earn money without any active sales, you still have to sell yourself and your content. So to make money blogging, even without sales, you still have to “sully” yourself a little.
For example, when I write a story on my blog, I’m selling my expertise, the value of the article, and the enjoyment a reader will get from reading it. I’m marketing it with the title and the image. My audience trusts me through the medium I’m writing on, and maybe they recognize my name from other articles they’ve enjoyed.
They click, and that’s a “sale.” They’ve bought my content. My revenue? Their attention (or ad revenue, membership share, etc). They’ve bought it for fractions of pennies.
Go up the scale. The closer you get to actually selling something directly to a reader/viewer, the more money you earn.
If you want to make real money from your side hustle - if you want to make money by blogging online - you have to set aside your fantasy of being discovered. The harsh truth that everyone hates to hear is that you have to sell yourself to earn money with your side hustle.
How to build an audience to sell content to
Let’s segue quickly into how not to do it. I spent about two years building my audience on my blog and newsletter. I had about 3k email subscribers. I emailed them faithfully twice per week with free tips, advice, and content. I was ready to make money by blogging.
Then, I spent a long time creating a course I loved and was proud of. I really believed in the value it could offer to readers. But I didn’t market it at all. I posted it on my website and believed people would find it and buy it just because. I didn’t want to force people to buy it by promoting it on my mailing list.
It failed. I sold 0 courses.
“OK, Zulie,” I told myself. “Gird your loins. You’re gonna do it.”
I sent out one email letting readers know about the course.
0 courses sold.
I despaired.
Then I pulled myself together and realized I had to actually f*cking sell my course.
I marketed it. I got testimonials from people who had gotten it for free earlier. I sent a series of five emails to my list. I added a freebie to the bundle if readers bought the course before the deadline.
And I made over $4000 in sales.
I hated sales for a long time. I felt like I was scamming my audience. I believed I should give it all away for free. I dreaded the day I got emails asking me how I dared to charge money for a service like consultations.
That mindset changed when I realized I have valuable content and that I deserve to earn money for that. It lets me continue making good content on both free and paid levels.
Now? There’s no better feeling than watching someone purchase a course or downloadable article template that I really believe in, or answering an email from someone who isn’t really sure it’s for them.
You can’t make money without sales
It doesn’t matter if you’re somehow balancing a podcast, a blog, a Fiverr gig and a YouTube channel. Unless you actually figure out how to sell yourself and your content, you’ll never earn a real living, and you’ll never be able to make money by blogging.
Platforms will help disguise that for a while, but eventually, you’ll realize what I’m saying is the truth.
When you’re ready to set aside your secret hope of being “discovered” and when you can move on from your false idea that sales is a dirty word, you’ll be able to build a lifestyle you love.