How to Make Money Without Selling Out

In web marketing, you either monetize or you don’t.

It’s dramatic when you consider the extremes between the two camps:

• Some one-trick ponies monetizers are simply after your money and will stop at nothing to sell you out for their personal gain. They offer zero value, have no dignity and are largely anonymous.
• The “purists” of the web can’t cross the line from free expression to market value. Instead of making money, they complain about those who do while obsessing over words like “genuine”, “authentic” and “transparent.” [Confession: this was once me.]

So, dear reader, how do you make money without selling out? Here are 5 ideas to get you started:

Seek Balance

Seeking balance is simple: don’t be a one-trick pony or a purist. Instead, be tempered and adaptable rather than fixed and extreme. For example:

• It’s okay to go out and build an income stream on the web. Just don’t be a scumbag about it.
• It’s okay to put in honest, wholehearted work into your blog with the goal of monetizing it.
• If you’re going to charge for something, offer a free alternative to those not ready to buy.

In other words: balance commercialism with expressionism, hard work with reward, payment with value. You get the idea.

Have a Need, Fulfill a Need

Says the great, gritty blogger Johnny Truant:

Do you WANT your business to succeed, or do you NEED it to succeed? Is it a desire or a requirement? Is it a way out of an unpleasant situation, or is it the air you need if you’re to keep breathing?

So it’s a given you have the basic need to make money and, if possible, be recognized. But how do you translate that base need into a respectable, viable business?

You must remember that your need is the lesser half of the equation. There is the more imperative need of the market, which you must work tirelessly to satisfy.

You must offer something that people value enough to pay you for. Purists have a hard time understanding this concept. They expect buyers to buy into them, not from them.

Customers become your fans only after you’ve proven to them you’re likable and trustworthy and your product enhances their lives.

Be Confident in Your Offer

Being confident in your offer really means you’ve set your standards of quality very high—as high as they can go.

Don’t stoop or be cheap. Don’t peddle ridiculous automated income schemes or products that promise rainbows and unicorns.

Why not embrace the remarkable, beautiful and genius—like these nerd bots?

Striving to be the best and most remarkable should eliminate the fear or embarrassment of presenting your offer to your market. And assuming your product is great and you value your customers, you should also have no problem charging a premium.

And here’s where you can throw in all those glorious terms like genuine, authentic and transparent. Not because they’re buzzwords or anything special, but simply because they’re default character traits of any respectable human.

Be Committed

When you’re starting out, commitment trumps ability, and attitude trumps everything. Showing up is the best thing you can do, and also the hardest.

You have to stay sharp and focused with little more than your ambition to succeed, and this is not easy.

Commitment also means you’re building a real business, not just a loose network of Facebook or Twitter profiles. There has to be something real and solid and useful behind your words.

When your success starts to rise is when ability starts to matter. By then the only ones left in the game will be the ones who stayed committed.

Any Thoughts?

Share a piece of your mind in the comments below. I’d really appreciate it.

Photo by kekremsi.