Chris Garrett

I am writing a special report for Hive subscribers and I have come to a realization. I need deadlines. I hate them but I need them. Sound familiar?

Without a deadline I don’t know where to stop. I scope-bloat, I gold plate and ultimately I don’t finish. With a deadline I stress but I do complete my work and get it out of the door.

So my solution is to create an artificial deadline. This will not work without pressure so I have told Ryan I will finish by end of today. If I do complete the report then my deadline is met. If I do not finish on time then I have let Ryan down and I have broken my promise.

I didn’t say it was fun, but it is working to focus my efforts and stop me getting distracted. Well, other than telling you guys about it 😉

If you want to read the report you will need to sign up to the Hive and look out for it this week …

I was chatting with Ryan the other day and he told me he had discovered some new high value niches. This has sparked off new ideas that are going to be enthusiastically pursued. Ryan discovered these niches almost by sheer luck. It got me thinking if it was possible to try out a niche intentionally before plunging into it?

Domainers have long had the “domain tasting” technique where they register a domain, throw adsense on it and see if it earns before having to pay the bill. Only those that show promise get picked up. Could we do anything similar on blogs?

Adsense doesn’t care about the theme of your blog, just the theme of your page. While I don’t care for adsense as a monetization method it would serve as a proxy for the profitability of the niche that you find. If you adsense gets decent click prices you have scored.

Of course it is going to take effort, first selecting promising niches, and secondly driving traffic to the test page. I am guessing a linkbait would be in order. You might want to use an adsense tracking system also if you want to do this on a large scale.

What do you think? Idea?

I was having a discussion yesterday with a group of folks about affiliate marketing with blogs. I was surprised to hear the group was split pretty evenly between these categories:

• Done pretty well
• Haven’t ever made a penny
• Never tried

My own experience over the years have varied depending on how much effort I put in, as you would expect, but has been overall positive. It wasn’t always something I enjoyed particularly, and in some cases I felt the gurus and forum contributors were pushing advice that was bordering on black hat.

I do believe though depending on your niche and choice of merchant/offer, aff is potentially far more lucrative than other monetization methods. Only yesterday I was invited to push a seminar where you get hundreds of dollars per sign up (I turned it down). How much do you make with one ad spot for a whole month? Adsense?

As I say, it is certainly not for everyone, and blogging with a side of aff suits me better than pure aff, but it could well be worth a try.

Have you tried affiliate marketing? What are your experiences? Please share in the comments.

Darren has written a great post rebutting a guest post about confident writing. One of the key points that stands out is the original article recommended ‘You Don’t Need to Tell the Truth all the Time’. I agree with Darren, this is dangerous talk!

My recommendation is wherever possible, tell the truth, or at least don’t lie. Experience tells me that this is by far the best policy. Don’t incriminate yourself but also do not try to deceive. Lies are usually to cover up or give an inflated impression of success or expertise. Write the truth with confidence.

Well all know habitual fantasists. In my agency days I used to have an insecure boss who would try to bluff every situation. Clients were never convinced and it just damaged the relationship for all of us. Almost always the client would have been happier if he had not tried to impress so much or if they could have the real situation. His approach was almost always to promise the world on a stick. All the lies, cover ups and misdirections were just distractions from the actual work at hand. It was only when one key client pulled the project manager and myself to one side and confided they knew what he was up to that I realized just how bad an actor he had been. They actually requested in future we visit without him.

Lying is often counter productive. Another colleague claimed a project was “almost done” for months until he had to admit he hadn’t even started. If he had explained his difficulty at the start the rest of us could have helped him, the client would have been informed and he would have not needed the embarrassing mea culpa. His pride in wanting to seem on top of his work actually undermined our confidence in him.

People underestimate how hard it is to lie. You have to have a good memory and eye for detail to be a convincing liar. Most of us do not possess these characteristics to the level required. Bad lies are easily detected and the damage done when discovered is just not worth it.

I’m not suggesting that you open your heart on every single post. Not only is that unnecessary, it would soon get dull. Also I wouldn’t ever suggest full disclosure, you could get into more trouble than it is worth. Telling the truth does not mean revealing sources or breaking confidences, just to not mislead.

There is no need to lie when being honest works better. Fact is people are more likely to connect with you and your anecdotes will be more interesting because of the authentic details.

Many bloggers get worried about posting their thoughts and ideas.

• What if I am wrong?
• What if someone knows more than me?
• What if I get laughed at?
• What if what if what if

Then there are others who go right ahead and post whatever, regardless. We see a lot of people complaining especially about the “Make Money Online” field, where bloggers start blogs on the topic before making any money 🙂

The solution to both I think is to have theories and put them to the test. I believe readers are a lot more receptive to actual results, even if it is “I tried this and it didn’t work” (and yes, I am basing this premise on personal experience!).

What do you think?