It’s a badly kept secret that I am available for blog consultancy. The reason I try to keep my consultancy services reasonably quiet is that my clients often don’t like the advice I give them, even though I suspect they know, deep down, that I am right.
My ongoing micropatronage project is a roaring success. And, given the nature of the material I’m selling, a commodity that many people would have you believe is virtually impossible to profit from, my email box is overflowing with people asking me how they can replicate that success.
After my somewhat considerable fee is agreed, a time and a place are set up and I will meet my client, either face to face, over the telephone or online via webcam, and proceed to give them the best advice I can and answer any and all of their questions.
My fee is high simply because otherwise I would be swamped. If I offered my services for any less than I do I would not have enough time to concentrate on my own projects. Consultancy is a great career if you just want to tell people how to do things. If you want to achieve something yourself, other than the sense of pride at having enabled someone else to succeed, you have to make sure the majority of your time is spent concentrating on sailing your own ship.
Once the consultation commences everything can, occasionally, go smoothly. However, more often than not my clients decide to not listen to the advice I give them and sometimes get frustrated that I cannot give them the answers that they want to hear.
For instance, a recent client was insistent on asking my how he could distribute and sell his own albums on myspace. This was his only business model and the only blogging he had any intention of doing was via his myspace account.
I told him to nuke his myspace account and to start his own blog with a real domain name and professional hosting.
He didn’t like it. He got annoyed. He went away unhappy. He is still on myspace. He still hasn’t got a real blog. He is still failing to make any money.
This morning I had a long chat with a client. They had paid me for an hour of advice. Half way through the hour they asked me how they could monetize their facebook account. I told them to invite all of their facebook clients to read their blog, which they already had up and running quite happily, and then to nuke their facebook account.
When they asked me why I was giving them what they described as dumb advice I told them that I was simply telling them how to be successful online using my own experience as a guide.
After all, what else could I do? I can only speak from my own experience.
My client left the chat session after calling me dogmatic.
I didn’t feel guilty since I genuinely believed, and still believe, that I gave them very good advice. Advice that, had they listened to it, would make them considerably more successful than if they continue wasting their time on facebook.
There is a very fine line between offering blogging advice and dogma. I pride myself on being honest. I don’t endorse any products that I don’t use. That’s why I only carry advertising for AN Hosting, because I use them and trust them. When I am paid to advise someone I tell them the truth as I see it. I don’t waver, I don’t bend the truth to make them feel good and I never simply give them the answers that they want to hear.
If my clients don’t like my plain talking approach and would rather waste their time swimming in a pool of social networking time wasters then that is absolutely their choice.
I can’t help it if they don’t like the truth.
Moving on, in order to lighten the mood a little and because it has been too long since I gave something away in a competition, here is a chance to win a one hour blog consultation, via telephone or whatever online medium is convenient for you.
To be in with a chance of winning the one hour blog consultation simply link to upstartblogger.com, perhaps in a blog post mentioning this competition, and leave a comment below so that I can track the entries.
At the end of April I will draw a name out of a hat at random and set up a mutually agreeable time. How you use that time is up to you. But I can’t promise to be anything other than honest, straight talking, and maybe a little dogmatic.
Hey Ashley, usually the people doesn’t want to hear the truth :( sorry for your bad experiences :( I have found that a lot of people get enthusiast about make business on internet but in some way they still believe is some kind of magic “thing” instead see just like another way of do business and that requiere effort and hard job.
puaha. myspace.
You are one of the few bloggers who I can always trust to lay it on the line and tell it how it is. Like many on the internet, too many bloggers try to be everything to everybody. My favorite part of your article:
“When they asked me why I was giving them what they described as dumb advice I told them that I was simply telling them how to be successful online using my own experience as a guide.”
What more can people possibly want? All the idiot Guru’s pretend to be experts on everything under the sun. I call Bullcrap on those who do and move on.
Quick story: Years ago I started playing golf and wasn’t very good but I had a passion. I found out who the best player in the county was. I went up to him one day on the driving range and asked him to teach me what he knew. He agreed. As he taught me, I emulated every move and was a good student. I never questioned him…ever. He became my mentor and friend. He wouldn’t accept payment, so I made stupid bets with him knowing I would lose. It was my way of paying him. This man took me from a -25 handicap to a +3. That is 3 better than a scratch player. I overtook my mentor because I did what he told me to do.
You can take what you want out of this story and relate it to blogging. If you want to be good at something, hang out and copy those who do it better than you.
I agree – putting all of your stock in somebody else’s platform (MySpace, Facebook, etc.) instead of your own site is not wise. Those platforms have their place – I wrote a post recently on one way that bands still benefit from MySpace, for example – but they are not a business model in and of themselves.
I have begun working as a consultant as well, with bands and small record companies. Most people come looking for advise with a pretty concrete idea already built up in their minds, and those can be next to impossible to break down.
Anyway, I’m putting up the link now and hope to have a chance to pick your brain!