Wealth from get-rich-quick schemes quickly disappears, but wealth from hard work grows over time.
I was hanging out with some folks last night and we were talking about business and someone brought up the old proverb above. The idea being that where money and finances are concerned slow and steady will win the race in the end.
Someone pointed out that something like 70% of all lottery winners are poorer (i.e. deeper in debt) than before they won their millions in just 5 years.
Poking around this morning I see that figure mentioned a lot but I can’t find the source reference anywhere so I don’t know if that is a real number or was made up by someone. But Google lottery winners broke years and you get the idea that it might not be that far off.
One thing I did learn this morning is that 5% of all lottery players buy half all lottery tickets. And I’m guessing those ticket purchasers aren’t the Bill Gates type either.
Most of the folks who win the lottery don’t understand the principles of how money works. Apparently some of the same skills required to accumulate wealth are necessary to keep it. People who earn their money are much more likely to use it wisely than those who just receive it as a gift.
Parallels in Blogging
It is very possible to build your blog very quickly, especially where solid traffic and links are concerned. It takes a lot of work to make that happen, though.
And there are a lot of folks who don’t want to put any effort in at all but somehow they still expect they should see the same results.
The temptation exists to join some traffic or link exchange program without doing the research to see visitors and links climb early on. That is an approach that can work for you as there are now some decent programs out there.
Unfortunately there are also a bunch of less than valuable programs out there that will cause far more problems for you than they solve.
A Winning Strategy
Personally I’m a fan of slow but steady natural blog growth. Here’s what I mean by that:
- Consistently write quality posts
- Read other blogs in your niche (have them in your feed reader)
- Comment those blogs in a way that adds value to the conversation
- Link to all the good stuff you find out there (with trackbacks)
- Be patient
Blogging for your business is a long term strategy to build web traffic, and awareness for the business.
By using a slow but steady approach your blog will be less adversely affected during those times when you can’t give it as much attention as normal.
For example I’ve been completely swamped around here for the last month or so and the blog has suffered some neglect. However, because I’ve built it up using these slow-but-steady techniques, I haven’t seen the dramatic down turns in the numbers that probably would have come with some other, less dependable approaches.
Just like with the story of the tortoise and the hare, or that old proverb, slow and stead wins the business blogging race.
Chris: No coincidence that this is the third time in 2 days that I’ve been involved in the conversation about lottery winners going broke. I’m reading “Busting Loose From The Money Game” and am really learning a lot about my own personal relationship with money. It’s fascinating to me. And I’m glad to hear your comparison with blogging in that conversation. I’m not one who believes in blogging just to put something out there – I try to write when I’ve got something to say, so I might not post for a week. I haven’t used my blog to build my business – yet – so I’m glad to be learning more about that from your blog! Thank you!
Jodee, On the lottery thing – I’m generally against them because they are a de facto tax on poorer people. The wealthy millionaires and Bill Gates type billionaires are not the ones paying for tickets. And it’s not the middle class that’s in the 5% who are buying half of the tickets sold.
That’s why it surprises me that so many who are so passionate about wealth redistribution by the government are often so much in favor of lotteries. It makes no sense.
Winning the lottery has become the new American Dream for most folks. And say they do get “lucky” and win. The odds are they will very quickly end up in worse shape than they were beforehand. For many that dream becomes a nightmare.
Now about your blog: You could easily leverage your very well established blog to support your business.
You have a link on your main web site to your blog. Why not put a link from your blog back to your web site?
Instead of linking to Amazon.com for the books you’ve written, why not link directly to the book web sites? (I’m assuming you earn a little more on each book you sell directly vs. on Amazon.com here)
And that doesn’t even get into the more complicated adjustment of transferring your blog over to your own domain (which I think you should probably also do by the way). Sure you would take a bit of a short term hit in the search engines. But the long term benefits make the pain worth it in my mind. Of course the longer you wait, the more pain a transition will cause…
I’m just saying.
Chris, thanks for an article that I enjoyed and agree with. Very kind of you to validate the method I’ve been using.
Becky, your blog has been growing steadily for sure. But slow is relative to my way of thinking. [Thinks to himself, "Oh, that the rest of us could grow as slowly as you are!"]
Yeah, I’m an overnight success, 12 months in the making!
It reminds me of an interview I hear with Huey Lewis after his album Sports
hit #1.
He got a little miffed when the reporter asked him how it felt to be an overnight success. He said something about how 15 years of playing in smoky bars happened in that one night, but most folks didn’t seem to want to count that.
You are proof that consistent effort pays off over time!
on that old saying, very true… you hear a lot of stories of lottery winners, especially the ones who nabbed a ‘big one’, living like kings for a while and then end up in a much worse financial footing before they hit the jackpot… many think that they are set for life and go on a spending spree like there is no tomorrow… only to in end up in debt… and its not a good idea to fall into debt especially now that the economy struggling…
You don’t want to start a blog just because everyone else is doing it. That is a recipe for failure. And a blog that is not integrated as part of your overall efforts may work, but will not achieve maximum results.