Expert Entrepreneur: Chris Garrett

In my quest to find the absolute best entrepreneurs that the blogosphere has to offer, I’ve encountered literally hundreds of “experts”. Everyone has their expert opinions. Sometimes it’s very hard to determine who actually knows what they’re talking about.

Without a doubt, Chris Garrett does.

Chris is an online business consultant, teacher, coach, new media industry commentator and writer. He has been involved in several startups and has written for some of the web’s best-loved blogs. Over the years Chris has co-authored five traditionally published print books and many ebooks. His favorite print book is now in third edition and was written with the famous Darren Rowse of ProBlogger and is titled ProBlogger: Secrets For Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income.

He was gracious enough to sit down with me and answer some pressing questions that I had:

Daniel:

In ProBlogger, the book you penned with Darren Rowse, you don’t talk about how easy it is to make money from blogs. You actually talk about how difficult it can be at times. That’s refreshing. I think we all get a little tired of the “make a million dollars tonight, it’s easy” schtick. I suppose all businesses have unique challenges, but I’m curious- is there anything about blogging specifically that’s extremely frustrating for a beginner to grasp? Also, would you approach writing a blog differently according to your intent? For instance, if your blog’s ultimate goal was to generate some sort of business, would the model for building popularity and authority be substantially different from the approach used on a personal, non-commercial blog?

Chris:

Great question. People get tired of Darren and I telling folks how hard and long the process of blogging can be, especially if you want to make income. It’s not what people want to hear! That is the most frustrating thing at the very beginning, when you are working and working but only have you and your family reading. When nobody comments, nobody links, nobody subscribes. Hopefully that time passes and you start getting positive feedback, but it feels bad to not have your hard work recognised.

In terms of approaching blogging differently depending on intent, yes I would. I had a photography blog for a while where I set out to learn how to use my new DSLR camera and take pictures. It wasn’t a blog where I was teaching as an expert, more a collection of thoughts and things I had discovered, and even questions to the audience of where I was going wrong. I said “I am on this journey, why don’t you join me?”. And people did, it was a lot of fun! I have a personal blog that has evolved from back in the 1990′s when it was a personal journal to now where it is more a collection of photographs. The intent behind my personal blog is a lot to do with keeping my friends and family in England aware that we are still alive and well, ha!

Daniel:

You draw a distinction between making money from blogging and making money because of blogging. What’s the difference and is one model more sustainable than the other?

Chris:

Both models are equally valid. As I write this a popular blog that is funded through advertising just got around $20million investment from venture capital. I have seen advertising rates decline in a lot of markets, though. It’s easier to make more money from a smaller audience if you have something compelling to sell, rather than seek lots of traffic to get good advertising dollars.

Chris:

It all depends on your business model, your expectations, your cost of living, and how much time and resources you have. I have seen a blog go from nothing to $8-$10k a month from advertising in under a year, but that is very rare. On the other hand, I have a client who was profitable the first month of his blog and was making a full time living from the second month onwards, because he sold consulting. Jon Morrow made a full time living without having a blog of his own at all - he guest posted on other blogs! One of my clients makes $5k a month or more as a freelance blogger. Using your blog as a portfolio or
resume, getting freelance or contract work, and looking at the more “passive” income options as a medium to long-term strategy works best in my experience, and you can start to pick up a full time income well within a year if you work hard at it, network, have a compelling offer, and work on giving super customer service that produces referrals and testimonials. Just don’t believe anyone who sells push-button systems that claim to generate an immediate income.

Daniel:

Last, let’s talk framework. If you had to lay out a framework that underlies the basic tenets of success in the online/information product world, what would it be? Use directives if possible.

Chris:

My framework is based around what I call the ARC system.

1) Attraction - you have to attract the right people, and create
content that will help them with their problems, goals and
frustrations.

2) Retention - then you have to keep your audience happy and growing.
Build good will and loyalty.

3) Conversion - only then will you be able to make offers, and maybe
more important, know what your audience wants and needs.

There is more to it, obviously, but get those things right and you
will be off to a good start!

Check out Chris’ work on his blog or follow his updates on Twitter.

You’ll be happy you did.