I have two requirements for selling anything:
- I personally achieved it.
- My readers told me to create and sell it.
Easy peasy, right? Wrong. Personally achieving the lofty blogging goals is difficult. I landed high quality backlinks on world famous blogs eight years into my blogging career. Call me nuts, but if something takes eight years to achieve that isn’t easy.
I created and sold How to Get Featured on World Famous Blogs after enough readers asked me how I landed on Forbes. A few asked me to create an online course for them to buy. I did based on their feedback.
I perceive myself to be ethical only because I follow the two steps. I did it. Readers told me to create it and sell it to them. If anyone questions my ethics or credibility they are in error because I did it. Case closed. End of story.
Can you stop the mentally injured from being mentally injured? Nope. One needs to be willing to look within to clear insanity.
Bloggers and Ethics Struggles
Everyone who has not perfected their mind to being enlightened suffers from unconscious guilt. Remember: “UNCONSCIOUS”! You are not aware of the guilt because you are not conscious of it. The mind of the average person who resists mind training is like an iceberg: the teeny weeny conscious part is the sliver of ice above the surface while the massive unconscious portion is hidden below the surface.
Unconscious guilt acts out in many ways but a belief in scarcity is a preferred outlet. People in this world fear running out of everything including money. Notice how trillionaires sue people for taking their money to see obvious proof of the scarcity principle. I mean this literally.
People who are terrified to lose desperately try to get money from other people. Trillionaires, billionaires, millionaires and the penniless mendicant in the gutter subscribe to the fear of loss.
Bloggers who are terrified to lose dip their toes in unethical waters. Some publish helpful content but something fishy gradually unfolds: this fearful lot asks you persistently to buy their offering through a steady declaration of calls to action. Everyone has to make a living. I see no major problems with the process of asking people for money, on the level of form.
Yet ethical issues typically arise because you cannot be honest with someone while you scavenge through their pockets.
Things feel off. In some cases, content quality falls off because how can you offer someone a hand out while using your hands to search their pockets?
My Experience
I have seen many bloggers jump the shark in this regard. Making money takes precedence over creating a tribe that has the power to choose for itself. That’s a big shift; far bigger than you currently realize.
I have screwed up. I have succeeded. Sticking to the two step process above organically made me ethical. I did it. I sell it because you told me to sell what I did.
I am transparent about my success and failure.
Those scared to lose blur the lines. Some speak only of their success for their terror of loss. Fear tells them that sharing failures instantly makes them a fraud who’ll go broke. So you only get the sunny side from them with no mention of the dark side. Everything appears to be easy for them not because this is true but because they are terrified about potentially not getting money from you.
Some lie. Some never bother with step #1 of my integrity process; they claim to have achieved goals that they never achieved. That’s an instant trust breach but why does that matter to someone scared to lose everything? Ethics go out the window at that point.
Another lot achieves something but tries to shove it down people’s throats. People are resistant because none asked for the blogger to sell the thing. Perhaps the ethics remain solid but asking someone to buy something they never wanted you to sell triggers resentment.
The Other Dreaded E: The Ego
Being terrified to lose lets the ego run amok.
“You need to buy this thing from ME or else you will lose out and suffer and struggle. I am the answer. My eBook is the answer. My online course is the answer. Nothing else is because I am the answer. My affiliate offering is the answer. Buy it now or lose the opportunity forever.”
I kid because I care, right guys?
I went drunk on the ego for a bit but have since forgiven myself for not being mentally perfect. We all go that route sometimes.
I published this post to help open-minded bloggers delve into any ethical selling issues kicking around in the mind.
We All Make Mistakes
I do not see less than ethical bloggers as being evil, slippery or as full on scammers because mistakes are mistakes. They are not the guilty one and I am not the innocent one. We all make mistakes. If anything, I remain highly ethical because I usually do not blame the other blogger for my shortcomings. Still not a perfected mind here, guys.
How to Be an Ethical Seller
Keep these ideas in mind:
- achieve specific goals
- listen to readers
- create and sell what readers tell you to create and sell
- clearly list all practical steps for how you did it
- follow ethical bloggers and look past everyone else because everyone else simply made mistakes
Conclusion
Being ethical comes down to being honest.
Sell what you personally achieved.
Listen to reader feedback.
Give away the farm with your product.
Prosper ethically.
Ryan Biddulph is the owner and creator of Blogging From Paradise Dot Com.