You love your blog. You love being in business for yourself. Your dream has come true and you are an entrepreneur! But you don’t yet have a blogging empire.
When you figure out all of the hours you are spending on blogging, you realize that you are not even making minimum wage! You don’t want to admit that to anyone! Now—no matter how much you enjoy what you are doing—you are a little bit sad.
You Can Have a Blogging Empire
It doesn’t have to be that way. You just need to convert your blogging into a blogging empire! Here are three options that you might want to consider when moving toward that blogging success level.
Option 1: Acquiring a Personal Investor (or Sponsor)
If you know anyone, such as a parent, uncle, or friend, who could be interested in investing in your blogging empire, approach him or her.
We can call this strategy “blog sponsorship.” Sponsorship is a way to find people with deeper pockets than your own and inspire them to sponsor your blog, usually in exchange for advertising.
Be sure to put together a proposal and presentation (using PowerPoint or something similar) to impress them about what your blogging empire could become with a little infusion of money.
Pretend you are not related to or friends with them, and propose your idea as if they were strangers. You could be surprised. They might invest in the future of your blogging empire!
Option 2: Obtaining a Business Loan
Using collateral is similar to getting a mortgage. When you get a mortgage, you are offering your house as collateral in exchange for money, which you would usually use to help pay for the house.
This is why banks can foreclose in situations where people haven’t made payments on their mortgages for several months. The banks have the houses as collateral and can now foreclose on them to cover the debt.
For a business loan, it would be better if your collateral were something related to your business. It is an option to take out a second mortgage on your house (or a first if you already paid for your home).
But you should really make this decision along with other parties who might have an interest in the situation (spouse, children, etc.). Of course, if you alone own the house and there are no other parties involved, then it is a decision that you can make.
Just realize what you are putting on the line. Consider whether or not it is a suitable decision for you and your personal life, especially if your business ends up not performing to the level you expect and you have difficulty repaying the mortgage.
Option 3: Creating a Product and Passive Income
This strategy might be a bit trickier, especially if you are new to the game. However, it is possible. Create a product that you can offer on your site. It should be one that manages itself (for the most part) so that it becomes passive income.
If there are multiple products, you will want to consider installing a shopping cart system. If you are using WordPress, you could consider WooCommerce as an option.
And if you have just one product, you could have a product page (without a shopping cart). Look at what other people are doing to get an idea of how you want to organize your page.
Maybe you want to offer something for free and get people to give you their email addresses. Then you can introduce your paid product in the same email with your instructions on how to get the free product.
In this way, you can even advertise on Facebook (a great way to filter to your exact audience) and offer the free product in order to get leads.
Starting with one product is a great way to get it going. You can always add a second product and eventually a shopping cart system when you are ready. Don’t forget to read about growth hacking to really get that launch and sales machine going!
Summary
There you have it: three suggestions for how you can take your blogging to the next level and grow those creative skills.
You don’t have to use these options, of course. Maybe they will inspire you to come up with some options of your own. You can also check out the video below for more strategies on how to grow your business.
You CAN transform your blogging into a blogging empire. The key thing is that you believe in yourself. You can do it!