The Best Piece of Advice for New Bloggers Looking To Make It Big

by Robb Sutton

I have been lurking around the Problogger.com forum (and posting some) for quite awhile now, and one of the forum members brought up a great question. If you had one piece of advice to give a new blogger looking to make it as a problogger…what would it be?

While there were some pretty good responses to the question, I want to share mine with you and then explain why.

#1 Piece of advice…

Most bloggers fail because the do not take action. You can blog on just about anything you want and be successful if you take action. Instead of spending your time telling everyone what you are going to do…actually do it.

Why do you think bloggers “give away” a lot of their secrets to making money online and growing successful blogs? They are not worried about competition in most cases because they know the vast majority of the readers will move onto another source of “learning” without taking action on the steps they just read.

It is a lot easier to jump from blog to blog or ebook to ebook soaking in all the knowledge. It is hard to take actions on those steps and have the discipline to hold yourself accountable.

And that really is the #1 piece of advice I give new bloggers because it is true.

I had a talk not too long ago with a very influential blogger who runs a very successful business and membership site. He was asked a very interesting question during an interview that caught my attention and I share the same opinion when it comes to his answer. Now…I can’t find the exact interview so bare with me as I ad lib what was said.

The interviewer asked him, “How many of your students will actually make a lot of money blogging?”

His answer, “Probably around 5-10% if that…while you can give everyone all of the information to become successful, it is still on their shoulders to take the action. Most people fail to take that action.”

If you want to be successful at anything. Whether it be blogging, sports, work, school or walking down the street, you have to take action to see the goal. There are so many people in this world that talk about having a better life, losing weight, getting into better shape, making more money, saving for retirement or eating better, but there is a very small percentage that actually take the action and hold themselves accountable to achieve that goal. Instead, they move onto the next “great idea” that they are not going to act on as well.

Have you ever run into that guy that is always talking about his great idea, but it never comes to fruition? It is because all he is doing is talking! If he would take half the time he is spending telling you how great his idea is and use that to take action on it…it would have been done already!

If you take one thing from this blog…it needs to be that success does not come without taking action. You can jump from blog to blog reading up on all the great ideas in the world, but you are not going to see one ounce of success without actually trying it out and seeing what happens.

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5 comments

Craig Fifield October 23, 2009 - 9:03 am

I couldn’t agree more Robb. I tend to push new bloggers to execute rather than think. Doing anything towards their goal is better than just about anything else they could be doing. Although, at times I still struggle with this myself!

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Robb Sutton October 23, 2009 - 10:07 am

I struggle with it too sometimes…it’s that practice what you preach mentality. It is easy to get stuck in thought over action. The only way to really learn what works is by doing it!

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Coach T.I.A October 24, 2009 - 1:53 am

I agree mate.. it’s the bane of humankind! All of last year I’ve bought products, subscribed to ezines and gathered hundreds of emails with “very important info that I’ll use someday” – Ha! ha! Ha!

Luckily, I do take action about half the time so I’m doing ok with my blog but I know I could be doing so much more to get to the next level (I’m working on it).

I have learned though, that unless you know have a good reason to be doing what you do, one probably won’t take action. A 100% commitment is needed to become better than good. And THAT’s where most people fall. If we aren’t committed and passionate about our writing/business, there’s a high chance we’ll look for the next easy tip rather than take action.

In a way it’s mindboggling – the amount of time and effort we spend on reading and learning far outweighs that needed to actually take action!

Reckon it’s the 1) fear of failure 2) lack of a compelling reason that makes people do (or not do) that. Anyhoo, we’ll beat that curse 😉

Cheers! Tia @tiasparkles

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Robb Sutton October 24, 2009 - 6:17 am

Tia…

Couldn’t have said it better myself. I hit a day that I realized I had downloaded more ebooks and generated more traffic for other blogs rather than creating that kind of traffic for my own. I was being the consumer not the business owner! At that point, I made a change…and a lot has changed since then!

Robb

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ep November 6, 2009 - 2:57 am

Yes its true,,,, you have to try to succeed!! But remember that when you have done everything possible and you are completely out of breath from exhaustion, your still rolling the dice and only a few percent will truly make it and be accepted. If you really analyze success stories, you will find that for everyone that truly made it, there were thousands equally talented, ready, trying and willing etc that didn’t make it.. Thats called the “last element of chance” or right place at the right time paradigm. I’m just trying to show that there are forced beyond your control in any endeavor.

Good night and good luck!

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