#12 The Clarity Sessions - How To Make Money Online

Have you ever wondered how to make money online? 

There is one main reason why you're not making any sales online. I asked in a webinar recently for people to let me know how many dollars they've made online since the beginning of the school year, and most people said zero. The misconception that many people have for why they aren't making money is that they don't have enough traffic.  They say things like:  "You know, I don't have any traffic, and I'm not running any Facebook ads. I don't have anybody that's affiliating for me. I don't have a very big email list." But I want you to know that those aren't the reasons you're not making money online.

Here are the steps you need to take to start making money online:

1. Clarify your audience.

The one consistent theme between people who are making money online and people who aren't has nothing to do with traffic. It actually has to do with the clarity you have about your audience. Knowing who you are writing and creating for is the difference between a product that sells and a product that fails. Success is all about answering the question: "How can I help one specific person receive a tangible result or get unstuck?"  That's what your course, book, blog, and other services/products should do. Everything you create should be for a specific person.

In my course The Amplify Method, I share about how there are actually three legs to the stool of a successful online business. If you think about a stool that you would be comfortable sitting on, you want to make sure that all the legs are even, strong, and supportive. In the same way, your online business needs the support of all three of those legs so that your business, family, and team are well-supported. The three legs of the stool stand for audience, message, and products. The part of the "stool" where I see people get stuck the most is on clarifying their audience. They are trying to write for everyone. They're not focused on one person. The way you can tell you haven't clarified your audience is if you're using vague words or phrases like: "I want to encourage people" or "I want to share my story." When you shift your perspective to focusing on one person, it makes all the difference.

2. Understand your audience.

I've narrowed down my audience to one. Her name is Cheryl. She is 35-years-old and lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. She has two kids who are both in school, and she's very busy. She's busy with her church, friends, and different activities. But she has Thursday afternoons. Thursday afternoon her husband picks the kids up from school and gives Cheryl free-time. During that time, she goes to downtown Cincinnati to her favorite coffee shop. She orders her favorite dessert and a latte, and she sits in front of her computer from two to six o'clock in the afternoon. She works on sharing her message online.

Cheryl opens her notebook and she says, "Okay, I'm going to write a blog." So she starts working on it. She gets about 10-minutes on the computer, she gets distracted, maybe her phone vibrates, she gets a text message from a friend. So she leans over, picks up her phone, takes a look at it, and answers the text message. Then she decides she is stuck and needs some inspiration. So she hops over to Instagram. She starts scrolling, and, before she knows it, she is down a rabbit hole. She is looking at everybody else who's sharing their message online, who has an online course, and a beautiful, picturesque life. Cheryl starts to feel discouraged -- like her message doesn't matter and she starts to think: "Maybe I should give up."

3. Speak to the needs of your audience.

As Cheryl is scrolling through Instagram, she gets to a post from me. From my post, she receives encouragement, inspiration, and a little instruction on how to focus on her people, audience, message, or products to help her move forward. She decides not to give up and puts her phone back down. She goes back to her laptop, finishes that post, and presses publish.

"Cheryl" is my audience. And the one question that I ask before I post on social media is, "What does Cheryl need to hear from me today?" 

Starting with your people is the biggest difference between those who do well online and those who really struggle for years to come.

That's my challenge to you: Go deep figuring out exactly who it is that you help. Clarify who they are, jump into their head to understand their pain points, and then speak to their needs.

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