Just the opposite – I’ve found the plot. No posts for over 2 months because I lost sight of the whole point of any web business.

It is not about making money.

It is all about creating value.

And that means value for the community you serve, whether local bricks ‘n’ mortar business or global Internet web business.

This website, for example, does not exist to make money. It exists to help people create and manage their own web business. When that purpose is fulfilled, rewards are automatic.

Your web business will have a different purpose, but as soon as you lose focus from that purpose and put making money first, you fail. Ideas and opportunities dry up. Your web business loses interest from visitors and yourself. Your web business fails.

Business Purpose Refound & Reinforced

Create Value & Reap Rewards

For a few weeks, I have pondered, planned and prioritized in order to make progress on several fronts. Not for the first time in my life have I got involved with too many projects, and failed to complete some. The excuse has been “too many projects,” but the truth is that delays and under-performance are always due to lack of focus, rather than lack of resources.

One easy way to lose focus is to concentrate on making money, rather than creating wealth. Even free info-products create wealth. You give readers more value than it costs them, not simply in the monetary sense, but also in time and effort. You generate advertising revenues and affiliate commissions as a by-product of the valuable information service you provide – not because you stick some links on a page.

Be True To Purpose

Today, I planned to simply stop making money, rather than writing about it, but a coincidence stopped me in my tracks. Even the best of web business resources can miss the point. Developing your own true voice is vital to developing a successful web business, but you must be certain that the voice is truthful.

Every syllable of Yaro Starak’s article rang true to me, until I reached the “sales pitch” tagged on at the end. The pitch is for Yaro’s Blog Mastermind course, which has always looked good value to me, though I have not tried it (so no affiliate link). I think it is perfectly good practice to draw attention to your own products and services at the end of a very good article. It’s particularly good to include a customer testimonial, so the link to a course member’s phonics website was well placed. Normally I’d just accept it for an appropriate chance to highlight the Blog Mastermind course. However, I’ve been insanely interested in phonics for over two decades, so I had to see how the subject was treated by a course member.

Everything on the member’s site screamed at me, “I want to make money out of phonics.”

Now I think anyone who teaches a struggling reader to overcome their difficulties deserves rewards beyond measure, but if money comes first, and teaching second, then it is just plain wrong.

I know I’m being harsh. I would have emailed the site owner first to express my concerns, but…

Respectful Privacy Or Untrustworthy Anonimity?

1. No email address.
2. The Contact Form is a form to order a free e-book. OK, that page has a comment facility, and there is indeed a comment on that page – but it is unanswered which suggests to me that Contact has not been made.
3. Anonymous whois registration

I’d actually like to help. Maybe I can contribute in some ways. I know how to teach phonics. I know how to create phonics teachers, and I know how to reap fair rewards from creating those worthy services.

I once spent weeks planning a phonics site. As the owner of the site in question says:

When I began I was not happy with the niche I had chosen and looked around for other easier niches.

I took a similar journey, but decided that the rewards available are too long-term for my needs. I might return to it some time, but for now I’d be happy to help anyone else creating, or considering, this type of web business. But if I’m going to spend time writing unanswered comments, I might just as well do it here.

The phonics site leaves me wondering. Is the site owner still failing to find her own true voice? Does she need help fulfilling purpose in a way that reaps rewards? Or, is the true voice committing the web business to failure by saying “My purpose is to make money?”