Starting a blog on building confidence, would like your help

Postby guylfe » Sun Jul 02, 2017 9:26 am

Hi everyone, I'm about to start a blog about self esteem and confidence, having gone through a huge process over the last 10 years of learning to truly love myself and be confident in who I am, after being bullied and made to feel I was rotten and wrong to exist in school. I feel like I have a lot to contribute, and being able to help people through my insights is something that has, for a long time, been a dream of mine, and if at all possible I would like to make that site in the future my main source of income. Part of the reason for me wanting to do this is that growing up I never had that "one-stop-shop" for a lot of these things, and I feel like the process would have been much easier if I did.

Before I get into it, I first want to really recommend therapy for anyone who can afford it. My experience in therapy had a lot to do with getting to where I am today, and in a blog I can only give general concepts, whereas therapy can go deeply into your own specific stories and what causes your low self esteem, and thus solve it deeply and effeciently.

Okay, with that out of the way, I have 3 questions that I would really appreciate this great community's input on:
Number 1, and most important: What parts of this huge thing called confidence and self esteem are you most struggling with and would most like advice on? I'm trying to check the general pulse of what are the more hot-button topics I can help people solve. I will also try to respond to people posting here in hopes of helping them solve those issues.

The second and third questions are about the business aspects of it, and while I would like advice on that as well it isn't nearly as important as what the actual content would be. Regardless, any and all input would be greatly appreciated.
Number 2 has to do with the name of the site. I currently have several potential titles: "Construct Confidence", "Create Confidence", "Establish Self Esteem", "Build Confidence", "Become Confident". These are all very straightforward and I think that's what I want the name to be, as I don't want a name that's too "gimmicky". If you could tell me which ones you like more (or suggest your own names) I would really appreciate it.

Number 3 is about the necessary evil of monetization. I have several ideas on how to make a living off of this website, but I would like to hear what you people think is the most plausible, both what you would pay for and what wouldn't seem unfair to you as a paid service:
1. A "members-only" forum with a small 5-10$ monthly fee, where the community (myself included) helps each other. The fact that it's paid would make it much easier to filter for trolls or people coming into the community with the goal of harming others, and would ensure the community stays a quality community.
2. Patreon, where people paying get extra content (but what would that content be? I don't want too much to be behind a paywall)
3. Affiliate marketing of products that I feel personally helped me
4. A paid pre-taped course where I guide people through the process of becoming confident, with the steps I have gone through.
5. Paid 50$ or so 1-hour skype sessions where I help people with their specific problems (As much as I can without being a certified therapist or indeed qualified enough for certain issues).

I am personally leaning towards a combination of 1, 2, and 3, with 4 and 5 being something I'm on the fence about (as how can I make a course people will buy and yet not withhold meaningful content from casual readers for 4, and 5 requires an immense time investment as well as being a tad too close to therapy which I am not qualified to give for my liking, even though I do have good experience with actually helping people in that format). The thing is, I'm not sure 1+2+3 would be enough to make a living off of, with 4 and 5 being much more obvious ways to make money.
I want to thank in advance anyone who takes the time to comment and help. As you can probably tell this topic is very important to me, so your time and help are greatly appreciated.

Oh, and before I forget, I would really appreciate if people here could point me to other similar communities where I can get similar feedback.
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#1

Postby Richard@DecisionSkills » Sun Jul 02, 2017 10:22 am

guylfe wrote:Hi everyone, I'm about to start a blog about self esteem and confidence, having gone through a huge process over the last 10 years of learning to truly love myself and be confident in who I am, after being bullied and made to feel I was rotten and wrong to exist in school. I feel like I have a lot to contribute, and being able to help people through my insights is something that has, for a long time, been a dream of mine, and if at all possible I would like to make that site in the future my main source of income.


What makes you different than every other life coach? Pretty much your proposition is the exact same spin that every "life coach" tries to sell, including Tony Robbins. I struggled, I found a secret, I will share, but I need to make a living BS that 99.9999% of life coaches dream of selling, verses actually addressing and moving forward with their life as an XYZ profession.

Here is my advice. The number #1, absolute BS in your pitch that everyone can see through is that you unfortunately never had access, but you discovered a secret that you will share for a price. The fact is ancient wisdom to deal with pretty much every single struggle has been in existence has been around for thousands of years, you had access all the time, but now you are repackaging that wisdom. I recommend that approach over playing the, "I was once a victim like you, but now I'm not," card.

Best of luck competing with all the victims turned life coach. It is a brutal and highly competitive market. Seriously, not a dig. It's a tough racket.
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#2

Postby guylfe » Sun Jul 02, 2017 11:25 am

"Here is my advice. The number #1, absolute BS in your pitch that everyone can see through is that you unfortunately never had access, but you discovered a secret that you will share for a price." Nowhere am I saying that. There will be paid services, yes, of which I am as of now still undecided as is apparent from my post, but I want the majority of the content - and not just fluff, but the stuff I feel really helped me out the most - to be free.

Perhaps that wasn't clear enough in the original post, but what I want to share is paradigms that helped me on my journey as free blog posts to help others in need or when they're having bad days, first and foremost. As very clearly stated in my post, that is the main reason I don't want to do a paid course, because I don't want to withhold what I feel is the "best" content. I also highly recommend therapy and emphasize the limitations of what blog posts can do, which I think would be counterproductive if what I was trying to do was make people think that I had the end-all-be-all answer that you absolutely can't find anywhere else.

I am quite rattled by your response as a "and you can become confident TODAY if you just pay 99.99$" type business was the furthest thing from my mind and I fully intend to provide as free blog posts what I consider tremendous value to anyone looking for self esteem advice.

That said, perhaps I have a bias because it's my site idea and I don't know enough about how the scam-type businesses work. If you don't mind, I would like it if you expanded on why you feel like that is the case here, as I don't want to be a con artist in any way whatsoever, even by accident. (and again, I want to emphasize that I want the majority of the content to be free. Regardless, I'm not going to be withholding "secrets" or "the BEST techniques" behind a paywall. I even stated so specifically in my first post).

I do know that growing up, having the type of site I want to make would have really helped me a lot, and that's my main reason for making it. You say what I offer is the same as every other life coach, but the reason I'm starting this site is because I couldn't find anything like it online. What you said really rattled me as I was really excited about this idea and the help I can provide so many people, so I would really appreciate it if you replied back to further this discussion. It can be either here or privately via Email or PM, but I would really like to continue this conversation in some way.
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#3

Postby Richard@DecisionSkills » Sun Jul 02, 2017 4:02 pm

guylfe wrote: What you said really rattled me as I was really excited about this idea and the help I can provide so many people, so I would really appreciate it if you replied back to further this discussion.


Don't be rattled. If you are excited, great. But, tell me what is different about your site. What makes your site different than all the other sites out there? You say you haven't found any self-help, life coaching sites like yours, yet what you described did not seem to differentiate from any other person that blogs for free about their hardships and what helped them and then says subscribe, click on my affiliate link, buy my e-book or register for a video coaching session.

I didn't say anything about get rich quick or scams. There are plenty of people that want to legitimately be life coaches, but all they have to offer is, "I suffered, I improved, so that means I can share what worked for me and that will work for you."

Let me put it another way. Stay excited. Start your blog, share your story, have a great time as a hobby. Participate in here. Help some people in here. Don't try to figure out ways to monetize until you have a better understanding of how exactly your help is somehow different than all the other hardship stories turned life coaches already on the market.
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#4

Postby mindful entrepreneur » Tue Jul 18, 2017 1:52 am

To get people to pay you not even knowing who you are , you have to be willing to give whatever it is that offering away thats has tons of value for free. You have to gain that trust first.

Honestly there isn't anything different that you can offer that no other life coach in the industry isn't currently offering or has thought about it.

What makes anyone in different in business period is marketing and building trust with your target market. The question is how will get people to trust you to purchase anything you have to offer.

Just something to think about ...
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