The only lasting business model
There are many different kinds of businesses and many models they use to try to make money. But there is only one business model that will survive and thrive over time. It’s the model of creating real value for customers.
Obviously there are more ways of making money, especially on a short term basis. Take a successful concept and copy it and milk it until there’s no value left. Promise people the world, but don’t deliver. Con and deceive them, and be gone when they find out. You’ll make money, sure (you may get arrested), but you’ll never build a lasting business on these models. That’s because you’re sucking value out of things, instead of creating value and giving it to others. These are models of destruction, not models of creation.
The only lasting way of making money is by creating value for others. Creation…not destruction!
Subjective profit
People want to make good deals. They want value for money, and they want to get more value than they think their money is worth. A good deal is a deal that gives you a subjective profit. If you feel that you’ve gotten more value than you paid for (in money), you will feel you’ve made a subjective profit. You’re better off after the deal, than you were before the deal.
Although this may feel like a psychological trick to make people feel good about a bad deal, it in fact is not. People differ, and as such have a different appreciation of value. Something that’s very valuable for one person, may be substantially worth less to an other. The difference needn’t be great for people to experience making a good deal, and in fact actually making a good deal. Buying a blu-ray player won by a person that doesn’t own an HDTV, for a discount compared to the retail price is a good deal for both (provided you do own an HDTV).
The same goes for the age-old scarcity vs. abundance mindset. To the shepherd with a hundred thirsty sheep, the woman that owns a well but no warm clothes is rich. He would happily trade a sheep for water for his herd. For both this is a good deal. The shepherd has a herd of 99 that will survive and the woman has a sheep that will provide wool for warmth. The water is more valuable to the shepherd than the one sheep. For the woman the one sheep is more valuable than the water consumed by the herd. Both are better off, so both make a subjective profit from this deal.
Even when combining talents this mindset still stands. The awesome guitar-player with the mediocre voice is better of working together with the awesome singer with mediocre instrument skills, than both are competing against each other. In competition they make mediocre music and won’t feel awesome, in cooperation, they make awesome music and feel great. And they’ll provide awesome music to the world, instead of mediocre music.
Not the everyday make money online scam artist
A lot of the make money online websites out there, are not based on providing real value. There are more variations to this theme than I could ever make up. I know I’ve fallen for some of them, and it sucks. People know when they’re getting conned. But to a lot of these site owners, that’s not a big deal, because they already have your cash! After that: screw you! They don’t care about you, or your money making abilities. They already cooking up some other scheme of getting your cash.
That’s not how I want to earn a living. I’m all in favor of the value creation model. I believe that it’s the only lasting way of making a living. I hadn’t updated Scraping Pennies, because it left me feeling like one of those make money online scam artists. That’s just not congruent with who I am, so I’m transforming this blog into an outlet for my thoughts on creating businesses based on the value creation model. It’s the only model that works. It’s also the hardest to set up, and the hardest to maintain. Yet it’s the most gratifying model of all.
Creation!
Not destruction.
More discounts: Ittybiz has an anniversary sale this week
Yes, even more discounts this week. Naomi of Ittybiz decided to give discounts on her products, because she’s having her 5 year anniversary today. Okay…I guess you need to find a reason to give discounts.
(Of course the only reason is to get even more sales, but who cares? Discounts are good!).
Ittybiz has several great value products, yet I don’t own all of them. In fact I only own one: the SEO School eBook. And I recommend it for anyone serious about starting an online business that could use a nice steady flow of search engine traffic.
I learned quite some things from the book and I applied it to my other blog and for my ebook (have work to do on this blog though). My ebook definitely would’ve sold better if I had read this SEO School before writing it. Anyway, you can get it now for just $19 which is great value for the money.
I decided not to enroll in the Online Business School or the Marketing 101 course, for two reasons. The main reason being the lack of time due to my wife’s difficult pregnancy. And in case you would like to use some one-on-one time with Naomi, that’s on discount too.
To sum it all up:
- SEO School –
$39now $19. Use discount code “wood” (without the quotes). - Online Business School –
$397now $197. Use discount code “wood” (without the quotes). - Marketing 101 –
$188now $94. - Consultancy / Brainstorming –
$250now $150 an hour.
The offer is valid until February 5, so if you want to get the discount, you’ve got about a week to make up your mind.
P.S. Yeah, I’ll write posts with real content soon. But you know…discounts are good. Especially on products I own and recommend 
P.S.S. Yes there are affiliate links in there, they don’t hurt your discount (the discount does hurt my affiliate cut though…). Read about how and why I hide the affiliate links.
Clickbank for Newbies
Lately I have been investigating the option of making niche marketing websites to earn some income online. Niche marketing sites are small sites focused on a small niche, that do not require a lot of attention (virtually no attention) after you’ve set them up. These sites are designed to promote products, and Clickbank is one of the places you can find these kind of products. Time to investigate some more, because I really am a Clickbank newbie.
A couple of days ago I got an email from Harvey Segal (he calls himself Mr. Clickbank) with a free report, Clickbank for Newbies. To be honest, that report made me look into Clickbank again. I already had an account there, but it’s dormant. And there’s a downside to dormant Clickbank accounts, I learned that from the report. And I learned another important aspect regarding the terms and conditions of Clickbank that prevents a lot of money from being payed to affiliates. Not to the very successful affiliates of course, but for the affiliates that try to earn some money on the side. And face it, that’s the case for most of us.
Important stuff to know before you put in a lot of effort, just to earn money for other people right? I recommend you download the report to find out what these pitfalls are, and how to solve them. It’s a free report and you don’t even need to supply your email address or anything.
P.S. I’ll write about my adventure in niche marketing land soon. It’s too early to be a compelling story yet
OIO Publisher platform now at a discount
The news: For a limited time only, OIO Publisher is available at a discount!
OIO Publisher is a platform that let’s you take control over your ad space on your website. I use OIO Publisher, the WordPress plugin, on Scraping Pennies and How to be an Original. Quite a while ago I’ve even written an extensive tutorial on how to set it up (the WordPress plugin part of the platform anyway). Although that article definitely needs an update, most of it is still valid in the current version of OIO Publisher.
When I wrote the tutorial the plugin was available for a one-off payment of $37. In the meantime the price has gone up to $47, which is still a very good deal! But it gets even better! For a limited time (only this month!) the plugin is available for as little as $25! Still a one-off payment, and you can use it across all blogs and websites that you own.
To get your discount, simply click on this image and use the coupon code Jan90-25. You’ll get the package at a nice discount for just $25, no strings attached. We can all use a discount in these financially challenging times, can’t we? So click that image and get the stuff (remember it’s a limited offer for January only).
P.S. Full disclosure: You can also use Jan90-30 to get it for $30 or Jan90-35 to get it for $35 bucks if you’re so inclined to Since these are obviously affiliate links, I would be very grateful for the extra bucks. But I’d go for the full discount if I were you!
P.S.S. I’ve been away from blogging on Scraping Pennies for quite a while again. I have not abandoned this blog, nor have I abandoned my other blog How to be an Original. Over the past couple of months I have been mostly offline due to the difficult pregnancy my wife is having. She’s been very sick (and slowly recovering now), but the baby is doing very well. Our little girl is due in May. Anyway, I’m back at blogging.
Blog reboot
There are times when life gets in the way of fun projects. That has been the fate of Scraping Pennies as well, as the past two months made me put this fun project on hold. I had too many things going on simultaneously that needed my attention. And if you divide your attention between too many things, none of them get the attention they deserve. So I decided to choose. Some projects get all attention, others get none.
Scraping Pennies was one of the projects that got no attention at all. Well…I did check the stats every now and then. And it amazes me that there are 40 something subscribers that stuck around. A would like to give you a big THANK YOU, I appreciate your loyalty! The wait was not for nothing, because I’m rebooting the blog.
Some changes
First of all, I moved hosts. I consolidated all my hosting to one company, Dreamhost. All my hosting is still in the range of the regular shared hosting plans, and Dreamhost offers a great value solution. Their shared hosting plan allows you to host unlimited sites. So I could host How to be an Original and Scraping Pennies on the same hosting plan (and a bunch of other sites as well), instead of having a hosting plan specifically for either one of them. So this move saves me money.
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