A lack of a meritocratic environment is the number one reason why so many people are dissatisfied with their jobs based on research conducted for my book. There’s nothing more maddening than when someone less deserving is promoted over you due to politics instead of performance.
One of the main reasons why I left finance was because there was no correlation between performance and compensation anymore. In the past, if you made the firm X, you would be compensated X times a certain percentage. Given all the new rules by various governments as well as the need for profitable divisions to subsidize less profitable divisions, we all got paid roughly the same no matter how well we delivered. Working in a Socialistic style environment is fine if you’re not very motivated or are an underperformer. However, at the age of 34, I still had plenty of fight left, so I left.
Entrepreneurship is about as close as it gets to a meritocracy as it gets. All your wins and loses are due to your own efforts. If you don’t work, you don’t eat. It’s as simple as that. However, even with entrepreneurship, not everything is as meritocratic as it seems. If you so happen to have Ron Conway, the billionaire father of Angel Investing on speed dial, and Marissa Mayer, the CEO of Yahoo as your wife, chances are higher you will succeed.
Even though I wrote about how to buy your way to online success, I’m pretty much against buying myself into anything. I only wrote the post to highlight the other side of the story. It feels empty when you don’t build something on your own. Some would liken it to cheating.
Given entrepreneurship has some flaws in the pure meritocracy argument, I’d like to drill down even further and talk about becoming a successful online publisher. I’ll share my views as well as several other views from Yakezie Members.
THE CASE FOR THE INTERNET AS A MERITOCRACY
If you’ve been around long enough and have had any semblance of success, you will inevitably find people who crap on you. I cannot tell you how many fellow bloggers have attributed my performance due to luck, instead of hard work. When I ask them to do things like join the Yakezie 5,000+ Words A Week Challenge in order to bring more traffic and revenue to their sites, they don’t respond, I don’t know why. The forum has over 1,500 views. Gold star if you can answer why less than eight people signed up and even fewer made it through the entire duration.
Here are various roadblocks to building an audience online and what I did. Afterward, I’d love to hear your examples.
1) The internet is so complicated. Only tech savvy people can create a site. I don’t know where to start.
Action: I was as dumb as they came when I first started in 2009. I went to the Craigslist’s Services section and paid someone a couple hundred bucks to launch a now defunct website for me. He came to my house and gave me a three hour tutorial. I then spent a week reading every article and watching every video I could about online publishing. If you don’t have $200 to spend, just go to blogger.com or wordpress.com and launch your website for free in a matter of minutes.
2) Nobody will give me any attention. Therefore, my site will not grow.
Action: When you’re at the bottom of the barrel, it’s up to you to reach out and connect with other publishers. It’s up to you to retweet their work, comment on their sites, link to their work, and volunteer for anything that make their lives easier. For the first year my site was up, I probably commented on at least 20 different sites a day. Over time, I slowly built relationships with many established publishers when they realized I was here to stay. If I quit within six months, I would never have launched.
3) I’ve been rejected from guest post inquiries, staff writing positions, and carnival submissions.
Action: Welcome to the land of logical rejection. If you’re asking to become a staff writer or write a guest post without being around for more than six months, chances are you will be rejected because the publisher doesn’t know who you are and whether you will be around for the long haul. Everybody dislikes unsolicited inquiries from strangers. Build your relationship way beyond when you finally need to ask for a favor. I was rejected from everything: guest posts, staff writing, and carnivals. As a result, I decided to build my own Network.
4) I have nothing interesting to say nor do I have something informative to share.
Action: Unless you are the most boring person in the world, there is always something interesting to say! Unless you’ve never participated in an extracurricular activity, you most certainly have some talent above average you can highlight. I’m pretty horrible at a lot of things, but I am good at sports and investing. As a result, I tie in my tennis stories to help motivate my readers to keep on fighting. I also share with my readers my years of experience in finance and what I learned in business school to help readers gain financial freedom.
5) I’m always so busy at work that I don’t have time to write and connect with my peers.
Action: Figure out how you are spending your 24 hours a day and optimize. Is there TV time you can cut? Are you sleeping more than you know you should? For the first 2.5 years of publishing, I had to catch the 7:20amish bus to go to work. As a result, I woke up by 6am every weekday to write before work. I then spent another one to two hours late at night to catch up on everything I missed. By spending an extra 20-30 hours a week online for 120 straight weeks, I was able to build a presence.
6) I’m a poor writer.
Action: Beyond basic grammar and punctuation, readers of blogs do not come so much for our beautiful prose. Readers come to hear our opinions and learn something new. When so much of mass media is mass produced, it’s refreshing to hear a personal story from someone with little to no financial incentive. You can borrow a copy of Strunk & White from the library to tighten up your basic writing skills. You can read a book a month to find new styles of writing to emulate. You can go on YouTube and watch countless videos about better writing. Most of all, you can just write, edit, and get better.
7) English is not my first language. I am at a distinct disadvantage.
Action: You might be right, but learning a language is not insurmountable. Look at our friends in Western Europe. Practically everyone is bi-lingual or multi-lingual. Roger Federer can speak English, Swiss, German, and French and he’s a professional tennis player not a linguist. English is not my first language either, but by taking English courses in high school and college and communications classes in business school and practicing every day, I’ve managed to master the language. Worst case, you can write your posts in your native tongue and edit the post in English after using a translator! Just make sure you edit your work again.
8) I have better things to do with my time.
Action: Then go do something else! The worst is complaining why you can’t get ahead while not doing everything you can to get ahead. The second worst is then hating on others who are getting ahead, making unproductive misery for you both. There is a popular article on Financial Samurai entitled, “Are There Really People Who Work 40 Hours A Week Or Less And Complain They Can’t Get Ahead?” The article will bring you into bizarro land (my bus ride home).
GOOD THINGS JUST DON’T MAGICALLY HAPPEN
Unless you are missing some fingers and have a severe disability, the formula for online publishing success is simple: 1) Write good, lengthy content, 2) build backlinks organically, 3) develop relationships with others, 4) stay consistent, and 5) put in the effort. I know everybody knows the feeling of being proud of their latest work. Consistently replicate that feeling of pride and I’m sure we will all get to our defined levels of success in due time.
THOUGHTS FROM YAKEZIE MEMBERS
Sydney at Untemplater:
I know all too well how frustrating it is to get passed up for a promotion to someone else due to politics and other lame reasons. I thought I was going to have to go anger management on a few occasions last month to calm myself down. But I’ve managed to keep my cool by focusing on my end game, and I’m more determined than ever to break out of the mainstream corporate world in a few years to work online full time.
The Internet certainly is a humbling space to work in though. You can’t coast while your colleagues do all the work. There is no guaranteed paycheck every two weeks. And if you want to be able to enjoy things like a nice benefits package and a flexible schedule, you have to put in your own blood, sweat, and tears to be able to get them.
The barriers to entry in the online world continue to drop, and the amount of competition can be overwhelming. However, it is extremely motivating and rewarding to be able to publish content, interact with readers, and watch things grow over time. This is why I’m addicted and I’m happy pouring the majority of my extra hours into blogging. Anyone can become a blogger, but not everyone has enough interest, dedication, and perseverance to keep going long term where the rewards are waiting.
Maria from Money Principles
I do believe that the internet is an example of meritocracy because it is open to all and with relatively small initial outlay one can build a thriving side-hustle or a full time business. It doesn’t ‘see’ colour, background, appearance and formal qualifications – all one needs to have is talent, understanding of how the internet works and the determination to put the effort
in. Oh, and the more you put in the more you get out of it!
Some bloggers go for the ‘quick and dirty’ option of just putting something on to ‘irritate’ the search engines. When I started 2 years ago, that was the received wisdom – a blog post shouldn’t be longer than 500-600 words. This took quite a bit of doing for me; the 5000+ words Yakezie challenge I found liberating – now my posts are no less than 1000 words (including the guest posts) and they are proper articles.
Creating your own product is not for everyone; some can others can’t. Yet others blog only part time and they cannot afford the time. There is also the additional matter of what products – most bloggers sell themselves (they are the product); others sell information but a lot of it is not original; blogs can have translational value when complex notions are translated for the general public.
I think I am succeeding; my traffic has doubled since November and growing. But…I will always try to become better and to make The Money Principle better.
Robert from The College Investor
I believe that the internet is a meritocracy, but that you do need to maintain some basic promotional skills sets. The trouble with theinternet is that it is so vast, and there are so many users. So, while the “most popular” blog is probably the one with the best content, will all of your potential supporters ever find you? You have to get your own name out there, get some key supporters to help you, so that you can build a base that lets your website compete on the meritocracy level.
Edward from Edward Antrobus
I think there are a few limiting factors from keeping the internet from being a true meritocracy. Like so much in life, those factors are time and money.
By time, I’m specifically referring to when a site is started. The saying goes, the best time to plant a tree is 50 years ago. If you look at the biggest, most successful blogs, they are all at least 4 years old, dating back to the early pioneer days of blogging. They had less competition so they had an easier time rising to the top. Now that the space is more crowded, it is dominated by players that made a name for themselves years ago. A PF blog is always going to be competing against Get Rich Slowly. And by the time someone gets to that size, GRS will be double it.
Compared to other businesses, the internet may have a low cost of entry, but there is still money to be put down. If there is one thing I learned in my first year of Yakezie, it is that free hosting and free sub-domains limit your growth. But hosting and domain names can easily set you back a hundred dollars to get in the game. That’s not a lot of money for most people, but for the poor around the world dreaming for a piece of the dream, that is an insurmountable barrier. And that’s not even counting the cost of internet access; blogging from public library terminals is not easy!
Discussion Questions
Do you think the internet, and more specifically online publishing is a true meritocracy?
If people want more traffic, why not just post more often?
If people want to earn more money, why not put in the 5-20 hours on each post to make it as high quality and informative as possible?
There are countless examples of online publishers who make $5,000, $10,000, $25,000+ a month. Isn’t that income better than working at a job which doesn’t have as good a meritocratic environment?
Is it easier to hate on others than do the legwork yourself?
What is stopping you?
Looking to learn how to start your own profitable website? Check out my step-by-step guide on how to start a blog. It’s one of the best things I did in 2009 to help earn extra money and break free from Corporate America!
Oh no, do not publish a post that has been translated by Google translate! I have chosen to blog in English but am sure there would be plenty for me to do within the French blogosphere. If your English is not average at least, I would recommend writing in your mother tongue. I imagine many people wouldn’t put 5-20 hours on a post because there is no immediate reward. I started as a staff writer for travel blogs and was happy to get paid since my first post. After a few months I saw that blog was making a lot of money thanks to my posts. But with my own blog it took 3 months until I made money, and even if the money is decent, it is low for the time invested. If it is a meritocracy and 5% will succeed, part of the 95% won’t even start for fear of losing.
I look forward to reading some of your posts in French then!
Funny you should mention about staff writing. There is some fella who left Gizmodo after 7 years or so as a lead editor. He helped grow traffic tremendously, but at the end of the day, Gizmodo was not his. It didn’t matter how massive the site grew, when it’s not purely because of you, something feels missing.
Sam you have succeeded from hard work and hard work alone. I remember a year ago when someone wrote a horrible post about you and Yakezie. I said to myself wow… Sam has really made it to the big time now. :)
Always a fan of your work.
Thanks Jai. It’s actually one of the greatest honors to be denigrated online. It means you’re making an impact. I hope more folks write terrible things as it just makes me smile and get motivated during the times when I start feeling lazy.
Hope NYC is treating you well!
Thanks for including my thoughts. To be sure, I think that a lot of success is based on merit, but the question wasn’t “is the internet kind of a meritocracy?” or “is the internet more of a meritocracy than other income paths?” :)
Ahhh, but as you know, everything is always relative! I believe the internet is much more meritocratic than practically any other platform, provided we have the ability to start something online in the first place.
As per your thoughts on a big blogging always being ahead and doubling, that’s not always the case at all. Businesses fade all the time due to missteps, folks getting tired of running things, etc.
If those who had a headstart always stayed ahead, we’d have monopolies EVERYWHERE. And if that was the case, nobody would want to do anything. Hence, I encourage you to think beyond and believe you can do it. Give yourself some momentum.
A very valid point, although I would argue that dependency on a big competitor failing or dropping out of the race isn’t a very meritocratic system. But I hope my comments aren’t taken by anyone as a recommendation to not even bother trying.
Failure is inevitable. Opportunity lies for the well prepared to take advantage of market dislocations. For example, those with a large queue of posts on many different subjects are well prepared to press publish whenever something interesting happens in the news.
The only thing stopping you is yourself! I had to flip a switch inside a couple of times to decide on what direction to take. Heck! I’m still figuring it out everyday! Some things work, some don’t. There are probably a million other people who’ve tried what I’m doing. But it doesn’t matter!
Like you said, stick with it! Learn as you go. If you enjoy it, build mutual relationships, you will be successful!
The internet offers a great deal of opportunity to communicate, start a business and find a great deal of information. We are in the early stages though, I think there is even more ahead of us. The entry into the online world is nominal to start a business. All business online or not is based on merit. Clients or customers do not come back unless they like what you are offering.
Thanks for the mention. It will be interesting to see how the internet and online businesses transform over the next 5 to 10 years. I’m sure we’ll have even better tech devices that will help us work remotely from the far corners of the world, and we’ll be that much more experienced too. I’m sure there will be a lot of turnover though too as a lot of people really seem to drop off after the 2-3 year mark.
Mobile is definitely going to be key. We need to think about how we are optimizing our sites for mobile interactivity. That means probably more personalized apps. I’m sure lots of developers are creating handy dandy plug-ins for us.
The most important thing is sticking with it over the next 5-10 years and building a BRAND. Once you have a brand, you can leverage your brand into many different things. This is what makes us stand out from traditional journalists. We own our content and our brands.
Based on what I’ve seen over the past few years and I believe that for most of the time, it is a meritocracy. Those bloggers that work hard, either writing insightful posts shared their personality saw growth. The amount of growth varied, but with persistence it happened. remember when you started Sam- you reached out to me and after checking out your site, I wanted to promote it. you had a unique perspective and you covered topics no one else was talking about. At the time I was writing more towards college students, but it matter to you – you reached out to everyone.
I remember reaching out to you back in 2009 for sure Elle. Crazy how quickly time flies huh? Thanks for not kicking me to the curb. Looks like your old site is still alive, although I do miss the old voice.
Congrats on selling your car recently!
Thanks I’m happy to get the car sale done. Another goal completed and now to work on some other ones this year. I do miss GPT, but the money from the sale allowed me to work on other projects I really love like Couple Money.
I’ve been thinking about this post all morning and just wanted to add another point ;) Persistence has its benefits, including learning from others. Seeing what helps other blogs grow or decline has shaped how I worked. It’s not that I’m trying to copy or avoid something based on others are doing, it’s just I can examine the why behind it. Having a network like the Yakezie also is a huge boost because you can chat on the forums or other ways and get a behind the scenes look at things. Thanks again Sam for you post!
You are absolutely right. It behooves all of us to test things out, try and observe what works for others and make it our own styles, and so forth.
Having an inquisitive mind and tying things together is important. We have to admit when we suck, come to grips, and improve. Otherwise, we aren’t going to grow.
Thanks for including me, Sam. I suppose, I said it all in the feedback – but the effect that writing meaningful articles cannot be overstated. Have to say though, that I enjoyed writing the ‘100 words’ pieces – these took longer to write that the 1,000+ ones. May get back to them on Saturdays, just for fun!
Internet is a meritocracy in that hard work usually meets with success. The only drawback here is the time drain to do it. As you get older the weighing of where you put your everyday resources becomes a delicate balancing act.
The time “drain” is indeed a cost of trying to build something great. If one thinks it’s a drain, then one should stop working on their online presence and do something else. But if that is the case, in no way should one then complain why they can’t build something online!
My point was not about complaining; it was more an existential comment. As we age our everyday resources and stamina are not what they used to be. And it does take a lot of effort to do all the many things that life requires. I have spent my whole life working hard and being dedicated to my craft. This the perspective of a 61 year old so my comments need to be taken in that light.
Indeed, and I appreciate it. My question is more for those in their 20s and 30s. How can someone complain at that age without putting in the work?
Yes I totally agree. Man, I wish I still had when I was in my 20-30s. I was a real mad man. Just kidding, but not really. Anyway, the work ethic is imperative for success. My father who is 88 always preached it to me saying “Sonny boy, nobody gives you anything in life, you get whatever you put into it.” Old school but true even more so today!. Thanks again for all your posts and insights.
Do you think there has been a shift in entitlement attitudes by the American people from 30 years ago with the increased size of government?
Internet provides cheapest way to learn lessons of success without risking lots of money. It takes less than $10 to launch a blog, but it takes persistence, courage(to stay put without much income or success) and stead fast commitment to do well on the net. You can’t learn these great lessons of success at anywhere in the world for so cheap!! And like everything else in life, internet is a meritocracy.
I don’t think everything in life provides for a meritocratic environment e.g. you grow up in a single parent household with no money. However, perhaps the internet is more meritocratic than other settings, even if you did come from a poor single parent household, once you get started.
There is no such thing as a “true level playing field”. As Sydney mentioned, with low barriers to entry and competition in the stratosphere to become financially and page view successful is exceedingly difficult. Skills, intelligence, time, and money will give one a leg up (but that’s probably true in life as well). Only many years and countless hours of dedication can answer that question, as well as empirical research. I can’t really give a definitive answer, but it certainly is a thought provoking discussion question.
[…] (excuse the pun) is even bleaker. Aside from reviews on Amazon, there is IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes. The internet may be somewhat of a meritocracy, but these days a lone David will have trouble gaining traction against these goliaths.ProfitNow to […]
Sam, I’m surprised to read that English isn’t your first language! What is?
Sam–
Although I am not a member of the Yakezie Challenge group, I do enjoy reading the forums, and I thought that the 5,000 word a day challenge was interesting. There’s an Amazon author who cranks out 10,000 words a day, EVERY DAY (wish I could remember his name…some fantasy author).
I think there are two sides of the argument:
1) Promote better – that’s what folks like Derek Halpern of Social Triggers would say. You can write content once a week, but if you promote it rigorously and intelligently, you should be able to get traction. That would depend on your networking, ability/willingness to reach out, interesting story, and interesting content.
2) Post a lot. In a sense, it’s the easier, known path, but it also requires a lot of time and effort. It’s a different effort in the sense that you have to put the time into content generation rather than networking and reaching out.
A combination of both is smart, but unless you have boundless energy and don’t need to sleep, then it’s nearly impossible (unless you can type as quickly as Mavis Beacon and spin out ideas like James Altucher).
Thus, it comes down to a question of ROI. I don’t mean in the investment sense, because, as others have pointed out, the barriers to entry are low, but in the sense of how you value your time.
I’m reminded of all of the people I used to see on online poker tables who were breakeven/barely profitable grinders who would play for hours and hours and hours. They might make $2k in a year, but they were playing for a thousand or more hours (and yes, playing poker that much in a year is mind-numbing). They were getting worse than minimum wages and not playing with an infrequency to make it fun.
If you don’t have a clear goal in mind for how you measure the value of your output sometime down the road, then you’re wasting your time. It’s very similar to the questions that new business owners have to ask themselves:
a) How much of a precious resource (time or money or both) am I going to commit to this venture?
b) When do I know when to pull the plug, if it’s necessary?
Howdy Jason,
I think about ROI all the time, which is why I’ve been encouraging the network to focus more on affiliate income rather than direct advertising. It’s a long slog, but publish long enough and things will eventually click.
My ROI is what I call Return On Effort. It’s a journey to figure out the right balance as interests differ from person to person.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Sam
I can’t say I’m blogging for money, but then I definitely want to complete the challenge. Debt Advice Resource isn’t about “selling” anything just helping people avoid the same stupid mistakes I made. However, I can liken your info Sam to my situation.
I don’t spent hours writing a post
I review an article twice and then publish
I never have anybody read my content before it’s published
I only dedicate around 8 hours to blogging a week – it’s not enough.
So, what’s stopping me? The belief that my writing isn’t interesting enough? Probably. Family responsibilities? Probably. Lack of general time. Probably.
Excuses. We make our own time for things that are important. 3-4 posts a week minimum and i’m starting to make really good friends on Yakezie!
Might never make $1,000 per month but happy to play the game.
I have thought like Sydney before about going into anger management. It is all too much politics at the workplace. Smaller area that I live everyone knows everyone. What I have gotten out of being online is learning how search engines work, the behind the scenes stuff that no one ever sees but everyone who is online knows about. I have a few other sites I have been working on that I am finally starting to see some returns on the bhehind the scenes work. I like to think that I have to spend a little to make a little. ie website, design work. I can tell an amateur and a professional just by looking at designs. That is fine but if you are trying to come off as a professional then you need to look and act the part.
Interesting question Sam! At first look one would think that through hard work, publishing relavent content, and building relationships you can be financially successful on the internet. I don’t believe it is that simple. Years of hard work can be wiped out literally overnight. Not to put to fine a point on it but advertisers are more interested in site stats than how gifted a writer you are.
Wow! Very true and inspiring stuff that should make anyone look inward. I will admit that #6 was a fear of mine, I was awful at English classes in school. All those essays I bombed made me think nobody would want to read what I wrote. Turns out people are more interested in the information you have to say than the way you say it. As long as you spell things right and keep a baseline you can’t go wrong!
I liked the second and probably the eighth points the best! They almost have a common denominator and that’s your work ethic. It’s easy to get caught up and distracted online, especially when their are podcasts and blogs that only talk about how easy it is to monetize or be successful. You might be able to fudge a lot of things online to create the air of success but you definitely can’t fudge time in or genuine authenticity.
I am going to have to work on #6 quite a bit but I know that just by powering through the articles on my blog, I will become a better writer. I look around and see tons of PF blogs that have become successful and give great advice. i am hopeful to be joining that crowed very soon.
People don’t really know how much work it takes to make it online. They thinks its so easy yet they don’t want to put in the time. Its funny no one has time but waste it watching tv or just sitting around trying to find something to do. You and Pat Flynn seem to be every where I visit and its about networking and working your way from the bottom up. No one is going to give you something, help others out is what I tell people. Make a name for yourself. If someone else can do it why cant I and even do it better.
[…] others frustrated by the achievements of others who began at the same time. Why them, not me? The internet is one of the best meritocracies. You see your results in real-time through the amount of traffic and/or revenue you receive every […]
[…] because I do. It’s just that the biggest accolade is simply site traffic.The internet is as close to a true meritocracy as there is. Anybody can grow their sites with enough effort and good content because the search […]
[…] one of them when I first started out. Come to the realization that everything is rational in the most meritocratic environment on Earth. If our traffic is fading, we write more. If our income is sucking wind, we develop new […]
[…] (excuse the pun) is even bleaker. Aside from reviews on Amazon, there is IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes. The internet may be somewhat of a meritocracy, but these days a lone David will have trouble gaining traction against these […]