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The Aha!NOW Chat With Yaro Starak [Interview – Part 2]

Table of Contents Interview With Yaro Starak – Part 2Establishing An Automated BusinessDealing with Difficult TimesProducts for BloggersPros…
Interview with Yaro Starak Part 2
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Here’s the second and concluding part of the interview with Yaro Starak, where he continues to guide us about how to have a successful blog that makes us money.

That’s right, Yaro wants you and me to make the most out of blogging and achieve financial freedom, so that we can take our blogs to the next level.

As I said before, Yaro’s philosophy of making money blogging introduces a new perspective that might force many bloggers to review their blogging strategy.

However, not everyone has the primary aim of making money through blogging.

Having said that, you’d definitely like to be compensated for the amount of quality time you spend on your blog, wouldn’t you?

So, I’d like to know your personal views on making money from blogging and we can perhaps discuss this topic in the comments at the end of the post.

Before you proceed to read this post, I’d suggest reading the first part of the interview, if you haven’t done so yet. Here’s the link to that post:

>> The Aha!NOW Chat With Yaro Starak [Interview Part 1]

The 10 questions put across in that post covered the following aspects:

  • What things he did differently as a blogger and an Internet marketer?
  • Why blog community and customer relationships are important for bloggers?
  • What should bloggers do to make money?
  • Which blogging strategy should you adopt nowadays?

And much more!

Bloggers have found this interview inspiring and motivating.

I would suggest you listen to the podcast there, if you haven’t yet, and come back to listen to Yaro’s answers to the next 10 questions about blogging and life that reveal his personal and professional perspectives.

Here’s “Yaro Unplugged” at Aha!NOW in this podcast interview.

 

 

Transcript

You can also browse the post below, which is in fact a transcript of the interview with Yaro Starak.

Besides, I have something special for you! Now you can also download the PDF of the entire interview – both the parts, by subscribing to the blog (existing subscribers have already been sent the link!).

And, of course, you’ve the takeaways from this interview at the end of the post.

If you haven’t downloaded Yaro’s free ebook to increase your blog traffic, here’s the link again – Blog Profits Blueprint.

Interview With Yaro Starak – Part 2

As we covered the first 10 questions in the Part 1 of the interview, here are the rest of the questions in continuation from that interview –

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Establishing An Automated Business

Q11: You never took up a full-time job in your life and you believe in your concept of living the “laptop lifestyle”.

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How feasible is your 2-hour work theory? Is it that easy to make money? What tips would you give our readers who want to follow your way?

Yaro: Ah, I don’t think there’s ever an easy way to make money. That is a sentence that should be a sentence that should be completely eliminated from anyone’s vernacular if unless you’re gullible because there’s no such thing as easy money.

Even if you set up a 2-hour workday, which I’ve done with 2 or 3 different business models, there’s a lot of work to set it up.

You might be able to function it and maintain it after you’ve set it up in 2 hours, but there’s a process during the early days when you’re not going to work two hours. You are going to work four hours, eight hours, some days 10-12 hours – but you’re really enjoying it.

So, to get to a 2 hour work day, you’ll have to set up the blog and get it making money, create the products and get the traffic coming in, and make sure it converts in sense of working, and have all these things set up.

Then you can just sort of write a blog post once a week, help your coaching clients, and you’re going to spend, may be 2 hours a day doing it.

Or, you can start a business like my proof reading company, I call that services arbitrage. So, you might provide like I did – proof reading services or may be transcription services, or you might provide video editing services.

Whatever it is you’re coming up with, the company where you connect customers with people provides some sort of contract service and you act as a middle man.

Now, with that business you basically have two jobs. Hire the good contractors that deliver the service, and find the customers to buy the products.

Once you’ve done that and you’ve got consistent traffic, that’s bringing customers and focusing on repeat customers – that business can be very automated.

My proof reading company was by far the lowest amount of work I’ve ever had with a company once it was setup. Because what all I did was checking on or actually niche sale is checking in on email but eventually I outsourced that job to an assistant.

So, I really only had to make sure that nothing was broken each week, and the assistant will send me a couple of matters that only I can deal with. So, it was less than 2 hours a day to run that one and it wasn’t a huge business but it made a salary for me.

You know in the best years it was doing $100,000 in revenue a year, and I get to keep about 50% of that, after all the costs and things come out.

So I could live of it and have no work, almost. But again I had to set it up, I had to build the website, I had to find the customers, and find the editors, and the proof readers, so there was a bit of work to start off with.

And the other thing I did was buy and sell websites as I mentioned that prior, same story there. If you’ve a bit of capital, you can buy some websites that are somewhat passive in terms of their business model.

I focused on blogs, (for) which I hired other writers and I focused on forums, which have user-generated content.

So my job was basically to increase the income these sites made, which is what I usually did by adding more advertising and things like that. So those sites were quite automated and once I had the assistant managing them, again, not much work.

But there’s that period of buying them, taking them over, improving their performance, and hiring an assistant.

Once you’re established, so 2 hours is definitely realistic. A lot of it actually is a choice you make – do you want to set this up as a near passive income business or do you want to keep growing it.

If you want to keep growing, 2 hours is not going to do it, but you need more hours for growth, you need more hours for setting something up.

But once you reach a point and you decide that your strategy is passive, then you certainly can set things up to be very hands off. And that’s what I did with quite a few of my businesses over the years.

Photo of Yaro and his mother

Dealing with Difficult Times

Q12: You suffered a personal tragedy when you lost your mother. It was sad and affected you in a big way. But you resurged as a stronger person.

What message would you give to people on how to move on and live your life leaving the difficult times behind them?

Yaro: Well, that’s a potentially very long answer to that question but I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to talk about that as much as I’d talk about blogging.

What I can say is that you basically have a choice of how you react to any situation and this comes right back to when I was talking about in terms of re-framing and looking at your internal dialog.

And, in fact, my mother was a teacher and a practitioner of CBT, which you might – this is what’s often called “Cognitive Behavior Therapy”, your cognitive behavior training. I didn’t study that.

My mother gave me a few tips here and there when I was younger and I read a book that kind of talked about it, but it wasn’t structured and wasn’t called CBT.

Long story short, you can interpret how you view the world and re-frame any situation to however you would like to react to it.

So, there’s obviously a period of time to go through different experiences based on how you’re feeling – what your emotional state is.

But at some point you’ll decide what you want to do, given that you don’t have the choice, that’s (laughs) the… See, ultimate thing is you either can keep living in the current condition you’re in and if you’re okay with that then okay, if you’re not happy with the way the things are, then you make the decision to change it.

That’s ultimately all you can do. You got choices; you decide what direction to take. And if you’re not happy, I recommend choosing things that guide you towards happy things. That’s a very simplistic way of looking at it, but really that is it.

It’s as simple as “am I happy with what’s going on, am I happy with how I’m reacting to this”. If any of the answers to that is “No” – change your reaction, change the circumstances, until you’re happy, if happiness is a goal you’re looking forward to, which most of us are.

So, I know I’m certainly not the only one who’s had a tragedy – there’s always a period of adjustment, and of mourning, of experiencing loss. It’s something we all go through until it’s our own turn to pick the bucket as well.

So, you know, let’s not forget that you don’t get to choose whether you die or not, its one of those non-options, you know, the only time you don’t get a choice is that one. So, everything else you can choose but that one you probably know you got to deal with.

Products for Bloggers

Q13:  You’re back in business now after a gap of some time.

What are the products and services that you offer now and how helpful are they to bloggers and Internet marketers? What is the next rocking product that you are coming up with?

Yaro: Well, I’m primarily, as you’ve probably heard during this whole interview, focusing on people who want to build blogs that do not focus on advertising and affiliate income, and do not focus on high volumes of traffic.

I’m looking for people who want to start blogs, build a small consistent stream of traffic from handful of techniques not trying to do everything, be on every platform, but finding one or two things that work really well for you.

And then getting a leverage from that – so, building a customer base, servicing them really well, having a range of products, and building a product funnel – a marketing funnel behind it.

So, most of my products are around the blogging area. So, the moment I’m building that funnel myself so as I said I’ve the entry products. So, if you want to get started with what I teach, I’ve a guide on mindset and productivity, I’ve a guide on how to buy and sell blogs and websites. So, if you don’t want to build a site you can buy one, and I’ve a guide on getting traffic.

So, those are low price – we’re talking $30-$50 and it can get you started with core aspects of having a successful blog business.

If you then want to continue this process, then I have a coaching program; it’s basically a platform called the EJ Insider, where I interact with people every day and you can ask questions. It’s basically for people who want more time with me, more personal connection and not just reading a guide – but the ability to ask questions and interact.

And then, the next level which I’m currently working on – I can’t give you a concrete answer as to what will come out first or when they’ll come out. But basically, the courses I’ve always had are blog mastermind, membership site mastermind, and the new one – the 2-hour work day.

They all teach an aspect of this so, blog mastermind is basically a more of a A to Z guide about how to make a blog that creates a sale. So it’s all about the conversion.

Membership site mastermind, which I’ve, probably will change names to something that’s a little bit more open – I don’t want to just teach memberships, I want to teach product funnel.

So, that will be about product creation, content re-purposing and how to create that products you sell from the blog. So, blog mastermind teach you how to use the blog to make the sale and then the information product course will teach you how to create the products that you then sell.

And then 2 hour work day, it’s something new that I’ve ever had for a long time in my sort of my archives that I never released. It was created even before Timothy Ferriss came out with “The 4-hour workweek” but it was a bit unfortunate that the name was so close to his.

But I’m going to use that. I’m actually going to get out there and sort of leverage the fact that people love the 4-hour work week and offer this course  that’s called the 2-hour work day , which essentially will teach services arbitrage.

So basically, I talked about before about being a middle person providing a service that’s completely different to blogging in terms of business model but you know lot of people don’t want to have that kind of business – I didn’t either see myself having a blog.

I thought I’d just have a business where I’d provide product or service that other people would deliver and I’d be a middleman. So that’s one of the options that I’ve done with my proof reading business, and I’d like to have a course up there for people who want to follow that business model.

And then ya, most of the stuff will be  based on what kind of reaction I get with these products and services. So lot of this I’m still very much in the middle of developing it all so I don’t know what’s coming out when, and it’s a  bit embryonic.

So at the moment all I’ve is whether you want traffic, whether you want mindset and productivity, or you want to buy and sell some nice low entry guides, which are available at EJ Insider.com.

Yaro Starak with long hair

Pros and Cons of Branding

Q14: You’re a brand in yourself. Should bloggers try to build a brand too? If yes, then what are the best ways to do that?

Yaro: Well, you kind of can’t help it if you’re a personal blogger. If you’re like you are – the only person writing your content, you’ll end up being a brand because you’ll infuse your personality into your writing.

It’s just the way it is. It’s not something that you’ve to proactively go about building, some people are natural at it. They love it and they love being in a spotlight – they love being themselves.

And if you’ve a loud personality or certain aspects of your personality – that people will naturally gravitate towards your brand, will be associated with that style.

In my history, I’ve had some unusual advantages that were not deliberate but became part of my brand and in the early days, it was my long hair.

Not many people know I had long hair and I was this sort of somewhat…. I didn’t look like everyone but now I guess it’s just a way to put it – it made me stand out.

It was quite a different situation, plus I’d this weird name – and you know not many other Yaro’s on this planet. So people would very easily, if they would become introduced to my work, would remember Yaro or would remember the long hair.

After I cut my hair, it’s funny, I still have people today who’ll act surprised when they re-discover me going “Where did your hair go?”, and that was 7 years ago when I cut my hair (laughs). So it’s been a long time but you know that’s just the way things are.

I think branding is a great aspect of writing a blog and I think if you think of yourself as a personal brand, if you’re prepared for it, then certainly go after the things that make you different and accentuate them.

That’s how you can build a brand around your personality.

You can do gimmicks, you can have mascots, you can have types of logos, you can have phrases, you know John Lee Dumas uses the “Entrepreneur on fire”. He has that podcast and he says let’s ignite, and it says gotta bit of a cheesy slogan.

You know Pat Flynn is all about – he’s the crash test dummy so he positions himself around that. And then Derek Hepburn positions himself using the psychology in studies to demonstrate proof of certain things that work in marketing.

So everyone has an angle or an aspect like that would become a part of your brand. The important question to ask yourself though is “Are you prepared to be the brand?” because if you’re thinking of selling your business one day, you decrease your chances of selling it if it’s heavily tied into your brand.

I know my own blog and business will be difficult to sell because it’s all about me. It’s possible, ideally though if you’re thinking of selling, I’d use a different name to your own name so that you can sell the business and someone can take over that role or of course, choose a business model that’s not as focused on you as an individual.

So, have a business name, have a team, have a may be a team of writers, or have a product and service that is separate from you, and that’s much more easy to sell. It’s a big important strategic decision to make at the beginning.

You do want to consider this – are you building something to sell? That’s often how you’d get rich, you may not get rich from the income you make as you run the business because it keeps going back into the business.

But when you sell it, you get that big payday of potentially multiple six figures to millions of dollars.

So, thinking about building something to sell is actually a really important decision that blogging as an individual is not really about. If you’re building a personal branding and blog, chances are you’re gonna have trouble selling it.

If you want to create a blog that is something sellable, you should have a team of writers,  and make it a bit more like that sort of magazine format like you’ll find with most of the biggest blogs, like Huffington Post and Mashable, Social Media  Examiner, Business Insider.

There’s so many of them out there but they don’t have an individual brand associated with them anymore. Even if they started with one, like Mashable and Huffington Post.

Making Money with Low Traffic

Q15: Blog traffic and making money online are interrelated, aren’t they? What are the best ways to do both?

Yaro: Well, very much tied back to my original argument about not focusing on advertising and not focusing on affiliate income. If you’re focusing on selling your own products and services then you don’t need as much traffic, you just need higher quality traffic.

So, that’s where the relationship happens. It’s about targeting, getting to know about your ideal customer, your customer arbitrage, finding where they hangout and then attracting them and making the choice to pick a customer demographic that are actually buyers.

That is such a huge important decision to make even if you think there’s a massive audience. If no one buys stuff in that industry then doesn’t matter – you’d make a lot of traffic but you don’t make any money.

So, you really…this is more not a decision about “Is making money and traffic interrelated?” – it’s about niche selection, it’s about customer arbitrage, it’s about being clear who you’re targeting, and what you offer them.

The clear you get on that, the more likely it is that you make money, the easier it is to make traffic, so that’s where everything begins.

Status of Social Media

Q16. Social media is more important than ever. What kind of social media promotion strategy would you suggest to bloggers?

Yaro: Well, to be absolutely honest, I do not have a big social media strategy. I make use of Twitter and Facebook because they’re fun, and I re-post my content onto those sites as well as LinkedIn and Google Plus.

I do agree that Google+ in particular is important because Google uses that data in their search rankings, so be nice to Google. Unfortunately, Google is the master right now since it sends so much traffic, you do want to factor in – what Google wants you to do so.

Being a Google+ user they’re setting up your Google account doing Google authorship. That’s pretty much the only mandatory social media aspect that I’d recommend.

I actually believe you can ignore social media altogether and have a successful business still – it’s not as important as you’ll make it out to be.

What happens though is certain industries benefit from it immensely. Certain people love it and they spend all their time thinking about studying it.

It is a brilliant source of traffic, it’s a brilliant source of customers, its interwoven into how the Internet works today, so you certainly gain a benefit from having a presence on these platforms.

But you don’t have to use them as an everyday time sync. You could just go to Facebook, spend money on ads, and if you’ve the right target customer with the right offer, you’ll make so much more money than you ever will by just using Facebook as a regular normal user interacting here and there.

Because if you’re focusing on conversion, then it’s about getting a target customer for making a sale.

If you’re focusing on long-term engagement and building a tribe and having a massive following, then the social media tools become helpful, but that is not a short path.

You’ve a long process and it’s going to be an ongoing process you’ve to do forever, which is why I don’t want to depend on social media.

I do not look to anything that requires lots of hefty work every day for a long time in order to make a worthwhile that to me is a recipe for not a 2 hours day.

That being said if you love it then that’s the thing you love, so you should do it all the time, and I know there’s a lot of people who do and that’s why social media is important to them.

Harleena, probably that’s the same for you – you’re probably, I think you’re a big fan of social media so you should spend a lot of time there.

My argument is you don’t need it. It’s one traffic strategy of many, you can chose to apply, it up to you to pick the best one for your situation.

Yaro working and having fun

Driving Happiness Home

Q17: I’m sure bloggers would like to know more about your personal views – about your concept of happiness and take on life.

What is your purpose of life and how would you like to be remembered?

Yaro: That’s a big question. This thing changes, you know. I go from being much more idealistic when I was younger and then circumstances changed, based on what’s important to you in the moment.

Sometimes you’re so focused on making money and building a basic level of cash of flow and standard of life that everything is about that. Then you make enough money to start contemplating to do what you really want to do with your time.

That’s what I found with my own experience was over the years. I went from – I need to make enough money, to move out of my house, to I want to make bigger money.

So I’ve true financial freedom, like I want to have a million dollars in the bank, and own my house, and own my car, not have any loans.

But when you reach a point when you start making like $30,000 a month, which is what I was at, you know, couple of years ago, I realized I could decide how to use my time.

That’s when I was thinking what I want to do next, that’s why I started a start-up, because I was quite keen to have that kind of experience.

So for me, as I said, things change. I’m not worried about being remembered. I enjoy writing, that’s certainly something that I like and I plan to use some kind of writing in everything that I do for the rest of my life.

But I also love start-ups and technology and those sorts of big ideas that change the world.

So, I’m planning moving to San Francisco. I might get involved with another startup again at some point soon. But for the moment, my only focus is getting what I know about outside of my head and on to information that other people can benefit from. And once I feel like I’ve done that, then I’ll decide what’s next.

And that makes me happy at the moment – it’s just about more for me… almost everything I’ve always done is about realizing my potential. So, I feel like I know how to do something and understand something, I want to see the result. That’s what drives me.

It might be in blogging, it might be in a startup, it might be in other aspects of life, from maybe focusing on better eating , losing weight, gaining weight, getting into a relationship.

All these things you feel like you start to get better at and if you have knowledge, for me, the greatest satisfaction is the execution of knowledge ,in delivering the result that will always be, you know, makes me happy and what drives me.

Future of Blogging

Q18: How do you foresee the future of blogging? Do you think blogs will continue to “live” as they do now along with blog comments? Will membership sites have a future?

What possible changes should we be prepared for?

Yaro: Well, I was actually just talking to Gideon Shalwick, good friend of mine, about this very subject, and we agreed on what we consider the future of everything to do with information.

So, if you’re talking about blog comments, blogging, membership site, the big concept we think that eventually everything will head towards is that all will be free. All information will be free.

So you won’t be charging for digital information and products. The membership sites that are just information probably won’t exist – you’ll be giving them for free. All your videos will be for free. All your training products will be for free.

So in my case all my guides will be free, all my courses will be free, everything that I’ve ever produced in terms of written or published content will be free.

But for that to work, you need to have some kind of business model behind it. If you want to see an example, how this has already happened in another industry – look at the music industry.

Music industry – the music is all free. We already know that and you can go to YouTube and watch every single film clip you’ve ever wanted to on there – it’s all for free anytime on demand.

So the musicians of the world have had to find other platforms to focus their income producing efforts so on, and for them it’s become about adding value services and products. So, live events have become a much more important aspect of their income streams.

Back in the days, the record sales and then live events. Now record sales – NO – unless you’re at the very very very top of the tree. You might sell enough MP3’s to make good money but most artists in the music world make their money from performance.

Then there’s also the same concept of that rabid tribe who buy everything they produce. So, their music might be free, but the special edition, limited print version of something won’t be free. And the true core fans will buy that.

So, again, that marketing funnel becomes important, the tribe becomes important, because they spend the most money on what you do. So what you’ll probably find in the future is that all blogging will be free, all information you produce online will be free.

You’ll have live workshops, you’ll have private coaching, group coaching programs, you’ll have special limited edition types of things you do. And you’ll probably do things for people – you’ll deliver services, you’ll have products done for them, you’ll have software, you’ll have automation.

It’ll be what people are already doing, you know, services like lead pages and AWeber and OntraPort and InFusionSoft and all the various plugins you can buy. All those sorts of business models will become the more prevalent style, and information will be free.

As for things like “would blogs live and where will comments be?” at the end of the day, publishing is not going to go away.

I wrote about this recently, if humans continue to communicate using words, there’ll always be a place for publishing. And I doubt humans are going to stop communicating using words unless we tap into some sort of, you know psychokinetic kind of connection, which I don’t see happening certainly not in the near future, so we’ll need to publish.

A blog and the comments and the Internet happens to be the tool we use today. Smartphones invented another platform, the mobile way of communicating and a way of reading published content. Apps again changing that, so the platforms change and the tools change, but unless there’s something significant changing about in the Internet, but I don’t see blogging going away

That’s like saying “will the website be replaced?” Right now, the Internet is still predominantly “websites”. They might be more social, they might be more interactive, but it’s still publishing words.

Then you tell me any social platforms, it’s still publishing words – it’s music on YouTube, it’s audio on podcasting, its written words on a blog, its written words on a social media, they’re still all words.

So that’s not changed, its just been a change in the platform, so until a new platform comes along, nothing is going to stop blogging in my opinion.

It’s just has to be a better platform – may be something 3D, maybe something more connected to our body might change things but it’s still publishing.

Health Tips for Bloggers

Q19: Making money online and blogging are addictive professions. Moreover, they can adversely affect our health too.

What measures do you take to keep fit and healthy? What would be your health tips for bloggers and Internet marketers who remain glued to their laptops and computers most of the time?

Yaro: Well don’t do that (laughs), you don’t want to stay glued to your computer all the time – not healthy.

Major tip from me would be to use a stand up desk, that is, I’m talking to you right now I’m standing up. I’m moving around and I’m not sitting in a chair, I’ve better posture and my energy and my blood is flowing, it’s a lot different than sitting in a chair and doing this. That’s by far number one tip. Sitting will kill you.

For me the most important thing is a rapid changing of activity. So, you know, nobody is built to do one thing for long periods of time, no matter what it is you shouldn’t do something for hour upon hour.

So, you know, you should be writing a blog, you should be reading Internet posts, you should be exercising, you should be mixing it all up – nothing is all the time.

So for me, and this is an aspect of having the freedom that we talked about earlier on. Having the control over your life to choose how you spend your time is really important because once I finish this recording with you, Harleena, I’m leaving the house – it’s just gone mid-day, I’ll probably go grab some lunch.

I’m going to leave at about one o’clock afternoon, and then I’m going to ride my bike somewhere else, and then I’m going to sit down with my laptop at a Cafe and do a couple of hours of work.

And then I’m going to get back on the bike and ride home and then I’m going to go to a Yoga class. Then I’ll come home and send some emails and you know, do a bit of work like a 10-11 o’clock at night.

So, the important point there’s the transition of activity. We all know we’ve to eat right. We all know we’ve to exercise, we all know we’ve to work, we all know we’ve to educate yourself, and we’ve to socialize. How you combine those things and how you divvy up your time spent is what matters.

So, variability and doing them all in some shape or format every week is basically how you stay in balance. What I do believe in though is not forcing yourself to being balanced every day.

There’s a time to counter balance basically, in fact, I read about this in “The One Thing” by Gary Keller recently. He talked about life balance not being the answer, but life counter-balancing being the answer.

I totally agree with him – what he means by that is there are times in your life when you’ve to focus on an aspect more than other things. So, your business might be going through a launch, you’re getting a new product ready, you’ve to focus on making money or you’re going to be homeless.

That’s when you start counter balancing your time heavily towards the income producing work you’re doing.

But eventually once you get some income, things are settled down, you start to counter balance little bit away from work and then you can go back to maybe family or health or something like that. Obviously, you tell your family that this is what I’m focusing on right now but I won’t be forever.

Unfortunately what most people will do is to counter balance so far towards one activity that eventually their body will start to tell them they can’t do that anymore or they’ll get sick. Getting sick forces the counter balance movement away from what they’re doing back to repair and recovery of your body.

And that might trigger response, you know. What you want to do is make sure there’s enough maintenance in terms of balance, and then as you flow from different goals you counter balance the majority.

So this is the time to spend with family, which might be weekends or holidays, there a time to spend focused on work during projects but there’s also always a little bit of exercise, always good eating, going on.

And then you know you might decide you want to lose a bunch of weight or gain a bunch of muscle – that’s counter balance away from work towards more heavily in terms of exercising.

So, it’s moving time away understanding that you’ve a finite amount of time. So actually living a balanced life is impossible. But living a counter balance constantly flowing life works, as long as you always maintain a basic standard for the critical things like health, eating, exercise, rest, that sort of thing.

Yaro with Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett
Yaro Starak, Darren Rowse, and Chris Garrett

Need and Benefits of Blog Business

Q20: Lastly, what do you think of Aha!NOW?

What special message do you have for its lovely and vibrant community?

Yaro: Well, I certainly can see the community aspect at what you’re doing, Harleena, like I can feel the passion that you’ve for socially connecting with your audience and I’m sure your audience feels the same way about you.

You’ve a very strong level of engagement and I’ve come across a lot of people like you who’re so good at devoting so much time and effort to their people and that’s wonderful, and I’d never suggest you stop doing that.

But one thing I want to speak to and suggest for yourself and for all your audiences is asking yourself a simple question – “Are you happy with the amount of money you’re making with your business and if not, what are you doing things to increase your income?” And for me the answer to that question would be “Are you making enough offers?”

Unfortunately, we can spend all of our time just engaging and enjoying the social interaction. And you know what, if you’ve got a lot of inheritance, or you’ve got a sugar daddy or sugar mommy, who’s paying your bills – then that’s fine, you can spend as much time as socializing and engaging and just talking for the sake of talking – that’s wonderful.

But, if you’re having a business and you want to make a profit, then I’d suggest that you think about counter balancing a little bit of time away towards offer creation, product creation, marketing and selling.

And then this is the incredible thing – if you start making a living from what you do, you get access to resources, you get access to the potential for greater leverage and you can actually reach and help a whole lot more people.

So, in some aspects, I’d suggest that you’re actually hindering your audience because you’re not able to help them as well as you could. But, if you did have a profitable business, think about all the things you could create and give away to your people.

If you had an income stream that was consistent and profitable, you can do so much more and help so many more people.

So in some ways, it’s even better to be focusing on a profitable business than just the social engagement issue.

But like I said, it’s a personal choice based on your situation and you’re certainly doing a great job of interacting with your community and supporting them, Harleena.

So, that’s it from me, thank you for giving me all these questions – some different ones that I’m not used to answering.

I hope everyone got something from it and my name is Yaro, Y-A-R-O from Entrepreneurs-Journey.Com. Thank you Harleena and I talk to you soon, Good bye!

Conclusion and Take Away from Yaro’s Interview

Summing up, in this interview, Yaro tells us that –

–          Work hard in the beginning to earn easy money later

–          Success depends on your choices, decision, and reactions

–          Don’t create personal branding around the blog if you want to sell it later

–          Higher quality targeted traffic makes you more money than massive traffic

–          Social media is a traffic strategy that can be avoided

–          Realizing your potential and getting results will bring happiness

–          Coaching and service related blog business models and marketing funnel are important because information will be free in future

–          Counter-balance your life by having variability and transition of activity in your work routine

–          Make a living from what you do

That’s it!

If you like what Yaro says – then visit his website that has lots of information or read his free ebook – Blog Profits Blueprint.

Download the PDF that has all the 20 questions that I had asked Yaro Starak along with his brilliant answers.

I hope you benefit from this interview series as much I did and will share your thoughts and feelings with Yaro and me in the comments below.

Over to You –

Would you also want to set up an automated blog business? What do you think about Yaro’s views on traffic and social media? Do you treat your blog as a business? What did you learn from this interview with Yaro Starak?

 

Affiliate Disclaimer: This post has some affiliate links, which means that I will be compensated if you click on those links and choose to buy at some point in the near future. Please accept my sincere thanks for your support.

Photo Credit: Yaro Starak

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  1. Hey Harleena,

    This second part of an interview with Yaro Rocks, This interview fills with all great info and guidance we want.

  2. Hey Harleena,

    The second part is just as good if not better then the first part. I had to find the time to read this one too and great stuff that Yaro shared. I can appreciate getting this type of advice from all of the questions you asked him because he’s been around for so long and has the success that most people only dream about.

    I can appreciate his views too and I found his on blogging and the future of information products interesting. I guess only time will tell how all of that comes into play but it’s good to know that at least in his opinion that blogs will be sticking around. I’m sure something else will eventually come on the scene as well.

    I have no doubt that what he’s got in store next for his prospects will be amazing. I’m always curious to learn and continue growing but am so focused on my next step at the moment and I’m going to keep his information in mind.

    Thanks for the powerful interview and this is definitely a keeper. Great job and I appreciate Yaro’s time in doing this for you and us.

    ~Adrienne

  3. Hi Harleena,

    The first part was interesting. Knowing Yaro, a master of the trade, up closer was something much interesting. So, when I saw the link to this second part of the interview, I knew what I had to do- head to Aha! NOW and gobble it up! 🙂

    The health tips part was something that caught my attention. It is something that many bloggers ignore. As of now, I’m happy that I’m working out and taking good care of my mind and body. Without them, success can’t be obtained. Yaro’s suggestion of standing up and remaining active, instead of just sitting is a good one. Will try to implement that for sure in my life! 🙂

    I also like his stance on social media status. It is just another source of traffic. If it works for one, then okay, carry on, if it is not working, avoid it!

    Interesting things learnt! 🙂

    Arun

  4. Hi Harleena,

    What an excellent interview! Wow… 🙂

    I have never heard of Yaro before but this guy sounds very sharp and knows his product and what he’s really doing. I’m amazed at what you just did on this interview. You have the podcast and the transcript at the same time!

    How in the world did you do that? Do you have a transcript application for this or did you just type exactly what he says from his podcast? I have transcripted my Video Blogging Challenge #3 video once, I typed exactly what I was saying from that video but it wasn’t easy. So forget that. LOL. I will just post something very close to what I’ve just said on my video but transcripting for me is over. It’s time consuming I’d say.

    But I am flabbergasted at what you just did on this interview. You just never stop to amaze me. You are incredibly a very intelligent woman!

    You know I’ve heard the word “funnel” so many times before from successful bloggers like Yaro. And I’m really trying hard to pick up the brains on some of these people. Once I’ve heard from one of Rob Cubbon’s interview on some of the successful designers online, that’s exactly what some people do…build a blog then sell it for big profit. That’s the only way you can get rich and that is to sell your own product. Advertising and affiliate marketing are nice but to some bloggers that is not really the “bread and butter” for them but that’s only a small portion along with their business.

    Business vs. Freelancers. There is a big difference. Freelancers work for the day and earn money. While business owners work for the day and earn money AND while he’s sleeping he keeps to earn money from passive income! That’s the ideal business for me in this high tech era of computer technology!

    I agree with Yaro, you have to choose a specific social media that can convert your followers to a client. You don’t have to have a huge traffic but rather concentrate on QUALITY followers instead. Take it from Lisa Irby, for instance, she said that Facebook is her number one priority for engagement and Linkedin, since Linkedin is where she gets more customers. For me, I am working on Google+ coz that’s where I found quality bloggers and successful business entrepreneurs. Facebook pissed me off nowadays. It works for Lisa, but I’m not her. I’m choosing something that really ticks for me and try to do my own experiment on this. What works for her may not work for me and vice versa. We all have to find “what clicks” and hearing people like Yaro talk is a great inspiration.

    What a great interview with Yaro!!! Thank you for sharing this nuggets with us. I appreciate all the hard work you put into this and as usual KUDOS TO YOU!!!!!!!!! Have a lovely weekend my friend. <3

    Angela

    P.S. I haven't read the 1st part of Yaro's interview but I'm gonna asap…:)

  5. Hi Harleena,

    So, this interview has two parts?
    You really did a good job. The questions are also very critical and useful. I love it.

    “Make a living from what you do”
    These words are very touching for me. Because, I will do the same thing 🙂

    Thanks for sharing this interview, Harleena.
    It’s nice interview.

    Nanda

  6. Harleena,

    You have certainly put together one of the most comprehensive two part interview series I have ever done. You went above and beyond with all the pictures and detailed questions.

    I hope we managed to help many of your readers come away with some “aha” moments 🙂

    Yaro

    1. Hi Yaro, and welcome back to my blog!

      Thanks for your kinds words and the appreciation. It’s all been possible with your great answers – thanks for being a generous giver of crucial blogging information. And I agree with the views of other commenters on this post, you’re one of the most honest, true, and helping probloggers in the blogosphere!

      I’m glad you like the way I presented the interview. Yes, I’m sure many readers experienced the “Aha moments” while going through this interview – they got to learn a new perspective that can help them be successful in making money blogging.

      Though I thanked you in the first comment to this and the first part of the interview post, but its never enough and am ever grateful to you, and use this opportunity again to thank you for being a great interviewee!

      Have a great weekend ahead! 🙂

  7. Feeling Awesome after Reading the Second part of the Interview. Although can’t able to read it carefully because of shortage of time. Still managed to learn few things from it.Specially in “Low Traffic and Making Money” Paragraph. Thanks Yaro Sir and Harleena Ma’am.

  8. Hi Harleena!

    Wow! There are so many great things about this interview. I feel like I just sat down and had a 5 course meal! 🙂 Lots of wisdom here and much to mull over. I think the key to just about everything Yaro said was, “See, ultimate thing is you either can keep living in the current condition you’re in and if you’re okay with that then okay, if you’re not happy with the way the things are, then you make the decision to change it.” No matter what, we can change just about everything if we are willing to take the time and energy to do it.

    Thanks again Harleena! ~Kathy

  9. Great interview, Harleena!

    I like Yaro’s take on the business model but also on ‘counterbalance’ in life. Striving for balance isn’t always the right way…who knew? It makes sense! Yes, I would like to focus a little more on monetizing my blog. I’d like to spend less time on social media and more time creating. But I enjoy all the aspects of blogging. Writing, social media, promoting, interacting with my readers (my favorite part) so it’s making that choice…it’s hard but I must ‘counterbalance’.

    Thank you Harleena! Thank you Yaro!

  10. Hi Harleena,

    This was a great interview. I especially liked the podcast…there’s nothing like hearing it directly from the person themselves, although I did follow along with the write up, LOL.

    He has definitely peaked my interest in his latest venture. I’m curious to know how one can run a successful blog with a little stream of traffic and who is not trying to be on every platform. And working only two hours a day sounds awesome only I know it’ll take 12 hour work days to get there :).

    I hope you do more interviews like this. Happy Wednesday Harleena!

  11. Hii Harleena Mam,

    Again new thing i have found in this post the inclusion of an audio clip thats make everything easy to understand even if we can download that clip and can hear again after even without using net we can have listen the interview from where we are even if we are busy somewhere we can pause and listen it later

  12. Second part of the interview has more value than the first one …… or I think other way round……. or I don’t know which one is the best one!!!!!! But overall this is not an interview. It’s a small thesis on money blogging and its changing dynamics in 2014.

    His answer on future of blogging is almost horrible. In preamble of his answer he eloquently enumerated what would be free on internet in future. It sounded as if everything would be free and nothing will be sold. But soon he summed up his rattling predictions by saying quality will sell as it is being sold right now. This I think is the gist of the interview that quality will keep ruling the world of blogging forever.

    This is an open message for all those bloggers who have big dreams in their eyes to become rich with their blog.
    Another amazing aspect of this interview is its human face. It never felt in any part of it as if a blogging geek is just talking to a blogging czar with purely techie and subject-oriented questions. Neither of the question was purely impersonal and answers! OMG! all have purely personal face as if someone’s best friend is talking and advising to him. This credit goes to interviewer and interviewee both.

    The whole interview is free of any type of rhetoric. Otherwise for a blogger of Yaro’s stature it is quite easy to tell series of lofty ideas and tips and suggestion to lift the sky for becoming a successful blogger. But he was down-to-earth in his each reply as if he is just coming out of his living room and talking to his close friend. This I think is the mark of the successful people. They never boast but their performance shouts as loudly as possible.

    I don’t want to end my words here but I know courtesy has also its limit so without occupying more space I want to thank you Harleena the way you are giving more and more value to your blog audience. Yaro did admit how devoted and helpful you are for your blog audience and how smartly you are expanding it. I think this is your branding quality and wherever people talk of blogging with personal care each name comes after your name.

    Again thanks a lot for doing such hard work to develop this one of the lengthiest but fully focused piece of information with two-way communication where it is not so easy to keep balance in presentation of each one’s views and especially where one deserves more space as interviewee than the other one who just has to keep initiating the discussion. Stay blessed Yaro and big bravo to Harleena. 🙂

  13. Gosh, the way this interview spoke to me! I can see where Yaro is coming from here and truly found a lot of inspiration. One indelible part is his last words. You see, we need to strike a balance to maximise our gains. And by ‘Our’ I mean both the blogger and the readers.

    Thanks, Yaro and Harleena. Would Get the Ebook too.

    1. Hi Tope, and welcome to my blog!

      I’m glad you like the interview and I agree that Yaro has really touched the hearts and minds of the bloggers.

      Thanks for visiting and sharing your thoughts. Have a great day ahead! 🙂

      1. What you and Yaro just gave out is what some would have placed a price tag on – and it would have been alright for it is well worth it. However, you gave this out. You are doing humanity a great service. May God bless both of you beyond measures.

        It is a pleasure being here. Thanks for having me.

  14. Hi Harleena Singh
    Again its a nice piece of work by you.
    I am very inspire by the line that “we can take our blogs to the next level.”
    Indeed a Great Step by any Blogger.

  15. Wha! Aha! Now! Harleena,

    This is Amazing!You did it!

    I just downloaded the PDF. Great Info here, required for all fellow bloggers. Indeed Yaro is an amazing personality worth watching and hearing. Lovely and informative presentation Harleena. I downloaded yaro’s “Blog Profits Blueprint”. I also mentioned about this page as well as yaro’s in one of my recent post.

    Yaro and Harleena both Rocks! 🙂 🙂 🙂
    Keep informed. Both of you have a wonderful and profitable time ahead. We wish you both a great rapport in future assignments too

    Good Wishes
    Best Regards
    ~ Philips

    1. Hi Philips,

      I’m happy that you like this part of the interview as well. Great that you downloaded the PDF. I’m sure even Yaro’s free ebook will help you a lot.

      No doubt Yaro rocks and his suggestions are good for bloggers. Thanks for your wishes, your visit and wish you all the same. Do have a great rest of the week. 🙂

  16. Hello madam,

    This 2nd part is great and so detailed. I sipped the whole mug of coffee but still there was much of the interview left, you know why?
    Because Yaro sir has given such tips about everything esp about branding that I read one or two lines till that mascot and entrepreneur on fire and lo I was dreaming of how to brand my blog, what mascot and tagline to use. And should I put my pic at blog header like Adrieane Smith Madam.,etc. I am going to download this pdf because it will always inspire me.

    Thank you for extracting the best secrets from Yaro sir for us readers. Keep the good work going and be blessed. 🙂

    1. Hi Swadhin,

      I’m glad you liked the interview. It’s great that you decided to download the PDF, and I’m sure it’s going to turn out to be a great resource for you.

      Thanks for stopping by and have a fabulous rest of the week! 🙂

  17. Hey Harleena,

    This second part of an interview with Yaro Rocks, This interview fills with all great info and guidance we want. This will help to get success in the future.
    Thank you for this great interview with Yaro, Harleena….. 🙂

    1. Hi Nikhil,

      Glad you like this part of the interview. I agree that this is all great helpful information for bloggers.

      Thanks for stopping by and have a great day ahead! 🙂

  18. This is a great continuation of the interview of Yaro. This one again is another great set of ideas that Yaro is giving on how to set up blogging business. I like the idea of a buying a blog rather than building one.
    I agree with him that you have to work hard and blogging business is a not a passive income. Building a customer base is important, while high volume is important but consistency is what its all about. Thanks for providing the pdf file.

    1. Hi Shalu,

      I’m glad you like the second part of the interview as well. Of course, Yaro has good amount of experience to come up with great working ideas.

      Yes, its difficult to earn good money through simple blogging, which is very dependent on traffic. I hope the PDF helps you go through the information at your convenience.

      Thanks for visiting and have a great rest of the week ahead! 🙂

  19. Hi Harleena,

    Wow! You really got a very long interview worth two posts 🙂

    But a phenomenal one too!

    The idea if tribes and the idea that Internet is still a bunch of websites, are the most fascinating things Yaro said in this part I think! He really has a great deal of clarity on what he is doing and what he is suggesting! Enjoyed it very much!

    Thank you for an awesome, inspiring and very educational interview. It is a great addition to your library here!

    Regards,
    Kumar

    1. Hi Kumar,

      Imagine if I hadn’t divided the interview into two posts! I believe it’s better if we intake information in small chunks.. and when I completed the PDF, I saw that it crossed the 12,000 words mark! That would’ve been torturous for a regular post, isn’t it? 🙂

      I’m glad you like the interview series and found it worthy to takeaway and benefit from it. You’re right, he very much enjoys a birds-eye view and knows what route to take.

      Thanks for visiting and sharing your thoughts. Do have a great rest of the week. 🙂

  20. Hi Yaro,

    I totally agree with you that if bloggers, including myself, have a regular income stream generated from the blog itself, it will help us give more to the blog in terms of time, and thus efforts, and eventually create more content or devise more ways to help people. And product creation or proving service is the way to go.

    To answer your question if I’m happy with the money I’m making from my blog, it’s a straightforward NO. Though I never started blogging for money, as it was initially a hobby because my main source of income was freelance writing. But I guess I now feel the need to monetize the blog because it’s started to take a large share of my time.

    I’ve some plans ahead and honestly your talk has motivated me to go ahead with them. I really believe that counter-balancing is important and blogging becomes sweeter if it starts rewarding your efforts in terms of money. After all, we all have our bills to pay!

    Thank you for all the inspiration and going to extents to explain things in detail, for bearing my torturous questions and in fact, turning them into torch of enlightenment. 🙂

    My blog community members loved your contribution and I thank you on their behalf. 🙂 It’s been a great interview and I wish you all the best for your new programs and products. 🙂

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