How to Make Money from Your Weaknesses

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In spite of how much some of us may believe it, we can’t all be amazing at everything.

Back in 2016 a few freelance gigs earned me a lot of money, substantially altering the kinds of money making opportunities that I could pursue. As a result, I spent a few months trying to learn as much as I could from online courses, blogs and YouTube channels from experts in particular disciplines. What I also came across was a load of people in the same position as me – at the beginning stages, learning a new business from their own experience and documenting it online.

There was one channel in particular that I liked the concept of; a guy trying as many different methods to make money as he could to see what does and doesn’t work. He went through affiliate marketing, dropshipping, print-on-demand and others.

I got bored because he was making fundamental errors and wasn’t making any money after a good year, but I could tell he’d get there in the end, because he was willing to embrace the fact that it was a marathon project. I’ve just come back to the channel today and have seen that he now makes thousands per month in AdSense revenue, thousands in affiliate income, and trickles from print-on-demand activity.

This guy didn’t know what he was doing. He was misled with his learning. He wasn’t focused. He was objectively bad at everything apart from making YouTube videos. But his persistence was motivational and relatability built up an audience, and his seamless affiliate offer mentions meant that he gradually built an income. He’s now got over 20,000 subscribers, earns over $3,000 a month and from what I can see, seems to be doing alright these days.

And you can do the same.

Accountability is a very powerful tool. It doesn’t work for all, but knowing that you have to answer to people when you don’t deliver results can drive you to work harder to make your plans successful. By playing on the weakness that you’re inexperienced at something, learning a new skill or building a brand, you can get audiences to root for your success, and take actions based on what worked for you.

Affiliate marketing and journey documentation go hand-in-hand. You can go from being a novice to an authority figure by showing people the path you took to get there. Once you become an influencer in that niche, it’s far easier to convert people to buy products or services.

People buy into stories, not abstract case studies. It’s why I should have invested time into doing more of them.

Here are some obvious examples that I wish I documented from the beginning:

Fitness journey
First steps to now with print-on-demand
‘Discovering’ gardening
Redecorating my office
Learning BSL
Building a Shopify store
Learning to backflip

For each of these I began with absolutely no clue and have made significant progression. Had I just made some purposeful content around some of them online, I would be able to make a lot more in affiliate income, because there will be thousands of people for each trying to achieve exactly the same thing as me. They want to see the mistakes and failures which eventually lead up to the ultimate success.

Want in on the action? A blog, YouTube channel or something as simple as a social media is all you need to begin documenting your own journey. Key tip before you get started: just be honest.