Making Money In Pebbles, Rocks, and Sand
I’ve found that there are three basic levels or types of income you seem to generate when you start out trying to make a few bucks, online or off. I’ve come to think of them loosely as ‘pebbles, rocks, and sand’. If you imagine a jar that, when full, will earn you as much money as you want/need, you then need to
Here’s what I mean:
Pebbles - Earnings I would classif y as pebbles can be one of two things. They are usually moderate to large amounts that are earned infrequently (i.e. $15 at a time and some months you have 0-1 and some months you have 5) or smaller amounts that are reasonably reliable but not a sure thing (i.e. $5 commissions that you steadily have between 5-15 a month) . Over time, pebbles will grow into rocks or disappear completely. I don’t see ‘pebble’ type earnings turn into sand very often.
Sand - Small, consistent earnings that you can count on to some extent every month. I would classify Squidoo adsense earnings as ’sand’ to some extent since you have a rough idea of what you will make each month. The amount you make from any one source of sand will often have a cap (i.e. lens payout tiers, etc). Sand can form a very solid foundation, but like sand, you need a lot of grains or sources before it adds up to much.
Rocks - Rocks are awesome. Big fat commissions that come regularly every month like clockwork. Hard to achieve and they can unexpectedly switch to pebbles and become inconsistent. Rocks should always be something you are striving for with at least a few of your revenue sources. however, if you have nothing but rocks, losing one affiliate program or ranking can mean financial disaster for your earnings.
Each of the three different types can be useful for making some bucks online or off. using the best aspects of all three to counter some of the other weaknesses can be super powerful.
How’s your earnings profile? Lots of rocks, sand, or pebbles?
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Comments
I’m mostly pebbles. Sometimes my feet get sandy from Squidoo, but not as much as they used to. I can handle pebbles, the whole concept is rather zen. Perfect way to explain it all, Loyalis.
Too many pebbles,… I like the Zen idea of this, you just have to do what you are doing and find a balance within. Ying & Yang will always shift gears and you never know if your sand will turn into rocks while you rocks just get blown away by someone else looking for his resources to dig.
I haven’t seen a grain of sand or a pebble but can see how a rock might come along some day… I have 23 live lenses, 1 made by a pro and the others all by me. None of them, not even the one from the pro makes anything at all. I’m not at all sure what I’m doing wrong, or what I need to do next, even.
What causes people to buy things off a lens? How many lenses do you have to have to earn more than 84c on adsense sharing?
I confess I’m clueless and though I read as many tips as I can, I still can’t figure this out. I’m sure once I sold one thing once, I’d be able to replicate that, scale the lens and be happily productive. There has to be a clue… somewhere… what is it?
Thank you for any advice you can share, Juliet
A good amount of sand and some pebbles…but definitely no “rocks” in the mix right now. I can see those rocks on the horizon though!
Just getting my feet wet now, but it feels good to see that lens rank climb, I did’nt get into squidoo for money but if it comes thats great. thats for the words of wisdom.I’ll keep floating aling.
That’s and interesting way to explain earnings! In the end I guess it doesn’t matter if the total amount is a sum of sand, pebbles, rocks - or a mix of them. Although lately the leading gurus promote making less sales - in rock size…
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Mostly sand, with some pebbles in it (LOL, great metaphor). I sure would love some more rocks