Closing soon

At Music Entrepreneur HQ, we’ve accepted guest posts, on and off, for many years.

We’re about to close this opportunity for good, especially now that we’re clear on what our brand, mission, and purpose is.

It’s been a fun ride to say the least.

The moment we started accepting guest posts, submissions started flowing in every single week.

And at first, we accepted guest posts for free.

The problem is that even though we had guidelines, the submissions were all over the place. People weren’t following our guidelines.

So, we started charging for guest posts.

But even with a $30 price tag, we found people were abusing the system and trying to negotiate on terms that were clearly laid out for them.

And if those prospective contributors had read the guidelines, they could have bypassed a lot of the back and forth that typically begins with pointless introductions and questions about whether we accept guest posts (in our guidelines, we’ve always said, “get straight to the pitch please!”).

If this is your approach as a guest poster, I’m not sure if you know much about entrepreneurs. We don’t generally have a lot of time for idle chit chat or long-winded sales pitches that are supposed to build to a “satisfying” climax. We’ve got much better things to do, whether it’s making the next product, closing sales, or spending time with our friends and family. We’re working long hours already. Don’t take up more of our time than absolutely necessary.

Plus, we’ve literally seen it all and have probably tried it all (I’ve been in graphic and web design, a home studio business, network marketing, niche site building, content marketing, ghostwriting, digital marketing, and more). Entrepreneurs may not be 100% B.S. proof, but close.

I guess if you’re a blogger, you think differently about this. But when you’re an entrepreneur, you do everything in your power to maximize the hours available and ensure your processes are completely systematized, leaving no room for confusion and misinterpretation.

Which is what I thought I had done with guest posting on our site, but the subpar submissions kept coming. The unreasonable negotiators kept negotiating.

I had members of my team handle this for a while, but even they were throwing up their arms at times.

So, I closed guest posting.

Then, I reopened it one last time. This time, charging double what I had originally charged.

Since then, we’ve had a few quality contributors who paid the price, submitted their piece, and left the rest in our capable hands.

But there are still many others who try to negotiate, try to find another way in, want us to give them a specific type of link, give them an 80% discount, or some other thing.

The answer is “no.”

Don’t waste our time.

This is exactly the reason we priced it out of range for the average guest poster.

Because I’m sorry but not sorry, the average guest poster absolutely sucks!

It seems like they’re still stuck in web 2.0 land, believing that somehow low-quality content with a few links is going to benefit their search engine ranking.

Sorry to be the one to break the news — that’s just not happening anymore.

If I were to add anything here, it would be that when considering who you want to work with, pricing is a factor.

If you price in a way that allows anybody and everybody in, the quality of customers or clients you attract might be low. This isn’t true 100% of the time, but oftentimes they just want to sponge off your free stuff and maybe buy the occasional $5 or $10 thing. So much for $1 per email address.

When you raise your prices, you tend to attract quality customers who understand what they’re purchasing, why, and even have a good idea how it can solve their problem.

This is a vast generalization, and there are other considerations when it comes to pricing strategy, but understanding the above is a good place to start.

If you’re thinking about starting a business, maybe don’t aim for the bargain bin. If you’re scared of pricing your products too high, then find the “middle of the road” and see if you’re happy serving those people. If not, raise your prices!

If you double your prices and lose 50% of your clients, you’re in exactly the same position you were when you started, with the main difference that you get a ton of time back!