How can I get my spouse on board?

[jmmoore321]

I am making good money with my blog and I keep thinking if I could have time to do a little bit more, or start another site, we could get to the point where we could replace my husband's income and allow him to be at home more (he's currently working a night shift and it is kind of crappy for family life).

I keep trying to suggest to him that he learn about internet marketing and try some things to make money online in his down time at work. But he just can't catch the vision of it. He has seen my success but for some reason he is not willing to try to do it on his own. I don't feel like I can manage much more than my current site. But if there were two of us working at it, it seems like we could do so much.

Any tips for how I could get him to join in the fun with me?

[angienewton]

Jodi,
I don't have any tips because although my hubby totally supports my affiliate/Internet marketing and blogging business, he has no interest in doing it himself really. I mean he helps me with business stuff and does all the techy work as well as designs websites for local clients but as for blogging he's my little marketer LOL

This should be a good discussion!

[amibr]

Well I'm not sure you can convince anyone of doing anything unless they see the point in it. Perhaps he isn't interested because he doesn't see/understand exactly what you do. Ask him if he is interested in learning and take the time to really sit down with him and explain what you do and how he could replace his income with it.

What are his hobbies, what is he interested in? Can he start something based on that?

If he isn't interested then perhaps you need to think about ways you can up your current income with what you do right now...

[drmani]

Any tips for how I could get him to join in the fun with me?

Jodi, many years ago, Jay Abraham taught me this:

"When people buy a drill, what they really want is a HOLE!"

In other words, always sell them on the BENEFITS of whatever.
Think about how your spouse will benefit. Focus on that angle.
You'll be infinitely more persuasive

All success
Dr.Mani

[Engage]

Jodi, I wish I had something helpful to offer, as I'm in the same situation.

I dunno. It seems online publishers need to have a sincere desire to communicate, and an entrepreneur's spirit. Some people are born with these features, and some just aren't.

In a way, this is good, because if literally everybody wanted to work online, doing so would be much harder.

My wife is bright and energetic about the things she loves. But she just doesn't have the communicate and self employment gene (even though she is actually self employed).

I'm pretty sure she'd rather live in a broken down mobile home in poor town on food stamps before she'd make a website. I try to keep in mind there are jobs I feel that way about too. But, it can be a challenge sometimes.

Hopefully your situation is more promising! Perhaps you'll just have to be the leader here, and maybe someday your husband can stay at home, and take charge of the kids?

At least one person in your house gets it, and that's more than many people can say. Glass half full and so forth.

[retta719]

What a great conversation this is. My husband has a tiny interest in getting involved, but is having a hard time finding his place or his passion when it comes to working online. It's hard to get into the mindset of working online and it is a huge adjustment that is difficult for a lot of people to make. We're so used to working for other people and doing what we're told to do, even if it is something we're already passionate about.

[Engage]

What a great conversation this is.

Agreed.

For one thing, it's helping all of us see we aren't the only ones in this situation. Come to think of it, there are probably thousands of families having this conversation.

It would be cool if there was a site/forum we could visit with our spouses. A site whose sole purpose is to encourage conversation on this topic.

Dear-Spouse.com?

As example. Over 15 years my wife has seen me make lots of money, have big failures, and everything in between. But...

She doesn't know anybody who works online except me. She doesn't have a grasp of the webmaster community. She doesn't know you guys. She hears the stories second hand, but that's different than being part of it.

And, well, if you're married, you know the complicated dynamics involved. Your husband might be able to hear it better from me, and my wife might be able to hear it better from you.

I had an experience recently of discussing online publishing with a forum full of teachers. To keep it brief, it was quite interesting, and challenging.

For one thing, we have to face the fact that our industry doesn't have a great reputation with much of the public. Many of the teachers viewed teaching kids online publishing, real world job skills, as abusing them. The mindshift gap between this forum and that one was pretty vast.

Anyway, which one of you guys is going to launch Dear-Spouse.com? I want to be the first visitor, and if you sell it to Google for millions, you have to buy me lunch. :-)

[jmmoore321]

You guys are awesome! I'm glad to see I'm not the only one with the problem. I actually had a big heart to heart with my husband last night and talked to him about how he could be doing things to benefit him and our family in his spare time if he would just make a little effort. I showed him some stuff about BUM Marketing (the Travis Sago things) and it really appealed to him.

It seems like he was worried about having to do some huge blog the way I run mine. But with BUM marketing you can do as little or as much as you want, and you can make a few extra dollars here and there without a big emotional investment.

My husband is a great writer so I told him to just start looking around for some products he would be interested in promoting and I would help him do keyword research. If he can just make a few sales, I think he will start to see the potential. And even if he never becomes some big wig blogger, he could still bring in a little money from it.

And the best thing is, then I can talk about it with him! I am so obsessed with this stuff and I would love to have someone at home who I can share what I'm learning with

[Engage]

My husband is a great writer....

Oh, you're so lucky! That's a key factor.

For those of you whose spouses aren't writers, here's an idea that might be helpful.

Maybe your spouse can be the video editor? It depends on the niche, but YouTube videos can really add a lot to a site.

Yes, people can watch the vids on YouTube, but then they have to sort through enormous piles of junk to find the good videos.

The spouse might perform an editing function, finding just the best videos for your site. Then your readers can watch just the best videos, without all the junk.

One of my sites has many YouTubes, with just a sentence or two of text in many cases. These pages do get ranked, and do bring in traffic.

[Thom McCarroll]

My husband is a great writer

The reason I isolated this is because if in fact he is a great writer he may be more adept at writing and selling his works ... I would ease him into this by selling some of his articles and show him the money then step him into something else.

Thom