Okay, I’ll admit it. When some hypster guru or wannabe writes a letter or splash page full of in-your-face claims about how they made zillions of dollars doing this technique and using so-and-so software application, I want to say “What the hell” and buy whatever it is just in case it isn’t BS.
These slicksters bring out the lottery mentality in most of us.
The allure of a quick-buck artist has cost me (and you?) many dollars I (we?) couldn’t afford to invest or lose.
The good (or evilly-good) copywriters are well aware of how to reel in a fish.
They are also aware of how to play on your guilt, on your curiosity, and on your fear of loss.
Mind you, many of these gurus, wannabes and charlatans know they are selling you air. In the pre-virtual era we rightfully called these slight-of-hand machinations pyramids or Ponzi schemes.
They know you want to know what they are doing in detail. They also know you want a glimpse of economic paradise for a mere guilder or half-pence. Hence, they offer every ebook under the galaxy as a “free” bonus enticement to get you to loosen your purse strings. Hello, plastic money!
They know you want to know why they are achieving success on a massive scale while you seem to mired in marketing quicksand.
They know you want to buy their upgrade gold or platinum package, even though the price is mucho steeper than the introductory offer.
They know that with each passing day of inertia on our part, they can bombard us with auto-responded drum-beaten messages reminding us that they are only offering a limited number of memberships or applications or licenses to their exclusive, “no-holds-barred” secret elite group until Monday evening at midnight.
They try to make you hear the tick-tock of the clock winding down.
Let’s evaluate this logically. Can you provide individualized follow up support to thousands of people whom you sell software, ideas or a coaching program under an exclusivity banner? Methinks that to be scientifically an impossibility.
Information is only as useful as the person who uses it. I do believe that many people selling information give each of us some valuable tidbits and strategies of the Internet marketing game. That keeps them from being legally prosecuted by the consumer or their government.
But anyone can write anything, and many people do. One of the greatest psychological traps is when someone tells you that all or many of the others in cyberspace are lying or exaggerating. They, they claim to the contrary, are totally above board. Hmm???
But then you read on and on, scrolling to Dante’s Seventh Circa of hell. And wayyyyyyyyyyy down the page comes the drum roll, the bonuses, the income claims, the takeaway offers, ad nauseum.
The payoffs by Google or Clickbank or eBay are always circled to show you just how successful they have been in implementing a certain, secret strategy which they are generously willing to part with to you for a mere $499 or whatever.
They also remind you, if they use audio in making their case, that they are not bragging.
Hey folks, that should be when the warning lights begin to flash with urgency. Of course they are boasting! If they didn’t boast and flash their income payouts, they believe (rightfully) that their credibility would be in question.
Okay. You may think me to be a cynic looking at things like a hungry, homeless person might look at stale bread in the bakery window. You may think I am jealous of mega-successful online marketers.
No, to both charges. I want to have a happy and prosperous life. I am no different than you, I believe. But we needn’t make a Faustian compromise in order to make our financial killing.
Trash the fast-buck artists, and build your small or large financial empire with integrity. I’m not saying that you mustn’t market questionable products or services, but I am saying you must offer education and marketing insights to the people who are willing to put trust in your judgment.
It is time to see the big picture. The Internet is a potential tool to bring about a prosperous, literate world. It is a tool which must be passed on from generation to generation. If we abuse this tool, governments will eventually clamp down on free exchange of ideas and we will all be the worse for it.
I love the English language. The Frenchman loves the French language. The Russian loves his mother tongue. The power of the word can move mountains. Let us use that power to insure a more prosperous world with fewer reasons to fight wars or discriminate against people we disagree with for whatever reason.
Dishonesty never leads to honesty and trust. If you can make a quick million by selling snow to the Eskimos, that doesn’t make it right.
Speak and write from your heart.
Few of us who are reading a message such as mine are literally starving. Take your time and build your fortune in a way which allows you to sleep well.
Serve your readership with all you’ve got, and that viral energy will carry you to your goals and dreams. Let’s reach for the stars in an ethical win-win way, without having to lean on circled incomes and specious claims.
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