Archive for the ‘Blog’ Category

Whoa!, hype here, hype there, everywhere some hype!

I don't know about you, but sometimes it starts to sound a little absurd. Doesn't it? Kinda like this:

#

Here's a way to make HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of dollars online, and it only takes a few days to implement!

-

But wait, here's a way to make MILLIONS online, and it takes only a few hours to set up and then works automatically year round while you're on vacation!!

-

But wait, here's a way to make BILLIONS online and REVERSE TIME AND GROW YOUNGER while I do all the work for you…!!!

#

Okay, I'm exaggerating. I admit it. I haven't heard any hype lately that goes quite that far. But close. Yep, kinda close.

(I know, I know. You wait eagerly with the greatest of expectations for each and every precious word I post (right? I mean your very destiny hangs in the balance), and it's been way too long between posts — but I've been BUSY! And better eventually than never, right?)

But anyway, putting my delusion of grandeur aside (just for the moment), it's Monday, the start of a new work week! So let's ignore all the hype for a sec and get serious. Here's how to make money, online or off:

• Get in touch with your passion. Find a related need and fill it. Unless you are mentally ill, no matter what your passion is, it is very likely that someone out there has made a successful business out of it — or something closely related. Why not you? Why be halfhearted? Why not be passionate instead? Especially since much of your success (or failure) may depend on it.

• Develop a clear and compelling vision of your business goals. Know what you are setting out to accomplish. If you have a clear vision of what you want to achieve, you are already ahead of 95% of the competition. If you don't, you're already falling behind. If you are pursuing goals you haven't even defined, you are wasting your time and energy.

• Do. Take action. Do the work. At your first inkling that you may be over-educating and over-preparing, stop. Then do what you already know. Just do it. Now. Don't be afraid to fail. Fail fast and fail often. Learn by those failures and enjoy them. Enjoy them? Yes! Celebrate! Jump up and down, do a little dance and pat yourself on the back. Heck, go ahead and gloat. With every failure, you're learning and growing! Learn to understand and appreciate that.

• Understand the power of your own mind. Don't hope for success. Expect it. Positive expectation is far more powerful than hope. Unlike hope, expectation does not include a consideration of the possibility of failure. Be positive, stay positive, pursue positive. Avoid negative people and negative influences and negative self-talk. Focus on developing strong belief in yourself and your vision. Remember the vision? Focus on that, not on what you are having to go through to get there. Know that the vision is worth it.

• But keep initial day-to-day expectations realistic. Stop striving for perfection. If you're just starting out, start out walking, begin small, be patient.

• But be prepared and willing to learn and grow and run.

• Don't be afraid of the competition. Today's competition may be tomorrow's customer or partner.

• Network with successful people, and remember, companies don't do business with one another, people do.

• Know your subject. Don't scatter your attention too broadly.

• Refocus daily on your top two or three goals, and stick with that focus until you are sure you have maximized potential.

• But be flexible. If something isn't working, be willing to change course, even be willing to re-envision and refocus if necessary. Be willing to cut your losses. If a strategy is failing, drop it. Move on.

• Be willing to invest — your time, your energy, your money — whatever you have. And be willing to outsource. Unless you enjoy and get a great deal of satisfaction out of the work, outsource what is not making you money or drop it, and spend the majority of your time and energy on what is.

• Document your successes. Any approach that works has the potential of becoming a system. Systems are easily repeatable. Replication of a successful, working system will often be the best possible return on your investment. But don't be afraid to tweak and test the system. Just because it works doesn't mean it can't be improved over time.

• Celebrate your successes, too (not just your failures) — but be willing to re-invest. Sure, go ahead and reward yourself for a job well done. You deserve it. But don't be too eager for lavish celebrations that will simply eat up your earnings. Re-invest a reasonable portion to ensure your long-term success.

• Work steady but stay balanced. Balance your work and your schedule. Don't lose sight of who and what all the hard work and money are for. Be willing to take time off for your health, and your family and friends, and (sometimes) just to play.

That's it. Everything else is a tool. There are useful ones and useless ones and all-shiny-and-new ones, but they are all nothing more than tools.

And we're all just tools when we let ourselves believe anything else.

Let's all try to help each other remember that.

Okay, I have about a million irons in the fire right now, and my mother just recently went into a nursing home and, well, let me just say that it’s been an enormously time-consuming affair as well…

So I guess what I’m saying is that everything’s been getting in the way, lately, of me saying what I wanted to say, or as soon as I intended to say it. So let me apologize in advance for any omissions or mistakes and just get on with it and say it (I promise when I have time, I’ll come back and correct or add to things later if needed).

First off, I firmly believe that the days of easy money by hook and crook on the internet are drawing to a close and that many of this type of marketer are about to run into a huge brick wall, and I’m about to tell you just a couple of reasons why (there are many).

But before I do that, as previously promised, let me quickly list just some of what we all can do in terms of building our reputations as marketers with integrity, and at the close, I’ll give you my take on why all of this is so very important to understand, and especially now:

A few steps toward building the reputation:

• Be transparent with our customers about the fact that it is impossible for us to know what their needs may be and make it crystal clear in our communications who our intended target for any given communication is;

• Encourage two-way communication, via email or Skype or otherwise, or by using polls and surveys if nothing else;

• Disclose all potential conflicts of interest, i.e., if we, or members of our family, or our friends or others we do frequent business with, stand to profit in any way by the sale of a product, a recommendation, any advice we offer, etc., we have an obligation to let our customers know that, and not just in our terms of service, but in our ongoing communications. (The whole conflict of interest concern virtually disappeared in recent years, but I’m betting it’s going to make a big come back sometime soon — and quite possibly beyond anything the FCC or any other government agency may require; in other words, many consumers are getting increasingly sick of being suckered and misled and many are becoming increasingly sophisticated as well.)

• When possible, educate our customers and suggest resources and opportunities for them to educate themselves. When it’s not possible, encourage them to assess their own knowledge, skills, experience, or situation — personal or professional — so that they may better determine whether or not what we have to offer is appropriate to their needs; and,

• Be sure we are creating and promoting only the best products we know to be available. Or if that is not the case, be absolutely clear as to why we are promoting this particular product or service if it is not the best we know to be available, i.e., best value for the money, product is better supported, better documented, has greater potential for the future, is more compatible, is better for newbies, is more aesthetically pleasing or attractive, etc.

On the last point, I want to say a little more.

Of course I work for my own company and make these decisions myself. Those who work for “the other guy” and are promoting that company’s products may find this more difficult, but it is of utmost importance to promote only the best products we know to be available.

If we truly believe in the benefits of a product, then there is nothing dishonest about telling our customers this and our sincerity and enthusiasm and integrity will show through — all great selling points. We will be more successful, and we will sleep well at night. But if we don’t believe very much in a product we’re promoting and try to fake it, not only are we not serving our customers, we are not being true to ourselves.

If you are selling a product or service you don’t believe in, my advice is to get out as  soon as you can. The world is full of better opportunities.

Why it matters, and why more now than ever:

Finally, as promised, why do I believe it is so important to understand this and that there has never been a better time to understand it than now?

The reasons are the most important points of these last few posts:

One way or another, social media represents (among other things) an attempt on the part of increasingly sophisticated consumers to move back to the more personal “word of mouth” approach to discovering valuable information, entertainment, products, services, etc. Marketers are essentially mucking this up, and not just the black hatters, and I guarantee consumers will simply keep fighting back, harder and harder in the coming years.

Most people in my experience really do not prefer doing business anonymously and without recommendation from other individuals they have grown to trust (e.g., via a search engine, some random stranger’s link on a forum, etc.); it is just that, until recently, that was one of the better ways of locating value and information on the internet.

Human nature is what it is, and most of the history of marketing, offline as well as online, suggests that most consumers will continue to strive toward a means by which to establish and maintain the more personal “word of mouth” approach.

The end may not be here yet, but the wild west days of internet marketing are diminishing, and we are seeing a return, or at least a longing on the part of consumers to return, to the paradigm of the old, local shopkeeper everybody knew and trusted.

Marketers who understand this can be one of those trusted sources if we go about our business now in the right manner.

Just as importantly, more importantly even, it is good for us, as human beings, individually and collectively, not to take advantage of one another or act in ways that hurt others or benefit only ourselves, or in other ways that are out of harmony with our higher natures.

Nearly all of us have, at one time or another, fallen into the trap of believing we can fool ourselves or others with rationalizations, and sometimes we can for a while, but there is always a severe price to pay because our emotional make-up, our unconscious, or conscience if you will, isn’t fooled by such rationalizations. The long experience of humanity strongly suggests that such attempts to “get away with” practices we do not believe in, whether or not they adversely affect our business, will almost certainly have adverse effects on our health, our outlook on life, our self-esteem, our relationships with others and our spirits.

Of course, as marketers, and more simply, just as human beings — excepting perhaps a cloistered, ascetic monk or two — we will all continue to make mistakes in judgment, or otherwise,  from time to time.

When that happens, or when we become aware that it is happening, we should apologize and make reparations if appropriate. Then we should correct course and allow ourselves to move on.

Because it is always better in the long run to understand and act increasingly in accordance with our values and our emotions than it is to listen to intellectualizations that are designed to simply help us make more money.

And though I hate to end this post so abruptly, and with so little polish, I’m out of time, so that’s it for now. Rushed as this was, I hope you found something here worthwhile. I’ll try to add more thoughts and resources when my life smooths out a bit. Thanks for visiting, and sign up to my list if you like.

To your success!,

Richard D. Farley / MythoSpheres Development

Hi. Yes — all sorts of unexpected troubles — but I’m back.

I want to begin by letting you know that since my initial foray into this subject (Is Honest Marketing An Oxymoron?), I’ve done a lot of listening, a lot of reading and a fair bit of thinking. And I believe I’ve not only reminded myself of some various understandings I’d nearly forgotten, but have become aware of a few new nuances as well.

Now, with your permission, I’d like to share some of it with you.

So let’s dive right in:

What is all this outcry about a lack of honesty in internet marketing anyway? What’s it about? Why do so many marketers say they are being honest while so many consumers say they are not? Are internet marketers simply crooks? Are consumers simply whiners with unrealistic expectations?

Well, there’s no doubt in my mind that the above posits explain some of it, i.e., some marketers are crooks and some consumers are never satisfied. But as I suggested in a recent post, maybe honesty per se isn’t what the complaints are really all about.

Hopefully I established to your satisfaction in my ‘Dream On‘ post that what people actually buy is a feeling, not a product or service. So if you accept that that is true, then what is it about selling a feeling that can be construed as honest or dishonest?

But wait, rather than address that question directly, let me encourage you to draw your own conclusion as I meander toward some understandings that I hope all, or most, of us can agree on.

Let me begin by establishing a few facts:

First fact — we are all marketers. It’s true. Pretty much every person on the planet is a marketer in one sense or another. When you flirt, you are marketing yourself. When you go out on a first date, when you go on a job interview, when you ask someone to marry you, even when you try to convince someone else that your religious beliefs are where it’s really at — in one sense or another, that is all marketing.

In all cases you are promoting something. You’re promoting yourself or your sex appeal or your personality or your skills and can-do attitude, or maybe even what you consider to be the ultimate cosmic truth.

And in all cases, are you convinced you are being 100% honest?

When you flirt, do you make sure the person you’re flirting with knows that sometimes you can be a clueless klutz?

When you go out on a first date, do you make sure the person you’re dating knows your last relationship ended badly because you got a little too selfish? Or because you exhibited very poor judgment by letting yourself get into a wrong-for-you relationship in the first place?

And when you go on a job interview, do you tell the interviewer about all the things you can’t do well and have failed at?

And how about we just wisely omit any queries regarding the marriage and religious examples for now… ?

The point is, unless you’re a very unusual and socially dysfunctional person, I would guess the answer to all of the above questions (or some similar set of questions in the same spirit that would be more appropriate to you) is “No,” and if that’s the case, are you still convinced you are being 100% honest?

Hmm…

Okay, then, second fact — we’re all dishonest marketers…

Whoa!, now wait a second, sometimes our behavior is designed to spare the feelings of others or to avoid conflict or avoid doing harm to others or ourselves, and after all we’re just “putting our best foot forward” and … even for the sticklers, isn’t it a little much to find fault with that? And besides, there’s a big difference between being dishonest and withholding certain information, right?

Well, yes and no. It does depend on the context. How integral is the information? Does the information you are withholding better define what you are marketing than the information you are disclosing? Or another way to put it, in terms of flirting: are you a clueless klutz 2% of the time or 98% of the time?

If it’s 98% of the time, that is integral information, my friend (if you’ve ever been on a date with someone who is a clueless klutz 98% of the time, you know this!), and if you are withholding that kind of information, you are not marketing with very much integrity. Ah, but if it’s only 2%, well I think we might just let that go… that is, as long as you’re cool and slinky and sexy the rest of the time…

;*)

So what I’m getting at — what I said before, is that honest marketing may actually be the wrong terminology; what customers want is marketing with integrity.

So what does that mean, exactly?

Is my meandering starting to make sense?

If you think so, then this is one of the distinctions, or tenets if you will, of marketing with integrity: consumers — all of us really — expect the promotional information divulged about a product or service to better define that product or service, by far, than any information that is not being divulged.

But that’s just one of the distinctions.

As I see it, there are actually four basic distinctions that define marketing with integrity:

• you have made a sincere attempt to inform yourself about the product or service before recommending and promoting it;

• what is revealed in your promotional material is essentially true to the best of your knowledge;

• what is being said in your promotions (already mentioned) better defines the product or service, by far, than what is not being said;

• you are, in good faith and to the best of your understanding, promoting to your customers only those products and services you know to be appropriate to their needs.

Customers really are not expecting some rigid, pedantic standard of honesty; well, most of them aren’t. You are after all trying to sell something, and customers know this and even, on some level, want to be sold. Nevertheless, if you want to build a reputation for being “honest” — or better, being a marketer with integrity — the bar is still fairly high.

What most of your customers really want is to know that a), you actually know what you are selling; b), you are being essentially truthful about what you know; c), you are not withholding vital, game-changing information that they, as potential buyers, need to know to make an appropriate decision; and d), you are not using your selling skills and strategies to sell them trash or something completely inappropriate to their needs.

Most of this is completely within your ability and under your control, so much of it is really up to you. It takes some effort and can be time- and energy-consuming sometimes, but you want to do this work to build your reputation and be of real service to your customers. It is what anyone who is in this or any other business for the long term should be trying to do.

So… let’s assume we all want that reputation, and so we can and do inform ourselves about the products and services we’re selling, and we do speak the essential truth that best defines those products and services, and we don’t sell trash…

(I hope I am correct in assuming no one who has read this far wants to sell trash. I will assume this as my conviction is that most of those guys wouldn’t take the time to read a post of this length, and certainly not on this subject.)

So… inform self, speak essential truth that best defines, and no trash… But wait, that still leaves the inappropriate-to-their-needs portion, and that is a tall order.

How do you know that what you are selling is appropriate to any particular customer’s needs? Well, you really don’t. To some extent, you can try to get to know your customers, but it’s unlikely you can get to know them all — especially as an internet marketer.

So as internet marketers, since it is impossible to know what all our customers’ needs are, we’re all doomed to sell with a deficient degree of integrity even if we’d prefer to do better, right?

Right. Er, no. Not right. Not exactly.

There are some essential things we all can do — even as internet marketers with massive lists — to establish and maintain a high degree of integrity in our marketing practices.

I’ll talk about some of them in my next post.

I also hope to talk about why it is all important that you understand these distinctions and why there has never been a better time to understand them than now.

Thank you for your attention, and I hope you’ll consider signing up to my list before you go.

To your success!,
Richard D. Farley

Hello again.

I’d intended to post something more, ‘ere now, on the subject of honesty in marketing.

It wasn’t my intention to simply leave it where I left it. In fact, in case you couldn’t tell, I actually had a strategy, or triad of posts, in mind when I began with the question ‘Is Honest Marketing An Oxymoron’ and then confirmed that it is. But I’ve been writing all my posts here myself, and some family health matters have come up that have delayed the intended third post.

Yes, I could have hired it out, but it’s just not my wont these days.

So… I’m just posting this as a notice that I still intend a few more words on this subject, as I believe where the confusion lies is that honest marketing may actually be the wrong terminology, and not exactly what customers are looking for anyway.

What your customers and my customers want — and what we all want as consumers — is marketing with integrity.

So if you’re not sure why I’m making that distinction, what I mean by it, what the difference is, or why it’s important to understand, I hope you’ll stay tuned and check the blog again sometime soon.

Thanks.

I had an experience recently that called into question much of what I've believed and tried (increasingly) to practice over the years, and I decided I should blog about it, and maybe even ask for your thoughts.

First off, let me 'fess up and say that I can't claim to have always been 100% totally transparent or hype-free, and I'm certainly not trying to imply otherwise with this post. The lure of easy money has a very strong appeal, as the song says, and I've given into temptation on occasion. I've also been just plain ol' lazy more times than I care to admit.

Even so, I have consistently worked harder at it over the years, and I feel like I have a pretty decent track record at this point — even though, at the moment, I'm starting to wonder if it was all for naught.

Okay? So with that said, I suppose the best way to proceed (or the best way I can think of) is with a few questions, as I have more questions than answers right now, and it is these questions, just lately, that are keeping me up nights.

• Are we, as a society (or as consumers, if you prefer) now completely addicted to hype?
  

If someone tries to sell us something without exaggerating the benefits and without downplaying the drawbacks, does that necessarily mean there is no way in hell we are ever going to buy?

• Do we now assume that any honesty in marketing is just another cynical ploy?
  

Is there really any room for honesty or transparency in marketing any more? I know plenty of marketers and consumers talk about it, incessantly, and claim to practice it, and claim to want more of it, but is there really any room for it if the assumption always is going to be that it doesn't really exist? Or that to the extent it does exist, it is just another tactic?

• If a marketer or salesman comes on as honest, is your first instinct to distrust him (or her)?
  

Maybe this comes down to how many times you've been burned by those claiming to be nothing but honest. But does even making the claim that one is honest actually work against a marketer now as so many who have not demonstrated anything in the way of honesty contantly make the same claim?

• How honest is too honest to be believed?
  

If someone actually tells us some of what to watch out for, and how we might be able to make better judgments about when and whether we are being bamboozled, and begins to reveal some of the psychology and methodology by which we are being taken… is that an insult to our intelligence?

Are we to assume that we are all (even the inexperienced) always cognizant and fully informed of, and about, such matters? — that we would never fall for such manipulations? And are we to assume, also, that any such 'educational' effort is simply another cynical strategy to win our trust so that we will be vulnerable and get burned yet again?

As for why I'm asking these questions, I won't go into all the details — at least not yet. As I said, it was a recent experience that brought this on, and it has caused me to question whether or not we are all addicts of hyperbole now… and whether there is really any point anymore in being honest.

Of course, there is always the ethical point that honest is the right thing to be, but if customers are always going to conclude that any such honesty is just another ploy, and if customers are always, or mostly, only going to buy into the hyperbole anyway, then is the concept of honest marketing an oxymoron?

And if so, why not just give it up… and get with our deliberately deceptive times… and run with our hyperbolic brothers and sisters… and possibly make more money by simply giving consumers even more of what they seem to want and expect?

I mean, yeah, of course that would be wrong from your average moralist's or ethicist's point of view, but wouldn't it also be giving a whole lot of consumers exactly what they demand? (And isn't that kinda sorta a marketer's raison d'etre?)

This recent incident — well, I guess I've said all I'm going to say about it. I guess, maybe because I'm in the planning stages for a product launch, it just threw me off my game, and I'm just kinda struggling with all these questions right now, so… if you have one, I would really appreciate your helpful comment.