Listen, I kinda went on sabbatical, and I've been coding and doing some other related stuff ever since so that's why I haven't posted on this blog for so long.

Anyhow, a colleague was supposed to post here months ago and let you know about it, but he forgot, and I was too distracted to notice. LOL.

My single-minded focus thing sometimes keeps me from noticing a lot of things. He was supposed to tell you that I wouldn't be promoting anything for a while due to preparation for a product launch, and that I wouldn't be sending out my newsletter, that I would be kinda out of touch in general …

I guess I kinda made it optional, but he was even supposed to continue posting periodically …

(What do you think? Should I can him?)

Oh well. My apologies. But as I told him at the time, I would be back if something came up that I thought was truly worthwhile or that truly needed to be said. Or something like that. I don't remember my exact words.

Okay. So here it is, something truly worthwhile — but wait, let me just say that I have no idea if this will be truly worthwhile or not. But I said I wouldn't be back this soon unless it was. So, you know, I'm sending mixed signals here. LOL!

Well, okay, here's the thing. I haven't had the time or the inclination to check this out in detail yet, so my opinion on this is based on past experience with Mike rather than an actual evaluation of the offer.

So keep that in mind.

But as I'm sure you know, past experience is often a good measure. One can't always rely on it, but I believe this is going to be the real deal, and I would be remiss if I didn't tell you about it. Er, or give it my personal recommendation (since you've probably heard about it already anyway).

I do know that the last major training course Mike came out with was very worthwhile. So hopefully this will be as great as it sounds. (If not, it's being sold through Clickbank so you can always ask for your money back if it doesn't look right, okay?)

Anyhow, I've got lots to do yet on that launch and otherwise, so let me get on with it. I know you're going to want to check this out once you know what I'm talking about.

Oh wait. Everyone you should be following is promoting it already, so you probably already know what I'm talking about: Mike Johnson's Profit.FM.

So I'm not going to waste any more of your time here. If you haven't checked it out (because you were waiting just to see if your most trusted adviser — why, me, of course! — was going to promote it), then it's time to go to:

http://www.mythospheres.com/recommends/fm

My bonus? Well … how about free admittance to the launch of my own product? It will be a couple of months yet, though. Maybe more. And I can't tell you what it is yet. LOL.

Some bonus, huh? (Yes, it will be, actually.)

Oh well. I gotta get back to it.

I don't care (much) if you buy through my link or not. It will be your loss if you don't, of course, but I can't worry about that right now. I just thought I should let you know about it.

Profit.FM may not turn out to be anything special. Then again, if past experience can be trusted, it just may turn out to be one of the very few MUST HAVES this year.

I hope you will check it out:

http://www.mythospheres.com/recommends/fm

Either way, it will probably be a while before you hear from me again, so continued good luck with your endeavors and take care.

To your success!,

Richard D. Farley / MythoSpheres Development

Weekly, maybe? We'll see.

The length and quality of the writing, as well as of the information, may vary considerably. It will depend on what else (and how much) is going on with me, but I'll simply postpone and omit if I feel it's necessary.

So … this may eventually become a full-blown marketing newsletter. But for the immediate future, I expect it to be fairly short and to-the-point articles about various aspects of online marketing (and perhaps offline, too, occasionally).

My subscribers will find resources that pertain to the discussion (when available and when I feel comfortable recommending them) at the end of these soliloquies. (Soliloquies? Fancy word, yeah?) I will be putting these resources at the end so as to not interrupt the flow.

Some of this information (and the aforementioned resources) may prove to be "old hat" to some of my subscribers. Since I don't have a very complete picture about how much or how little experience various folks have, I have to go with the basics at least some of the time, right?

But if you are, or become, a subscriber and are patient with me. I know, sooner or later, I'll get around to providing some information that even the most seasoned marketer will find extremely valuable. Just don't expect it every time out.

Okay?

This will be for my subscribers ONLY and will not be published here, at AWeber, or elsewhere.

So if you haven't signed up yet, please do so and watch for my next email, most likely in about 12 hours or so, in which I will begin by discussing …

Don't you just love cliff-hangers? LOL.

To your continuing success!,
Richard D. Farley / MythoSpheres Development

With Google's recent Panda updates, I am feeling somewhat vindicated.

The Panda updates have hit many IM sites very hard.

Of course, a lot more than Panda has been going on lately:

• AdWords has canceled the PPC accounts of thousands;
• PayPal has closed many IM-ers' accounts;
• Other payment processors are about to disallow IM vendors;
• Clickbank has recently de-listed hundreds of IM products;
• YouTube has dumped thousands of make-money-online videos;
• Amazon has pretty much ended PLR ebooks being sold on Kindle;
• Sales of IM-related products are down, refunds are up.

Am I okay with all these changes? Not exactly. But I do understand that this is what happens when some "opportunists" misbehave.

It is this way in all walks of society it seems. Because some abuse the system, everyone has to pay the price. It's not fair. It's not just. But it is the way things are.

The only thing we "good guys" can do about it is to work that much harder and hold ourselves to higher and higher standards.

As the old saying goes, "when the going gets tough, the tough get going."

So . . . are you ready to offer more value to real people? Are you ready to care even more about the quality of what you teach, what you sell, and about the quality of your web sites, pages and posts?

No? Then rest in peace with the dinosaurs. They couldn't adapt either.

Yes? Then welcome to the post-Panda, post-wild-wild-West internet marketing world. Time for everyone to grow up.

My sincere apology for not updating this blog sooner, but I don't like outsourcing it and sometimes my life stuff just gets in the way.

Anyway, if you follow this blog, thanks for your patience, and I hope you will find that what I am about to recommend to you is well worth the wait.

If you are just starting your online business venture or if you feel your business effort has been going off track lately, I'd like to recommend something 'holistic' in terms of building your business the right way.

(I just wish something this good had been available when I was starting out.)

So here it is:

• Michael Christon's Personal Fulfillment Machine

This is not a script or plug-in or marketing robot or tool or marketing course.

Yes, those can be valuable in the right context.

But no.

This is something very, very special.

But first, a little background.

I have listened to and viewed various success and motivational programs over the years. As a result, every now and again I've been prompted to do a little brainstorming about where I'm trying to go and why.

It's always been a kind of re-envisioning, and it has often been just after these brief interludes that I've been my most creative, productive and fulfilled.

Knowing from my own experience how helpful I've found such opportunities, I was understandably …

Well, I don't know how to say this without it sounding hyped, but I was very "excited," or "wowed" or "impressed," or something that sounds a little bit over the top like that, to discover Michael Christon's Personal Fulfillment Machine training.

If you've sampled the combined works of various motivational and business thinkers as I have, old and new, e.g., Tony Robbins, Brian Tracy, etc., then you may think you've already heard much of what Michael has to say.

I pretty much felt that way myself at first. So why am I now so excited about this?

Because Michael has a compelling talent for presenting the information, old insights and new — a way that offers new perspectives, eliminates the extraneous, and systemizes and explains the essentials of how to build a more fulfilling life and business.

I feel as if he has burned away the fat, leaving only the condensed, concentrated, lean, mean, and useful behind — yet he has also kept the information palatable and easily accessible.

And there is nothing cookie cutter about Michael's approach either.

He teaches a methodology — a manner of thinking and of structuring your thinking about yourself, your life, your values, your goals — that allows you to create your own custom template that can help you build your ideal, and very personal, future.

I've been through the course, and I know it's worth going through again and again.

I believe you, too, will agree it is going to be helpful to contemplate, again and again, what Michael has to say.

Frankly, most of us need that kind of repetition to really "get it" (whether we will admit it or not). By following — more closely each day — what Michael has to say, I am certain any of us would be better able to align our business goals with our values and have a much more fulfilling life and a more successful business.

Because I believe the bottom line is that that is what we all want, I'm recommending PFM to you. And because:

• I believe it's for those just starting out.

• I also believe it's for those who need to get their business and life back on track.

• Actually, I can't think of anyone in business, or anyone hoping to start a business, who this training couldn't benefit.

Briefly, here are just a few of the questions and considerations you will be exposed to when you decide to take a journey toward your Personal Fulfillment Machine with Michael Christon:

•  Where are you now?

• Where are you going?

• How are you going to get there and are you 100% sure you want to?

• Moment of truth: how's your mental, physical and spiritual health? Are you achieving soul-destroying success?

• What's your 'bucket list?'

• How to have something exceptional in your life and in your business.

• How can understanding yourself and your values make your business effort easier and more profitable?

• How your business can become your personal fulfillment machine and why it's absolutely imperative that it should be.

• Your life's blueprint: using imagination and visualization, coupled with your values, to "walk around" your life's blueprint, and why doing so can empower your life and your business.

• Why is becoming richer in every other way ultimately more valuable than becoming financially rich, and why the former makes the latter that much more possible and satisfying?

• Purpose and structure: why becoming uncommonly successful has so much to do with ways of thinking that may seem initially to have virtually nothing to do with your desire for success.

• How to break the impossible down into the possible.

• How to supercharge your business's mission statement, and why you must.

Far too many start businesses without a clue. They know not where they are going nor how to get there. Michael reminds us that starting a business is about far more than just making money or being your own boss. This kind of training — this kind of thinking — is far too often neglected, yet it is by far the most important. I cannot recall having ever recommended anything more potentially valuable than Michael's Personal Fulfillment Machine.

This is the stuff that our dreams are made of.

Trust me, this will inspire you today and, applied, it will have an enormously positive impact on your life and business for decades to come:

Michael Christon's Personal Fulfillment Machine

Thank you for your time and for considering my recommendation.

To your success!,
Richard D. Farley / MythoSpheres Development

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

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

First, I apologize for the fact that one of my WordPress plug-ins was malfunctioning and keeping a lot of folks from commenting. (Believe me when I say this annoyed me as much as it did you!)

Second, I probably should have given a little more information upfront about the recent experience I had.

Third, there’s a product launch right now that is lying to us (a lot) and doing so in the name of honesty. The guy behind it is making a whole lot of noise about honesty being the answer to untold riches, and (among other things) I’m here to tell you he is not being very honest about that.

What? Okay, first let’s get back to the original question of the last post, Is Honest Marketing An Oxymoron? — my answer, the only valid answer, and maybe this will surprise (and even dismay) some of you — yes, yes, yes! Honest marketing is an oxymoron! It is an out-and-out contradiction!!

Now before too many of you start to reach for a handful of fruit to throw at my blog, let me explain my meaning.

Why do people smoke? Yes, I’m starting my explanation with another question. Sorry about that, but I do have a point. If you ask people how or why they got started smoking, about eight out of ten will tell you they got started smoking because they thought it was cool.

Surprisingly, smokers don’t generally tell you they started smoking because the smoke tasted so good, or because they enjoyed the initial dizziness or all the initial coughing (i.e., their bodies trying to tell them they were putting poison into their lungs).

Okay, not so surprisingly.

So, even today, after all that has occurred and all the government regulation and all the people who have suffered and died from smoking, is the average cigarette manufacturer always and completely honest about their product?

No; and yes I can imagine some are thinking right now that the tobacco industry is an extreme example and that you don’t want to be that kind of marketer, and good for you. But the point is…

People don’t buy a product, or a service for that matter.

We buy a feeling.

Okay? If you disagree with that premise, I can’t help you, but if you see that it’s true, then what is a marketer selling? Products? Services? Or feelings?

Feelings, of course.

And the experience I was not talking about in the last post was a big wake up call. It drove this home for me, and I’ve been mulling it over ever since.

It’s an experiment you can try yourself if you like. After a brief discussion with another marketer, we decided to set up two email lists under two pseudonyms. For one list we wrote upbeat promotions of various products and services, mostly in the online marketing niche. For the other list, we wrote very matter-of-fact descriptions of these same products and services, pointing out what was worthwhile about them and what wasn’t so worthwhile.

Can you guess what happened? After three months, not only had the second list performed abysmally, most of the subscribers had unsubscribed! Meanwhile, the first list had performed rather well, and most of the subscribers are still subscribed.

So what does this tell you? While people complain constantly about marketers not being honest, what is our behavior saying? Well… it’s kind of saying, all that honesty isn’t really what we’re looking for either.

Now this experience was a harsh reminder for me. I kinda already knew it, but I’d drifted considerably: people don’t buy a product or service; we buy a feeling.

So what feeling are buyers looking for? Are we wanting to buy something that makes us feel like we just bought an inferior product? How about something that makes us feel like we don’t have much of a chance to make it work?

No? So what is the feeling we’re looking for?

It’s the dream. The dream, the dream, the dream. I’ll say it again, the dream — the dream that, if I buy this product, it will renew my life’s experience in some significant way, e.g., it will make me invulnerable to disease, it will make me fabulously rich, it will make me look like a movie star, etc., etc.

So yeah, honest marketing is an oxymoron — at least entirely honest marketing.

Because as marketers we are not going to sell anything by dwelling just as much on the drawbacks of a product or service as on the potential benefits, which would be the truly honest approach.

We are not going to sell anything if we don’t communicate the dream that everyone is really buying.

No matter how many people bitch about this or that marketer being dishonest about this or that product or service, the fact is they bought it from that marketer, and the reason they bought it was because that marketer sold them on the dream, and any time you do that, you will be subject — at least occasionally — to accusations of dishonesty, and any time you don’t, you won’t sell.

Now initially, when I was so harshly reminded of this, it was a little depressing — and not just because I started wondering if maybe I’d been a little too honest lately.

But after a little more thought, and a couple of discussions, I began to realize that it’s not a bad thing at all. Yes, we are all addicts of hyperbole, but no matter how much we complain, our behavior says most of us are fairly happy to be so addicted, and that yes, despite all protestations, on some level we actually want to be sold to, so long as it isn’t a hard sell and so long as what’s being sold is that special feeling…

So yes, honesty is the best policy, and I encourage everyone to be careful not to build expectations too high, and to be as honest as possible, including me — but…

… if you hear from a guy making a lot of noise about plain ol’ honesty being the answer to untold riches… keep in mind that he’s lying.

There is a reason this is called marketing, people!; what marketers are really selling is the right to dream, and… we all want — and I think we even all deserve — to dream.

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.

• have your own unique and valuable product to sell; and/or
• have all the right connections within your particular industry, and/or
• be one of the very first to find out about and implement a new and effective methodology, and/or
• have at least $10,000 to invest upfront with previous and up-to-date experience in marketing, and/or one or more valued information technologies, and/or
• just luck into something.

But not very many of these things tend to be very true for those who are brand new to the game. That's all. That's all I was saying. I wasn't trying to discourage anyone. I was trying to tell those who need to be told that it's a business, like any other — except that it's been rather like the wild, wild west so far — but that's changing some already and likely to change a lot more in the next few years. So if you are in it for the long run, if you are going to stay legal, ethical, honest, and add value for your customers — and there simply are too many out and around who don't act as if they understand that — then it most likely will take work, lots of it. So, yeah, maybe you can figure out a way, as a still-wet-behind-the-ears newbie to make a lot of money fast and easy. What do I know? It might be that very next product launch that will make it happen. But if you compromise on the long-term strategy I've laid out above, as far as I'm concerned, you might be a rich crook or a rich con artist, but you are not a successful marketer, and anything you do that doesn't pass the smell test probably will come back to bite you sooner or later. Well, that's my take on it anyway. Regards, Richard D. Farley

First, my approach here is to be something other than, or more than, simply promotional. I've been promotional on this site, sometimes, and in all but a couple of cases, that's been because I had seen the product, used the product, or believed in the marketer who was selling the product, and in the other cases, because they were recommended to me by someone I believed in, and, well, you either believe that or you don't. The point is, I do want to be more than just promotional, so I want to talk about a couple of issues that really have been bugging me.

One of them is that, if all you newbies want, or all you are going to respond to, is hype, then you will get what you deserve. Chase after the dream of instant, easy money if you want, but the truth is that just about everyone in this business that has done well has had to work very hard, at least at some point, to achieve that — either to build and build, gradually, on their efforts, or to FINALLY make that sudden breakthrough.

Now, I know this isn't what some newbies want to hear, but those guys around that are telling you that you can make a lot of money in a month, or a week, or a few days, or within 24 hours, or whatever, generally speaking, are not worth listening to. Yeah, sure, every now and again, someone figures out some 'trick' or some methodology that pays off in spades, but, you know what? Every now and again, someone wins the lottery, and someone else gets struck by lightning, but — and this is what you need to listen to — it doesn't happen very often. In fact, given the number of people involved in internet marketing, the percentage of those kinds of stories that are valid is miniscule to the point of being almost nothing.

So you got to expect to work.

A second item that has been really bugging me lately is the attitudes. Just yesterday I was out on a site and seeing all these comments, and some of them were complaining that this and that product or strategy doesn't work, or was deeply disappointing, and I mean some of the products and services that were being dissed were literally only a few weeks or a few days old! What?

One guy was saying that Site Profit Bot was a big disappointment. What? Like four days after its release, you're saying that? Did you even bother to try to learn how to use it? Have you taken even a moment to ask for support? Do you understand that results take time?

My last post was entitled, in part, 'Or what more do you want?,' and if Site Profit Bot is such a disappointment, I guess I have no choice but to conclude that what some of you want is to have a truck full of gold backed up in your driveway or deposited in your bank account the day after you first try something. No. Come to think of it, I bet some still would find something to complain about even then.

I mean, c'mon, people! Some of you buy into all the hype and so you expect something to work instantly? There are a fair number of good products out there, folks, but they are for marketers, and a marketer doesn't just try something for a day or two, or even a week or two, or even a month or two, and say it doesn't work if he or she doesn't get results. A marketer knows better than to buy into all the hype.

Sure, you may think its quick and easy someday, when you've got the traffic, when you've got the skills, when you've got the instincts. It might even be second nature someday. But a marketer knows that no matter how good or 'easy' something is, it is very likely going to take time and energy to learn, and time and energy to implement, and time and energy to work. A marketer persists long enough to be sure the product or service has been given adequate time to prove itself, or not.

And no, I can't tell you how long that is, because it depends a lot on the product, and on you, and on how quick a study you are, and how much time and energy you devote to it, and how much action you take, and how often, and whether and to what extent you can, as Winston Churchill once defined as the secret to success, 'move from one failure to the next without any loss of enthusiasm.'

So stop dissing products and marketers you know nearly nothing about. And take action. And persist. And expect to have to work your butt off, at least for a while, because winning the lottery is not a plan to bet your life and well-being on, and lightning isn't going to strike very many of us very often.

I'm sorry. For some of you, it's probably tough medicine. I wish it were otherwise, but that's just the way it is.

And finally, a few years ago, I was doing a little contract work for a fellow who…, well…, let's just say he had obtained a somewhat higher net worth than yours truly (about $80,000,000). And I'm thinking of using something that guy said to me to segue into something else I want to talk about, but it'll have to wait.

Maybe next time, or if not, sometime soon.

Thanks for visiting.