Thursday, 2 April 2009
The Curious Case of The Meta Merchants
Look around you, look on twitter, look through the blogsphere, look at the ads you get served up by google. What do you notice?
I notice a hell of a lot of people and businesses, selling, promoting, offering tips and strategies on how to sell online, how to make money blogging, how to use twitter, how to create great blog content, how to attract traffic, how to become a google adwords master etc etc.
These people aren’t really selling anything, they’re selling the secret to selling, they’re generating traffic with the promise of showing you how to generate more traffic. They’re making money blogging, by showing you how to make money blogging.
This certainly isn’t a phenomenon unique to the internet, authors have gotten rich for decades writing books promising us the secrets to growing rich. It seems that we’re so easily seduced by this idea that a single book, blog post, or seminar can instantly turn us into all that we want to be. But in our heart of hearts we know this isn’t possible.
Try thinking about this clearly yourself, think about the things you’ve learned, think about the things you’ve perfected or mastered, did you read a book and instantly become a virtuoso? I doubt it, you probably worked your ass off, slowly, patiently over a great span of years. In my personal case, the things that I know I’m good at, I got good at over a space of years.
Sometimes the meta-merchants can give you ideas, maybe provide a bit of a morale boost, or drop you some nuggets of wisdom, but they won’t solve you’re problems. They’ll sell you the dream, but they won’t bring it into fruition for you.
You’ve gotta remember that they are the meta-merchants, and in some cases, it’s valid to ask yourself the critical question…..if these guys are so good at online sales, marketing, blogging, why aren’t they using their powers to sell, market, blog about something more worthwhile…
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