Back in Illinois in
'fifties when I was growing up, my parents entertained a lot. At some point over bourbon and highballs jokes would start -- and they would fly thick and fast. My parents were young and energetic and attracted their peers. Inevitably some wiseacre would say, "Do you know three greatest lies in world?"
"First, check's in mail."
"Second, of course I'll respect you as much in morning."
Third... well, third one was so blue it just wouldn't do in a respectable publication like this one.
Since then times have changed and so has THIRD GREATEST LIE. At last it CAN be revealed: "I'm making money online."
It's Time We All Came From Missouri
The amount of misinformation circulating online is staggering. Every day most of us receive something by email or review something online which just isn't true. It just doesn't smell right, right from start.
Ordinarily, claim either involves health, sex or money.
"3000 people signed up in my downline in last 4 hours!"
"I made $15,000 last month without ever once getting up off my fanny."
"I created a multi-millionaire dollar business without ever investing a penny of my money or breaking a sweat."
"I cured my cancer eating a bag of these potato chips, so help me God!"
Oh, yes, we've ALL seen these incredible solicitations. Some of us have been loonie enough to fall for them.
That's why we all need to re-assign ourselves to Show-me State and get serious about both reviewing offers we receive -- and about doing business online right way so we never have to lie to get people to respond.
How To Use The Web So You Won't Have To Tell The Third Greatest Lie -- Or Any Other Lie!
In advertising there's a famous line, "Sell sizzle, not steak." What it means is: hype up your offer with a lot of fluff so that people don't focus on what you're really offering.
People lie online because they don't have one thing you must have to succeed online: VALUE.
Companies great and small stay in business and grow because they offer what people want.
We live in a Want Culture. Right from moment we're born, we want. We spend our entire lives wanting more and more and more. That's just way it is. Getting people to want is not difficult. To be human is to want. Period.
Good people cater to these wants by offering VALUE.
Bad people cater to these wants by offering HYPE.
Thus when good people set out to market, they focus discussion on what prospect gets -- real, tangible, beneficial things which prospect gets by using what marketer is selling.
Bad people make one unsubstantiated claim after another. In Alfred E. Newman fashion they say, "What me worry?", after making yet another outrageous, unsubstantiated claim. Their goal is to get money and let chips fall where they may.
Understandably this strategy appalls real business people who are in business of offering value and building an enterprise that lasts.
How common is this lying? All you have to do is open your email in box any day; you'll see just how prevalent it is.
Recently, for instance, I received a newsletter with a huge testimonial from a well-known internet entrepreneur about how one of his distributors made as much as $84,000 a month. Since I'm a creditor in bankruptcy case of that distributor, I found this fact most interesting.
I emailed fellow and said that either 1) his numbers were incorrect or 2) either he or distributor was lying. I said that if numbers were wrong, entrepreneur should publish a retraction. If numbers were right, distributor had lied to bankruptcy court.
There were two interesting consequences of my message:
1) entrepreneur said he wouldn't print a retraction and 2) distributor called me and in a remarkable outburst of candor admitted that he'd never made anywhere near amount of money credited to him publicly but that he certainly wasn't going to do anything to clear record.
MY response? I filed all records with bankruptcy court, including an affadavit of phone conversations, and blocked distributor's bankruptcy. I also called for a criminal investigation into what was clearly Internet consumer fraud.
As this real-life case sadly proves, even when people are confronted with Third Greatest Lie, they keep lying, digging hole deeper for themselves.
Why didn't entrepreneur just say his facts were wrong, that he'd made a mistake?
Why did distributor feel compelled to lie so outrageously about his income when records were so clearly available to disprove his claim?
The real reason: both lacked integrity and both were selling hype, not VALUE!
People Who Lie Are Quick To Use Mass Spam Email
Because "get rich quick" is part of our heritage, many people take a Maynard G. Krebs approach to work: WORK IS BAAAAAAD.
Their idea of marketing is to purchase 50,000,000 spam emails, plop in an outrageous offer, then hope that enough people will be duped before they are shut down and re-emerge later in another nefarious guise.
Of course, this isn't how reputable online businesses work.
These businesses:
1) go for long-haul 2) develop a website that's packed with VALUE 3) go through necessarily laborious process of developing an in-house email list 4) contact their prospects and customers regularly with an online newsletter ("ezine") 5) give these people all necessary means of responding, including email, fax, phone, mail and walk-in.
