For what it’s worth, I briefly pondered naming this post “no-strings-attached internet marketing,” until I realized that phrase was quite a contradiction in terms!
I wonder how many other internet marketers find that lack of time is one of their biggest constraints? It is for me – if for no other reason than that I work a full time “day job.” So any process that takes considerable chunks of time is likely to hinder even further our progress toward earning an online income.
Recently, working on a new online project, I became quite frustrated after encountering one such time bottleneck.
Creating, then marketing items from, multiple niche blogs first involves tweaking the chosen blogging platform (Wordpress) before you can add content. Sticking closely to the “recipe” given by my online coach, my initial Wordpress setup called for installing 23 carefully chosen plugins. Because we were given the ready-to-use plugins for upload from our own computers, this is the method most of the coaching members used, but transferring the 10 Mb of files took almost 30 minutes via broadband!
As the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention, so I found a better way! So good in fact that the new method took only 20 seconds or so to do a job that previously took half an hour.
Here’s where the “Giving” part of the headline comes into play. I carefully documented my process, crafted it into a Powerpoint slideshow, made that into a PDF and, in a forum post, told my fellow coaching students they could freely grab it from my blog without having to opt-in or anything.
Can you guess what happened next?
Two types of people responded:
- the over-the-moon grateful ones who couldn’t believe their good fortune that someone suddenly made their repetitious tasks a whole lot quicker and easier, and for free!
- and the “what’s-in-it-for-me” types who tried to minimize what I’d done by announcing they were working on creating automated bots and macros to do the same thing, and that they would eventually be available – for a price of course. These sorts of opportunists belong to what I call the “Taking” brigade.
Yes I admit that I incorporated an affiliate link to the mentoring & coaching program on my download page, but that definitely wasn’t directed at the forum members (all of whom were already members) – I did that in case any other visitors to my blog wish to check out a system that works for me.
Here’s the point of telling you this story: Now I can put in a big plug for us to practice FIRST being a giver in Internet Marketing. It really feels good to help people unconditionally.
There’s a whole philosophy of life built around this “Give, then take” principle, isn’t there. And the beauty of putting it into practice on the Internet is that it provides a way to build credibility. So it’s an important stepping stone towards getting to the place where people know, like and trust you.
However, having also witnessed the selfish behavior of the “Takers” reminds me of this famous piece of writing:
“Paradoxical Commandments of Leadership:”
© Copyright Kent M. Keith 1968, renewed 2001.
- People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway.
- If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway.
- If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.
- The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
- Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.
- The biggest men with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men with the smallest minds. Think big anyway.
- People favor underdogs, but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
- What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.
- People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help people anyway.
- Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway.
NOTE: The Paradoxical Commandments were written by Kent Keith in 1968, when he was 19, a sophomore at Harvard College. They were part of The Silent Revolution: Dynamic Leadership in the Student Council, his first booklet for high school student leaders. Here is how it all came about.
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