The Twitter-Spammer, The NY Cab Driver, And You

Ken's Blog

The other day I read about a really clever way to use Twitter to make money offline.  The author wrote about it because "the game was over."  But somehow, and I'm not sure why or how, this guy got me thinking about a New York cab driver who drove us home recently.

Evaluating models for making money online is very much the same, or should be, as weighing ways to make money OFFline.  The methods range all the way from outright fraud to a variety of methods of exchanging value for value by building businesses that add value for a given market.  But how we think of them differs (sort of how many people think differently of stealing a CD offline vs. downloading pirated music online).

Somehow, we haven't quite wrapped our minds around the fact that the principles are the same, even if the environment is different.  So when I read about monetization ideas, I'll often correlate them to what the equivalent would be OFFline.  At first, while my "mind is still thinking ONline," I may start to get excited about the possibility of writing a monetization article or even creating a tool for SBI!.

And then, a little voice niggles at me ("something's not right with this")...

So I take the idea OFFline to think about it.  Why?  Because, a set of well-tested guidelines exist by which I can judge a concept.  It's easier to "see it" in that context.

I must read at least one idea that is new to me every day.  Clever stuff by clever people, interesting enough to stop me, to force me to think about it.  The bottom line question, of course, is does it belong in SBI!?

Most new ideas are not evergreen, nor are they do-able by anyone...

1) "not evergreen"... They usually bend or break the rules of Google or Twitter or Facebook or plain old common sense.  For this reason, they don't survive the question, "what happens when everyone does this?"

The answer is pretty obvious.  The door gets slammed shut.  The rule that is being bent is enforced, hard, by the power-that-is.  "Enforcement programming" comes in, and shuts it down (which is why that guy was writing about how he made money at Twitter -- smart folks, like "real" SEOers, don't write about what they are doing, not if it works to the tune of serious income).

These folks only write about their money-making technique, or create a tool that others can use (which takes much more work than creating a tool just for your personal use), after the technique stops working (or they see that the end is near).

-----SIDEBAR-----
Is there a difference between selling something that...

1) does not work and never did, versus...
2) used to work but never will again, versus...
3) is doomed to fail?

Morally, no.  You take people's money and you doom them to
wasting part of their lives working on a pre-failed model.
-----SIDEBAR-----

Not only do the perpetrators not have an evergreen model that will keep earning increasing amounts of income, they sell it to others.  Most customers won't make it work.  For those who do, the future is limited to the "expiry date."

Even the selling of the tool by the scammers has a limited lifespan.  However, they can make a lot of money by fooling a ton of people.  So, it may be "worthwhile" (financially) for the scammer to spend a few years making a few million dollars while fooling you into trying the latest and greatest.

He does not build long-term income for himself.  He does not build equity for himself (i.e., a business that he can sell -- who would buy it).  But since he puts enough money into his pockets, and since he has no conscience, what does he care?

He's clever enough, and immoral enough, to move on to the next scam, often fooling the same bunch of mooches that he did before.  See my previous articles on "mooch marketing"...

http://blog.sitesell.com/sitesell/2007/01/success_stories.html

http://blog.sitesell.com/sitesell/2006/12/mooch_marketing.html

So off he goes, selling his next built-in-obsolescent strategy or tool.

2) "Do-able by anyone"... You can't teach what the top tenth of the top tenth of a percent of people do.  Heck, most successful entrepreneurs can't reproduce a second business at the same level of success as their first big success.

Some really clever minds look for, and find, really clever angles.  They also have the ability to execute at extremely high levels.  Online, a great idea often involves some pretty advanced programming.  And online, those skills often exist in the same person.

On the dark side...

They work the shadows, making a lot of income.  Large companies like eBay will even bend the rules for them.

On the light side...

Other folks, equally clever, don't work the shadows.  They build businesses with incredible value.  Microsoft.  Google.

Facebook and Twitter?  We'll see.  But let's use Twitter for a second...

It's easy to get an idea and as ideas go, Twitter's not the most incredible one in the history of business.  But if you had it...

1) Would you know how to put together a team and inspire it to execute a working model, perhaps spending a million dollars of your own, or using some investor's money?

2) Would you be able to convince Venture Capital to fund it until it grows into a business?

Neither Facebook nor Twitter are businesses yet, by the way.  In my book, you're only a business when you have a proven income-earning model.

-----SIDEBAR-----
Did you know that Google's original monetization model
failed dismally?  They wanted to sell their search
technology to large companies.

Thank goodness ("thank googleness"?) for GoTo.com which
became Overture which was bought by Yahoo! which was copied
(and improved) by Google and became... Google AdWords.
And that grew into AdSense.

Another "did you know"...

Did you know that SBI! existed well before AdSense,
and that SBIers earned good income well before AdSense?
-----SIDEBAR-----

Oh yes, and the last part of what it takes to build a really huge success?  Luck.  Be "the right product, in the right place, at the right time."

Otherwise, you are Friendster instead of MySpace, which got outdone by Facebook.

No one can teach anyone how to do any of that.  Yes, skills can be honed, but at the end of the day, you cannot teach anyone to be one of the exceptional few.

Ditto at the opposite end of the spectrum.  Those clever guys who work the shadows are not much different from the traders who work Wall Street, where the top tenth of a tenth of a percent develop mathematical models to squeeze millions out of weird investment instruments that you and I have no idea even exist, let alone understand what the point of them is.

They bend the rules, they make a ton of money, and then it all falls apart.  Sometimes, it falls apart because of misdeed at the highest business, banking and political levels.  Their disaster rolls over us (not the instigators!) like a tidal wave. 

So how is this at all relevant to you, in a practical "do something about it" way?

What does it matter to you as someone who works at the opposite end of the scale, who builds an honest-to-goodness business providing value to those who seek what you have and who monetize and grow your own business in ways that are do-able in a reproducible manner?

It's relevant in two ways...

1) At the individual level, you are doing what it takes to become independent and free (note that you do not need to be "rich" to be free).  You have also learned to protect yourself.  You know to subject the "this time it's different" hype to the "if everyone did this" test and walk away.

What would happen if everyone did the same, with SBI!'s help?  Well, it would be one heck of an incredible Web, that's for sure.  But the real answer is...

It'll never happen.

Because it takes BAM.  Everyone has the B -- we all have something in our Brain that others want.  But most people have neither the A (the positive attitude that it takes to see a better future) nor the M (the Motivation to reach that future and regain control over life).

Fortunately for you, most people are no longer ready to sacrifice today for their futures tomorrow.  They want it, and they want it all now, without work.  Doubt that?  Look around in any food court in any mall and look at all the people checking their Blackberry's.

Why in the world do they need that expense of having routine info now, of communicating with whoever now?  We like to spend money on things that would make our ancestors spin in their graves.  We don't like to earn for our futures by investing time to build businesses.

If GRQ really existed, everyone would already be rich because everyone would have done it by now.  In contrast...

SBI! does not promise what GRQs and other schemes do... easy riches.  SBI! can only reward those with the courage to roll up their sleeves and "just do it."

2) At the macro level, I believe that since the early 80s, the world started to change.  We are seeing major economic shifts, perhaps the end of an empire and the beginning of others.

Our futures are increasingly held hostage by powers that we cannot control.  No matter what you do as an individual, you can not change this course.  But you can do something about it.

Brilliant (but dishonest) copywriters often develop the concept about how "this time it's different" when fooling people into believing some GetRichQuick (GRQ) deal or another is for real.  It's not, of course.

At the micro level, can you protect yourselves from what is happening now and in the future?  Check out this book...

This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly

It's a tough, academic read.  Brilliant, but likely too academic, unfortunately, for the ideas to spread.  But do read the reviews.  Come to your own conclusions.

You can also read...

The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age

I can remember recommending this book in 2000.  I'm amazed that it's been 10 years already.  My single biggest takeaway is that folks who earn their living online, on their laptops, will start to vote with their feet.

In other ways, many will choose to live their lives away from what they have traditionally called "home" (which, if you think about it, is an accident of birth).  We've seen this with SBIers, and we've seen this within SiteSell, with SiteSellers who have moved to places like Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Anguilla (Anguilla is one of the most free "nations" in the world).

OK, so what about that cab driver in NY?  How does he fit in?  If you think the online scammers who take your money with bogus schemes are bad, spare a moment for that smart and well-read young man.  He immigrated to New York 11 years ago, in search of a better life.  He bought a $700,000 home in Queen's 4 years ago.

Nice man.  Hard-working.  Two jobs.  Wife, two children.  But sadness dripped from his lips...

Today, his home is worth $400,000.

$300,000 of negative equity.

The world is changing.

That is not theory.  It's real.  And it hits real people.

You are taking one very big step towards regaining control over your life by building your own business online.  And that gives you more freedom than you may realize, including the freedom to do something about what our politicians, bankers and mega-financiers are doing to our countries.

Our cab driver now realizes, in his own words, that he "should have bought a medallion to drive a cab in NY as an owner rather than buy a home."

Well, if you own your website, you already have a "medallion."  Hopefully, you are working hard to increase its value.  Because that medallion is your ticket to freedom in many ways.

The OFFline medallion does not have the mobility that yours does.

Earning your own income ONline is a very big piece of the "Battle of the Future" for you and your children.  Here's the rest of it...

Not only do you gradually free yourself from a job that may not always be there, start thinking about where you choose to live to safeguard what you have built, and about what currency to keep your earned income in (because currency swings are coming).

Again, I don't want to turn this political.  So this note is not aimed at any political system or country in particular.

It's aimed at you, to get you beyond thinking (if you are not thinking and worrying about today's economic world, start now!).  Nothing is risk-free... not your job, not what you own, not even where you live.

But you can take reasonable steps (avoid the doomsday kooks) to reduce risk, preserve capital (at a minimum), and live in a place that you love, doing what you love, all the while minimizing risk and perhaps increasing returns.

And don't panic.  Disaster is not going to hit today, tomorrow, not even this year.  There may or may not be short-term spikes up and collapses down.  Those aren't important and no one really knows how to profit from them in any event.

It's the long-term trend lines that are important.  That's what you need to think on.  Then make conclusions. Then make a plan.

Then act.

All the best,