Oh, Grandma, What Big Lies You Tell

I recently heard a recording of a certain successful Internet marketer. The recording was made some years ago, before he got quite so successful. He was telling a seminar crowd how good he was at the "sincerity thing."

He didn't quite come out and say he was faking his sweet, goofy, ordinary guy style. But let's just say that the fast-talking guy running through his bag of techniques to sell ice to Eskimos didn't exactly strike me as Andy Griffith.

Is it working for him?

It seems to be. The guy is doing extremely well even if you assume he's inflating his income by 10 times (Which I do). People want his product, which is probably perfectly ok. The schtick is working.

Does that mean you should do the same? Study techniques on how to fool people? Learn to be a better trickster and go buy a $1,995 information product (with a follow-up continuity program, of course, so they can keep dinging you for a few hundred bucks a month) on how to create more effective sheep's clothing?

I guess that's up to you.

There's a sucker born every minute
I notice that a lot of the internet marketing folks (many of whom seem comfortable with the title "guru") have started to quote P.T. Barnum as a business mentor. Googling around, I find that Barnum apparently did not actually ever say the quote he is best known for, "There's a sucker born every minute." His business rival did, after Barnum out-faked the rival's fake and drew throngs to pay tickets for a literally gigantic hoax.

Barnum made a tidy career out of tricking the gullible. If that's the kind of game you enjoy, I'm not going to be able to talk you out of it. (Anyway, you probably quit reading this blog a long time ago because I'm such a goody-two-shoes.)

When Godin's All Marketers Are Liars came out, a lot of literal-minded people took him at his word. We all kind of believe that title anyway, right? Godin told us it was ok--in fact, desirable--to sell a product by telling fabulous stories of, say, fossilized stone giants unearthed from ancient burial grounds. As long as people didn't feel abused or angry when they found out it was just a story. (That was the part a lot of folks seem to have missed.)

There's a place for fairy tales
Fairy tales are fine. Fairy tales are nice, actually. They bring a lot of pleasure and sometimes they tell a deeper truth. Fairy tales and stories are what make us human beings and not clever hairless monkeys.

Swindles suck. Cons suck. People who snicker at the stupidity of their customers suck. And in the new wired world, swindles and lies always get found out. When the crowd comes looking for you with the tar & feathers, I won't stand in their way.

I will always encourage you to be storytellers and spinners of fabulous yarns. In the same breath, I strongly discourage you from emulating the crowd of big bad wolves wearing grandma's cotton bonnet. If you keep company with wolves, you'll get eaten up eventually, no matter how much money they might tell you they make.

Comments

[Roberta Rosenberg]

Even folksy "Andy Griffith" isn't aw-shucks folksy when the cameras aren't rolling. I understand he's one mean SOB on the set and off. :)

[Sonia Simone]

Now that's just sad, isn't it?

There's a household-name new age guru type who was once on a talk show at the same time an old friend of mine was (she writes mysteries and was on waaaaay after he was). She said he was unspeakable to all the staff & support people, just mean and vile. Quite a contrast to his high-minded "peace, love & harmony with the cosmos" persona.

Now, I guess if a celebrity is cranky with her manicurist the entire dialogue gets transcribed for Perez Hilton. Progress? In a way, I suppose. Different, anyway.

[Roberta Rosenberg]

When my brother was an aspiring NY actor in the '80s, he drove a limo to like, make some money. He drove some huge celebrities and I got some amazing stories. Today, he could have lived off of supplying TMZ with private info.

But I can tell you this. My bro would give the nicest guy award to Jamie Farr. For the worst celebrity passenger, email me off line :)

[Brandy]

I truely belive that con and swindlers will make a killing..at first but in the end truth always catches up.
All the truly successfull people I know are kind and generous..sure there are some that have more $$$ but not more trust,love and respect which to me equals success and wealth
I so glad I found your blog..Thanks Jenn from Create a Thriving Business!

[Mark Krusen]

Once upon a time...I agree swindlers suck big time. I've been taken a few times. I'm sure we all have. It just makes you more careful in the future.

[Kelly]

Sonia,

Pardon me for liking this post even better than the one over at Copyblogger?

This is why, when I write a post about improving interpersonal Experience for businesses, I am careful to repeat a couple of times, that this is advice for sincere people who do care, but may not be getting the word out to their customers properly. Of course, you could use a handwritten thank-you note as a scam, but if you take a bunch of "CRM" advice and put it all together as a strategy, one hopes that the quantity of effort required will weed out the idiots.

Sometimes even calling it a strategy worries me, because it sounds so calculating, and if the idiots find my blog, I'd really rather they keep moving.

All Marketers Are Liars is a life-altering book, but only if you get it. (Like a lot of Seth's stuff?) So many people didn't. Authenticity is everything in the "new economy." That only gets more true every day.

Congrats on the guest post!

Regards,

Kelly

[Nadine Touzet]

Thanks Sonia, you've just helped me save a few hundred bucks... Rescued me from temptation. And I'm not being funny, it's true.

I definitely like your blog very much. Thanks for being so sincere.

Congratulations!

[James Chartrand - Men with Pens]

Oh good post. What's unfortunate is that I know a few people that fill these shoes nicely.

But the good thing is, the people I actually do deal with and work with are NOT these people. Yay!

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[freelance jobs]

This looks like the story of red riding hood. Hmmmm....the picture did scare me a little.