What Do We Expect For Free?
Posted by Mitch on Feb 22, 2010
A few days ago I saw a comment on another blog’s posting that made me start thinking about this concept of the word “free”.
It was a fairly innocuous comment stating to the writer of the blog that he would have liked to see a little bit more information on some of what she was sharing with all of us to get her insight as to why she was recommending some things that she was recommending. I wrote back that I thought she was giving us a lot already and that I was at least happy for all the time that she was putting into giving us what she was giving us.
However, it got me thinking about it just a bit more because I realized that there are times when I am like everybody else in expecting a little bit more than what I’m getting from something even if it happens to be free. There were a few people who made comments on a review post I wrote on Six Figure Blogger Blueprint wishing that the author had given us a little bit more detail on how to specifically do something, and I remember thinking at the time “hey, it’s free, what do we want?” And yet, when I think about it, there are a lot of things that I get for free online that I’ll write about.
For instance, I’m running a WordPress blog. There are times when I’m complaining about something, such as those constant updates that seem to irritate most of us, and every once in a while I remember that this is a free program. There are a couple of other things I’ve written about that I absolutely hate, such as Disqus, Intense Debate and Blogger, but when you think about it those things are free also. Of course, I’ve chosen not to use any of those things, and instead pay for my hosting and my blog, and don’t filter my comments using either of those other two things I mentioned or anything else, but it’s not much different than just openly complaining about something that’s free.
What should we really expect from “free”? Should we expect that everything we get for free give us full details as if we were paying for it? I’m thinking that’s what blogs are for, because there are a lot of us who give a lot of information out to people absolutely free. I think I’ve done some tutorials on this blog and one of my other blogs on how to do things step by step, and yet I don’t get paid for any of those things. I don’t mind that because it’s a blog after all, and I like sharing information whenever I can. At the same time, you notice over there on the left that I have three things that I’ve created, and each one of them also has some step-by-step information that I am expecting someone to pay for if they want that information.
Here’s the thing about “free”. “Free” still takes a lot of time to create. Whereas I can write a blog post usually in less than five minutes, there are people who take upwards of an hour or more to put together a blog post. How many of you have actually written a book? How many of you have actually written a report of some kind outside of school work? These things do take time to put together, especially if someone is trying to do a good job. If they do it like I do anything, they probably start off with an outline, then a brief sketch as to what each outline point is supposed to contain, then they write or create the thing, then they edit the thing, then they might take the time to pretty it up somewhat before it’s ready for delivery. I’m bad when it comes to the “pretty up” part, but I’m not so bad at the rest of it.
This doesn’t mean that we don’t have the right to have some kind of expectation that what we are either going to use or read at least in some fashion addresses the topic we’re hoping it does. Getting something free and finding out it has nothing to do with what it said it did is diversionary and sneaky, and that’s not right. But for everything else, I think we have the right to try it out, and if it works for us or we can get something out of it then great. If we can’t get anything out of it or it doesn’t work right, then at least it didn’t cost us anything and we should probably be happy for that. It doesn’t mean that something free can’t be criticized, but it does mean that the level of criticism should match how much it cost us.
It’s just something I’ve been thinking about over the past few days as I remembered something I had written a while back ago asking the question How Do You Value. How do we decide when something we get for free is valuable even if it doesn’t give us everything we want?
Pot Odds In Internet Marketing
Posted by Mitch on Feb 8, 2010
Many of you know how much I love going to play poker. I get a lot of enjoyment out of it because I love the camaraderie that eventually is created by spending just a few hours with a bunch of people you’ve never met before, commiserating with everyone else who’s either won a big hand or gotten beaten in a big hand. We’ve all been there, and we all have stories to share.
One thing I like to believe I’m good at is figuring out what the odds are that my hand is good or not. Of course, having a good hand doesn’t always mean it’s a winning hand, but more often than not it works out just fine. What I’m not good at is figuring out the numbers, as in what the actual percentage is that favors my hand.
I was reading a blog post called Easiest Way To Understand Math In Poker, where the writer, named Mitchell Cogart (knew I liked him for some reason) was giving some formulas for how to calculate it fairly quickly. It’s still somewhat beyond me, mainly because it takes time to do those calculations, and unless I was playing in a tournament, I don’t like taking that kind of time figuring out anything.
However, it’s the other thing he was talking about that starts to get me into the point of this post. There’s something called pot odds that, to poker players, is very important and very intriguing. In essence, it’s figuring out how much the pot is worth to you in odds versus the odds of you having a winning hand. Just to throw out numbers, if you only have a 30% chance of winning a hand, but the dollars in the pot come out to you having a 55% chance of winning the pot, many poker players will take a chance on the money rather than their hand because they perceive the dollars are so high that you can’t afford NOT to play the hand.
I hear this on poker commentary sometimes on TV. The guy will say “there’s so much money in the pot that so-and-so absolutely has to call the hand, even though he’s going to lose.” On TV, you always know what the players hands are, so you know who’s going to win or lose. But the players don’t know that, so you see them taking time, running through all the calculations in their minds, and then they’ll pull the trigger on hands that most of us would say we know better than to play because we have no idea on how to calculate pot odds.
In a way, you can relate that to trying to learn more about internet marketing. There are a lot of products out there that will teach you something about it. Some are very good and some aren’t all that good. However, what most of us believe is that the more expensive something is, the more we should be getting out of it. Truthfully, that may or may not be true. The “pot odds” are in your favor; after all, why would someone put a $500 product out there that wasn’t going to deliver on what’s been promised, right?
Here’s the thing. Just like everything else in life, nothing works for everyone. It’s possible that the $500 product might tell you everything you need to know to make money, or it may not. It may tell you things to do that your morality won’t allow you to do. For instance, if it said that in order to make lots of money you have to kill a lot of puppies, would you do it? If it said that you had to do what’s known as black hat principles, would you do it?
While I was at my mother’s house on Friday, she was watching this network that was advertising a program called Kell On Earth, about this fashion designer who’s very successful. However, she’s a terror; there’s no way I’d ever want to deal with that type of person on a yearly basis, let alone a daily basis. She berates her employees and other people around her, but justifies it by saying she has to do what she has to do to stay at the top. I’m sorry, but if you have to treat people as if they’re inferior to you then I don’t want to be successful. It’s not my style, and I couldn’t live with myself. Yet there are thousands of people who subscribe to that and believe it’s the way to go. Notice how some are successful, but others aren’t? Once again, no one size fits all.
Some folks thought I was being too lenient when I reviewed Six Figure Blogger Blueprint. The thing is, the book wasn’t really for those of you who have been doing this for awhile. It was also free, not a full course on internet marketing. It got me thinking about things, and any book that does that for me works for me. We all judge things differently. We have to know ourselves, and what we might respond to. Like that book to the right side there, 20 Ways To Make
$100 A Day Online. I bought that book, and I think it was perfect for me because I was able to take just one of its principles and turn it into a way to make money. It wasn’t overly expensive, but turned out to be just what I needed. I calculated my odds for finding something I thought I could use, and I turned out to be right.
How do you determine whether something might work well for you or not? Do you even try anymore? I say that at the risk of jumping into Sire’s response, because I know he’s said more than once that he won’t pay for anything anymore, after being burned many times early on. Has that happened to some of you as well? I’d really like to know.
Why I Show Products At The End Of Posts
Posted by Mitch on Jan 20, 2010
Here’s the questions. How often do you go to the store and end up buying things you didn’t initially go there for? How many times have you been looking through a catalog or advertisement, saw something that interested you, then decided to check it out and saw something else you liked instead?
I belong to a lot of affiliate marketing programs and advertisers. Most of you know that I’m a member of Commission Junction. They have almost 3,000 different advertisers that you can choose from, some big names, some not so big. Every time you see an individual post on this blog, at the top you see a Commission Junction banner, via one of their rotating banners programs. I’m also running one of their little applets on the left side.
Many of the advertisers allow you to post their products on your websites as well. The template you see below is their template, which I kind of use for other things, such as my book and webinar there at the top left. That’s just standard HTML, which I already knew, but their version was just so clean I’ve co-opted it. Some of the advertisers don’t have specific products you can purchase, but have services instead. So, when you see a banner, those are usually companies that offer services.
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But not always. I also participate in the Linkshare affiliate program, which also has some advertisers like Commission Junction, just not as many. The same goes for ShareASale, but I’ve only hooked up with a couple of those. Most of the pictures you see on this site in a post are actually images you can purchase in some form from them. I also always have at least one image to the left side. I could do it more often, but I don’t always think images fit my posts, though some people swear by them.
And many other affiliate programs I’m associated with also don’t have products I can specifically hawk, but I still want you to know about them. So, I’ll throw those banners on here every once in awhile as well. Just so you know, I didn’t join all those programs because of this blog, but since I still belong to them, it makes sense for me to cycle them in here from time to time.
Here’s the thing. If I highlight something like the rowing machine below, what I’m showing is a sample of the types of things you can find at that particular site, which in this case is called BigFitness. Now, you can go directly to the site and purchase it and cut out the middleman, but if you’re nice ( 
) and want to help a brotha out, you’ll buy it from me. But maybe you’ll go to the site and see something else you like instead. No matter what you buy, if you buy something from the site, I’ll get credit for it. And suddenly it’s just like the flat screen TV you saw in the Sunday flyer that got you to the store, and instead you walked out with a GPS unit. The store only hopes you bought something; kind of what I’m hoping as well.
There you go. And sometimes, if you find something on another site that you want, if you come back and ask me about it I might have a coupon that will get you a discount of some kind, even if it’s only free shipping. Hey, saving money never hurts either, right? If that’s what happens, just go to my contact link above, see my email address there and write me.
It’s a very passive form of marketing, I know. Does it work? Well, in two years I think I’ve made two sales for CJ stuff and a couple for other products. So yes, I’ve made some sales. Not a lot, but that’s okay. You make no sales for any products you don’t try to market, right? 
I’ve been asked often over the years why I have any products on my site that aren’t just making money things; that’s why. And that’s why I never beat up on anyone who’s marketing anything on their site. Sometimes I even take a quick look at it. Never hurts to look.
2009’s Top Inventions
Posted by Mitch on Nov 25, 2009
Time Magazine has come out with a list of the Top 50 Inventions of 2009. I’ve taken a look at the list and feel totally lost. Most of these things I’ve never heard of, and as I like to consider myself a news and science junkie, this is quite disappointing. Let’s see which ones I’ve at least heard of, if not personally used.
I’m not a gamer, but I have heard of controller free gaming, where the body is the control and everything reacts based on body movements. That sounds intriguing, but I’ve yet to see it in practice.
I’ve heard that there’s a new Aids vaccine, but it comes along the lines of every other vaccine that still hasn’t had much done with it. Why it’s on the list, I have no idea.
Vertical farming is a very interesting concept, one that’s not really an invention in 2009, but has started coming out as a viable option in farming. In essence, it’s farming in buildings rather than on the land. One builds tall buildings where some of the layers have dirt and crops. You could build these in large cities, which would cut down on the cost of importing certain items into the city, and potentially be able to feed the entire city from within. The problems right now are having enough electricity to handle it on a large scale and of course having enough water But the concept is a fantastic one.
The 3-D camera is the last thing on the list that I’ve heard of. Instead of one lens, it has two, trying to simulate how life views things to try to give a more realistic image. The problem is that, to see it in 3-D, you have to have a special viewer, otherwise it looks just like any other image. Not necessarily Harry Potter
stuff, but it’s an interesting concept.
Isn’t that a shame? Out of 50 items I’ve only heard of four of them, and only one of them do I know anything significant about; ouch. Is this a sign of age, or is this a sign of everything else being so cutting edge that there’s no reason I should know about them? I’m sure you’ll let me know, and I’m betting those closer to my age will give answers closer to mine, if they’re honest. lol
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Credibility, Article Writing, And Marketing Products
Posted by Mitch on Oct 28, 2008
A few posts ago, I wrote about Lynn Terry and some of her tips on making money online. Well, a month ago, I had the opportunity to participate in one of her weekly marketing sessions, and I got to ask her a couple of questions during that time.
The first question was what she thought about writing articles to put on article marketing sites. The second question was what how she felt in advertising products that one hasn’t really used. She gave me some interesting answers, and I’d like to talk about those answers.
On the first question, she answered that she thought writing articles and posting them at article marketing sites was a great idea. She felt that the traffic one could get from one of those sites could be important traffic; that you’d get links from those sites; and, if someone else decided to pick up one of your articles for repost, with the caveat that they give you attribution, your articles have a chance to give you a lot of publicity in other ways, possibly driving traffic to your site.
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I’ve given this one a lot of thought, and though I don’t disagree with her assessment on the topic, I decided that I would check my own statistics on this one. I couldn’t do it for this blog, though, so I did it for my business website. For that site, I have about 20 articles posted in various places, but on two specific sites I’ve got maybe 16 articles posted. Maybe it takes more than that, but hey, it’s a sample. What I see doesn’t give me much encouragement to post any articles to any of these sites. Checking Google Analytics over a 60 day period, my site shows that I haven’t driven a single person to my site via any of these sites. And, before anyone asks, yes, one of those sites is Ezine Articles. Now, some of those articles have been picked up and are in other places on the web (it’s amazing where you’ll find your stuff on the internet), and I’ve verified that none of those places has driven any traffic to my site in the last 60 days either. Now, I’m not going to claim that this is overly scientific, but it’s not quite a catalyst in making me think that article marketing is going to help me much. I’m not saying not to do it; I’m just saying I don’t see it working for me.
On the second question, she said that one doesn’t have to use everything that they market, but that it helps with credibility if you’re writing about products that you’ve at least used some of them or have tested some of them, or that you know something about the people you’re pushing at least some of the time. On this one, I wholeheartedly agree. Building credibility is a big deal; as a matter of fact, my new friend Dennis Edell of Direct Web Sales Marketing also just addressed this issue ((though Dennis won’t believe this, I hadn’t read the article until just now, but I’d seen that he had written an article on it via CommentLuv). And, since he’s linking to another article, it’s obviously a subject many people are thinking about, and works well with my post on sales, to a degree.
I decided to take a look back at some of my posts, things I’ve recommended, items I have on my sidebars, to see how balanced I’ve been. When I first started this blog, I wrote posts on affiliate ads that I was marketing via Commission Junction, which shares most of the bottom ads I put on this blog with the Google Affiliate Network. I talked about Ultra Diamonds and Things You Never Knew Existed, all with “CJ”, but none of which I’ve ever bought a product from. I also talked about and posted links to the Harry Potter series of books and movies, which I have read and seen all the movies for. Not quite balanced, but it was the first month.
As time has gone by, I’ve gotten more into talking about things I’ve given some type of thought to, and have fully participated in them. The last five products I’ve endorsed, not including the latest, Startup Rebel, which I just started looking at a day or so ago, are eHealth Insurance, Tweet My Blog, Recover My Data, Error Doctor, and FreeCreditReport.com, I’ve used or still use four of those, with the only one I don’t use being eHealth Insurance, but since that was more about an opinion on why people should have health insurance if they don’t, I don’t count that one against me.
And, as a further extension, with the ads I have on the side, which I’m not going to list here again, not including the Text Link Ads (which I may still remove at the end of the month), I’ve used or read every link that’s over there (at the top, since, by this time, we’ve gone down the list a little bit), especially the book I wrote, Embrace The Lead (run over and buy that one now! ), and of course Joel’s book, which has helped my website and Adsense revenue jump almost 400%.
As for the individual ads I put at the end of each post, I’m not going to claim that I’ve used or purchased most of them, because it wouldn’t be true. I have visited every website that I put up, though, just to see what it’s like, something I like to do before I decide to market them unless I’m already familiar with the product or company. And, of course, everyone’s familiar with Adsense, and will soon be familiar with Widget Bucks, if they’re not already. Goodness, as I’ve gone back through some pages of my blog to research this post, I realize I haven’t really spent a lot of time marketing as much as reviewing things and giving my opinion; that’s somewhat enlightening to me, so I’ve learned something about myself writing this post.
Anyway, I believe I’ve shown some balance in my recommendations of products through my blog, actually leaning more towards someone who has used, or at least tried, many of the things I talk about. Now, does that boost my credibility? I think so, but only you, the reader, can tell me so for sure. I feel fairly secure in what I’ve written about on this blog, and how I write this blog as honestly as possible, and in my own way addressed the issue I’ve been discussing with another online friend Rich regarding a post he directed me to regarding his belief that if one accepted ads on their site that it would make them less likely to speak their minds honestly. He may be right in general; at least, in my mind, he’s not right as it pertains to me. By the way, he writes some pretty good and heady stuff, so check him out.
So, there you go. How credible am I to you? Trust me, I care. How credible are you to your readers? I hope that, many decades down the line, that I remember how I felt when writing this post, and how I felt while writing this blog. Can one be too old to dream? I hope not, but if so, well, then take this little bitty video with you on that subject (y’all do remember that I’ve said before how much I love the Muppets, right?):
I'm Just Sharing is where I share my thoughts on internet marketing, writing, blogging and many other things. You never know what I'll be posting on. So keep coming back, read, enjoy, and buy! ;)
