"Articles," "content" and potentially making $1,000s per week
Hi guys me again,
I feel like I could launch a campaign that would bring in $100s if not $1000s per week (eventually), but I'm not feeling *good* about it.
I'm new to this whole industry, so let me explain, and hopefully someone here can set me straight because I'm literally this close to absolute success, but I'm almost disgusted at the same time.
My main issue: I do not feel like quality content is required to make money.
A little background about me: I used to be a competitive weightlifter, and before that I was a personal trainer. For anyone who isn't familiar with the industry, the world of personal training is filled with more bullshit than you could possibly imagine. Without wasting your time ranting, just know that the vast majority of trainers don't know wtf they are talking about and would be laughed out of a physiology class. When I began to instruct clients, I was super enthusiastic; getting to teach people in an area that I loved was the greatest thing ever, but my enthusiasm soon turned to disgust as I realized a few truths: 1) people don't want to know the truth; they want to be fed bullshit that makes them feel good. A few clients I had who were motivated became great successes: One of them won a marathon, and another took 2nd place in a national bodybuilding competition, for example. But the vast majority of my clients didn't want to hear that doing 1000 crunches a day wouldn't take away their fat stomach, and they didn't want to hear that you cannot spot reduce fat. You see, I thought that by giving them a quick 30 second explanation of how your body actually works, and then showing them how to incorporate that into their training, they would be excited to get the results they've always wanted: but they weren't. I even had one girl ask me "so doing 1000 crunches a day won't reduce my belly fat... what if I do 2000 crunches a day, then?" I was like "are you serious?"
Anyway, I left that industry after a few years because I got tired of all the bullshit. The things that sell are retarded crap like balancing on one leg on a bosu ball and other "new" ideas that don't actually do anything for you.
The other reason I left is because I am a terrible salesman. I am very analytical and logical but I'm horrible at schmoozing, and personal training isn't about how much knowledge you have; it's about how well you can sell. So even tho I had a book of clients who had achieved elite-level results, I wasn't making much money compared to the charismatic schmoozers who helped their clients waste their time by counting 1,000 crunches every day.
It was a shock to my world view, as well; I thought it was simple: if I showed people how to get the results they want, my business should be booming.
But it didn't work that way. The vast majority of personal training clients would rather work with someone who tells them what they want to hear and makes them feel good.
It blows my logical mind. I take someone from beginner status to competing (and sometimes even placing!) in regional and/or national shows in two years, yet I hurt for business, and Joe Schmoe the douchebag personal trainer has the same fat clients for 5 years and all they do is count 1,000 crunches a day and the clients never make any progress, yet they keep coming back and recommending him to their friends, too!
That's bolded and in red because it's the thing that I still struggle with the most.
I have busted ass to become an expert in a couple fields (fitness being one of them), and for the most part I'm unable to make it work financially for me (the exception being that I get paid $150+ per page to write articles for a large fitness ezine, because they only deal with experts in the fitness arena, but that's not the norm).
So this leads me to believe that people do NOT want quality.
I've been doing a lot of research about Internet Marketing, SEO techniques, Affiliate Marketing, etc. recently, and it seems that everything is all about "articles" and "content." That initially made me feel good... there are a couple other areas (besides fitness) where I could churn out better content than 99% of people in the world could.
But then I find these article farms where people sell articles for $5 each. I saw some samples once and they were literally like this:
ARTICLE ABOUT CARS
-----------------------
Cars have four wheels and people drive in them to get around. There are sedans, with 4 doors, and coupes, with 2 doors. All cars have an engine which powers the wheels. The car is controlled by a gas pedal and a brake pedal, etc.
(except imagine there were typos and their/they're/there errors and your/you're errors, etc.)
I was in complete shock. Like this
First of all, who the hell would pay for that? It was like a 5 year old wrote it.
Second of all, what reader would actually keep reading? When I see a site full of bullshit I close the window or tab. Are there seriously idiots out there would read that, actually be interested, and think "gee, I'm gonna go see what this guy is selling???" Seriously?! I am literally dumbfounded by this.
It's funny; prior to learning about all this stuff, I always thought that most of the articles I saw on ezinearticles were shit; they're always laden with typos, errors, and sound like they were written by average-IQ 6th graders. But I've since found out that most of them were probably written as SEO tactics and pre-landing pages for online marketers.
So not only do I think the people who wrote them are idiots, but the people who actually follow them are idiots. Probably the same idiots who pay personal trainers to count 1,000 crunches for them every week for 5 years.
So here's where I'm having inner issues, WF:
I don't think that I can actually bring myself to do that kind of stuff. I write about things which I am passionate and knowledgeable about; I don't have the ability to write 50 shitty articles about the same thing (durr, cars have 4 wheels durrrrrr) to promote some shitty website (pay me only $37 and i'll show you how to convert your car to run on water ZOMG SAVE MONEY ON GAS!!!11!!) that I KNOW is bullshit right from the beginning.
Yet the people who do that make $1000s per week.
So, should I just say "f it! If idiots are willing to pay for it, then they deserve to give me their money?"
Or should I try to maintain some sort of inner integrity (but suffer financially as a result) because people do not want high quality products???
Like I said, I'm horrible at sales because I can't schmooze with idiots. I'm very analytical. In fact, that's why I am a professional trader. I wanted to be a stockbroker until I found out that stock brokers are just salesmen that sell commodities instead of cars or whatever. As a trader I don't have to talk to people, I don't have to put up with bullshit, it's just me and my method and the market.
And for the record here, don't ever buy any training product or indicator or anything from any webpage no matter how good it looks, because they are ALL bullshit. All of them. I'm just saying, save your money; you'll lose enough money trading. I just read a thread on here where some guy was asked to lie for a Forex product testimonial. That seller can **** himself.
Back to my point tho, you're probably asking "if you're a trader, why do you want to get into IM? You've gotta be banking already!" Trading is insanely stressful and even tho I've made more in one day than I did in a month at my last job, I already realize that mentally and psychologically I cannot do it for much longer. For people who haven't done it, you do not realize the psychological implication of watching $1,000s of your own money vanish in seconds. I have had the occasional day where I lost over $20k. Do you know what that feels like? That's enough money to live off of (frugally) for a year. Gone in a day. Fortunately that's a super rare event for me and overall I am profitable.
But I'm getting off track here.
For those of you that aren't idiots and aren't scumbags, how do you deal with the bullshit that is seemingly required to make money online? The writing of stupid articles (because people don't want intelligent articles). The promoting shitty products (because people buy them). Etc. etc.
Or am I waaaay off base here and the cynic in me is blinding me?
Thanks if you read all of this.
Cheers.
PS. to the guy who PMed me about my reply in another post, "thanks!" I can't PM you back cuz I don't have 15 posts yet
I feel like I could launch a campaign that would bring in $100s if not $1000s per week (eventually), but I'm not feeling *good* about it.
I'm new to this whole industry, so let me explain, and hopefully someone here can set me straight because I'm literally this close to absolute success, but I'm almost disgusted at the same time.
My main issue: I do not feel like quality content is required to make money.
A little background about me: I used to be a competitive weightlifter, and before that I was a personal trainer. For anyone who isn't familiar with the industry, the world of personal training is filled with more bullshit than you could possibly imagine. Without wasting your time ranting, just know that the vast majority of trainers don't know wtf they are talking about and would be laughed out of a physiology class. When I began to instruct clients, I was super enthusiastic; getting to teach people in an area that I loved was the greatest thing ever, but my enthusiasm soon turned to disgust as I realized a few truths: 1) people don't want to know the truth; they want to be fed bullshit that makes them feel good. A few clients I had who were motivated became great successes: One of them won a marathon, and another took 2nd place in a national bodybuilding competition, for example. But the vast majority of my clients didn't want to hear that doing 1000 crunches a day wouldn't take away their fat stomach, and they didn't want to hear that you cannot spot reduce fat. You see, I thought that by giving them a quick 30 second explanation of how your body actually works, and then showing them how to incorporate that into their training, they would be excited to get the results they've always wanted: but they weren't. I even had one girl ask me "so doing 1000 crunches a day won't reduce my belly fat... what if I do 2000 crunches a day, then?" I was like "are you serious?"
Anyway, I left that industry after a few years because I got tired of all the bullshit. The things that sell are retarded crap like balancing on one leg on a bosu ball and other "new" ideas that don't actually do anything for you.
The other reason I left is because I am a terrible salesman. I am very analytical and logical but I'm horrible at schmoozing, and personal training isn't about how much knowledge you have; it's about how well you can sell. So even tho I had a book of clients who had achieved elite-level results, I wasn't making much money compared to the charismatic schmoozers who helped their clients waste their time by counting 1,000 crunches every day.
It was a shock to my world view, as well; I thought it was simple: if I showed people how to get the results they want, my business should be booming.
But it didn't work that way. The vast majority of personal training clients would rather work with someone who tells them what they want to hear and makes them feel good.
It blows my logical mind. I take someone from beginner status to competing (and sometimes even placing!) in regional and/or national shows in two years, yet I hurt for business, and Joe Schmoe the douchebag personal trainer has the same fat clients for 5 years and all they do is count 1,000 crunches a day and the clients never make any progress, yet they keep coming back and recommending him to their friends, too!
That's bolded and in red because it's the thing that I still struggle with the most.
I have busted ass to become an expert in a couple fields (fitness being one of them), and for the most part I'm unable to make it work financially for me (the exception being that I get paid $150+ per page to write articles for a large fitness ezine, because they only deal with experts in the fitness arena, but that's not the norm).
So this leads me to believe that people do NOT want quality.
I've been doing a lot of research about Internet Marketing, SEO techniques, Affiliate Marketing, etc. recently, and it seems that everything is all about "articles" and "content." That initially made me feel good... there are a couple other areas (besides fitness) where I could churn out better content than 99% of people in the world could.
But then I find these article farms where people sell articles for $5 each. I saw some samples once and they were literally like this:
ARTICLE ABOUT CARS
-----------------------
Cars have four wheels and people drive in them to get around. There are sedans, with 4 doors, and coupes, with 2 doors. All cars have an engine which powers the wheels. The car is controlled by a gas pedal and a brake pedal, etc.
(except imagine there were typos and their/they're/there errors and your/you're errors, etc.)
I was in complete shock. Like this
First of all, who the hell would pay for that? It was like a 5 year old wrote it.
Second of all, what reader would actually keep reading? When I see a site full of bullshit I close the window or tab. Are there seriously idiots out there would read that, actually be interested, and think "gee, I'm gonna go see what this guy is selling???" Seriously?! I am literally dumbfounded by this.
It's funny; prior to learning about all this stuff, I always thought that most of the articles I saw on ezinearticles were shit; they're always laden with typos, errors, and sound like they were written by average-IQ 6th graders. But I've since found out that most of them were probably written as SEO tactics and pre-landing pages for online marketers.
So not only do I think the people who wrote them are idiots, but the people who actually follow them are idiots. Probably the same idiots who pay personal trainers to count 1,000 crunches for them every week for 5 years.
So here's where I'm having inner issues, WF:
I don't think that I can actually bring myself to do that kind of stuff. I write about things which I am passionate and knowledgeable about; I don't have the ability to write 50 shitty articles about the same thing (durr, cars have 4 wheels durrrrrr) to promote some shitty website (pay me only $37 and i'll show you how to convert your car to run on water ZOMG SAVE MONEY ON GAS!!!11!!) that I KNOW is bullshit right from the beginning.
Yet the people who do that make $1000s per week.
So, should I just say "f it! If idiots are willing to pay for it, then they deserve to give me their money?"
Or should I try to maintain some sort of inner integrity (but suffer financially as a result) because people do not want high quality products???
Like I said, I'm horrible at sales because I can't schmooze with idiots. I'm very analytical. In fact, that's why I am a professional trader. I wanted to be a stockbroker until I found out that stock brokers are just salesmen that sell commodities instead of cars or whatever. As a trader I don't have to talk to people, I don't have to put up with bullshit, it's just me and my method and the market.
And for the record here, don't ever buy any training product or indicator or anything from any webpage no matter how good it looks, because they are ALL bullshit. All of them. I'm just saying, save your money; you'll lose enough money trading. I just read a thread on here where some guy was asked to lie for a Forex product testimonial. That seller can **** himself.
Back to my point tho, you're probably asking "if you're a trader, why do you want to get into IM? You've gotta be banking already!" Trading is insanely stressful and even tho I've made more in one day than I did in a month at my last job, I already realize that mentally and psychologically I cannot do it for much longer. For people who haven't done it, you do not realize the psychological implication of watching $1,000s of your own money vanish in seconds. I have had the occasional day where I lost over $20k. Do you know what that feels like? That's enough money to live off of (frugally) for a year. Gone in a day. Fortunately that's a super rare event for me and overall I am profitable.
But I'm getting off track here.
For those of you that aren't idiots and aren't scumbags, how do you deal with the bullshit that is seemingly required to make money online? The writing of stupid articles (because people don't want intelligent articles). The promoting shitty products (because people buy them). Etc. etc.
Or am I waaaay off base here and the cynic in me is blinding me?
Thanks if you read all of this.
Cheers.
PS. to the guy who PMed me about my reply in another post, "thanks!" I can't PM you back cuz I don't have 15 posts yet
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