I’ll leave this particular subscriber’s name out of this blog entry because I’m not attempting to embarrass or harass him in anyway… I just took his email to be very pessimistic & my reply was not aimed at making him more upset or angry, but to show him that he’s already defeated himself in his own mind, without even attempting to battle.
So here’s some very brief background info:
This subscriber signed up for information regarding “how to get traffic from Twitter” at my site www.TwitterHints.com
After receiving a few of my informational messages giving him pretty detailed step by step tips for taking action to make this stuff work for him, he replied to an auto-responder message with the following (the ONLY thing I changed in his message was the deletion of his name so he can remain anonymous):
“Hi Chris,I wish I understood how all this works. LOLIt’s far too complicated for the ordinary person to try.I’ve no ‘plugins’ on my blog.No posts, either. What do I know that anyone would want to read?I’ve been selling for 4 years and resisted a blog until 3 months ago.The “install Wordpress in seconds” actually took two LOOOOONG days.Once the theme is in, that’s all that can be done with it.I don’t use it at all because I’d need to pay a programmer to go past the initial set-up.I have no accounts at any of these kiddies’ social sites and don’t really see the point.Even if I did, there’s no way to put the silly looking buttons on the blog.Therefore, no blog. No loss.How would anyone find it to read it?I’d be too embarrassed to tell anyone I was playing with adolescents’ websites. LOLTwitter -sounds childish - does it have a purpose for anyone over 15?Or is it like MySpace and all the others, a hangout for lovelorn teenagers.Regards,(Name Deleted for Anonymity)”
After reading the email I did not feel irritated. At first, I almost didn’t reply because I thought there was little chance of getting through to this lost soul who has already lost the battle for traffic before it’s even begun.
But after a little pondering & thought, I went ahead & replied to our anonymous friend with the following message… I did let him have it a little bit, but only because I was hoping to inspire him to change the way he is thinking, and open his mind to new possibilities:
“Hmm,
Sounds like you’ve already got it all figured out then… so why the waste of time emailing me?
I don’t mean to sound rude, but I don’t get your email at all…
If you’re so sure that all of these “kiddie” social sites aren’t worth the effort then why did you even bother following up with me or joining the email list?
I’m getting loads of traffic from Twitter & my subject matter is not childish whatsoever, but heck, maybe I just got lucky…
I have a feeling that if you took a few minutes to try out some of the things I recommend in the email course you’d see this is a worthwhile way to get quality traffic for free. I can’t do it for you & if you don’t have the technical skills to set this stuff up that’s not really my fault & doesn’t necessarily mean this stuff doesn’t work.
Where there’s a will there’s a way. I’m sure you could benefit from my information if you put it to good use, but you have a very “defeated” attitude that won’t get you far. I hope you can figure out a way to turn that around & make this stuff work for you.
If you’ve been selling for 4 years then you should be able to pay a programmer a few bucks to help you out. I found a programmer on Elance that I’ve been using for years and he would setup a blog for me & follow all of the instructions in my report if I told him to, and he’d probably do it for about $75.
Excuses are like hurdles that you are putting in front of yourself. Stop making them and you won’t have to jump around as much & you’ll be amazed at how much you can accomplish when you set your mind in the right direction before you start moving your feet.
Chris”
I hope that you who are now reading this blog entry aren’t doing this to yourself. You shouldn’t hold yourself back based on prejudices or ill-formed assumptions. There are always new & changing possiblities, especially when it comes to internet marketing, because after all, a big part of our business relies on technology - which IS constantly changing!
Popularity: 55% [?]
September 22nd, 2008 - 12:10 am
lol, well you got my traffic to your website tonight by posting this link in your latest twitter update ^_^ so I guess you’re onto something here… but you already knew that ^_^
September 22nd, 2008 - 12:11 am
haha!
September 22nd, 2008 - 10:52 am
I’m here because of your tweet on twitter which I read through twhirl. My facebook has 2 teenage friends - my nephews. No one has laughed at me for being on facebook - in fact I now have cousins (older with grown children) joining up. You anonymous writer indirectly makes a valid point affecting success. If you do not have a support system, it is much more difficult to succeed in internet marketing. You need people that at least partly “get it.”
September 23rd, 2008 - 12:23 pm
Yo Chris,
Ostriches (hope I spelled that right) get nowhere in life, don’t feel sorry for the dinosaur, he will learn the hard way.
I haven’t visited your site yet cos I’ve been busy building web sites, but I certainly shall.
I joined twitter just a couple of weeks ago and pumped away at the invite pages - targeting video and web design in which I specialize….up to date I follow over 100 twitters and over 100 are following me. The tweets are not just about getting traffic to your site, they also give you a pulse on what’s happening before - or as it happens.
For example through leaked tweets, I get to know of major movie trailer releases before the news feed writes it up.
That gives me the opportunity to be first to record the trailer and have it up on over 20 hosting sites (using Tubemogul) whilst everyone is still asleep - I am 8 hours ahead of you on the time line.
You may add that info to your site!
September 23rd, 2008 - 12:24 pm
Chris,
I too had my hestitation about Twitter but I tried it and it has been very successful on getting my blog for female entrepreneurs a bunch of traffic. It’s super great because the traffic I am getting is highly targeted - people know my personality from the twitter posts (called “tweets”) I make and so it’s very high quality traffic. The networking aspect of it has been overwhelmingly good.
Wordpress blog software is, in my opinion, a godsend to non-programmers. But, I always say outsource it if you aren’t up to it, or just don’t want to do it. It’s very affordable and highly configurable and lots of people know it to help.
I find the hardest part of marketing online is overcoming my own fear and hestitancy to change. Your email friend is feeling the pinch of change - he is clearly interested and he knows it would be smart, but is not sure. Kudos to him for facing that and moving forward and trying. So, I am here to say to him: “Go for it! You will be glad once you do! We are all here for you!”
Together, we are stronger.
Vicki Flaugher, the original SmartWoman
follow me at http://twitter.com/smartwoman
September 23rd, 2008 - 1:11 pm
I wonder whether you would think this pessimistic…. social bookmarking and non-pay ways to get traffic in general seem to take a humungous amount of time. Either I haven’t “got it” or this idea of set things up on autopilot and passive income is really really hard. Yes, I have blogs, plugins etc, and am technically fairly competent. I consider my big weakness / failing to be the fact that I hate writing - I don’t mind things like this, but I take all day to write an article and will do anything to put it off. So traffic for me is really hard. And, of course (you knew this didn’t you?!) I don’t earn enough to oursource the social bm etc.
But even I think your pessimist is very sad. I see lots of peope making a lot of money, seemingly “effortlessly”, though not without work, and get very frustrated when I spend so much time and don’t get very far. Worse, I am under pressure to earn from it now too!! But I am quite definitely a believer, and my glass is half full, not half empty.
September 23rd, 2008 - 2:34 pm
Your reader sounds like one of those “Don’t confuse me with facts, my mind’s made up” people.
As a Life and Business Development Coach with nearly 20 yrs. experience, I’ve come to realize that people such as this guy, have a powerful enemy to overcome if they’re going to be able to achieve any success at all in their lives. They find the enemy in things such as Twitter and anything else they don’t understand.
They’re quite right in that the enemy does have to be overcome, but before exerting effort on fighting THE ENEMY it’s best to be sure who the enemy really is. If he had an open mind and took a good, long look… he’d realize that his real enemy is the guy in the mirror.
Just as an aside, perhaps he’s heard of the childish little kiddy TV thing called CNN. CNN is not only on Twitter but many segments of some of the political exploration programs are conducted via Twitter. It’s great because when the phone lines are busy and you’ve just gotta speak you mind, Twitter is the way to do it and your Twitter entry is read right off of Twitter and shared with the entire viewing audience.
J.Sewell Perkins
AKA http://twitter.com/TheSCICoach
September 24th, 2008 - 11:24 am
Keep up the good work Chris. Some people just will never get it. Twitter can and will generate traffic to your blog, website offer, or whatever if you are using it for marketing purposes. It’s also a great way just to stay in touch with friends, fellow marketers, and whatever is going on in your area of interest.