Several articles that I’ve read lately made me think about what type of information we choose to listen to, or read. Very often it might be the wrong type because, basically, we listen to what we want to hear, and therefore think that this is the better choice.
However, there’s a huge difference between that and what we need to hear.
Let me illustrate this point with an offline example. I promise I’ll tell you directly afterwards how this relates to you – and also how you can learn from this particular example.
Many years ago, I worked as a secretary for a solicitor. My employer, Hans, was a highly competent solicitor, but he had very few clients. This situation may have arisen due his personality, which was very direct and often confronting. He always wrote very brief and ‘to-the-point’ letters; when face-to-face with clients, he told them exactly what he thought. Very few clients appreciated this aggressive approach.
Personally, I loved him. He had a great sense of humour, and I’ve always preferred honest, open people – even though the resultant truth could sometimes hurt.
One day, Hans had a client who came to him because of some juridical troubles he was experiencing. He wanted to take the matter to court. My boss listened to him, evaluated his case, and then said:
“I won’t take your case. You shouldn’t go to court, because you’ll undoubtedly lose.“
The client left him and went directly to another solicitor. This particular solicitor didn’t question the validity of his case in any depth, but instead took it directly to court. There, just as Hans predicted, he lost the case.
The client then returned to my boss and admitted that he’d been right all along. Had he listened to the original piece of advice, he would not have lost a large amount of money by going to court.
- My boss didn’t tell the client what he wanted to hear.
- He told the client what he needed to hear.
- Had the client listened, he would have saved himself a great deal of time, money and energy.
Now, in what way does this story directly relate to you?
I bet that in your collection of info materials, you have several items describing how to do something quickly and easily.
I know I have.
Among my internet marketing products, I found things such as:
“Just jot down an article, submit it, and point it to a free blog. Create your free blog with a headline, a picture and an affiliate link. This works. I’ve been doing it for years, and it makes me $38,765 dollars per week (or another outrageous claim).“
The truth is that this may have originally worked once or twice, or in earlier times when people weren’t so Internet savvy. But today, people want much more than this. Nobody is going to purchase from your link if you just throw your site together in a few minutes.
Nor is anybody going to read your article through to the end, if you come up with utter rubbish and generalised statements that are totally valueless.
If you currently have this type of info material sitting on your hard drive, it’s time to exchange it for valuable lessons that tell you what you need to know.
Initially, this might mean more work for you. In the long run, however, you’ll actually save time. Instead of constantly having to create new blogs from lousy free content, and write new articles containing pure garbage, you can instead write one quality article that will live on for years. This will bring you traffic over and over again, leading prospects to your sales page or a quality review of an affiliate product.
- Don’t listen to what you want to hear. If it sounds too good to be true, chances are that it is.
- Listen to what you need to hear.
Acquire the appropriate internet marketing products that reveal what you need to hear – not what you want to hear.