Why I’m Here
This page explains in some detail why I decided to start this blog. You don’t need to read it, but it explains why I’m here, and makes a case for why this blog matters. At least to me ;^)
I got an email from Ken McCarthy on Saturday, March 28th, 2008 titled “The Truth about Bonus Mania.” In the world of internet marketing, Ken is sort of the no-hype person’s no hype person — the straight-shooter’s straight shooter, if you will. In fact, I went to one of his System Intensives and I gotta tell you, it’s true! When the man says you won’t get pitched at his seminar, he means it. He seems more genuinely invested in helping people than anyone else with a profile as high as his. There are others, for sure. But Ken is just a really genuine guy. So I tend to pay a bit more attention to his emails than ones I get from other people in his field.
Anyway, back to that email. He’s a smart cookie, that Ken. He timed this email just right. Last week, Jeff Walker launched his Product Launch Formula 2.0 (PLF 2.0, as people have taken to calling it), and I have gotten email after email after email telling me how many awesome bonuses I’ll get if I buy through this or that person’s link. I sometimes wonder if these cats realize that most of the people on, say, John Reese’s list are also on Ed Dale’s list, Dan Thies’s list, Stompernet’s list… so that most of their affiliates are actually just marketing to the same people.
Anyway, here’s a quick quote from Ken’s email:
“You can’t assume that because ten closely related businesses are all jumping up and down about a product that it’s actually worth the price.” Hmm…
And then:
“I’d like to offer you NINE free gifts. These bonues are real. And they are all absolutely free. There is nothing for you to buy. Consider them the bonuses you get just for being someone who is serious about learning Internet marketing the right way.”
Hmm…
So of course, I’m like “Wow! Something new from Ken McCarthy! And it’s free!”
I’m an idiot
So off I trotted to the linked page, signed up, and then received an interesting message: Error: you’re already subscribed to this list.
Huh? I am?
I mean, yeah, I’ve been getting those pre-system emails, but I thought this was gonna be a bunch of snazzy programs to download. What the…?
And then it hit me. I was already GETTING the free gifts. In fact, I had already gotten all NINE of them. They were sitting there in my inbox, lost in the sea of all the other free gifts and pitches and tips and tricks and links.
And so then I had a realization. Okay, two realizations.
Shiny Packages vs. Free Stuff
First, there was no shiny package (even a metaphorical/digital package) that these bonuses were wrapped up in. Nope. It was just some lowly MP3 files, sitting there on his site, waiting for a dumb ass like me to download them and listen.
Second, there was no shiny package. I said that already. I know. But sometimes profound things hit you in waves, and it actually felt like a second realization. Call this one an epiphany. The reason WHY I didn’t even realize I had already gotten these gifts was because, like for many of us, things that aren’t wrapped up in nice packages that cost lots of money just don’t seem to register as valuable for me.
There is an INCREDIBLY VALUABLE lesson in that for me, and maybe for you as well: think about it: we don’t really take free things seriously. If any of you out there have ever done any pro bono work, you may have had some experience with this.
Ever had a friend or relative you decided to offer your services to for free? You know, just a “quick little project?” A quick little project that turned into a several-months-long exercise in frustration?
See, the thing is, when things are free, people don’t attach the same value to them. In fact, the most demanding, hard-to-deal-with client we’ve ever had was a “friend” we decided to build a site for to help with our portfolio. His demands were totally unrealistic, and every time we met them, he had another long list of demands. (Up to a point) we kept meeting them, because the site looked great and we wanted it for our portfolio, obviously! But he had no concept of the value we were providing him (in the end it was a site that easily would have cost him $5,000 under normal circumstances). Why did he have no such concept? Because it was free!
Now, you might be thinking that I am advocating a strict “no freebies ever” policy. Nope. Furthest thing from it. I believe in helping others as much as possible. I’m simply trying to point out this weird phenomenon, which I imagine the Marxists among us would ascribe to the perils of deeply entrenched capitalism. When everything is just a commodity, then things without a price tag don’t seem to have any value.
And from some of the things I’ve heard Ken McCarthy say, I strongly believe that he would agree with this statement. (Although I don’t know for sure – this blog is MY thing, and he has nothing to do with it.)
Real Value
I mean, what’s the value of a smile? A hug? What price tag could you put on playing with your kids? On their belly laughs? How about sleeping next to your loved one? There are flowers poking up through my lawn right now. It fills me with joy to see them. And they don’t cost a dime.
Now, if you’ve spent any time in the internet marketing world, subscribed to a few people’s lists, you know that there are a LOT of people out there who offer free stuff all the time. Is some of it garbage? Undoubtedly. Is some of it valuable? Undoubtedly. People like Perry Marshall and Eben Pagan spring to mind. But here’s the question: what percentage of us who receive this free stuff actually take the time to find out if it’s valuable?
My wager? Very few.
In my own case, I think I’ve always been conscious of the fact that there is enormous value in many of these free tools, but I’ve been so deeply programmed to see “true” value only in commodities (i.e., things with a price tag), that I’ve never actually dug into them in the way they deserve. Or at best, I’ve read or listened to them, realized they were valuable, but didn’t take them seriously… as I waited patiently for the opportunity to spend MORE of my money on the person’s “real” product.
And so it was on Saturday (that’s today, by the way).
I was getting these pre-system emails from Ken, scanning a few of them, and waiting to sign up for the system seminar so I could get the “real stuff.” But the truth is, there is RIDICULOUS value in the pre-system stuff. And the funny thing is, Ken kept telling me this. I just didn’t hear him, because — and this is of course no fault of his — that’s what EVERYONE is saying. “Hey, here’s all this free stuff!” “I’ts incredibly valuable!” And before you have a chance to look at it, another email lands in your inbox making the same claims. And another. And another. And another… Cheese and rice I’ll tell you it’s a crowded world, ain’t it?
And here’s the incredible thing: after I’d had my little “aha moment” and went back to the first pre-system email, and actually READ it… I spent half an hour on the first damned email! I read so much of this kind of stuff that it all becomes a blur and I just skim it and don’t actually take in what’s there.
I took like three pages of notes just on the body text of the first email – before even getting to the recorded session that’s a bonus. Here’s another quote from the email:
“If you’re a copywriting student, you might have some fun with studying the ad copy that follows.”
I am, and so I did.
This whole thing was waking up after a long slumber. I think Kant said something like “awakening from my dogmatic slumber.” This is more like awakening from a white noise slumber and actually HEARING the words for the first time.
And so, it being ever so easy these days to just share whatever it is with anyone who is willing to pay attention, I decided to start this blog, which at first I was going to call “Pre-System Notes” but then decided to change it to Free Internet Marketing Solutions in the interest of A) SEO, and B) maybe wanting to expand on the concept a little as time goes on.
Disclaimer
I should probably add my little disclaimer here: First of all, Ken has absolutely no knowledge (at least as of this writing), of me or this project. This was something I cooked up this morning and implemented the very same day (because I’ve heard “speed of implementation” so many times from Eben Pagan that if I didn’t implement something speedily sometime soon, I had this fear that he was going to come leaping out of my coat closet one night brandishing a bull horn and start shouting at me about my complete failure to take his advice, which he’d given me at no cost so many ding dang times it was just getting ridiculous already!
So, no connection to Ken. That includes being an affiliate. I am not, as of this writing, an affiliate of Ken’s. So if you decide to go sign up for the System Seminar based on this, I get bubkis. Which is probably stupid on my part. So I might change my mind about that. But for now, this is just here to help you (if there are any of “you” out there), get the most out of the pre-system bonuses. I’m going to try to “unpack,” as they say in the humanities, his emails and demonstrate just how much valuable information is there. I will keep a running tabulation of my own implementation of the things that he’s talking about. This is as much for me as it is for you. I want to keep myself accountable in any way I can.
So off we go, into the wild blue yonder.
I’ll probably have some corollary things to say about Ken’s other bonuses and things that he sends my way, and I may have a just a quick thing or two to say about non-Ken McCarthy things. But I intend to keep my focus pretty narrow here. Ken interviewed this dude Colin MacDougall the other day (it’s one of the later bonuses – one of the ones I actually paid attention to – we’ll get to it in turn) who’s an SEO guy, and Colin said at the end of their interview that he keeps a piece of paper with the words “Laser Focus” above his desk at all times. Simple. Profound. I’m going to aspire to that here. Hope you enjoy.
