Don’t Shoot The Messenger

Searching for information online leaves us with thousands of potential sources to choose from. So exactly how do we know which link to choose from…how do we tell who is the real authority on a particular subject? Some criteria may be whether the person authoring a given link has actually done the particular thing being inquired about, but then again how can we even be sure of that?

Eventually we end up going with our “gut feeling” then click on it to see if the content therein satisfies our appetite. And if it does tantalize our information-seeking taste buds what happens if you hear a rumor that the author does not have REAL knowledge of the subject or even worse he merely copied it from somewhere else? This sort of thing tends to blow your high even though the content resulted in what you were looking for.

What an interesting phenomena this is considering how often you hear such and such person is a fake especially in the internet marketing and make money online niche. In order to illustrate this phenomenon more elaborately I will use three metaphorical references to get to the bottom of who is real versus who is fake:

1. Lets take the average college professor who teaches investment banking. Now here is a guy who can answer almost any question involving the economy along with the ins and outs of investing in the stock market, yet none times out of ten he has never made a dime on the stock market! Does this make him a fake? I mean afterall he can provide intelligent scholarly answers to your questions and has spent years studying this stuff and if you pass his course you get qualified to work in the respective fields of investment banking and stock brokerage. This MUST prove that his information was at least on point even if he never actually done the job himself.
2. How about a basketball coach promising enthusiastic players that if they follow his instructions they will make it to the playoffs and win a championship, yet the coach has never been in a single playoff himself. But nevertheless the players put their trust in him and end up winning the championship! His information must have been on point 🙂
3. Now take the little guy who runs a blog entitled “Learning How People Make Money Online” who has not averaged at least four figures a month online, yet others continue to thank him commenting on how much his content has helped them out. And on top of that he manages to maintain first page rankings on Google for the popular phrase “make money online tips”…is he a fake? Though he may not be making millions, he has to be on point about SOMETHING!

Did you notice a common thread here? It is the information itself that was on point…this is the ultimate qualifier. If the information given is not useful, then nothing else really matters. Conversely, there are many people out there who do make millions online and they publish worthless information that helps no one so do not be overly persuaded or dissuaded by the publisher of a particular content piece. You have to fully test out the information they put out and if it does not pan out then move on! in other words:

Don't shoot the messenger, shoot the message..

By the way, that “little guy” in the third example just happens to be yours truly 🙂 I run the MarketSecrets Blog where I basically study how other people make money online, test things out, then share it all with you. This is essentially what the professor and the coach above did while in the same vein building experiences of their own.

And now it is time for you to be the messenger and tell me what you think on all this and I promise not to shoot you 🙂