Venture Kid

The Biggest, Dirtiest, Slimiest Internet Marketing Lie

October 22, 2009 – 10:24 am | by Matt Ackerson

Many internet marketers are peddling false promises on the internet today and appealing the worst in people. “Make $20,000 a month sitting at home, doing nothing.” We’ve all seen this kind of junk. About once a day I’ll get a Twitter user following me who is some sort of “Multi-level Marketing System Rep.”

The lie internet marketers are implicitly and explicitly putting forward is that to run a successful online business you don’t have to work hard or know much of anything, besides their so-called “secrets.” Don’t believe a word of it because it’s all garbage.

Most of these charlatans (who poison the waters for honest entrepreneurs like you and I) are piggy-backing on the advice and concepts of more legitimate businesses. For example, HubSpot recently put out a book on Inbound Marketing. It talks about building web traffic and online sales primarily through the creation of interesting content (blog posts, videos, simple & free web services, etc.) among other tactics. I have not yet read the book, but I am very familiar with its concepts, which, at the moment, can work for an online business if done right and can deliver sustainable value.

However the false prophets of the web today are pushing blatant lies with regard to start-up search engine optimization, link building, improved page rank, viral traffic, blah blah blah. I won’t call anyone out specifically in this post, but it’s important to recognize a bad opportunity when you see it.

I also see some shades of gray with regard to books like The 4-Hour Work Week which is both an interesting and an entertaining read. I see shades of gray because the book appeals to an easy human sentiment, which is that most people dream about making a ton of money, quitting their day-jobs to retire to the Bahamas, and telling their boss to f*ck off.

If you’re one of the “true believers” I hate to break it to you but the fact is, sustainable valuable can not be created, maintained and grown if you have a minimal work ethic. Those who have succeeded in the implementation of some of the ideas that 4HWW pushes (business systems, talent outsourcing/ delegation) succeeded because they were willing to work hard upfront, and actually enjoyed the work to a large extent!

That brings me to the point of this post which is this: real value is sustainable over a period of time and the creation and dissemination of real value can require a large investment of capital and labor.

But what do YOU think? Am I off-point or being too vague?