Ever since my famous post Why I No Longer Link To The Likes Of ProBlogger And John Chow, I haven’t had all that much to do with the so called ‘A Listers’, but unfortunately I was brought face to face with one of them who, like Darth Vader, seems to have joined the dark side.

I was reading Lis Sowerbutt’s a review of Brian Clark’s Scribe SEO, and for those of you who know Lis you know she is a no nonsense blogger. She doesn’t hold back when she has an opinion and this review was no different. She was up front and told it just as she saw it.

Unfortunately Brian Clark, the author of the plugin, that you have to pay through the nose for, took umbrage at Lis’s review and rather than being diplomatic about it and discussing the issues that Lis, his customer, had with the plugin in the hope of getting them resolved, he went straight for the jugular. He ended his first comment to Lis by saying;

Also, I read your meta description of this post, and it says the opposite of your on-page conclusion regarding “scam.” I’d advise you change that, or our next conversation will be about libel.

This was in reference to her meta description, which can be read at the top of the browser, that stated ‘Scribe SEO – Review Of Scribe SEO – is it a scam?‘ Notice she didn’t say it was a scam, she was merely asking the question, and she was obviously targeting certain keywords. Anyway, I found this article listing the top 10 definitions of libel and as far as I could tell Lis’s post  doesn’t fit any of them, not by a long shot.

Brian’s left several comments in that post and the bulk of them says little for his character. But this post is not an attack at Brian at all. I wanted people to see how his reaction to a bad review has caused him more harm than good.

I’ve been involved in the retail industry for some 35 years and no matter what part I played in it, whether as a salesman or as a business owner, the one consistent thing I’ve learned is that the customer is always right. There has been many a time when I’ve known them to be 100% in the wrong but I’ve never made a point of it. I would try to point them in the right direction, but if they insisted I let them have their way. They are the customer and they’re the ones that butter my bread.

I was taught right at the beginning that if you gave a customer a good experience they may tell one or two others about it, but you give them a bad experience and they would make sure the whole world knew about it. Brian’s actions in the comment section of that post was about as bad as it could get. More than once he called Lis a liar when she did nothing but give her honest opinion.

Heaven forbid it had anything to do with the shortcomings of the plugin itself. Heck, he even went so far as to say;

SEO experts like Rae Hoffman, Michael Gray and Stephan Spencer have reviewed the Scribe technology, and they give a thumbs up. Much more credible sources than you given the topic.

as if throwing around the names of some bigwigs would lend credence to his argument. I reckon his biggest failing is that he doesn’t recognize hie own customer base. The plugin isn’t aimed at the SEO experts who know what they’re doing, it’s aimed at SEO newbies who have no idea how it works and perhaps if they failed to get the settings right it would give a false result.

I know of many occasions when, as a hi-fi TV/ Video salesman I got more than one call from an irate customer who accused my of selling them some dodgy equipment. Rather than going off the deep end I paid them a personal visit and found that the fault was because they didn’t install it properly. Rather than berate them I showed them where the problem lay and assured them it was a common mistake, even though it wasn’t, and left behind a satisfied customer. You know, most of them turned out to be repeat customers who always asked for me and being as how commissions was a big part of my salary, that was a good thing.

Another thing I’ve learned about business is that a very important factor is PR and I’m not talking about Page Rank, I’m talking about Public Relations, and while Brian may know a lot about Page Rank, his actions in that post shows he knows stuff all about Public Relations.

I would like to make one last point and that is one about public perception. I discussed this in my post Perception Is Important To Your Blogging Career! As a person who has previously had no knowledge of Brian, my judgment of his character can only be made from the way he carried himself while commenting on Lis’s post. My perception of his character may be entirely wrong but that’s all I have to go on because that’s the only side he’s shown me. I can tell you one thing and that is because of this, possibly flawed, perception of his character, I would never purchase anything from this bloke.

I would really like to see what your feelings are in regards to the way he handled himself. Am I looking at this all wrong? Am I merely taking the honorable knights actions by defending a damsel in distress?

On the other hand, if you agree with me perhaps you’d like to spread the word by tweeting the post or by using one of the other social websites below. Either way I would really like to know what your thoughts are? Read the rest of this entry

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This is a guest post by James of The Infopreneur, and I’d be very surprised if you haven’t come across him yet. Although he is relatively new to blogging he’s hit the blogosphere with both feet running and barely a stumble. If you haven’t been over to his blog yet, perhaps it’s time you did.

In this guest post James discusses something that I have always held dear to my blogging heart, those people who take the time to read my blog and especially those who go above and beyond by sharing their thoughts and feelings by leaving a comment.

But enough about me. You’re here to read what James has to say.

• The Importance of Readers

The readers or customers of a website are it’s blood, the life of a site. You are the heart and soul, but without your readers you are nothing. You don’t have to sacrifice success in order to keep your visitors happy, you can do both IF you know exactly what to give them.

• Want

Every business has to go about it’s day, but is every business or website listening to it’s readers? By asking the very people who put you where you are, exactly what you want you are going to stand out in an over crowded market place. Everyone wants something these days, even if it’s a simple as wanting to read great content, everybody wants something, so why not ask your visitors exactly what they want.

• Value

But why ask what people want from you if you are already making money? A couple of reasons, firstly by knowing exactly what someone expects when they come to you, you can cater for it, provide it and give them maximum value for their time and money. Secondly and most importantly, by getting into their heads you can actually create a unique and profitable brand.

This isn’t about screwing your visitors for every last cent, it’s about providing real value to the very people you have to keep happy. I recently wrote a post asking the readers of my site what they wanted, it got a great response and now the site is better for it, because now the readers are getting exactly what they want when they visit.

• Loyalty

A loyal customer is something you can’t buy, you can’t buy word of mouth. The very best way of your product or website becoming the next big thing is to have your readers or customers sell it for you, but you will only ever achieve this by knowing exactly what they want. Loyalty is a two way street though, you have to show you are loyal to them before they will even entertain being loyal to you.

• Peace

We all know about the different scams out there and it seems you can’t visit 5 websites without getting hit with the same old sales page which is trying to force a sale which you know deep down isn’t worth the ‘discounted’ $97 they are trying to pull out of your pocket.

Ultimately would you rather make $10 profit sneakily or $7, honestly knowing that you are giving your readers exactly what you want?

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Man, I love it when comments lead you to a new post. Most people seem to miss that when they sit wondering what to write about next. Analyze your comments and those of your peers folks as you are bound to find some inspiration for a post.

Anyway I digress. The other day I wrote the post Why I No Longer Link To The Likes Of ProBlogger And John Chow,  that seems to have created quite a stir. One of my commentators added David Risley to the bunch which happened to get him involved in the discussion.

In their defense he came up with the following post, When Comments Begin To Hurt Your Blogging Success!  This would only be true if you spent every single moment of  your time commenting, leaving no time for marketing and such. I can’t see anybody doing that.

I personally believe that taking the time to comment can only enhance your presence, especially when others are found lacking in this area. It’s all about time management, and taking the time to interact with people is as important, if not more so, as focusing on ways of increasing your blogs revenue.

If you consider your commentators as customers how much more likely are they going to send people your way if you show them, by replying to their comments, that you value their input?

Sound like a good time for a poll. I think a simple yes or no will do the trick.

I would also love you to weigh in on the discussion. Who knows, if we make our feeling known, perhaps we can change the way some of the big boys think. Don’t forget to Tweet, Stumble or whatever all posts involved, and it would be great to get as much feedback as possible.

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MLM, or Multi-Level Marketing is where companies enlist people to sell a product. They are also sold on the downline ideal, where they sign on other prospects thereby earning a percentage of everything that they make. The more people you have in your downline the greater the earning potential.

It is somewhat easier to be successful in MLM in the real, offline, world because you come face to face with your downline, with whom you can provide the proper training and inspire them to perform. Amway is most likely the most well known MLM system, one that most people would be familiar with.

It’s a little different when you try and build a successful online MLM empire. While there are some that do quite well at it, I’m of the opinion that the majority, including myself, don’t do all that well at it.

The problem is that most of us do not actively participate in any given program. Initially we may land on a squeeze page, or read a brilliant post, describing how we can make heaps of money promoting a particular product or site. We are also promised that this program/product is so good people will be clamoring to join and we will earn a percentage of their sales, and in a short time we will be making so much money that we can tell our bosses to shove their job up their ass.

So we in out turn write a brilliant post enticing others into joining this great money making venture, whilst rubbing our hand in perpetual glee as we watch our downline growing. The only problem is that there is no money coming in.

That is where the problem lies. Everyone is busy signing people up, but no-one is actually out there pushing the product, and if they’re not making actual sales they are not making money. So in essence you’re making, say 5%, of their sales, and 5% of nothing is a big fat ZERO.



I’d like to use SnapDollars as an example. My two posts, Making Money With Snap Dollars & Updating The Update On Snap Dollars were so well written that it convinced two people to become part of my downline.

As you can see by the image below I have managed to earn over $175 since the last post. You may wish to read Updating The Update On Snap Dollars to see how I accomplished this.

You may also notice that my downline have done very little to add to my earnings. This is because while I’ve been proactive, earning my sponsor money, my guys have been sitting on their hands doing sweet F all, and therin lies the problem.

So, it’s not enough to simply sign up people to any given program, you also want to make sure that they know that they have to do more than just provide a link to sign up others who in turn sit on their hands. They have to convey the message that the only way to actually make money is to sell more than just the MLM idea. They have to get behind the product or service to actually make the money showing proof that there is money to be made, in the hope that this will inspire their downline  to do more than just sit on their hands.

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I’ve done a fair view videos, some of which I’ve edited and titled to offer a complete package for family and friends. While I reckon they come out pretty well I know my limitations. There is no way in hell that I would attempt to put something together for anything as important as a business presentation or a Corporate Video. That would be sheer lunacy, and while I may be known as a bit of a joker I am no fool.

No matter how good I think a particular project may turn out I just haven’t got the expertise to produce something of a professional quality. It’s not just the expertise that makes a good presentation, it also has a lot to do with the software and equipment that’s used for the editing, titling and special effects if needed.

Outsourcing projects such as trade shows, promotional videos or even marketing and training aids is best left to those who know what they are doing. I remember awhile ago how we had to hire a guy to present a safety course to our drivers, something that set as back quite a bit at the time. Thinking about it now, we would have been a lot better off having a training video made. The obvious reason for this, something we didn’t think of at the time, is that we can’t afford to hire someone for a presentation every time we employ a new driver, therefore a training tape would have make so much more sense.

I don’t really know why we didn’t think of it at the time, it just never came to us. Perhaps we just thought it was all too involved and didn’t know where to start. I know we were pretty stressed at the time, maybe that was it. I reckon I will know better next time.