MARKETING TO MARKETERS BY MARKETERS MARKETING. TO MARKETERS. (Who MARKET).
Ah, remember the old days? Back in the 90's? Seems like a DECADE ago.
You're not old enough yet to have a grandson sitting on your knee, listening to you talk about how it used to be, before MLM and FFA and FFAMLM, and “no this isn't spam” and “you signed up for this..dummy” and “ You Can Make $5,000/month Sitting On Your Ass And Actually Never Selling a Product If You Act Quickly, have Faith, and know 5 other shlubs who know 5 schlubs each, but this isn't a PONTI scheme because ALL we're doing is selling Email addresses, and that's legal..did I mention you can make $6,000/month?”
“Marketing” used to be a way to sell actual things. Today, “Marketing” is mostly a way to sell Marketing. You can spend two days looking through ezines, newsletters, blurbs, blops, and blusters on making money without ever actually seeing anybody advertising something that you can hold in your hand, or drop, and break, and need to buy another one. You can tell by my skepticism (which is a cover for ignorance) that I don't “get” this. And I cannot figure out how we can have all these people running around supposedly retiring at 35 to spend time on their yachts because they got rich on the net, while another WalMart just opened in the next town over, so that now I have 8 to choose from in a 5 mile radius. Don't those WalMart guys know that they are doing it all wrong?
There are legitimate home-based businesses. I know. I run one. I make the mistake, however, of selling stuff that goes into stuff that is made into stuff that is hooked up to other stuff that you only buy because you buy a car every so often. Expensive car. Don't you worry, though: with your monthly income not selling anything, you can afford it.
Alright. I KNOW all of this marketing really does anticipate the sale of actual items somewhere down the line, sometime. Do you think there is any possibility that those items might be something other than Viagra, Miracle Diets, Male Organ Enlargement Techniques, Vitamins, Book Publishing (c'mon...nobody READS anymore!), Porn, FREE MONEY TO GAMBLE AWAY, Nokia phones, Nokia phone Cell Boosters, CDs, autographs, Ron Popeill products, or Credit Cards and Ways to Get Out of Credit Card Debt? Where the hell are the toasters?
What I don't see happening is much real-stuff business being taken away by online, home-based businesses. I am reminded of a principle a big kid taught me, while I was a littler kid than him: if HE takes my lunch money, I don't eat that day. Only one meal can be bought with X amount of cash. Somewhere along the way to unlimited riches for unlimited numbers of people, the concept of winner/loser has been lost. It's nice to see people succeed. It's even nicer to see someone come out with a valuable, or just plain fun thing (which, come to think of it, is REALLY darn valuable) sell it to a lot of people, and make money.
Just don't be fooled. Don't be fooled by schemes that promise everything, anymore than by cleaners that promise to make your floor so shiny you'll need sunglasses. There is a lot of losing going on out there. Has to be. Way of the world. An awful lot of this losing is going on with people marketing marketing. If you want to distinguish yourself, come up with something somebody needs. Something that's different. Or, jeez, at least something that's REAL.
Gotta go. Lots of envelopes left to stuff. Oh look: the new Encyclopedia! Honey, we're out of milk again....
© RWPladek
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