Want to Know a lot about Another Person? Then do the following...
Let's say you've just started a new job. Want to find out important things about your boss? How about learning about your co-workers? Here's an easy and quick way to find out a significant amount of useful information that will help you in your dealings with these other people by showing you some of their significant character traits. Somehow, steer the conversation around so that they can give you their own self descriptions. Once you have heard their self descriptions, then believe the opposite, and you will have a good idea of what actually is, as opposed to what is said to be.
For instance, the person who extols his honesty is somebody who very like will manipulate the truth a lot. I had a contractor come to my home about 6 months ago to estimate on doing some much needed repair work. On the telephone, he told me at least 6 times how honest he was, and how transparent he was in all of his business dealings. I did not ask for this information. I did not have to. It was freely given. By the time our phone call was over, I was very tempted to call him back and tell him not to show up at all, but I decided to let him come over. I was already prepared to continue my search for a contractor, but at that point, I wanted to see for myself if this theory regarding self descriptions really had merit, although I was pretty sure that it did.
Anyhow, on the appointed day he showed up. He did not even venture inside the house. rather he walked around it and looked. Then he quoted a price. Then he "found" something else that he "didn't see initially," and the price went up. Then it went up again after another minute. then he said the my entire garage roof would have to be removed, and all of the framing that supported the roof was defective and that would all need to be replaced, and the price went up yet again. (my garage roof framing was in good shape, easy to see from inside, but as I mentioned he did not venture inside). My soffets need replacing, but that was really all that was wrong regarding my garage. So meanwhile I kept quiet and I kept listening and nodding, being as friendly and as non-confrontational as possible. "Keep talking, Pal. Tell me more!" was my thought. Then finally he told me that he buys houses, and meanwhile by this time he had parlayed up his estimate from about $10,000 to $80,000, after which then he said he would buy my house outright (for about 60% of its market value) and I wouldn't have to do anything on my part except cash his check and move out. Also he said that at my age, my wife and I should go into a retirement community and watch TV and enjoy life. Bullshit! it's obvious this guy didn't know me at all. What he really wanted to do was to buy my house at a substantial discount, do a few necessary cosmetic repairs, and sell it at a huge profit since I live in a somewhat desirable neighborhood which I could never afford today but I bought this house almost 50 years ago.
Anyhow, the point of this story is that the guy is obviously out not to be a contractor so much as to buy houses that need some work and then flip them ASAP. He also had nothing good to say about other contractors, accusing them of all kinds of shady dealings whereas he was absolutely honest and transparent in all of his business dealings. Well, he was right about the transparency part. I did indeed see right through him before he had even finished the introductory phone call.
But in my many years of adult life, I have seen so many other examples of similar events that this is why I can say that if you want to find out a lot about another person's character, try to get a self-description and then believe the opposite, and in most cases, THAT will give you an honest and reasonably accurate appraisal of whom you are dealing.
The Absolutely most Disingenuous Action taken by too many Internet Marketers.
And what do you think this is? It is a practice known as the "upsell." Here's how it works. You see an interesting offer on the Internet. Very often it is for a way to make extra money. Sometimes just a little supplement to your weekly earnings, sometimes as a way to change your entire life. And I'm not talking about the offers that seem way too good to be true. There are many of those, and most are scams. But I'm referring to realistic offers, things put out by people or companies who have been marketing for many years. Generally longevity in an Internet business is a good sign that the business is not a scam. So you purchase for what they offer. Perhaps it is information; ways to improve your health, or a business opportunity that actually does have a realistic plan and look like it is worth getting. So you buy it. The price is usually not too steep either. Often the price will be a "charm price," that is, it will be just under the next higher increment price, such as $39.99 instead of $40.00, or $299 instead of $300. Unfortunately almost all Internet marketers as well as many businesses with actual physical stores do likewise. Restaurants do it, and so do gas stations. So we're used to that. Most of us aren't fooled by these charm prices, but some people are. Charm pricing can be the subject for a different blog. But I am not writing about charm pricing here. What I am writing about is infinitely worse than knocking a penny or a dollar off an existing price to make it look a little smaller.
The evil practice that I refer to is the upsell. It goes like this. You find an offer that looks good. It's $39.00. "OK," you say. "I can afford that," so you go ahead and purchase it. Let's say it's a way to start doing affiliate marketing (another blog topic for another article.) Anyhow. after you pay the $39.00 and either get information by postal mail, or more likely downloadable information will be emailed to you, you soon discover that, well....this probably might work, but geez, it's going to be an awful lot of work to set it up or start it, but....for only another $79.00, you can buy an additional bit of software, or a list, or some other thing that really should make what you purchased initially work a little better. And then, if you do go ahead and get this, pretty soon there will be yet another offer, this time for only $499.99 which contains the really secret master plan, or the special insider knowledge, or special select coaching, or access to a free "hot line" to call if you need assistance, or maybe a special website that you can tap into. At this point, it could be anything at all, but it is actually really necessary if you want to have a chance at success from the original $39.00 item that you bought initially.
And there you are...welcome to the Upsell. Now think about this for a minute. Suppose you went to a car dealer and bought a new car, and after you accepted the vehicle and filled out all the paperwork and paid the sales tax and all of the other bullshit fees that seem to be part of buying a newer car, you find out that you must, if you are to go anywhere in your new car, buy something called an engine to make it go; and then after you buy the engine, you find that you need to pay the dealer to install said engine in your car. How would you feel? Would you be slightly annoyed, or really pissed off and feeling like you had just been screwed over? Well, guess what, Internet marketers, when you offer me something and then come along with an upsell, that's what I feel. You just screwed me. I paid for something that is supposed to produce benefit A and benefit B etc, but after I buy it, then you come along and tell me that I must buy an expensive extra before I can start getting benefit A and benefit B. And at that point, my feeling is that I really wish that you would put on a blindfold and then cross a busy highway during rush hour. I feel like I was cheated, lied to, that I just paid for what amounts to a lot of misleading advertising, and I want my initial purchase back and will never knowingly buy anything from you ever again.
I have studied Internet marketing a little, and, here's what's really sad. Internet marketing gurus advise newbie marketers to use upsells because, get this folks, after a person has made an initial purchase, for a while he is more suggestible and more vulnerable to spending more, and sometimes quite a bit more money, so go ahead, you greedy son of a bitch marketer, and take full advantage and sell the poor bastard something else while he's temporarily in a spending mood.
Anyhow, I have now hopefully made you aware of one of the real evils that you can encounter when making some on line purchases. My estimation of marketers who do this is that I sincerely wish for them to encounter some clever con-man who screws them out of their money just as they are evidently doing to their on-line customers. I have read accounts of marketers who start out with an initial $39.00 purchase, and then, if a customer falls for all of their additional upsells, said customer can spend as much as $5,000 before it's all done. What can be more dishonest than this practice? When I see this happen, then I begin to wonder, is this marketer making money from the activity for which he is selling you information, or does he make his real profits by selling and then upselling information? Certainly in my opinion this is one of the worst marketing practices of all. If as a marketer, your initial $39.00 plan is not complete, then be honest and supply the rest of the information up front. Even if you have to charge more than 39.99. I'd rather spend $399.00 for the complete plan. Then I would feel that I was getting something that is good, but best of all, I'd have the complete plan so I could truly begin to implement it right away and wouldn't have to buy extra stuff to make it work.
Now, I can see one exception. Suppose you are a seller of some kind of a money-making plan that is legitimate, does indeed work if the client follows it correctly, and then, 6 months later, as a marketing expert, you discover some more information, or something else that is an improvement. Then I can see offering this new development as a legitimate supplement to your initial offering, but the difference here is that at the time of your initial marketing of your first product, you had not yet discovered or developed your supplementary plans, so you didn't start out by selling your clients an incomplete plan that really does not work well by itself. There is a huge difference between this legitimate offer of your new discovery as opposed to starting out by selling an incomplete plan and then right away offering clients additional items that are absolutely essential to make the plan work.
People are always discovering new ways to do things, or having invented one thing, often after it's been "out there" for a while, they invent improvements. That's legitimate. What I have an issue about is having a workable plan but only selling part of it initially to rope a client in, and then right away start pushing absolutely necessary additional parts of the plan which should have been included with the initial purchase. But I can see from various things that I look at that this disingenuous upselling activity is alive and well and marketing gurus are continuing to advise newbie marketers to include it. So maybe it makes them money, who knows. But at least in my case, I will not buy anything from a marketer who uses expensive upsells. Whenever I see an interesting looking offer, I do a Google search on it. And that Google search will tell me if the plan includes expensive upsells. If I see that it does, I will pass it by. I suggest you readers of this page do likewise.
Also annoying about many on line offers is when the promoters of the offer go on and on, saying, "I'll get to the real reason... (essential part, secret ingredient, medication that is the absolute worst thing, etc)" whatever the offer is about. And then meanwhile, ten minutes later they still haven't told you what this might be as they continue on with their sales pitch. This is another activity which will make me click away from their web pages. And along with that goes taking up a lot of my time showing pictures of huge checks or ATM deposits, or presenting me with pages and pages of smiling-faced good-looking people who have just made their first $10,000 with thirty seconds of easy work, etc. Hey, marketer, I don't give a shit about what you make, or anybody else makes! Please don't waste my time bragging about how well you or anybody else is doing. I'm selfish. I have only one question here, which is, "What is in this for me, Bub; what can I make?" I don't want to spend time looking at how well you or anybody else is doing. I want you to get right to the point. What do you have for me? How much will it cost me altogether? What am I required to do if I want to make money also?" that's all. Don't show me fancy houses or make me listen to other bragging about your supposedly good earnings. Get to the point. Say right away what it is. I get really annoyed when you waste my time with useless shit that doesn't help me to decide whether I should buy what you are offering. If you spend too much time doing that, I will just click off your site and buy nothing. Is that really what you want?
So in summary, the number one worst internet marketing activity is the upsell, and a close second is wasting time bragging or showing us how well you or others are doing.