Kicking The Google Habit (An Open Letter To Top Earners…)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) October 16, 2009 -- This may be the most important blog post I have ever written as an internet marketer. Certianly in terms of my own personal business it is a “defining moment”.
As is typical in such moments I am a mix of nerves and excitement. Such moments include the thrill (or terror) or the unknown. Stay with me, you’ll see where I’m going with this…
I am choosing to write in the form of a letter. It’s a letter directed to top earners in my company (many of whom are also my close friends). But if done properly this letter should hold fruit for any internet marketer.

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Kicking The Google Habit (An Open Letter To Top Earners…)

Welcome visit Our WebSite:

http://Wealthsolutionspc.ca/?site=VMichaelF&t=%3Ft%3DFreePressJL+

I will be as succinct as possible (for me) but I have a lot to say. Here goes…
My fellow top earners,
For most of my 9 months thus far as an internet business owner I have been a “top earner”. I’ve averaged about $40,000 a month in profit (not revenue mind you – actual profit) and that includes the 3 months it took me to get ramped up. Not as much as some of you guys but still… I have been blessed beyond belief and it is still happening. Thanks to him with whom all credit lies.

I’ve also gotten to see hundreds of others come into our business and have all manner of results. Some have done as well as us, some have done nothing, and most sit smack dab in the middle of the bell curve thankful for their results but wondering how to get to where we are.
For us whose businesses are at the far right of the online success bell curve, we know something. It’s not a closely guarded secret by any stretch but it’s also not something we always publicize…
Well here it is out loud (forgive me guys)… There are few top earners (if any) who do not rely on the Google AdWords platform for a majority of the leadflow that keeps them at the top.
We don’t publicize this for three reasons.
1. We don’t like to acknowledge it. It makes us uncomfortable for obvious reasons.

2. It is the least duplicatable part of what we do. It’s tough for the “average” guy to duplicate because of the start up cost and the skill and time required.
3. Despite what we tell ourselves and others we know AdWords can and will get saturated (and in some respects already is).
For some of us it may be half our leads, for some it may be nearly all. But I don’t know any one of us who doesn’t get a huge amount of his traffic from this one source (except for those of us who get slapped or suspended and they tend to drop off the leader boards pretty quick).

Now, I should qualify this and say my evidence for all of this is anecdotal and stems mainly from conversations – if you are reading this and know me to be wrong about where top earners get their traffic please comment as such or email me.
But my conversations with other top earners tend to echo a sentiment I feel in my own business – as goes Google so goes my income.

And that is more power than we as entrepreneurs should ever give any one entity.
I love the company we market with (and we all count the owners as friends) but I would never go so far as to say that I could not generate significant online income without them. And I know most of you guys feel the same way.

So how is it that we grant to Google (a distant Goliath that doesn’t care about us at a personal level) a level of authority over our business that we would never grant to our friends who care about us?
How tragic is it that at the whim of Google, our businesses can be decimated overnight?
And what is the tragedy? That Google is “heartless”? Or that we have allowed ourselves to be at the mercy of a for-profit company like Google (which must by its nature be merciless)?
And why have we let this to happen? Simple.
We are lazy…
Fat and happy and sucking at the fertile teat that Google has created for us hoping desperately she never cuts us off while we allow ourselves to be extorted for the traffic that we fear only she can provide.

Forgive the crassness of the image but it is apropos. We are dependent like babies with soft fleshy limbs, not toughened by the rigors of fending for ourselves. Some of us may have once been rugged and strong, but more and more each day we are beholden to the Google God-Parent for our sustenance and our play money.
I grew up around a lot of wealthy people and looking back I see 2 kinds of people that come from wealthy parents…
For simplicity’s sake I’ll call them entrepreneurs and trust fund babies (forgive the oversimplification but I need it for the metaphor).
Entrepreneurs are those who saw in their own families the value and power of wealth. They developed a healthy appreciation for the ingenuity and resourcefulness somebody in their family must have had to accumulate such wealth and now approach life with a healthy view of money and hard work.

The other camp is the trust fund babies. They grow up thinking money is just always going to be there (and for some it always is) but they do not fully experience the richness of life that comes with knowing how to fend for yourself.
I know several trust fund babies. Some of them were very close friends growing up. Most of them are not anymore as they are permanently 18 years old.
Now I know this not a perfect metaphor. Many of us have experienced the tougher side of life and certainly we all worked hard for what we now have.
And it is our intangibles that we all forged in the trenches of “real world warfare” that make us so attractive when we market ourselves with AdWords. (People relate to us because we are not actual trust fund babies).
But still…

Let’s not think that we don’t need to keep hitting the gym to stay in shape.
Google is spoiling us, making us soft. We are great at converting leads but we are getting soft on how to generate them without AdWords.
And there’s a cost here… to our community and to ourselves.
We are kidding ourselves if we don’t acknowledge the perception out there that we are “one-trick ponies” who are where we are because we appease Google.
Sure we took the time to learn the skills and build the pages that Google likes. And we should get credit for that (and we do get plenty of it).

But let’s face it. There was more than just the efforts of our own hands that went into our success.
Right place, right timing, right look, right page, right ad, right headline, right story, right amount of cash to get started with… Sure we “got it right” but is it really right? Or is it just profitable?
Is it right that we promote a bundle of skills that “anyone can use to become a successful entrepreneur in the 21st century” when for most of us just one of those skills (the one which is the least accessible to the average guy) is the linchpin on which the others rest?

No doubt a good internet marketing mix should include Google AdWords but it shouldn’t be dependent on it, right?
Understand, I’m not asking this from an anti-captialist perspective. I believe that those who have assets (liquid capital, mental acuity, preexisting skills) do and should have a natural advantage, including the abiity to market with Google AdWords.
I’m asking from a business perspective.
A business that is entirely built on one traffic source could never be sold as it has no intrinsic value. If we become dependent on Google for all of our traffic we’re no different than a brick and mortar business that is only in business because of the freeway that runs next to it.

In fact we’re worse off… freeways are tough to move. Google’s algorithms can be tweaked in an instant.
Location, location, location doesn’t work on a digital freeway. Our type of business will always lack value with real investors if it is built on sand that can shift so easily.
I am also asking from an integrity perspective.
Is it right that we are considered great marketers because we excel at complying with one company’s algorithm? Are we really great marketers? Or are we just great at giving Google what it wants?
Perhaps we’re both (indeed I think most of us are) but there’s still a lingering question.

Do we all firmly believe that we could be top earners in this industry without AdWords?
I’ve heard a lot of us say we do… that we would just apply our diligence elsewhere. But I’ve yet to see somebody prove it.
Yet.
If attraction marketing works as we say it does than I shouldn’t need AdWords, right?
Time to put my money where our mouths are.

For the time being, I am through pleasing Google. They are not my friend and they are not my customer.
Actually, come to think of it, I am their customer though for some reason they don’t seem too concerned with pleasing me.

The only people I know who continue to do business with vendors who treat them like garbage are drug addicts and internet marketers
I’m not sure which one I’ve been for the last 9 months.
Time to detox.
Google ads off.
AdWords account closed.
I’ll see you guys back on the leader boards in a few months grinning ear to ear.
Because I won’t be locked in a cage with an 800 pound gorilla.
And sure once I’m back on the boards (without Google) I’ll probably turn AdWords back on. I am afterall a marketer and it is a lucrative marketplace in which to set up your shop.

But it’s not the only one and frankly lately it’s been kind of sleazy. In the last several months Google has been unworthy of my (our) business.
Seeing your friends and colleagues get slapped around and bullied is kind of a turn off, at least for me.
So for now I’m kicking the habit.
Betty Ford Clinic here I come!
Anyone want to join me?
Jeff
This Article is from a Top earner in my business that is just a great read that i wanted to share, Enjoy your Day.

More information can be found online at http://Wealthsolutionspc.ca/?site=VMichaelF&t=%3Ft%3DFreePressJL+

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