A few weeks ago I saw a rather amusing meme that explains the utter futility of arguing on social media (back when I bothered), or with trolls on my list, or anywhere else.
Especially about showing them any stats, numbers, analytics, etc.
The meme went like this:
Study 3 years for degree.
Study 3 more for PhD.
Join lab, start working.
Spend years studying problem.
Form hypothesis, gather evidence.
Test hypothesis, form conclusions.
Report findings, clear peer review.
Findings published, reported in press.Guy on internet: “Bullshit.”
Some more thoughts:
It’s the exact same with people up in the marketing world who have spent many years figuring out, testing, experimenting, and honing a way of doing things, only to teach it and then get naysayed by a bunch of newbies and goo-roo fanboys who aren’t even qualified to pour water out of a boot, much less comment on such matters. In fact, I remember many years ago Sean D’Souza giving a talk at one of Ken McCarthy’s System Seminars about his sequential selling and consumption model of marketing — which is almost the exact opposite of a lot of what people were doing, teaching, and selling at that time especially.
Still is in many ways.
And yet, the naysayers just couldn’t help themselves.
“Where’s your stats & numbers proving this works!”
Sean’s answer:
“We don’t use analytics or any of that and I don’t have any data — I started out as a cartoonist and I moved to marketing and this has allowed us to take 3 vacations per year, buy houses, travel, do all the things we really wanted to do. We earn more money than we need.”
My experience:
When people clamor for stats & analytics, tests, etc they aren’t looking for truth.
If they were, they’d simply test out whatever they are asking about.
Which is always ironic.
Because for people — i.e., so-called internet marketers — whose only answer to every question is “test!” they don’t seem want to test much.
More:
I got a question from a newbie lately that was similar.
He asked:
“It seems you avoid talking what what your profit per month per lead is, whys that? I know its because you will be inaccuratley jugged but im still quite curious. Its like the guy who teaches game but doesn’t show his girls.”
I literally have no idea what my profit per month per lead is.
Nor do I care.
If I was paying for traffic I probably would, but I don’t.
So I look at my sales and see how they trend over time.
And I also find talking about numbers turns on the derelicts on my list who I like to avoid.
(The low information types who get excited over fake photoshopped bank statements, etc)
But, sometimes I break that rule of not showing my numbers.
Like I did last Summer during our BerserkerMail launch:
To show the pointlessness of constantly obsessing over “open rates” I posted a screenshot in my SocialLair of my open rates during an 8 week time frame along with another screenshot of my shoppingcart with my sales over that time — showing my exact gross sales broken down by product.
The results were something like $217k in sales with lowly 13% open rates.
You could buy a decent house in some neighborhoods with that.
Maybe not guru numbers claiming to be $900 million copywriters or whatever.
But my business gets by…
Plus, I am not even counting the sales from my software companies & coaching program (Learnistic, BerserkerMail, SocialLair, and Profit Pirates – which ain’t exactly chicken feed), sales from one of my licensed offers, Kindle book sales, affiliate campaigns, etc. And yet I still had some people since then clamoring for more test results, tracking, etc.
And that was a reminder of this truism:
Not only can you not fix stupid, but stupid people are never convinced anyway.
So why bother?
As for the newbie’s PUA analogy:
I post testimonials all the time.
Every month.
Probably more often than I need to.
And unless they ask me not to name them, you can look them up.
Even ask them yourself to verify.
Thus, his game analogy was as silly as saying Fonzy surrounded by multiple girls while walking out of Al’s on a Friday night sucks at picking up chicks because he doesn’t give field reports in a Yahoo group talking about his exact ratio of picks ups vs rejections, money spent, and how many dates until he gets the average woman he pursues in bed, etc.
Anyway, lots in this email for the discerning marketer to pick out.
But probably not so much for the goo-roo fanboy reading this.
Although, as I say a lot, I don’t know why those mopes are on my list at all.
Nothing I can say or do will help them.
As for the the grownups?
That’s what my Email Players newsletter is for.
Something you can read more about here:
Ben Settle
