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 By John Counsel
I've always been a big fan
science fiction fan. One of my all-time favourites is H. G. Wells' classic,
"The Time Machine." In one memorable
adventure, the hero visits a far future time where he discovers
the human race has evolved into the Eloi — beautiful,
serene, innocent men and women, all seemingly ageless, living
in idyllic conditions where all their needs are taken care
of, automatically, by unseen hands.
The
longer he stays with them, the more disturbed he becomes
by their mindless innocence... their lack of concern when
one of their number drowns despite being surrounded by numerous
others, their lack of knowledge of who provides for them,
their lack of interest in anything but the immediate moment.
Then
he discovers the appalling truth: humankind has actually
evolved into TWO separate streams — the Eloi, and an
industrialised, subterranean race of mutants called Morlocks.
And
it's the Morlocks who provide for the Eloi... because
they breed them for food!
When
these chilling, cave-dwelling cannibals need to restock
their larders, they simply set a siren wailing and the mindless
Eloi come to them, without resistance, and go passively
to their awful fate.
BACK TO THE FUTURE
IN INTERNET MARKETING
In
a recent discussion I was having on the subject of scams
and rip-offs in Internet marketing, and the kinds of people
who make up the two main groups involved — the perpetrators
and their prey — I was struck by the similarities
to the Eloi and the Morlocks.
My
friend made the comment that scammers must have some special
way of seeing suckers coming and lying in wait to ambush
them. He even used the term "they sure saw me
coming!" It's too familiar to far too many of us.
I made the flippant reply
that, these days, scammers don't need to see their victims coming... they send
for them!
 That's
when the Morlocks suddenly leapt from my memory and the striking similarities hit
me forcibly.
It's
alarmingly true. On-line especially, it's a now-familiar
phenomenon for a new scam to launch and then, out of nowhere,
all the same people start sending out spam about this "newest,
hottest, ground-floor" opportunity that will make
us all rich in the next 30 days by doing nothing because
they'll do it all for us and spillover will run hot and
banks will pay us to join and we'll have huge Internet malls
and make overnight fortunes with cloned systems, etc etc
ad nauseum.
Notice how it always seems
to be the same opportunists who fall for these scams?
Often, they're people from our own mailing lists who
just can't resist this latest, hottest "opportunity"
to lose money and damage their reputations and relationships
(if they have any left by now). Maybe you've even been one
of them,
? (Not
after reading this, I hope.)
Where do the people
behind these scams find them? How do they see these suckers coming so unerringly?
Like I said, they
don't just see them coming.
They send for them.
Just
as these mindless Internet marketing junkies will try to
send for you to join them as fodder for the Morlocks
of Marketing... those amoral, manipulative, conscienceless
troglodytes who prey on the naive, the desperate,
the ignorant and the gullible, by appealing to their own
greed, laziness, desperation and ignorance.
It's a choice
As I see it, we all have
a choice. We can be Eloi, we can be Morlocks, or we can be neither.
Membership of each group
is 100% voluntary.
Which will YOU
choose, ?
Learn to recognise the classic
warning signs of scams, especially those counterfeits posing as legitimate Internet
marketing programs.
They're
not. They're fakes, always. But legitimate
Internet marketers still have to wear the damage the scammers
inflict on their victims.
We need to stand up and be
counted. We need knowledge, not beliefs. We need facts, not opinions.
We need objectivity, not wishful thinking. We need reason, not emotion.
Beware
of purely emotional appeals that target greed, laziness,
fear of loss, ignorance and gullibility.
It's always all five, but never as obvious as this. They
come with glamourous names and fancy packaging to mask the
harsh reality of what they really are. And there's always
a sudden-death time frame, so hurry and get yours
before the price goes up or you miss out on the strictly
limited number available, etc, etc, etc.
If
you appeal to greed, laziness, ignorance, desperation and
gullibility, guess who you attract?
Yep... people who are greedy, lazy, gullible,
ignorant, desperate and gullible!
Do you really believe
you can build any kind of long-term financial security with people like this?
No way. When they realise
the truth that this W*RK (sorry for the asterisk, but I don't want to spook
the horses!) they'll be off at the sound of the first Morlock siren call that sends
for them.
The real question is... will
you?
Learn to recognise those
MorLock siren calls for what they REALLY are.
Morlocks from the 2003 movie "The Time Machine"
How do
we recognise Morlock siren calls?
First, we need to understand
the four cornerstones of success.
These
are the indispensable components that underpin all successful
results in life, not just in online marketing.
1. Vision
- We need a clear vision of
a potential reality that we don't yet enjoy. A reality that we're going to work toward
achieving with the help of other people who have resources that we don't, but that
we need in order to realise our vision. These resources include time, knowledge,
skills, talents and abilities, money, relationships and more. We can't do it alone.
2. Time
- There's always a fixed amount
of time required for any achievement in life. Yes, we can reduce the time we need
to invest personally by the intelligent use of leverage, including having others
contribute their time. But there's still a requirement to be met. It won't happen
without that investment, just as growing plants, healing wounds or learning new skills
all require specific investments of time.
3. Effort
- In
physics, "work" is defined as "effort over
distance". In Internet marketing, the distance is
the fourth dimension — time. So the
definition of work for us is "effort over time".
Once again, we can reduce
the effort we need to invest personally by using the efforts of others. But we can't
eliminate the need for a specific amount of effort in order to realise our vision.
4. Self Discipline
- Without self discipline,
it's difficult for us to keep investing the time and effort required to realise our
vision.
Where do we find this essential
discipline?
From
our vision!
Without that clear, sharply-focused
image of what we're working toward, we'll struggle to maintain our focus and commitment.
We need to revisit that vision regularly, and communicate it to those in our team
regularly, because it's a shared vision.
Beware of "Quick
Fixes"
Quick fixes are insidious. They relieve pain in the short term, but they don't treat
the problem — the disease itself. So the disease festers
on, unnoticed, until it finally destroys the entire organism...
in this case, our online businesses.
Quick fixes offer a FALSE
VISION that promises us success and untold wealth with NO investment of time or effort,
and NO self-discipline.
They're nonsense, of course.
But they're attractive, especially when we're tired and disillusioned by our past
experience with Internet marketing opportunities that didn't work out. They have
an irresistible emotional appeal for many of us.
These
are the siren calls of the Morlocks of Online Marketing!
Learn to avoid them like
the plague. The reality is always the same: those who are successful, who
benefit most from the recruiting of the mindless mob, are the Morlocks!
The only real difference
is that they're more difficult to identify in real life, because they look just like
the rest of us. It's their motives and attitudes that
are corrupt and selfish, and that make their behaviour so manipulative and exploitative.
Don't be fooled. Use your powers of reason. And learn to trust your instincts.
If
it sounds too good to be true, it almost certainly is. Look
at the fundamental emotional appeals being used. If they're
really targeting laziness, greed, fear of loss, ignorance
and gullibility (be absolutely objective about it), steer
clear. You cannot build long term financial security
with lazy, greedy, ignorant, desperate or gullible people.
They've fallen for a false vision that can never be achieved, because they
expect it to happen with NO investment of time, effort or self-discipline on their
part, and they're appealing to others who expect the same.
If nobody's willing to
do what's required, there's no chance of lasting success.
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