Know the difference?

You ask. Fair question. It works like this: If I have something you don’t need, absolutely nothing. On the other hand, if you are in a space where you think I can give you something you can use, and make your life a little better, then absolutely something.

Sell: verb, to give or hand over something for money. I hate that term. It implies that one party is convincing the other they need something when they might not think they do. If you have to ask what I’m selling, I feel better already. I’m also not going to ask you for your business. I don’t run like that. I get my work, my words and my wit out there to have folks judge for themselves whether I can help them. Or not! The kind of folks that really get me and what I do is who I want to spend time with and do great things. Retail, this ain’t!

Actually, I hate all the begging, pleading and sleight of hand that goes on with these self styled gurus that are infesting our temporal lobes, trying to hook you into an endless  subscription of self help business approaches and how-to be-just-like-me strategies. Free E-Book anyone? These guys are serious as a heart attack about what they do and will ask the same questions in different ways to get under your skin. I don’t usually post with titles that end in a question mark but this is an exception. When you see a post with a question mark, it means they’re just fishing around waiting for a nibble.

There are a lot of these on-line subscription based businesses going belly up, or not pulling in enough sheep to survive, so they have come up with, “let’s sell training of the same shit that’s not working for us.” Yeah, that’s the ticket! I see this in video production all the time. It ain’t pretty. “This game is dying, so let’s monetize the shit out of it, then bail.”

As they used to say in music school, “Them that can’t play, teach.” Think about it, if they’re making the money they say they are, they shouldn’t have time for no teachin’.

The sad truth is, these guys run out of material very quickly and so they revert to the cute little inspirational success stories, life changing ideas they nick off other blogs, tea bags and anything they can pick up from other media sources. Please! Gag me with a shovel. We are an insecure, needy lot, so they thrive.

They say you need passion to achieve mastery. Truth is, achieving mastery first, brings the passion, not the other way around. That takes about 10,000 hours.

So what am I selling? Collaboration! You get me, my 10,000+ hours, a shitload of passion and a way to get your product, brand or service accepted by the world. End of story. No need to subscribe.

I get it every day as I’m back washing my coffee.