Could We Have Some Honesty?

Posted by Lorren on July 8, 2010

I’ve written a few times recently about how if we as a nation want to get back to greatness, we’re going to have to once again become a moral people. A part of being a moral people is being honest. Could we have that in America?

What I’m talking about today is the lies that people tell when they’re trying to sell you something. We’ve all seen stories on the news about how one company or another doctored weight loss photos, or companies were paying bloggers to say good things about their products… that’s why we have the FTC ruling in the first place where bloggers have to disclose if they’re in an affiliate program. People were lying to you!

So I’m trying to learn how to make more money on the internet. I make a little bit, but it’s not a great deal. My husband is starting law school this fall; it would be nice to start bringing in more. If you’re selling the right products, you can make quite a bit of money.

As I’m trying to find good products, I run into sales pages where the sales person is saying “Only 30 copies left for sale!” on a digital product. Perhaps the average person coming across the ad will believe it, but as a potential affiliate, am I going to want to sell your product if there’s only the chance to sell 30 more, and then I won’t be able to help you sell them again? I don’t. If that’s a lie though, and you’re actually willing to sell more than 30 copies, then I don’t want to sell it either. Lying is wrong.

Another example: I was visiting a message board, and one of the poster said that he started internet marketing a couple of days ago and hadn’t sold anything yet, but in his signature there was a link about how to make $500 in two weeks or less… well, how’s that plan working out for you? I click on the guy’s link, and there was a poorly written page about the system that he used and wants to sell to you. At the end, he says “I did exactly what I did and I am glad I did.” (I told you it was poorly written). Well, if he hasn’t made anything yet, how can he be sure if he was glad that he used the system or not?

It upsets me that a) there are so many liars that I’m competing with, and b) there are so many liars out there that are trying to fool people into parting with their money.

If there were fewer unethical people in this world, then I wouldn’t have to worry about FTC regulations which state that I have to tell you that if you click on an Amazon.com link, I might make money off of it. Or if I tell you that All About Spelling is great and I use it with my daughter, that I was sent a free copy to review. I try to be positive about most things and try to see some good in things that didn’t work for me but might be useful to someone else, but if it wasn’t right for me, I’ll tell you.

It all works out in the end though. My business is growing (slowly) in a recession. Not everybody can say that.