Last year I decided to try this more traditional form of advertising in a directory book as I am always interested on how traditional media stacks up to the digital media forms nowadays. For the most part, the results have been pretty dismissal and if anything it generated a lot more unsolicited offers from various sources.

My subscription is expiring soon and then just recently I received a call from a person who inquired about a need and the funny thing was he couldn’t help but stop emphasizing that he heard about my services through that directory. I had my doubts if it was genuine as a result too and sure enough the person never followed through. It was also interesting too as he tried to come across as an average Joe at his house yet in the background it sounded like he was in a busy office environment.

A lot of subscription based sites do this where when your subscription is about to expire all of a sudden you get these last minutes interest and inquiries to entice you to renew. Almost like someone only working hard when they know they are on the chopping block of some sort.

I was reading about all these comments the other day where I suppose people who did not have the budget to hire contract workers for some kind of creative work was looking for students or people new to the field who would be willing to do the work for free mainly as a way to build their portfolio.

Afterwards, it looked like a lot of industry veterans were upset about it as they were tired of seeing people constantly advertising for free labor and as well condemning everyone who was willing to do it for free as it devalued the services of the working professionals as a whole they believed.

That is definitely true in many ways where if people in a particular field constantly do things for free then people will just naturally assume that they can get aid for a very cheap price or virtually nothing at all. At the same time, I don’t really see any reason to be extremely against people that are willing to donate their time.

I personally just see it as another way of saying maybe one is not making their services sound good or different enough to make someone want to pay for it. Therefore, you should focus more on yourself than others in that sense. It’s kind of like getting news too I guess. Nowadays you can get virtually all the news you need for free on like the Internet yet there are still tons of sources like magazine subscriptions that people still subscribe to.

I suppose it is like that statement that goes something like if you offer something unique, then you people have to go to you to get those products/services. If you don’t offer something unique, then you are competing against price and convenience. So true in these cases I think anyways.

A lot of people have home based businesses which in turn also means that they work and sleep under the same roof which definitely saves a lot of money if you aren’t exactly some kind of large corporation. Just recently though, a person was telling me something kind of similar except he had a different train of thought where he wanted to make his place where he intends to conduct business as his home as well.

Example, rather than say you having a home and then making some kind of office space out of it, instead he intends to get a nice studio where he will conduct classes during certain times and then use it as a home for the rest. It’s usually a little trickier this way though as in a lot of cases your work space may not be deemed allowable to use as a home in these situations, so to speak.

But in general, I suppose you can save a lot of money when it comes to traveling too. The only real disadvantage I’d say is that a lot of people find it difficult to discipline themselves to be more productive work wise when their place of business and home are in the same vicinity.

Was I ever in a shock when I got this message. Just recently, I was browsing a forum and a well known marketer was mentioning how he was able to buy Adobe software for a very cheap price online.

Now these software applications normally cost hundreds and this site was advertising that you could buy it from them for an extremely cheap price. As a result, the person in question began to publicly share this site on the forum as he felt it would benefit others as well. I get spam e-mails like these all the time too and know that it is not exactly a pure offer.

Now for myself I am very knowledgeable about this and figured that the person was duped into buying it. Essentially, the person is buying a sort of “Back Up” copy of the software which is how the company gets through the legality of it. Afterwards, the buyer must go through non legitimate means to actually activate it which the company states they are not responsible for if the buyer chooses to do so.

So, I politely sent him a private message informing him about it and even semi joked that I was a techy who knew a lot about these types of charades. By golly, and this was the response he sent me initially:

I said a valid copy. All I care is that the suite Authroized and is working. WTF do I care whether it is so called legal? Maybe you pay retail for technology over and over. Good for you idiot.

Techie geek that you asshole.

I was so shocked not only based on the fact that I was genuinely trying to help him, but the fact that the person was no doubt very successful financially which seemed so out of character based on the image he portrayed. I then responded with the following:

Why are you attacking me so rudely? What I wrote was to genuinely help you as that is an illegal copy, so to speak, and it is posted on a forum where I’m sure many ppl would think this is a valid licensed item they are purchasing. It will be almost as if (snip name of company) is condoning this practice and thought that I would let you know personally first incase you thought that it was a “legal” copy and hence I simply informed you that I am a very knowledgeable person when it comes to technology.

But if you are fully aware that it is illegal, which makes it not “valid”, and still choose to use it then please disregard what I wrote. It’s almost like saying counterfeit clothing might be wearable and all but that product is not legitimate. Similarly, if you linked to something telling me I can buy this brand name clothing for $2 I would probably assume you meant legitimate in every way.

Aren’t you suppose to be one of the first few (snip name of title in the company) too? I still can’t believe the response I just read……..

Sure enough, he responds with an even crazier remark:

Becasue you’re transparent. I really don’t like passive aggressive people. Like you.

Toal bullshit. You’re splitting hairs in an attempt to impugn me in some way. Don’t fuck with me buddy. I’m smart and wise.

Blah blah balh. Get a clue. Almost EVRY successful web author in the (snip name of company) uses black hat and grey hat techniques to achieve measurable success. Stop pretending you’re naive.

Shut up already you passive agressive freak.

Oh go cry to (snip name of company management) or whomever you like you worm.

I was and still am one of the founding (snip name of company). I’ve helped (snip name of company) bank TENS of MILLIONS. And I’m still adding to that. I can guarantee nobody will duplicate or surpass my work. EVER. Unless you can turn back time and compete on a playing field that will never exist again. Pionners are called pioneers for a reason.

The CS3 suite is running awesome. I’m taking course work now to learn how to use it well. I don’t care if you think it is legal or not. Or anybody else including Adobe. Get it?

You’ve wasted way too much of my time already. Leave me alone now please.

Sincerely - (snip name of person)

Holy cow. What can I say? I am speechless. This is like those situations where you are genuinely trying to help someone or are simply asking them a question. Then all of a sudden they just blow up implying on how you are trying to accuse them of something. Not only that, but he then updates his post to add this “disclaimer” stating the following:

How much more confusing can you get in terms of like a split personality? Makes me wonder if this will be a situation too where companies are afraid of doing anything at all since the person as he puts it generates “TENS of MILLIONS” of dollars. Then again, he is just an affiliate marketer I guess you can say for the company and so it is kind of a separate personal issue I suppose between him and Adobe.

What is really disturbing to me personally about all this is how someone can feel that they are so invincible, so to speak, because they are well off financially. While I am personally not like a multi-millionaire by any stretch of the imagination thus far, I’ll be sure to never let money create that type of a personality out of me.

Yesterday I returned some rental equipment and the hours of operation started at 1pm. Interestingly enough, at the entrance there was a “be back at 1:45pm” sign on it which makes you wonder if the business even opened up for the day. Sure enough, everyone had to wait around too.

I would normally expect that from say a mom and pop shop where they are pretty much the whole staff, but when it comes to a larger scale business I think things like that are kind of out of place. Like in this case for me I couldn’t help but to wonder why someone couldn’t have just jumped in since there are so many people.

Made me not really want to spend anymore money there personally.