Audio versions

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Want the formula for online engagement?

Want the formula for online engagement? The key ingredients that will get more people to read or watch the stuff you post?

I’ve been writing this blog pretty much every week for six years now, which gives me a well-calibrated sense of what’s going to work.

I’ve analysed the data. And I can confirm:

I have no fucking idea what will work.

Stories I think are solid gold, the ones I know as a business owner are proven and essential information? Crickets.

Stories I scratch together because I just can’t think of anything else that Monday? The ones I put out and think: man, you’re just repeating yourself now, time to quit writing. Those ones will go gangbusters and I have no idea why.

I share my unviable business model

The longer it goes on the less idea I have about what’s going to get any traction. What worked last year might not work this year.

I’d really hate to be relying on this to make any kind of living. I think I’m a reasonable writer, and I’m with a legit publisher. Unless you get an amazing lightning-strike of luck, the money you make doesn’t cover the depreciation on your laptop.

It’s fun and I love it, but it is not a career or even a modest side-hustle, money-wise. It can be handy to promote your business. But it’s a long game that needs psychotic powers of persistence.

If someone tells you they have a secret formula you can rely on to build an online livelihood, in any area, be sceptical.

If they want money for that formula, be extremely sceptical.

If that paid formula involves “the creator economy” … you’ve been warned.

Flashback to dark times

When I was a junior AV technician I spent a lot of time operating video for stadium-sized Amway rallies. They’d run eight hours, with endless 45-minute presentations from Amway couples with strong TV preacher energy.

Each speech followed a rigid formula that in many ways pre-empted the Trump style:

“We were trapped in our old terrible life. We were teachers. We had a small house. Then someone shared the Amway Plan with us, and only a few years later … *insert 20 mins of talking about the size of their new house, how many garages for all their new cars, the number of overseas holidays they take etc*. You just have to follow a FEW SIMPLE STEPS and you can be just like us! Working for a boss, that’s for LOSERS! Time to say goodbye to the ol’ 9-5!”

In their world, there are no friends, only prospects. Audience members would hit us up during lunch breaks to see if we wanted to sign up.

After these events I had to do audio edits of all those speeches, so they’re stuck in my brain to this day. It gave me really good lifelong spider senses for spotting when someone was planning to spring the A-word on me.

Random person: what do you do?

Me: I’m in marketing.

Random: Wow! I’m in marketing too!

They always left out the Multi-Level part of that marketing. Just like the Scomo years, yet more reasons for people to hate my profession.

The trickery was endless. They’d invite people over for a regular-sounding social gathering. “Just a few friends getting together at my place.” When people arrived there would be a flipchart in the lounge room, full of guaranteed formulas to escape the tyranny of a career.

I would be so saddened whenever I’d learn that an ex-Australian cricket captain or one of the country’s most beloved screen actors were now hosting this kind of duplicity. You want to think they’re better than that.

It was interesting to track the cyclical ebbs and flows of multilevel marketing activity long-term. They thrived in tougher economic conditions as people looked for alternatives to their current life.

Amway techniques are back

Back to present times, when economic times are tougher once again.

Lately I’ve been feeling powerful Amway signals out there. Not literally from people wanting you to sell detergent or makeup to your friends. But from people with content-creator tips, solopreneur systems and so on.

It’s all the same language.

There’s the general dissing of job life.

Then there’s the golden picture of the balanced, well-paid life that awaits. All your current pain points sorted.

Then case studies showing the rivers of gold that can flow your way, terms and conditions apply.

Quoting Logan Paul numbers to regular people is like presenting Taylor Swift case studies to buskers. It’s alluring, and very unlikely you can replicate it.

I’m not saying these systems are bad.

I just don’t want you to pin high hopes on what you’re going to get out of it, because the odds are not great.

I’ve been there

I’m aware that I too write about the joys of setting up your own business. But I have no system to sell you and I’m happy to point out that it’s a shit-ton of hard work. And I’ve often pointed out that most people are better suited to employment rather than the entrepreneur life.

I’ve been a “solopreneur” and it can be great. I feel like the ideal age for it is about age 35 to 45, when you have enough knowledge and experience to deliver for your customers with authority.

After 45, it can get more problematic. It’s just you working at an hourly rate that stops when you stop. There’s no taking a significant break if you want to pay the bills.

The solopreneur window: 35-45

Then, there’s a point where you might not be so much in demand. Some industries you can pull off the hourly rate caper till you retire, in your traditional wise advice professions.

But if you’re helping clients on, say, ad tech, graphic design or social media strategy, you’ll hit a point when you cease to resemble your customers any more. Your finger isn’t quite as on the pulse now. Then they’ll stop using you.

Then what’s your plan?

By that stage it’s too late to start taking on younger staff for a succession plan because your revenues are in decline. It happens fast, with the relentless inevitability of salmon realising it’s time to take that last swim upriver.

No matter your glittering track record back in the day. Sure you believe you still have the willpower and energy but that will not change this life cycle reality. (Hi President Joe Biden!)

I don’t want to kill your dreams. But business and life are full of fixed realities you need to worry about. If you pretend they’re not real, you will be run over by a succession of buses.

Posting all day on LinkedIn about posting on LinkedIn

Here’s the test for the program you’re thinking of buying. Does that system boil down to this?

“Do what I do.”

Post all day on LinkedIn about posting on LinkedIn.

Get bigger numbers, then sell people lessons on how to do it. Look how much I’m making per year with my business!

Hats off to the solopreneur guy, he came up with a concept that resonates enough for to build a successful business. You have to respect that. And I know really good people who’ve benefited from the course.

(I think most of the benefit of all self-improvement stuff isn’t so much what you learn – you knew most of it already. It’s to switch on the “I’m going to do better” part of your brain, and if that takes buying a book or course, then great. Good people will prevail regardless of the quality of that advice.)

But if you’re thinking you’ll come up with your own scalable online business to get paid for inspo advice: why would they pay you when they could go to the original guy?

Even if they don’t, you’re competing with tens of thousands worldwide all grinding out material with the same game plan. “Analyse popular Google searches in your field and write about that!” and so on.

Really? That’s a recipe to be as much like AI as a human can be.

You’ll be seeing more and more of these lifestyle freedom pitches.

Amway will always go to great lengths to tell you they are not a pyramid scheme.

I’m not calling this that. Let’s just say it’s a large Egyptian monument-shaped scheme, the kind you might find in the Giza district.

The vast rewards they speak of do not go to you.

Maybe you don’t need a formula

Here’s a short formula: you be you.

If you want to be online, write what’s honestly on your mind, rather than trying to follow a recipe.

Be open. Years of corporate oppression make most people write and talk in a super-stiff manner. Words that feel like they’ve been run through three different departments for approval. Tell truths others shy away from.

Admit to emotions and weaknesses.

People relate to that stuff, at least sometimes (disclaimer, see paragraph 1, what do I know?).

As AI drives The Great Same-ening, going off-range is your only option to stand out.

And be careful about giving up your day job.

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