Steak Please!  Baloney Bites…

Steak please!  There’s nothing like a good steak.  Good food is a pleasure to see, a pleasure to smell, and even more of a pleasure to eat.  No offense to my vegetarian friends, but I prefer my grass after it has turned into cow.  Steak, please!

When I was a kid, we raised beef on our half section in the Kispiox Valley.  The Kispiox, as it was often called, was the land that time forgot.  By the end of the nineteen fifties, when everyone else in the country was using dial phones and flipping a switch for lights, we were lucky to have crank phones.  Electricity simply hadn’t arrived, so we had no refrigeration.

That meant that we didn’t butcher beef after things thawed out.  Butchering an animal in the spring or summer meant wasting most of it, unless we canned it, and that was a really big job.

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The Hudson Bay store

So when we ate meat in the summer, apart from chicken or the occasional rabbit or grouse, it came from the Hudson Bay Store in Old Hazelton.  We weren’t as well-heeled as some of the local shoppers, so while we could gaze with longing at the juicy slabs of beef behind the glass at the meat counter, we generally had to settle for the less expensive cuts…

…like heart and liver.  Steak please!! If you haven’t experienced the flavour of old liver washed off with vinegar and cooked to the consistency of shoe leather to kill anything that might be growing in it… you haven’t missed anything!

Baloney

Then, there’s bologna (or baloney, if you prefer.) Bologna is also known as “poor man’s steak,” and rates even below Spam (the stuff in the can – not the stuff in your email).  “Baloney” is an “Americanism,” coming from bologna, which has also come to describe anything that is just nonsense.  That works for me, as calling bologna “meat,” is really stretching things.  Steak, please…

I hated bologna when I was a kid. I don’t know what I would think of it, now, as I haven’t eaten it in years, but I ate way too much of it as a boy.   Do you like bologna?

Of course, the reason we ate so much bologna was because it was cheap. It certainly wasn’t high quality meat. Bologna has about as much food value as weiners. It probably had slightly more food value than sawdust, but not a lot more.

It is a certainty that we did not eat bologna because of the taste. The only way you can actually enjoy it is to cover it up with something that tastes better, like lots of mustard or mayonnaise. (Steak please!!)  Bologna simply doesn’t taste like… well… meat!  Frying it doesn’t improve it much, unless you fry it till you burn it.  Then you can pretend its crispy minute steak if you bury it enough in condiments.

It’s no surprise that bologna, now baloney in most of Canada and the USA, has become a quaint synonym for nonsense. Which brings me to the point of writing this post:

I’m really tired of all the baloney being rammed down our throats online.

Every day, I’m dumping dozens of emails trying to sell me something that isn’t worth anything. It’s just nonsense, baloney, wrapped up usually in some “fabulous” new e-book or “business” opportunity.

These offers are very well-advertised, with great copy and often flashy sites, but they are nothing but baloney.

Think about it: How often have you seen a new e-book being offered as the final answer to all your marketing needs, a “bargain” at $99.95, only to see it being given away a short time later as an incentive for some other get-rich-quick scheme. Why? Because baloney only sells well until people recognize it for what it is and start looking for something real.  People who want to eat meat want steak, not “pink stuff.”

Think about it:

How good do you think a book is that is written with software that is guaranteed to write a “killer” e-book in only 30 minutes?  (Oh… Yeah… You knew that most of these get-rich-quick e-books were written by robots, right?)

How many people can really sell you all the secrets to making seven figure incomes online? The”secret” of the “gurus” is that they are very good at selling their baloney as steak to unwary consumers. They  make a lot of money selling their reprocessed… stuff… That doesn’t mean you will.

Have you every wondered why the membership offered at such a bargain price also includes hundreds of “valuable” reports you can sell? How valuable can they be?

They’re garbage

It’s simple; most of the e-books, reports and “business” opportunities are simply very well-marketed baloney. They’re fried up and covered in ketchup, but they don’t live up to their promises. They promise to be steak, but sure don’t taste like it.  The pricey information isn’t worth anything and can often get you into trouble.

I’m not making any of this up. I’m speaking from experience. I’ve read many of the reports and e-books. Most of the reports concentrate on – guess what? – how to use spam to get your ad out to as many people as possible, simply playing the incredibly lousy odds (ie, find other suckers). Why pay for reports like that? Everyone already knows  that if you can get enough ads out without getting blacklisted, the odds are you’ll sell something.

Over the years, I joined far too many of these worthless “business” opportunities.  (I’ve shelled out enough money to buy a lot of baloney!)

But I’m sick of baloney. Give me steak please!

Online predators

I’m completely sick of online predators. Maybe these people really don’t have consciences. I prefer to think that they’ve spent so long looking at a computer screen that they’ve forgotten they’re ripping off real, live people.

Business is business, online and off. Real businesses provide real products or services that give real value for the dollar.  Wouldn’t you agree?

To sell your product or service, you have to advertise.  You need to target your efforts to reach real prospects,  and then develop a relationship with them. That’s it. You don’t have to buy a report or e-book to know that. It’s common knowledge.  Real people want real value from a real person.  Am I not right?

What you need to find is a good product or service to market and then start advertising.  Primarily, advertising isn’t selling; it’s finding.  Advertising is what you do to meet your prospective customers.  Earning their trust and providing real value is what turns them into customers.  Following up with valuable, interesting information from time to time turns many of them into repeat customers.  That’s called “marketing.”

There really isn’t any secret to marketing your product. Your advertising budget and your attitude are the two biggest factors in your success.  Wouldn’t you agree?

Don’t be fooled

Don’t be fooled by “gurus” who tell you they will sell you their secrets for the low, low price of…..? Their secret is in their copywriting skills and advertising budget. Just imagine how much you could be making if you had their advertising budget and their copy writing skills! But it is a skill and a gift that only some will ever have. Some people are Olympic gold-medalists in the high-jump and some are incredibly gifted in the fine art of hype (aka – baloney).

I don’t want to depress or discourage anybody. My desire is to help others succeed. You can succeed, if you find your niche and apply yourself. There are good online businesses, such as affiliate programs, that many hardworking individuals do succeed with. They do require work and a small amount of money, but they’re run by honest people offering real products or services, who are just trying to build a solid business, themselves.  Isn’t that what you want for yourself?

Do the research

If you do your research (and don’t simply jump into one hyped-up program after another), you can find a good business to work with.  They really do exist. Or you can develop your own business, if you have valuable products or services to sell.

You can succeed with perseverance, hard work, and more research. Join communities, participate in social media groups, ask questions, and get to know people! Do the foundation work, first. Get known and get to know people. Don’t start by trying to sell your product or business to someone as soon as you meet!  Develop a trustworthy reputation, first.  That’s one of the reasons having a blog and regularly posting works so well for so many.  It takes time, but the results will amaze you!

Final thoughts

Steak please!  Don’t you feel the same way?  If you’re known as someone who’s going to try to serve baloney to everyone you meet, you ought to quit now. But if you prove yourself as someone who’s trustworthy, who cares about others, and who has something to say other than, “I’m a guru, buy my baloney,” and you’re willing to keep on keeping on, you’ll probably make it.

Do you agree?  Do you disagree?  Your comments are welcome, below.

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Dave Cottrell is opinionated, compassionate, and passionate about people, marketing and online business. He does a lot of digging, experimenting and research, and writes like crazy about a wide variety of topics and subjects. He owns too many websites and blogs; you can read his rants and find out more about him at www.DaveCottrell.com This article can be shared freely as long as this box remains intact. Copyright © 2019 – 2023 David H. Cottrell. All rights reserved.

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