What’s In It For Them?

It is good to have friends online. Over the past two years I have gathered up  quite a few. I say they are friends; at least that is what they are telling me we are.  But I am sometimes wondering about a few of them.

As friends will do, they will reach out to want to help and my true friends are doing just that. And truly some of them are kicking ass and taking names on my behalf.

But there are a few who have said they are friends; have been contacting me for over a year to chat and visit like a friend will do; offer all kinds of ideas on how I could help them, but when the time comes for the tide to turn, I am wondering if they are really a friend or someone who is more self centered on promoting their own needs than a friend.

Earlier this year, a marketing firm I contracted to book my How To Play Business Golf seminar/workshops reneged on the deposit payments they were to make to me forcing me to terminate the contract with them.  They had a real “Dead Man Walking” attitude towards the contract.  This was an accumulation of six friggin months of work gone down the drain. I hear this happens a lot with businesses that meet online and try to do business together…a huge lesson I had to learn. This was a very expensive lesson to learn to say the least.

Naturally, after this huge set back my friends wanted to help me get back on my feet. Or at least they indicated they wanted to help. The problem is, I think a few of them are just trying to be nice and could care less if they help or not. Or at least that is what I am starting to find out.

Case in point: I have been asked by three different friends to send them details on exactly what I am looking for in an agent or marketing firm to represent my seminar/workshops. I know these people are busy business people like me so one evening I sat down and wrote three paragraphs, that had three sentences in each paragraph. A very concise breakdown of exactly who and what I am looking for, what I needed them to do for me and what was in it for them. Yes, the all important What Is in It for Them statement that now has to be stated clearly to people today before they will be your friend.

Now you would think that would not be too much trouble to ask someone to read nine friggin sentences that totaled less than three hundred words…yes I can be concise if I want to be…here, I don’t want to be.

But this seemed to be too much for these three to read.

After a week, I sent a follow up to the three people who wanted the information sent to them. The big reason they gave me on wanting the information was so they could have something there that reminds them of what my needs are and to send out to their contacts they think would be interested in making a lot of money.

Their response to my follow-up is what got me to thinking that maybe they aren’t a friend after all…

In all three responses I got the very next day there were these short statements they made that indicated they did not even read the memo they asked me to send them. And then in two of the three my friends asked me a question, “Have you thought about this…?”, which was clearly part of the thoughts I sent to them in the memo they requested. Kinda disrespectful don’t ya think?

OH, I am sure they would defend themselves with saying they hadn’t had time to read what they asked me to send, or they have been putting out fires or as one put it, “Keeping the alligators away”. The Bottomline: Friends would not be so disrespectful.

So, would you say that these are friends or someone who wants to be a friend so they can feed off the traffic I am generating to their web-sites…..or maybe they are just fishing for “What is in it for them?”, which, remember, I stated in the bottom of the memo I sent them.

These types of people are what are out there in cyberspace that makes me state it frequently, “Is This All Really Worth It?”

I guess it is are I wouldn’t be telling you to avoid these people who want to be a friend as long as there is Something In It For Them…