Forum Moderators: martinibuster
All 3 are in big financial trobules.
All 3 have very interesting stuff to fill huge web sites, and to solve all their problems with AdSense.
All refuse to talk about it.
"I am not a scribbler"
"I will never make advertising for my competitiors"
Tells the first one
"I can not understand it, maybe I can get the idea next year, now I want not to talk about it"
Tells the second
It's sometimes very frustrating not to be able to help people, because they are to stupid.
The flip side is I can get them excited about it, but they want me to do it all for them :)
I got my dad involved simply with a free blogger.com account. He got interested. Wrote a lot. Had more ideas. I made him a customized WordPress install and design. He is now filling that one up with great content. Still low money, but he is very undestanding that it comes with time. He is a computer pro, but has a good understanding of how things work (advanced user level).
As I put it to him - great retirement money.
I know someone that would die for AdSense cash and is a very prolific writer that cranks out these massive emails on all sorts of topics but hits the panic button when you mention posting them to a blog.
I think the audience would be HUGE but still dragging feet after a year of discussion.
Yeah, I've watched people die because, well I'm not sure. Seems they want to.
People come running to you - "Waaah its awful I don't know what to do waaaahhh!" So you sit them down and give them step by step instructions on how to extricate themselves, why it will work and why other things didn't, and they look at you like you are speaking a rare and unusual dialect of Chinese, then carry on with their wailing without one single word having gone in.
The lameness of their excuses is quite a giveaway, and they seem unusually attached to their problems. Possessive almost. You would be better off trying to seperate a starving dog from its dinner than seperate a person from their problem, 90% of the time.
Thats because the problem isn't a problem for them really. The 'catastrophe' is a solution to an entirely different problem they won't admit to, I think.
I should think when it comes to people who would rather face bankruptcy than make a webpage, its a general downsizing of their lives they are really after. I think people burn out more often than we realise :/
So... if you care about these people you could try to get to the real issue. Find out what the payoff is.
Or, you could recognise that 95% of people are stark staring bonkers and if you try to fathom their reasons for doing or not doing *anything* you'll end up as nutty as they are.
It's unfortunate, but I see it every day.
You can't help them. But you can't quit trying if they are important to you.
Freq---
It's too much work.
I don't have time.
I don't know how.
It's not worth the effort.
It doesn't pay enough.
It can't last.
Good grief!
Frustrating is not the word for it. But the sad reality is that some folks won't do anything for themselves, they won't even try. They've given up, if they ever started.
As the saying goes, "It's like watching a train wreck in slow motion".
It's enough to make a grown man cry (to use another cliche).
Something that they may have lacked when they got into financial trouble in the first place.
Some people are raised to believe that the only way to make it is to get a good job and/or they just don't want the responsibility of counting on only themselves for their pay check.
...they just don't want the responsibility...
I think that's often the case in a nutshell.
If they take responsibilty on themselves, who will they blame if it doesn't work?
I even made him an offer I THOUGHT he couldn't refuse, I offered to build the site do all the work EXCEPT the writing which he could do in wordpad....Never seemed to have time to get started. We finally just gave up on the idea of helping him.
I did the same for my older brother, same results but he still uses his computer---to play free poker on! Go figure.
You are right, some people just can't be helped, especially if they have no faith in their own abilities or even enough self confidence to try.
Then you get to about 16 or 17 and your teachers start wondering why no-one ever comes out with anything original.
So most people need telling what to do. They are trained all their lives to wait for someone to tell them what to do. Thing is, they are fussy about who that 'someone' is. It has to be someone they percieve as having 'authority'.
OP, perhaps you should charge for your advice?
One with a can do attitude and the other, the world owes me something so I'm going to just wait until it gets around to paying me.
He would rather work like A dog then even try to better himself and his family, whining all the while about all the things he can't do rather than focusing on what he can do.
Guess I just got tired of the excuses.
My youngest decided he wanted something better in life and decided computers were the way to go, he got one, rent to own at that time and taught himself. After becoming succesful (pre-adsense), and retired from a good management job he wanted to help me 'up'.
I am a very independent person and didn't want handouts.
Knowing this he bought me a used computer, an html how to dummies book and said "have fun, Mom". He helps when I run into really headscratching problems but only when I ask.
He gives me tips on getting traffic, how to make it work well with adsense and in many other ways which I try to be sensible enough to listen to. Not all the time though ;) sometime I like my ideas better.
How is he doing? Fantastic, all whitehat, all websites hand coded or made in Dreamweaver, and Yes, his is an inspiring do it yourself story.
Ann
These troubled people could do much better by perhaps getting 2nd. and 3rd. jobs that deliver a weekly paycheck.
If there is one group of people this program is not going to help, it's the desperate.
Desperation ultimately leads to poor choices, haven't we all learned that by now?
the thing that gets me is when my friends dad talks to me and starts telling me that i need to make sites for his daughter and my other friends and i should do all the work while everyone rides the adsense express.
i started to not tell anyone what i do and just tell them i do "web design"
In most cases the person is stuck in a dead end low paying job constantly carping about wanting a way to earn more money.
Okay, even if they never build a website the ability to learn the workings of, and how to use a computer, could put them into a higher paying job within a year. Perhaps as a tech support person, etc.
The difference is between the whiners, 'nothing good ever happens for me' person and the do it now folks, 'Hmmm, good idea let's get it done'.
Ah well, the world is the way it is and people can change but do they want to bad enough?
Ann
One of the problems is that mostly when I try to give some good advice she doesn't listen and continues to do the wrong things.. Although it's starting to get a little better.
She's computer and internet savvy so we sat and talked for a while. I tried to convince her to set up a couple of sites and I'd teach her all about earning money writing content. Even offered to register the domains and set her up with hosting on my server.
She was reluctant, made some excuses, etc. and I even offered her a job writing content for me, where she easily could have made $40 - 60 a day. No go so I loaned her the money.
A few hours ago she dropped by with $50 and said that she'd try to repay more of the loan next month or possibly earlier if she could "get back on her feet."
K
I have one such very good friend and I rack my brains trying to come up with ideas only to be told off for getting involved.
I have since given up (almost) and just concentrate on my own ****.
Ah well, the world is the way it is and people can change but do they want to bad enough?
Precisely, sometimes change can be the most frightening and hardest thing even if we know that it would help.
I cannot understand hiding myself, better to stand up and fight.
Making money with Adsense, etc, does require some long term thinking and patience.Something that they may have lacked when they got into financial trouble in the first place.
I think this is a very insightful comment. I also have a number of friends who could really use the money for things like an impending divorce, college for the kids, retirement, etc.
I've offered to help them all for free and so far have no serious takers. Everyone who gets so far as to even start on a site has always lost interest after a week or two at most.
People won't change unless they are really serious about having better lives. That's life, I guess, but I suppose I will always try to help others.
Not with hand outs but with knowledge. What is that old saying? 'give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime'.
Ann
There are a lot of people like that out there. At least you were kind and caring enough to try to help them. That's admirable.
Caring?
All 3 are web design clients of me.
All 3 are far behind paying their invoices to me.
One of them did not pay Jannuary 2004 to December 2004. I told him in October 2004, that I will manage his web site until his bills are paid by AdSense.
I tested 3 days with great results. $10 a day.
This had been very un optimized AdSense.
I improved colors, Ad placement, URL filter only starting February 2005.
After this, he threatend me to call a lawyer.
I estimate his current site would be with all my improvements $900 a month.
But he wastes his material. Only 1 page and 1 photo, where I would make 10 pages and 10 photos
But he visits 5 important fairs per year to get new ideas for his job.
I am shure he could develop in one year a $2000 to $3000 site out of this.
But he does not want to be a scribbler.
He is again since April unable to pay the 120.-EUR per month for his web site.
Even when he receives now money, I will not be paid until he has paid 6000.-EUR VAT to the IRS.
I know this, because last time, I wanted to get my money, an exekutor of the IRS arrived in his office to get 6000.-EUR out of him.
So it's not only to care about. It's my money.
Before AdSense, I mad my living as a trainer delivering seminars how to built web sites with my CMS and my SEO know how.
I would train him for a 20% share of his AdSense income. So it's to exchange 120.- uncertain EUR per month against $400..$600 share of AdSense revenues.
And, gee I thought the gist of this thread was to actually help someone not an attempt at collecting debts.
Ann
One of our relatives owes my wife and I several thousand dollars, and I suggested that she could pay it off by writing content for my sites. Would have required no computer knowledge, although she has plenty. I even told her it could be a leisurely thing, as long as I got a pretty steady flow of articles. We're talking minor stuff here, not requiring major research of any kind. It was out of the question. Blew me away. People are just hard to fathom sometimes.
Why a lawyer?
I told him he has 2 possibilities
1.) Let AdSense until his bills are paid
2.) Delete his web site for being behind with payments for more than 9 month
He was able to pay 5 weeks later in December 2004
Now go out and really try to help someone, that will actually pay you better in terms of feeling good about yourself for doing some good in this old world.
Ann
