Michael Oksa, who is a really good egg and one of the most down to earth people I know, asked an interesting question at the Warrior Forum today. How many people in Internet marketing do you think are honest and hard working? And then, somebody threw in a real monkey wrench by pointing out that you could be honest and lazy or dishonest and hard working. Well, I’m going to give you my take on all this and then you can answer the question for yourself.

My view of the entire subject is a little different than most people’s. See, most folks look at the issue of Internet marketing. I look at the issue of human nature and life in general. I’ve been on this planet for over 50 years and I can honestly tell you that I have seen all the good and bad that there is to see. If you want me to give you a percentage of each, I can’t. If I had to guess, I’d probably say that for every good person there is a bad person. Otherwise, evil on this planet would have been wiped out by now.

Let me also address the point one person made about being honest and lazy or dishonest and hard working. This is spot on. The two things are not mutually exclusive. To be perfectly honest, there are times when I am lazy as heck. But I’ll never cheat anybody…not for any amount of money. In fact, I’ve lost quite a few sales because I’ve told people they didn’t have what it takes to make it in this business. Yeah, I can be brutally honest at times.

But none of this matters…not really. The only thing that DOES matter is you. Can you look at yourself in the mirror and honestly say to yourself that you’re working hard on your business and that you’re being honest and ethical in the process? And more importantly, do you even care? Cause let’s face it, people who are dishonest and lie and cheat to make a living online DON’T care. They have no conscience whatsoever and would even laugh at this article…if they even bothered to read it.

I’m not here to be your conscience. What you do with your marketing efforts is YOUR business. But you may want to know what others think of this profession. Judging by some of the responses over at the forum, some people don’t think too much of it. I can’t say I blame them with some of the stuff I’ve seen. So, here is the REAL issue. And like it or not, it is.

If we continue portraying ourselves as shady used car salesmen (sorry, best analogy I can give) eventually our target market is going to tire of us and go elsewhere.

Thus, if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.

Think about it when it comes time to market your next product.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Want to know what the 7 Deadly Sins of Internet Marketing are? Get my free report at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/7deadlysins/7deadlysins.html and save your business from going down the tubes before it even has a chance.