Let me ask you a question:

Are you offering what you sell, or selling what you offer?

One is about relationships, the other transactions.
One is about pull, the other push.
One is about permission, the other interruption.
One is about engagement, the other broadcast.
One is about conviction, the other convincing.
One is about giving, the other taking.
One is long-term, the other short.
One is about value, the other cost.
One is about relevance, the other utility.
One is about service, the other commodity.
One is about finding opportunity, the other filling holes.

One is about them, the other…you.

Do you see a difference? What are you doing?

Image credit: mi°

This morning, I tweeted that I really need to petition for the death of the phrase “game-changing”. It’s so overused, and most often complete hyperbole.

We do that a lot in business, don’t we?

Personally, I wish for Brass Tack Language: choosing words that actually say what you mean, without over-inflated crud that perhaps creates a vocabulary-starved individual to rubberneck for a second, but does little else.

As businesses, we’d all be better served to practice saying what we do well in the simplest possible terms, skipping all the crazy modifiers like “best of breed” and just rather telling it like it is. There are plenty of perfectly workable words that can get it done. Wouldn’t that be refreshing?

Alas, I’m pretty sure I’m smoking something funky if I think that marketers (especially) and the business types are going to stop the madness anytime soon.

So, let’s have some fun on a Friday, and create the Buzzword Graveyard here on BTT for all those words, phrases, and jargon that we love to hate. Here are my entries:

Game-changing

Best of Breed

Blue Ocean

Win-Win

I  know you have more. Or perhaps you’d just like to sound off a bit on irritating language junk for a while? Let ‘em loose. And happy Friday.

image credit: Qole Pejorian

On the web, the battle rages on every time a example of paid content or expertise comes on the scene.

I’m not talking about sponsored posts or tweets – that’s a different argument that we’ll have to have another day.

I’m talking about projects like Third Tribe, or other membership-based learning communities. Or ebooks that aren’t free. Events, either live or on the web. Or time to consult, advise, speak, whatever.

There is a ton of information out on the web that’s free, and it’s given us a bit of an expectation that things we find on the internet shouldn’t cost us anything. But I just don’t understand the griping and whining that happens when someone decides to charge for their stuff.

There are three big reasons I pay for things, have charged money for my expertise and services, and think you have a right to try and do the same:

1. Experience Requires Investment

What you know didn’t get there by accident. Whether it was formal education or learning in the trenches, you paid for your education. You paid in time, in effort, perhaps in money. The stuff that’s in your head and the practical, tangible experience you’ve accumulated over the years. It all cost you something.

Employers pay for that expertise in the form of a salary. Audiences pay for books written by people who have detailed their experiences or knowledge. University tuition costs money. And you can argue all day long about how to determine the value of learning and how to filter out the good from the bad. But the fact remains that experience and knowledge can be worth money, and those that have it have reasons to put a pricetag on it.

2. Concreteness and Context are Valuable

Events cost money to produce. Curating ideas into organized information and content takes time and a certain amount of talent. Making a tangible product or executable services requires time, materials, and management. And doing the research to combine and present information or expertise through the lens of my business can be beneficial.

I’m also willing to pay for some filters to be applied, like knowing that my fellow community members have also invested money to be here, so we’ll all try and squeeze the most value from the experience and contribute in kind.

3. Mistakes Cost Money

Many times, I pay for someone’s expertise or knowledge because I’m paying for the mistakes they’ve already made. I’m buying shortcuts, to a degree. Perhaps they’ve already learned how to apply theoretical knowledge in my industry to a practical solution. Perhaps they’ve failed three times before the fourth time was a charm, and I’m getting the benefit of seeing those potential obstacles before I hit them myself.

Precedent isn’t always proof, but the value in a case study or experienced perspective is that it can help me better navigate the situation that *I* might be faced with, and benefit from someone else’s hands getting dirty first. I know that there are plenty of things I don’t know that I’ve gladly paid for so I can shorten my learning curve and add other people’s context and experience to my ideas.

Value is undoubtedly in the eye of the beholder. Only you can choose for yourself whether spending the money to learn something new is a good risk, and whether you’re likely to walk away better equipped than you were before. Sniffing out the snake oil is partially your job and the due diligence of a business weighing their potential investments. That’s been the truth since the days of hair tonic being hawked on the street in tents.

Don’t think you’re going to get your money’s worth? Don’t pay.

But just because a single endeavor might not be worth the money doesn’t mean that the idea of charging money for something is out of line.  And that means that MLM and “make money online” scams will abound – the opportunists have always existed. Bad apples don’t spoil the entire barrel.

Let’s remember that we live in a world of free enterprise, thank goodness.  And the good side: there will always be a great deal of valuable, helpful, and truly useful information, events, and people across the web that cost a few bucks to access.

We have to put filters on and do some homework. But having the opportunity to earn a living based on the knowledge you’ve built over your career and how you assemble, share, and apply it?

That’s more than okay with me.