Truth & Business

[anamoly]

How in alignment are truth and business? If I am allowed to share a story -

When I was 11 years old an idea popped into my head for a useful online service (you will find if you need it, I'd rather not namedrop), so not having quite the confident ability in creating professional web sites I shared this idea with a friend who taught me to create web sites and shared some wisdom which actually helped inspire the idea "If you wish to create a popular web site, having a unique idea really helps. You know why Yahoo! is so popular? It was the first web site to do the service of its kind."

So thus, we got together - he did a lot of the work and according to later words exchanged in a rather emotional 'painful'-'body' conversation "he poured his heart and soul into it." The site began making decent profits and although our business partnership was a bit strained at times (he didn't tell me once about how money was pouring in and we didn't really have a clear organized plan for how money was to be divided). I also, at 15, was a bit greedy and eventually just blocked him out of the web site. I justified this as being "my idea," and simply changed all the passwords. Our relationship dwindled beforehand and we did not talk much on the phone. In fact, if I am to remember..he was a bit of an abusive friend beforehand ironically. In fact, he would refuse to give me the title of friend and one time he let me get beat up under his own eyes while laughing and telling me "why don't you defend yourself?" I suppose there was a deep lesson in that somewhere......but I was quite young for those lessons and it would have been nice to have someone really stick up for me.

Nonetheless, I am now 19 years old .. and I read a book of the Jungian nature called "Swamplands of the Soul" (I found the link through a members web site here). It described three various forms of guilt that people have, guilt as conditioning or 'defense against angst' as the author calls it, existential guilt as part of the human condition, and erm - well some other form of guilt that I can't recall at the moment. It said that for some guilt we should go ahead and symbolically recompense ... so yesterday I called him and now he wants full restitution for his few years of absence (which he values at a lot), as well as a 50:50 cut and the title of co-founder back. Quite needy and demanding? Indeed. Fair? Perhaps. But I have been working on the site for the past three years and ensuring its growth as per proper proportion. I told him how much the site made in the interest of truth and I feel that he is emotionally blackmailing me with all this. The Jungian book also talks that life is a spectacle of irony, and well I suppose that it is ironic that this recompense method .. simply caused me some conditioned guilt .. as perhaps guilt as defense against angst for perhaps being too pleasing and accommodating when I spoke to him on the phone yesterday. This conditioning will not last, I tell you. My emotional blackmail mechanism will not work against the cretins who choose to invoke it.

Nonetheless, I still see that truth is in alignment. For without truth, we would have unfair trade. "The Prophet" expresses this beautifully, written by Khahil Gibran:

To you the earth yields her fruit, and you shall not want if you but know how to fill your hands.

It is in exchanging the gifts of the earth that you shall find abundance and be satisfied.

Yet unless the exchange be in love and kindly justice, it will but lead some to greed and others to hunger.

(few lines later)

And suffer not the barren-handed to take part in your transactions, who would sell their words for your labour.

To such men you should say,

"Come with us to the field, or go with our brothers to the sea and cast your net;

For the land and the sea shall be bountiful to you even as to us."

The Prophet

To me, this reinvokes the true state of abundance. We should be abundant even to those who sell words for us. For there shall be abundance for all and perhaps it is not wise for me to discriminate as so. I love it. Let's horizontally integrate our web sites and provide good services for all, shall we not ?

[hotwired]

Hi
Nice work, "cleaning house" so to speak. It appears to me that you have the ability to see the truth, and not "believe your own bullsh*t", which is immensely valuable. That being said, I encourage you to set your own terms here INDEPENDENT of his beliefs and demands. In other words, make ammends based on waht YOU feel is right, not based on his demands or what HE feels is right.

[uberinquisitive]

This is simply my personal opinion:

Give him the "co-founder" title and put in on your website. By listing him as co-founder, he gets to put that on his resume. In the long-run, this is very valuable for him.

No profit sharing. No 50/50. In the "real" world, you can't wait 3 years to ask for back pay, or for profit share. In fact, you can't wait 3 years to ask for the title, either! There is a time limitation, for the sake of common sense and reason.

Both of you will hopefully learn how to draw up blunt, clear partner agreements for your next ventures. There is a great chance that you will both branch out into even bigger things, with higher stakes...thank goodness you guys learn this now!

[anamoly]

Originally Posted by hotwired

Hi
Nice work, "cleaning house" so to speak. It appears to me that you have the ability to see the truth, and not "believe your own bullsh*t", which is immensely valuable. That being said, I encourage you to set your own terms here INDEPENDENT of his beliefs and demands. In other words, make ammends based on waht YOU feel is right, not based on his demands or what HE feels is right.

Re-reading this advice really helps me because since the post some new issues have developed.

I offered him $10,000 as a symbolic gesture of a good relationship, as I mentioned on the voicemail I left him. Obviously, that was too little for him - he knows that the corporation has around $90,000 in its saving account so he asked for $30,000. He feels that is fair in regards to what he contributed in order to kick start his work again. The thing is, if I was to be completely true to myself - he is right. He probably does deserve $30,000.

If I were to give him the "title" of Co-Founder back, my concern is that would be enough juice for him to go to a lawyer and simply demand profit-sharing. Since the title of a co-founder implies a heavy share of the profit iirc.

I should do this on my terms - not his though. So I think we compromise at $20,000. What he contributed in the past is really irrelevant, in my present opinion. I think it would be fair if I gave him $20,000 now and then not pay him anymore until he demonstrates a fair ability to work on the site, take initiative for ideas, and a willingness to be flexible and develop other avenues with me - obviously, taking what we learned to have clear partner agreements for the next time.

[Brutha]

Before you give him the money you should set up a document in which he agrees that it is the right amount.
That way there is no danger for further legal problems.

[DavidDavidDavid]

Well, I suppose it's up to me to play the gadfly again, for what it's worth (some funny "smart people" here, if I may say so):

Truth and business?

I call upon Steve Pavlina to amend his "review" of SBI! so that it is *honest* and free of misleading advertising copy.

Specifically, he regurgitates SBI! advertising hype by noting how a number of SBI! sites constitute the "Top 3%" of all websites...he then links to an SBI! sales page that "proves" the claim with *Alexa ranking* -- which Steve ***knows*** is worth very, very little, if anything. In fact, Steve himself has stated that he does not pay attention to his own site's Alexa ranking because of Alexa's *inherent* inaccuracy.

SBI! claims that Steve pocketed US$20K in his first month as an SBI! affiliate.

Should it not trouble him a little that at least some of those sales may be attributed to misleading claims??

Truth and business, indeed!

[Brutha]

Specifically, he regurgitates SBI! advertising hype by noting how a number of SBI! sites constitute the "Top 3%"

That fact is true. You should also understand that Steve doesn't care that much for percentages (read the chances to become a black belt about that topic).

.he then links to an SBI! sales page that "proves" the claim with *Alexa ranking* -- which Steve ***knows*** is worth very, very little, if anything. In fact, Steve himself has stated that he does not pay attention to his own site's Alexa ranking because of Alexa's *inherent* inaccuracy.

Why don't you start with being honest yourself? Alexa is supposed to be a measure of traffic. Steve himself has his traffic logs to measure his traffic, and as a result their is no need to get information about his traffic from Alexa.
On the other hand if you talk about websites where you don't have the traffic logs Alexa is an objective source.
It's inaccurate but it still is an objective measurement.
I don't think that Alexas inaccuraty matters in this context. It should very well average out over the sites.

On the other hand it is not clear whether you can make that much from every website that reaches that kind of traffic.
But Steves writes for commited people. That should be clear to you when you read the copy and read other things from Steve.
I doesn't care that much whether the average user of SBI succeeds.

[Doku]

Originally Posted by anamoly

he knows that the corporation has around $90,000 in its saving account

So, you have at least 90k that you don't "need" to survive... To ensure the future of your business, seek professional legal advice. We can give you our thoughts and opinions, but in the end, you could get sued and lose it all. A good lawyer should be able to make this go away for under 5k in legal fees... and it would go away permanently.

--Doku

[DavidDavidDavid]

Brutha, you are mixing up the issues here.

My post was not about anything other than the misleading practice of citing Alexa ranking in sales copy.

It's misleading because Alexa is not accurate. For Steve to cite it as evidence that SBI! works when he knows full well that Alexa is worth very little as a measure of traffic is not helpful for someone who claims to want to help others realize their potential.

The only reason to cite Alexa ranking is to bamboozle people; after all, it's inaccurate, as you readily agree. So what's the point behind citing inaccuracies as "proof"?

I'm very disappointed to see yet another guru corrupted by money -- and, perhaps worse, people willing to rationalize away and thus excuse misleading business practices: Steve pays no attention to Alexa not because he has his server logs, but because he knows Alexa is inaccurate compared to those server logs!

No less an observer of human nature than Thomas Jefferson himself warned against a country run by businessmen (as a racist slave-owning hypocrite, he should know): they will do anything for money (which is power, for ego-aggrandizement). Any thing at all. Including holding other human beings in bondage for personal gain. Or, in our more genteel age, shipping jobs overseas. Or keeping afloat the oil dictatorships that support religious terrorists. And all of that starts with a simple lie, or cunningly misleading statement...as McCann-Erikson once put it ever so cynically, "the truth well-told." It all starts when we are willing to excuse our friends their petty misdeeds.

Now Steve's "review" of SBI! is obviously sales copy, which is generally fine except for the "Top 3%" reference, which trades on his visitors' innumeracy or outright ignorance of Alexa.

SBI! is indeed a good starter's kit for a certain kind of person, but to promote a good thing with bad tactics is bad business all-around (akin to our government spreading "democracy" across the world by means of war and CIA chicannery).

As Ben Franklin is supposed to have noted, honesty is the best policy.

Citing Alexa ranking is not honest. It's playing on a newbie's ignorance of how Alexa works and what traffic actually means.

[Brutha]

The only reason to cite Alexa ranking is to bamboozle people; after all, it's inaccurate, as you readily agree. So what's the point behind citing inaccuracies as "proof"?

Steve doesn't even belief in statistical proof. If you are familiar with Steves writes (especially the Blackbelt article) you should know that there is no possible statistical data that would be a prove for Steve.
An Alexa rating is better than nothing, but it proves nothing.
Steve doesn't suggest that statistical measure can prove success. It's natural that the numbers he cities don't prove success if he doesn't intend it.

My post was not about anything other than the misleading practice of citing Alexa ranking in sales copy.

It's misleading because Alexa is not accurate. For Steve to cite it as evidence that SBI! works when he knows full well that Alexa is worth very little as a measure of traffic is not helpful for someone who claims to want to help others realize their potential.

Steves doesn't suggest that something else besides your own commitment is helpful for realizing someones potential (and you can read that belief in his copy and the discussion afterwards in the forum).

Steve pays no attention to Alexa not because he has his server logs, but because he knows Alexa is inaccurate compared to those server logs

Alexa is supposed to solve a different problem than self evaluation.
Whether it solves that problem doesn't has something to do with whether it is good for self evaluation.

I don't think that Alexas inaccuracy matter much if you average out over houndreds of sites.

[DavidDavidDavid]

Brutha, the issue is actually very simple:

1. Steve has stated something to the effect that Alexa ranking is worth very little and he himself pays it no mind.

2. Yet Steve promotes SBI! by linking to their Alexa page which serves as "proof" of their service helping their subscribers achieve "success."

Major problem right there.

That's all.

I do recommend SBI! for certain people -- newbies, namely -- but I don't approve of that kind of misleading advertising -- especially on newbies.

That's all.

[ABlix]

Originally Posted by DavidDavidDavid

Brutha, the issue is actually very simple:

1. Steve has stated something to the effect that Alexa ranking is worth very little and he himself pays it no mind.

2. Yet Steve promotes SBI! by linking to their Alexa page which serves as "proof" of their service helping their subscribers achieve "success."

Major problem right there.

That's all.

I do recommend SBI! for certain people -- newbies, namely -- but I don't approve of that kind of misleading advertising -- especially on newbies.

That's all.

Yah .. what's the intention there? To milk the newbies for all they are worth? The newbies are not cows! . They are human android machines!

Anyway anamoly in regards to your issue: how about you just pay him what he wants and then he shuts up and you learn not to value money over friendship?