Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?
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@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
I would trust ML to not run ads for "Curtis IT Services" just because he paid a lot.
Okay, that's a point. But if McDonald's paid to run an add, I guarantee you'll see Egg McMuffins and Big Macs over on the side bar and no one is vetting to see if they are tasty, healthy or whatever.
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@BRRABill said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
POST 600!
(Sorry, couldn't resist!)
This thread is taking over!
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@BRRABill said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
They are just ads, nothing more. No recommendations. Buyer beware.
But truthfully, they are NOT recommendations from a consulting firm. They are recommendations from a marketing firm. I think you are reading into an add far too much.
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@BRRABill said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
I would think they are ads from tech people you know and have been tested and you trust.
Which tech people do you think that they are from?
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@BRRABill said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
Which is EXACTLY what I have been saying, and is exactly what this thread is saying not to trust.
No, you SHOULD trust them... to be marketing ads!
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@scottalanmiller said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
I would trust ML to not run ads for "Curtis IT Services" just because he paid a lot.
Okay, that's a point. But if McDonald's paid to run an add, I guarantee you'll see Egg McMuffins and Big Macs over on the side bar and no one is vetting to see if they are tasty, healthy or whatever.
If you were running a gourmet food advice forum, would you feel the same way?
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@scottalanmiller said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
@BRRABill said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
I would think they are ads from tech people you know and have been tested and you trust.
Which tech people do you think that they are from?
"ML only runs ads for Vendors we KNOW. Which means tech people have tested out and trust. And not just my team but other IT people as well."
Would make me think ... ML!
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@BRRABill said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
@scottalanmiller said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
I would trust ML to not run ads for "Curtis IT Services" just because he paid a lot.
Okay, that's a point. But if McDonald's paid to run an add, I guarantee you'll see Egg McMuffins and Big Macs over on the side bar and no one is vetting to see if they are tasty, healthy or whatever.
If you were running a gourmet food advice forum, would you feel the same way?
Would make you look pretty ridiculous if so.
Would be like a church running ads for prostitutes.
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@BRRABill said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
@BRRABill said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
@scottalanmiller said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
I would trust ML to not run ads for "Curtis IT Services" just because he paid a lot.
Okay, that's a point. But if McDonald's paid to run an add, I guarantee you'll see Egg McMuffins and Big Macs over on the side bar and no one is vetting to see if they are tasty, healthy or whatever.
If you were running a gourmet food advice forum, would you feel the same way?
Would make you look pretty ridiculous if so.
Would be like a church running ads for prostitutes.
But churches running ads at all would be ridiculous. A church isn't an advertising platform or marketing company (well okay, that might be an argument to make, but you know what I mean.) A gourmet food advice forum running McDonald's ads would not be weird in the slightest, not even remotely. It's a "magazine" and they run ads. If you think that the running of ads implies something similar to advice, that's a major point of confusion. There are two huge mistakes there: one is assuming a social contract that does not exist, at all. The second is assuming that the platform of discussion is the same as being an expert. That's not at all the case. GS/ML is not a tech company, it's a social media marketing company. Assuming that they are giving you IT advice is a very bad idea, that is not why they are here. They are a platform for us to give each other advice.
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@BRRABill said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
@scottalanmiller said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
I would trust ML to not run ads for "Curtis IT Services" just because he paid a lot.
Okay, that's a point. But if McDonald's paid to run an add, I guarantee you'll see Egg McMuffins and Big Macs over on the side bar and no one is vetting to see if they are tasty, healthy or whatever.
If you were running a gourmet food advice forum, would you feel the same way?
Of course, anything else would be crazy.
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@scottalanmiller said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
@BRRABill said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
@scottalanmiller said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
I would trust ML to not run ads for "Curtis IT Services" just because he paid a lot.
Okay, that's a point. But if McDonald's paid to run an add, I guarantee you'll see Egg McMuffins and Big Macs over on the side bar and no one is vetting to see if they are tasty, healthy or whatever.
If you were running a gourmet food advice forum, would you feel the same way?
Of course, anything else would be crazy.
Remember, GS is a social media marketing company, so them running a gourmet food forum is very much possible. They DO run a travel forum.
I see this same kind of confusion on Spiceworks. Spiceworks is not an IT company, neither is GS. They are marketing companies. Assuming anything about them being IT experts because they host discussion platforms that IT people use is totally, and absolutely wrong. There is no connection there. That's like assuming that the people who grind up the gravel for roads are all race car drivers just because they make the rocks used in road material.
Does ML vet ads and vendors to make sure that they are actual, legit companies? Yes. Not everyone goes that far, I've seen places put up ads for con artists and scam services that were so obviously illegal that it was ridiculous. ML does offer a much higher level of advertising trust. But you are talking about trusting a marketer. So let me ask you to define this...
What does trusting a marketer mean to you?
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@BRRABill said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
@scottalanmiller said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
Just don't do the reselling portion Like you said, it's trivial money, no skin off your back. So just skip it, problem solved.
Well yes, trivial. Like maybe the tune of $400 in the last few years? Thus I've only thought of it as bonus money, pocket money, lunch money, coffee money. Not something that changes my entire business model, focus, and how I go about working for people.
Honestly, for that, I wouldn't bother to be thrown into this pit.
Not that $400 is nothing, but to open this kind of can of worms...
That's what we keep saying.... if the money is big enough to be worth it it causes one problem. If it is not, why bother?
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@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
@scottalanmiller said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
The facts are that adding in a payment for being a seller's agent makes an inappropriate conflict of interest that must be disclosed.
I think of it more like a tip or bonus.
A barista who puts out a tip jar doesn't become a slave of the coffee shop just because sometimes during their work, some change is dropped in.That's a tip, it is aligned to the goals. The tip comes from the customer, not the coffee shop. Where did slave come from? No one said slave, we said influenced.
And if you think that tips don't influence behaviour, you are disagreeing with the entire system because they exist for one purpose - to influence behaviour going totally against everything you just suggested. I mean, that's an absolutely perfect example of how the tips are all-influencing. So much so, that the tips can outweight the employer! The only recourse that an employer has against good tips making a service person do something unwanted by the employer (customer) is to fire them to break off the source of the tips! That's how dramatic that problem becomes.
So tips are a great example of exactly our concern.
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@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
It's obvious people already in IT have all these strong thoughts on the subject,
This has absolutely nothing to do with IT, though. It's about basic business understanding. If a business owner doesn't know this already - that's a business heading for failure. This is super, ultra basic common business sense. You HAVE to know how your partners are aligned and who works for you and who works against you.
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@scottalanmiller said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
It's obvious people already in IT have all these strong thoughts on the subject,
This has absolutely nothing to do with IT, though. It's about basic business understanding. If a business owner doesn't know this already - that's a business heading for failure. This is super, ultra basic common business sense. You HAVE to know how your partners are aligned and who works for you and who works against you.
Well it comes back to trust I suppose.
If I hire a "consultant" to come figure out my home security, part of me already understands they will likely have only a few common vendors, and maybe they get commissions and maybe not. It isn't so much the commission I care about, it's whether they are actually doing what's right for me at the end of the day.I also "trust" that if they have some favorite vendors, it's because THEY are the experts, and thus THOSE vendors are particularly good ones, and the company is particular trained on using them.
Any decent company would do right by the customer. If they are this utterly persuaded to jack up their customers for some commissions, I agree the business won't last long. Or they will develop a bad reputation, or whatever else.
So it comes back to "trust" regarding the ML ads angle as well. You say the ads are not "advice" but that's not what I was saying anyway. I was saying I trust that the vendors within the ads are vetted enough to where I can believe they are at least good companies and have quality products. Not that ML is "recommending" or "advising" on their use. But simply that they are good, or approved of, if you will.
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In the case of ML yes we do pre-approve them. However as Scott mentioned there is a certain amount of the fact that GroveSocial (owns ML) is not an IT Company (yes it is run by someone who also is the CEO of an IT Company) but we are purely Marketing. I get paid to market things to IT Pro's.
As an IT pro who from time to time has to reach out to other IT Pro's and MSP's to cover for a client need. I do ask what products do you resell and why? Chances are I would not hire you to work with any of my customers. In my experience any IT Pro that also resells things is biased period. No exceptions at any time. Even if the bias is the fact that is a product you know well and trust and happen to get a small amount of kick back on, it is still a bias that clouds your judgement. If an engineer isn't well rounded I will not even work with someone that is a Fan boy of anything, if they are all windows/Linux/chromebooks whatever, and push that one item for everything, I wont even consider working with them.
NTG has in the past resold a few things (now we do not) and every time for those things we resold, we resold as much or everything in a couple cases in that market. We also always passed on that kick back to the client. We get paid for the services we provide not what we sell. NOT one of the Engineering Staff provides quotes on items. They may work with a VAR to help a client get a quote but they never quote services provided or pricing on any hardware/software. That is not their job, that is my job as the CEO. I do not make recommendations to customers on products, only my Engineering team does. The two things do not meet.
Even with Webroot that @scottalanmiller mentions (and he didn't know this) we are a partner and can offer clients Webroot as part of our MSP/IT Service Provider package, this is provided at cost, we get no kick back on it. But for a client who comes to us looking specifically for Webroot that is passed off to a VAR and they sell it to the customer. I never even touch an actual invoice for a customer on this.
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Also I operate on the trust but verify even with my team. If they are recommending something to a client I want to know why. Yes even @scottalanmiller someone has to question even him.
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@scottalanmiller said
The second is assuming that the platform of discussion is the same as being an expert. That's not at all the case.
It's not the same as being an expert. However, running the wrong ad would certain turn off the user base.
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@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
I am interested in actual case studies where this has happened. I get that sometimes a company can be oversold by a VAR, ok granted. But how about a company that was completely screwed over due to partner vendor bias?
Just look on SW. It's something like every other thread. Nearly every topic that isn't just a simple fix is someone exposing that a VAR has taken them to the cleaners. Normally they don't know that it has happened or why, or else they would have known enough not to let it happen in the first place. And if half the threads are clearly case studies of this, imagine how many never get exposed! We only see the ones that are ridiculously obvious. The ones where someone recommended a "nearly good" but not "best" solution to make some extra money go unnoticed. The ones that "work" but the people are at risk or lost money, we never see. The ones that the people just are too embarrassed to discuss or figure out themselves what happened don't need to be mentioned.
If you are looking for case studies something is wrong, it's looking for the rare example where this doesn't happen that should be the challenge.
Just look for any SAN deployment. Sure there are exceptions, but something like 99% of SAN deployments in the SMB are VARs posing as consultants and being willing to let their VAR nature not just skew them a little, but to totally rape and pillage their customers.
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@guyinpv said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
@scottalanmiller said in Home business ideas for transition out of 9-5?:
The question is do they ever choose them.
That's the client's choice. It doesn't change anything.
I suppose what you're saying is does the bias ever affect my work, even once.
So far, no, cause it's pennies and dimes.
You say pennies and dimes, but it's easily 50% of the pay. We've established that you cannot say that it's non-trivial. You are willing to be paid pennies and dimes from the customer, so clearly whatever the affiliate amount is must therefore be significant enough for influence.
Maybe no VAR can be objective about their own influence. Just because you have not made a conscious decision to ever promote your affiliate products in any way doesn't mean that it has never influenced you. Only way to know that is if you never recommended them, ever. That would be weird, but AFAIK is the only way to know. If you've ever attempted to use the affiliate program, I think you can't be sure that you were not influenced.
