Comments on: Should You “Fake It ‘Til You Make It”?

By: Nick

Nick — Tue, 05 Feb 2019 12:28:51 +0000

Hey John, thanks for sharing this! I think the fake it until you make it culture is dangerous, you can’t build a long term business this way!

Instead of pretending i think anybody can actually just share their honest experiences, we are all unique!

Thanks,

Nick

By: John Soares

John Soares — Wed, 05 Sep 2018 19:23:19 +0000

In reply to Lori.

“I’m great with people faking their confidence in order to get the job done. I’m not okay with people faking how knowledgeable they are.” Exactly!

And I think many of the “expurts” cherry pick their earnings. I’ve had months where it just so happened I got $10,000 in payments. I could say “I make $10,000 a month,” but that’s ignoring the zero income I had the month before and the month after.

By: Lori

Lori — Wed, 05 Sep 2018 19:07:35 +0000

John, having had encounters with the exact type of “expurts” you mention, I applaud this post. Where there is so little knowledge, there is always the oversell. I know two of these sorts of “expurts” who are relentless in their over-tweeting of the same bloody messages. I don’t care if you made countless thousands in your first month of freelancing — come back and tell me about it when you’ve done it for a year or more. I don’t care if I can accelerate my career when the person teaching me has been in business a whopping six months — and doesn’t really write.

I’m great with people faking their confidence in order to get the job done. I’m not okay with people faking how knowledgeable they are.

By: John Soares

John Soares — Thu, 30 Aug 2018 13:33:44 +0000

In reply to Phyllis Edson. Marketing is difficult for many of us. I focus on discussing my relevant strengths without bragging.

By: Phyllis Edson

Phyllis Edson — Thu, 30 Aug 2018 01:43:57 +0000

I seem to have the opposite mindset as the “fake it til you make it” folks. I have the education and experience to be doing better than I am, but I’m terrible at selling myself.

By: John Soares

John Soares — Wed, 29 Aug 2018 16:11:11 +0000

In reply to Anne Wayman. There are positive psychological benefits in many instances to "assuming the part." What you did can be very useful.

By: John Soares

John Soares — Wed, 29 Aug 2018 16:09:27 +0000

In reply to Paula Hendrickson. Paula, I've also seen a few of these people with little experience and even less writing skill actually succeeding as freelance writing gurus. Such a waste of time and money for the beginners who get sucked in.

By: Anne Wayman

Anne Wayman — Wed, 29 Aug 2018 15:43:44 +0000

John, interesting take on all this. In the beginning of my writing career (long before the ‘net and before I’m pretty sure, the fake it ’til you make it saying) I actually bought business cards and opened a business checking account before I’d ever been paid to write a word.

I realized fairly quickly that the person I was trying to convince was me! I’d had some good feedback on free writing I’d done and was trying to figure out how to get paid for it.

There is something to be said for a truly positive attitude toward life – it’s more fun and I think I’m more effective on the whole. But I’m not trying to be a surgeon or a safety engineer either, although I can write about both.

You’re right, it’s become a cliche’ hasn’t it… which means there’s a bit of truth in it.

Thanks for the mention,

By: Paula Hendrickson

Paula Hendrickson — Wed, 29 Aug 2018 15:26:40 +0000

My first encounter with one of those self-proclaimed experts happened shortly after I joined LinkedIn. This “writer” was in a couple of writing-related LinkedIn groups, offering questionable advice. I’d exchanged one or two private messages with her, and quickly got the sense she was preparing to ask for referrals. In one message she claimed to have written for one of my biggest clients—a client that just so happens to have a searchable database going back several decades, archiving everything from their print and online publications. I checked. Her byline didn’t show up once. So I called her on it. She tried lying her way out saying she must have confused it with another publication. Yeah, right. I stopped replying to her messages.

A little while later, some of her questionable advice caused an uproar in one of the LinkedIn groups because she’d included a link to something she’d written. It was so poorly written it begged group members to dissect it for all to see. She stopped commenting in that group really fast. A while later I received a promotional message from her, via DM, “inviting” me to take her online writing class. I actually replied, saying something like, “Don’t even waste your time marketing to me. I have way more experience than you’ll probably ever have. Remove me from your mailing list.” Thankfully, I never heard from her again.

The scary part? Her brilliant marketing skills (I’m not being facetious – marketing is her forte) did the trick. People actually buy her crap. Did I say crap? Sorry, I meant ebooks, webinars, and on-line materials.