Rather than searching through our expansive article archive which contains thousands of informative articles written by professionals in their field; or searching through our message board which offers tens of thousands of valuable posts; many of these newbies take what seems to be an easier, faster approach: start a new thread (or worse yet, several new threads), asking those who’ve tread this path before to lead them by the hand…
While it’s true that we all had to start somewhere, and most of us asked a lot of questions along the way, the people that are succeeding did more than ask a few questions and hope for the best: they did their own research, learned and answered their own questions – and more importantly, learned to ask better questions.
Call it ignorance; call it laziness; call it what you want: when someone can’t take the time to learn how a community operates, thrusts themselves into the middle of it, demands that busy professionals cater to their needs, then cops an attitude when they don’t receive the level of help they feel entitled to or is challenged on their assumptions, then that person falls into the “total waste of time and energy” category.
It’s not that people are unwilling to help or share their experiences, but if these newbies bothered to lurk for a while before posting, they would see the tremendous regularity with which boards get hammered by other newbies making posts like this: “Hey guys, I need to make a million dollars RIGHT AWAY!!! Can someone tell me what a TGP is??? I’m really serious about doing this – please help me!!!”
Like clockwork, the “most serious” of these unknown posters is usually gone within a week; never to return or be heard from again. Kids and dreamers living in a fantasy land, they discover that there’s hard work involved and no magic secret to success besides hard work and more hard work – seven days a week at all hours of the day, even when your friends are out playing and want you to join them. It’s the same story you (should have) learned in school: the kids that got “A’s” worked hard and studied. The kids that thought they were cool and spent their time hanging out in the smoking area are now working at McDonalds.
Generalizations to be sure, but the evidence is all around you.
This is an incredibly and increasingly competitive industry: those that are succeeding do not have the time to waste on every Tom, Dick and Harry that can’t bother to do their own homework – especially when those seeking help show a complete lack of respect towards those he’s asking favors of.
For example, here’s a basic lesson in board etiquette: don’t post one big, long block of text without paragraph spacing and no spell check; it’s the online equivalent of bad breath – and then don’t get all “snotty” when someone criticizes you on legitimate grounds.
I could expand on this theme but it’s a waste of my time: the folks that need to hear it aren’t reading my blog; they’re not doing their own homework, they’re just trying to cheat by copying your test answers…
The bottom line is that if you want to be taken seriously you need to be seen as being serious – and that doesn’t come from you telling us “I’m serious!!!”
