You know the 1st time I wrote about Mike Dillards Coffee House Letter I ended up in the middle of a 'dogfight' on Daegan Smith's blog getting bashed up! It was the 1st time I had put my opinion about something on the internet. For a while I wished I hadn't.
Before we go on the Coffee House Letter is a sales letter written to highlight the plight of a struggling network marketer and concludes by offering a faster paying solution via a top tier business which has higher payouts than a normal MLM business.
On with the story.....
I really struggled with self confidence when I started in the MLM / IM world and I hadn't really agreed with one part of the Coffee House Letter. So I bit the bullet and decided I should write about how I felt about it and wrote on a little UK communial blog about my feeling towards the letter, Mike Dillard and Daegan Smith.
My issue had been to do with the ethics of the letter (another subject for another time) and I shared these thoughts. I was on Daegans list and an active participant in his emails at that time.
I was reading the comments on his blog post when it had a link off for everyone to go see something and then come back with their opinion of what they see.
And what did they see?
It was my blog post.
Clearly Daegan had been alerted to a blog post with his name in it which also had my thoughts about the coffee house letter. And my thoughts were not that positive on this particular area of the letter that I had highlighted.
So when I saw Daegan was showing everyone MY BLOG POST for people to share their thoughts on about how Mike Dillard had lost my respect with the coffee house letter I was nothing short of petrified!
It was my 1st blog post!!!!! And I lacked confidence!!! And now here I was challenging the biggest name in Internet MLM and now being debated on one of the other HUGE names, Daegan Smith!
It's a good job my order from adultnappies.com (adultdipers.com) had just arrived!
How was this for a baptism of fire? Man on man I was shouting at myself "just keep your opinions to yourself". What was I going to do? How was I going to handle this one?
I decided that I needed to make sure people knew I was not judging Mike or putting him down and this was not a personal attack either. (although some on this long running thread on Daegans blog did take this stance).
I need to answer everything with dignity and keep to the point and be respectful whilst still getting my point over.
And I felt I managed this ok. Then..........Mike himself turns up! I wanted to run, right there. Just run.
So now I have to debate this issue with Mike Dillard himself and of course the potential was for this to get messy. Some folk did start to attack Mike but they soon realised that was not the point of the thread at all. It was a difference of opinion about ethics.
In truth I was so nervous throughout the whole encounter I dreaded opening up my laptop each morning for a week in case someone was attacking me on the thread. It wasn't a comfortable experience at all. But I did stand for what I believed in and I hope handled myself with respect and dignity though out the encounter. It was a HUGE lesson for me in so many ways.
It was a while back now when I 1st read the Coffee House Letter by Mike Dillard back in the summer of 2007. My son was just 6 months old and I was struggling in an MLM wellness business in the UK.
I read the letter and it made a lot of sense as well as angering me in some area's. But here's the thing. It did make some very factual points, yes, it also leveraged peoples frustrations quite brilliantly into taking the actions it was designed to do. A truly brilliant piece of marketing without any question.
It also liberated so many people into a new successful life so how amazing is that? But I imagine it also angered many too. And as per my article on Daegan Smiths 2 Emails a day strategy, you know when you are truly succeeding when as many people love you as don't.
So my little coffee house letter excursion ended up being a big lesson in what you put out there and also the biggest test I had ever faced. So early in my IM career.
Do I regret putting it out there? No.
I learnt so much from that experience its incredible. It took me about 4 notches up in my confidence as I knew I could deal with being criticised without losing my composure. It took me leaps forward in my business and my approach to building a real internet business.
And even though I still have the same opinion as it was then I have so much respect for anyone who achieves great things just as Mike Dillard has. In fact if our paths ever crossed I would be delighted to say hi and have a beer.
My journey has been amazing and without that early terrifying event wonder if I would be this far along the path today.
Who knows. But I am grateful for that encounter to this very day.
Here's how to work with Jay Roberts in a Real Internet Business.
A Brit On A Mission
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