A while back, there was a whole Internet kerfuffle between two marketers.
(I know. Quelle surprise.)
In a tale as old as time, one marketer stole another marketer’s copy. So, of course, the plagiarizee challenged his plagiarizer to a duel via a Facebook post that was full of name-calling and drama.
I almost yawned and scrolled away….but then I saw what the plagiarizer was doing in the comments.
To every person lambasting him and calling him out, he would reply with a cut-and-paste apology explanation with a link to his own blog post denying everything.
Thing is, there were dozens of comments.
And since he was responding to each of them, that meant there were dozens and dozens of the same cut-and-paste response.
To those wondering, why does it matter what some thieving arsehole does?
Well, here you go:
To the plagiarizer, this undoubtedly seemed like a good tactic: to address every single one of his critics with his side of the story.
But, to the person who wandered into the party a little too late (i.e., me and everyone else), it seemed like a spree of defensive, desperate crazy spewed all over this Facebook post—the same beseeching comment over and over and over again, desperately grabbing at everyone and anyone to listen to him.
I had never heard of this person before but now [ name redacted ]will forever be seared into memory as “that guy who steals content and goes nuts on blog posts.”
Clearly, this was not the look he was going for—especially since he was going so out of his way (and out of his mind) to clear his name.
Thing is, there are many others who, even with the best intentions, are forever remembered by me and many others for their missteps:
The oversharing “whoa-didn’t-need-to-know-that” marketing guru who posts so much about his personal life, you know how his dinner looks when out the other end.
The hate-mongering “starter-of-witchhunts” who, as an IP attorney, should know better than to post screenshots of private conversations online.
That *other* badasspreneur who is so “cutting-edge,” he posts 20-year-old stolen content while claiming he invented it.
And so on.
(These are real people by the way—and just off the top of my head.)
No one wants to be “that guy.”
Which is why my first season videos in Biz Typology (specifically in “Over E-ing Anonymous,” “Client T Off,” and six others) went over how exactly to speak to your potential clients and prospective leads so you don’t sound like “that guy who talked their way out of the sale.”
(Admittedly, I *was* that guy—until I learned the critical mistake I was doing—which, after fixing it, taught my own clients. More on that inside.)
To get these videos (all under 10 minutes so you can watch—and implement—them immediately) for less than your Netflix subscription, go here: