Scrolling through my Facebook and Instagram feeds has become a bombardment of advertisements full of rented lambo’s, AirBNB’d mansions, staged jet photos, and miscellaneous lifestyle pics galore. Where has the authenticity gone? Is authentic marketing a thing of the past?
Look, I get it, the lifestyle sells.
You want to address a problem, address that you have a solution, then share a story, then take people from where you were, to what you found, and to where you are now.
Tell the story..
Value stack..
Bridge to the solution (sale)..
Unfortunately, people are getting scammed.
Every single day these ads are getting ran creating a false illusion of “you can have this too!” if you pay $997 and then buy my upsell of $4,997 for me to teach you how to make money doing eCom even though the lifestlye they’re living isn’t through eCom but through courses teaching you.
These dudes prey on the weak. On the desperate and vulnerable people of society. They aren’t teaching them anything tangible, just processes. They even job bash and school bash.
Now before I dive deeper into authenticity, I have a confession to make.
I wasn’t always authentic online myself.
Back in 2012 when I first got started online, I used to peacock that I was making money online. It was cool before it was cool. There was no instagram or at least it wasn’t used the way it is today.
But I was doing that shit.
I’d actually posted a photo one wearing a $12,000 watch talking about lifestyle this, lifestyle that and even said something along the lines of “how are you using your time?” in the caption.
Then as soon as I was done with the watch, I gave it back to the jeweler. A guy I was doing network marketing with at the time did it so I followed suit. When I asked him why he was doing it, he said, “You get more likes. People think you’re making money and it helps get sign ups.”
After it was done, I felt super shitty. But what do you know.. it would eventually become one of the most liked Instagram photos on my profile.
And I must say, it felt good.
Through the years I’d gotten trapped in the lifestyle of it all. I’d post only the highlight reels. Nice meals, debit cards, rented AirBNB’s, etc. Anything to make my life look way cooler than it actually was all in the name of “branding” myself.
Deep down, I realized I couldn’t do this. On April 5, 2014 I nearly lost my life and after that everything shifted. But that’s another story for another time.
I’m glad I never went down the rabbit hole of renting exotic cars and buying fake jewelry in the name of flexing. My mental health is way too important to me to present myself in that sort of way, especially if I know I don’t have it like that.
Instead, I promote authenticity.
I think we need more of that. We need more people to step up and create authentic content. If we keep letting people get away with selling products about how to make money online that lead with fancy cars and lifestyle shit, we’re going to continue to mass produce a generation of scammers who only value their image and not actual people.
Then they’ll recreate their own products leading with false luxury, siphoning millions from people all over the United States and world who actually want a better life for themselves.
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with flexing. If you want to flex with nice cars and lifestyle promotion, go for it. I actually love nice watches and would love to spend upwards of $100,000 on a quality time piece.
Everyone’s got their thing.
But..
Falsifying financial information to use in your product promotion?
Asking people to give you fake testimonials that have never even used your product?
Mass hiring people to comment on your YouTube videos to rank for profitable keywords, only to shove “exclusive coaching” down people’s throats for $10,000 only to teach them how to sell t-shirts on Amazon?
Come on.
I want everyone to win externally and have everything they’ve ever wanted materially but I also want people to win internally and feel good about themselves.
Good intentions only.