Has Attraction Marketing Lost Its Way?

Original Post at Steve Rodgers Online.com

For over two years now, Attraction Marketing has been a huge buzz word among both internet and network marketers as a method of attracting new leads and business prospects. With the recent popularity of Social Networking sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Myspace, one would stand to question whether or not some network marketers really have any idea as to how to be attractive.

A term made popular two years ago most notably by Mike Dillard, author of Magnetic Sponsoring and Brad Weinman, author of Attraction Marketing Blueprint, the concept of Attraction Marketing has revolutionized the way network marketers approach the topic of lead generation in the internet age.

Designed to be a pressure free way of letting prospects into your world by positioning yourself as someone who can help them accomplish their goals in life and business, the concept of Attraction Marketing is meant to be the solution to the overwhelming failure rate within the industry.

Compared to old-school methods of cold calling and basically puking an opportunity all over anything with a pulse, struggling networkers have welcomed the idea with open arms.

But do they really see the big picture???

Dude, this marketing system won't talk to me... or return my calls!

We've all been there before. There you are sorting through friend request when Johnny Marketer comments your profile... "Hi thanks for the add... I just saw this great new site that guarantees you'll get 2 trillion RED HOT LEADS by noon. Just Click HERE!!!"

Sign me up... pff.
I wonder how many RED HOT leads Johnny just inadvertently managed to piss off.

What makes this so sad is that Johnny Marketer probably read all of the Attraction Marketing manifests there are on the market, is proabably a pretty good dude, but for some reason couldn't see the obvious fact that he just turned a friend request into an unwelcome solicitation for something nobody can really be "friends" with.

Marketing systems don't answer calls, the don't return them either. They don't post helpful content the web and they certainly don't hold your hair back when you puke. In fact they're only really attractive if you don't already have one that works just fine.

Of course poor Johnny may never know...

Why don't you just have it personally branded to your forehead?

There you are, helping some unfortunate networker find out where she left her uber important piece of php code when BAM! Davey Xyzco blurts a 300 word essay right across your forum thread about the "Top 10 Reasons Why His Company Will Never Suck As Bad As Yours Does."

What? No "hi, I'm Davey" or anything like that? Really, dude?

I can look past social protocol when busting up the joint, but jeez... don't you have a website for that stuff? Or maybe even a nice shiny DVD? Or pehaps even Johnny's killer marketing system?

You try to be polite about it when what you're really thinking is <?iss off! ( ) ?>.   <-- I found her code  :)

Lead Generation isn't just some fancy nickname for college kids...

Now I know that I'm being hella sarcastic here, but let's remember that on the other side of that computer screen are millions of life-sized people, that really would just like to get to know you a bit first.

My father always used the saying, "Steve, you gotta pick your audience." Of course he was refering to my sense of humor, but it also applies here.

When we as marketers can separate the time and place for copywriting from that for making friends, then we'll really understand how to build relationships here in the information age. As long as we understand that people don't join companies, or hang out with marketing systems, the sooner we'll be able to take the pressure off of ourselves.

Besides... we work from home ;)