I remember a little over eight years ago when I first met Rick Schwartz and joined his message board, as many other members, I too had many conflicting issues with Rick’s personality. Rick, as many of you know, isn’t the easiest person in the world to get along with. With that said, at the time, Rick had few years in the domain business prior to me joining the board (started in 95/6), has done extremely well by making highly calculated bets, “talked the talk” and “walked the walk”, and in addition, had over 20 years of sales experience offline. While I had some issues with Rick’s personality, I had absolutely no issues with his thinking, visionary outlook on business and life, and then I chose: This guy, pay CLOSE ATTENTION to everything he says!
While at the time there were many other in the domain industry on the board there were very few who have done well but many who seems to be doing well. The credibility Rick brought because of his proven success was of more importance to me than the actual advice given. What I mean is from a person who walked the walk, say from 1 to 10, I would give him an 8 for their advice without even listening to what they had to say. The last two points would be for the content. On the other hand, If someone who had not walked the walk would give an advice I would start it at zero, and very rarely they would get to an 8 on my personal scale.
Today, there are many blogs and message boards out there and one has to be extremely careful what one listens to, what one accepts. There are many who never walked any walk but will gladly tell you what you should do, for no other reason than their personal self interest. It is up to you to sort between the good and the bad. It is up to you to choose who you listen to, and who to give the time of day.
How do you find out who knows their stuff, who to seriously pay attention to? You have to read between the lines, look for hidden motives, look for personal agendas. When one says he is doing well you have to ask at what cost? How long did it take to do well? Is it scalable? How the operation looks like? What is the time invested? Is what they say can be repeated today? Is it fundamental or a timing issue? Is it even real? One important point to note, those who always have positive stories of what they say/promote are the ones to ALWAYS question and question hard. There are always two sides to any issue, the good and the bad, and if a person cannot understand this, he is likely there to sell you into something rather then help you learn something. I remember at DRT last year (Seattle) I was on stage with a number of reps from other companies and one question was about development. While I said a person can approach our company for development partnership opportunities, in the same sentence I also said there are other companies in the marketplace, even those who were on stage with me, who may be of equal help. My focus was to help others, not just help myself.
If you choose to take an advice from someone, my advice, if you choose to take it, is to make sure you ask, and ask a lot.
Source: Posted on TheConceptualist by Sahar Sahid -- Reprinted with permission -- May 4, 2008