I get asked over and over..

Who Do You Know? 

How Many People Do You Know?

How Many People Do You Have In You Contact List?

Naturally, these type of questions are not readily answered without first asking a few questions of my own.  What my line of questioning leads to is a list of explanations on why they need this information.

The one explanation that has recently popped up more than a few times is the statement that includes..

“..just doing a little social media and am interested in finding people with a large list of contacts of business owners I could send messages to about my business opportunity.”

Wrong Way Social Media

If these incidents were isolated to one individual or even two that were distanced between large amounts of time, I would write it off as an individual’s misguided attempt to 2nd and 3rd tier market through their business network.  However, these incidences are now numbering in over a dozen in the last month.  This naturally lead me to start looking into what is behind these requests to get to my contacts.

What I found was yet another “somebody” or several “somebody’s” advising these people, either through consulting them or in seminars, that they have a  more “effective method of social media that really work”.  As I drill down to the root of the methods they are told to use I found the real reason these people are accepting this type of approach of setting up a Spamming operation.

In several cases where I sat the person down to ask.. “Really, You truly believe that is the best method of social media?” I found the overpowering reason behind the need for these individuals to build a contact list from other’s contact list was pure desperation.

The Wrong Word is Out

What these smiling faced people are being told is social media, in its true form, is a complete waste of time.   They are painted a vivid picture of social media being only a “geek’s approach” to attempting to “play with the big dogs” of business.  They are told blogging and carrying on in social networking groups makes them look “foolish”.  And the time spent attempting to build trust with a stranger online could be better spent gathering emails and phone numbers of people they can send “real Information” that generates sales.

They are also told that if they do participate online it should only be focused towards driving large volumes of viewers to their “Buy Page” and to not show any personal presence.  This “not showing your face” directive seems to be a another reoccurring theme recently.

I really hate that there are so many people taking the reverse approach to consulting on social media and taking the more untrustworthy approach to developing business.  I really hate they are calling their way of business development is the “True Social Media”.  This does nothing but make the recent business climate worst and does not really help anyone.

Hope you don’t fall for this approach that seems to be going around the offline and now online social and business networking groups.   My request would be if you have been approached by one of these fools and you feel giving them your contact list is a great idea..please take me off your contact list before you give it to them..Thank You.

Let me know how I can help.