Some days, it’s just easier to not “people.”
A friend related an exchange she’d had with a freelancer. It was one of those freelancers who sets up shop and is now the Insta-Expert Flavor of the Month. Now he’s offering to answer your questions on the big, wide world of freelancing.
Forgive me if I’m not impressed.
We’ve seen this same song-and-dance routine before. “How I Made $5,000/$10,000/$20,000/$30,000 in My 1st Month of Freelancing” makes for a catchy title, but if one is paying attention, one will see a lot of luck (and a lot of BS) goes into that final number. It’s like the video that was sent to me last month in which the freelancer claimed to have made tons of money freelancing, and then mentioned that very same amount just lying around the bank account. Really? You didn’t eat? You didn’t spend a dime? What did you live on? Air?
Like I said, I’m not impressed.
And if you weren’t paying attention, you might have missed that clue. It was there, buried in the self-accolades. It might have been easy to miss as the “freelancer” trotted across the screen in a bikini, tossed her hair, and generally looked like she didn’t have to work at all, that the money just came flying in. That feeling in your gut right now? That’s intuition telling you that anyone working that hard to paint a rosy picture is loaded — just not with money.
The same goes for the pseudo-expert. Please. You’ve been in business for three months and you’re doling out advice? On what? How to send an email? I think it’s time we label this behavior for what it is:
Yet another attempt to separate you from your money.
I’ve seen it for years. Some of the more prolific pseudo-experts are blatant thieves (and have stolen from me and others who comment here). Some are just framing themselves as experts. All have the same goal — to get you to sign up and spend money on them.
[bctt tweet=”Beware the #freelance pseudo-expert, whose only goal is to separate you from your money. #freelancewriting” username=”LoriWidmer”]
Here’s how to spot a pseudo-expert:
Weak, inconsistent, or nonexistent proof of claims.
Imagine if you decided right now to tell everyone that you made $100,000 freelance writing last year. You could make a video that shows you how you’re enjoying all that money you’ve made — sitting by the pool and smiling a lot as you sip what looks like champagne. Imagine if you made more like $35,000, you’re at the public pool, and your “champagne” is fizzy water. You’ve not told one lie, but several. You let us believe through your claim that all that other stuff is high-end.
If no one is proving their claim, there’s no reason to believe it, no matter what the window dressing suggests.
“Killer advice” that’s been dead for a while.
In a few cases, some of these pseudo-experts have simply rewritten or stolen advice that has been around forever. Some of them will revise old posts and make it look like the NEXT BEST THING! they’re pushing is new. But eight paragraphs to say that one sentence that’s been said thousands of times by thousands of people isn’t new. “How to Boost Your Marketing Results!” with a one-sentence “reveal” akin to “Send more pitches!” isn’t helpful. It’s a waste of bandwidth.
Know-it-all attitude and persona.
Not long ago, I saw a pseudo-expert eviscerated on a Twitter chat when she tried coming off as all-knowing but came off smug and condescending. No one writer, no one professional, no one human has all the answers. The foolish ones are those who refuse to learn from others. Does that “expert” in front of you really know it all? Is his or her advice really all that unique? If it sounds bad, it probably is bad. Trust your gut.
The mask of Desperate Confidence
That’s my own term for what I’ve seen in some of the pseudo-experts. It’s the feeling that they’re desperately chummy with you, eager to paint your skies blue and erase your troubles, and confident that you’ll buy into it. I remember my first pseudo-expert. He was on Anne Wayman’s blog years ago, and he was desperately, confidently telling me all chummy and as smiling as a post can be that he was making $150K a year writing $5 articles for a content mill. The math he used to prove it kept changing, as did his claim. But man, did he turn on the confidence and charm, as if that would distract everyone from the obvious — that he was lying through his keyboard.
Dangling carrots. Always.
Every pseudo-expert I’ve known has glommed on to the idea that dangling tiny bits of information or even just the promise of information is a sound marketing method. For marketers who know what they’re doing, it can be an occasional win. But when it’s your only marketing game, it gets old fast.
“Freelance superstars reveal their top secrets to making $100,000 a year!” Sure, I’d read that. Oh wait. They want me to pay for a membership? Huh? Screw that. How do I know it’s going to reveal anything I don’t already know?
Because if it’s a pseudo-expert, it’s probably something you’ve seen already. Or written yourself (refer to the content thievery mention).
We are fortunate. We come with this inherent barometer that guides us through these choppy waters. It’s called intuition, gut feeling, instinct. Trust it. If you’re seeing something that sounds too easy, chase that nagging doubt down, look under the hood. Chances are, it’s just one more poser trying to convince you that your money is better left in their pocket.
Writers, what other traits have you seen in a pseudo-expert? Any particular examples you can share?
6 responses to “The Pseudo-Expert, Freelance Style”
“Because if it’s a pseudo-expert, it’s probably something you’ve seen already.”
This a million times over.
It’s a formula.
Someone new comes in, often after taking some online marketing course (or from a membership site teaching them to set up their own sans-expertise). They “curate” content from others with neither credit nor consent. And they target people with 10 minutes’ less experience than they themselves have, convincing them this advice is their own, and getting them to part with money for information already made available for free by legitimate experts.
The fact people keep falling for it blows my mind.
I know we’ve talked about these types for years, and I’m all too familiar with some of the offenders you’ve mentioned. But this reminds me of another example that’s a little different.
Quite some time ago I had a friend I was pretty close to. He was a lecturer in media studies. This was at a time when colleges and universities were just starting to teach about social media and blogging.
He didn’t really get social media yet beyond how kids were using it socially. Because I was one of the earliest social media specialists on the business front, he came to me to learn about how businesses could use it, how certain tools worked, how they fit into marketing & PR, and such (which wasn’t uncommon; I had PR professors reach out to do the same after finding my PR & social media blog of the time).
It bothered me seeing that people teaching the next generation about social media were so out of touch with it, but I was glad he and others were at least attempting to learn. In the end, we lost touch.
Fast forward 8 or 9 years, and we re-connected. But the experience was so different. He started “lecturing” me on social media, totally forgetting I was the one who taught HIM the things he was parroting. And worse, he had no idea things had drastically changed over the years.
But he was assured of himself to the point where if I dared to mention something had changed, or reminded him who helped him set up the blogs he was gloating about while telling me I should consider blogging (really??), he got defensive. It was as if he’d blocked all that out so he could fill the narrative in his head about doing it all on his own (and while his blog wasn’t bad, it also didn’t have much traffic, income, or anything else to write home about — more something he enjoyed, which is great in its own right, but hardly made him a master).
How could I, someone who’s actually worked in this area from its earliest days, possibly know what I’m talking about? There was a very misogynist bent to it too. And we lost touch again, and I won’t make that mistake again. It’s even more shocking now this is a guy teaching the next generation when he hadn’t updated his knowledge at all in nearly a decade, while sporting the confidence of a seasoned pro. Yikes.
We’re used to seeing this kind of thing in the freelance writing community because internet marketers tell every newbie than can make a boatload of money “looking like” an expert rather than actually becoming one. But it happens even without the sales pitch at times — sometimes more for ego. It’s always important to be aware of whom you’re learning from.
“It’s a formula.”
Yep. It’s a plagiaristic one at that. I’m dumbfounded by the same thing you are — how anyone can fall for this time and again. I suspect there’s a bit of laziness on the part of the people who buy into this. But is it really that hard to look for that information yourself? Hell, most of it is free with a simple internet search.
Wow. Amazing how the minute that guy got a modicum of understanding, he decided he was the expert. Bit of an insecurity showing there! I would be embarrassed to stand in front of a class of millennials and spew out my outdated wisdom every day. Wonder how often his students call him on it?
This is one of my favorite topics, Lori. It astounds me how many relatively new freelancers are willing to mine experienced freelancers for information (whether directly or through their blogs), then quickly repackage that information as a course they can sell to even newer freelancers.
It definitely pays to check these people out to see if what they’re saying stacks up. After a certain point, it’s hard to fake experience and, as for the earnings, it also pays to do the math.
Sharon, I think you and I were both taken in briefly by someone who did that. At that point, it was just a blog guest post, I believe. But it didn’t take long to see what was going on!
I think for me, the stopping point was when I was asked to write a chapter of this blogger’s book that she would then sell. And of course, I wasn’t to be paid.
“After a certain point, it’s hard to fake experience…” Exactly this. Eventually, the weaknesses show.
Those people aren’t freelancing or writing experts, they’re marketing experts. The bulk of their income likely comes from charging gullible newbies for their “expertise.”
One of the worst pseudo experts claimed, on her website, that she wrote for a major publication that’s been one of my top clients for a long time. I couldn’t recall ever seeing her byline. I asked when it was she’d written for them. “Oh, a few years ago.” Fortunately, the publication has an easily accessible, searchable, online archive where you can find articles dating back several decades. I ran her name through — zero hits. I sent her a private mention, saying I couldn’t find her name anywhere in the archives. She said she must have confused it with their rival publication. Riiiiiight. I strongly suggested she remove that false claim from her website. Which she did.
Liars lie. So it’s best to avoid them entirely.
Wow. That’s not only revealing about her character, Paula, but it reveals she wasn’t very smart. The internet has a loooong memory. Best to always be truthful in everything you say!