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The Jig is Up!

AroundTheWorld

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I can only imagine how it would feel to be verbally attacked the way RK has. I can also imagine that it would be difficult and tiring to face nay-sayers and you-can't-do-that-ers day after day and still mantain a positive attitude. Some people would certainly harden over the years - or stop communicating tactfully....

Actually, I guess I have done that occasionally - with regards to strangers feeling the need to make comments to me about my decision to homeschool. I get tired of hearing, "what about socialization" over and over again and I am occasionally tempted to reply with a not-so-tactful remark.

Having said that, business is business and a business that wants to thrive needs to take care of and nurture the community that develops around their product/service. The Art of the Start has a great section about this under branding. Review Here. RK failed to do that - and his business will suffer because of it.
 
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Russ H

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JonLee-

Interesting points. I think we all left AZ this year asking ourselves why RK had acted the way he did.

I guess I came up with a different conclusion:

That the RK who writes the books is not exactly what he is like, in person.

The book writer is sanitized-- open, ecumenical, non-prejudiced, and warm.

The guy we met was bitter, angry, and very insulting to all kinds of different people.

*********

Here's the thing:

I've met my share of celebs, billionaires, and indian chiefs in my life (I worked with them on projects). Almost to the last, these were folks who would get blasted in a Tabloid magazine at least a few times a year, or (even worse), papers like the New York Times or the Wall St Journal.

Millions of people fed on these articles, gobbling up all kinds of lies and twisted truths.

It was normal for me to meet someone who the media had painted as an ogre and find them to be not only charming, but incredibly big-hearted and kind. Deep-down good people, to the core.

So I often asked myself why? Why did these people have such nasty things written about them?

I even asked a few of my clients, once I felt that they knew me well enough to know I wasn't going to peddle their story to the press.

Their answers amused and delighted me: What bad press? (wink) They preferred to look at all the positive things out there, and pretty much kept the negative stuff off the radar.

When I told one of them that I was going through a similar hard time, and needed advice, he said, "Russ, sometimes you've got to grit your f***ing teeth, put your head down, and work through it. And don't take it personally."

I can't tell you how many times that advice came in handy in my quasi-famous life.

In my industry, there were a select few folks in power who, to put it mildly, hated my guts and wanted to see me out of business. These people had learned early on that destroying was so much easier than building/growing. So they kept their precarious positions of power by destroying others.

Sick, but there you go.

I had a choice: Become a bitter, embattled mess, struggling to keep my business alive.

Or, rise above it, dwell on the positive, wink at the negativity, and keep my focus: working to help others.

I'm sure Robert and Kim have had their share of vicious criticism and pain. And I'm sure that some of it has affected them, even if just a little bit, on a personal level.

But that's no reason to attack and demean people you *know* are your supporters. In my professional life, I've never met anyone who has succeeded to RK's level who returned kindness and admiration with the vitriol we were subjected to.

Kindness and respect cost nothing. A little of each can bear much fruit.

A good investment, if you will.

But that's just my opinion. I don't expect others to embrace it.

But I can tell you that I choose to hang around those that do.

It makes for a much more fulfilling and joyful life. :)

-Russ H.
 

Russ H

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Update:

Wow-- looking at the HUGE drop off since Nov 1, I had to check out richdad.com's home page.

This is what RK has as his landing page right now (no joke!)

Looks like he's getting exactly what he wanted (no one wasting time on the internet, specifically, his site!)

How sad. :(

-Russ H.
 

biophase

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Another huge mistake that they made was that they didn't redirect the old forum URL to the new forum. I clicked my bookmark and got a 404, I think. I deleted my bookmark and haven't been to the forum since. Out of sight, out of mind. If I don't see it in my favorites, I don't think to visit it. In fact, I totally forgot about the forum until this post reminded me.

I still can't understand the thinking behind the new forum color scheme. Why make it blue/gray? Richdad has never ever had blue/gray in their branding. This kind of stuff just makes me wonder who's running things over there.

LOL, do you see the sigs that they allow? Some are as long as paragraphs and longer than the posts. And with that crappy line dividing them, you can't tell where the post ends and the sig starts.
 
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Jonleehacker

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You're right Bio. Not employing proper redirects when changing URLs like they did is about the Internet equivalent of jumping off a bridge (as shown in the chart).

Even what used to be the main forum page, just gives an error now. http://forum.richdad.com/ That's like owning a Starbucks franchise and not unlocking the front door.

Funny, it was the first thing that I advised them to take care of in March when they were talking about the change to the forum.

They also really dropped the ball on the affiliate program. They sent an email out to all affiliates telling them that they needed to change the links to reflect the new URLs. But it would have been much smarter for RichDad team to just do proper redirects for the 100 or 200 products, rather than expect 100s of affiliates to change code on 10s of thousands of web pages.

Me personally I just deleted all my Rich Dad affiliate links, it simply wasn't worth the trouble. This could also be accounting for a large drop in traffic, all the broken affiliate links that are to much trouble to update.

It's sad to me, why this is happing, I can only guess that you're right Russ, it is a reflection of Robert's attitude towards the Internet.
 

Jonleehacker

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Since they changed the URL, the graph you posted is incomplete because it only shows richdad.com which did, just like the graph shows, drop off the edge of the earth, however is was replaced with richglobal.com. So to get true look at their traffic it would be more like this:

graph


You can see the 4 days or so that they were down. The scary part is how dramatically it is going downhill now that the new site has "stabilized." Meaning market reaction doesn't seem to be favorable.
 
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kimberland

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In my industry, there were a select few folks in power who, to put it mildly, hated my guts and wanted to see me out of business. These people had learned early on that destroying was so much easier than building/growing. So they kept their precarious positions of power by destroying others.

I hear you Russ.
The hate comes with anyone trying to shake up the status quo.
You want to be "loved" then do the same ol' same ol'.

I'm getting a bit of that in the lovely world of romance writing
(okay, more than a bit).
What?
I actually want to have a resource page in my novels?
How dare I!
LOL

What?
I PAY for a pre-editor
(not to be slurred together too quickly)?
That's the publisher's job.

It is getting to the point that I test ideas on established writers.
If they hate it, then it interests me.
 
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LightHouse

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Russ:

I sort of understand what you're saying.:iagree:

But I thought that was what we were here for.

Suzy doesn't understand buying mortgages...REIPro steps in and helps her.:chatter:
I don't understand stocks...someone else helps me.:3some:

I don't see how REIPro helping Suzy hurts him.
It isn't a zero-sum game.:nonod:

While I realize the internet and book writing are different than REI, the principle is the same to me.

Sort of like when you did "Trading Spaces: B&B".
Did it hurt you or help?:smx3:

I guess my main point is that if anyone else on this board had asked for help with improving a site's ranking they'd have been met with open arms and plenty of suggestions.:cheers:
I wish we could do the same with John.

Just to re-hop in here since this stood out. You are not comparing apples to apples with these two situations. REIpro can help suze buy an investment becasue she is not next door (IE: the same market) When you are discussing internet forums or companies they are all in the same market because the internet is everywhere. I would not tell someone about an awesome legit investment that was next door without grabbing it myself, if i did... everyone would thik its a scam (not that that has and relevence here or not).

Just trying to clear the air of the diffrence in helping people and giving sound advice.
 

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