Free Courses, Content And Culture Scams

Cindy King — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 23:00:36 +0000

I just started a brief course in French for both copywriting and article writing. The course is only available through email subscription. There are a couple of dozen people signed up for both the copywriting and the article marketing courses.

This is something I’m doing totally free and is not in any way used to build my business. It’s just that I live in France and I get questions about what I do. And anyone remotely linked to internet then gets excited and wants to learn more about copywriting.

My French company is new and takes up all of my time. The French courses simply make it easy to answer everyone’s questions.

The differences in culture still surprises me. I’m still very much North American even if I’ve lived in Europe longer now than I lived in the Bahamas.

I didn’t want to advertise my free French email courses. I was also hoping to find a French person, eager, friendly, “benevole”, no strings attached and interested in copywriting to proofread my French courses. The courses are on my free time after all.

I find this really strange. Many top level North American internet marketers and a few great copywriters organize unpaid internships. These are often great successes for both the interns and the internet marketers or copywriters. The internet marketers get much of their tedious work outsourced for free. The novice interns learn how to do everything to start business themselves. They learn insider tips and it’s a valuable experience.

This is also how I was able to learn so much so quickly. I did not participate in a full blown internet marketing internship. But I’ve had a few opportunities on smaller projects. With my North American culture I was absolutely overjoyed at the opportunity of working alongside A-level copywriters. I changed my schedule to fit theirs. There were no brakes on anywhere in my mind. It was all go.

But French mentality is different. There are automatic brakes. They seem to be cautious of being exploited. They only want to do things on their terms, in their own free time. Their reaction is often one of, well I guess I’ll do you a favor, but you need to give me ten times more back. And don’t even mention the notion of making money. Even more cultural barriers pop up high immediately.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by the lack of outright joy at the possibility of proof reading my copywriting courses. When I first came to France over 20 years ago, the French news reporters always highlighted France’s pride in their right to strike. Even when the rest of the country was paralyzed in train strikes or truckers strikes and small businesses floundered directly because of this. I could go on with other comparisons: the 35 hour work week when companies are closing down and business is moving to other countries. Who puts their European headquarters in France anymore?

But what struck me this morning was another cultural difference between French and North American cultures.

First let me tell you what happened a while back. I had a long conversation with an American business owner. A mid-sized company with a new product he wanted to export. After only a short while, I told him his product was one he would have a hard time selling in France.

He was surprised I could say something this. Why? It was an online editing product. If a French person liked it, he would copy the idea and do it himself without buying it. The American business owner said he had already several reports of company’s “pirating” his product and now he understood why.

Why did I bring this story up? Well the number of course participants signed up is still small enough. When I get their email notification I sometimes have a look to see who signed up and what they are doing on the internet.

This morning I had a very obvious French scammer sign up. Lies, lies and misrepresentation all over the internet about this guy. It is very obvious he is stealing other peoples content and using false names of his own. It doesn’t look like he is making any money. His internet marketing is bad. He’s hustling online.

I wonder if people realize just how easy it is to find out who you really are on the internet. I did it in under 5 minutes. I found the name and full address on the credit card he used to buy his web hosting. I also found the names he has used on the different articles he has submitted online as well as the probable original content author.

Of course I wonder where and how he will misrepresent my own content from the free email course. It also makes me wonder just how much free stuff I want to give away in such a “cultural” environment.

I create lots of content published here. There is even more content on Get International Clients. Of course I monitor each and every one of my articles. I can see the internet marketing scammers who think my articles work for them with inserted keyword links on insurance and other totally unrelated topics. I think these scammers often leave my website address in the articles because they are so visible.

This guy that signed up was something different. The lies and misrepresentation were beyond obvious bad links.

Article marketing is a great tool for online businesses. It gives you lots of online visibility fast. The trouble is, it makes it easy to see everything you do. The good, the bad and the ugly. False names, false addresses, false representations. If you cheat online anyone can see it…and real fast.

Will I still send this guy the free e-course? Sure. But I’m doing two things:

tracking the percentage of “bad” subscribers, I want to do my own “cultural” study on scammers
moderating content so the real interesting content I have to share will be done in another format and only for the people seriously interested in copywriting and article marketing.

Why persist in free French copywriting courses? I really would love to create a good “Peer Review” group for copywriting in French with French web copywriters. I moderate “Peer Review” groups for copywriting in English and I love it. Everyone learns and progresses in the groups.

Oh, and you know what..? The “Peer Review” groups I moderate right now…I do them for free.

That’s right.

I’m North American.

Different cultures.

Cindy King's International Business Blog » free courses

Free Courses, Content And Culture Scams

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