I am starting to see a very disturbing trend that I am seeing at forums that I really feel needs to be discussed at some length because failure to understand this can lead a lot of people down a rocky road. I'm talking about the folks who come to forums and ask for critiques for their web site, sales page, article or whatever it may be that they've put together. If you do this, and do it often, do you REALLY know how much that critique is worth? If not, or you're not sure, you might want to read this article.

Okay, John Doe comes to a public forum and starts a thread, "Please Critique My Site." In fact, there's one going on over at the Warrior Forum right now. Here is the problem with threads like this and what I think a lot of people don't realize.

A public forum is just that...public. That means anybody and their grandmother can come and give advice. When you go to the forum and ask for a critique for whatever it is you've done, do you know anything about the people who are giving it? Are they successful or are they miserable failures? Do they have actual knowledge of what you're doing or are they just giving an opinion? You know what they say about opinions. Everybody has one. But how much are they worth?

It's way too easy to ask for a critique of a sales letter and get some John Doe coming along and saying something like, "I don't like long sales copy...I think you should shorten it." Does he have any idea how well long sales copy converts in certain situations and why it's so effective? If you were to take his advice, would you be potentially destroying any chance you had of converting?

Hopefully, there will be some professionals who know their business who will come to your thread and give you some solid advice. But there is never any guarantee of that and even if they did, do you know who they are? It's not like members of forums have signs painted on them..."Hey, I know what I'm talking about." Many talk a good game but don't know squat, so you have to be very careful.

I'm not saying not to go to forums and ask for critiques of your work. You have to get some kind of feedback from somewhere or you'll never have even a clue as to how good or bad your effort is. But for goodness sake, please take that critique with a grain of salt. Sure, if 99 out of 100 people say you're sales letter is garbage, there's a pretty good chance that it is. But it's just that...a chance. If you want to know for certain, hire a professional copywriter to look over your sales letter. Then you will know for sure.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Author SIG

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