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Research First Ask Second

Publishing Profits Podcast: Research First, Ask Second

Today I was listening to the Publishing Profits Podcast Episode #54 with Betsy Talbot from Married with Luggage and they were talking about ridiculous people who ask them questions like this:

“How do I write an Ebook?”

“How can I leave everything and travel the world?”

The host of the podcast has written entire books on how to write Ebooks so how could he possibly answer that question in a minute or two or in an email?

Betsy Talbot has written entire books about leaving everything at 40 and travelling around the world so how could she possibly answer that question in a fast, easy way?

People ask me all the time about how they can invest their money. Or, how to get a university job in Korea. And, it’s like I’ve written entire books on it so it’s really hard for me to give people the answer that they want. And, it makes me think that they just want the easy answer and aren’t actually willing to put any effort whatsoever into finding out the answer by using the magic Google button. And, it actually makes me not want to help them at all because they’re just wasting my time.

A Wee Rant

The other day, I had someone send me an email about getting a university job in Korea. She sent me a list of about 50 questions and it was obvious that she had done absolutely no research about it before emailing me. I sent her a link to my book, which answered probably 45 out of the 50 questions, told her to read it and get back to me with any questions that it didn’t answer. I never heard from her again. Maybe for the better?

The Takeaway

Anyway, the takeaway from the podcast for me was to research first, ask second. I mean that before you consult the “expert” on something, at least use the magic Google button to find out the basic details of it and then ask the expert intelligent questions about things that can’t be found elsewhere. It’s maybe a lesson for life.

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