A colleague, MA, recently referred several potential clients to me.

When I thanked him, he said: “No need to thank me. When you do a good job for my clients, you make me look good — and that’s all the thanks I need!”

I give my clients referrals to other vendors I know and trust for the same reason MA does: to help my clients.

Tha’s why it shocks me when vendors approach me and say: “Send business to us and we’ll give you a referral fee.”

I always refuse such arrangements, for two reasons.

First, I consider it my duty to my clients to refer them to the best vendor for the job — not the one who pays me.

And second, clients come to me for objective, unbiased advice. If I am getting a kick-back from the vendor, how objective can my advice to use their services be?

So I never accept referral fees from vendors … nor do I pay fees to get referrals.

Do you agree with me that paying for referrals is wrong? Or am I missing the boat on this one?

Here’s another example of (to me) inappropriate rage caused by Internet marketing:

“I am ANGRY,” said LE in a voice mail he left me. “I ordered your World’s Best-Kept Copywriting Secrets, but instead of getting a BOOK, I get some computer file I have to download.

“I don’t want to read your book on the computer screen. I want a BOOK I can hold in my hands. Either send me the book or cancel my order.”

Well, here’s the copy from the landing page where LE ordered the book:

“The World?s Best-Kept Copywriting Secrets … is an e-book. There?s no printing or shipping cost. The e-book is delivered as a downloadable PDF file.”

What part of that do you think was unclear to LE? This wasn’t in fine print or a footnote, either. It was part of the sales letter.

Of course, I gave LE back his money.

The lesson for those of us selling information online?

Make the format VERY clear in your copy. Specify whether your information is an e-book, e-course, MP3, audio CD, DVD.

But LE, if you’re reading this — don’t you feel your “anger” was perhaps a tad inappropriate, given that I clearly told you it was an ebook you were ordering?

BTW, LE, you don’t have to read an e-book on the computer screen. You can hit the print button, print it on your laser printer, and read a hard copy. I do that with all the e-books I buy, punch three holes in the print out, and store it in a 3-ring binder.

AN, a Web designer, seems to think so.

The other day he sent me an e-mail saying he enjoys my books — but that my Web site, www.bly.com, is crappy and poorly designed.

He never bothers to ask first whether the Web site is working — or how much money it is making for me — issues that apparently don’t concern him nearly as much as the fact that I don’t use a CMS (content management system) or that my pages are in HTML, something he doesn’t like.

Of course, for a fee, Web designer AN can fix it for me — and make it much better. Or so he says.

Let me ask those of you, especially those of you who either (a) have Web sites or (b) provide services….

How would you rate sending potential clients an e-mail criticizing what they’re doing, and then offering your own services to fix it, as a marketing strategy — good, bad, or terrible? And why?

I’m not a spammer: I don’t send e-mails promoting my products unless people opt into my list.

Occasionally, though, people think I am spamming them: they either didn’t opt into the list and somehow got my e-mail by accident (how I have no idea) — or more likely opted into my list but forgot they did so or did not recognize my name in the from line.

What shocks me is that this (to me) mild inconvenience — a person getting an e-mail he doesn’t want and can delete with the click of a mouse — prompts unbelievably outraged and rude responses.

Example: “You #$&*&(#$! STOP SENDING ME THIS CRAPPY EMAILS FOR YOUR IDIOT STUFF YOU LOUSY SPAMMING SCUMBAG!!”

Is this an appropriate or acceptable reaction? No. Not even if you ARE being spammed.

A few months ago, a waiter in a restaurant tripped and literally spilled a bowl of drippy, stinky cole slaw all over my head.

Did I swear, rant, or rave?

No: I told the (visibly upset) young man, “No problem, accidents happen.”

But the person who told me to go #$&#*& myself because he received an e-mail he didn’t want apparently doesn’t think accidents happen — or that even if they do, the victim should be graceful and abide by the accepted rules of behavior in polite society.

What do you think? Was my e-mail correspondent way out of line? Or do you react the same way to things you don’t like when online?

I am writing an article about the state of copywriting and the freelance copywriting business today.

I have one question for you: would you advise a teenager today to pursue copywriting as a profession? Why or why not?

To me, a Know-It-All is someone who feels compelled to tell you his opinion — except he states it as fact.

Example: I recently sent an e-mail to my list announcing a tele-seminar I was leading.

TB, a reader, quickly e-mailed me back to let me know his displeasure with my choice of a tele-seminar as a way to convey my content: “Put it in print. Nobody wants to sit and listen to blather.”

Hey, TB: if “no one” wants to listen, and everybody wants to read, why do thousands of people attend tele-seminars, Webinars, and live lectures every day of the year?

What TB is missing is that HE might prefer reading, but others may not. He SHOULD have said: “Is there a print version available? I like to read, not listen.”

TB, people learn in 4 different ways:

1. Reading.
2. Listening (audio).
3. Seeing (video).
4. Experiencing (workshops and training).

Most of us learn through multiple modalities, and most of us have one or two we prefer.

JF seems to think so.

He was one of the people on my list who received my e-mail with the subject line: “Do you know these response-boosting secrets?”

The e-mail linked to a page where I was selling an audio learning program titled “Ultimate Direct Response Secrets.”

“When I was starting out, you were one of the people I admired and touted as a great source of information on marketing,” complained JF. “Recently, you’ve become a tireless shill for products purporting to show how to make money on the Internet.”

JF says that in my e-mail, you “offer to reveal the answers … and then direct me to a Web site that offers no answers other than to shill for yet another of your products that will contain the answers.”

He then asks: “What happened to giving some stuff away for free?”

JF is of the school that says all information on the Internet should be free.

He also seems to think that selling information products online is inherently sleazy.

What do YOU think? Am I a scum-bucket like JF says? Or is it perfectly OK for me to e-mail people on my opt-in lists notifying them of my new information products?

P.S. Had JF Googled “Bob Bly,” he would have come to my main Web site with about 50 free articles on all aspects of marketing. He also gets my monthly e-newsletter packed with marketing tips, for which he pays nothing.

Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, says: “For companies to survive, they will have to become experts at confusing the public into thinking their generic products are better than their competitors’ generic products.”

In this statement, Adams implies that (1) the goal of advertising is obfuscation rather than education and (2) your product is really no better than your competitors’ products.

Do you think he’s right? Or does your marketing operate on a higher level?