My freelancer friend who got me all depressed about spending 10+ hours on a post while she churns out short posts for lots of money mentioned her great strategy about faking it. No, we’re not talking about faking it in bed. We’re talking about faking having any idea what you are talking about until you know what you are talking about to gain authority.
Here are some great examples of where she’s faked it:
She writes articles about how to become a millionaire while only having a $350,000 net worth.
She writes articles on retirement without being retired.
She writes online brokerage articles without having ever used any of them.
She writes credit card review articles without ever swiping the cards she’s writing about.
She writes about owning vacation property without even owning her own property.
She writes about when to invest without ever demonstrating a proper track record.
CAN’T ARGUE WITH BIG BUCKS
My friend is incredibly successful by any measure. She pulled in over $125,000 in 2012 and expects her business to grow by another 20% in 2013 given her higher asking prices due to tremendous demand. All was fine and dandy until she revealed to me that she feels “a little guilty.”
“Sam, I know I make a really good income for me and my family, but I can’t help feel bad for writing under the premise that I’m an authority when I really just aggregate information from the internet to write topics I’m not too familiar with,” she said. “I mean, how am I supposed to know what retirement is like when I’m still working every day and haven’t even broken a net worth of $500,000? Thankfully, none of my clients or my clients’ readers really question my background.”
She went on to explain how she started. “All it took was faking it once to get my big break and get published in a large publication. For credibility, all I have to do point my prospective clients to that article and then they want to hire me in a jiffy! Now I’ve got a great portfolio of clients and can barely keep up.”
On the one hand, I admire Nancy for being able to make six figures freelancing. It really does seem like anybody can make six figures a year if they want to. On the other hand, as a blogger who writes from experience, I find it perturbing that clients and readers can be so easily assuaged into accepting content that is not from someone who knows what she is talking about.
SO WHAT SHOULD WE DO?
Any journalist can tell you that their expertise is writing, reporting, and uncovering a story. Their job is not to be an expert about the subject they are writing about. Freelancers are very similar in nature until they start writing editorial about what to do about so and so topic. Given readers don’t want to read blogs for the news, freelancers have been forced to share opinions about the news as any good blogger should do.
I’ve always encouraged bloggers to write about what they know, and leave what they don’t know to the people that do know. My engineering friends from business school suffered this type of reality a lot. Given they were usually the smartest people in the class room in terms of GMAT scores, grades, math and science, they figured they could parlay their smarts into finance, investing, marketing, and leadership. They were in for a rude awakening post graduation. Writing about what you know is the only way to flourish in the long run because eventually you’ll burn out or your readers will realize you don’t really know what you are talking about.
At the same time, pontification is a wonderful exercise. Before I retired, I wrote an article called, “The Dark Side Of Early Retirement.” It was great to provide an opinion about the negativity early retirement can bring: perceived failure, perceived laziness, running out of money, the loss of self-respect, depression and so forth. I ended up learning so much from the reader’s 200+ comments and now I’ve got a mammoth post coming up on the subject after almost a year of early retirement.
The skillset for freelancers/journalists and bloggers is different. It is very rare that a freelancer or journalist has a thriving blog, just like it is very rare for a popular blogger to have a thriving freelance/journalism career. There has to be an element of “fake it until you make it” in the beginning. I just encourage folks to stop faking sooner rather than later if they don’t want to go numb.
Readers, what are your thoughts about faking it? Why do we fake it instead of gain the expertise first and then write? Is it OK to write about what we don’t understand in order to make a living? Do you think if everybody wrote only about what they do understand, the web would be much better with much higher quality articles?
Photo: Purple Cauliflower Is Real, SF Farmer’s Market, 2013, SD.
Regards,
Sam
That is a great question that you pose Sam. In my opinion there is no “right” answer. I agree that content is far more engaging when the person writing has lived it. However, I don’t think that a person cannot be knowledgeable without first-hand experience. For example, the coach of my local Utah Jazz just ripped into the media for the criticism they have expressed about his team. He argued that the media “has never done anything at this level in their lives” . His assessment was that they were not qualified to speak about the performance of the team because they have never been NBA players. However, just because they are not former NBA players does not mean that they don’t understand basketball; one of the most successful NBA general mangers, Daryl Morey, did not play professional basketball either.
In regards to your friend, she does her research. By her own admission she “aggregates” information from around the web. By default this means that she is reading a lot of articles on the subject that most people don’t take the time to read. In my opinion, this qualifies her as someone that has above average knowledge of those subjects and she is therefore “qualified” to write about them.
Good analogy on the NBA coach ripping reporters. I side with the coach though. The media can put a sock in it if they’ve never managed a team or played competitive basketball. The media is usually criticizing and annoying someone when they can’t do better.
Good question Sam, I think people fake it because they are writing about the life they would like to have. Also, in your friends case it allows her to make a significant amount of money faking it. I don’t necessarily think it is the right thing to do but if she is providing useful information that is find. There are many real estate agents suggesting people buy homes when they don’t own any property. Similar situation.
Well, the great thing about being a journo is you don’t need to know EVERYTHING – that’s why you talk to sources, though obviously the more informed you are, the better.
As a blogger, I often write about topics I have no expertise in for clients (and sometimes, topics I have no interest in). I enjoy learning new things along the way. Do I feel bad about it? Not particularly – I have the research and writing skills, which are just as important for most GENERAL topics.
As they say, having a wide knowledge base plus a deep area of specialty makes it hard to go wrong!
Good point about bringing in resources to buttress a story. If you are a journalist/freelancer, the most important skills are writing and researching indeed.
From a blogger’s point of view, I think it’s important to write from knowledge and experience b/c it is so easy for readers to just click away and read from someone who has been there and done that.
If writers only wrote what they knew, we’d have very few articles indeed. I like to research and write about topics I know little about. As long as you provide documentation and some good links to experts in the area, I think you’re expanding your own knowledge and the reader’s at the same time.
I actually think there would still be TONS of articles.
What we would have is a great elimination of the majority of the incessant overlap and noise in any niche.
I do think it is interesting to write about new things though. From a reader’s perspective, I would rather read about a new thing I’m interested in learning about from a writer who knows what they are writing about.
It’s about putting ourselves in the reader’s shoes.
Some people are great at faking it. They Google a topic and then regurgitate the main points of the top five hits. IMHO, this is why so many blog posts read as if they were written off the same list of talking points. The problem with this as I see it, is that it forces you to be more of a marketer than a writer. You have to aggressively promote your blog and/or other writing in order to bring in the money. Outside of that promotion, you don’t stand out at all from the rest of the writers. If they can make money doing this and aren’t maddeningly bored by the marketing instead of writing, then good for them.
I would point out that any good blogger is always learning new things and blogging about them. I write about finance and investing. All of which is self taught. I often write about things that I just learned or am still in the process of mastering. So this almost by definition is a type of faking it. But I consider the act of writing and the conversations that follow to be an integral part of my training. With luck, I’ll be able to continue to bring ever more useful posts to my blog, providing my readers with more in depth and actionable information than just the same half dozen tired talking points. But I’m not trying to career shift to blogging, so I can feel free to take my writing wherever I want it to go, regardless of how long that takes.
If you are not serious about growing your blog to the point of sustainable income, I agree, there’s really no need to be so focused in your writing. At the end of the day, blogging is a hobby for most of us anyway so it’s no big deal.
For those who are serious about becoming professional bloggers, writing without experience is not going to last over the long term b/c readers can tell and will simply go elsewhere.
I don’t think any blogger that I’ve come across can claim to be an expert in every topic they’ve written about. For me, at times, writing a post about a topic I’m eager to learn more about and doing the research etc.. to learn and write about the topic is part of the fun.
As long as you don’t misrepresent yourself and are able to add value to the topic I see no harm in writing about things you aren’t an “expert” in.
You make a good point about representation. If one isn’t an “expert” or experienced at the topic at hand, all one has to do is write a disclaimer at the bottom. The problem lies when we pretend to know what we are talking about. Then sh*t sometimes hits the fan.
This was an incredibly captivating and engaging title. The point by point of her exploits easily grabbed me into reading the story. Job well done on that.
I actually tried the “fake it till you make it” and have incorporated it into several writing ventures. Although my definition is far different from aggregating information others have written. Rather, I use the degree I have, the years of experience and write what i am passionate about – my ideas and what I see. It really comes down to reminding my readers that my blog is just an outlet for my ideas. It is not attempting to be coming from an expert, nor is it attempting to solve the worlds problems.
I don’t see anything wrong with what is being presented here. It sounds as though she works hard to compile information from the web and redistribute it using her own writing style and perspective. I don’t believe it’s realistic to say you can only write about things you have personal experience with. Having the personal experience may give you more credibility but that’s up for the reader to determine.
If we go this route we are basically saying people can’t comment or write about things like professional sports, politics, or Hollywood (or whatever else) because they’ve never played, ran for office or acted in a film. That seems silly to me.
She talked to me about her guilt hence this topic.
I think it’s important to differentiate between reporting the news (as you comment on) and being a blogger who provides advice or opinions on financial matters. You’re free to write about stuff you don’t have a firm grasp on. I’d be curious to see how it goes down the road.
I post 3 or 4 times a week on my personal finance blog and I have no idea what I am talking about. I think that is what people like about it. The blog is my personal learning tool and people can learn along with me or at least learn from my mistakes.
I am not an expert and I let people know but I would read a well researched article by someone else who is not an expert in the subject.
What do you think about the premise for an upcoming project. It’s a big project that’s going to get a lot of attention. I’m writing a book with three parts. I know and live by part 1. I’m 50/50 on part 2. I’m winging it on part 3. However, I’m totally open and honest about where I am in my own work. Is that still faking it?
If you’re open and honest about what you don’t know then I think it’s great. If you write from a stance of authority about something you don’t know then you’ll probably lose your readers or not get the conversions you want.
Do you want to read a book about the Chicago Bulls Six championships by a reporter or by Jordan? Depends on the writing quality and how the author approaches the subject. Both could be good, but each author has to own their authority in a different way. The reporter can’t pretend to write about how he felt takings the last second shot just like Jordan can’t write about a reporter’s experience to lock down a juicy scoop.
There’s a difference between writing about a topic and pretending to be an expert, and being open about being inexperienced on something and creating discussions around it. I think it’s better to speak from your own experience and be honest with people. There are a lot of people who write about things they are totally unfamiliar with and most of the time it shows. I think those folks who don’t try to be someone they’re not are better off and gain much more respect.
Well said Sydney. It’s sometimes a lot of fun to write and read posts that are “winged” because it might highlight holes both sides may have never thought about.
It’s all about disclaimers and how we position ourselves for sure.
On one hand, she does do a good job and obviously if she was delivering mistruths or writing poor quality, she wouldn’t get the business. On the other hand, there are plenty of people who are probably really experts about certain topics who never got that ‘break’ and what if they would have got that initial break that opened the door for her instead? Would they have had the success instead of perhaps tolling away at 5% of the income that she makes? Would she have had to go down a different road or actually become an expert and not fake it? Did she make her break or did she luck out, I guess that’s the question? Or does it even matter?
The moral of the post is that everybody has to fake it a little bit to get ahead because the people who are already ahead faked it at some point and now they are looked upon as authorities.
It’s one thing to know something well. It’s another thing to deliver the message (marketing). Marketing well is often more important than having the best product!
You bring up a great analogy. Your friend functions much like a journalist. She isn’t an expert at all those things; she’s an expert at writing useful articles that she can get paid for. I don’t see a real problem with that.
I wouldn’t make the claim that formal education or a job in the field is mandatory to write about a topic. I doubt I’d get a lot of readers if I talked about C++ all day and drew schematics. And where do you stop? Licenses for people to talk about different things?
Hopefully people can see through the smokescreen if someone pontificates about topics they don’t know. However, even informal experience in something, perhaps with a track record, is enough for me.
Yes, we should encourage the government to create a new division to create new legislation that only allows writers/bloggers/journalists who have the government certification credential to be able to write about so and so topic!
We’re banning big sodas, so why not have government oversight on what we can write? :)
I write about stuff I have limited experience with all the time. But I’m not trying to be informative in those cases but weighing in with my perspective based on what I know. I don’t hide the fact that I’m not an expert and will say so up front.
Also, have you actually had the purple cauliflower? My store recently started carrying it, and I think that is going to be my next un-budgeted buy.
What is interesting about your question is that you can get away with “faking” it. I would like to think it would become obvious over time. This is one of the shortcomings of the internet and blogging. Someone can hold themselves out as an expert and the reader has to figure it out. Professional journalist probably view this flaw as very serious. The other side of the question is the “real” experts are not as successful which is unfortunate. Over time, these injustices should even out!
[…] Is Fake It Until You Make It A Good Strategy? at Yakezie (about building authority in your field as a beginning writer) EmailPrint […]
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with writing about topics in which you’re not an expert as long as you clearly state that you’re not an expert (or haven’t lived the experience you’re talking about). If you claim to be a millionaire and are not that’s a totally different story and makes you lose readers and credibility.
I tend to agree with you that if you can’t back up what you say with some facts/performance then you’ll get found out pretty quickly and your readers will discover you are not very authentic. Its also hard to write for any great length of time in a sustained passionate way if you aren’t familar with the subject matter and just copying and pasting highlights from elsewhere.
I think the key is to be HONEST, above all else. It’s one thing to say, “Hey, I’m not a millionaire yet, but I do believe that I have some worthy pointers about how to get there.” It’s another thing entirely to pretend to be a millionaire when you’re not.
Is not writing “How to be a millionaire” without being a millionaire pretending though?
I have to admit I have come across some articles on investing that are very generic and do not offer a lot of education or strategy when it comes to investing only to find that the website is one of the top sites out there. Honestly in my experience I have found people would rather be told something they already know than taught something that requires them to think.
You’ve got some great investment related articles Marvin. Keep it up!
[…] It’s almost impossibly hard for people to make it through the screens we put up. You see, your biases make you dismiss people out of hand for their current success. However, if they aren’t yet in the ‘promised land’ of fitting the description? You’re probably biased against listening to them since they aren’t yet experts! […]
[…] It’s almost impossibly hard for people to make it through the screens we put up. You see, your biases make you dismiss people out of hand for their current success. However, if they aren’t yet in the ‘promised land’ of fitting the description? You’re probably biased against listening to them since they aren’t yet experts! […]