Last night while watch­ing TV, my wife and I had an inter­est­ing debate on the whole “The Secret” phe­nom­ena. And we came to the very same conclusions.

I believe in the law of attrac­tion. I also like the premise behind the book, which is largely influ­enced by Wally Wat­tles’ 1910 book, The Sci­ence of Get­ting Rich.

But with all the “new-​​wage” gurus out there giv­ing it a bad rap, the law of attrac­tion is get­ting an unde­served rep­u­ta­tion. Some peo­ple even call it the “flaw of attrac­tion.” How­ever, the real flaw isn’t with the secret in itself, as some suggested.

It’s with how some peo­ple have bas­tardized it for their own self­ish greed.

Here’s the problem…

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The FTC finally pub­lished its revi­sions to the 1980 tes­ti­mo­nial and endorse­ment rules. Some blog­gers, copy­writ­ers, and mar­keters, even lawyers, have talked about this, some­times a lot more elo­quently than me.

It’s obvi­ous the FTC’s intent is to curb, con­trol, and go after those nefar­i­ous flogs (i.e., “fake blogs”), like Google Money and Acai Berry. But the lan­guage is left to be desired and, if not clar­i­fied, can lead to some seri­ous repercussions.

Espe­cially for affil­i­ate marketers.

Based on what I’ve read, I can eas­ily inter­pret “affil­i­ates” and “ven­dors” falling in what the FTC dubs as “endorsers” and “adver­tis­ers.” (Accord­ing to TechCrunch, the FTC has responded and clar­i­fied this some­what, which I will come back to in a moment.)

In its new rul­ings, they make two pow­er­ful points. Points I agree with. At least, in intent. TechCrunch did a great job flesh­ing out the changes and its impli­ca­tions. The most impor­tant of which is the fact that the FTC can fine you $11,000 per infraction.

But these two biggest changes, which also may become prob­lem­atic, are…

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Pre­am­ble: In response to some excel­lent rebut­tals as well as count­less com­ments I’ve received on my pre­vi­ous post, “The Real Sin­is­ter Side of Forced Con­ti­nu­ity,” I believe some peo­ple are miss­ing the point of my argu­ment, and I want to clar­ify a few things.

I’m not a lawyer by any stretch. But as a copy­writer and busi­ness owner, I do know the rules enough to know that there’s a dif­fer­ence between “optional con­ti­nu­ity,” “forced con­ti­nu­ity,” and “hid­den continuity.”

Optional con­ti­nu­ity is self-​​explanatory. Forced con­ti­nu­ity is a very com­mon mar­ket­ing prac­tice (I’m not a fan of it, but I don’t mind it). In fact, there’s noth­ing wrong with forced con­ti­nu­ity in and of itself.

What’s wrong is when it’s used in a wrong way.

The real prob­lem, I believe, is that good mar­keters, includ­ing mar­keters using “forced con­ti­nu­ity” in an eth­i­cal and legit­i­mate way, are get­ting a bad rep­u­ta­tion because some mar­keters unscrupu­lously mis­use forced continuity.

The lack of trans­parency is the real cul­prit — such as hid­ing it or dis­guis­ing it. Espe­cially when it’s done on pur­pose. That annoys me. Because it’s no longer an issue of mis­use. It’s out-​​and-​​out abuse.

But what both­ers me more is how it affects us all. And it affects us all, both cus­tomers and mar­keters alike, in more ways than you think.

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Rant warn­ing: what fol­lows may offend some peo­ple. But I wanted to throw in my three cents on the topic of “forced con­ti­nu­ity,” which seems to be the sub­ject of a lot of debate these days.

Sev­eral well-​​known mar­keters have made offers of late with forced con­ti­nu­ity. What it means is, the intended prod­uct you want to buy can only be pur­chased when you buy another (often, a con­tin­u­ous sub­scrip­tion) billed to your account every month or so until you cancel.

Forced con­ti­nu­ity is noth­ing new. (In direct mar­ket­ing, they call these “Til For­bid” offers.) It’s another type of offer, pure and sim­ple. It’s mar­ket­ing. And there’s noth­ing wrong with that. What’s wrong is not the way the offer is made.

The real prob­lem is its lack of transparency.

But that’s not what I want to rant about today.

What a lot of peo­ple seem to be miss­ing here (and some­thing my bril­liant wife brought to my atten­tion, which makes per­fect sense to me), is that there is a deeper, much darker side to this whole thing.

Some­thing all mar­keters need to be aware of…

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Michel Fortin: If you look at the laws and rules and all that won­der­ful stuff, they do exist for a pur­pose. And I under­stand that. But I also believe in edu­ca­tion because the more you edu­cate peo­ple the more you will change the world rather than forc­ing it to change. So, if you’re going to help out some­body in their own lives you need edu­ca­tion. If you’re going to help out peo­ple to real­ize maybe they are bad peo­ple and they’ve done hurt to oth­ers edu­ca­tion is the answer.

It’s not pros­e­ly­tiz­ing. It’s not try­ing to argue with them. It’s just teach­ing them and teach­ing them until they’re ready to be taught and they’re ready to change. I’ve met a lot of peo­ple who change their lives because they’ve learned and they’ve decided to learn and that’s the key. Edu­ca­tion is prob­a­bly the most pro­found answer I can give to that ques­tion. It’s just education.

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“Try not to become a man of suc­cess, but to become a man of value.“
– Albert Ein­stein (1879–1955)

“When your val­ues are clear to you, mak­ing deci­sions becomes eas­ier.“
– Roy Disney

Peo­ple say “change your atti­tudes” or “have a pos­i­tive atti­tude,” but I don’t agree since atti­tudes can not be changed. They are results and not causes. They are byprod­ucts of your inner­most con­vic­tions. They are reflec­tions of your deep­est val­ues. You can’t just change them on a whim because your out­side is but a mir­ror reflec­tion of your inside.

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A mem­ber once asked a ques­tion about the legal­ity of using an alias or pseu­do­nym in copy.

That is, is it legal to write the copy in the voice of a fic­ti­tious char­ac­ter, or telling the story of a fic­ti­tious char­ac­ter enjoy­ing the ben­e­fits of your offer?

Using an alias in busi­ness is a com­mon prac­tice. How­ever, if you’re con­sid­er­ing using an alias or already are using an alias, there are a few things to know to keep your head above water with the law.

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