Chicken Little became famous for scare mongering. His little dash around the farmyard screaming that the sky was falling has earned him a place in history although at the time his terrifying news never made it beyond the animals in the yard.
Today, Chicken Little is alive and well and has been cloned millions of times over and thanks to the internet the message is getting out to the masses rather than just being confined to the few. Even the adult industry has its fair share of Chicken Little clones. The world is going to end tomorrow, the sky will fall next Tuesday, XYZ billing company will go bust at 4pm three weeks after Memorial Day and Visa will stop all adult billing next April 1st.
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"There is no need to work yourself into a lather of panic over any rumour without asking experienced people for their views." |
We've all heard those stories and a new one seems to surface almost every other week. Even if you are new in the industry, the chances are that you will have heard several already. Some of these tales seem to develop a life of their own but the predicted end of the world as we know it never happens. Others wither and die within hours leaving nothing but a few panicky posts on message boards to remember them by.
Why do they get started in the first place? Some are just plain malicious and are trying to cause damage to the object of the rumour. Others are just the product of over-fertilised minds that have nothing better to do. Some are put out just to scare people out of the industry while other rumours are generated simply to make the originator look important.
I suppose that it's sad in a way that human beings have to behave in this fashion but then again, that is humanity. There are malicious people in every walk of life. There are attention whores on every street corner and in every office, club, group and family. So I guess it is something that we just have to live with.
Living with these industry rumours is probably hardest for the new webmasters who have invested a lot of time and possibly money in developing their marketing skills and techniques. Suddenly they are confronted with rumours of impending doom in the industry, sales are going to disappear and sponsors will be beamed up by Scotty and carted off to the next galaxy. Every newbie's hopes and aspirations will sail out of the solar system along with the Enterprise and its cargo of adult sponsors.
Faced with that - it is no wonder that newbies are nervous and unsure of what they should do to prepare for the calamities that are just over the horizon. Well, let me say that there are several things that you can do to maintain your business in the face of the spoken and unspoken disasters that are always said to be looming.
The first thing to do is to recognise that more often than not, rumours in this industry are baseless. That means that regardless of what is being touted as the true story you should continue with what you are doing. Don't drop your bundle because the sky is about to fall on your head. Keep focused on your goals and keep forging ahead and striving to attain those goals.
By all means, listen to the rumours but assess them in the light of common sense. If you feel that you do not have enough experience to judge whether there is any truth in a rumour then ask more experienced webmasters. There is no need to work yourself into a lather of panic over any rumour without asking experienced people for their views.
If there is some basis of fact in the rumour that you are worried about then take the necessary steps to prepare for the day after whatever is rumoured actually comes to pass.
A good example is the new law that has been passed in the US regarding the 2257 requirements. Around the time it was passed there were lots of rumours about what it meant for webmasters and what it meant for content providers and there have been people who even said that it was impossible for anyone to be in compliance with the new law.
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We now know what the legal ramifications are and we can take steps to ensure that our sites are in compliance with the new requirements. Instead of running around in ever decreasing circles and tearing their hair out over the new law some people started getting their sites into compliance even before the law was passed.
Those guys were prepared and are now relatively secure whereas there are still a lot of people who are not in compliance; so for them the sky just may fall after all. If you are not sure what you should be doing to get into compliance with 2257 then ask the question on your favourite newbie board now.
Another good example is the imminent slaughter of AVS by Visa. Visa is going to charge every AVS service an annual fee to ensure compliance with Visa's regulations. Visa is going to charge every AVS webmaster a fee to ensure compliance. Visa is going to charge every webmaster a $750.00 fee for every AVS site that the webmaster has and so on.
At the moment nobody really knows what is going to happen and it is quite possible that absolutely nothing will happen but I bet that rumour has slowed down the pace at which some webmasters build AVS sites. Rumours should never stop you from continually adding to your empire. By all means, as I said before, take time to prepare for any eventuality but never stop what you are doing just because of a rumour.
Rumours are like smoke and mist, they can be fairly tangible one minute and completely gone the next and if you let your business be affected by rumours to the point where you stop something just on the basis of a rumour then you will never make the big time in any industry.
Instead - be like the navigators that explored the world's oceans. Set your course and keep to it until you are presented with a very tangible reason to do otherwise.
On the other hand, I can sell you a very sturdy steel helmet just in case the sky is falling. Just follow the link to my site and sign up for yours at just $39.95 recurring.