Seth Godin used to be a god to me, he was top of my blogroll even when his blog didn’t really have a lot to do with my niche which was online music promotion, but there was some crossover.

Also he had a bit of zeitgeist going on, as myspace faltered choking on spam it signalled the end of the beginning for web 2.0 and social media and many marketers - and many first time marketers like me - who had been successful spamming myspace were now looking for life as a marketer after spam, implementing more legitimate uses and automation of web 2.0. so Seth’s approach to permissive marketing and highly innovative and counter intuitive business models got a lot of traction with me, as like a lot of marketers I “repented” to the ways of whitehat web 2.0.

Especially how he drilled down on high quality content as well as high quality interactions, really grasping the spirit of the corporate backlash that’s been happening since before Kurt Cobain blew his brains out.

Andrew Dubber, who is a music promotion blogger I respect, had already put me on to Chris Brogan as well as Chris Garrett who had told me that I was a “confrontational” marketer.

Jason Calanacis I’d heard of before of course but when I got directed to an excellent article by him on start up depression I was dismayed to find the some of the same attitudes about start ups in some of the statements he was making.

See I kind of got . . . I had to take a step back, especially with the “confrontational marketer” statement.

What I’d been trying to say was that providing high value content while at the same time not being afraid to sprinkle every post liberally with deals and specials and propositions was working out for me and that I use my blog purely to draw attention to services I offered.

Y’know, I didn’t see the point of playing all this warm fuzzy networking - let’s link to one another and comment on each others blogs - kind of game if it wasn’t delivering a strategy for solid earnings.

I was getting plenty of business; business that I probably wouldn’t have got from hanging around these A-listers blogs and being all web 2.0 and “joining the conversation” and trying to be one of the popular kids.

I had already quit my job. Well to be honest, when I started four years ago, I was 25 and I’d never had one for longer than a month at a time! But now, because I have a business, I offer services and I’m not afraid to promote them, and as a result, I get work. In fact more work than I could handle.

But yeah I didn’t have a day job. I was already doing good. Wasn’t that the whole idea? Everyone was trying to go it alone? I was! I was ready to hire my first employee! I was doing it! Wasn’t I?

I mean . . . I was making money. I still am. I make a decent full time living. I won’t quite reach my goal of a 6 figure income this year, but I don’t see it being a big challenge, although it is my main goal for 2009.

What could I be possibly doing wrong?

I mean problogger Darren Rowse, is Darren Rowse. He’s a christian, he’s a good guy, let’s face it, he’s a regular Ned Flanders. For beginners it works. He’s built a mountain of authority by being the nice guy blogger who helps you out along your first steps learning about blogging for revenue and his blog turns over about half a million every year.

But has the nice guy thing gone too far? Are these goody 2 shoes bloggers sitting atop a sprawling empire of hopeless people busy being nice to one another - just like their favourite blogger told them to - in the hope they’ll crack it in the online game?

Seth started to get to me because of his attitude that customer service was paramount. And that poor service was inexcusable.

This was earlier in the year where I was pretty much having a customer service crisis every week.

In fact I did post about it here a few times - how heavy demand, lack of cashflow and poor service were all conspiring to make business life for me highly stressful and setting off a spiral of challenges.

But business didn’t stop. Client turnover was high, clients were leaving less than impressed, which was stressing me out, but new business just kept on coming and I had no way to manage the growth of my business, it resulted in shoddy service.

Guess what? It didn’t stop my business growing. In fact, now, I identify potentially problematic clients, the ones that make finnicky requests, and I just dont get back to them.

Tough titty, I’m sorry your $100 poster job is too low volume and low margin.

As a start up, I had a severely limited track record of on paper earnings. I couldn’t borrow money to expand. I couldn’t hire staff. Who could do all the jobs I did? How could I afford a worker who would make mistakes out of inexperience when I was already making so many mistakes myself?

I already realised that this wasn’t a business, this was a series of disasters that I was just constantly reacting to.

And it was at this point that I started to realise that all these sanctimonious goody 2 shoes bloggers like Seth Godin, Chris Brogan, Chris Garrett and from some of his comments, Jason Calanacis had no actual clue of what it was like to actually bootstrap as an entrepreneur, that’s why they were going on constantly as if your service was poor, if your staff were second rate and if you spammed people and marketed aggressively, and you didn’t network with other bloggers . . . you were doomed.

But despite all this, I was succeeding!

Why? Because I was innovating in marketing online using digital technology and networks and I was innovating around value leveraging technology developments, again.

So I kind of figured . . . the goodie 2 shoes bloggers might not be able to help you as much as you think. They couldn’t help people like me who had half a clue, but were struggling to make it.

The only people they could help were those with years of entrenched behaviour and millions of dollars in capital and no clue at all. Who had to have social media spelled out to them in a way that someone who’s always generated massive profits from their large multimillion dollar workforce staffed company would.

Or I dont know. Maybe their advice does work for the romanticized concept of the start up, four guys in a shabby office beavering away toward their next round of funding.

But I never had a round of funding. I will never get a round of funding.

I will not ever get the best staff like Jason Calanacis insists that I should have.

I can’t find anybody who can work for me for the money I can afford to pay them, and I certainly can’t afford to pay the best.  I can’t even find kids to work for me after school for $10 p/hour.

I can’t make a stand like Seth Godin thinks I should, to be the best.

People come to me because I’m the cheapest. The problem is, when they get the cheapest they get the cheapest.

But Seth Godin reckons that’s not the only thing that matters. He thinks Customer service matters. And if you have 100 employees and your brand is that big then it probably does, but when you’re a REAL bootstrapping start up you have got yourself and not much more, your brand is not even big enough to be seen with a microscope so I don’t see why you should worry about it being “stained”.

I have made some terrible customer service, employer and marketing blunders, and I do still make them, but guess what? My business is still growing because I am still committed to providing value and innovation and dynamic propositions that excite my prospects, mainly because they can afford them.

And they can afford it because theyre not paying for amazing customer service, or my elite team, or my huge marketing budget.

Maybe one day I’ll meet all my customers expectations. Often I even think that when I’m really successful I will look some of them up and apologize for the second rate service they received as I was growing my business.

And I look forward to that, knowing I will be successful very soon the way I’m going. And maybe one day I will have to face up to the fact that in times past, I’ve had people less than satisfied with what they got from me, but at least I’ll be doing that with a successful business and capital behind me.

I’ve got nothing against people who love Seth, and Chris, and Chris and Jason et al.

I read their blogs (well not Chris Brogan, he’s the worst of the lot).  All I hope, when I criticise these bloggers is that the information you get from these guys gives you ideas that you put into practice to make money.

Part of my shortcomings is that I am a bit slack also. I’ve spent enough time on an unemployment benefit getting up after 12, (well I still get up after 12, but anywho) partying and living the life of a DJ, which I still do.

But the reason I make this point is that if you work hard and put in a full weeks work every week online there’s no reason you shouldn’t make at least as much money as I do if you keep at it, $1000 on your average really bad week and about $2000 or a bit more on your average really good week.

Like this week! If you read these guys blogs and you’re struggling, then maybe you need to recognise who this advice is actually best for and in what situations.

Is one upset customer who’s an asshole really going come down on your business like snow 2.0?

Probably not.

And I’d leave the rabid mindless echoing to all the young twenty something entrepreneur bloggers. But hey. That’s probably a seperate post altogether . . .

Oh and you can follow me at http://www.twitter.com/mattNZ