In the last week I’ve gotten email from some pretty reputable sources trying to get me to buy a pretty expensive online course (expensive as in over $1000). Both emails proclaimed this to be a very useful product coming from a market leader. Problem is that when I checked into it, that market leader wasn’t living up to his own hype regarding the “free” stuff he had made available.   Not that uncommon a scenario but here’s the thing – I don’t think any of them are lying. Instead they’re telling their version distorted by their own investment in the outcome. They probably wouldn’t think the product was so useful to me if there wasn’t a financial incentive to me buying.

It seems that ‘useful’ is a highly subjective word.  I once attended a seminar where the ultra-slick speaker said there was no need to take notes because he would email the notes to every attendee after the session so just pay attention to the speech.  I did get an email; as I recall it has his name at the top and the title of the speech. That was it.  The thing is I think this really was how he took notes in high school and college (as in he didn’t).

My point is that in this season of gift buying as well as people creatively searching for careers that don’t require an interview, make sure you can adequately test drive whatever it is you’re considering.  “You get what you pay for” isn’t quite as true as it once was – there’s more great stuff for free but it’s still pretty easy to hand over more cash than it’s really worth.

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