The home business marketing homeless dude is back to reiterate his lessons.

You may or may not know that I wrote an ebook. In that ebook, I told readers that if they ever had any questions about SEO, they could email me. Lots did, which was awesome. One in particular stands out, though, and I want to tell you about it.

Brandon (hi, Brandon!) came through StumbleUpon. He’d never heard of me before that. He dropped me a line through my contact form and we got to chatting.

He wanted to talk about his blog-to-be. He knows he shouldn’t use Blogger, but doesn’t know what to use instead. If he’s like most newbies to blogging, he’s read the posts where people spit venom at Blogger but don’t give an alternative because the writer thinks it’s obvious. I know I’ve been guilty of that.

So we chatted back and forth a little about Wordpress and the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org and all that totally overwhelming shit you have to think about before you start a blog. We get to what I think is a logical end to the exchange, and he fires back one more quick email. He wants to know about hosting.

Ahh, hosting.

Knowing he’s a newbie, and not knowing if he knows anything about affiliate marketing, I figure it’s important to hit him over the head with the fact that I am an affiliate for InMotion, so I will be financially compensated if he goes with them through my link. I make this as crystal clear as possible because I don’t want to fuck him over. (There’s plenty of time for him to get fucked over by internet marketers later. Life is long.) He thanks me and goes on his way with these parting words:

“PS- i think its awesome that u respond, in an actual friendly manner; and also seem sincere when doing it. I ran across a few sites similar to yours prior, and got rude responses if any response in return.”

The other bloggers are not being very nice to Brandon, and I think that’s fucking ridiculous, for more reasons than one.

Most importantly, there’s the karma element. Be nice to people or karma will fuck you.

Secondarily, remember the Cool Kids Edition? When I was a dick to Dan Schawbel and felt like shit afterwards because he was in Fast Company and about to be all famous? You never know who you’re dealing with. Be nice to people because you don’t know who you’re dealing with.

Lastly, and most shallowly, these people are your customers. They buy things from you. They are the ones with the money. Be extra nice to the people with the money.

Today, I found out Brandon bought hosting through my link. And he bought my book at full price. Brandon gave me $89 yesterday. I have a feeling, considering we’re getting tight, he’ll probably buy more of my stuff, or take my recommendations, or become an affiliate for SEO School in the future. Maybe he’ll send his friends.

But because I took a little time out of my night to help someone — and keep in mind, I didn’t think there’d be cash coming from this — I have a customer, maybe a fan, and I get to know that I made someone’s day a little better after he got treated like shit by other people in my industry.

So what does this have to do with the homeless dude? Lesson # 4. “Don’t be a prick.”

As a life lesson, you shouldn’t be a prick at all. As a home business marketing lesson:

Don’t be a prick to the people with the money.