One word: Context.
When someone says, his selling method gave him an annual revenue of $1,000,000 last year, ask him for his nett profit. Having a million-dollar sales is nothing if the cost eats up 96% of the profit.
When someone says her growth was 200% after applying a secret method (which she intends to sell you for $1997), it may mean her last year’s growth was a negative 400%.
Many a self-proclaimed internet guru likes to tout their sales figures and impress the uninformed and misinformed. They don’t show you the whole picture.
A huge sales figure means nothing if the operating cost is equally huge. A double-digit growth also means nothing if the previous year was a triple-digit contraction.
Understanding the context is very important because these gurus like to show you the texts (sales figures) while hiding the context.
That’s how they con people – quoting texts out of context.
