Once I heard a radio show about divorced couples hooking up once a week just for some nookie. The two of you can’t have a civil conversation without smashing plates and dishes, but her hips are just irresistible. Hey baby, it’s a lot safer than trawling bars…

Google. Ex Wife.

You Can’t Live With Her. You Can’t Live Without Her.

This morning I saw a post about Google testing display of click counts under ads. In other words, under your ad, Google displays “156,000 clicks for this advertiser.”

Or, if you’re new, “12 clicks for this advertiser.”

Gee, thanks.

Today is as good a day as any to tell you *exactly* what I think about Google.

Most of you know that I’ve made the majority of my dinero for the last 8 years as a Google AdWords evangelist, educator, #1 author, seminar promoter, consultant and gadfly. I’ll be the first to confess that hitching my wagon to the Big G in the spring of 2003 was one of the smartest things I could have possibly done.

Actually I chalk it up more to Providence than smarts. But in any case, it’s been a super great ride.

Google has rightfully become the most desired, most sophisticated, greatest advertising machine in the history of man. I figured that out in about 3 hours back in 2002 and I’ve been addicted ever since.

There is not even a close second. One can only hope that Facebook wakes up from their intoxicated stupor and builds something even remotely as good. (Eventually they will, but they’ll have to get spanked by Wall Street before they do it. Meanwhile if you can hack your way through their circa-1998 user interface you’ll find huge opportunities and cheap clicks. Sheryl Sandberg and Emily White, I have no doubt you’re trying to penetrate your management’s thick skulls. Please, for the sake of all of us, keep trying.)

If you have a geek orientation and you love human psychology, then AdWords is an endless universe of experimental bliss. When you master it, it’s like a video game that spits out 100 dollar bills every hour on the hour. It’s crack cocaine.

The dark side is, Google IS Big Brother. Make no mistake about it. Nameless, faceless people control the world’s information. Drones in India who make $5 an hour decide whether the business you invested $1 million building is legitimate or not. They kill you dead with impunity.

(Their shareholders will have Sergey’s head on a stick when they find out how abysmally they treat most of their customers. Eventually the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal or the Financial Times or the Economist will run a big story about it. I’ll be happy to give them a few thousand people they can interview. But I digress.)

Six months ago in the midst of wrangling with their incompetent staff, a Google rep in India concluded her email to me with these words: “. . . and please stop scams.”

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Do not ever, ever, allow yourself to think that sexy technology mitigates human nature. It doesn’t and it never will. Every empire that has ever grown unchecked has become a dictatorship.

It’s true: Ex-spouses sometimes need a hookup. And realistically, most online advertisers need to work with Google. It was true in 2003 and it’s true now: Google is still the best anvil for perfecting your sales funnel.

But I have ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS told people – as long as I’ve been teaching ANYTHING about Google AdWords – buddy, don’t you dare build a business that DEPENDS on Google because if you do, you’ve got a Glock pointed right at your head. And eventually somebody’s going to pull the trigger and your brains are going to splatter against the wall.

Does Google hate affiliates?

Girl spreads her legs for the first guy she meets at a Rave party. He slips out of her bed at 6am, pulls on his jeans, exits silently and never calls her back.

Is it because he hates her?

Oh, no, not at all. It’s just that he has zero respect for her. She’s easy. Free market research.

If you’re a thin affiliate, you don’t have a business. You have an unpaid market research internship at Google where you take all the risk and they gather all the intelligence. And store it permanently on redundant servers.

If you think Google is your Messiah, you’re just like the guy who thinks they built Vegas so he can make a fast thousand bucks this weekend. He’s gonna get screwed.

If you understand that Google is a TOOL, and only a tool – if you understand that it’s YOUR job to build a business that’s so irresistible that publishers everywhere are going to want to sell you traffic – then you’re going to be just fine.

Funny aside: People often assume that at my 4-Man Intensive and Roundtable meetings, we sit around and analyze Google campaigns. I totally get why people think that. But I’ve had many Roundtable meetings where Google barely got a mention in 2 days of brainstorming.

Why? Because REAL business building is not about the nuances of buying advertising. It’s about:

• Crafting irresistible offers
• Building great relationships with customers
• Gaining a cult following
• Developing groundbreaking products that scratch peoples’ itches in clever ways
• Creating experiences that customers rave about
• Cultivating powerful relationships with other players in your industry
• Making yourself an authority
• Putting yourself in the “Toll Booth” position for whoever wants access to your crowd
• Taking advantage of all forms of profitable advertising media and PR
• Building systems that make you money
• Putting that money in the bank
• Cranking out new, exciting innovations
• Harnessing your dysfunctions and making them productive
• Inspiring a culture where people will climb over brick walls to be on your team
• Being an alchemist

That’s the kind of stuff we talk about behind closed doors. And Google can’t do any of that for you.

If you think they can, you just end up being their whore. Thank you for playing at Harrah’s Casino, please come again soon.

Google has done their job. Very competently, thank you very much. YOUR mission, should you choose to accept it, is to bring a LOT more value to your niche than Google does.

Become the alchemist that everybody in your corner of the world can’t stop talking about. Then and only then are you in charge of your future.

Perry Marshall

P.S.: Google your ex-wife. I bet you’ll find out something you didn’t know before.

About the Author

Perry Marshall has launched two revolutions in sales and marketing. In Pay-Per-Click advertising, he pioneered best practices and wrote the world's best selling book on Google advertising. And he's driven the 80/20 Principle deeper than any other author, creating a new movement in business.

He is referenced across the Internet and by Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, INC and Forbes Magazine.