When I did my SEO From Experience webinar last week one of the things I referred to was the gestalt protocol.
This is something that I learned in my mid 20’s and have always tried to stick with it.
The basic just of it is that you never tell someone what to do. You instead share a similar experience with them or tell them your experience with a product, person, or service.
- For example lets say you asked me if you should use infusionsoft.
- Lets say you asked if you should work with Dennis Yu.
- Lets say you asked me how to do SEO.
- Lets say you asked me how to do Facebook advertising.
In all of these posts/items you will see that instead of doing a PowerPoint telling you what you need to do I share with you my experience on the subject.
I have always had success with this.
If someone asks me how to do something and I have never done it I just tell them I have no experience with that.
What I don’t do is try to act like I am a expert in something I am not.
I don’t mentor people.
I just share my experiences.
Thats it 
About the author...
Jeremy Schoemaker – who has written 2424 posts on ShoeMoney.com.
Hi I am Jeremy Schoemaker and ShoeMoney.com is my blog. 99% of the post here are done by me but you will see others occasionally make guest posts. This blog is fun to write but for my day job I run several online companies.
Images provided by ShutterStock
I used to be FAT until I had A Duodenal Switch 
Sneaky Facebook Advertising Tricks – Dialing In Your Campaigns Part 2 
Using Delicious to Understand Your Users 
{ 25 comments… read them below or add one }
…and thank you for sharing this too. I need to check all you linked to. Thanks Jeremy.
Sharing your insight into the world is much better then training to teach all the time. You be be able to touch people in the right way so that they get what their looking for.
“Black Seo Guy “Signing Off”
Think you just made my quarterly client strategy meetings considerably more interesting.
Listening from someone who already has experience on the topic makes sense. There are people who just have book knowledge and will teach or preach something which they haven’t experienced. A classic example would be make money online blogs from people who don’t make anything online.
That method is what good teachers do every day- you probably picked that up from your mom without even realizing it.
General Patton once said: “Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.”
Interesting stuff Jeremy
Sharing your experiences inherently makes you (more of) an expert on the topic. It’s a very good teaching style, essentially giving yourself the social proof (through examples of your experiences), giving more credibility to what you are saying.
Its also a good way to cover your ass, because you never claim the results will work for others as they did for you!
I find that sharing one’s experience is far more better than actually explaining the details of what needs to be done. Reading one’s past experience and working my way from it is a great motivator for me. Shoemoney rocks!
Great theory — there are way too many “experts” who know nothing. Would prefer to share what I know — just starting to decide where I want to be and what I want to do when I grow up, but I know it will be based on what I’ve experienced.
I think every teacher do this impressive way talking every day. Most of teachers have book knowledge and will teach or preach something which they haven’t experienced. For these teachers i suggest to please forgot the students and make money to another way. Means join a hot money making blog like http://earnfreemoneytricks.blogspot.com/ join it and earn. Thanks.
Quite interesting as well as informative!
You’re a great man Jeremy! I prefer to learn from experienced people who have really done the stuff before. that is why i’m trying to be updated with posts on different interesting blogs than participate in courses, classes or whatever
Hope to find many quality and valuable info here.
The post is great and thanks for the links and sharing your experience.
Very cool way of coming under the radar. Kinda automatically makes you the expert without it looking like you’re “trying” to be an expert.Since most people who try end up failing miserably this really makes sense.
Plus you never get caught talking out of your ass.
Thanks man!
That is very short and sweet and experience matters the most.
Shoe – can i just say that your blog is fooked.
Since your iphone template was added – i get a really messed up iphone design in IE8. It looks great on the iphone – but it’s wrong on my big monitor.
The site still works fine in safari, chrome, and firefox. It looks like how your blog should — But in IE – the one i use. Its trying to show the iphone design.
I cannot belive i am the only one using IE on your site – Please put it right soon.
Experience is what it is all about.
I love you shoe for this fact. keep up the good job.
And we appreciate you sharing your experiences. Much easier and more fun to learn that way, than some obscure textbook-like method.
I really liked your presentation last week and this approach to giving a presentation is really intriguing to me. I think it helps the audience to connect with you better b/c you are sharing your experience on a personal level.
this site rocks
If i had to pick one, I’d rather be told step by step how to do it. The whole sharing experience thing is just a cop-out for people who don’t want to be held accountable for something that doesn’t work. Or they just don’t want to tell you how to do it for fear of competition or an idea being “stolen”. a combination of how-to and shared experience is best.
Your post made a lot of sense. I read somewhere today, that people don’t like to be sold to, but love to buy. So using your method would be a lot more useful than blatantly trying to shove our sales pitch down their throat. Personally, I hate going to stores where the sales people “bug” me. I much rather go to a big store and seek someone out if I need assistance. Thanks again for sharing!
This is a very interesting article.
I like this principle. A non demanding, non authoritative, approach for someone to “fill in the blanks” as it applies to their situation. I have always read you should never “tell” anyone anything. If you desire movement of some sort, you should ask and not tell. Gestault is even better. They can just associate without any pleas one way or another.