Lately I’ve been receiving a lot of emails and phone calls from businesses who want to help me out by offering leads generation and optimization of marketing efforts. Because I mostly rely on word-of-mouth, and detest sales calls for the most part, I ignore these requests.

There have also sprung up recently a number of businesses who want to help you grow your own business, especially if you are running a web consulting company for WordPress development, for a monthly fee, of course.

I can’t help but remember hearing that the books you have in your reference library reflect the areas in which you’re probably not competent. For instance I’d never even consider purchasing a book on html, css, or WordPress, but I actually have one on Actionscript 3.0 and another one on PHP. While I have a rudimentary understanding of these technologies, I don’t consider myself anywhere near a master and find the books are helpful.

So we tend to buy resources in the areas in which we lack mastery and wish to gain some. I’ve done so myself. But I have to wonder about the monthly subscription model and just how worthwhile the information will be, and if they’re preying on those who need help, or really helping them. That’s when it’s good to look at online reviews – and make sure the review site is not owned by the entity it is reviewing (hello Garcinia Cambogia).