Peller Found Out Some of the Dollars Sprayed at His Wedding Were Fake. That Says More About Online Image Than You Think

He only found out otherwise when he took some of the notes to the bank.

That's when he discovered that some of the dollars people had sprayed on him were fake.

And honestly, that detail is much more interesting to me than the jokes that followed.

Because there is something almost perfect about finding out at the bank.

At the wedding, the money looked real.

On camera, it looked real.

In the middle of all that celebration, nobody was stopping to inspect every note.

It was only when the money had to actually work that the difference became obvious.

Which buttresses that things online often look convincing until you actually have to test them.

Funny enough, this isn't the first time Peller has made me reflect on how much the

 internet is about appearances. When King Ochacho's ₦400 million gift to Peller and Jarvis 

became a talking point, I thought the comments were quite interesting and questioned what 

we really mean when we call someone successful. I wrote about that here.

The internet is full of things that look successful from a distance.

A beautiful Instagram page.

Thousands of followers.

Screenshots of huge earnings.

A luxury car parked behind somebody filming a motivational video.

A website that looks incredibly professional.

A person confidently calling themselves an expert.

Sometimes all of it is real.

Sometimes it isn't.

And from a phone screen, it can be difficult to tell the difference.

That's why I've become less interested in how successful something looks and more interested in what happens when someone actually uses it.

The internet makes it very easy to create an impression.

Building something that survives closer inspection is harder.

And that's where a lot of people get distracted when they start thinking about making money online.

They see the lifestyle before they see the skill.

They see the earnings screenshot before they see the work.

They see the followers before they see the years it took to build an audience.

Then they start wondering why their own progress doesn't look the same.

But you don't need to look successful before you start becoming useful.

You can start with one skill.

Writing.

Graphic design.

Video editing.

Social media management.

Lead generation.

Email marketing.

Website optimisation.

AI tools.

You don't even need to become a tech bro or tech sis to do it.

You just need to learn how to solve a problem that somebody is willing to pay you to solve.

That's the part I find exciting about the digital economy.

A smartphone can now be a publishing platform, a classroom, a marketing office and even a small business headquarters.

Someone who learns how to generate leads for a local business can turn that skill into an income stream.

Someone who understands email marketing can help businesses communicate with customers.

Someone who learns how to use AI properly can save a company hours of repetitive work.

Those things might not look impressive in a wedding video.

They can be very valuable when someone actually needs them.

That's also why I like the idea behind Auxi Sherpa's Lead Generation and Email Marketing services. They sit on the less glamorous side of online business: finding potential customers and staying in touch with them. Not everything that makes money online needs to look exciting on Instagram.

Sometimes the most valuable work is the work nobody sees.

And maybe that's why the Peller story stuck with me.

The fake dollars weren't exposed because they looked fake.

They were exposed because someone eventually tried to use them for what they were supposed to be used for.

That's a useful test for almost anything we build.

Does it work when people actually need it?

Does the audience trust you when the excitement wears off?

Does the product deliver what you promised?

Does the skill produce a result?

Does the business still make sense when nobody is watching?

Those are much better questions than, "Does this look successful?"

Because looking successful is easy.

Being useful is harder.

And in the long run, useful always wins.

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