“Doctor” Alex Jeffreys gives his diagnosis
July 17th, 2009
I have just bid farewell to a friend of mine who called me last week in something of a panic. His PC wasn’t working.
Inconvenient for many of us, but for him, a complete disaster !
Why ? He has teenage children 
Apparently, even a few minutes without internet access is almost unbearable for his offspring. Xboxes, GameBoys, etc only seem to compensate for so long, and what’s worse, in their idyllic new home in the Welsh countryside, there’s (shock horror) … no mobile phone signal !
This is purgatory for the modern teenager.
And as a confirmed tech-head, I actually understand what that’s like. Yes, I do really try and have a life beyond my PCs and web sites (as I shall describe in tomorrow’s post). But at the start of last week, I switched Internet Service Providers – and because of some kind of snafu, I ended up without access for about 36 hours.
I was climbing the walls !!!
Fortunately for my friend, his Total Internet Failure occurred on the eve of a vacation. Before he left, he called me to see if I could fix things so that there might be peace when they returned. After a few questions, it seemed to me that there was probably some kind of problem with the base unit. I suggested that he drop it off for me to look at on his way to the airport, then he could pick it up when he returned … and he has just done that.
As it turned out, it was only a loose connector on the power lead to the hard drive. No power to the hard drive, no Windows. I “jiggled” the connector and it worked !
I just showed this to him so that if something similar happened in the future, he could fix it for himself. I tried to explain all of this as simply as I could, because I know that he thinks that he’s “no good” with technical stuff. But here’s the kicker …
He’s a very highly trained and extremely skilled professional that quite literally has other people’s lives in his hands on a daily basis. In other words, he’s about as far from stupid as it’s possible to be …
He’s a doctor.
He calls me his “PC doctor”, but I always baulk at the comparison because he has an extremely difficult job with huge responsibility. I just poke around in the innards of PCs and servers.
But of course, if I ever have to explain anything about his PC, we often end up using medical metaphors, like today … “With no power, it’s like the hard drive wasn’t getting any oxygen and it just couldn’t get going !”
He looked at me and said, “Well, when you put it like that, it all makes perfect sense !”
Now you may be thinking that in relating this story, I’m citing another example of one of my favourite sayings: “We’re all stupid about something !”
Well, kind of … but I relate the tale because it puts me in mind of what happened last night.
Last night, MarketingWithAlex 2.0 students had another marathon webinar with “Doctor” Alex Jeffreys in which he held a surgery for his patients.
With outstanding stamina, he gave stringent health checks to several web sites, took the temperature of various blogs, evaluated the fitness of many mareketers and where appropriate, diagnosed poor health and prescribed suitable treatment.
It was very illuminating and I’m sure that we all learned a lot. But time and time again, the student in the hot-seat would listem to Alex and then end up saying something like, “Yeah, yeah, I see it now … when you put it like that, it all makes perfect sense !”
Bottom line ? Even though we’re not stupid, even though a lot of this is just common sense, sometimes you need somebody that’s experienced in a particular field to diagnose your problem, suggest a rehabilitation plan and prescribe some healthier options.
And that is why Alex’s mentoring is so valuable. I wish I’d been able to do this years ago !
PS: Happy Birthday Alex !
Categories: General
Hi Roger,
David here, a fellow student of Alex Jeffreys.
That was an excellent blog post and I am looking forward to more from you – you really tell a good story!
I have tried to do internet marketing on my own for a long time and have recently found how invaluable the opinion of somebody else looking in is.
You are right, the mentoring is going to be invaluable.
Keep in touch.
David
Thanks David, but it’s not a story, it’s all true ! LOL. Anyway, I’ll see you in the “doctor’s” waiting room
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