Have the “Gurus” lost touch with the joe-average internet marketer?
Not all of them, but MOST of them…
Do they realise how much work it takes to actually start an internet business anymore?
Sometimes I wonder about this when I read about the latest “Get Rich Quick” software they’ve developed, and wonder how it could possibly deliver any legitimate value to any start-up internet business owner.
I wonder whether most of the gurus remember what it took to start their business, or have an appreciation of how the market has changed since their business hit critical mass.
Let’s face it - they don’t need to know these things.
Once you have a big list, and a rapport with that list, it’s all-over-red-rover!
You can sell other people’s products on affiliate commissions, and still make a killing.
You can live off the “Launch Spikes”…
(In fact, at a certain point you don’t even need to do that. Like Mark Joyner, you can simply drift off and enjoy retirement… which makes you wonder why the big “gurus” are still in the market?)
But for the rest of us - we need to carve out an internet business that is designed for today’s internet market - by ourselves…
And as I’ve said over and over again, building a business is hard work.
The good news is there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Eventually you hit “critical mass”.
You literally end up with a money-making machine.
It’s just building that machine that’s the hard part.
When I was still a young pup (er, younger pup… starting 6 years ago…), I worked in a small team to build an online business from practically nothing into one of these “lean, mean money-making machines”.
It took 2 people 2 years part-time work to get it to the “critical mass” stage.
It was part-time work because half the time was spent building the business, half the time was spent generating the cash using another business so that we could afford to pay ourselves (peanuts) to work on the website. (At the time I was taking home around $8.50 per hour… I had to work for an hour to earn my bus ticket to work - I couldn’t afford to drive.)
It was damn hard work too.
Not all of it was rewarding either…
We promised to send subscribers a monthly newsletter…
When you have a 60,000 person database, a monthly newsletter becomes a licence to make money. (3 years later when we’d built the business to this size, we would joke that the “Send Newsletter” button was the “Make Money” button.)
But when you’re sending a newsletter to 150 people, and still have a 1% conversion rate, it hardly seems worth it.
I wonder - if most of the gurus had to start again, without their databases, finances or contacts - could they do it?
Could they break into a new market?
Do they really understand what it takes to become a success, today?
Or have they lost touch, and they’re peddling concepts that used to work yesterday?
Personally, I’m more inclined to trust a guru who is actively out there, building online businesses that have yet to reach maturity… Or if they’re truly on the cutting-edge of their marketspace.
There are a few I do trust that I can think of off the top of my head - James Brausch is one (a “guru” who is building his own business before your eyes), John Reese is another (the hardest working internet marketer in the business), Ed Dale (because his “Lab” researchers are constantly trialling new concepts in new markets).
That’s not to say I don’t believe other “gurus” have nothing to offer - just I often wonder if they’re genuinely wanting to help, or if they’re just out for the quick buck from product launches…
What are your thoughts?
Who do you trust to help YOU in the marketplace, not just make a quick buck on launch commissions?
Brent