Internet Gurus And Why I Never Believe Them
Written by ady on April 26, 2008 – 3:34 pm -
I posted yesterday about how Jack Humphrey of Authority Site Center fame recommended that if you used the review (comparing products) model for affiliate marketing you should only link to your number one product. I have always compared the leading 3 or 4 products and rank them in order but have affiliate links to them all where possible. Jack says to compare them but only link to your number 1 recommendation. He says my way offers the visitor too many choices and in the end this leads to indecision and nothing gets clicked.
This got me wondering if I had stopped buying from the guru’s because they had caused me indecision by sharing their mail lists amongst themselves? Every week we see at least one major launch of the latest “next big thing” in the I.M. market. I don’t know about you but for each of these launches I get anywhere from 4 or 5 to a dozen emails all from different so called guru’s and all offering their “special bonuses” if I purchase said next big thing through their link.
The bonus is often their own last big thing which of course no longer sells because the Warrior forums are full of people who bought in on their big launch and having followed instructions to the letter found that after 90 days they didn’t have $77,982 dollars in their Paypal account as promised but actually were $97 and a shed full of time out of pocket.
Perhaps I am reading too much into it and I just stopped buying because in the end even the thickest person eventually starts seeing the lies. You know the kind of thing: ”I cannot recommend Yanick Slivers latest product enough! I made $73400 in just one month!” Hang on a minute I thought the launch was today?
To be honest I actually saw the light ages a go, well before things got desperate and they had to use bonus bribes because they had flooded the market with products all constantly being marketed to the same group of people. I had gone out on a limb and invested money I wasn’t making by joining PLRPro. I was in my first months membership and one of the owners posted a review in the forum about a piece of software he had used with great success called WordPress Affiliate Pro and at the end of the review it said “You can buy it at half price by clicking here.”
Marc’s review was excellent and he highly recommended it (he was so impressed he actually bought the rights to the software later) but how did I know it wasn’t just the usual hype? Because instead of signing up for the affiliate programs of software the PLRPro guys think their members will find useful, they get us the equivalent discount.
In the case of WordPress Affiliate Pro, the current owner was offering affiliates 50% of any sales. Marc contacts him and says something along the lines of “I run PLRPro and want to recommend your software to our members. Can you set up a special link so that our members get a 50% discount and I’ll waiver the affiliate commission?”
From then on I kind of followed along with Marc’s recommendations and just stopped believing anything in my inbox that was hype and full of promises. Why risk believing them when I could read Marc’s honest review and make a more enlightened decision? It was Marc’s review of Portal Feeder that convinced me to join even with the $300 a month price tag and I doubt I would have done that without the endorsement of someone I trusted.
It can be hard finding the real guys from the bullshitters and finding one is probably the difference between calling it a day within your first year (98%) or making a decent go of it and making it into your second year (2%).
If you haven’t found one yet my advice would be to believe nothing and buy nothing. If you identity a problem that you would like to solve or a task that takes you a long time and you would like to get it done quicker, search for a solution. Don’t let some so called guru convince you that you have a problem and that it just so happens he can supply the solution. If you weren’t looking for it, you DO NOT NEED IT.
Tags: affiliate marketing, authority site center, internet guru's, internet marketing
Posted in Life Of An Internet Marketer |
April 27th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
How true! There is just so much hype out there, it´s overwhelming. I´ve just started unsubscribing from most newsletters from internet “gurus” and usually wait until products appear on a giveaway list somewhere.
May 10th, 2008 at 7:59 am
I really shock with this post. I thought that no one will be with me regarding on this.
I really tired with all hype and looks spamming my mail every week. So, I stop buying from anyone right now.
I’m not talking about the technique but the quality of the products. Many times, IM always put huge promises on their product but then after purchased, the info is no different from the discussion in the forum. That’s make most newbies tired to find what IM always called ‘their secret’.
The truth is there are no secrets at all!
June 6th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
IM is not creative, it’s formula. And when you’ve realized it and moved on, they’ll still go after the newb market because there’s always a newb market. They never even read the stuff they recommend and I’ve seen packages put together that include things you’d normally get free with a host account. Worthless but it sells because of the name behind it.
I am a communications expert (copywriting and web development) but not a hard core IMer. I can’t stand stuffing an in box either. It would bore me to tears. So if you see something you can’t resist, set up another email box for these mailing lists only. That keeps it out of your main box so you can see your real mail.