A lot of people who get rich off IM tend to mention having mentors

I would say that many people who have a good budget to start doing internet marketing, but don't want to waste it in "trials and failures" just decide to go with a proven mentor, and that's how they in turn became successful.

In my opinion, they do some research first on the various mentors that have advertise their coaching program before deciding to go with one of them.

It's not "constant contact". A good mentor is not available 24/7 nor sitting there holding your hand.

There are two ways to get mentors in my opinion - you pay money to hire a coach or you work and learn and try on your own... and find people step forward to help you to the next level because they see what you have accomplished on your own.

Simply put - increase your network = increase your net worth.

How do you know they are rich?

What if everything you think you know about them is fiction?

What if they are just saying they used a mentor to get rich so that it coaxes you into buying their own bullshit coaching services?

Sorry, but that's the way it works.

I guess it's just about reaching out, and providing an exchange in value.

I have contacted many big bloggers etc with response...

To ask questions, get advice etc

Yup... having a mentor helped me out big time.

Mentors will help you get to the next level and grow your network big time.

You can outright hire them, or go to IM conventions and grow your network through there.

In any case, they will save you most likely years of doing things the hard way,
being that they have been in the trenches for years

Working with a mentor can definitely give you a competitive advantage IF the following are true:

1) The mentor can give you ACTIONABLE steps

2) You can objectively MEASURE results

3) Your mentor helps anticipates variables and helps you prepare for them

4) Your mentor helps you tweak your processes so you can hit your targets

5) Your mentor helps you adopt the RIGHT mental framework

#5 Above can't be emphasized enough. It's not like people DO NOT WANT TO LEARN, they don't ALLOW themselves to learn by ASSUMING things are impossible before they even begin.

It is great to have someone to bounce off without a doubt. It was a great step for me.

You will still be required to do work, but I just wanted to cut down on the "searching for info and trialling and erroring it" and do more "active applying of info".

Less time searching reading, more time doing. Money is time and all that.

Personally I don't have an experience with private mentors but I love mastermind groups. Whenever I start a new (to me) venture I tried to find a group of people who are already doing what I want to do, Facebook is great for that.

These groups provide a wealth of knowledge as well as lots of experts that can help you out if you get stuck. At the same time, being active in such groups also obliges you (in a way) to stay accountable for your actions which is also awesome

I went through 2 mentors and in my honest opinion it was no different than buying a concise and straight forward training course. You can find a bunch of free stuff online that equates to having "a mentor" through case studies and walk through's. It just depends on what you are trying to learn at "this" specific time.
- building website
- building funnels and lists
- email marketing etc....

and like slammer81 said
- It's always great to have somone who is better than you at what you do, to ask questions directly and bounce ideas off of. Kind of like having a dating coach, he/she's there to give you the confidence and establish the mental framework

but then again that's what IM forums and affiliate networks are for.

Nah, mentors are just a big scam!

IMO networking. The internet makes the world a small place, it's very easy to start connecting with new people on forums, facebook, twitter, blogs, etc.

Also IMO, having a mentor does help, but a mentor alone will not bring success

if you want in to the im/mmo market, i would say the fastest and probably the cheapest way is to "buy in" by hiring a coach who basically has to use their network to make you at least somewhat successful or they will kill their own "coaching businesses"

many times, its more like hiring a a jv partner than a coach actually.

But if you want to learn how to marketing things online then you really dont need a coach. you need to get almost completely away from places like WF and the IM game and their lists. the truth is that most of the IM guru types are making most if not all of their money selling you secrets.

they are by far not the best internet marketers in the world. they are just the best at selling you the dream life. its like much of the IM market has almost become a big MLM type system really.

most of the "gurus" would struggle and fail if you took away their leverage and told them they had to make money in some other niche beside IM. without their contacts and money they couldn't compete in most other markets online.

Some people learn better from a training video series, others do better with a live person. Mentors can be found everywhere, just google. But once you find a few names with prices you can swing, that's when you really need to have some search skill. You need to find real reviews of the mentors, not just what's on the website, you need to find unbiased that haven't been written by someone who's being paid to do so. Being able to tell real and fake reviews apart isn't always hard, but it's not always easy either.

If you've been considering it, I would recommend getting one. My mentor has since moved on to offline ventures, but he got me profitable for the right price.

As others have said though, one of the many benefits of a mentor is gaining access to their list and their circle. "The rich stay rich" because knowing the right people makes everything easier. If your mentor has a massive list of buyers, and a network of good affiliates, your mentor can easily get you sales of your products/services right off the bat (if you're a creator). Also, in turn allowing you to grow your list.

A mentor is not responsible for (and can not ensure) your success.

Most new marketers get to the point where they believe that a mentor is their quickest way to success. Yes it is nice to have an 'accountability' business partner so you don't feel alone and can have someone to turn to when the going gets rough.

But your success will come down to your ability to 'grow' into that leader that you may be desperately seeking.

When I first came online back in 2005, I found this guys website, like the pictures of his family, vacations and lifestyle and just joined him in his business opportunity at the basic level back then ($1,500).

After I got started with him, he gave me a link to a FREE Marketing course that lead up to a $97 E-book that taught me how to advertise on Google Adwords.

That's like giving a 'Newbie' one of the most advanced Paid Marketing strategies and then leaving me all by myself to figure it out.

Thankfully he did because it turned a 'burnt out truck driver into a 'self' reliant marketer.

Your success has to come from 'inside'. You are the 'Opportunity'.

In any field that involves mastery, having a mentor who has been there and done that can help you take your game to the next level quickly. In my "other" life, I got where I am today because of mentors. I've also helped people become better as their mentor.

The problem is finding the right mentor - the one who is going to guide you and make you better, not one who is going to try and make money off you.

For some, the internet has replaced mentorship, and they have managed to succeed with that guidance. Unfortunately it's very somebody on the internet can't look at you and what you are doing and pinpoint the one thing that you need to tweak to change your results.

Having a mentor can take years off your learning curve, but finding the right one for you and your abilities is the key. Its like anything in life... the more you research it the better informed and the less mistakes you make.

To come in contact with mentors of the niche you want to dive in would be to go to them. For example, I would like to dive into real estate investing, then I would search for mentors who were already successful in real estate investing like Robert Kiyosaki or into developing spec homes - Frank Mckinney. Of course most are not free unless they are your really close friends or relatives.

Personally in my case, I learned IM from research and experimenting on my own and from courses I bought in the subject.

Most of us all started with a mentor and branched out on our own.

A mentor will help you save time, resources and above all teach you from personal experience.

It's just like modernization today. We are fortunate to benefit from the discoveries of notable scientists and philosophers. We could have gotten there without them but it could have taken ages. Today, we just modernize on the things they have started and schools is one of those instruments.

One of the things my mentor taught me is to always try to get things done on my own through research and only call on him whenever I get stuck. Yeah, because he is pre-occupied with his own job too.

It's also important to always create room for testing new ideas no matter how highly placed your business is. The only thing constant in life is change. You don't wanna wake up one morning and see that your business has become obsolete.

Hi,

After good old fashioned hard work, and failing, and all types of good stuff , most IMers find mentors because they persisted to connect with these folks. As was noted above, mentors are not 24-7 support sources. Most check in infrequently. Or, run a blog or newsletter chock full of information which can be consumed at the student's leisure.

Unless you are coaching folks and charging a hefty fee for your time, you probably - on the mentor side - just create super useful products, services and eBooks, and the like, to mentor people passively. If you want to reach out to these folks you can but they give away much of their best stuff for free, so if you want to gain access to their time, you must pay for it. Just like you'd pay a doctor for a doctor's visit or a lawyer for a visit to the practice.

These folks put in year's worth of work and also, give away tons of free content. Example; I publish one, 6,000 word, free blog post weekly to my blog. Reading each word, practicing what I preach and persisting with these proven tips will help you retire to a life of pro blogging. So the mentoring is there; all for free, all good, all for your consuming. Now, if someone wanted extra free advice - outside of the free advice, I spent years putting into practice, to succeed, that I already gave away, and sweated over, and bled over - well, I'll be charging a nice chunk of change for my coaching services

So in a word, luck should never be used, because it's a 4 letter word in my book lol. People network, connect, create some value, some struggle, some fail, then come across some people who know their stuff and learn through their free blogs or paid products, or free giveaways. Then, if they want more individual attention, and if these pros offer coaching services, you would exchange money for the service, to cut your learning curve even more quickly.

Thanks for asking, and keep on keeping on!

Tweeting from Bali.

Ryan