Internet Marketing is a Guru Business!

There are more 'Gurus' popping up in the IM field all the time. I think this is also affecting other niches as well though.

One of the best ways to make sales is to gain trust. And becoming a 'guru' in your niche gives you lots of credibility. I think it's something most people in sales are striving for. It just makes it easier when your audience knows who you are and that they can trust you.

Allen, I think we misunderstood each other a little.
For example, Mike Filsaime: he definitely has a business. He sells software made by programmers in his office, and he has no programming skills and knowledge (even if he wanted to help them he cannot, so no way he is a freelancer). He also has another office where they help him with marketing (I guess). But the point is his company is "Mike Filsaime Inc.". Also, nobody refers to the company Income.com, people say "John Reese". People don t buy Income.com products, they buy John Reese s products...

As someone who both writes the music for the whole orchestra (or band), and playes a wicked lead guitar, I can tell you that both are necessary for "total" success.

After all, people listen for the song, but it's the lead guitarist who has the girls throwing their underwear at him. I don't know any songwriters who have groupies.

(Conversely, though, I don't know many lead guitarists who can write worth a ding. And the composer/writer gets paid over and over, while the guitarist might just get performance royalties.)

This is one of the best descriptions I have ever seen. I guess I could have moved along faster if I had read Kiyosaki's book ... or would I? Maybe, I would have just understood the system better.

Anyhoo, it is a great description or summary.

Very true. If you're in a specific niche, and you're the only one that is consistently 'talking', then sooner or later you are 'THE' voice for that niche

Hmm.. you know, when somebody promotes in IM niche and keeps saying "I am not a guru" or "I do not want to become a guru" I think the person is either:
1) Not honest with himself/herself
2) Not completely honest with customers
3) Just using that as a marketing twist. To say "I am not like those people" (like the us and them concept).

Yeah, more or less, everybody is a Mega-Mart business

Hi Adaptive,
I agree that a B business is going to find it easier to earn bigger money than an S.

But I disagree that all S businesses don't make money if you aren't there and 'neglect' them for a while. I purposely aim for passiveness and hands-free-ness and I have to give props to Robert G Allen whos cassettes introduced me to the 'zero employee/hands free/multiple streams' mindset many years ago.

I'm most definitely an S quadrant person. I wish I was a B, as I would have more leverage, but it doesn't suit me. I find people complicated. I'm complicated. :rolleyes:

So I use automation (as much as possible) and create sites and systems that gain ranking/traffic and maintain it - and although they wouldn't last forever without any maintenance, they'll certainly carry on as normal for a good few months without me having to lift a finger.

Again - I don't deny that you can boost earnings exponentially by scaling from S to B, but I would rather have the lifestyle than the extra money - because the money only gets spent on lifestyle anyway, and I don't need ridiculous amounts to do my Cheshire cat impression.

Hi Robert,

Thanks for the advice - I understand your point, although I'm not sure about the 'pastries'

I guess I should clarify a little that my main point was not to suggest that going from S to B is a bad idea at all or that there aren't massive benefits, but just that if someone finds themselves as an S type, there are still many ways to automate and semi-automate things, and also to create sites that require minimal maintenance and promotion - therefore allowing them to apply little time to it, or take days off whenever they feel like it.
I agree. I hit a wall regularly when I try and push myself out of the comfort zone. It's dangerous to get too comfy, but it's also pointless going too far the other way just to keep yourself on your toes - why make things difficult? I guess it's a balance between learning new tricks but also doing a lot of what you are naturally good at.

I guess that's why I chose the nickname I did, because for me my greatest achievement was getting out of that infernal rat race, because for me it was daily hell. Now I can control my environment and answer to no-one and have 100% choice about where and what I do - I can't see myself changing that for any amount of money. Life's too short to allow others to mess you around for kicks, waste your time and deny you your dreams and happiness.

And the benefits of the S type lifestyle are seductive and addictive - empty diary, no need for a watch, barely any need for a permanent location, only friends ring the phone or knock the door - peace, tranquility and it seems like there are 96 hours in each day in comparison to rat race days, during which I couldn't wait for 5pm each day.

So for now, S quadrant daunts me not, and I want to emphasize to people that if it's passive income people want, they're in the right place - they just need to seek as many ways as possible to create it and get busy (it's always going to take work at the start).

Thanks again. Perhaps I will have changed my mind completely about S & B in few years time. I've always been a little wet behind the ears and I'm probably not about to dry up too soon

Terry, that mentor part is very smart. And is how I often think and do, and suggest other people do. (but I have to clarify that for example, for my article marketing I find a mentor who is more successful in article marketing than myself). But that also confirms that people search for/want/need the gurus and IM is a guru business (because we want it to be)
That fake guru mentality also rides on the way that people search for/want/need the gurus

A Guru in any field is an authority figure who is respected. The trouble with this label in internet marketing is the ones earning the big money (not all of them by the way) have exploited human needs and wants of wealth in return for their own fortunes. They do this using desire which is a powerful tool. Is it ethical, Perhaps not as it is based around false promises. That's why internet marketing has a bad press just as direct marketing had before the internet was around.

We are all on a timeline at the beginning of the internet revoulution that is struggling to control mass communication with only general guidelines in place. It will be a long time yet before there will be global rules protecting fraudulent claims by less than etihical marketers preying on the desires of lesser people.

Its just part of human nature. People strive to be better than what they are. They are always looking up to whom is ahead of them. In this case its the Guru's, the people who have made something of themselves.

But its not only IM that has it's guru's! Basketball, growing up i idolized Scotty Pippen & Michael Jordan, most people did. We some day thought that maybe we could be on the same plane as them.

Guru's are an essential part to any business, i say go for it, like who you like, iits only because we are trying to make ourselves better!

Cheers