100% Genuine Warrior Question That I Will Probably Get Bashed For

You can't!

I've found that people who have PM'd me and are genuine and funny and clearly not trying to sell me anything are the ones to take advice from....just my experience here

Just treat everyone as experts as long as they give proper advice! At the end of the day, one good advice can change everything!

Assume everyone is full of BS.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't respect them and act professional... But you should aim to be your own best expert.

Your ability to conduct research will be superlative to any question you can ask.

Ever.

Seriously.

Think for yourself.

Follow your own internal compass.



That applies not just to these forums... But to life.

The best way to get ahead on this mud rock? (I'm referring to Earth here)

Think for yourself, and figure things out on your own.

Every person on the planet has an agenda.

(I'll get hatemail for saying this... Trust me).

Trust everybody and nobody.

If you're asking "who do I trust" it kind of implies you're looking to jump into somebody's arms and have them carry you across the finish line.

Unless you're paying a *lot* of dough or they see dollar signs in something about you, you can't really expect that, and even people who I respect a lot have given me occasional advice that was pithy or stupid or that I didn't agree with.

You have to be your own leader. Even if you're paying a guy a thousand dollars to coach you, you are your own leader. I know that is VERY FRUSTRATING if you're a newcomer but that's the difference between a customer and an entrepreneur.

The most important thing you can do is come here, get inspired or get some knowledge, and then jet out and go to work.

That said.

You read posts, some people will itch the back of your brain. You look them up. Are they actually in business, is it actually sustainable, or are they just complaining on the forum?

You talk to them, some of them are cool. You're not looking for leaders, you're looking for peers, and if one of them is further ahead of you and can help you out, fine. You have to have a zen mentality - if you're looking at everything on this forum like OHNOEZ it's a scam you mess up just as much as if you're overly gullible.

EDIT: "I will probably get attacked for saying this but" is straight out the sales tactic playbook. Doesn't mean it's not true. See what I mean about zen?

If you get a legit advice, I do not think you should care whether or not that person is an expert.

Focus on the words, not on who said that.

Experience will tell you all you need to know. Most don't get to that point unfortunately.

To be honest, I think you are looking at this forum the wrong way. You shouldn't be looking for experts. You should be looking for information that will help you succeed in your plan.

You first need a plan.

No techniques, no quick cash, no buttons with magic on them.

Most of what you read on this forum and what is sold are techniques. Now, they can be helpful but it isn't something you should be basing a business upon.

You want something long term. Something that will grow. That means a real business. If you can't come up with a plan, you should look at another field because this probably is a waste of time for you.

It's a legitimate question. I don't know that there's an easy answer though.

Post count may mean nothing more than someone just likes to socialize. It's not really an indicator of expertise.

You can look over someone's post history. That can be help confirm someone's expertise or reveal they may be someone whose advice you don't want to trust.

You can use a search engine to check out what's out there about them or their business. That can be revealing, although you have to take the results with a grain of salt. Someone saying negative things could just have a personal vendetta against them. You want to look for trends more than single incidents.

Other than that, learn to trust your instincts and follow your plan. You do have a plan, right?

Great question!

One thing I'd like to add to all the other answers is that I often trust people on here that are approaching in a positive way, and doesn't try to cold read me but really means the best.
These are often the high achievers.

Also, if people are able to give more options, it means they read more than one book (though someone one option can really be the best ;-))

Hope this helps a bit.

cheers!

Agree - you can't really tell. Over time, I've gotten to know so many of the people here. I know who is respected in which areas of online business. That helps. Would you trust me to tell you much about technology issues? NOT. But I can answer questions about what I know - which is writing.

What I'm saying is that if you hang out awhile and get to know who's who, it makes it a lot easier to know who the "go to" people are for different areas of business, as well as a few who might be best to avoid for anything and everything.

Like said before in the posts - you have to have your own plan, but knowing who does what around here sure makes it a lot easier when you have questions that you want solid advice about. It takes time, but the friends you can make here can be both awesome to know, and valuable assets when you are feeling a tad stuck.

Post count means nothing. Post count only means how many times a person has posted and has no relation to how smart or dumb someone is.

Hang around here long enough, read people's posts and after a while you should be able to separate the wheat from the chaff.

I have a high post count and offer advice when it is asked for. I've never professed to be an expert in anything at all, but I do have a lot of experience in certain areas and I don't give advice when I don't really know the answer unless they are asking for opinions and I have one on a topic.

In addition, rather than promoting myself as an expert in anything, I enjoy the banter and have come to think of some of the people here as friends ... in an anonymous online sort of way.

My father had an old saying, "Believe in half of what you see and NONE of what you hear".

Being new here myself, you can kind of get a sense of those who know vs those who THINK they know. Forums like these give everyone a voice so exercise good judgment and some common sense.

If you hang around here more often, you'll know what advice you'll take or not. It's not really who posted them. I've seen great advice here and they don't really participate too much in the forums but I guess they just read here and post if they really needed to. Personally, I pay attention to those who are positive and have a good sense of humor.

Read the forum ; you will automatically sort out the good ones from the BS ones.

An important point to remember is that there are many ways to start and run a successful business. One person's advice may be helpful to your business model even if they are not an "expert".

Another person may give you great advice -- but it won't work for you.

You need to be clear on what you want to achieve before anyone's advice can help you.

Rose

I would think that most members that have been here for a year or more have a rather good radar for detecting the experts and filtering out the worthless posts. Since you have the question I am not sure how you will determine who to listen to even in your own thread. Here are a few of my thoughts anyway.

I don't pay attention to the members that:

• Give advice on every topic (no one can be an expert in everything)
• Repeat old and disproven IM myths (they are not up to date or testing)
• Have not even read the previous posts (they seldom add anything beneficial or even correct)
• Take a very stubborn position that there is only one right way (I mean in areas that are clearly not one sided. Ex: free vs. paid traffic; no confirm vs. double optins; wordpress vs. anything else; on and on...)
• Make extreme generalizations (all WSO's suck; all gurus are greedy liars and prey on newbies; no one here helps me; none of the IM methods being taught work; all MLM is a scam; Google, FTC, and such are evil empires; all people from the country of _______ are scammers and hackers; ______ is the only way you can make money...)
• Love jumping in on the controversial "drama" threads (just for the sake of arguing and proving how well they can debate)
• Are clearly inexperienced in the topic of their post but in their sig offer to teach others how to do it

I pay close attention to:

• Members that speak from real world experience (they are actually using the methods, etc.)
• Admit when they are wrong or have learned something (that is why they got where they are)
• Back statements up with stats, references, sources (not always possible or necessary of course)
• In controversial subjects they know how to add their views without getting embroiled in personality conflicts
• They can correct wrong viewpoints without demeaning another member
• They are positive, constructive, helpful, and add some humor now and then
• They know how to focus on the details but also see the bigger picture
• If they contribute to a thread they have actually read all the posts
• They stay on topic and even reel it back in now and then
• They use the thanks button for meaningful posts
• They never belittle an international member for poor English skills
• They are treating their business as a business
• They may have multiple streams of income, traffic generating, etc. but they have mastered them one at a time

There are many brilliant and insightful members here that contribute meaningful and extraordinary posts in every area of IM (and even outside of IM). I have also come to appreciate a number of members that do not stand out as experts in any specific area but often contribute posts that offer good common sense, simple observations, quick tips, possible solutions, and supportive encouragement.

Overall, I would say the good and great posters clearly stand out from the bad and below average ones.

I believe post count isn't really an indicator. The time they've been a member of this forum might be a better way to tell how experienced they are (though some people hang around for years without becoming serious). But I think overall, if someone's been here for several years, odds are more than not that they know a fair bit about this IM game.

On the other hand, something I always find a little suspect is when a person uses every opportunity they can to tell you how experienced they are and how much money they're making. They'll interject it into their posts constantly. I'm not saying those people aren't necessarily telling the truth, but it just makes me a little more hesitant to take them at their word.

I think that overall, the best way to know is to look for tendencies over time from certain members. After a while on this forum, you get to know certain people and how they usually react to questions here. Ask yourself if this person usually seems to give some good information, or if they use the thread to try to promote themselves.

Edit: I forgot to mention. Look at how many times a person has been thanked. That can be a good indicator.

You'll see that there are some members that are consistently helpful, and I believe those are going to be the most trustworthy

I owned a small business (really more of a self-employment opportunity) when I was in high school. I sold and fixed computers occasionally hiring a couple friends to help me out on big jobs. I made money at it, not a lot because I didn't know how to market but relied on word of mouth in the small town where I lived. It was nice and spoiled me because I was making $50/hr. when my friends were making $5/hr. it forced me to not settle with a job long term later in life and that attitude really bought me a lot of freedom in the long term. I left business to go pursue a career because I looked at my Dad who had his own small business and he couldn't take vacations, I decided that wasn't something I wanted so I looked for a place where i wouldn't have to worry about digging up customers and always being on call.

Eventually though, I realized I couldn't fulfill my dreams working a job, I'd never make enough money or get enough time off to travel and see the world the way I wanted so I got back into business and committed myself that time to learn about it. This journey of learning eventually led me to meet many so called "gurus". It's a funny thing because after a few years I learned some of my original business contacts from networking who I'd skipped past in favor of the glamour of the experts on stage were actually way more solid business people than the so called experts who I eventually promoted through an events company I had until I became disenchanted with most of the industry.

I mention that to provide some background having been sucked in by self proclaimed experts many of whom were deluded about their expertise, some of whom were full on cons sucking up investor money and disappearing always with some story about how it went wrong then finding some other victim to promote them. I've often looked back since then and asked "how could I have known?" See the problem is today I can generally see through those people and advise others not to do it or how to do it in those cases, the problem is back then I didn't know what I didn't know. I'd hear pitches of buying houses at $0.20 on the dollar from banks in REO deals (let's be clear you can NEVER buy real estate for 20% of current market value, anyone telling you that either doesn't know the current market value (they are very often basing it on past market value), or is lying, 10% below market value is very reasonable, 20% is possible, anything more than that and you're pushing it, but at the time I didn't know that, how could I?). I'd sit in presentations in the real estate boom and hear about 100%/yr. rates of return and look at people around me who were actually making it and think "this is how millionaires invest, this is what they know that other people don't know". The fact is most of those people who made a fortune during a boom went bankrupt later, I have dozens of friends in that category because they were taking advantage of a limited time anomaly and didn't understand the fundamentals of solid investing but those early wins sucked in a whole flurry of speculators myself included who didn't know what we didn't know. The problem is you couldn't even said "it's too good to be true" because the fact was people were making those kinds of returns, a roommate of mine had purchased a condo for $120k ($20k down or something like that) and sold it a year later for $220k, an astronomical return I missed out on at the time. I remember meeting someone who'd gone from nothing to a $30 million real estate portfolio with a $11 million net worth in 4 years, you couldn't say something like "don't trust people who don't have results" because he had results...and 2 years later had lost it all in bankruptcy with a negative net worth.

There is no protection from ignorance and when you start you are inevitably ignorant.

There is a solution though, a proven process to help you get there, it goes like this:

1. Keep your job/protect your primary income - one of the biggest mistakes I made and I've seen others make is giving up your principle income which is solid and necessary in order to risk it all on the potential of a future income, this is a mistake, I ended up with $60k of credit card debt that took ages to pay off and made my life very difficult during the interim (as an aside if you find yourself in that situation don't pay it off and don't declare bankruptcy, just walk away from it, it's unsecured debt, it will be uncomfortable but the banks are insured against it and you aren't doing yourself any service being proud and paying it back on some moral high ground like I did)

2. In your spare time (part time) partner up with/go to work for someone else to build their project with them, invest nothing in terms of money, only in terms of time and realize your goal here isn't to make money but only to learn - again this is what I wish I'd done, I did this to a small extent later and made a few people a lot of money, far more than I ever received in return, but the point is education is expensive and you want to fast track it by learning from someone else and you want them to pay for your mistakes rather than you paying for them. People you can do this with exist all over the place, it will mean effectively volunteering or working purely based on performance but that's why you maintained your primary income and it gives you a safe environment in which to make mistakes and you'll make lots of mistakes

3. Understand that something isn't right because of who said it but because the data and the logic behind it are sound, be skeptical about everything you hear (lots of stuff sounds good and turns out not to be true in practice), but open to testing it (always approach it as a test and make sure you've got the ability to measure the success or failure in the process)

4. Commit to the long term in this process - it's going to take some serious time and commitment to get the results in most cases, there will be lots of failure you need to be ok with that in advance and be able to reframe failure as learning so you can continue moving forward. In a sense, the only good feedback is bad feedback because it tells you what to change to get better, you're already doing what you're doing, what you need to learn is what to do differently.

Looking back that's what I wish I had done, at the time I was too proud to do it, I didn't like the idea of having some low paying part time job, but it would have made all the difference in my life. Things worked out pretty well for me, but in financial terms I would have been at least 2 years ahead of where i am today following that model.

You can't unfortunately!

But the best thing to do if someone gives you advice and you aren't sure whether to take it or not is to look them up.

Check out there previous posts, the amount of thanks they have and there blog or website

In the end - you won't learn crap reading a forum. The only information people are 'sharing' - or even charging money for - is about tactics that have long since dried up.

Internet marketing is NOT for the weak of heart or the faint of spirit. You MUST constantly experiment and find new methods. Otherwise, you shall surely perish.