The Honest Guru-------------- a thing of the past era.

They are out there, but keep in mind, on some of those ridiculously priced courses, ($497 to $1997 or whatever). Those honest gurus are not going to buy them and rightly so. So it is hard for them to give those type of courses thumbs up or down. What gets me, since the dawn of Internet marketing I have seen few people testify they have made it from those courses. My two sense.

Well, once upon a time there was this dude named Frank that made a product called Mass Control that kind of did that. Wasn't a WSO though...

George Brown launched Google Sniper as a WSO, then went onto Clickbank. There have been many others, but that was one of the largest.

If this keeps happening to you, are you sure it's other people's fault?

No, go to the Internet Marketing Product Reviews & Ratings section of the WF. You see bad reviews all the time. Some people even warn others before the product is released.

The reason people typically get banned for their "review" is for aggressively going after the product vendor on a personal level or throwing a tantrum like a toddler.

Mass Control was pretty big from what I can remember.

It's highly likely the issue is you are buying products that have ridiculous claims.

Get more realistic about your goals and you'll find yourself buying into less hype.

Much of the information you can get from a paid source, can be found via free sources online. You just have to be willing to use Google search and devote hours or days to the effort. The biggest part of the challenge is not just reading but understanding and implementing what you learn, whether from a WSO or any source you read online.

Tom,

First, learn brick and mortar business fundamentals.
Second, learn offline sales and marketing basics.
Third, learn offline advertising fundamentals.
Fourth, read up on business back end and front end PPTs = People, Process, Technologies.
Why?

=>> You'll be able to significantly improve your judgement when it comes to selecting a digital info WSO product to buy, an IM coaching program to subscribe to, or a signature link of others here to click; and

=>> You'd most likely be able to ignore almost all of them, since you probably won't need them...

If you don't at least familiarize yourself with the things above, then you probably won't be able to know what you need to search for and what sources to get updated information from and what things to focus on and what test results to monitor and what things to improve in your related venture...

There have been a lot of great WSOs in the time I've been a member.

When I first joined you had to pay to be a member - IF you even knew how/where to join (it was somewhat of a hidden secret at first) and there was about 1 WSO a week and you really paid attention when they came out.

I'm sure there are still really good WSOs, but the number is so massive and the sales pitches to hyped up that it's almost impossible to tell just from browsing the offers what is rehashed and what is genuinely new.

However, as has been said - expectations are often more the problem than anything and the age-old warning of Buyer-Beware still applies.

In general - you get what you pay for, so for many newbies who want to spend $5 and get all the answers to making money handed on a plate - they will be disappointed.

Not that you can't get that for $5, in fact you can get it for free - but it's about how you use information to take action rather than what you read that will ultimately make the difference.

Many people just aren't suited to the type of dedication and self-reliance that's required to do well in many online business models, but there's definitely no shortage of decent information around.

Andy

The problem is that most students have unrealistic goals and coaches have such overhyped sales letters.

Those combinations are a disaster waiting to happen.

But on a serious note. I recommend finding the guru or mentors testimonials first and their income statements if need be.

Ask all the right questions in the world to make you build the trust you need to join his team.

People dont join business but people join people and a coach who answers all of your questions and gives you value first before any sales pitch is the honest transparent guru for you

Once dishonesty is brought in the relationship, the partnership is doomed from the start.

Joe

Some really great posts in this thread - read through the advice these warriors have given you: it's all genuine. And thanks to the warriors who have posted helpful responses

My advice about info-products: most of them have a money back promise and paypal make it really easy to claim a refund too - so if after 30 or 60 days or whatever you've come to the conclusion (after genuine effort on your part) that the product is junk and doesn't live up to your standards... get your money back.

The expirience can be worth the cost of time - if you put genuine effort into any system: even if it fails you will have undoubtabley learned a valuable thing or two along the way.

Peace,
Gh0zt

I have paid $5k for programs and $9k. Both had some of the same old same old in them, but they also had to key components to them.

1.) I paid a ton and there was no way in hell I was not going to make my money back.

2.) Name association with the person I paid. Leverage in my marketing.

There are so many sides to the story and so many people hating on "guru's" which by the way were only created as a way for the seller to relate to the buyer. There are no guru's! They are just people who understand how to make you buy stuff.

Until you learn how to do that... you will always be a buyer and they will keep making money. I have made thousands off of $9 wso's and off of $9k programs. It's all about doing!

Yes there is a ton of rehashed stuff out there, do you want to know why?

IT WORKS! The reason being is that you may not have found the right voice to listen to yet. I spent hundreds of dollars on sales funnel training, but it wasn't until the 10th product that I actually started applying it. Am I mad at all those people who sold me the same type of info... NOPE!!!

Bottom line is this. Until you think like a marketer and learn about marketing and sales you will always be chasing a dream and many of us will keep selling it to you because it sells.

Stop trying to make money and learn about what makes money and you will find that you suddenly make money. Scam is another funny one because everyone says they have been scammed and out of the hundreds of products I have bought I would say that only 3 come to mind as a scam.

Then again I was the one looking for a lottery winning button. That is what they sold me and I bought.

As far as the scammers go, the world will never be rid of them.
They have been around, are around, and likely will still be around
for many years to come. The only way to protect yourself is not
to be in a hurry. Take your time and educate yourself on what online
business is about, decide on what you want to do online, create a
business plan for yourself, and then go to work.

There are multitudes of information and honest posts within the threads
of this and other forums. My suggestion is to search for the information
that you need first, ask some questions (you're already doing that), and
then pay close attention to any offers that you see to make sure that they
actually DO serve your need(s). Asking questions can save you money.

Personally I think it's more about knowing your own skills and limitations. One person's "easy" might be 100 other people's "easy" and a million people's "impossible".

A step by step instruction manual on how to do something is only valuable if you're actually capable of DOING all of the steps. If I wrote a book called "How to build a boat", at some point one of the instructions is going to be to weld something to something else. If you don't know how to weld, that doesn't make my book a fraud...

That seems like such a "common sense" answer, yet when it comes to the Internet Marketing community people throw common sense out the window and would declare that same book "incomplete" because it doesn't teach you how to weld. I've actually seen people call a product "crap" because it tells them they need to set up a Wordpress site, but not how to set up a Wordpress site step by step... seriously?!. If you need instruction at that level, you don't need a product, you need a coach.

Also, one thing I've found on this forum is that people skip steps. A lot. It's the nature of the beast ... people who are looking for "easy" money want it to be, well, easy. So when they encounter a step that seems unnecessary or tedious, they say "What? Screw that, that's too much work! This was supposed to be easy! Ripoff!!"

See Post #24 in this thread for some more clarification (actually, read them all, that thread is hilarious):
http://www.warriorforum.com/off-topi...ch-market.html

Hit that nail right on the head!

If the requirements of being a successful Internet marketer were posted as a job listing, and you all were being honest with yourselves, then only about 2% would be qualified candidates.

The Internet is there. Most everyone has access. So...