Follow The Experts Who Do What They Teach
Copyright 2010 by Willie Crawford

As I’m sure that you realize, not all online marketing experts are the same. Some are only interested in your money, and they know that the quickest and easiest wayto get it is to sell you “the dream.”

Many so-called experts have never done what they teach. They come online, survey the landscape, and decide that teaching is easier than doing. So they hire a ghostwriter to write an ebook, or worse, they write an ebook filled with their theories. Then they roll this ebook out with lots of fan fare, selling it to unsuspecting newbies.

Buyers of the above ebook, read maybe half way through it, spot another shiny object, and are off to try what sounds like a faster, easier way.

So how do you avoid falling into this and a dozen other traps?

There are two ways that I’ll recommend.

1) Use tools such as the search engines to investigate the marketer or company before spending a penny with them. The internet is very inter-connected AND transparent. It’s nearly impossible to have a serious online presence and not be very visible in the search engines. For example, if you were to “google” my name, you would find over 2 million returns, and most of them would be me!

If I googled someone, or a company’s name, and couldn’t find it, I’d definitely ask why. I’d also probably start running in the opposite direction as fast as possible, with one hand on my wallet.

2) Follow the experts who actually do what they teach. Ifyou can’t see that they do what they teach, there is a good chance that they don’t, and the reason may be that they are not sure that it will work. As you look to see that theyare actually doing what they teach, also put it through the common sense test.

As an example, many of my friends and mentors teach that your business cannot grow beyond a certain point withyou trying to do everything in your business. When you first read that, you may ask yourself if this is just a sales ploy. So you observe top online marketers and notice that they have copywriters, programmers, operation managers, affiliate managers, webmasters, graphic artists, ghostwriters, email managers, virtual assistants, etc., working for them.

Then you shift to the offline world and notice that in the most successful restaurants, the owner is not in the back washing dishes, cooking, or supervising waiters. He is not on the cash register or waiting on tables. Instead he maybe wandering the floor and “hob knobbing” with customers, making them feel important. He may be just observing his business, looking for areas that can be improved and places where employees may need more training.

I’m sure that you’re beginning to get my point now. You often wonder if a marketer recommends that you do something because it will make him a profit, or if he really believes what he is recommending. Observing that he is actually doing it himself… that he believes in what he teaches enough to use it in his business, is very powerful.

As a personal example, I preach that you should outsource as much as possible, and focus on growing and managing your business. I know how to do many of the day-to-day tasks of running an online enterprise. After 14 years I’ve tried doing many of them, and become very good at some of them. However, I personally outsource most jobs related to graphics,copywriting, webmastering, programming, building mini-nets, keyword research, and customer service.

I have full-time people working exclusively for me, who handle most of these tasks. It took a while, but I finally realized that these people don’t cost me money, they make me money.

I do what my good friend Maria Gudelis calls engaging in talent arbitrage.

Maria has a very in-depth, yet inexpensive, course on being an offline consultant. I’ve gone completely through that course a dozen times, and have it memorized, AND do what she teaches. One of the things that she teaches is that you land offline consulting clients, and define what they need, etc., but that you don’t do most of the work. You pass it off to outsourced talent as soon as possible, but you pocket most of the fees collected at the same time. I follow Maria because I can see that she does what she teaches.

By the way, I encourage you to check out Maria’s coursein being an offline consultant. You’ll find it at: http://timic.org/Maria

I mentioned earlier that you should check out the person that you’re following. Another way that I do that is by looking at whether or not what they teach agrees with what other verified experts teach. One of my favorite experts is Dan Kennedy, and Maria’s teachings totally agree with what Dan teaches as far as how to leverage your business, and which segment of the market you should go after. Incidentally, you should go after segments of the market that HAVE money and are willing to spend it on you and your products or services.

I’ll wrap up this article, but share more of my thoughts and observations soon. In the meantime, develop the habit of really noticing whether your favorite guru actually does what he teaches. That could make a huge difference in your bottomline.

———————

Willie Crawford is founder of The Internet Marketing Inner Circle, a membership site where some of the world’s sharpest marketing minds gather to network, brainstorm, and jointly grow their businesses. Join The Internet Marketing Inner Circle today for $1. Complete details at: http://timic.org