How To Become A Guru Online
Ah, how great it must be to be a make money “guru”, right?
Well, I’m no guru myself, although I’ve been called that through some nasty emails lately. I’ve been getting emails like “You’re just like all the other gurus out there” or “You’ve turned into one of those gurus who won’t share the exact details of your success”.
First let me state that I hate the term “guru”, at least in a sense that most people use it online. The ORIGINAL definition of Guru is from the Indian culture meaning: A spiritual guide, teacher and leader who provides a sacred path to wisdom and guidance.
However, the definition has since changed to a more broad “person with knowledge or expertise”. I work with several Indian partners who are offended by the term guru being thrown around so often online, especially when it’s used to negatively describe someone.
But the point of this post is not to debate how the term guru is being used or what the meaning of the term is. The fact is, people love to use the term guru, especially in the internet marketing niche.
So, how do people become a “guru” these days? And more importantly, why would anyone WANT to become a “guru”?
Becoming an internet marketing guru is pretty easy. Here’s what you have to do to become one…
Step 1 – Start an internet business.
Step 2 – Work your butt off and have amazing success with it.
Step 3 – After reaching the “wealthy stage”, you decide to give back.
Step 4 – You work hard to share your knowledge with others.
Step 5 – You get criticized and scrutinized for your every move.
Step 6 – People think you are a fraud and are only out to rip people off.
Sounds pretty exciting! Where can I sign up?
I always find it amusing to see people ripping on successful people. I assume the biggest reason why people hate “gurus” is because they are simply jealous of their success and if this “guru” doesn’t literally take them by the hand and show them every tiny detail to become rich, then the guru is a fraud.
Don’t get me wrong, there are A LOT of scam artists online claiming to be a guru. Just because you hang out with other gurus doesn’t make you one yourself. But there are just as many real, honest, hard working gurus out there that ARE trying to help you become successful. Just because they might charge a fee to help you succeed doesn’t mean they are out to rip you off.
Sometimes charging a fee is the one thing that will make people accountable for their own success. Nobody puts value on anything that’s free. If you pay $500 for a coaching program, you’re much more likely to put the advice into practice because you need to recover that investment. If you get free advice, you will probably not take action because you are not out anything if you don’t.
Nobody in this world is “entitled” to anything. If you want something, you need to work for it, not EXPECT it to be handed to you. There is more opportunity in the world RIGHT NOW than there has ever been in history before. Even though the media makes it sound like the sky is falling and the economy is falling apart, nothing could be further from the truth.
There’s always an opportunity to succeed, no matter what the current economic situation is. Sure the housing market appears to be falling apart, but other people are absolutely loving it (foreclosure investors). Sure some people are losing their jobs, but many of these people are taking this misfortune and using it as a kick in the pants to start their own business, something they always wanted to do but had been putting off because they had a “cushy job”. Sure gas prices are approaching $4/gallon, but this will cause a rush to find alternative energy sources, which will help our environment and bring additional job opportunities.
This is the kind of mindset that a “guru” has. An internet marketing guru is simply, a regular person who has found an opportunity and created success from that opportunity.
If you truly want to become an internet guru, open your eyes, work hard and prepare to be criticized…
Comments
Kevin April 29th, 2008
I am learning this the hard way. I am working so hard to get established and I never expec anything for free. (You get what you reap). I guess what I am trying to say is, I new this was going to be a challenging journey, but the learning curve is very frustrating somedays. I want to ask lots of questions and do lots of research, but I do understand how busy others are. I value my time as much as others. I cant wiat for the time when I can give back what I have been learning!
Thanks Max, you are a great mentor.
Scott Fillmer April 29th, 2008
Well, I like #3, we should all just skip to that one
#6 is also not really out of order, but I think that one comes in to play in just about any stage. After owning various internet businesses for the last 15 years, I am always amazed how everyone seems to think you are just out to rip them off.
They never seem to stop and think that you can’t actually have a business model of ripping people off, it just doesn’t work like that. If you do, you won’t be in business long.
Mike Huang April 29th, 2008
Very well said. It is true that people are just jealous of “GURUs” because of their success. I admit that I have been jealous of John Chow for a very very long time mainly because he received all the traffic he has now because he was a top referral for Agloco. Maybe it is time to kickstart myself too
-Mike
zani April 29th, 2008
Hi Max,
I’ve seen some online criticisms of your approach to Blogging Experiment, so I can pretty well imagine the type of emails you are getting. Ben was successful because people liked him – he had a style they could relate to. Your approach is more authorative and this gets some people’s backs up it seems. In my mind there is nothing wrong with either aproach – just difference.
I think you are doing a good job here, so don’t sweat it if people throw the ‘guru scam artist’ label at you.
As to the debate on ‘make money online gurus’, which continues to rage; if nothing else, it makes people stop and question what the person is saying and why they are saying it. No bad thing.
And it’s real interesting to watch
CanMexDave April 29th, 2008
Great post, and so true. I’m sure you also get many comments saying how lucky you were. Isn’t it interesting how some people react to successful people. I had a very similar experience while investing. I had developed some very good skills in TA (chart reading) over many years and had become very successful trading stocks. I noticed on many of the investment boards pertaining to penny stocks that most were getting taken for a ride as they were totally wrapped up in their emotions of either fear or greed. TA is a great tool to counteract this. So I decided over over a period several years to give free information on the psychology of investing and technical trading. I know in my heart that many gained from what I freely offered. But I assure everyone here that for every person that choose to learn what it takes to invest successfully there was four that were critical, but I was a fraud, that I was manipulating market to rip people off. It seems that the 80/20 rule always applies. If if I were to do it over again I would charge a fee and have a members area instead of providing free information.
Terry Tay April 30th, 2008
Re: Step 1 – Starting an internet business is pretty easy to do, but making it successful is the hard part.
Re: Step 2 – Not many people want to work their butt off.
Re: Step 3 – Too many can’t reach the “Wealthy stage” because they don’t work their butts off.
Re: Step 4 – Too many don’t have the knowledge to share because they didn’t work their butt off and reach the wealthy stage.
Re: Step 5 – Too many spend too much time criticizing.
Re: Step 6 – Same as Step 5
Mr MultiVar April 30th, 2008
I think that whatever level of success you have, family and friends are generally sceptical. When you reach out to the wider community the problem only gets worse, even less people believe what you say.
But, ho hum it brings in traffic
Keep up the good work Max, it is refreshing to have a guy running a blog that is not a specialist blogger but comes from a successful business background. No offence to Ben intended.
p.s. I am running with the BANs concept at the moment, yours was one of 3 sites that endorse the system so I got stuck in. I hope to post some positive results after say a month.
Tom At The Home Business Archive May 1st, 2008
Hi Max, excellent post.It´s all about constant learning and sharing experiences with others that will make you successful.
RHM May 3rd, 2008
I like the message about hard work, but the rest is a bit dramatic.
Step 5 – You get criticized and scrutinized for your every move.
Yeah, so? That happens to every single blogger out there. Stop whining.
RHM
seo May 4th, 2008
Start a blog on the subject you enjoy. Then you will have that pressure from your readers to blog and you will not have other choice but to constantly make more research on this subject.
Market Secrets Blogger February 5th, 2009
I’ve been preaching this one for years…and the reason why this is true is mostly because of the power of properly using the internet.
chukwuma collins December 20th, 2009
The zeal is there but the how is my problem. I pray i get it right someday.