Why We Need Multiple Mentors

I have a friend who's an antique dealer.  She buys a lot of her stock at auction, but she also spends time every week going round antique fairs and exploring other people's shops.  And sometimes she finds some amazing bargains.  When she first told me about some of the things she'd bought from other dealers - and about the profits she'd made - I was astonished.  How come, I asked, that the people she'd bought from had priced the items at so much less than they were worth?  Simple, she replied - antiques is an enormous area and nobody can know everything about it.

It's the same, these days, with internet marketing.  Time was that you could buy one person's course on how to make money online and it would be much the same as everybody else's course.  It would teach the fundamentals - how to write a sales page, how to create a product, and how to drive traffic to your website by exchanging links with similar sites.  Then there came a point when not only was it getting much harder to exchange links but the links themselves no longer had the SEO value that they once had.  So along came the courses on article marketing and press releases.  And how to use Google adwords and other pay-per-click advertising.  Then backlinking became the thing to do - until recently when Google started to crack down on what it called 'unnatural linking' (see my post of April 7th).  And, of course, in recent times we've had the development of bookmarking and blogging and social networking - and while there are a lot of gurus out there who know a huge amount about how to make money online, I don't believe that any of them knows it all.  And they freely admit that they don't go to each others' seminars just because they're good friends . . . they go to learn from each other.

Now, if you've been reading my blog, you'll know that I'm an enormous fan of Armand Morin.  His products range from the amazingly comprehensive Internet Marketing Explained down to his free Internet Marketing Newsletter.  And I have learned stuff from him that I've never heard mentioned anywhere else.  But there are gaps - I don't think he yet has a course on how to use Twitter, Pinterest and other forms of social networking.  And it's possible that he may never produce one because it's not an area that he uses very much himself.  However, there are other people who are experts in the field, such as Melanie Duncan, whose 'Power of Pinning' course is based on her own successes using Pinterest, and Mili Ponce who has been called 'the Queen of Twitter'.

But it's not just to fill in the gaps that we need a multiplicity of mentors.  Sometimes they don't get it right.   For example, Armand Morin's FAST (Facebook Ad Secret Training) course works.  I've tried it and I have no doubt whatsoever that he is teaching here the best way to use Facebook advertising.  But recently I heard another guru talking about how to use Facebook ads.  And several of the things that he recommended were things that Armand had said NOT to do (and had explained why).   I'm sure that, if I had followed the suggestions of the second guru, it would not have been disastrous but I'm equally sure that I would not have got the excellent results I achieved from following FAST.  So it's not that they get it wrong, exactly, just that they don't get it right.  And the only way we can know this is by listening to several people on the same subject.

This is where 'bootcamps' can be so valuable.  I remember with great pleasure a couple that I went to that were organised by Andrew Reynolds, where we heard some twenty or so speakers over the course of three days.  And for each person in the audience there were some speakers who were outstanding, and some who were less so.  For me, the stars were Armand Morin and Derek Gehl and Simon Coulson - and I've since learned a great deal from all three of them.  So I remain very grateful to Andrew Reynolds for giving me the opportunity to listen to so many gurus and to be able to pick out those whose teaching spoke to me personally.

Finding a Mentor

In today's uncertain economic climate, more and more people are looking to the internet as a way of making money - either to supplement their income or else to provide an income after they've been made redundant.  But the question is - where do you start?  Some people are lucky enough to find a good teacher straight away.  But there are an awful lot of rogues out there.  And there are also quite a few people who've made good money on the internet and honestly try to teach others how to do it, but seem to lack the ability to do so.

I'm a great fan of Armand Morin.  His teaching materials are superb.  I went to an 'Armand Live' event some time ago - three days, and a wealth of information.  But his stuff does tend to be expensive.  Worth it, without doubt, but a difficult decision if you're on a tight budget.  However, if you've got the money to spare,  his Internet Marketing Explained is a superb course.  Or, if you want a less expensive, monthly tutorial course, try his marketing tutorials.

In the UK, Simon Coulson has proved himself a trustworthy teacher, and his Internet Cashflow course, which comes in monthly installments, is not expensive.

Kissing Frogs

I've done a few internet marketing courses in my time, been to a number of seminars and bootcamps (all of them highly enjoyable) and spent some money on courses.  And I'm now at the stage where I know who I trust - who will deliver techniques that really work - and who will give you only part of it, or nothing at all.

Perhaps most important (to me, at least) is ongoing support so that I can ask about things I don't understand or that don't seem to work.  So many courses and information products seem to lure people in by promising that 'this will work' but then, when it doesn't, offering no backup.

I like the ones that offer a money-back guarantee.  It means they've got confidence in what they're teaching.  Although, of course, there are one or two scams in that area.  Some time back I downloaded a training report on driving traffic to your website.  The advertising blurb said it would teach you to drive traffic 'from scratch'.  I'd just set up a new website and it sounded as though it might be useful.  Turned out that you had have to have a certain number of visitors to your website already in order to make it work.  Added to that, the instructions on how the system worked (it was to do with using a script) were totally incomprehensible - and I'm fairly computer literate.  I emailed the seller . . . no reply.  I emailed again . . . still no reply.  I went to the website and tried contacting the helpdesk through that . . . no reply.  I'd paid via Paypal and put in a complaint and, eventually, I got my money back. 

Another time I downloaded a training report on 'a completely new way of driving traffic to your site' by a seemingly respected internet marketer.  When I read it, there was nothing new about it at all.  Unfortunately, this one didn't have a money back guarantee.  I protested to the seller that the blurb had been misleading but - yes you've guessed it - I got no reply.  A good case of buyer beware!

They say that to find a prince you've got to kiss a lot of frogs and, yes, I've kissed one or two in my time.  But it's been worth it because, ultimately, it led me to the mentors who know it and teach it, who offer support for when you're stuck or you don't understand, and who really want you to succeed.