Ed Dale and Sucking Gurus!

Ed Dale and Sucking Gurus!

In a couple of Ed Dale’s latest communications he has mentioned that he thinks “the word Guru really sucks”.

I have to say that I completely agree with him in the context in which I believe he is using it, and that is in the Internet marketers and online marketing circles it does suck, big time.

Looking at the good old fashioned dictionary I find the meaning to be “Guru – a bubbling sound….no that’s gurgle the word above :-) Guru- Hindu spiritual advisor or teacher.

Now I am but a simple man, I had never really come across the Guru word to often until I started doing some research into Internet marketing, strangely enough. In this world it’s Guru this and Guru that. Guru’s for list building, squeeze pages, search engine optimization and even Guru’s that can show you how and which button to press to make money come out your USB socket, Ooh ye that’s me baby, send me 47.99 and I’ll show you how. The Internet is just jam packed wall to wall, chock-a-block, stuffed crammed full of Guru’s.

So funnily enough I had spent some time thinking about this very problem and how to tackle it? Because I felt that well, Wikipedia, said it beautifully: -
“Testing the guru”
“Some scriptures and gurus have warned against false teachers, and have recommended that the spiritual seeker test the guru before accepting him. Some have given criteria on how to distinguish false from genuine ones:”

My little answer was to start a group called Name the Guru, the concept being that the good guys would get a mention and the not so good would not, how else can we help each other fight through the Guru Glut?

I don’t think there is any argument that Guru’s or Mentor’s are a good thing, most of us in our lives use many for all sorts of reasons, so therefore I don’t think there is anything wrong with the word, it’s just in the context it gets used.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7661877011

Sir Richard Branson, Giant Babies and Piccadilly Circus.

Sir Richard Branson, Giant Babies and Piccadilly Circus.

Another mentor I followed was Richard Branson in my early twenties I read a biography about Sir Richard and it lead to giant babies London’s Piccadilly Circus and an estimated 5 million listeners.

Here is the short story. Richard Branson started is carrier in the music industry selling records in fact, from a telephone box. As a young man I figured I had something in common with him, I could use a telephone box too.

One of his favorite strategies to get press attention for new product launches was to devise some sort of stunt or gimmick that would gain free press attention.

Now at this point I was the owner of store selling baby equipment, it may seem a little odd that a 24 year old single guy with no children was a proprietor of such a business but that is another story. While I was in this business I had the idea to have an educational video made for first time parents (this may also seem odd), and believe it or not I wrote the script and had a London film company make the video. Even by today’s standards it was quite the production and cost thousands and thousands of the good old British Pounds to make it, in fact, I kid you not; one of the cameramen had just come from a James Bond set which is yet another story.

Anyway a large chain store at the time (Mothercare) refused to sell my product because “it did not show any of there branded product in the video, and was therefore not a complete representation of the market” and yes you guest it, yet another story. So I came up with my Sir Richard Branson and decided to pull a stunt to get media attention.

The Stunt, my then business partner and I decided we would fly down to London and protest outside Mothercare in giant baby outfits much like the big Sumo Wrestling outfits but with large towel baby diapers and baby hats. With our little signs and our huge baby outfits we stood and protested outside the store until the police came and asked us to move, which we did. Looking back now that would have been a good story, GIANT BABIES ARESTED IN PICADILLY CIRCUS, so instead we paraded up and down Piccadilly Circus and handed out mail order leaflets which was not an arrestable offence.

So did it work? Well kind of, we did get a spot on London’s biggest morning radio show with an estimated 5 million listeners.

Did it get the video flying off the shelves, well that’s another story!

Inspiration in words.

Inspiration in words, please add your favorites the good corny and funny!

“Whether you think you can, or that you can’t; you are usually right.”-Henry Ford

“If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself.”-Albert Einstein

“Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark, professionals built the Titanic.”-Anonymous

“Better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness.”-Chinese Proverb

“I not only use all the brains I have, but all I can borrow.”-Woodrow Wilson

“A leaky head never swells up.”-Anonymous

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10.000 ways that won’t work”-Thomas Edison

“It is useless for sheep to pass a resolution in favor of vegetarianism while wolves remain of a different opinion”-William Randolph Inge

“Work like you don’t need the money, love like you’ve never been hurt, and dance like no one is watching”-Satchel Paige

Why the reluctant marketer?

Entering into this world is like swimming with piranhas, except the piranhas don’t want to bite they want your money and they have sophisticated ways of trying to get you to part with your cash. The intention of this blog is to point these tactics out and show you ways of getting into the on-line business world for free or very inexpensively. The Reluctant Marketer chooses not to swim with the piranhas but to observe, learn and pass on what information he can in a safe and honest environment.

My intention is to explain how the “Gurus” are trying to sell to you, as I understand it and what tactics they use to get your money. This is not to say that all the “Gurus” out there are trying to take your cash with little product unfairly but I feel that most are.

In this world buying “how to” information or tools on the Internet is not like going into your local store checking things out touching, feeling getting good advice and making an informed decision the way we would traditionally buy goods. I will expand on this further on future posts.

For now I would like to encourage you to let me know what you want…I will seek it out and supply in a non-selling way, I would like to create a safe honest environment and encourage debate the sharing of knowledge.