Unless you’re being mentored for free by someone who has no financial interest in your continued patronage, your marketing guru is probably holding back the goods. Remember that anytime someone is selling a product or service, they’re in marketing mode. That means you’re the target market, and you’re being sold.
There’s nothing wrong with being sold, since certain products and services prove to be extremely useful like socks, refrigerators, and lawn mowers. However, when you’re buying intangible goods like marketing advice, you need to be aware that the advice you’re being sold is being used to sell it to you.
If you want to get a competitive edge, regardless of what you’re being taught, here are 4 things your marketing guru isn’t telling you:
1. You can’t become an expert overnight
These days, you can find expert advice on just about anything you want to know. You can even find expert advice on how to become an expert overnight. Teaching people “how to become an overnight expert in your niche” is actually one of the most popular marketing strategies on the internet today.
Marketers are notorious for appealing to people’s need for instant gratification and who wouldn’t jump at the chance to become an instant expert?
The truth is, your marketing guru can’t tell you how to become an expert overnight because it’s not possible. Expertise in any field is achieved over time and through experience. If your marketing guru claims to be an expert in marketing and wants to show you how to achieve the same expert status in a short period of time, you’re probably wasting your money.
2. Marketing is very simple
The more complex you believe marketing is, the more you’ll need to keep an expert around to help you figure it all out. Whether you’re paying for private sessions or access to online materials on a monthly basis, you are your guru’s source of income and they will do anything to keep you as a paying customer.
Marketing is simple once you know the psychology behind what your goal should be. Once you know the basics, you can apply it to any industry. For example, this detailed, yet logical advice offered for resorts and lodges is actually sound marketing advice for any niche.
One of the unique pieces of advice this article offers is to put your staff on video to show your prospects what they can expect to experience at your establishment. Don’t just tell your prospects how they’ll feel when they experience your products, you need to show them.
3. You are your guru’s target market
If you purchased something from a marketing guru, you’re their target market. If you’re short on time and on a strict budget, you’re the marketing guru’s ultimate target market.
They might be teaching you a bunch of cool techniques and strategies, but the person you’re learning from isn’t going to tell you they used those same strategies (and more) to get your money.
You can learn just as much by observing how your guru interacts with you as you can by listening to what they tell you.
4. Your guru can’t tell you how to capture your specific audience
If you don’t use video marketing, your sales copy has to be absolutely perfect to draw in the right audience, capture their attention, hit their pain points, and get them to buy. How do you do this? What words do you use?
Some marketing gurus will tell you what you need to do, but they won’t tell you exactly how to do it. That’s because each market is different, and most of the programs being sold are not live sessions but pre-recorded materials like webinars, interviews, and PDF documents. The best they can do is provide you with a general outline that covers the theory behind getting your target market to identify with your products and it’s up to you to execute it.
Become an authentic expert
Self-proclaimed experts might be good at generating one-time sales, but that’s a far cry from a real expert. A true expert will spend time developing relationships and brands, generating loyal customers as a result.
If you genuinely want to become an expert in your field, put in the time and effort required to do it the right way. You don’t need a guru to tell you how to become an expert. Study your field in depth, practice, and don’t be afraid to make mistakes.
Experience is the only thing that will make you a true expert.
