There's an ancient saying - when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Until that time, the student will be faced with an undending supply of advice from people who don't know spit and offers from self-appointed gurus who will gladly reveal the innermost "secrets" to success for a mere...
Well, you know how the pitch goes. You've heard it before. Heck, if you had even a nodding interest in real estate, you'd remember all the late night advertisements by various real estate gurus, offering to teach you everything you needed to know for three easy payments of $49.95.
Yeah, right. Wanna know a secret? Those guys aren't dream makers, they're dream sellers. They will gladly sell you a dream, but they aren't going to make that dream come true. In fact, their goal is to give you just enough to get you hooked, then sell you more stuff.
Hmm...that's the way drug dealers work, too, isn't it?
There is actually a business built on the selling of information. It's sometimes called infomarketing, or even infotainment. The market and information don't really matter. All that's needed is a group of prospective customers who desperately want to be successful. For a while, it was real estate investing. Then it was flipping houses. Then, it moved to Internet marketing. And on to making a fortune on eBay. And, don't forget screenwriting.
You mean I can write my life story in only 100 pages, and then sell it for a million bucks or more? Shoot - SIGN ME UP!!!
I'm going to tell you how the game works. You have to use your own best judgement from there.
Informarketing is built on the concept of the upsell. Hook the customer, stroke their ego, stimulate their interest, then sell them something more expensive.
Stage 1 - Give 'em a taste for free. Give a free seminar at local hotel, or have them sign up to receive a free report over the Internet. Provide just enough info to get their emotions stirred up, and then set the hook for Stage 2. Perhaps you sell a low-cost introductory product, with just enough profit to cover your marketing efforts.
Stage 2 - Sell 'em the "secrets". This is a course that usually costs $10-20 to make, and resells for anywhere from $79.95 to $295.00. Of course, the customer can divide that into three or four easy payments. The real "secret" is that the guru reveals enough information (which by the way could probably be found for free using Google and Wikipedia) that the customer is firmly hooked. But not quite enough that they become self-sufficient.
Stage 3 - Sell 'em the "strategies". Convice the customer that they're almost there, and just need some additional knowledge specific to a particular area of interest. For instance, in real estate, you could sell courses in foreclosures, short sales, flipping, retail properties, rental management, subdivisions, yadda, yadda, yadda. The customers who are still with the program at this point will likely buy multiple "strategy" products. More profit.
Stage 4 - Sell 'em support. If they haven't been able to achieve success with everything they've bought, perhaps they just need the personal touch. And the guru is happy to provide an 800-number support line for a reasonable monthly fee. Of course you can't talk to the guru, but you CAN talk to one of his personally trained support staff.
Stage 5 - Sell 'em the "inner circle". Now they get to meet the guru, perhaps at a week-long retreat in Mexico or Hawaii. At least, he'll be there to give an opening talk and maybe attend one of the dinners. It's a dream vacation, and absolutely cheap for the access and super-secret info that you'll get, for only $7,995.00.
If you think I'm full of it, slow down and reflect. Have you ever known someone who got a mail-order course and was successful. No? Really?
Wonder why...
Here's reality. The folks who are really doing it don't have the TIME to teach others how to do it. It's not usually that they want to protect some secret market niche. It's just that it takes time and energy to help someone learn. A lot of time and energy. Time that they're NOT able to work making money.
Every once and a while, an expert will try to teach others. Invariably, they quit because it just takes too much time and it's too expensive. I know a real estate investor who used to hold 3-day training classes on his particular area of expertise. He quit because he was losing money. He barely broke even giving the classes, but he wasn't running his business while he was preparing for and giving those classes.
So, the dream MAKERS are out there, but they're busy doing the real work. The dream SELLERS are also out there, lusting for your very last dollar. How can you "breach the wall" then, and make it into your desired market?
It's not easy. The real answer is that nobody's going to do it for you, and there are no secrets. In fact, if anyone says they're going to sell you the secrets, they're a damned liar. Period. If you want to get over that wall, you're going to have to build your own ladder.
You can learn a lot from the Internet - mostly for free. You can check out books from your local library for free (remember books?). You can get almost anything in the world through your library on inter-library loan, again for free. You can get together with other wannabes and share knowledge.
In other words, DO THE WORK. Eventually, you'll start to figure out that you don't know very much at all. That's the signal that you've actually started learning. Soon after, you'll start answering questions and helping other newbies (or n00bs).
And some day, after working at it long enough, you'll bump into someone out of the clear blue who will kick your emerging career up to the next level.
When that happens, congratulations. You're now the student and your teacher has arrived.
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