My current host in Australia had an extra ticket for an internet marketing seminar and invited me to join him. I presumed it would be some sort of scam/pyramid scheme but as I’ve never been to one of these events it qualified as an anthropological experience. It did not disappoint!
Seriously photoshoped pic of the lecturer
Around 100 people gathered at the conference room of some local hotel, most of them were around 60+ years old, obviously not the most internet savvy. The lecturer spent the first hour saying ‘I’ more times than I could count. He recounted his life story filled with small failures, allowing people to relate to him and large successes, flashing the immense amount of money he’s made, causing them to look up to him. If you, like me, are wondering why such a successful entrepreneur would spend his time in these small seminars? Well, if you choose to believe him, he only teaches 30 days a year because he wants to give back to the community.
His rhetoric’s was straight out of a parody on self-help lectures, or maybe evangelist ceremonies. Forcing the audience to complete his sentences, making them move for him and repeating over and over: “Yes or Yes?” leaving no room for disagreement while they all chanted after him “Yes”. His self-contradictions were just as funny saying things like: “My book has everything in it and we’ll go through most of it today and so much more than what is in the book.”
Perhaps trying to avoid potential lawsuits, he gave a disclaimer saying that there was no guarantee for success, it was up to us. He concluded this part with a long story I don’t really remember but the lesson was “If you want to make money you have to want it more than the air in your lungs!”
The next session was about convincing us that an internet based business is the best and easiest way to make money. In fact the best way to do it was to write an e-book on some niche topic and sell it (which is actually sort of what I’m trying to do with Young Hero Tales minus the selling part). There was actually some info here, mostly how to outsource and get others to do everything for you from writing content to building your web site to marketing. There was some general good advice about making your customers feel unique and how to market an idea. He also mentioned some useful web sites for researching traffic and outsourcing. In-between these recommendations he slipped in some of the websites he actually owns and offered people licenses for marketing his products. All they had to do was build a web site, which could be done using his tools and hosted by a company he is vested in. A ‘one stop shop’, in his words, a Pyramid scheme, in my opinion.
15 minutes until the discount runs out! can you see how i’m running? out of the door!
I asked him what he thought about the donation model as my generation does not pay for content. He turned the question to me “How do you do that?”
Based on success stories like Amanda Palmer I told him “By connecting to your customers, getting them to like you and creating good content. If they want you to keep on creating they will support you”. He liked the part about connecting to your customers but was obviously disgusted by asking for donations. He even hinted that I must have a self-esteem problem if I don’t want to charge people. “If you want to succeed you have to change your model or change the market you are targeting because this is not how the world works!” he said. To which I replied “Or change the world”, which actually left him at a loss of words for about a second and a half. I guess I don’t want to make money as much as I want the air in my lungs and the truth is I don’t want to live in that type of world, I seriously hope I’m not alone in this.
Finally, before lunch break, came the pressure to register to his mentoring program. He used the same methods he recommended to us moments earlier, trying to make us feel special just by coming to his lecture. He gave a special offer for just 15 minutes saying that his experience shows that ‘those that can make fast decisions’ are the ones that succeed. He even shoved in some fear tactics by saying “What is your plan if you don’t come to this program?” My bet is he paid the first guy that came up to register and maybe even the second. Unfortunately there were more than just two people waiting to register when I left.
