The other day I was on Lynn Terry’s ClickNewz.com Forum and ran across this Internet Marketing coaching question from Jerry:
I have been thinking and reading about internet marketing for some time now. However, have not started a business because all the info that is out there is overwhelming. Some make it sound like it’s easy to make money on the net and other’s make it sound like you can’t do it on your own. I have not yet selected a niche, nor have a website setup.
Many of the quote unquote, top internet marketers (Eben Pagan, Schefren, Greg Habstritt, Brendon Bruchard) all recommend getting a coach or mentor to guide you. Of course they all have expensive coaching programs that they offer. I get the feeling that they all make their money from their coaching programs and have never actually made any money through internet marketing. In other words, they are teaching others what they have never done.
Reading through this site, it doesn’t seem that Lynn used a coach or mentor to succeed on the internet. But maybe she is the exception.
So the bottom line question, should a beginner pay thousands on a coach, mentor or internet marketing program? Or is this simply a waste of money and unnecessary?
I could relate to Jerry’s dilemma about hiring an Internet Marketing coach as I wondered about this as well a few years ago. I thought you might be interested in my answer.
My Answer to Jerry…
I probably could find one of my postings with the exact same thoughts a few years ago. I retired from a successful offline business but for some reason thought that an online business was different than starting any other business. I guess it’s because newbies get bombarded with the “easy” button marketing folks.
Anyway, once I realized this [Internet Marketing] is just like starting any other business, my mindset changed and things improved. You not only need technical information to hang out your shingle, but then you need to discover what marketing techniques work best in your business. You need to assess your own strengths and weaknesses and plug the weaknesses with people/tools. And most of all, it takes work. Yes, you may be able to work in your jammies, but it is work nonetheless.
Coaching can take on many forms. Like others have said here, joining a group of like-minded people is very valuable. Lynn’s elite forum was the first group I joined and I have gained a lot of knowledge and encouragement from this group. My second group was NAMS (Niche Affiliate Marketing System) just as it was forming. The technical training has been invaluable, but the relationships I’ve made have been as important or maybe even more important and now I’m an instructor there. The third group I joined and am still involved with is Mark Hendricks’ ISS program. Mark has a lot of business experience as well as online marketing experience and he doesn’t just answer your questions, but helps you work through the process of coming to the answer.
Along the way, I have been helped by so many people too numerous to mention here. Things really improved though when I stopped trying to fit a square peg in a round hole and started building a business around my strengths and enjoyment. There are so many factors to making your business successful and just trying to duplicate what someone else is doing is no guarantee of success because unless you are on the inside of the business, it’s difficult to know all those factors.
Lynn preaches “start to profit” and I think that is good advice. I must admit I didn’t take that advice because I didn’t really know what I wanted to do or what niche I wanted to be in or what business model I wanted to pursue, so I tried a lot of different things and built a lot of sites. I don’t begrudge all those starts and stops because it I learned a ton and eventually discovered my inner tech self . :)
My suggestion is to join the elite group here for a month. In that month you can sit in on 4-5 brainstorming sessions (held every Thursday at noon ET plus one Monday evening), read through Lynn’s Low Carb Traveling site case study, and look at what other elites are doing in their business. If you are making progress, stay for another month and start asking questions and posting your progress. You’ll be amazed at what you can learn from this incredible group of people with all sorts of skills.
I have to also put in a plug for NAMS which has levels from raw beginners to advanced. Lynn has been involved with this group since the beginning also. The secret sauce of both the elite group and NAMS is that the leaders, Lynn and David Perdew have dedicated themselves to the success of their members which is kind of rare in this industry.
Where Are You in the Journey?
What do you think? Do you have an opinion on Internet Marketing coaches for beginners? What would you advise Jerry? I’d love to hear your comments.
