How To Choose An Internet Marketing Mentor Or Coach

©2009 Doug Champigny. All Rights Reserved.

[Continued from Learning From Your Mistakes... ]

In the last post you read about the simplest of follies – making mistakes you could easily avoid by having a mentor to guide you through the pitfalls and landmines of Internet marketing and affiliate marketing. But that begs the question of how to choose the right mentor or coach for YOU and YOUR online business…

To the uninitiated, this seems like a simple question to answer – just do a search for ‘Internet Marketing Mentor’ or ‘Affiliate Marketing Mentor’ on Google, check the first few results and choose one, right?

When you’ve been online long enough you’ll run into dozens, possibly thousands of people who have paid for coaching and still haven’t made a dime online. Sometimes it’s because they got good advice and didn’t follow it, but more often than not they picked the wrong mentor – either someone who wasn’t truly qualified or someone who just wasn’t a good coach for them personally…

So how does one know? First, look at what the person DOES, not what they say…

Have they released a new product in the last 6-9 months? The Internet marketing game evolves faster than just about any other, and a launch a year ago doesn’t mean the person still knows the current state of the biz. Far too many ‘gurus’ out there have been riding on their laurels for 3-5 years, and still teach what worked back then. Ignore their reputation as a big dog and look at what they have that’s CURRENT.

Have they released products on all or most areas of the business over time? Most Internet marketing gurus made their reputation on just one area of the business – so what qualifies them to teach you the other parts? Make sure the mentor you choose is experienced and knowledgeable in all areas of Internet and affiliate marketing before forking over your hard-earned cash…

Don’t be fooled because someone has had a big launch, no matter how successful that launch. Here’s a scenario that DOES happen, one most newer marketers are unaware of… Someone with a few connections in the business, or who has met a few big dogs at a convention and picked their brains, digs into their savings and pulls out $20,000.

They then hire a programmer to create a new-fangled bit of software that either automates a task currently done manually or simply makes a few tweaks to improve existing programs. Next they hire a writer to ghostwrite a report and an e-book on the same or closely related topics, then to follow those up with a series of articles and blog posts. A web designer builds the sales page, squeeze page and blog theme, and someone is paid to start submitting the articles and posting the blog posts.

To that point they’ve used about $7,500, so next they hire an SEO person to tweak the site and blog, handle the Web 2.0 sites and blog commenting, and see that the site starts getting a lot of traffic. In the meantime a JV broker is enlisted to get as many JV partners on board as possible for the launch, and since most JV Brokers work on commission, the remaining $10,000 can be used for JV prizes to attract the top affiliates and JV partners.

Then launch day comes and it’s a hit, doing $100,000 or more in sales in the first week alone, and the person is hailed as a marketing genius and joins the speaker circuit as a big dog, where their reputation continues to grow…

But wait a minute… What does this person know about any of this? Only how to arrange it if you already have a ton of money and get everyone else to do the work – they don’t even need to know squat about what their product DOES! Now they have this big reputation, no way to continue other than to repeat it all… Or to use their current popularity to launch a coaching program!

So when hiring a mentor, make sure they’ve had products in various areas of the business, that they’ve been online a fairly long time, and that their experience is current. Since affiliate marketing is an important part of most online marketers’ incomes as well, watch to see if you see them on various leaderboards in the big launches, too. It’s amazing how many people claim to be affiliate marketing experts, or super-affiliates, yet you never see their names crop up in the big launches…

I can hear the howls of protest already – many super-affiliates claim, some rightly so, that they make their money in the niches, away from the Internet Marketing big leagues… Maybe so – but if you were looking to become a great driver, do you want a local teen instructor or a NASCAR or Formula One pro? Marketers go to the niches because it’s easier, with less competition – and they tell you so right up front! Wouldn’t you rather follow the advice of someone not afraid to battle it out in the trenches, someone who’s doing well in the biggest of battles? ;-)

And finally, here’s a tip you probably won’t see elsewhere… Try to find a mentor with considerable offline experience in marketing as well – preferably advertising or direct mail marketing. While it’s true the tools are different online, almost every innovation to hit Internet marketing and affiliate marketing come from the offline world – and online marketing is still years behind in that arena.

Think about that for a moment… E-zines are just the online version of direct mail or direct response advertising, free reports are just glorified brochures, driving traffic has always been the mandate of advertising agencies and corporate advertising departments… Even affiliate marketing itself is just the online version of commission sales!

And what about the new, hot system being touted as a breakthrough? Give a free gift to get them to buy something small, then contact them again and again, each time pushing something a bit bigger and a bit more profitable? If you were around in the 1990’s online, when Jimmy D Brown first started that part of our biz, you’ll remember he modeled it exactly on the Sears Portrait Studios system, that started by offering a free keychain and a year later had sold you $350 worth of prints, remember?

That’s why the biggest in there field online have strong offline experience too – Jay Abraham is a top marketing consultant, Carl Galletti is the top copywriting consultant and Michael Masterson is the mentor to the biggest online marketing entities…

Now unless you have EXTREMELY deep pockets you won’t be able to hire those three as mentors until you’re already making millions online, but you get the idea – and you can get their e-zines, which will help you see the bigger picture. That won’t replace your need for a pro to guide you, but the knowledge you glean from them sure won’t hurt, either! ;-)

To finish off this report that started as a blog post (LOL), let me add one intangible that you have to heed as well – make sure your personality and your mentors mesh well. Try their e-zine for a bit to see if you like their style, and trade e-mails with them asking exactly what they include and don’t include in their mentoring. Before long you’ll know if it’s a good fit…

Don’t kid yourself about it – be honest with the person and yourself about your current abilities, how much you’re willing to invest in both time and effort AND cash, and what your true goals are online. Be sure the person knows all of this and agrees it’s a good fit for their program. Then live up to everything you claimed, and make them live up to their promises too. Very few coaching or mentoring clients put in the effort they promise to, so by walking the walk to match your talk you’ll stand out – and no doubt get even more help and guidance than you’re paying for!

So be sure to choose your Internet marketing mentor wisely, that there credentials are what you need, that your personalities match sufficiently and that you heed and follow their advice to a tee – and give 110% to the task at hand. You’ll not only rise through the Internet marketing ranks quickly, but you’ll make a lot more than you’re planning to if you get it all right, right from the start!

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

 


 

 

Follow Doug Champigny On Twitter!

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!