GURU Bashing

Richard Morgan
April 4, 2019

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Danny is joined by Anthony Lee, Brandon Young and Liran Hirschkorn in an open discussion about GURU bashing and how the laudable goal of highlighting bad practice and even fraudulent behaviour might lead to toxicity or maybe backfire on you and your integrity. Is the sacrifice worth the risk…

This is about why people do GURU bashing

Liran Serial Offender

Liran is a serial GURU basher but it’s an emotional thing driven by anger of someone doing something wrong to other people
THe only way to vent is to go on the wall and post it there if someone is taking advantage of Sellers and Liran doesn’t like it
He doesn’t want to see someone treated the way he wouldn’t want to be
Also, having some level of reach on the wall then saving someone else from being scammed then it’s a responsibility to warn the audience not to fall into the trap
More a combination of emotion and responsibility to the crowd

Brandon

It’s something we almost feel an obligation for as the information being disseminated is wrong
Some guys out there are professional course Sellers
Taking old course content and re-selling might be okay but not if fake content is used!
At least half a dozen people have fallen into the trap from this professional marketer
Really bothers Brandon that they come to him after they have lost money
People can risk a lot for that chance of Freedom
The Amazon coaching environment can become a mud-slinging contest – which may be a good thing if it gets buyers guards up to these ropey courses
Buying the bad course is one thing, but newbies might buy their first inventory and see it go wrong!
Some course Sellers get their 100 attendees to go after the same product as a top seller in 2019 for example – crazy! Setting them up for failure!

Dangers of Calling People Out?

You’ve given away a car – people call it a scam as they read the headline but not the story
People jump on the headline – but the winner took the $40k instead of the Car!
People mis-interpreted this and took the headline at face value and started kicking off
What happens when someone gets flamed out by the crowd
It Roman Times it was ‘stoning’ from a group – now people use Facebook and flame people out
The community can jump on board and cause a car crash by accident
Put yourself in a room of 100 random people and you’ll find a percentage that simply don’t like you!
Is there a danger that someone in the real world does something to hurt someone as a result of reading flamed posts on something

Calling it?

Where do you draw the line on guru bashing?
When 50% people lose money from a bad course, when 80%?
Where do you call it?
When do you draw the line?

Where do you draw the line?

Spirit of the post that Anthony started was to open the conversation
Anthony asked his group – what standard do you hold your experts to? Many are flaunting 30d screenshots and that seems to be all people need
Not so sure your amount of knowledge on Amazon is proportionate with the amount of success you’re going to have
Anthony was curious how other people thought and hence his post
Anthony likes to call people out and do some guru bashing too when there’s false info being used
Mud-slinging can be a chain-reaction in a group – it does not bring quality to the group or community
That is what should be avoided – it’s not good for anybody

Libel is a Real Thing

Brandon has posted about a faker and had great feedback from people who avoided that guys course and appreciated Brandon’s posting
Have your evidence though to back up your assertions because libel is a real thing
Compare Brandon’s mastermind course info with anything – there is value there in Brandon’s reputation
Saving people from making a mistake and losing their money so worth it to flame and expose these people
Is there another way? Maybe raise a civil-suit against the guy as it’s seen as fraud

Wilful Blindness

Wilful blindness, do you as a quote/un-quote GURU or leader – do you have a responsibility to let people know and engage in some guru bashing?
In law there is wilful blindness where if you know something and don’t share it….
It would likely be a criminal investigation to expose this

Liran

Liran thinks Anthony’s post is spot on about the 30d screenshots
There are people selling 8 figures or 9 figures and have not stepped up to teach
The sales versus knowledge base – someone may have a knack for teaching things regardless of if he sold 5m or 10m last year
Desire to want to help people succeed and personality traits outside of their 30d screenshot that may be more valuable in teaching
Screenshot should not be the be all and end all of whether you should pay attention to somebody

People are not Discerning

If people were more discerning then we would not have the guy holding the plaque that everyone is alluding to – too many people just accept the screenshot and accept they are an expert
Controversy around tools as well because people blame the tools too in some guru bashing

NLP Selling

Do we blame NLP, long-form sales pages, promises of gold etc.
People look to take the short-cuts and there’s no shortcuts to success in life
If it looks too good to be true then it likely is
Pre-suasion influences buyers, Marketers know how to push the levers that influence people – the screenshot translates into success and making lots of money
Look beyond the screenshot – don’t be stupid

The Ability to Teach

You get some who make $1m and have the screenshot, get their GURU-pass and start teaching
BUT…they maybe can’t teach or get messages across or command a room for 5-6 hours.
There may be better ‘teachers’ that are doing lower numbers but can get it across better
Having a GURU-badge is not enough to make it as a successful teacher
The better the teacher, the less likely the people that aren’t successful are likely to sign-up
Internet marketing does not have standards – your 30d screenshot is your ‘accreditation’ really!
We need some kind of organization of coaches that is vetted

Anthony plays Devil’s Advocate

How going into conversations and flaming people can be negative
As a leader when you have a competing course, it will bring focus onto you too
Some buyers that could benefit from the good courses of you people ‘calling out’ others might get turned off with the ‘chest beating’ posts and then won’t get that benefit
Dominant personalities only appeal to a segment – stop and think a second about how you’re putting the message out
Liran has had some comments saying ‘Hey-you are making yourself look bad’
Some will appreciate it, others maybe won’t
It might be turning good people off that might get benefit from your course
For Liran & Brandon – it’s worth sacrificing some courses to maintain your integrity
Anthony pointed out that no-one is losing their integrity in this talk as no-one is naming anyone here
Brandon could maybe frame his blunt posts in a different way..but balanced against actually calling this out
There’s an 80/20 where 80% of the audience will appreciate it but maybe 20% will not

Bad Experiences

Brandon has reached out and said that his content is poor and that he’s hurting someone but the guy carried on regardless so Brandon called it out
Liran had an experience, he asked for a course that was closed. He was sent a link for $2,000 and got the course
A week later it’s launched again and it was $1,000
Liran sent another note to the course complaining about paying twice as much
The response to Liran was – it’s just when you join the course
This incensed Liran about this kind of behaviour
If he’s screwing you over then he’s probably screwing others over too
Liran has even see marketing from others saying that ‘Amazon might make their course MANDATORY’!!
The level of ridiculousness is so high!

Appreciate having an Open Discussion

Appreciate Danny using his platform to have an open discussion about this
Sacrificing our own image to certain potential course takers
Liran is inviting anyone he’s called out to join him on his platform to talk it out

Doing the Right Thing

This podcast is about doing the right thing
Hope we can get to a place where there isn’t this toxicity
The trash takes itself out and the market improves and everyone can get on with business
Rather have loads of good people on this show with good things to offer the audience