Copying gurus

Today, I wanted to talk about something that I see a lot.

Copying.

No, not copying or stealing people’s content. That happens. It sucks. But, it’s a different issue.

I’m talking about copying “gurus”. Copying the structure of what they do thinking you may see the same results.

Like, you see a total newbie to online business buying some funnel course and thinking they need to come up with some 87-step sales funnel, with multiple upsells, retargeting, core offers, tripwires, yada yada. Or the person who has never sold anything online ever who is suddenly planning out the guts of a full membership site.

Like…. what?!

It is all out of sequence. It is overwhelming. And it simply doesn’t work. None of it.

The reason this copying happens is twofold…

First,  you have people confusing the business with the business model. In other words, they’re thinking that it is the “form factor” of the business which does the heavy lifting. You see gurus with membership sites or big fancy evergreen webinar funnels, so surely you must do the same thing! Right?!

Secondly, the freakin’ gurus are screwing up your head by teaching you that stuff! They want to package that stuff up into some big course and sell that to you for $997! Oh, and of course, if you want the REAL good stuff, join the mastermind for $5k!

So, you have people looking to follow a leader… and you have the “gurus” too busy hawking their crap than to thinking about the proper sequence for the person at hand.

Truth is…

Online businesses can be designed in a number of different ways. Each person is different. Each lifestyle is different. Each market is different.

And that last part is truly key…. every market is different. Just because you see some “guru” in the internet marketing niche using some whiz-bang thing doesn’t mean YOU have to do it. It doesn’t even mean it’ll work. It could be a total flop in your situation.

Plus, I’ll tell you something…

The sh*t gurus do doesn’t always work. I’ve had people assign “guru” status to me. I don’t know why, but whatever. I’m just a dude. But, they think I’m a guru and I’ve had people come at me thinking that something I did was some kind of deep strategy. Like I tested the hell out of it and it must work because… I’m a guru! Right?

Pfft. Sometimes I just try shit. Sometimes I do stuff on a whim just to see if I like the outcome.

And I know many others who do this stuff, too. It is SUPER easy to assume that the stuff the other guy is doing is working. But, many times, they’re shooting from the hip, too.

So, don’t make the mistake of blindly copying “gurus”. It can lead you astray.

Plus, it can also cause you to work WAY too hard. Some businesses are just super simple and you can have a 1-step sales funnel and it’ll work like gangbusters. The gurus won’t teach you that, though, because they can’t attach a big price tag to it.