Choose your Mentor carefully

Another phenomenon this year is the appearance of mentors who in my book don’t qualify. To me a mentor must have more than a few gray hairs and have years under his belt as a successful entrepreneur. Writing one or two books that sold reasonably well and then offering mentoring services for a $1000 per month just doesn’t cut it.

The worst type of mentor though is the one who has the experience, offers his services and then gets an assistant to deal with the personal email contact. The whole point of being a mentor is that if you are charging $1000’s then the contact must be personal and not handled by a junior assistant.

You can usually tell that this is happening when the email reply to your questions consists of the original message split into paragraphs and one line or even one word answers between the paragraphs.

I have spent sometime looking at mentorship programs this year as they do offer a fast track to success if you are prepared to spend the money BUT they can be very expensive.

The best example of successful mentoring has to be the story of the late Corey Rudl who invested in a mentorship which I believe was with the legendary Dan Kennedy. I would assume it was very expensive but Corey made millions with his pioneering Internet Business.

It all boils down to choosing the right mentor and in the case of Dan Kennedy he was no spring chicken but had a wealth of experience which only comes with time. This doesn’t mean that all mentors have to be “old and grizzly” as there are some some very successful young ones but they are few and far between and a bit of a rarity.

Another quality you need is empathy with your mentor that is someone you feel comfortable about working with and investing your time and money. The easiest way to “get a feel” is by reading  email from different mentors. Some of them I find really smarmy and over the top.       I wince every time I think of one individuals web sites and adverts. I get a buzz when I press the delete key on his email knowing I will never buy anything he tries to sell me.

Yes! I know its sad but everytime I see his name in my inbox it winds me up.

On the other hand I really look forward to another mentor who is very talented and has a very low HI ( Hype Index ). The other thing I really like about him is that he is straight down the line and tells it like it is. He is one of the very few IM experts who regularly criticises new products and hammers them if they are rubbish and praises them if they are good. And he buys them all before he reviews them. I believe he has spent over $30,000 buying and testing Internet Marketing products over the last few years. He is a real Pro!

If you are thinking of using a mentor the cost can vary from $10 a month to $1,000’s a month and I think I have the best deal at present with someone who is very experienced and at a very attractive price. I’ve just started on his program to help me launch my new project and I’ll report back on how it all works out over the next few months.

The New Season Starts

The holidays have finished and it’s the 1st of September. As you may have noticed I haven’t written anything for most of the year. 2009 has certainly been different from any other year that I’ve been online. Normally my inbox would have been full with IMJ – Internet Marketing Junk. This year all the real garbage has disappeared, that is email from people who send anything that crosses their desk without even bothering to look at it.

The result of the economic situation has virtually removed the snake oil salesmen because nobody is going to buy their garbage anymore. People want real value for money and who can blame them. I find it quite refreshing that there has been a real shake up in the Internet Marketing business and for the better.

Summer is traditionally a quiet month as people are on holiday and have better things to do than working with their computer when the sun is out. But late summer is the time when the marketing machine kicks back into action and the inbox gets full again. But no there is very little coming through at the moment and it tends to be extremes from Dime Sales to high priced software and courses. None of which has any interest to me as it is just a rehash of old ideas such as keyword research and list building. The current products follow the same route saying that everything is new….but it isn’t.  One piece of software says that they have built a revolutionary new system when in fact the idea is about 5 years old. Some of the products being offered are literally products that were offered at the beginning of the year then renamed and redressed with a new coat but basically the same as before.

Where have all the professional writers gone? You know the ones who created professional quality products which don’t sell for $7 and actually do what they say ? Personally I would rather spend $97 on a system which actually made money than buy ten $7 reports that just sit on your hard drive gathering the digital dust.