The Rise of Internet Gurus

If you aspire to perspire the desire you admire, you fire and it backfires... don't retire

This quote should be resounding to any Nigerian who is fairly active on the internet. Our internet space today (from twitter, down to youtube and everything between, i.e facebook, Instagram, etc.) is filled with "self-proclaimed billionaires" who want to change your life. I'm familiar with some faces and get really pisses whenever I see them advertise to me on youtube, but I don't want to stir up a controversy. I'll tell you a few ways to spot a scamru (scam guru) 😅 and you can make the rest of the decisions yourself. The truth is everybody wants to motivate you these days, or as one of my mentors rightfully puts it,

Everyone want's to make money from your headache. The pharmacy, the pharmaceutical company, even your son who pockets the change 😂😂😂.

This goes without saying, there are some really genuine billionaires who manage to create time to share their experiences, for a good marketing copy, they might exaggerate their stories. But the bulk of the other guys are just selling you a dream, telling you how they make millions of dollars in revenue (via dropshipping, drop servicing, officeless agency, freelance work, etc.) monthly, but they cannot really give you anything concrete beyond that. I'm going to tell you a few ways to spot the fake Niggas trying to swindle you of your hard-earned money.

If you've read my article, The Richest Man in Babylon, I clearly stated a consistent human trait of the desire to amass wealth, gain financial freedom and have some control over your affairs. Well, one solid Business Creation/Marketing principle is, "Identifying want" and creating a service to fulfil it. For example, I want to easily share my personal life with friends and family, Facebook got you. I want to pepper dem 😀, go to Instagram. More malicious examples would be A virtual Hand sanitizer app on play store, which states down in the app description that "This app only simulates Hand Sanitizer. It can not actually disinfect your hands!", well we know ourselves, we don't read the description. Apparently this app has over 100K downloads on play store and is probably the work of a bored developer, he explicitly states that it's just for fun purposes, but I can see people in the review section asking for a vitual facemask too. The irony, most self-proclaimed gurus would give you a sort of disclaimer too, but they won't explicitly tell you they're setting you up for failure. Now, let's proceed to debunk some a*s.

I'll give most of my reviews based on my favourite online business personality, Akin Alabi. Go through his twitter profile, study it and ponder, then let's talk about three things.

Sample 1

I know you're about to watch a video, but wait let me tell you something that would change your life.

Sample 2:

If you're a Nigerian trying to immigrate to Canada or anywhere else, you're probably doing it wrong.

Sample 3:

I started my poultry business with a single egg 😂😂😂.

1. Really rich people don't show off.

If the videos start by flashing you a Lamborghini, Burj Al Arab Background, or Cash, it's probably "Yet Another Guru" (YAG). The funny thing is this, most successful people don't live an extravagant lifestyle. Someone can run a company raking in millions of Naira monthly, but he simply drives an Accord or Camry. Most rich people remain rich by spending like the poor, they keep their expenses under control, and don't want to attract too much attention. But people that know them know they are rich. Akin Alabi is said to be worth between $75m - $150m, but you don't see him in videos flaunting cars or cash, he doesn't need your validation. There are successful people that enjoy to show off their wealth, and hence this isn't meant to be a total red flag.

2. Successful people have an actual business, and would always talk about it

This is the most critical part. For most people who create time to help young people start a business and succeed, they themselves must have a business and they'll talk about it a lot. They'll talk about your business from a Marketing perspective, (how else do you become successful if not by letting people know what you do) and also to give context. To give context or make you understand a concept, they'll tell you a way they applied it themselves and most probably which company, at what stage, the problem they had and how it helped them. They always talk about their business because it's at the top of their head. To cap this off, if he tells you he does dropshipping or anything else but can't tell you where he does it (business name, address, website, etc.) he most probably is trying to sell you a dream, and you would be his main business.

3. Successful people often don't have time.

I've a few mentors who I consider successful in their field, and here's the fact, they often don't have time. Managing a business is overtime work, I've watched a video interview of Aliko Dangote where he says he works over 16hours a day. You might actually not consider what they do to be work, but deep analytical thinking is hard work. Back to my mentors whom I've met physically, they're often busy, they meet with clients, staff, partners, prospects, investors, plan a new business expansion, travel (for work and leisure), and sometimes it's hard to get a good hour of discussion with them. Of course, I don't meet with them weekly, it's less frequent and we often have to squeeze in time with their schedule, (and it's something I appreciate a lot). Well, yes, successful people can create time, but not too much time that can affect their business. That only happens when they've got their business to an "auto-pilot" stage, and that's hard.

To wrap this up, I'll give you a bonus youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9Gpr7PEnbs. James explains the Online Gurus better.