MBA2412 Experts, Gurus, Mentors- How To Know Who To Trust Online + Free Ride Friday

0:08Heyo, welcome to the$100 MBA show, no fluff, just the good stuff with our practical business lessons. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher, Omar Zinhome, and today is Free Ride Friday, where we give away a free ride to the$100 MBA program over at 100mba.net. If you want to win a free ride, just leave us an Apple Podcast rating and review, and you enter our weekly random draw we call Free Ride Friday. Listen in on Friday just like today to see if you won. It's that easy. We announce this week's winner a little bit later in the episode. Today's episode is a very important episode to me because out there, I've seen online, in person, a lot of shady characters, a group of charlatans that are out there and they just can't be trusted.

0:53People claiming they can help you get rich, build a thriving business, become the next big thing, and you can do it all in three easy steps. I'm just flat out tired of it. These people are my number one enemy. Seriously, they are ruining people's professional, financial, and even personal lives every single day. They claim they've made hundreds of millions of dollars and that they want to show you how to do the same with their$4 ,000 course or coaching or whatever program. They call themselves experts, gurus, even mentors. But are they legit? And how are you supposed to find out if they are legit?

1:34Heck, how do you know if I am legit? How do you know who to trust online or even in person? How do you know who to go to to learn and help you grow your business? This is what today's episode is all about. We're going to uncover this dirty world of online marketing, of so-called gurus and experts trying to sell you their method, their way, their secret formula, their number of steps to get you rich, to get you to be successful, to get you to the promised land. I'm here to show you how to sniff out these losers, these scammers, these shysters. That's what they are, and I gotta call them what they are.

2:10So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. The reason why I wanted to do today's episode is because I was reminded and prompted about this problem that we have in the world of business when I attended an event last week. I attended this one-day event in Sydney that was all about being inspired and being successful, and the headline speaker was Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Group. Now, don't get me wrong. Richard was brilliant. His interview was great. He was helpful. He was humble. He was useful. Okay. Now, most of the other speakers, not all, most of the other speakers that were on stage were people I would flat out call scammers.

2:50They're just scamming people out of their money. They are not legit. And on stage, they were basically claiming that they have hundreds of millions of dollars, have successful businesses, and that they want to show you how to do the same by buying their course. And they would sell their course from stage and people would rush to the table so they could buy the course before they ran out of spots. And I looked at these people and I really felt bad because they are really misinformed and they really do believe they actually want to build a great business. They want to be successful. They have the right attitude.

3:24They are keen to make a change in their life, but they're just totally being hoodwinked. How do I know? Well, I've been doing this for over 20 years. I know someone who's legit and who's not. So my mission in today's episode is to give you a set of rules. There are four rules, actually. It's going to be sort of a guide for you to know who to trust and who not to trust when it comes to your business education and any other program that's going to help you grow professionally. Each rule is an objective question to ask yourself. Before you trust anyone, including me, ask yourself these questions.

3:57Your time, your money is too precious. So let's jump into rule number one. And this is the biggest rule. This is like the biggest warning flag question you have to ask. And here it is. How did they make their money? What real business experience do they have? Now, this is an important question because a lot of people don't realize that a lot of these experts and gurus, they're just selling course of course, training after training, and they actually haven't built a real business. Their business is showing people how to build businesses. So ask yourself, how did this person make their fortune? How do they become successful?

4:36What businesses they build? Or are they just in the business of selling business courses or business training? That isn't in itself experience. Now, yes, there is some experience they're going to gain by running this type of business. But in order to create something successful, you have to have built something successful separate from your education. This is why I really trust authors from successful entrepreneurs because they're selling me a$10 book and sharing with me everything they've learned or a lot of what they've learned or what's important along the way. And they have a wealth of experience building their business or businesses.

5:12For example, I've built several businesses in the last 20 years. One of my biggest businesses was my software company, Webinar Ninja. And much of the things I teach on this podcast is what I've learned along the way of managing staff, budgets, finances, sales, marketing, of a real actual business, real products, real customers. By asking this question, how do they make their money and what real business experience do they have? You start to really peel back and figure out, okay, can this person actually help me? Rule number two, and this one might sound obvious once you know it, but when you don't know it, it's not obvious.

5:46Here it is. If this person, this guru, this expert is making hundreds of millions of dollars right now with their other businesses and ventures, why are they selling you a course? Will they have time or even care about teaching you what they learned? Aren't they busy running their multi-multi-million dollar businesses? What's in it for them? I'm here to tell you firsthand, someone who's built many businesses, especially a large business like my software company, Webinar Ninja, it's very time-consuming. I barely had time to do this podcast, let alone go to events and sell my courses and my coaching and all that other stuff.

6:22I realistically didn't have time to have a long-term coaching program. I did short-term coaching here and there, but I soon stopped it because I just didn't have the time. I was dedicated to my business. Secondly, now that I'm on the other side of my business, Webinar Ninja, I can tell you firsthand, you just don't have the time, the attention, the patience to provide the required coaching you need to do for some of these programs. If you're expecting these people to hold you by the hand or to have a full-fledged course with accountability while they're running all these other businesses they're claiming they have, you better think again, okay?

7:00I run this podcast because I enjoy sharing what I've learned along the way. And full transparency, I'm not doing this for free. Now, you're not paying, right? But I like the model of being able to provide high value content and getting paid through advertisers, through sponsors. It's a win-win. The sponsors win, you win because you get great content for free, and I win because it covers my costs, it makes it worth my while, and it forces me to up my game every time I hit the mic because I want to make sure it's high impact, high value, so that people can come back and learn more, and this is worth their time.

7:38I don't have programs worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. I have one program that's$100, And the reason why I charge$100 for the$100 MBA is because I've learned by giving money for free, nobody actually consumes it. And by charging something very nominal, people actually value it, consume it, put it to action. And it's to cover the costs of creating all this stuff, creating the course, creating the site, creating all the marketing materials, all that kind of stuff. I practice what I preach. You got to make sure you're profitable, even with your small endeavors. Now, I'm not saying this so you can think I'm like the best person to follow.

8:12No, do your homework and find out who's best for you and your goals in your business. But I literally saw people on stage saying they're making hundreds of millions of dollars with other businesses, but they want your$4 ,000 for their course that they're going to mentor you in. That is just a bunch of bull. Rule number three. Are they leveraging other people's credibility to build their own? This is a common strategy by these so-called experts where they pay to play. Basically, they pay celebrities, other famous people with credibility to come to their events, to speak at their events. They pay them handsomely to even just take pictures of them so that they can post it on social, post it on their website and say, hey, don't you trust this person?

9:00This person is credible. This person is famous. This person is successful. Well, I'm associated with them. And they're trying to use their credibility to lift their own. People that are great at what they do don't need this, okay? If they're great at what they do, they will be found out quickly. Let me give you an example of a friend of mine, Ramit Sethi, who is the author of I Will Teach You To Be Rich. He's also the host of a great show on Netflix, How To Get Rich. Now, I know those titles sound a little bit clickbaity, but yet people buy books by their cover, and they click on thumbnails on shows by their cover or their cover art.

9:36But Ramit is the real deal. And if you go to his website, you go to his blog, he doesn't need to have pictures with celebrities. He is the celebrity. He is the credibility. He has a New York Times bestselling book. He's helped many people with their financial education. So much so, Netflix wanted to do a show about his technique and helping others. So real experts, real people that you can trust, don't need to leverage somebody else's credibility to increase theirs. This is a form of vanity metrics, hoping that you'll just kind of get swooned and say, oh, wow, they're pictured with so-and-so. They got to be legit.

10:15Don't fall for it. All right, let's jump into rule number four. Now, this rule might be controversial, but in my experience, it's always served me. Are there any requirements to study from them, to take their course, take their coaching, or anyone can do it? Anyone can sign up. Anyone can buy. Anyone can join. Is this course for everybody? This is a red flag for me because if they're promising that, oh, you don't need any experience, you don't need any money, you don't need any foundation, anybody could do it. It doesn't matter if you're part-time, full-time, it's not going to take you any time.

10:51This is somebody who's trying to sell you the course, trying to sell you on the idea of the success. They just want to get you to put your credit card down and buy. They're not really interested in seeing you successful. The best of the best know that their product, their service, their training is not for everybody. For example, when I was working on Webinar Ninja, I joined SaaS Academy, which is a SaaS coaching program by Dan Martell, who is the author of Buy Back Your Time. And he has a list of criteria that you have to fulfill in order to join SaaS Academy. And one of them is something very simple.

11:23You have to be making at least$10 ,000 in revenue each month to join, which means you can't be pre-revenue. You can't be making a few hundred dollars. you have to at least have some traction where you're making$10 ,000 in revenue each month to join. There are some other things that you are required to have achieved or have to be able to do, but something as simple as that allows me to think, okay, I'm joining a group of people that have a certain level of expertise or certain level of experience, and this is where his zone of genius is, where he can help me get beyond this point. For example, my thing with the$100 MBA in this podcast is I am really good at helping people start and grow their business.

12:04I help them go from a side hustle to making it their full-time thing, quitting their job, all the way to even making up to a million dollars in revenue. My expertise is not beyond that. I really don't focus on people that are trying to get to 100 million or beyond 100 million. I'm very good at helping people focus and get started and get some traction, get some results, start building their team. I'm good at this stage. So if you're at another stage, I can't help you. I'm also very upfront about how much time this is going to take, how much commitment is going to require from you. But if you get somebody that says, anybody can do this, you don't have to worry about how much investment of time or money or effort you have to make.

12:43This is somebody just trying to sell you. They're not really looking to see you succeed. They just want to get you through the doors and they'll worry about you being disappointed later. There you have it, guys. Those are the four rules I would follow to make sure you know who to trust. But don't worry, I got a bonus rule for you. But let's recap the first four rules. Number one, how do they make their money? What real business experience do they have? Number two, if they are making hundreds of millions of dollars with their other businesses, are they going to have time or even care about your business and your education?

13:16What's in it for them? Why are they doing this? Rule number three, are they leveraging other people's credibility to build their own? And number four, are there any requirements in order to work with them? And here is my bonus tip. Some people out there, they're not scammers. They're not hucksters. They're not trying to cheat you or take your money and run. They're just flat out not good. They're just not good at what they do, right? They're not good at teaching. They don't have enough experience. They can't help you in any particular way or in your particular situation. Quality of instruction matters.

13:49Your time is limited, and for most of us, our money is limited as well. So choose your teachers wisely. Make sure you can consume some of their content that's not paid that shows how they teach, shows how they explain things, how they can break things down, how they can help you once you do pay. Ladies and gents, I hope this was helpful. I hope that my fury and my passion for this topic resonated with you. But in all honesty, I only learned this the hard way. I got tricked, right? I got scammed a bunch of times. I wish I could say once. No, I got scammed a few times, especially in the beginning of my career.

14:2820 years ago, there was very little education on what's real and what's not and what's, you know, scammy and what's legit. So I had to learn the hard way. Luckily, you don't have to. Thanks so much for listening. But today's episode's not over. It's Free Ride Friday. Let's see who won this week's free ride. And the winner is RogerA69. Roger says, best business show, five stars. Easy to listen, short and to the point. Thanks, Roger, for your review. Your mission is to email me at omar at 100mba.net so you can claim your free ride to the$100 MBA over at 100mba.net. Before I go, I want to leave you with this.

15:07One of the best ways to know if somebody is legit or not is to follow them, listen to their free content, watch their free content, consume their content, and apply what you learned. If you apply what you learn and you get a result, then you know that, hey, this person's actually doing the right thing. In this case, you're not wasting any money because you consumed free content, but you might waste a little bit of time if it doesn't work out. But applying what you learned is a great way to see, hey, this person knows what they're talking about. It gets results. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll check you in Monday's episode.

15:43I'll see you then. Take care.

15:50We'll be right back.