Are all online coaches scammers?

[drahz]

And one more thing about GUARANTEES - everybody loves them... it is another value for the customer. And I would say the more successful person / company is... the more they care about guarantees.

For example... some company looking for another company providing some service they want (let's say server hosting)... they will ask for GUARANTEES... can they deliver, do they have 24/7 support, do they gurantee the ...

Pizza Hut becomes a huge company once they provide pizza in 30 minutes or PIZZA FOR FREE.

 

[Timmy C]

Not all of them.

Just the vast majority.

 

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[DeletedUser0287]

* If they have profitable business themself, why they want to bring others to space, teach them a "secret" and make a competition for themself... For example, someone teaching about how to make 6 figures e-commerce, instead of building another one for themself (they can outsource almost everything).

They don’t have a profitable business. That is why they are selling a course.

Some of this sub should be on Coffeezilla.

 

[DeletedUser0287]

I'm not a student or former student of Biophase but I think you are dead wrong here. I have never come across anyone who gives as much valuable information related to selling physical products as Biophase and he asks nothing in return. I can see being personally coached by him being easily worth much more than $8k, assuming you put to use what you learn.

You say that you can try 8-10 products with $8k. That probably means the good old "throw spaghetti on the wall and see what sticks" strategy i.e. ordering random products from Alibaba and hoping that they sell. The odds of finding a successful product that way are really small nowadays and I don't think you even learn all that much in the process..

No it does not mean spaghetti method. It means doing your due diligence for each product as much as possible and if it fails, learn why, and execute again.

All knowledge I see are the same as all the other “Amazon courses.” I have seen examples of what he does for product development and they are incredibly low barrier products.

I am not a fan of the strategy, but I guess a lot of people are here: Bullding a business to sell, but not a long term one. New business owner stuck with a business with faulty foundation. But who cares right? You sold out...

 

[Raoul Duke]

@MoreValue

 

[drahz]

If only a coach would put in a statement like...

"If I just show up you will guarantee me X amount of dollars or I get all my money back"

...then I will be in!

Man, I think nobody said anything like that... you take too much personally... I was not referring to anyone when I created this post.

I was talking about measuring the progress of the mentee... let's put it this way... if someone pay someone else for the SEO... and the person providing SEO will not be able to make the website to rank better in 1 year... then is there still value for them here?

Depends about what is in the contract... if there is something like this... we will try our best to make you website rank, we are not guarantee ANYTHING, ONLY THAT WE TRY OUR BEST. You have to pay upfront $50k... and if it will not rank... we are sorry.

Compare to this one... We are good and we know it... You pay us $1000 every month... but if we can get you to the FIRST PAGE... you will pay us another $50k... WE CAN MEASURE THIS THING HERE. And also, we do the research upfront to see if there is a chance for us to rank your website (our experience)... and if there is a lot of AMAZING COMPANIES with AUTHORITY in the space... YOU ARE NOT OUR CUSTOMER.

I was just talking about... why many coaches are not CLEAR WITH THERE VALUE PROPOSITION... AND YET THEY STILL FOCUS ON A DESPERATE AUDIENCE PROMISING A LOT, GUARANTEE NOTHING.

I am not saying anybody can guarantee success... that is utter non-sense... but you will never see "landing page" talking clearly about this... only something like WE HAVE 1000s of HAPPY CLIENTS... 80% earn money in the first 4 moths... IF IT IS THAT GOOD... PUT GUARANTEE ON THAT AND YOU WILL SCALE YOUR COACHING THROUGH THE ROOF.

 

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[DeletedUser0287]

If only a coach would put in a statement like...

"If I just show up you will guarantee me X amount of dollars or I get all my money back"

...then I will be in!

I mean if they are a good coach they will definitely do this yet?

lol

No one owes you anything and this thread has some of the laziest thinking around.
Yes some coaches are a scam.
No not every single person involved in teaching ever is a con artist.

There is a middle ground and if you can't see it then you are going to be the person who gets scammed.

If you guys can't even bother checking this forums own marketplace for coaching programs AND feedback left by many coaches and 100s of student over the last few years then best of luck.

Are there any unbiased reviews I can get though?

 

[100ToOne]

"Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day." Jim Rohn

We can find a way to make money using the internet/offline for free but we usually don't have the will to practice it everyday.

And just like everywhere, there are scammers and there are legit. The scammers are more though.

 

[drahz]

Why not?

Yes, if people receive something for free, many times they do not value it... but before you scream I gotcha...

People love to spend money on things they see value in (you can see it on people buying habits)... BUT if someone sell dogs and delivering cats (or vice versa)... they will not really appreciate "value" this time (even though there are many cat (dog) lovers out there)

 

[Bearcorp]

Side note...

It's not often I get an email that states "Delete my account" which I don't question.

And can't do fast enough.

I wish him *luck* which I'm guessing he believes, most of success is.

Told him on another thread last week he needs to shut up on here and do more listening/reading, not surprised to see how this has turned out. He’ll be back soon enough with a new name, but likely the same shitty attitude.

 

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[zblundell]

Hi there,

Recently I was watching videos on Coffeezilla youtube channel and it got me thinking... are all "online gurus" scammers? Actually, it was nothing new to me that there are many online "entrepreneurs" coaching and mentoring people for money, promising the results which X% of people can easiliy achieve, if and only if they do the hard work and follow the process to the point.

The problem is that their value proposition is a bit weird... they will sell you the HIGH TICKET course (couple of thousand bucks) and they will promise you, actually they do not really guarantee anything, that you can get let's say $1000 M.R.R. in 6-9 months if you follow their process.

The problem is... if the coaches out there really stand for what they are teaching their value proposition should be... I will personally mentor you for 1 year and I know my stats -> 75% of people following my teachings can get at least $1000 / month in 6 months -> If you follow my process (and YOU CAN PROVE IT by giving me reports every week or month or something) and you will not achieve the results I am saying you will achieve, then I will give you all your money back - that is my guarantee.

There are countless times said... if you are selling your service or product you should at least 10x your value for the customer (compared to a product already in the market) to cut through the noise and get noticed. So if someone puts value proposition above with a money-back guarantee and they will refund only 25% customers (because their success rate is 75%) they still can get a very profitable business (and more clients as well).

What I think is very shady about many coaches and mentors out there:

* If they have profitable business themself, why they want to bring others to space, teach them a "secret" and make a competition for themself... For example, someone teaching about how to make 6 figures e-commerce, instead of building another one for themself (they can outsource almost everything).
...Or for example, someone teaching how to sell websites to the companies charging 20k per website... while they can build a software company, scale it, make a brand, hire people and step out of the process and still get a lot of money (Fastlane).
...Why to put the effort into building a course, mentoring people instead of scaling a company? - and this mentoring thing is more like a job because a mentor has to spend time with mentees and once the mentees know a thing they are gone and do it by themself - no money for the coach anymore.

* I think a successful mentor actively searching for mentees is quite a weird thing...did you ever see any executive from fortune 500 company begging for a mentee?... I was once watching an interview with some very successful Silicon Valley CEOs talking about getting business partners and mentors... and they said it starts as a common interest and friendship, it is not based on business transactions like give me money and I will coach you how to be successful (those successful people do not need to waste their precious time for getting scrape money).

* If somebody compares this mentoring thing to a let's say UDEMY course than it is not the same thing... If someone teaches you about copywriting or marketing and sales but they will only guarantee you knowledge but they will not be promising you any money as result... then I think they will not be able to get desperate people on board (wanting results more than knowledge) and also I do not think they will be able to sell it for a couple of thousands... SO IF THEY MARKET THEIR COACHING SERVICE AS A WAY TO GET MONEY... THEY SHOULD GUARANTEE THE MONEY AT THE END OF THE COURSE... THE SAME WAY AS UDEMY COURSE ABOUT PHOTOSHOP WILL GUARANTEE YOU THE KNOWLEDGE ABOUT HOW TO WORK WITH LAYERS. If there is a bit of luck involved in the process, then they should market their product as such and see if they still can get so many people on board.

So, to make a summary... why if some couch out there which does not want to be perceived as a scammer, will not put an amazing value proposition with a money-back guarantee for their mentees. And as I said above, you can always find a way how to track the progress of people, IT IS A MENTORING AFTER ALL... think about the milestones similar to UPWORK, there is a way for sure to filter out people who do not want to work (no money back guarantee for them).

...BUT if there is not a money-back guarantee, actually not guarantee at all, then I think it screams a SCAM. They should sell the CRASH COURSE TO COPYWRITING or SALES 101 instead... not mentioning any money at all.

What is your view on all of this "online coaching" thing?

I actually like Alex Berman. His YouTube channel seems legit and genuine. He is not advertising courses or anything that I have watched so far.

 

[Datingafter35]

Just to be clear, I have nothing against coaching at all. If some coach tells upfront I WILL NOT COACH ANYONE WHO DOES NOT HAVE BUSINESS ALREADY that is perfectly clear and OK.

My point is if someone is talking to the audience where there are people with no businesses at all, and they try to coach people to START FROM $0 to $1000, then they should EITHER GUARANTEE SOMETHING (as I said only if the mentees proof their work) OR TRY TO FOCUS ON ANOTHER AUDIENCE.



Agree, but then there should not be a coach, who is coaching everyone from homeless to someone earning $100 000 000 per year. And there is a better chance that someone not earning anything at all, not even $1000, is gonna be more desperate and falling for a scam than someone earning $100+ mil a year. And someone with $100+ mil is not gonna really feel the loss of $10k for a course as much as someone with no income.



As I said, there should not be ONE COACH for all levels out there.



Agree, books are wonderful coaches. Actually I am not really frustrated about it and not looking for UDEMY courses about how to get rich ... Anyway, my referring was only to someone claiming to JUST FOLLOW THIS PROCESS AND YOU CAN GET $100k A YEAR.

Clearly, the audience for the person stating things above is not audience where there are entrepreneurs earning millions upon millions bucks per year, but people earning little to nothing.

Hey. I have one like that. But I don't want to get in trouble with cftc as I want to deal with English speaking audience not 3rd world.

I have a challenge I did for myself for the recent 3 months and I've been able to churn out 10% on each money on borrowed money trading forex.

I sucked at it that's why I I took 14 years. Now I'm gaining progress my adhd brain wants to venture into online marketing as trading is still a job. Not passive.

21 business days challenge. 10% in profits end of the challenge. Can't achieve. Full money back. Cost price $1999.

What must I prepare to ensure they get it? I can do it but I'm not sure how they will.

Who must I screen to get them on the challenge?

 

[anubistar]

It depends. After interviewing a lot of these gurus and buying a lot of info products myself, as a rule of thumb I would recommend to stay away from everything that is pushed by ads and PPC.

The truth is:

This online coaching niche is a numbers game.

If there is no regulation these people get away with a lot of low-quality stuff because the numbers work for them.

Definately agree with you on this one. For the last couple of years I've been purchasing them... it's generally good for a beginner with the foundations but most of it suck to be honest. Most you can find online.

 

[suhje]

* If they have profitable business themself, why they want to bring others to space, teach them a "secret" and make a competition for themself... For example, someone teaching about how to make 6 figures e-commerce, instead of building another one for themself (they can outsource almost everything).
...Or for example, someone teaching how to sell websites to the companies charging 20k per website... while they can build a software company, scale it, make a brand, hire people and step out of the process and still get a lot of money (Fastlane).
...Why to put the effort into building a course, mentoring people instead of scaling a company? - and this mentoring thing is more like a job because a mentor has to spend time with mentees and once the mentees know a thing they are gone and do it by themself - no money for the coach anymore.

This is the accurate reasoning. The guys selling coaching/get rich schemes make a great percentage of their income by doing this. Otherwise they wouldn't do it. A lot of the information they offer tend to be either very general and or vague.

I know a guy that sells E-commerce courses and this makes up 2/3 of his income. That should speak for itself

 

[Odysseus M Jones]

A bi curious guru coalminer, hmmm
That'll outdo Valier
I'll be your stylist for a cut of the action

 

[drahz]

So I just wanted to respond to these statements and give you the perspective from the other side.

I have 3-4 ecommerce businesses and at some point, you just don't want to build another business. Been there done that. I mean, how many shopify stores do you expect a person to manage? Let's say I put 1 employee in place to manage 4 shopify stores. Now what? Should I start another one? Or maybe I'd rather just start showing people how to do what I do?

Thanks for sharing. I said earlier that I do not think that everybody is a scammer... but these days, with all the gurus out there... one should be very skeptical about the person who wants to teach them how to get rich, especially if they do not know the teacher personally.

I do not know very much about coaching... but one thing which I do not really understand...

there is not much value in anything which is very abundant... for example if I know how to make gold in my kitchen... would it make sense to teach others how to make gold?
If I own Coca Cola company... would I make more money just selling the stuff... or teach others about the recipe? If I have a very successful algorithm for the stock market... would it make more sense to use it... or teach it to others?

If someone says... that their teaching is a calling (their passion) and they do not need more money and yet asking for a lot of money, approaching first with an advertisement, with no refund... not stating that money is going to their favorite charity or something... IT IS NOT NECESSARILY A SCAM but one should be careful.

On your next question about guarantees, the reason there are no guarantees is because we don't have control of the client's actions. If you were a personal trainer, could you guarantee your client that he will have six pack abs in 6 months? What if he just wanted to eat pizza everyday? Then what do you do?

If someone gets a personal trainer, this trainer is not paid to magically give them six-pack... but to go to the gym with them and show them how to use a machine or make them a personalized diet plan. If they follow a diet and work out... they will get results for sure!

Somebody can say that this is the same for all coaches... for example, someone provides coaching services about e-commerce... they can help people to set the store... show them some tricks about how to choose a product, etc... but if a student is doing 100% what coach is telling them (and I mean 100%), would you say that they will surely get results? I would argue that in this particular case a student might not achieve results even if they are doing everything correctly and hustle hard. Because this is not science, there are a lot of factors that can have an impact on student's success.

And there is nothing wrong with that... but many coaches advertise their teachings as a sure way to succeed (and might have also a perfect excuse every time - student was not hustling enough)... I think SCAM is always only about false advertising.
As an extreme example... if a coach says in advertisement - Just give me 10k for my info course I put together within 30 minutes of surfing over the internet and that's it, do not even expect that I will talk to you personally -> this is NOT a SCAM (value is clearly communicated).

I can show you and tell you to do things, but if you don't do them, should you get your money back?

Back to false advertising... (extreme example again) let's say someone is teaching about how to be a farmer - they will put something like this in an advertisement:

"I will teach you how to be an amazing framer - how to grow crops, how to take care of cattle and everything... it is simple, everybody can do it and it is a sure way how to be self-sufficient about your food and also you will get rich by selling your goods."

Someone can see ads (not knowing anything about farming), they sign up. Later they will see that they have to work manually crazy hard... they need to spend money on buying machines, animals, etc... and they find out that weather has a massive impact on their yield.

Money-back is protection against false advertising.

How about if I mentor you for $8k and you don't do things that I tell you to do, them you pay $8k more because you've wasted my time. Would you take that deal?

This might be such an AMAZING deal if a student approached someone crazy successful who is not interested in mentoring but will do a favor for a student. If an unknown mentor is approaching first (e.g. with an ad), then it would make more sense to not put whole burden on a student (pay and if you do not work... pay more... if you work and get no results... no refund policy).

In my past mentoring, I have had some clients never call in after the 4th week. They just disappeared.
My mentoring class was between 5-10 clients for 6 months. Some succeeded and some did not. I actually feel very bad when my clients don't succeed. I had about 50% success rate. But they all got the exact same information. So why the difference in results?

It is because each client chose different products, they all had different budgets, some worked harder than others, some had personal issues come up and sometimes it was just bad luck. So how can I as a mentor guarantee anything will all these variables?

You as a mentor can guarantee only money-back, not results. But if a mentor sells the product and the student will not work - the student will not get results (receive value). If the student works but not get results (the student will not receive value). If the student works and gets results (the student will receive value). In all three cases, the mentor already received value (money).

Here's the thing, I don't need to convince you that it is not a SCAM. In fact, I didn't accept anyone that asked for a guarantee. This is because I already know that their mindset is not correct. They aren't 100% committed to the process because their first thought it worrying about losing their money. Remember, I have to talk to you for 6 months if I accept you. So I don't want to be talking to someone that is thinking that I might be scamming them.

Would you say that if someone has a correct mindset and is 100% committed, it is enough to get good results and success? If not... then they might be legitimately worried about losing their money. (I am NOT talking about your course - I do not know anything about it... this is just very abstract thinking)

My friend had someone pay him $10k for mentoring. After their first call, my friend gave him his $10k back and said, this wasn't a good fit.

Your friend is most likely NOT a scammer.

And I'll leave you with this story. Someone on the forum that took my early mentoring for $5k. I let that person pay me $2500 the first month and $2500 the second month. Well, he paid me only $2500 for one month and then said he didn't need more mentoring. Two years later I met him at the summit meetup. His business was doing really well. I told him, "hey, you never paid me the $2500. Just a word of advice, you should always honor you commitments." I wasn't sure if I should bring it up, but I figured it would be a good lesson for him. He apologized and he didn't realize that he never paid me. I told him I didn't want the $2500 but gave him the name of a dog rescue and said you can donate the money to this rescue if you want. A few weeks later the dog rescue got the donation, which was really cool.

Well... mentees can steal and lie as well.

 

[drahz]

So in your opinion, this ad would have been great if they didn't put in the last 10 words, "and also you will get rich by selling your goods"?

No, the problem is in the "it is simple, everybody can do it and it is a sure way ..." - it is not simple... not everybody can do it and nothing there is for sure.
Also, not everything is said there...

Let's say I know how to make every element on earth, so I make platinum, then gold and then silver. Then I would launch a course on how to make copper.

Year, then everybody would be making copper... but guess what would be the value of the copper then.

I get 50 clients and I tell them all, sell lampshades. Now, all my clients are competing against each other. Would you sign up for a course like that? How many of the 50 do you think would be successful? Remember all 50 clients are getting the exact same information.

However, one client might call their business lampshadesrus, and another lampsandstuff and another shittylampshades. Well, guess which one might not do so well. One might build a neon pink website with yellow lettering against my recommendations.

If everyone followed my exact process we would end up with 50 websites looking exactly the same, same font, same color, etc... Is that what you really want to learn? Something with no personal input from you?

The point is that the information is the same, you get the overall knowledge and guidance, but ultimately you control where you end up. You can't say, "I want my mentor to choose my product, my URL, my logo and my colors and my text." If that's what you want, then be prepared to see 100 copies of your website online.

No, it is absolutely not what I meant... I would say it is the exact opposite. What I tried to say is... the whole success is in the person, how smart they are, what is their prior knowledge, etc. So the mentor might be just someone for consultation.

The problem is... wast majority of coaching out there is advertised as a sure way to success for EVERYBODY... and only the mentor's knowledge, teaching and supervising is required.

Why an advertisement for coaching is mostly selling a dream... and it is not structured like this... (extreme example again) if your IQ is below 100 -> not allowed to my mentoring... if you do not have prior knowledge about ... -> your chance to succeed is reduced by 60% ... etc.

 

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[Antti]

I think it also depends a lot on the business model. For example, if you want to start building websites or maybe you want to learn to use Facebook Ads and work as a consultant, then if you have a good teacher, if you work hard and if there is good demand for the service/skill in question, then it can be almost guaranteed that you get some kind of traction.

But something like eCommerce is quite different. It is more like metaphorically speaking the teacher will teach you how to fish, he will teach you what kind of techniques and equipment to use and what are the characteristics of a good place to fish. But he will not show you he's own favourite spots. You will have to go and find your own spot where you can just reel in fish after fish. And that can be a long and challenging search even if you had a great teacher.

 

[Wil22]

So I just wanted to respond to these statements and give you the perspective from the other side.

I have 3-4 ecommerce businesses and at some point, you just don't want to build another business. Been there done that. I mean, how many shopify stores do you expect a person to manage? Let's say I put 1 employee in place to manage 4 shopify stores. Now what? Should I start another one? Or maybe I'd rather just start showing people how to do what I do?

On your next question about guarantees, the reason there are no guarantees is because we don't have control of the client's actions. If you were a personal trainer, could you guarantee your client that he will have six pack abs in 6 months? What if he just wanted to eat pizza everyday? Then what do you do?

I can show you and tell you to do things, but if you don't do them, should you get your money back? How about if I mentor you for $8k and you don't do things that I tell you to do, them you pay $8k more because you've wasted my time. Would you take that deal?

In my past mentoring, I have had some clients never call in after the 4th week. They just disappeared.
My mentoring class was between 5-10 clients for 6 months. Some succeeded and some did not. I actually feel very bad when my clients don't succeed. I had about 50% success rate. But they all got the exact same information. So why the difference in results?

It is because each client chose different products, they all had different budgets, some worked harder than others, some had personal issues come up and sometimes it was just bad luck. So how can I as a mentor guarantee anything will all these variables?

Here's the thing, I don't need to convince you that it is not a SCAM. In fact, I didn't accept anyone that asked for a guarantee. This is because I already know that their mindset is not correct. They aren't 100% committed to the process because their first thought it worrying about losing their money. Remember, I have to talk to you for 6 months if I accept you. So I don't want to be talking to someone that is thinking that I might be scamming them.

My friend had someone pay him $10k for mentoring. After their first call, my friend gave him his $10k back and said, this wasn't a good fit.

And I'll leave you with this story. Someone on the forum that took my early mentoring for $5k. I let that person pay me $2500 the first month and $2500 the second month. Well, he paid me only $2500 for one month and then said he didn't need more mentoring. Two years later I met him at the summit meetup. His business was doing really well. I told him, "hey, you never paid me the $2500. Just a word of advice, you should always honor you commitments." I wasn't sure if I should bring it up, but I figured it would be a good lesson for him. He apologized and he didn't realize that he never paid me. I told him I didn't want the $2500 but gave him the name of a dog rescue and said you can donate the money to this rescue if you want. A few weeks later the dog rescue got the donation, which was really cool.

Good history behind coaching/mentoring. A few years back, I was a sales trainer. my contract said I will increase sales (gross) by X percentage. If I fail, you pay nothing. However, I did however have hire/fire control. Even then, management botched the system by not implementing even though that prevention is included in the contact. In the end, I was pulled in so many directions I ended the contract. Is it "fair" or "ethical" to continue to charge when the client participant doesn't do the work? Ultimately, total control as a consultant remains outside of our control. For consulting, I use a behavioral assessment to measure soft skills like motivation, learning, focus (as a few) to make sure I am getting someone who is motivated and willing do the work recommended.

 

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