How To Choose An Internet Marketing Coach Without Getting Conned
Posted by Harrace, Senior Internet Marketing Coach
While I was in Singapore this week, one of our seminar participants consulted me regarding his desire to start an Internet marketing business. He is working as both a real estate agent and a taxi driver in the Lion City. He knows he needs to attend an Internet marketing coaching program in order to learn the shortcut to Internet success. He was then seriously considering joining eOneNet’s program.
But he showed me two ads in Singapore, both promoting free previews trying to sell Internet marketing seminars and Internet marketing coaching program, and the fees charged by them are 1/3 of our coaching fee. So his question is how to choose the best Internet marketing coach or Internet marketing seminar.
Here is my advice:
1. The first factor to consider is to ask whether the Internet marketing coach is making money online, and if so, how much? There is a huge difference for someone making a few thousands and another one making millions of dollars, each year. You won’t need a coach who can just teach you the theory of making money online.
2. If a coach is claiming he has made a lot money online, can he prove it, by showing his online payment statement? On the Internet, beware of a lot of bogus claims.
3. Is the coach practising what he preaches?
Many self-proclaimed Internet marketing coaches are “overnight” gurus who have made some money by selling ebooks or making money information.
Even if a coach can prove he is making money online, find out what is his main source of income. Most of the Internet marketing coaches’ main income is by selling making money information, and then by teaching. And if if they claim you can make millions of dollars without selling anything, or even without doing any hard work, you better beware.
If you want to sell physical products, and if the coach cannot prove he has sold physical products successfully, how can he be qualified to teach you to do so?
4. Search for the keyword “Internet marketing coach” or “Internet marketing coaching” in Google or Yahoo. These keywords represent this industry and their top rankings are eyed on by millions of Internet marketing coaches globally and are therefore extremely competitive.
If this coach’s website cannot be found on page 1 of the search results, but he claims he can teach you how to be on top of search engines, how can he be qualified to do so?
It’s funny to see some websites claiming they can teach you SEO, when their sites can only be found in sponsored links (meaning they are probably teaching you search engine advertising and not free search engine optimization techniques).
But don’t get me wrong. Being able to be on top of search engines for these keywords can enable you to claim you are ranked top Internet marketing coach in search engines, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you are the top Internet marketing coach. That’s why when we first started claiming eOneNet is the top Internet marketing coach ranked by search engines way back in 2003, there were some critics who were not very happy with our claim.
However, after 4 years, when we have proved our extraordinary achievements, and when we have become the benchmark of Internet marketing or Internet marketing coaching where many other Internet marketers (in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and elsewhere) are trying to copy us, whether the meta tags keywords in our sites, our Internet marketing seminars, or Internet marketing coaching, there is no strong objection that eOneNet is now the de facto top Internet marketing coach in Asia, or even worldwide.
5. What kind of coaching support is the coach able to offer you? Because of limited resources and manpower, most of them can offer you only email support, which is the lowest degree of support.
You should find someone, or rather a reputable Internet marketing company, who has perfected an online support system, such as online members’ area with uploaded course materials, online ticket system for asking and answering questions, plus support from the technical team.
It will even be better if the coach can track your learning progress via an online tracking system, e.g. whether you have submitted the assignments online or attended any online meetings.
6. Can the coach offer you regional support, in particular, if you want to target the market in China? Does the coach have regional physical offices in other countries? Is he able to show you top rankings in local search engines in China and Hong Kong, and even Chinese rankings in top China search engines such as Baidu and Yahoo.com.cn?
7. Has the coach groomed any successful Internet entrepreneurs, in selling different types of products, services and information? If yes, how successful they are? Has any of their coaching participants made millions of dollars online?
8. Is the coach teaching you most of the things you need to learn to make money online during the seminar or coaching? Or is he only interested in upselling you to other more expensive seminars, programs or websites?
If there are two Internet marketing coaches - one fulfills ALL the above criteria, and the other fulfils none but is charging only 1/3 of the coaching fee of the first one, which one would you choose?
At the end of the consultation, the Singapore real estate agent and taxi driver made the choice, and signed up for the coaching program which is 3 times more expensive.
If you want to add any other criteria for choosing an Internet marketing coach, feel free to do it here.
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May 14th, 2007 at 2:41 am
Why \”Internet Marketing Coach\”? Why not just \”Internet Marketing\”? Is it because you have a domain named \”InternetMarketingCoaching.com\”?
\”Internet Marketing\” is searched 100,000s of times on Yahoo Overture, and the accompanying word \”coach\” doesn\’t even make it to its top-50 search ranking.
So, I must conclude you\’re being biased and misleading when trying to convince your would be customers that you\’re no #1 on the Internet, or the Real mcCoy, while others are imitators or frauds. In fact, eonenet, fionetan or other subsidiary domains are not even on the first page of search result for \”Internet Marketing\”.
Everybody knows that eOneNet makes more money offline than online. Did you mentioned, \”bogus claim\”??
Be more neutral next time, please… Thank you.
May 15th, 2007 at 1:19 am
Hey Fione and Harrace,
Thumbs up for eOneNet! you guys has seriously proven to the world that you are indeed the no 1 internet marketing coach and the best person to teach people internet marketing becasue you are no one on the google search engine for such a competitive keyword.
Regards,
Ivan
http://ivan-ong.com
May 16th, 2007 at 2:46 pm
Ivan,
Initially when we got started, getting the No.1 rankings are very important to establish our credibilty. Now that with our achievements and success stories of the participants, these rankings are less important now, though it’s certainly nice to have.
Most importantly, people only remember who is the first one to be No.1, e.g Coke being the No.1 cola, Tiger Wood being the No.1 golf player (who is now No.1 I really don’t know)
Regards,
Harrace
Senior Internet marketing coach
http://www.eOneNet.com
May 16th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
Nasir,
Your question is a good question, which some of our critics often ask. So let me reply here once and for all, as our time is more well spent doing other more constructive works.
First, we don\’t claim ourselve to be #1 in Internet, or Internet marketing. Internet marketing is such a general word and covers everything, and we don\’t do everything related to Internet marketing. As a general word, there are of course more no. of searches.
One of our core businesses is \”Internet marketing coaching\” or as an \”Internet marketing coach\”, which is now becoming the most popular Internet marketing profession, as you can see many Internet marketers are now postioning themselves as Internet marketing coaches or offering Internet marketing coaching. Despite the search by the public is not as many as the more general word, more people are now educated as to what is Internet marketing coaching or coach and the searches for these words are increasing.
Most experienced Internet marketers would know that getting top rankings for a more specific keywords (like Internet marketing coaching) is more profitable than a general keyword like Internet marketing, for the reason that there will be a high conversion for more specific keywords. If we want to get the top ranking for \”Internet marketing\”, this should not be a big problem for us, but the time needs to be spent on doing this is not worth our effort.
More importantly, the more specific keywords represent the widely acknowledged profession of Internet marketing coach, which as you should be aware, hundreds of thousands of other Internet marketers are eyeing on the top rankings.
Regarding how much money eOneNet is making online or offline, I wonder how you can draw such a conclusion, unless you are my company\’s accountant! If you have attended any of our seminars, you would have got a glimpse of some of our statements of our own eCommerce merchant account, which I don\’t need to state it here. After all, Bill Gates doesn\’t have to show how much money he is making online or offline in order to prove he is successful!
Regards,
Harrace
Senior Internet marketing coach
http://www.eOneNet.com
May 17th, 2007 at 3:23 am
Thank you Harrace for your time and long reply. (I know you\’re busy and all and your time is better spent for your paying clients, so I appreciate your response).
Well, it\’s better to post here, than to to talk negative behind your back — that\’d be worse, i.e. real bad critics.
1. I beg to differ: Bill Gates\’ Microsoft is a publicly-traded company, so, practically anyone can see their accounting — almost everyone knows how Bill Gates make money, online or offline.
2. I\’m not a competitor in \”Internet Marketing\” or \”Internet Marketing Coach\” industry (I still maintain that not many people look for the longer phrase — \”consultant, seo, company, firm, agency etc.\”, maybe), so you need not worry or act worried (in reference to the tone of your reply).
3. Can you support this claim: \”Most experienced Internet marketers would know that getting top rankings for a more specific keywords (like Internet marketing coaching) is more profitable than a general keyword like Internet marketing, for the reason that there will be a high conversion for more specific keywords. If we want to get the top ranking for ”Internet marketing”, this should not be a big problem for us, but the time needs to be spent on doing this is not worth our effort.\” ?
I\’m pretty sure if you\’re top-10 for \”internet marketing\” (search 100,000 times per month), or \”internet\” or \”marketing\”, you\’d be world\’s top-1000 and hence one of the biggest Intenet-centric properties. For instance, everybody knows how much (not specific, but \”millions of ringgit per month\” is a good guess) sex.com and porn.com owners make off free traffic and they need not any content.
Anyway, nobody\’s questioning that you guys are great coaches (and marketers). Just tone down on these sayings that others are no good.
May 17th, 2007 at 2:46 pm
Hi, Nasir,
We welcome any comments, whether positive or negative, so long as they are genuine and not malicious. Your comments appear to be genuine and thanks for it.
While we are also making money from free traffic of more general keywords, we make a lot more money from more specific and targeted keywords, in particular from the US and Europe, some of the online sales including SEO campaigns, email marketng campaigns in different countries (including Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Hong Kong, China). Currently, I am dealing with Internet marketing services from one of the world’s top cosmetic brand from France.
Regards,
Harrace