Too many guru emails hitting your inbox?

Hey Everyone,

Do you get too many 'guru' emails hitting your inbox that it distracts you away from spending productive time making money online?

Personally, I'm subscribed to over 100 different internet marketing guru's newsletters.

Some are good, most are spammy, some are appallingly spammy.

With most of them I have set up categories and rules so that the emails automatically go into folders that are categorized by the guru's name.

That way I only take a look through a particular guru's email when I have the time, or wish to check out what they've been sending out lately.

There are some people whom I subscribe to that I let go directly into my inbox, but most of them I have automatically going into categories, that way I don't get distracted by stuff.

One problem I hear from many readers is that they don't know who to stay subscribed to, who to listen to, which products to buy and so forth.

Personally, I'm subscribed to a lot of different lists, good and bad, but I have different motives to most of you. I'm subscribed because I'm in the IM niche, so when I'm in a JV contest during an IM launch, I like to know what emails the other people are sending out.

There's not many lists that I'm subscribed to for the purpose of gaining 'information'

When I want to learn stuff, I either try to reverse engineer what other successful people are doing, I buy solid business books from Amazon.com, I listen to quality business audio books in my car, I talk to other internet millionaire friends of mine on skype, I listen in on promising sounding webinars or I buy courses from very reputable internet marketers.

It's fairly rare that I learn something new from a newsletter list that I'm subscribed to because most people only send out promotions and don't actually send out any content in their newsletters. And when they do send out content, it's often too newbie to be of interest to me.

Anyway, I'm getting off topic here. What I wanted to give you was something to help you prevent getting an inbox full of too many offers and so forth that you miss the good ones and also I'd like to offer you some tips to prevent you from buying junk products.

Rule #1: Set up a seperate gmail account and let all new newsletters that you subscribe to go to that account, and categorize your inbox.

Rule #2: With your regular email inbox, only subscribe to a maximum of 5 newsletters (and less if you can help it). If someone isn't in your top 5 'gurus' or newsletters, then unsubscribe and resubsribe using your gmail account. That way you'll have less clutter to deal with on a daily basis. You may even wish to make it part of your daily routine to unsubscribe from one newsletter list each day (and move it over to your gmail).

Rule #3: Beware of buying any product that you don't understand. If you come across a salesletter for a product, and it shows a bunch of income screenshots, then it says that there is some miracle system or software that creates push button money, or traffic, then make sure that it explains what that system or software is. Don't just get blinded by income screenshots and proof of traffic and testimonials. Don't get blinded by statements such as "my system doesn't involve adwords, doesn't involve email marketing, doesn't involve xyz", those kinds of statements, while being fine to have in a salescopy, aren't enough to tell you what the product is about.

If you don't understand what you are buying, don't buy it. I've seen several product launches of awful $37 products where they make it look like you're buying some top secret system to drive floods of traffic to your websites, something you've never heard of or seen before, it doesn't involve email marketing, nor does it involve ppc, etc etc. Then you buy the product and find out that you've bought a piece of software that does article submission.

Ok, that's great, but if you knew what you were buying, you may or may not have bought that software. Article submission software can be really good, but don't just go buy some miraculous traffic generation software without knowing what it is that you are buying, or you will find that you'll regularly be disappointed.

Rule #4: Beware of short emails that lead to a hardsell of a product

If someone has your best interests at heart, and they've really reviewed a great product, then in their email they'll actually give you at least some details of what that product is about.

If you get an email that goes something like one of these then beware:

=============================

Subject: Wow, I'm impressed

Hey FIRSTNAME,

This software is amazing, I've never seen anything like it. It's push button simple and I'm now driving lots of traffic to several of my websites:

http://linkhere

You can thank me later,

Guru Name

=============================

Subject: Keep this private

Hey FIRSTNAME,

This information is for your eyes only. Don't share it with anyone else:

http://linkhere


Guru Name

=============================

Ok, if you get the occassional email like that from someone, that's fine, but if you're getting emails like that every single day from someone, then be very wary.

They are likely just seeing you as a number, they send out short emails as they are faster and easier to write and they get high click throughs. They probably haven't reviewed the product, just the salespage, so they just look to promote products that 'convert well' to sales, but not necessarily great products that will benefit YOU.

And they mail as often as they can (sometimes 3 times per day) as they aren't even thinking of helping you long term, they don't care about building a relationship, they just want you to buy something from them and they want you to do it as soon as possible before you unsubscribe. I've heard some marketers tell me that they "hate customers" and they don't want to deal with them, they'd rather just refund people who ask questions.

Personally I'm all for strong marketing, hype, overpromoting at times and so forth. So long as it's a product I believe in. And there are several good products made by top quality marketers out there, guys who offer great support too, so I don't understand why some guys decide to promote such junk on a daily basis.

I like to picture the person on the other end of my emails as a real person who I want to see do really well online and in life. Often I read an email that I've just written and think to myself - Would I want my father reading something like that? (For those who don't know, he's someone that I trained up in internet marketing and is doing well online)

Rule #5: Stick to 1 or 2 systems at a time - maximum. If you buy an info product that teaches you how to make money online through following some system, then that's great, but don't keep looking for the next opportunity. Implement what you learn, good things sometimes take a little time. Try not to buy more than 2 (and preferably only 1) new 'make money system' within any 90 day period. Give yourself the time to go through it properly and get making money before expanding your knowledgebase.

It's like learning to drive a truck, you need to master driving a car first. You wouldn't learn to drive and 30 days later, go ahead and learn to drive a large truck. You'd want to be driving a regular car for at least 90 days, if not longer, before moving on to another class of vehicle.

Also, with any system, it will probably take you 2 to 3 times as long as you first think. Assuming it's a good system, the money IS still there, the potential lifestyle is still there, it might just take 3 times as long and twice as much persistence as you first thought.

Rule #6: Buy products that help you in your current plan, and that teach you things that you know that you need to know. If you already have a plan, if you already have websites etc, don't buy brand new 'systems' that are totally different to what you are doing. Buy products that complement what you are doing.

Many years ago, I got myself making money online without buying info products. I was largely self taught. But when I did finally start buying 'info products', the first ones I bought were ones that helped me send more traffic to my websites. I didn't go ahead and look for some new magic way of making money online, that would have been a big distraction, I looked for products that would help me make more money out of the sites that I already owned, and also taught me skills that I already understood that I needed to get better at e.g. email marketing, ppc and so forth.

Rule #7: It's better to take a leap of faith than to distrust everyone. There are a lot of 'gurus' out there, some are really good, some bad. Some have great systems, others are rubbish. The fact is, there is a lot of money being made online, and you can't waste too much of your time trying to decide who to trust and who not to. You have to learn how to take a piece of it for yourself. If you gain success from most of the products you buy, and perhaps some turn out to be rubbish (so you refund those), then that's better than being too cautious to try at all.

You can follow my rules above to some extent, but all in all, there are many good systems out there and you get a pretty good idea from the first couple of days whether or not a product is any good. If it's bad, get a refund and try something else. DO stay in this game, DO take action, and DO persist, DO NOT get put off by obstacles, and remember ...

... Making money online is as simple as learning how to master the following:

Leads (e.g. seo, ppc, ppv, affiliate marketing, email marketing etc)
x
Conversion rates (salesletter writing, email writing, surveying exit traffic, copywriting in general, etc)
x
Average $ per sale (e.g. upsells, recurring, etc)
x
Average # of sales per customer (email marketing, promoting good products, etc)
=
Your Revenue

I hope you enjoyed this blog post, and I hope you realize that this isn't meant to be a 'guru bashing' post. There are several great internet marketers out there who provide quality information both in their newsletters and in their products, and are helping make a lot of people to do extremely well online. This is simply meant to help you cut through the crap out there which unfortunately taints our industry and might hold you up on your path to great success online.

As always comments are welcomed!

Mark