Marketing Guru: a dirty word in my book

Usually, by the time clients land at my front door, they’ve been around the block and signed up for multiple newsletters on how to make their web site work as a marketing power tool for their business.  As a result, I frequently get a "first hand look" at special announcements from many so called "marketing gurus".

Here, in the written word, I put quotation marks around the term "marketing guru" to denote the phrase as a "slang" term.  If you heard me speak the sentence, you’d hear my voice fluctuate as I spoke the words.  If you were to sit across from me and watch me speak the words, I’m sure you’d be amused by the facial expressions that just naturally accompany my utterance of those words.

To earn the deragatory title of "marketing guru" in my book you must usually:

  1. Be providing little REAL value to clients through your work.

    Usually this is demonstrated by merely rehashing what others have said or things they have read. 

    These wanna be marketing professionals rarely offer real life case studies of real live business clients because the only marketing experience these "marketing gurus" have is marketing their information product business.

  2. Be dedicated more to his/her own practice’s success than he/she is to his/her client’s success.

    The "marketing guru" in my book is more interested in peddling his or her wares than he/she is providing valuable information on what works and what doesn’t in marketing.   Again, this is because the "marketing guru’s" experience is limited to his or her promotion of his/her information product.

In the interest of time, I’ve posted to another blog I author the particular event which caused me to write this defining post.   In my post, Resisting the irresistible…. or how NOT to be a victim of a really great sales letter I admonish my client (and my readers) to try not to fall into step with the swaying of the snake charmer’s body.  Instead, step back and watch a master work.

Watch what snake charmer’s like this are DOING to promote their product instead of getting caught up in the sales frenzy being generated.  Watch the way they work their bodies and the way they match it to the music they’re playing and try to create your own similar song.

Notice how the song being played was created JUST for this particular audience.  It’s then carefully delivered to that specific audience.  The "marketing guru" in question doesn’t have my name on his mailing list… he has my client’s name and email on his list. 

My client obviously hasn’t read my free resource on what Google loves…. but then again, she’s paying to have me on retainer to ask these questions personally.

My final "word of warning"…. most of my clients are engaged in making what is called the "Major Sale" by Neil Rackham in his work on SPIN selling.  Selling an information product is an example of a MINOR SALE while selling services is almost universally a MAJOR SALE.  Ah, there’s the rub!  Many of these marketing guru’s are selling marketing information that works for MINOR SALES products and not MAJOR SALE services.  So while more than a few of these "marketing gurus"  are probably well meaning, they don’t realize that there really is a difference in marketing these two distinctly different types of products and/or services.

Want to learn more?  Pick up my book Beyond the Niche.  I’ve got to get back to work!