Knowledge is power.
Here is what to know to not get scammed by business programs.
Or probably just generally a lot of bad life advice.
(1) If it sounds easy, it’s probably worthless.
Sales, marketing and copywriting are SKILLS. If you don’t respect them as skills, you deserve everything you get.
A lot of predatory, scammy business programs thrive on pretending that business isn’t overwhelmingly a game of skills.
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Assume that, if it sounds like any idiot could do it and benefit from it, it probably is targeted to idiots.
And idiots don’t win at business.
(2) There are things that save time. But there are no real shortcuts.
You don’t need to invent calculus from scratch. It has already been invented, so all you need to do is go take a class on it. But, to pass the class, you’re going to need to do a lot of hard math problems where you get a lot of it wrong and study your mistakes.
Likewise; you do not need to figure out the principles of copywriting from scratch. Not only have they already been figured out, you can actually just google them all online and learn for free.
However, to truly learn the skill of copywriting to the point where you can embody it comfortably in a way that feels like you as opposed to robotically following a theory or formula, use them flexibly, and create predictable results… you’re going to have to put in the work.
Uncomfortable work that requires experimentation, failure, and iteration.
And it will take you time.
Same is true of any skill.
And see what I said above about business. Business is overwhelmingly a game of skill, and if you don’t believe me, well, good luck. Can I also sell you a bridge?
A lot of people confuse “learning that saves time” with “magical shortcut.”
Often because learning is fraudulently advertised as magical shortcut. (If that is not explicitly said, it is implied.)
There are no magical shortcuts. There are no exceptions.
(3) Beware promises of simplicity and certainty.
In fact, the harder they push on the promises of simplicity and certainty, the more skeptical you should be. Because this probably means they probably don’t have much else to stand on.
Nothing is as seductive to the undiscerning customer as being told, “All you have to do is follow the exact steps I took to replicate the results I got.” Because this delivers two things that the primal brain desperately crave: simplicity and certainty.
Which leads us to why so many people feel bamboozled once they’ve bought business solutions. Because once you get into the weeds of things — of anything in life — nothing is actually simple, and nothing is certain.
It leaves you unprepared for the nuanced, multilayered work it takes to actually move your projects forward.
I’m not saying things can’t be simple. Actually, some of the best solutions are. I try to simplify my own frameworks and teachings as much as I can.
And I’m not saying that there aren’t things that don’t genuinely + significantly boost your odds of success. I don’t sell anything where I don’t have deep certainty that it is some of the best value that money can buy in the market.
But, in learning about a new program or product, watch how they address nuances.
The less nuance you can find, the less substance there will be.
I find that, in the typical business program, there is almost none of either.
Just endless echoes of regurgitated bro marketing.
(3) Stop seeking high reward with low input.
I see ad copy like this that makes me laugh and cry at the same time: “Even if you’re a total nobody with no special skills, no knowledge and no network, you could be quitting your job and earning six figures with content creation in 3 months.”
Oh really.
You do not have something that is highly valuable to others, and you want others to value you highly?
You are not willing to put in the work to develop a statistically exceptional skill set, but you want statistically exceptional pay?
In Korea, we call this a “thief’s mindset.” A thief feels entitled to something that they did not earn.
And when you have a thief’s mindset (seeking ‘get rich quick’ schemes, wanting big rewards with little effort, in other words), you are the easiest target for a fraudulent online business coach.
Do not be easily seduced to claim rewards that clearly don’t make sense in terms of how real world economics works.
Getting rich is not ever quick. (Believe me, the truly rich people of the world keep it that way.)
Getting 1% results does not ever come without top 1 percentile input (of some combination of talent, work ethic, privilege, luck, etc.)
Of course, there are exceptions. And they are as unlikely as winning the lottery.
And fraudsters get rich every single day, flattering people into thinking, “today is your lucky day. After all, don’t you deserve it?”