If Elton John was an Internet Marketer

Never try to convince anybody of anything! I have learned the hard way, so I use this illustration because it reaches the parts that explanations fail to reach!

Elton John. It doesn’t matter whether you love him or loathe him, or have no strong opinions either way, he is a talented musician (the Royal Academy of Music doesn’t admit just anyone!) and a highly successful and wealthy singer/songwriter.

Since our mind loves to see evidence before we do anything, it simply adores the pragmatic approach (pragmata from the Greek meaning ‘that which has been done before’) That means that we are easily persuaded by those who can demonstrate that their strategy ‘works’; i.e. that they have made lots of money, and you can too, by adopting the same strategy. There is a disconnect in there – but more of that later.

With apologies to Sir Elton, let’s speculate on how his irresistible offer might look.

“How to Make a Million in a Weekend by simply singing and playing the piano.”

 ..and continues “ In my fool-proof, award-winning course, I will show you the exact method I used to become a multi-millionaire, sell out international gigs in minutes , write smash hit musicals, befriend royalty and travel the world.

This course includes:

 ·     Twenty x 30-minute video tutorials on “How to play the piano like a Rock Star”, recorded by my hand- picked coaches from the Elton John Academy– just watch and repeat!

·     The complete back catalogue of ALL of my recorded songs, including exact replicas of the original sheet music annotated by me personally!

·     6 brand new Karaoke backing tracks, so that you can get started straightaway, making money with your voice, without all that hassle of learning the piano.

In summary – all you need to become an international superstar in weeks!

Plus Special Bonus:

“Be Famous Before you even finish the course!”

For one lucky subscriber every month: the chance to perform live on “Britain Has the X Factor” in front of 3 celebrity judges. Who knows – It could be you!

Now, it seems facetious, simply because, in this case, the disconnect is blindingly obvious:

 You are not Elton John and Elton John is not YOU!

Employing his strategy will not work for you unless you have a similar talent – and maybe not even then!

I wonder how much a good Elton John tribute artist makes?

 So many courses are sold to us on the assumption that we are the author and the same results would be available to us. When we invest in the course and follow the instructions, not only are we mystified by our failure to replicate the author’s results, we are embarrassed because we believe it is our fault!

Here is what's really going on: we are buying the author’s strategy and not their unique talent.

 The question to be addressed is “Why?”

When you lose faith in yourself and stop believing that who you are is good enough, you start believing in anything – anybody who can present ‘evidence of success’ -usually money and a tonne of clients’ -but what is less obvious is that that person demonstrated success in their field – success at being who they are!!

Which brings us back to the first paragraph “if you don’t know who you are, any strategy will only take you further in that direction!” and the observation that “when you DO know who you are, the strategy is less important”. 

What if the strategy didn’t have to be complicated? What if you didn’t need a new website, branding, red hot copy, a new profile, a logo, a slogan, a month-long content plan, a full-on assault across all social media? (I’m exhausted just typing that!)

So what do you really want? Another strategy to try to replicate what someone else is doing well or a fast way back to knowing the value of who YOU really are?