Look, not all online “gurus” are scammers. Many will have you believe that they are, but let me tell you from 10+ years in this space… not all of them are out to steal your money by selling you junk. The big issue is determining which ones are legit and which ones are not. It’s harder than it seems. Hence, the confusion we all have.

How do I know? Well, I’ve seen them all, and I’ve met with and become friends with many of them, as well as looked at their products. So I have inside information, which is the point of this video. Don’t just write all “gurus” off as thieves.

Another point… don’t buy info products and think they “just work” and make you millions by pressing a button. That’s why, I believe, that most people call these things scams… because they get them and realize that it’s still hard work. In other words, don’t be stupid.

You know both of these guys, right? Both are master marketing minds who have written many best-selling books, and who speak regularly to large audiences about what they know. Sure, you can buy their books online, but it’s not often that you get a chance to see them speak live. I know I never have yet.

But did you know that with the power of online video, you can watch hours and hours of video archive of them online, for free? This is good stuff.

Here’s a nice collection of Seth Godin videos and Guy Kawasaki videos. I highly suggest watching as many as you can. Lots of wonderful, free marketing advice. Enjoy!

A couple of my favorites below.

I get this ALL the time from new online marketers. “Jim, do these super affiliate guys who sell ebooks really make all the money they claim or are they just full of you know what?” And every time I get that question, I have the same answer.

Yes, some do make all that money, and no, some are not full of you know what. The trick is figuring out which is which.

Jeremy Palmer is one of those “real” guys you should listen to. But he wasn’t always a super-affiliate. He got his start by failing and made his success by hard-work.

He recently posted his success story on his blog and I found it very inspirational, especially if you’re an aspiring affiliate marketer. Here it is in full on his blog. Excerpts below chosen by me.

I believe that in every failure there is an opportunity to learn. While I was licking my wounds I carefully reflected on my previous experience. I was convinced that I could still be successful as an entrepreneur, but knew that I would need to build my next business on a stronger foundation.

I know a lot of Internet millionaires, and none of them built their empires on auto-pilot, by copying and pasting, or working a few hours a week. Sure you might be able to earn some pocket change by putting in such a minimal effort, but if you’re serious about quitting your day job and earning a substantial income it’s going to take work.

There is no software, e-book, or magic formula that generates income by itself. Many of these programs contain good ideas, but none of them will help you make money “automatically”. The number one factor that will determine your success is – you I encourage you to learn as much as you can from your training materials, but remember that the most useful knowledge comes from doing.

There you have it. Get to work and be like Jeremy.

Joel Cheesman is a blogger in a niche of career/recruiting. Early in 2007 Joel sold a one-year sponsorship for his award-winning blog, Cheezhead.com, to Jobcentral.com for $100k. I recently interviewed Joel via email to find out how he did it, and how you can do it to.

Jim Kukral: Was it your idea to sell your entire blog or did the sponsor suggest it?

Joel: Mine.

Jim’s Analysis: It just goes to show that success comes to those who ask for it. Decide what you want, then make it happen. It sounds harder than it is.

Jim Kukral: How exactly did this sponsorship come about? Who contacted who? Who came up with the $100k number?

Joel: My blog had done (and continues to do) a nice job of supporting my SEO business. So the issue arose of Do I focus on SEO and blog less, or do I create a revenue stream for my blog and justify the time spent blogging. Revenue stream and more blogging won. I contacted JobCentral. They were a great prospect because they had supported me before (http://www.cheezhead.com/2006/06/11/jobcentral-wins-auction/).

I came up with the $100K number. I knew that if we were going to garner attention, it would have to be something big.

Jim’s Analysis: Never undervalue yourself. Sometimes asking for too little is a very bad thing.

Jim Kukral: What exactly does the sponsor get?

Joel: Dominating presence on blog (header, banner, sponsors page, single post drop-down link); plugs in podcasts and videos; logo on T-shirts worn at tradeshows and conferences; advertising in anything I publish, etc.

Jim’s Analysis: $100k/12 months=$8,300/month. Not bad for all that. As Joel mentions below, a company can spend over $100k/year on a trade show presence and possibly never even track that ROI back. With a blog sponsorship they can track everything, and the buzz alone from the sponsorship can pay off as it reaches every major blogger in that space. Hey, look at this article for proof :)

Jim Kukral: What’s the advantage to the sponsor for doing this?

1) It sounds corny, but there was really an element of “supporting the arts.” Bill Warren, head of JobCentral, really believes in the medium and where it can go.

2) Brand awareness. My blog just won Recruiting.com’s Best Recruiting Blog for 2006. I have a good name in the industry and healthy growth.

3) Zagging. A lot of companies will spend over $50K on one tradeshow in our industry, where they largely go unnoticed. By sponsoring a blog at this level, JobCentral took a different approach to its competitors’ marketing activities.

Jim’s Analysis: While I don’t think this will be an easy sell to most companies who are used to dropping wasted money into trade shows and banner ads, I do think that smart companies will see the advantages Joel talks about. The trick is finding one like Jobcentral, who is obviously way ahead of the curve. I’m going to try and interview Bill Warren, head of Jobcentral next and get his thoughts on Joel and this sponsorship.

Jim Kukral: What’s the advantage to you for selling a sponsorship this way?

I can better justify the time spent blogging. Time is money, right?

Jim’s Analysis: I would agree. The #1 advantage is that Joel can now concentrate on his craft, instead of worrying about selling ads.

Joels’ Dirty Little Secret

I saw Joel in person at an event the other day and he secretly told me that after he sold this sponsorship he was contacted by other industry people he knew who wondered why he didn’t come to them first, as they would have given him way more than $100k. Lesson learned, it doesn’t hurt to ask.

Read Joel’s story about “selling out” on his blog.

Digg this story please?

Here’s Joel’s “selling out” funny video. Good work buddy.

Cheezhead Sells Out

Add to My Profile | More Videos

You all know how much I love BUMPzee! Well, I love it even more now that I was chosen as one of the select few to manage my very own community while it’s still in beta. So what community did I make?

Introducing the ‘How To Be Successful Online’ BUMPzee Community

Bookmark this: http://www.bumpzee.com/onlinesuccess/

What is the community all about?

The How To Be Successful Online community is for anyone who is interested in learning how to be successful on the Internet. The blogs and members of this community will focus on and discuss the world of Internet marketing, professional blogging and making money online. Join today for free, or submit your related blog for free as well.

That description you just read is really what JimKukral.com is all about, and many, many others like it that I read every day. Like those blogs, I don’t write about one topic like affiliate marketing only, but rather, I focus on writing about all types of online marketing, with the specific goal of trying to help businesses, brands and individuals be successful online.

Do you fit that mold? Are you someone who’s looking for more information about how to be successful online? Join the community for free!

Do you have a blog that talks about ways to be successful online? Submit your blog to the community for free!

FYI. I’ve preloaded the community with about 14 blogs, listed below (in no particular order & if I missed your blog, I’m sorry, just go add it).

If your blog is on the list below, go sign up and claim your blog, and most importantly, add the bump widget to your entries and sidebar. If your blog isn’t in the list below, what are you waiting for, submit it!

Not sure about BUMPzee yet. Read this.

Super Affiliate Marketing Blog
Earners Blog
Revenews
WaynePorter.com
Shoe Money
CostPerNews
Graywolf’s SEO Blog
Copyblogger
Andy Wibbels
Aaron Wall’s SEO Book.com
The Blog Herald
Ask the Blogger!
901am
ProBlogger Blog Tips
Jim Kukral Online Marketing Ideas

Oh yeah, and make sure to check out the other new beta BUMPzee community managed by CostPerNews’s Sam Harrelson.

Called “Next Gen Marketing”. In a nutshell, this community on BUMPzee will serve as an aggregator of blogs and insights focusing on developing trends and emerging tactics to address the rising tide of social media, attention economies and “web2.0″ platforms. It should be fun to see the discussions which arise there.

There’s also some new interface changes at BUMPzee too, so check it out!

Shoemoney is going to interview an online porn star. Here is his rationale…

What if you could ask a internet porn star who is doing revenues of over 1 million dollars a year (in subscription revenue alone) questions? Would you be judgmental and not be able to get past the Adult stuff or would you ask questions? I really have no interest in the Adult arena but I think there is a ton to learn here. For instance she is not only competing in the most compeditive market on the internet but is very successful (and I thought ringtones was tough). Also she faces the same issues as most of us webmasters. How do you aquire subscriptions? How do you get new customers?

I tend to agree with SM when he says that we could all learn a heckuva lot about the online marketing industry in greater detail by watching and learning from the adult crowd. Let’s face it, they drive the car in this Internet thing we do, they always have.

In fact, I’ve had this debate over at ReveNews, several times, with the verdict/vote coming out to be “no adult talk Jim”. What I’m trying to say is. I understand the issues of “as professional online marketers, should we talk about it, or shouldn’t we?”

So the bottom line is that yeah, we probably should talk about it, and examine it and disect it and learn from it… but deep down in our hearts we have to make a decision, and that decision usually come down to one simple realization we cannot overlook.

And that is… depite how smart the adult crowd might be and despite their successes and all that, it’s still porn.

I’m no prude, but you know what? I can’t sit my little 5-year-old girl down on my lap at night and know that I spent the day making money off of porn, I just can’t.

Can you? It’s your choice.

Good luck with the interview SM. I hope she even knows how to turn on a computer, or you might not learn much of anything.

So for my first victim, I call out the Copyblogger himself, Brian Clark.

Question: Brian, you mentioned here that “you were an unknown a year or so ago”.

Now I look at your blog and see close to 15k rss subscribers and tons of traffic & comments, all in a short year.

How did you do that? It can’t just be about good writing. I know lots of good writers. How did you become so successful so quickly?

Mack at the Viral Garden had a great post about how he found some amazing marketing videos by some famous marketers over at Google Video.

I started searching through Google Video and found plenty of gems by speakers such as Seth Godin, Joe Jaffe, Jackie Huba, and Robert Scoble. For the other 99.9% of you that have broadband (ie, real internet), enjoy. Do yourself a favor, take a few hours out of your day or weekend, and give these guys a chance to make you smarter.

In particular, I want you to spend the 48 minutes watching Seth Godin speak to Google. Great stuff.

Lesson learned today? There are gems to be found for free on the Internets.

Here’s another great one from Jackie Huba, about Creating Customer Evangelists.

View, and upload your own, videos that can help you make money online at http://makingmoneyonline.magnify.net/.

By me. :) Please excuse the horrible link bait-ish headline, but I wanted to get your attention for a special announcement I need to tell you about.

You can view the announcement at JimKukral.com.

Jon from Wickedfire forums and the Super Affiliate Marketing Blog writes a post entitled ‘My New War On Internet Marketing Ebooks’, where he wants to ‘stop these assholes from making money off of your foolishness and greed‘.

I’ve decided that I’ve had just about enough of these internet marketing ebook self dubbed experts and gurus making money off of their regurgitated information. So, instead of just warning people about it (since so many of them just don’t listen anyway), I’m going to go ahead and do something about it. From now on, when an ebook comes out, promising riches and traffic and whatever else they swear about, I’m going to buy it, summarize it, and post it.. for FREE.

As much as I might agree with the sentiment Jon, you’re painting with a very broad pen stroke here. There are good quality ebooks and guides out there that do help people, and people do use them and are successful with them. Not all of them are written by scammers and theives.

Here’s a better idea for you. Why not review them and provide a guide about them for people to read and let them decide to buy based upon your recommendations?

Also, I think you over estimate one critical factor. You are a smart Internet marketer and you know how to find the right, free, information to help you, the people who need these guides are not, and don’t know where to look. These people sometimes also need to have the information presented in this manner, otherwise they don’t get it.

Good luck with your quest. Can’t wait to see the hate mail and lawsuits that will be pouring in! I’d much rather see you spend your time on a review site. I’ve thought of doing that myself, but who has the time?