29
I’m No Guru - Lol ;-)
Filed Under (Product & Site Launches) by Mieke on 29-11-2008
Today, I received a message in which I was asked to visit a site called ‘Rate Your Guru‘. More out of a feeling of disbelieve than out of curiosity, I clicked the link to check out the site.
Once on the homepage, I was stunned: the site appeared to be everything I feared. All I could see on the home page was a list of names with under each name a 5-star rating system…
And maybe even worse… when I checked the list, I found my own name on it.
I resisted the feeling of leaving the site instantly - you know, simply click away and never return -, mostly because I was curious why someone would ever think of a creating a site like this…
On the ‘About’ page, I found this message:
I’ve been flirting with Internet Marketing for well over four years now and something that I could never find was a decent “Who’s Who” in the Internet Marketing zoo.
From this I learned Chris started from the right idea. I can relate to the need for a directory that lists IM’ers, their main businesses and (most important) their contact details - something like the yellow pages for IM.
Many marketers still ‘forget’(??) to add any contact details to their websites or sales pages, and every so often I find myself losing precious time trying to find a way to reach him. Just this week I’ve sent two request for assistance through the PM system of the Warrior forum - simply because I couldn’t find any other way to get in touch with these guys…
But there was more on the ‘About’ page:
A site that could tell me what people REALLY thought about their guru’s. Were they all they were really cracked up to be?
For me, that’s where Chris loses track…
This site is not meant to be your personal grievance posting system… that’s why you can vote anonymously.
By allowing people to vote anonymously, I fear the site will soon be used for that what he wants to avoid: a personal grievance posting system where people can get ‘revenge’ for whatever injustice they feel they’ve experienced. Is he really willing to provide a platform that can ‘make or break’ a marketer, based on subjective experiences of other people?
Just an example: Quite regularly, people warn me not to do business with X and Y - two very big names in IM - because they are not to be trusted, have no respect for their customers, and so on. Personally, I’ve been doing business with both these guys for years now, and I have never - really never - had anything to complain about.
Marketer Z however - no just another big name, but one of those self-declared guru’s - is praised by everyone everywhere, while the guy owes me quite some money and was too proud to simply tell me he couldn’t pay me. After 6 months of listening to the most lame excuses, I told him he could keep his money. I’ve never done business with him again.
All this just to illustrate that experiences are subjective, which makes them a pretty bad basis to build a judgement on.
There’s a big chance I too have customers who feel I’ve let them down in one way or the other - many things can go wrong during a transaction or communication with a customer. Plus, English not being my native language, I often find myself limited in expressing what I really mean - I can imagine this sometimes causes confusion and mis- or malcommunication.
With any bad luck, it’s those people that visit the site and use the rating system (it is a proven fact that negative feelings are more often - and easier - expressed than positive ones) - branding me and my business in front of hundreds, maybe thousand of visitors…
My thoughts:
- To keep the rating system in place, maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to let people motivate their rating. This isn’t foolproof either, but at least it would make it less easy to abuse the system to get back at people - or to bring down your closest competitors.
- Why not invite all marketers to the site and clearly ask them to write their own bio. With the number of marketers that’s on the list, it will take ages to collect all the required info and reprint them on the site. By allowing marketers to add their own bio, the workload will be taken of the manager’s shoulders, while accuracy can be assured.
Personally, I think the marketer’s directory at Guido Nussbaum’s Profit Work From Home-site is a very good example of how you can build a directory with useful information in no-time, simply by allowing marketers to present their own business and reveal just as much or as little info as they want.
The problem with Guido’s directory is that profile ranking is based on the number of assigned credits, and that you got to scroll through all listings to find the one you need. Imagine how much more useful it could be if it was set up like the ‘Rate The Guru’ site…
My conclusion… I don’t know about the site yet. I think it has just as much potential to become a valued resource for very useful information as to become the place to be to throw dirt at eachother or to take other actions in order to make your competitors look bad…
I can’t wait to see which way it’ll go …
Please check it out yourself and let me know how you feel about it. Do you think I’ve got a point? Or maybe that I’m just plain paranoia?
Leave your comments!
Greetz!
Mieke
P.S.:
To make sure nobody jumps to conclusions, I want to make sure you know I’ve notified Chris about this post.
If you subscribe with your email address, you'll receive a brandable copy of my new ebook in return. To sign up, use the form below or go here for more info. |
Subscribe to my free 
Subscribe In A Reader
Yup, that’s my site you’re talking about… thanks for the feedback Mieke,
And yes, I agree with some of the things you have written about the site and it’s potential for abuse… which I will be monitoring.
The site is still in it’s infancy and the plan was to include bio’s for the people there.
Regarding: “By allowing people to vote anonymously, I fear the site will soon be used for that what he wants to avoid: a personal grievance posting system where people can get ‘revenge’ for whatever injustice they feel they’ve experienced.”
Um… when you vote for a president don’t you do it anonymously? Likewise, the majority speaks and rules… If 1000 people vote 5 stars for a marketer and 1000 vote 1 star that person has a ranking… and intelligent people will be able to gather their own conclusions from that. Why should the Internet be censored?
I’m certain nobody will be able to create an opinion from “Ooooh he’s a guru, you’re not allowed to vote them down…” On the other hand if the person voted for is a shyster (of which I am certain you’ve dealt with more than your fair share of…) why should they be allowed to continue to get away with it? People will vote the way they feel. If they do it anonymously the site will survive lawsuits. Ywah, Ive got to worry about those too.
Maybe I’m getting off track here… your second suggestion, “invite every marketer to provide their own bio” was in my plan, and you’re invited
I know you’ve registered on the site, so come up with a bio and I’ll post it on the site. BTW the site is only a few days old… and free…
Thanks for your opinion once again,
Chris
I agree with you. Anonymous remarks about someone is the equillivalent of gossiping behind their backs. If you have something to say about business or social interactions with a person or their company, stand up, look that person in the eye, and state your grievance. That person should be given the chance to defend himself and explain his/her position.
A good design for such a site would be to require each person to state their name, contact info, and their complaint, in detail, about the particular marketer.
The site could be set up to notify the marketer whose name was used. The marketer would then be able to respond and explain his position, and perhaps correct the situation, were he to be in fault. There are investigation news shows on TV and newspapers that do such reporting and investing of consumer complaints. Many time, even when the marketer is blameless, he/she will make refunds or whatever is needed to sooth the consumer.
The marketer should be notified, whenever a positive comment was made, also.
Hey, I may throw up a site, like that. I think it would be difficult to monetize, but it would be a good public service.
Alfred Jones
http://newbusinesstarts.com
I really like the idea of a way to rate the people who are reaching guru status. Presuming the anonymous posters have to have real email addresses, the ballot boxes wouldn’t be stuffed with 093428@qwepoiru.com like my anonymous comment box gets. The funny part is my anon-box comments just goes to my email and are not used on the site unless I like them. This is a wordpress forms plug-in. If anyone cares I will note which one it is.
-Wolf
Wolf Haltons last blog post: Is the FBI Helping Nigerian Scammers?
Why is it that internet marketers and/or ‘gurus’ are so opposed to negative information about them? Do they think that their shit does not stink? I think that Chris has a point in that voting should be anonymous, how else can one voice a complaint without dire retribution from the ‘injured party’? Since the internet marketing world has no regulation and does not have a complaint department to register complaints, the internet marketers and the ‘gurus’ feel that they have no one to answer to for their misdeeds. It is about time that those who are unethical and shady be exposed and have their feet held to the fire. There is a field of thought among internet marketers and ‘gurus’ that they have the God given right to get away with murder and whatever they want. Well I say it’s high time that some sort of rating system is needed to out the scoundrels and con artists who ‘market’ on the internet. I, having been scammed by a few of these SOB’s, feel that Chris is doing the right thing and is providing a most welcome service to shed some light on a very dark and shady industry. Unless of course, you are one of the slimy con artists, then of course, any light shed on your activities would be akin to turning on the light in the kitchen and seeing the cockroaches and vermin scatter for the dark corners!
stevieod
P. S. kudos to you Chris for doing what has been needed for so long….
If we look at the original uses of the tern ‘guru’ we trace it back to the East Indian wise men who achieved things many believed to be super-natural.
Their results were simply stunning especially with the efficient ways they produced them. Another thing was their incredibly easy -yet often unorthodox- ways of teaching their methods.
Thus, any real guru would’ve told you that their greatest effects could be judged by their students accomplishments…these things are what makes a Guru.
There’s more degrees that can added to this,but if they’re not at least doing these then they’re having serious delusions of grandier
I checked the site and cast some votes. I only voted people I like, so far I have no enemies to take revenge on
I’ll see how the site keeps evolving…
I agree with chris, this is not meant to be of service to the “experts/gurus” but rather to the community. This is about what people think/feel about X person. In the same way you leave a review for a book on amazon or other such sites, rating an info-marketer is a good and needed thing.
if there are a lot of negative comments about someone, it is either because something really happened or competitors are trying to put them down (pepsi against coke). Bottom line, like in every business, the job of the company is to monitor its image (and yes this is a job..) and respond effectively. Politicians do it all the time, companies do it all the time. This is democracy and freedom of speech. And NO the site should not notify the infopreneur, this is your job to monitor Your business.