Have you ever heard the fable of the blind guru? I don't know how you could have missed it. It's been bouncing around for at least 5...um, minutes...in my head.

Here's how it goes:

Once upon a time, there was a blind man in a small village.

One morning, he walked out his front door, turned left, took 15 steps, turned right, took 24 steps, turned around and did 3 somersaults.

That made him a little dizzy, so he put his hands on the ground to stop the world from spinning. As he touched the ground, he felt a large coin. He picked it up and put it in his pocket.

Later that day, he showed it to a friend who, to his surprise, told him it was made of pure gold. The man was rich.

The next day, many villagers came to ask the blind man how he'd gotten so rich. For a small fee, he told them to get up in the morning, walk out their front doors, turn left, take 15 steps, turn right, take 24 steps, turn around, do 3 somersaults, and pick up the gold coins that'll be on the ground in front of them.

The villagers followed his advice. One fell off the cliff to the left of his house. Another got arrested for trespassing in his neighbor's house.

A third found a piece of scrap metal that he sold for 25 cents. He sold his system for finding valuable scrap metal to other villagers for $97 each.

How much of what we "know" about internet marketing comes from blind guides? How much is based on somebody's misunderstanding of why some promotion they did succeeded?

How much of it is taught by someone who copied the worst part of someone else's promotion, and just by luck, or for some other unrelated reason, found some success?

How much of it starts off as an exaggeration that makes it look better than something that's true? Once the exaggeration gets retold enough times, it becomes the new "truth".

This morning, Ben Settle posted this to his blog:

Reader Comment:
John McNally said:
As a consumer, I actually like blind offer sales letters Antone! The game is to try and work out what they are actually selling? Is it Affiliate Marketing? Currency Trading? Sports Betting? etcetera. Usually you can work out what it is by what they h...
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But I didn't start writing ads that made lots of sales until I swiped less -- a lot less.

...

I didn't realize until later that the Internet sales letters I was swiping were simply no good at all. And that, instead, I should have been studying (not swiping) OFFLINE sales letters that are tested in the cold, brutal world of direct mail.

If you're modeling your sales letters on somebody else's, even if they're successful, consider this: they may be successful in spite of their sales letter rather than because of it.

For example, the product may be selling on the strength of the person's past successes rather than its own merits. How many sales letters have you read that were 10 parts bragging about how rich the seller is, and one part information about the product? Some don't even say anything concrete about the product at all!

The product may sell, but does that mean the sales letter is worth copying?

Like Ben said, if you want to learn how to sell, study people who've proven time and again that they know how to sell -- and not just sell the story of their one lucky break, or the dream of being rich like them.

The blind guru may have a shiny gold coin and an alluring mystique, but the guru who's spent a lot of time studying what he sees is the one who can teach you the true path to success.

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