Snake oil salesman. Anyone ?
A man named Clark Stanley traveled through USA selling rattlesnake oil during his “medicine shows”. He claimed that his snake oil is based on chinese water snake oil could cure you from many diseases. But that wasn’t the truth. When they examined his oil in 1916 it had no snake oil in it at all ! It was worthless. From that time on “snake oil salesmen” is a label used to describe someone who sells, promotes, or is a general proponent of some valueless or fraudulent cure, remedy, or solution. Snake oil is a term used to describe deceptive marketing, health care fraud, or a scam.
How to make money online ? How to get rich quick ?
Passive income. Working 9-5 is for losers.
Sounds familiar ?
Get rich quick GURUS or “modern internet snake oil salesmen” are here to help you.
And they want your money !
You might be surprised that I’m writing about this topic but I promised you this blog will lead you to your personal freedom and that can hardly be reached by being manipulated by online get rich quick gurus that wait for you nearly around “every corner” online nowdays. They are selling a dream of “getting rich quick” and the reason why it works is that most of the time you start searching for such terms is when you’re broke and most vulnerable. Another reason is that people all are greedy, nowdays greedy more than ever.
It is based on promising 4 things:
- you can can get rich
- it can happen quickly
- guru has a system that can help you achieve that
- anyone can do it
They start with presenting you their lifestory, how they used to be broke and how they “developed” a system that changed their life and made them rich. They need to relate to your life situation. They also might include testimonials of “ordinary people” who once were just like you and now they are free from work, having a passive income thanks to the online program. The greatest thing about these schemes is that you are actually sitting at home watching this videos thinking you are the “clever one” because no one else around you knows about this secret as gurus present it but that can’t be far away from the truth. The scam is not an online course you’re buying but that marketing around it. Most of the time they present an idea that might work to such extent and it can make you some small amount of money, but after some time you realize that where gurus got all that money was from selling people like you “their magic online course” not by applying the formula, investing in stocks or whatever else are they preaching in their course. Unfortunately online gurus emerge a lot in the investing segment where you can actually lose all your money. Quite the opposite to what was promised by them. It needs to start with something that they’ll give you for free, it is sometimes an Ebook, sometimes couple of educational videos.(they will also want you to subscribe you to their newsletter so they can “hook you” properly). There is always a big banner in the middle of their website and they will use scarcity, meaning their Offer is available for 24 hours only ! (for the rest of the decade usually). This is a closed loop because when more people buy their courses they become richer, they make videos with yachts, celebrities, models, expensive cars so it will hook you up even faster. It can’t be a lie because you believe what you see and what you see is that they are free from work, rich, surrounded by beautiful women and you are not.
To wrap it up, if you are in a search for information, forget online marketing gurus that want to sell you an idea that is presented in their online course which price may vary from 99 dollars/euros up to the thousands. There are books that will cost you 9,99 USD and will provide you with useful information about how to make money, but there are scams in the books too, so do a little research about them before you buy them ! (especially if someone famous is promoting them). But in those books I mean, there will be one unpleasant truth. Getting better, healthy, rich won’t be quick and it will definitely won’t be easy ! (Feel free to contact me via Contact form and I’ll be happy to provide you with books that helped me to move forward in life and weren’t scams)
The other and very popular “get rich quick” scheme is a “Pyramid scheme”. It promises unlimited income but most participants lose their money. It is when you get that strange call from your past colleague or classmate you haven’t seen for 15 years. They are at the bottom of the pyramide manipulated but they don’t realize that. They usually want to sell you overpriced cosmetics, in worse case they want to give you an “investment advice”, sign an insurance with you or similiar. But here is not the product that is important. They want to earn a comission and as it is a pyramid those on the top get most of the money and the actual “workers” get a “few bucks”. People who hired them are the ones riding expensive cars and living in new houses while they convinced their distributors that they used to be like them, this is where they started and if you work hard one day you’ll be like them. Usually distributors can also recruit other distributors of their product and earn a commission from anything distributors below them made. These manipulators target young people, naive who are trying to figure out what to do with their lives. In contrast with “online programs” it happens face to face and distributors, manipulated and promised “the dream” are usually gathered in hotels where ideas are presented to them by well dressed men and good looking women who were once “just like you”. (Only a bit more manipulative and maybe with higher psychopathy score). Only those who get in right at the start make money whilst the majority lose their money. They often operate like a “cult”, where distributors often drop out of school, they don’t want to talk to their friends and family because they “don’t get it”, they are in their own “echo chamber”. This is a method how to keep you involved in this scheme, any outside opinion is threated as hatred.
And here comes one important psychology phenomenon of this schemes: if you’re not getting rich quick, it is because you’re not following their program or advice, you’re not working hard enough as they used to. So do not try to say that the program/product/idea does not work. It is all your fault ! This is a method how to keep you involved in the scheme.
But how to get out of this ? It is very simple ! STOP looking for a shortcut. Just stop doing it. Success, personal freedom, healthy lifestyle and building your wealth are long term goals. They take time and every day discipline. Stop making those snakes rich by giving them your money you earned by doing your job and actually contributing to our society. Only we can stop this by controlling our greed and our fear of missing out. These online programs are not mandatory for anyone, we and our greed are responsible for making them rich. They make money because some other sucker lost more. (sounds like cryptocurrency/bitcoin scam right ? 🙂 maybe in another article…)
There are also valuable online courses available, but how to distinguish between them and get rich quick schemes is to notice what are they promoting ? Are they based on getting rich + anyone can do it + it can happen quickly + limited time offer + it is easy ? If so you know it is a “getting rich quick” scheme. As always, use common sense.
Take care, talk to you soon.
