So you get an email from a marketing guru. She tells you your life story like she’d been sitting next to you all these years. She knows exactly what walls you’ve been bashing your head on, what hurdles you’ve been knocking over and what weeds you can’t keep down. Maybe she gets you reading the blurb for 5 minutes, nodding your head and giving grunts of recognition as you acknowledge her total grasp of the situation. So, obviously, if she has such a good grasp of the situation then she’s probably got the answers lurking in her briefcase.

Now, is she a scam artist? No, she’s earning six figures practicing what she preaches and has helped scores of people to sort out their jumbled business lives. You’ll notice that as she explains some of the principles of running a successful business she keeps punctuating the proceedings with a reminder that she started out as ignorant as you. So how did she come by this wealth of wisdom and expertise? Well, of course she has tested all the angles and through trial and error it was almost inevitable that she would hit on some of the right answers somewhere along the line.

What is more certain is that most of the people who have bought into her program will just keep making the same mistakes and most of them will probably have not got any further than reading the course. Others will have been full of good intentions and may even have begun implementation but life is so hectic and urgent that these things always get left for when there is more time (and motivation). They will have read the no quibble money back guarantee but, knowing full well that failure was down to their lack of commitment rather than any fault in the program, they won’t exercise their quibbles.

So what is it that separates the success stories from the dust collectors? Inevitably it is those who persisted in their efforts to make the program work that really benefited but what of the placebo effect? Could it be that the program was secondary to the will to succeed? Is it possible that while the initial investment was not wasted, it was more the impetus than the content that contributed to their success? After all, the guru selling the program admitted her initial ignorance. It must have been her motivation and refusal to be blinded by science that drove her on to succeed.

It was once said, “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.” Maybe it could read, “Those who can, do; those who have done, teach.”