By Joe Myna

The Internet has given us many marvelous advantages in international marketing, from speed and convenience of email to ease and economy of product downloading.

Yet these wonders pale by comparison when you realize sheer volume of Gurus that inhabit Web.

As a young boy growing up in Ohio I was impressed by rarity of those mystics who with one utterance, could place in a nutshell all worldly knowledge.

On other hand, there had always existed plenty of "experts."

In olden days folks were forced to rely on now outdated, 'expert' for knowledge and virtuosity.

When it comes to Internet marketing there are no experts, only Gurus.

You remember what an 'expert' is, don't you!

Well, as a distinguished Chinese gentleman named Charlie Chan, once said, "An expert is a person who provides quick answers that are sometimes correct."

While, as Charlie says, an 'expert' may only from time to time, correctly assume a fact, a Guru never ever suffers from this fallacy.

A Guru just knows all!

You see, only quality 'expert' lacks is perfection, otherwise he would be a Guru!

There is one other distinguishing characteristic you'll notice when sorting out a Guru from an 'expert'. An 'expert' is either, self designated or quickly proclaims title, while a Guru leaves that function to his associates.

As a lad I was just naive enough to believe that world only offered us one or two true Gurus.

Naturally, I had heard of mysterious Dalai Lama with his universal wisdom, and maybe about a couple of odd characters hanging out in Tibet, but that was it.

© 2002 Elena Fawkner

Big news this week. The FTC's going after companies behind ab gizmos. You know ones - develop six-pack abs in 6 weeks without doing a single situp. All you do is strap on this belt gizmo and it sends hundreds of electrical charges to abdominal muscles causing them to contract. Voila! All benefits of hundreds of crunches without any effort.

The FTC's claiming millions of dollars from these companies. This is just to disgorge money these companies received from customers.

Why? The ab gizmos don't work. It's all a big fat lie.

Well ... duh.

So why, then, have these companies made hundreds of millions of dollars?

Because there are an awful lot of people who want something for nothing. They don't want to have to wait, they don't want to have to expend effort. They desperately want to believe it's possible to get something now and without working for it.

So, they'll fork over $99 in 3 easy instalments for a gizmo that will give them rock-hard abs in six weeks while in meantime they sit around pool doing nothing but sipping Margueritas. No matter that it won't work. Hope is alive and well and that's what they've paid for.

And that's what these marketers are selling, after all. They're not selling an ab gizmo. They KNOW they don't work. But that's OK because what they're selling is hope. The hope that maybe, with this doodad, you won't have to get in shape way all those other poor schleps have to. You won't have to go on a diet to lose fat and exercise to build muscle. Nosiree, not you. We're going to give YOU a magic wand!

Sound familiar? What was in your inbox this morning after you finally downloaded all your mail? How many emails did you receive telling you that you can make $3,000 a week doing nothing? Or you can earn a full-time income with part- time work? Or, how about this, "We'll do all work!"? (After you pay us $60 for your place in matrix, that is.)

Or maybe you've written ads like these yourself. Smart marketer that you are, you know that best way to sell your product is to market it as something that will take away pain. You know that for your target market, working in a J.O.B. (just over broke) day after day is painful. You offer a way to escape that pain.