Leading Performance Marketing Voice Pace Lattin takes on Affiliate Marketing Gurus

In a recent issue of FastComany magazine, Pace Lattin, one of the leading voices of performance and affiliate marketing was called by famous "Money Making Guru" Jeremy Shoemaker to be a "Guru Basher." When we sat down with him, he was very honest about this name and proudly admitted that he has an issue with Gurus and their methods. He’s been on a mission in the performance marketing and affiliate industry to make changes within the industry and according to him, make sure that the industry doesn’t fall prey to the growing "gurus" that he calls "no better than late night pitch salesmen."



Question: What do you find wrong with Gurus?

Pace: Pretty much everything. Most of them are trying to sell a product by claiming that they can make you a ridiculous amount of money. While there are products that can actually help you with your marketing, anyone pitching $5,000 seminars on how to make money may as well be selling the Brooklyn bridge.



Q: How do these gurus prey on people?

P: In the affiliate marketing industry it’s no different than all sorts of guru scams. They make claims that they have made large amounts of money using "proven techniques" and will share those techniques with you. They generally get people interested by writing some posts that basically share commonly known information and trying to up sell people on seminar or a DVD series.



Q: Have any of these people made money? Are they just liars?

P: Some gurus have been moderately successful, but most of them have no real experience in the industry. Many of them will show screenshots or checks of the money they made, and claim they are wealthy from this money, with no real proof. They never reveal that they spent $95,000 to make $100,000 but instead just show $100k check that took them often months if not years to get. Even if they did make money, most of their techniques were short lived and they are no longer even moderately successful. That’s their real secret: if they currently had ventures that were making them rich, they would be focusing on those. Actually, they do have money making ventures: it’s selling their crap to unsuspecting people who are desperate to learn the secret.





Q: Are there any interactive marketing gurus out there that you respect?

P: Not anyone who calls themselves a guru or sells crappy seminars. There are tons of marketing experts with great blogs and products that they sell: most of them $15.00 books that provide much more information than the thousand-dollar plus seminars.



Q: What is your opinion on testimonials?

P: All of the testimonials are from anonymous people and using stock photography. I’ve tried to question gurus about their claims and even ask to meet the people who say they have made millions from the gurus teachings, and none of them even want to provide this information.Approve / Preview / Reject



Q: Some people criticize you for not attending any of their seminars. How can you say all this if you’ve never attended a seminar by any guru?

P: I’ve challenged many of the gurus to allow me access to the seminars to give a review, and none of them have followed up. Some of them have made it very clear that even if I pay, I am not welcome. Many of these seminars contain "Non-Disclosure" clauses which prohibit anyone from talking about what they have seen. The claim is that the information is so "top secret" that they don’t want it revealed, but the real reason is that they don’t want criticism of their products



Q: Jeremy Shoemaker, an affiliate marketing guru called you a guru basher, what do you have to say to him?

P: Nothing really, I hear he has a legal team that might sue me if I say anything negative. In all honesty I know nothing specifically about him, but it’s my opinion that he’s most likely most of the gurus out there. I’d be surprised if he’s actually figured the secret to affiliate marketing.



Pace Lattin is the founder of ADOTAS.com and his affiliate fraud and compliance blog can be found at http://www.industrypace.com. He is also the co-owner of editor of the largest affiliate marketing publication Inside the OfferVault at http://inside.offervault.com