Will you trust me if I have a Lamborghini?

I will not underestimate your intelligence.

If you have been following me for a while, you would’ve observed that we are publishing MicroStartup’s accounts in public. We have a separate blog for this at Building MicroStartup. We have just published 2 months of finances and the 3rd month’s numbers (August) will be published in a few days.

There are multiple reasons for doing this, but the No.1 is marketing itself. I got this inspiration from Pat Flynn behind the brand Smart Passive Income. While browsing the internet, I came across this income report for Dec 2017. I was just glued to the screen looking at his overall income and analyzing how much he spent and where the income came from.

Every content creator is looking for attention from a high-quality audience. Content creators in the business growth niche need to get the attention of their subscribers to build trust. If they advise other people on how to build and grow a business, they should also make a clear perception from the audience that they are eligible to give that advice.

Unless the audience sees the creator as someone worthy of listening to, the attention will not stick long enough for the audience to buy information products.

Creators resort to different ways to show their audience that they are worthy of giving advice.

This includes things like:

• Driving a sports car and showing off on social media (hey, if I can buy this super costly car, then I should be successful, so you should listen to my advice so that you can also become successful.)

• Branding by association (hey, I am hanging out with other successful people, so I should also be successful, so you should follow me for business advice).

• Posting pictures from international vacations to show that they can afford international vacations (hey this is only possible because I am successful in my business, so you should listen to me).

Such publicity stunts have worked for a while, that’s why people do it, but nowadays it doesn’t work anymore. It’s also irritating to the audience because you are rubbing it on the faces of people who have not achieved success yet.

This gives rise to speculations about the content creator on his ethical standards and the source of his wealth. (Is he a scammer? he is a fake guru probably, his sales methods are unethical).

This method is showing off to people how rich you are, rubbing it on their faces, making them insecure, and then selling a lame business program with the promise of riches is not a new method.

One of the first such instances of a creator showing off his wealth that I had come across was the “Rich Jerk”. His website is down, and he is probably not alive anymore (as a brand). No one knows what happened to him, but he was one of the first movers in this space.

I was able to get a screenshot of his website from the Wayback Machine which archives old website pages forever.

He is very explicit and he got the attention. He starts the website copy with “Hi Loser”.

His website copy goes like this…

Let’s get something straight, I am a jerk. I am obnoxious. I am lazy. And I don’t care, because I am FILTHY RICH. I am much too important to even be sitting here writing this right now. So I’ll keep it short. I make several million dollars every year on the internet, doing almost nothing. Heard that before? Well you can see proof of my earnings. Have you seen proof like that anywhere else? Didn’t think so. Do you make that much money? Didn’t think so.

I’m the real deal. Whether you like it or not, you want to be rich like me, otherwise you wouldn't be here.

If you do such stuff, especially in the USA, you will get sued by the FTC (Federal Trade Commission).

Recently Anik Singal, one of the relatively ethical “business gurus” got sued by the FTC, but he cleverly turned that into an opportunity by being transparent about it and converted the story into more attention.

Now he is advising people on how not to get sued by the FTC.

Such laws are not that strict in India, but it is just a matter of time before some big class action lawsuit comes along for one of the business gurus in India and a government department steps into “protecting the customers” like a big brother.

A few creators in the US are notorious for rubbing their “riches” on people’s faces. This includes Tai Lopez and his famous “here in my garage” video where he shows his Lamborghini first and then shows his book shelf and says that his books are way more valuable.

They think people will think that if he can afford a Lamborghini (one way or another), then he must be successful and, hence, a great mentor.

The US market is slightly more tolerant and accepting of the wealth gap between the haves and the have-nots. India is more sensitive because India has always been a conservative country where even if you have a lot of wealth, it’s not appreciated to show it off and make other people uncomfortable and jealous.

Dan Lok is also known for displaying a luxurious lifestyle. Some of his mentees, including Dev Gadhvi, have copied his approach. Unlike other influencers and creators, I am not going to call him a scam.

I know people who have bought Dev Gadhvi’s products and they are pretty happy with the content and service they have received. I have personally spoken to Dev and he is a nice guy. He did what he had to do thinking that this is what needs to be done - inspire people. But there is a very fine line between inspiration and covetousness.

I am just observing what’s happening in the market as an external observer without any judgment. Such videos have been critically responded to with “sigh, what a show off”.

Some people who talked about it got millions of views, way more than his own video views. The first video below has 1.8m views. Such negative branding will affect future sales and people who don’t know him end up judging him even before they have a chance to interact with his content.

All these creators are in the “business coaching” space one way or the other. But before they sell their coaching programs, they need to show some signs that they are successful.

Unfortunately, the market has learned very late that showing off luxury cannot be a marketing method that attracts sensible customers. It attracts the wrong kind of customers who think that they can get rich overnight by buying these programs.

If you are reading this, you won’t be my fan if I flaunted my wealth in your face. You will see me as “shallow”. I understand my audience very well and I know that what they are looking for is some “in-depth content with common sense”. I kind of keep it subtle and low with my events and approaching the market as a personal brand. I like to attract similar kinds of people.

That’s why I decided to show people that I know how to build a business, but building a business in public. I am also taking a risk by doing this because there is a chance that my business will not do very well, and people will see me as a failure. Now I have pressure to make sure that doesn’t happen, so I am bound to work hard and that might increase the chances of me building successful MicroStartups and inspiring others to do the same.

So this is what I am working on right now:

Coaching Business:

• Freelancing Niche

  • Micro Freelancer Program (Front end)

  • MasteryClub (Back end)

Goal: 20L/mo revenue consistently.

• Business Coaching Niche

  • Micro Startup Inner Circle (Front end)

  • AlphaClub (Back end)

Goal: too big, not worth discussing now.

Agency:

• Email Marketing Agency - Deep Marketing

• Sales Agency - Magnetic Sales

Goal: 10L/mo per agency consistently

Only after I reach 30L a month in revenue consistently, I will focus on building the Freelance Coaching Business and the agencies. I will scale AlphaClub once I can show people that I can build Coaching Startups and Agency Startups in niches that are not business coaching niches. The promise of AlphaClub is that you can build your own Micro Startup that will make at least 10L a month in revenue.

To build the proof of work, I am building the other startups. I don’t want to make 10L/mo or whatever from AlphaClub itself and then tell people that they can build good businesses because not everyone should build a teaching business of how to build a business. Then we will only have business coaching businesses in the market and no real businesses that create real products and services.

In the MicroStartup Inner Circle, I share a weekly update on what I am doing to build my business. From Inner Circle, I get inbound requests for joining AlphaClub. I am not pushing my high-ticket business coaching to anyone. It’s a pull from the customer side. I am working on generating demand for AlphaClub and will scale slowly and sustainably as the demand grows.

AlphaClub has the potential to scale to 40 customers a month at 2.5 Lakhs per year membership and generate 1 crore a month in profitable revenue for our business. However, if I try to push the product into people by giving them high hopes that they can also do it easily, I might fall into the bucket of a fake guru myself.

India is a high trust deficit market. It’s taboo to ask someone what’s their salary. In such a market, showing finances openly is a marketing strategy in itself. On top of it, it also makes me accountable to the public and keeps me on track for business growth. Because after all this big announcement, if I fail, it’s not going to be looking good for my personal brand.

I have conviction in my approach and let’s see how it turns out. Either way, you will see what I do and learn from me.

Cheers,
Deepak Kanakaraju