How to Spot a Fake Business Guru Before You Pay Them

The fastest way to spot a fake business guru is to ask one question: what business have you built, besides selling information about business? If the only thing they’ve ever sold is the course on how to make money, you’re looking at a marketer, not an operator, and you should keep your wallet closed until they can point to something real.

That question isn’t mine. Gary Vaynerchuk asked it on my podcast in 2016. He’d spent only 11 hours in Sydney and was already in Hawaii when we connected. His book #AskGaryVee was out, and this time I didn’t just bring my own questions. I’d asked the Addicted2Success community what they wanted to know, and I started smashing through their list.

Halfway through, I asked him what question people never ask him but should. He didn’t give me a question. He gave me a rant about the people selling success advice who’ve never built anything. It’s the most useful part of the whole conversation, and it matters more now than it did then.

The one question every mentor should be able to answer

Here’s how Gary put it: “Why don’t you ask your mentor or your coach or your mastermind group what business they’ve ever built besides selling information to people? Shouldn’t that be a prerequisite?”

Read that twice. He isn’t saying information is bad or that coaching is a scam. He’s saying the person teaching you to build a business should have built one. That sounds obvious. Most people still skip it, because a confident voice and a nice-looking feed do a great job of answering the question before you ask it.

Gary didn’t stop there. He said the problem is that a lot of people listening don’t actually want to build a business either. They want to sell coaching too, and he called it what it is: “that Ponzi game of being somebody’s coach.” My read: coaches teaching coaches to coach, with nobody in the chain selling a product to a real customer.

Here’s my take on why the question works. Someone who’s built something can answer “what have you built?” in about five seconds, with names, numbers and the mistakes that cost them. Someone who hasn’t will usually change the subject to their students’ results.

What a real operator sounds like

Gary used himself as the example, and I think it’s fair. By his own account in 2016, he’d built two businesses, one doing 50 to 60 million and one doing 100 million, and neither of them sold masterminds or ebooks. His first business was a bricks-and-mortar liquor store and an e-commerce wine business. He said he was 34 years old before he started talking to the world.

“I’m not a podcaster or a pundit or a journalist or a coach,” he told me. He said his personality confuses people, and they don’t understand how much of an operator he is. He figured questions about leadership, organization or P&Ls, the real business stuff, just aren’t the sexy thing to ask him, because of the way he portrays himself on social.

To be fair to him, he didn’t pretend he isn’t inspirational. “I am inspirational, I’m motivating, I’m a good communicator,” he said. “I’m just not just that.” That’s the distinction. A real operator might also be a great communicator. A fake business guru is only the communicator.

Red flags of a fake guru (and how to tell if a business coach is legit)

If you’re trying to work out whether a business coach or mentor is legit, these are the red flags I’d check, all pulled from what Gary said that day:

1. The only business is the business of teaching business. Ask what they’ve built besides information. If the answer is their coaching program, that’s your answer.
2. The lifestyle is the pitch. Gary went after the guys “taking these pictures with cash on their bed,” flying private jets and “renting a car for the day to take a picture and then returning it,” all to get kids to buy into their program. If the cars are doing the selling, ask who’s paying for them.
3. The funnel is the whole model. He described it exactly: put out Instagram quotes “so that you then click my URL in my profile and then sign up and pay me $10,000 a month to tell you how to make money.” His own model, as he described it in 2016, was the opposite. Put out free content every day, then every three years ask people to buy an $18 book.
4. They talk outside what they know. “You can’t be a 22-year-old life coach,” Gary said. “You haven’t lived life.” He said he’d come across very humble if you asked him about health care, oil prices or artificial intelligence, because he only talks about the things he’s best at.
5. They sell shortcuts. Gary’s point about self-awareness was that when you know yourself and you know you’re good, “you don’t need to take shortcuts, you don’t need to rip people off.” People who promise you a shortcut are often telling you how they got where they are.
6. They push urgency on young money. When I asked for his advice to millennials, he said one word first: patience. The program that needs you to decide tonight isn’t built for your timeline. It’s built for theirs.

None of these alone proves someone’s a fraud. Two or three together and I’d walk.

Speaking only about what you know

This part landed for me personally. I’d told Gary he inspired me to get up on stage without slideshows and PowerPoint, and just talk from a place of authenticity. His reply: “When you actually talk about [stuff] you know, you win, and when you use slides a lot of times you’re talking about [stuff] you don’t know.”

I told him I’d once asked Simon Sinek what the key to becoming a great speaker was. Simon said, “I cheat.” When I asked what he meant, he said he just speaks about what he knows. Gary said the two of them were homies and had talked about exactly that. He said it’s why he comes across cocky and egotistical. He only talks about the things he’s the best at, marketing and building businesses, and he stays in that place.

That’s a good test for anyone you’re about to pay. Watch what happens when they’re asked about something outside their lane. Real operators say “I don’t know” a lot. Fake gurus have an answer for everything, and it usually ends with an offer.

Why brand beats the hard sell

I asked Gary what he did differently with the #AskGaryVee launch. He said it proved his thesis that “branding and marketing is better than sales and transactions.” He’d done the #AskGaryVee show for 18 months, rebuilt his website, started a podcast and put out a mountain of content. By the time he got around to selling the book, it was sold. He said he sold three or four times as many books in the first week as he did with Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook.

Then he summed it up: “Nike doesn’t have to make the best sneaker. They’ve got Nike. If you and I start a sneaker company, we have to make the best sneaker.”

This is the flip side of the guru problem. Gary earned attention by being useful for free, then asked for a small sale. If you want to see how that plays out for a smaller business, this site has covered why it pays to give your knowledge away for free and let trust do the selling. The fake guru does it backwards. Thin free content, then the big ask.

If you’re building a personal brand, don’t become the guru

Most people reading this aren’t only buyers. You’re building something too, and the pull to look bigger than you are is real. I felt it myself. Around that time, I’d started stepping out from behind the Addicted2Success brand and shooting videos as me. I asked Gary what advice he’d give people getting in front of the camera.

“Don’t be embarrassed that you make 30k,” he said. “Don’t be embarrassed that you live in a [crappy] house. Don’t be embarrassed that you don’t have the fly clothes. Tell people the truth.” His reasoning was simple. Watching somebody come up from the bottom and rise is way cooler than watching somebody lie like everybody else.

He also gave me his top three personal brand strategies of all time:

• Stop BS-ing. Talk about what you know. If you’re 22, talk about what 22-year-olds are thinking about on the internet.
• Work is the only variable. “You can’t take talent drugs, but you can work more.”
• Be ready to adjust on the fly. The market moves on a whim, and when somebody smart tells you where it’s going, act on it.

That third one stung, and I told him so. Two and a half years before this conversation, he’d told me directly to get on Snapchat. I’d only jumped on it in the month or two before we spoke, and I was kicking myself. He wasn’t shy about it. He said he has an amazing track record, and that he’s right a lot because he puts in the work and has intuitive talent.

One more thing he said is worth stealing. He told me he’d listened to zero podcasts. Zip. Zilch. What he consumed instead was what his audience said about the content he put out, so he could adjust to them. A fake guru studies other gurus. A real operator studies their customers.

How you make your money matters more than how much

The line from this conversation I’d put on a wall is Gary’s answer to young entrepreneurs: “How you make your money is more important than how much you make.”

He said too many people want the money and the cars right now, and that hurry turns them into what he called a “scum bucket.” They end up disgusted with how they made their money, nobody takes them seriously, and they leave a lot of money on the table in their 30s and 40s. Then, as a 40-year-old at the time: “Your 30s and 40s feel like your 20s.” If that one hits you, it’s worth reading up on how to be patient in business while you build the real thing.

He also made a prediction about the cash-on-the-bed crowd. They’re going to get exposed, he said, and their families are going to be embarrassed about who they were. “That’s the ultimate loss.” I don’t need to add anything to that.

Gary’s last 30 seconds

I always end the show by asking for a last 30-second speech to the world. Gary gave me one only he could give. He told people to go back and watch everything he’d put out, because he’d shown them how to do it, and then he landed on the point that ties this whole thing together: “Understand there’s no shortcuts. You got to grind it.”

So before you pay anyone to show you the way, ask them the question. What have you built? If they can answer it, listen closely. If they can’t, keep your money and go build something yourself.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spot a fake business guru?

Ask what business they’ve built besides selling information about business. Gary Vaynerchuk told me in 2016 that this should be a prerequisite. If their only product is teaching you how to make money, they’re a marketer, not an operator.

What are the red flags of a fake business coach?

Watch for rented-lifestyle marketing, a funnel from free quotes to a big monthly fee, advice on everything outside their experience, promised shortcuts and pressure to decide fast. Any one alone isn’t proof. Two or three together is a reason to walk away.

How can you tell if a business mentor is legit?

A legit mentor can name the business they built, what it sells and the mistakes that cost them. They stay in their lane, admit what they don’t know and don’t need to rush you. Ask before you pay, not after.

What did Gary Vaynerchuk say about fake gurus?

On my podcast in 2016, Gary said people should ask their mentor, coach or mastermind group what business they’ve ever built besides selling information. He called coaches teaching people to become coaches “that Ponzi game” and predicted the cash-on-the-bed crowd would get exposed.

Is it wrong to sell information products?

No. Gary’s issue wasn’t information, it was who’s selling it. He gave away free content daily and, as he put it in 2016, asked people to buy an $18 book every three years. The problem is someone charging thousands to teach a business they’ve never built.