Is The Coaching Bubble Bursting? And Who Are the "GOOD" Coaches?!
Release Date: 05/23/2022
Cancel Culture and Personal Brands In PR Crisis with Molly McPherson
Marketing Muckraking
In today’s episode I am joined by the indestructible Molly McPherson, who you may know as the TikTok “PR Lady,” as her followers have affectionally dubbed her. I just know her as my first stop when a brand or celebrity is in the news for reasons they’d rather not be. Molly is hilarious, warm, and witty and I’m absolutely thrilled and delighted that she’s on the show today, talking about the #1 biggest mistake that brands make before, during, and after a public relations crisis and even dishing with me on my favorite topic — the and the curious case of...
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Fix It From Within? Or Burn It All Down? Where Do We Go From Here? The Online Business Family Tree - Part 4
Marketing Muckraking
Welcome to Part 4, the final installment of the Online Business Family Tree series, where we traced back how we arrived at this moment in internet marketing and online business and who are the key leaders who brought us here. We also highlighted the 10 elements of the rotten tree. To review: Prosperity gospel and the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" myth of meritocracy Mastermind relationships and being "in the room" where it happens with powerful leaders JV partnerships Affiliate marketing Tabloid / clickbait / pain point / shame-based marketing Gaming the system Propaganda, mind...
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ClickFunnels to Hell, Fake It 'Til You Make It, and Moneyball: The Online Business Family Tree - Part 3
Marketing Muckraking
Welcome to Part 3 of this four-part series on The Online Business Family Tree, where we trace back how we arrived at this moment in internet marketing and online business and who are the key leaders who brought us here. In this installment, we’re time traveling from WWI and WWII all the way to today, where clickbait, ClickFunnels to hell, and faking it ’til you make it have spread across the branches of this rotten business tree, poisoning the fruits that fall to everyone clamoring for their taste of success. Remember, this stuff didn’t start on the Internet — it goes back hundreds of...
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6 Figure Masterminds, Marie Forleo, and The Syndicate: The Online Business Family Tree - Part 2
Marketing Muckraking
Welcome to Part 2 of this four-part series on The Online Business Family Tree, where we trace back how we arrived at this moment in internet marketing and online business and who are the key leaders who brought us here. In this installment, we’re diving into six figure masterminds, Marie Forleo’s B-School, the Cult of the Syndicate, and how early Internet marketers like Mark Joyner, Dan Kennedy, Yanik Silver, and Russell Brunson brought mind control and manipulation online. If you don’t know — or care — about these names, never fear. We focus on what tactics these leaders popularized...
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Thomas Edison to Tony Robbins: The Online Business Family Tree - Part 1
Marketing Muckraking
If you've ever wondered how the Online Business Industrial Complex was built, this is the 4-part series for you. I'm joined by Lisa Robbin Young as we trace back how we arrived at this moment in internet marketing and online business, and who are the key leaders who brought us here, starting with Ben Franklin, Henry Ford, and Thomas Edison, all the way to and Matthew McConaughey? Yeah, he’s a life coach now. If you don’t know — or care — about these names, never fear. Lisa and I focus on what tactics these leaders popularized and how they’ve invaded nearly every corner of online...
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Should Brands Be "Political"?
Marketing Muckraking
In this installment of Marketing Muckraking, we explore the question...should brands be "political"? And what does it mean to be "political" in the context of global capitalism? Are we turning to corporations because we've lost our faith in government? What do we do, as brand consumers and business owners, with the answers to these questions? How do we build a better world? In June, the world’s most powerful advertisers gathered at Cannes Lions, where this year’s biggest themes included AI, ad tech, influencer marketing, and most notably — “dialing down the politics,” which was the...
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19 Brands & Counting: Review of Shiny Happy People - Duggar Family Secrets
Marketing Muckraking
Content warning: this episode touches on sensitive topics that include sexual assault, child abuse, and religious trauma. Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets released on Amazon Prime on June 2. In this episode, I review the docuseries through the lens of marketing muckraking, looking at how the Duggars and the IBLP used modern marketing, branding, and PR to re-write history as it was happening, in a bid to arrest political control of the country.
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The Age of Personal Unbranding
Marketing Muckraking
Welcome to Season 2 of Marketing Muckraking! I started Season 1 with — and because I love a good callback, I’m continuing this conversation as we kick off Season 2. In my very first episode I traced back the origins of the term “personal brand” to Tom Peters and his 1997 Fast Company article when Peters told readers to “take a lesson from the big brands…establish your own micro equivalent of the Nike swoosh. Peters positioned personal branding as freedom from corporate rule: “You’re not an “employee” of General Motors, you’re not a “staffer” at...
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Can We Fix Capitalism? CoMuckraking with Jeff Harry
Marketing Muckraking
Jeff Harry is back! Earlier this year, Jeff and I asked the question: Today, the question is, "Can we fix capitalism?" Yvon Chouinard, self-styled "reluctant billionaire" and Patagonia founder recently made headlines for giving up ownership of the company and dedicating future profits to fight climate change. “Earth is now our only shareholder,” Chouinard wrote in an . The Internet went wild for the news with many celebrating the move as proof that there is hope for capitalism yet. In an exclusive New York Times interview Chouinard himself positioned the decision as...
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The History of Marketing, Propaganda, and Politics From WWI to Trump
Marketing Muckraking
I believe that marketers and the people who consume marketing (that's everybody) need to know the history of the advertising industry and how we went from “Mad Men to Math Men” to quote Alexander Nix, former CEO of Cambridge Analytica. There is so much more to this history than a bunch of Don Drapers clinking scotch glasses while they come up with pithy slogans. Marketing history intertwines with how politics and culture took shape over the last century. To understand marketing history is to understand ourselves. If you want the short version of this, check out this...
info_outlineLots of famous folks are closing shop and "retiring" from coaching and online business. Some people are asking:
"Is the coaching bubble bursting?"
I don't think so.
Grifts and pyramid schemes and “coaches” by different names are part of the historical fabric of capitalism. Remember Episode 13 and Napoleon Hill? He was a business coach before we had that term!
There will always be more people desperate to “get rich quick.”
I think people leaving coaching and online business aren’t evidence that the bubble is bursting but that their bubble is bursting.
They are burned out and, more than anything, realizing that the only ways to continue “scaling” at massive rates are unsustainable and unethical…
Coaches aren’t going away.
The world is hurting right now and there will always be people who need support...or want a magic pill.
What we’re seeing is turnover.
For all the burned out folks leaving, there are endless ready to come in and take their place.
Why do you think so many business coaches target brand new entrepreneurs or hopefuls eager to give their “two weeks notice” (the title of Amy Porterfield's upcoming book targeting folks with day jobs who want into the online business economy).
Because this audience is green and hasn’t been around long enough to notice the patterns.
This is how folks like Tony Robbins & Dean Graziosi continue to scale. With partners like Jenna Kutcher who give them access to a brand new audience of folks who’ve never heard their sales pitch.
Folks who don’t realize much of their business advice is available free on Google.
Filling a funnel with newbie entrepreneurs is part of the strategy for gaining “transformational” testimonials.
The info they sell in their programs is elementary but to a new entrepreneur who has never heard this stuff before, it feels MIND BLOWING.
So do I think the coaching “bubble” is bursting forever?
No.
I think we can expect more regulation, yes.
But just like “diet pills,” sellers will simply adapt and change their methods.
The worst coaching weaponizes the desperation people feel within capitalism.
As long as people are hurting, others will sell to that pain.
Who doesn’t want any easy way out?
Tale as old as time.
The problem is the system that puts profit > people. Not a few unethical coaches.
I see many folks peddling the message that wealth building is a feminist endpoint, specifically.
But this denies the reality of this economic system.
Extreme wealth (or wealth, in general) is literally impossible for all people within this system.
Selling wealth as the solution without a critical analysis of the reality of capitalism is just more of the same.
We can’t buy (or sell) our way to a better world!
This episode of Marketing Muckraking is all about the question:
"If the coaching bubble ISN’T bursting for good, then who are the GOOD coaches, RKA?"
Can you give me a LIST? Make it easy for me. I’m kinda exhausted by all the muckraking. I’d like some feel good answers.
Well I’ve got answers, alright.
I pulled this episode from the FREE SCHOOL archives.
Last year, I did a live in June 2021 about this very question — “Who are the good coaches, RKA? Who can we trust?”
Listen up — it’s a wild ride!
- You meet my character Brad the Braggy Bro and learn his back story.
- You get a peek at what I teach in my keynote speeches about reverse niching.
- And you get my answers about who are the coaches you can TRUST, dammit!
Buckle up. Let’s go on an adventure...