I studied some “Big Name Guru’s” promotional pages as part of the Thirty Day Challenge. And I was dismayed because, I can not,in good conscience, write sales material that make such exaggerated claims of income-earning potential.

The issue is, that if I were to write using such hyperbole and if I were to pretend that “atypical results” are common, then I would be lying to the 98% of the people that purchase the product or service with the hope of similar earnings (without having to work for them).

But, there is some cognitive dissonance because I also believe that one of the Gurus (associated with one of the promotions I was studying) is an “honest and ethical person.” The sales page content and the belief that one of the marketers involved is ethical and honest seems incongruent.

Thinking, pondering and anguishing at this contrary information, I devised a couple of rationalizations.

Rationalization #1: The “Guru” paid a high priced copywriter, and turned the sales page development over to a project manager.

And, with multiple, huge product launches flooding the marketplace each day, there just wasn’t time to study and analyze the sales page vocabulary and hype.

So, the “mega-hype, greed-control” deceptions made their way to the Guru’s sales page.

Rationalization #2: The “Guru” paid to join a “super-high-priced” Mastermind group where the even bigger-name Guru convinced everyone that this “appeal to greed through skewed claims” is the way that marketing must proceed.

And although this just doesn’t feel, or seem to be “just right,” it is true that all the other folks in the Mastermind group are publishing the same “sham-faced” ads.

Rationalization #3: The Guru wishes that he or she could be honest and open about the product and believes in the product; even though the evidence shows that only two percent (2%) of the customers that purchase the product will make any money with it. But, he or she has a large staff…and those staff members have spouses, children, mortgages, college tuition, car payments, etc.

It would be ideal to run a “squeeky-clean” and ethical business and truth-in-advertising operation, but the prevailing marketplace doesn’t support or reward honesty.

Rationalization #4: The product is good, and carries the potential to deliver benefits for its customers. And, just because the “poor chump” that purchased the product failed to perform due diligence, and hasn’t a clue about what to do with the product; well, that’s the gullible customer’s problem.

Some of these high-end products and services seem equivalent to selling a Ferrari to an oil-rich eskimo on the North Slope Arctic tundra. Sure, a car with the potential to go 180 miles an hour was delivered; so is doesn’t matter that the tires spin and dig down into the permafrost and the car can’t go more than two feet from where the helicopter landed with it.

A Story: Teaching Fable

Then, I remembered a fable about a real Guru (teacher in India).

The Master assigned one of his disciples to travel to the marketplace and purchase a new cooking pot. The old pot that was used to cook rice needed to be replaced. The Master gave the student five Rupees

When the disciple returned to the ashram, beaming because he purchased the cooking pot for only four Rupees, and expecting praise, the Master began beating the student with a stick.

“But Master, didn’t I save one Rupee?” asked the student. “The pot was valued at eight Rupees, but I appealed to the religion of the merchant, and he agreed to sell the pot for only four Rupees.”

“Observe the bottom of the pot,” said the Master.

“There is a large hole in the pot, and we cannot prepare rice in it. This pot is useless, and you have lost four of our Rupees”

“But, how could the merchant have done this to us?” asked the student.

“The merchant is in business to make money, not practice religion,” said the Guru, “you should have examined the pot before purchasing it.”

A Better Way

Maybe I expect better behavior from the Internet Marketing Gurus. And I know that Brett McFall writes about a honest and ethical way to write sales copy. Of course, I haven’t read all 9,000 of McFall’s ads to know if he “practices what he preaches; but his writing give me hope that the Internet marketplace can clean itself and regulate itself.

Perhaps, instead of saying that “Everybody is doing it,” ethical marketers could “shame” their colleagues into writing transparent sales pages with verifiable potential earnings data.

But, in the final analysis, it it the customer that needs to demand “truth in advertising” standards from Internet marketers. (The FTC Dragon is already “sniffing out our industry with its fire-breathing nostrils, and regulation is looming.)

Besides, the quality and content of broadcast television shows us that the “sleaze” factor skewers the common denominator to lower and lower levels…as one broadcaster attempts to “out shock and out awe” to gain greater market share.

But, until we have Internet Marketing “Truth in Advertising,” or, FTC regulation, “Let the buyer beware!”