Once upon a time, there was this guy, this software engineer, an SE, who plied his trade in the bowels of large corporations where he was just a cog in the wheel of other people’s fortunes. 

He left his boring, but lucrative accounting job behind and started to learn how to program and even though he was not a very good programmer, he rose slowly through the ranks and finally did not have to program, any more.  He was promoted to manager mainly because he had been there a long time and the corporation didn’t know what to do with him.  He was glad because although he took some pleasure in manipulating zeros and ones in the binary language that only computers could understand, it was a pleasure to have your own office, small though it was.  He even had his own credenza.

Now that he was a manager and supervising other programmers, he found that he had to give annual critiques on the people in his department.  He had no trouble with the bright and best of the bunch.  Their annual revues were easy.

The tough ones were those most like him when he was learning how to program.  He took pity on them and instead of giving them a bad revue he faked them and claimed they were doing fine, but had not mastered their subject quite yet and were a little wet behind the ears, but in just a few years they too, might qualify for the ranks of senor programmer or even management.

After doing this for a few years, he became really bored and decided he needed something to spice up his life, to make his life more meaningful, so he started dabbling in an arcane methodology called Internet Marketing and pretty soon he had some websites up and running, but he only made a few pennies a day.  He wanted to quit his job and go full-time into Search Engine Marketing, so instead of quitting his job. He sought out a well-known guru and traveled to a humongous summit to seek the advice of this famous guru on the meaning of life and search engine optimization.  . 

He had checked out the guru’s website and found a delicious sales page that left him drooling for more and with this enticement he signed up to meet the guru on his mountain top seminar.  It was only 10K and that included a special discount package with a one-hour mano a mano, tête-à-tête with the guru. 

So when he finished the seminar at the summit, which included an embarrassing moment on the “hot seat”, he was entitled to a private séance with the guru who gave him this advice.

“Stop this building websites and doing Internet marketing, my son. “ That’s not where the big money is. What I am going to share with you is how the big money is made in Internet Marketing. You won’t need a day job now” the guru said.

“But your holiness, I make $100K a year and even though it is very boring and not satisfying at all, it pays the mortgage even though I felt I was throwing my life away on meaningless stuff that had no impact on people’s lives”.

“But I’ve heard good things about the keyword academy, holy one. Perhaps I should try them for a buck.”

“Don’t be fooled by a low price, my son. You get what you pay for. There is no free lunch on this planet. Now listen to me. Forget about building websites, Search engine optimization, Internet marketing, building anchored back links, traffic, bum marketing,
Article marketing, lucrative niche marketing, affiliate marketing. Only the suckers do that stuff.”

He looked the SE right in the eye and said, “At the Keyword Academy they teach useless stuff like keyword research, Content Creation, Linkbuiding, AdSense Setup and Testing. It will take you months to make a dime and a whole lot or work. I don’t advocate spending your time on stuff that just pays pennies a day.”

“Excuse me, worshipful one, but didn’t I just spend a week learning how to do all that stuff?” the SE said.

“Ah, yes, my son. That is pablum for the masses. The real meat is back here in private sessions with the master. That’s what you really paid for. This is your ticket into guru land where all the real money is made.”

“You see, my son, you are at the wrong end. You need to turn yourself around and get to the front of the line where the big money is,” said the guru.

“And where would that be, oh exalted one?”

“You need to give up counting zeros and ones and look at the big picture,” the guru told him.

“Hmmmm”, the software engineer said, not entirely pleased with the answers emanating from this holy man’s mouth.

“Yes, my son, you need to get into guru land and create a website like mine and write e-books and tell the masses how to make money on the Internet,” the guru continued, “Like this marvelous course you just experienced. For a slight additional fee, I can give you all the CDs with videos and a detailed plan on how you can become a guru too, just like me and make big, big bucks.”

“Oh! Will this cost me more? I spent most of my money getting here and climbing up this mountain, so I don’t have much cash left and I thought the CDs, videos, and instruction manuals were part of the course.”

 “My son, the first rule of a guru is not to give away the farm.  We always hold the most important part, the part that makes us the real money, hidden away from the general public.  They are just ignorant, naïve and gullible and will believe anything if they have to pay a lot for it.  That’s our little secret.”

“Hmmmm”, the software engineer thought, this sounds worse than multi level marketing that he had tried a few years back.

The guru was fishing around inside his robes and pulled out a piece of paper that looked like some kind of form.  He pulled a golden pen out of his turban and handed it to the SE.

“Here, my son, just sign here on the dotted line, and you will get everything there is to teach you how to get rich quick.  You will make $500,000 a day with this package. Just think of the mansions you can buy, the fancy exotic cars, the island retreat, the beautiful women that will flock to you side, that trip into outer space you always wanted just like an astronaut.  You will learn how to stomp all over Google and conquer that 800-pound gorilla at the highest levels.  Not only that, but you can quit your day job”

“Hmmmmm”, the software engineer repeated.

 “Listen, grasshopper.  This is your last chance.  When you leave the mountaintop, this offer will no longer be available to you at this low price and you will languish in the dungeons of your large corporation for eternity.

Just then a host of Black Hat Angels descended upon the mountaintop and whisked the guru away, saying he was needed on another mountaintop where they needed a closer to stomp on a hot prospect.

“But wait, I haven’t signed up yet”, the SE yelled, “I want to learn how to make $500,000 a day.”

The host of Black Hat Angels, like a choir, chorused back,

Grasshopper, Grasshopper,
That way, this way, that way, this-
The next mountain high topper
Will Reveals your daily million bliss.

The SE, disgusted and angry with himself for not signing the guru’s form quicker, made it to the bus stop at the end of the mansion’s driveway, picking his way between the Ferraris, the Porsche Carreras, and a yellow Lamborghini Murcielago.  He was waiting for the bus to take him back to his hotel when I huge black SUV pulled up and the driver’s window wound down.  The driver shouted across the road to the SE, “Hey, pilgrim. Do you need a lift back to your hotel”?

Who the heck is this guy, the SE thought?

“Pilgrim, com’on, we don’t have much time.  Get in the car”.

What the heck, he thought, it can’t be any worse than missing out on make money online with the guru. So he hops in the back seat. There were three other guys in the car.

“Welcome aboard, pilgrim, this is Courtney beside me and Mark and Vic in the back seat with you. I’m known as Grizzly, but you can call me Griz.”

“OK, are you guys going to the hotel?”

“That’s right, Pilgrim,” the Griz said. “We don’t want to miss Court’s webinar on Hub Pages at The Keyword Academy.”

“Who are you guys?”

“I’ll handle this one”, Vic said. “Stop wasting your !@%^*! money on fake and false prophet !#@$%&*! gurus. We are the real Internet Marketers, you dumb !@#$#!”.