What works for someone probably will not work for everyone. That is why it pays to be careful about taking on generic advice.
I have heard quite a few stories recently of business coaches and consultants talking to their followers in absolutes about things like AI and marketing. It has been fascinating to see how easy it is to convince people of something that sounds simple, once they have spent a few dollars to hear someone speak.
The advice that sounds too easy
In a couple of cases, I have heard coaches telling their followers that making extra money to help with cashflow is easy. All they needed to do was use AI to build a website and then sell that website to local businesses for $500 each.
Another coach has been telling people they need to overhaul their personal social media. Strip out personal information and non-business posts, and make those accounts all about the business instead.
Others have been telling people to make money with AI by taking photos from Airbnb, putting them into a video generation tool to create virtual walk-throughs, and then selling those videos back to the host.
Yet another has convinced their followers that “just use AI” is now the answer for all of their marketing.
The problem with half-truths is that they sound convincing enough to trust. They still do real damage to the person on the other end.
These ideas have merit. They do not work in every situation
All of these statements have some truth in them. They might work in specific situations. None of them actually work in all situations.
Yes, AI can build a website in less than five minutes. The problem is that if you need an extra $500 this week, you probably do not have the skills required to deploy that website, or the skills required to find a business willing to buy it from you.
The other problem with many AI-built websites is that they ignore buying psychology. That is the work needed to make sure a site is set up so people actually take action. I recently saw a post from an experienced web designer who said it took more than 15 revisions just to get AI to place components on the page in the right place. If you want a site that actually helps the end user, it is often still faster to build it properly yourself.
The $500 idea that can cost thousands
Yes, using AI video tools to make Airbnb property walk-throughs can be a strong idea. It can help a host market their property. The problem is that it takes 30 seconds to tell someone they should do it, and weeks (and a lot of money) to actually carry the idea through.
Finding photos of properties on Airbnb is easy. Then you need to use AI to make the video. One tool people are currently talking about for this kind of scheme is Higgsfield. It is not simple to use. You also have to pay to create any kind of video.
A monthly subscription that will produce the type of videos needed for this idea to work costs around US$129 a month. That is roughly NZ$229 every month. Paid annually, that is about a $2,748 investment in the software alone.
Then you have to learn the tool. I work with these kinds of platforms regularly, and I still found Higgsfield difficult. I had to watch YouTube videos and use AI to get clear instructions on how to start.
When you create the video, you also need the right generation settings. The wrong ones give you that obvious “made by AI” look.
If you get it wrong, you have used credits you will not get back.
Once you have spent close to $3,000 and half a day figuring out the platform, you then have a video ready to sell to the Airbnb owner.
Except Airbnb hides host contact details. Reaching the owner you just made the video for is nearly impossible.
So you have spent close to $3,000 and a full day’s work on something you cannot sell.
Even if you can find their details, the best salespeople do not sell to everyone.
If you are not a salesperson by trade, a 10% – 20% conversion rate is common. That means you may need to repeat this process around ten times to get one sale.
The money-making idea that took a coach 30 seconds to explain, and was sold as a no-brainer, can cost you thousands of dollars and the better part of a month before you see your first $500.
Personal social media is not the same as a company brand
Yes, using personal social media accounts to promote a business has merit.
That is mainly true for coaches who are trying to build a personal brand.
For owners of companies, it is often not needed at all, and it does not make a lot of sense.
If, hypothetically, you want to do business with Gorilla Roofing Ltd, you are not going to look up the owner’s name on the company website and then hunt for their personal Facebook or TikTok.
If you did meet the owner, you are far more likely to connect on LinkedIn than to search for their personal account.
Convincing a company owner that they should remove all of their non-business related images and posts/comments to friends and family from Facebook does a couple of things.
First, it commits that busy business owner to what will likely be days of work.
Second, the company owner is now convinced that going through the effort of completely changing their personal social accounts will revolutionise the company’s lead generation.
It won’t.
All this does is take precious time and effort from a business owner, who is already stretched, and provides next to no return for their efforts.
It’s a wild goose chase the business owner doesn’t need to be on.
The real problem with this kind of advice
The people giving this type of advice are often not marketing experts, web design experts, social media experts, or AI experts. They are giving advice based half on what worked for them, and half on ideas they think would be good for others.
The biggest problem with advice based on what worked for you is that your business is completely different from everyone else’s.
That is especially true for coaches who do not run a plumbing business, a construction firm, or a robotics company.
They likely don’t employ 15+ staff and deal with million dollar contracts.
These coaches just don’t understand what it’s like to run a company where they’re not the centre of attention.
They take ideas that worked for one-person operations, where they are the brand, and then tell people who run completely different businesses what they should do.
They often have no real picture of what does and does not work in those industries.
Get advice from people who do the work
This is why it is so important to get marketing advice from marketing experts. Get sales advice from sales experts. Get growth advice from people who have helped businesses grow.
Experts understand nuance. They understand why a tactic will work for one business and fail for another.
Experts will not give you get-rich-quick advice, because they know what actually helps in the long term. Do the unglamorous work really well first. Then keep doing the unglamorous work, because that is what gets you to your goals.
What often happens next
A high percentage of people who get flashy advice from coaches end up in at least one of these situations:
- They spend money following the advice and never see a return.
- They do not take the advice at all, because something in them says it does not fit.
- They start following it, then realise half way through that there were a lot of missing pieces, and they get stuck.
This is not saying coaches are bad, or are bad people.
It is saying more and more coaches are not staying in their lane. I
f you have not built a construction business, do not coach people on how to build construction businesses. If you have never been paid to give marketing expertise prior to coaching, do not coach people on their marketing.
A better question to ask
Before you act on advice, ask a simple question: has this person actually done this work, in a business like mine, and can they explain the hard parts as clearly as the exciting parts?
If the answer is no, treat the idea as a theory, not a plan.
At Axion Strategic, we work with established business owners who want clear, practical help that fits their operation, not generic slogans that ignore the details. If you want advice that is grounded in how your business actually runs, you can find us at www.axionstrategic.com.
