No Excuses Coaching with Ryan Montis & Alanna Banks
Deciphering Social Media Scams: A Guide for Coaches
If you're tired of navigating the murky waters of scams and questionable offers that target coaches on social media, this episode is for you. We arm you with the insights to separate genuine opportunities from misleading offers, using our experiences as cautionary tales.
Have you ever been asked to help recover an account on social media, only to discover it's a scam? Or perhaps you've been enticed to vote in a competition that didn't exist. This week we guide you through these treacherous landscapes, highlighting warning signs and offering practical advice on protecting yourself.
We also discuss some insider tips for employing methods such as pitching yourself as an expert to the editor of a publication or local news station.
Prepare to join us on an enlightening journey through social media deception and business development.
A few excellent ways to support us are by subscribing to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and Spotify.
Joining the community on Instagram @itsthenoexcusespodcast and learning more about what we offer @alannabankscoaching and www.alannabanks.com and @ryanmontisnlp and www.ryanmontis.com
BUY A MUG! Visit our merch store, No Excuses Outfitters.
Want to sponsor an episode and promote your business and social media profiles? Send SPONSOR to @itsthenoexcusespodcast, and we'll get back with the information. Investment is under $20 per episode.
If you're tired of navigating the murky waters of scams and questionable offers that target coaches on social media, this episode is for you. We arm you with the insights to separate genuine opportunities from misleading offers, using our experiences as cautionary tales.
Have you ever been asked to help recover an account on social media, only to discover it's a scam? Or perhaps you've been enticed to vote in a competition that didn't exist. This week we guide you through these treacherous landscapes, highlighting warning signs and offering practical advice on protecting yourself.
We also discuss some insider tips for employing methods such as pitching yourself as an expert to the editor of a publication or local news station.
Prepare to join us on an enlightening journey through social media deception and business development.
A few excellent ways to support us are by subscribing to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and Spotify.
Joining the community on Instagram @itsthenoexcusespodcast and learning more about what we offer @alannabankscoaching and www.alannabanks.com and @ryanmontisnlp and www.ryanmontis.com
BUY A MUG! Visit our merch store, No Excuses Outfitters.
Want to sponsor an episode and promote your business and social media profiles? Send SPONSOR to @itsthenoexcusespodcast, and we'll get back with the information. Investment is under $20 per episode.
Alina Banks, did you know that when you are a coach and you are on social media, you are constantly the target of not only offers, but sometimes elicit offers, or you might even say scams, and you might even say not sometimes, but constantly?
Speaker 2:Yes, 100%, and I get them often. Actually, i'm looking at my request folder in my Instagram and I've got like about 30 messages. Yeah all probably scams. I don't even look at them.
Speaker 1:There are so, so many people out there that are looking to take advantage of the innocence and naivete of people who are new to the online coaching or online hypnosis or online service industry and new to entrepreneurship.
Speaker 1:There's so many people Now I want to say right up front there's a lot of people who have really good, genuine offers and services that are out there in your DMs as well, making real offers.
Speaker 1:I'm not talking about that, but here's the thing If you're new to this industry and you're excited about growing your business, it might be hard to tell what is a genuine, worthwhile offer, what is a scam and what is a little bit of both, because there's a lot of things out there where it's like the line is very blurry Is this a scam? Is this a genuine offer? Is it somewhere in between? So today, everybody, today, atlanta Banks, we're going to go over some of the most common sort of questionable offers or inquiries that you'll get when you become a coach online, and we'll talk about some things that are just straight up scams as well, and for some of them, we're going to explain to you how it works And maybe it's going to be up to you to decide whether you think that's a scam or whether you think that's a legitimate way for people to be making money, because different people will have different opinions.
Speaker 2:Totally, and I think you know, before getting into coaching, i feel like I had a bit of an edge because I had an online store And so I had an online business, which also gets bombarded. When you have an online presence period, you get bombarded with all kinds of things And they're a little bit different than coaching ones. But there's lots of scams out there And, unfortunately, because I was new and naive and wanted to grow my online store, i fell for some of them Right, and I learned from those mistakes.
Speaker 1:We should just pivot this episode right now and just talk specifically about all the bad questions you made when you started your fab store.
Speaker 2:No, that would be an episode for another day, because that's an episode for another day, or like a seven part series. Yes, i learned so much from the online store.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and likewise, before doing what I do now, basically helping coaches to be successful in their coaching business, I had a couple of careers I was a soldier in the Canadian Army, and before that I was a private detective specializing in fraud investigations. I did that for a number of years, so I've got a keen eye for offers that are less than above board, though, to speak.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I can really break down why something maybe is a scam or is not worth it, when other people might not really get it or understand why, yeah, and I feel like I know we're going to get into this, but I feel like it's just like an overall energy.
Speaker 2:You know, oftentimes if it sounds too good to be true, it's too good to be true. That's always kind of like in the back of my mind. But even before I started my online store, i worked in public relations, which is like media relations, right, which is like we would get media coverage for our clients And I just already know, based off of pitching, because that was my job pitching editors and producers. I know when it's not real And also, you never pay for media coverage, it's free, that's the other thing.
Speaker 2:If it's a legit piece of media coverage, they're either paying you, but you should not be paying them to get coverage, because that's an ad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hot tip number one.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Media coverage should be free, cool Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So let's break these down. We have a list.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The list was written by me, ryan Montis, based on my observations, basically being a coach on social media for the last four years four and a bit years. Okay, first one that's on the list is first on the list because we were laughing, before we hit record, about this post that one of our mutual friends, nathan Zadwarny, made on social media a couple of days ago. He's a great. He's a great coach in the online space And he helps coaches with sales and marketing. What was that post? that's out?
Speaker 2:I think he wrote I just received the award for being like 55 under 55 or something like that, But he basically alluded to the fact that he'd won this 55 under 55 award And then, you know, went on to say that it was an award totally made up by him. But the way he hooked you in made it sound like he was part of one of those lists where you're like 40 under 40 or, you know, top entrepreneurs. And it made me laugh because it actually made me think of this episode that we're talking about now, which is like there's so many scams out there that are like that, where they're promising you some type of an award or some type of really amazing article or feature or something like that, But then they hit you with a fee.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, so here's what is. Let me break it down And the post. Now I remember a little bit more detail. The post was like Zad said like help me celebrate, celebrate with me, i've been featured in you know this magazine. And then the magazine was like his name, it was like Zad's business magazine or something like that, and it was like you know, obvious, like it was satire, and he was alluding to the fact that you know, every now and then you'll see people coaches and in other industries say it too really gloating about being featured in a periodical.
Speaker 1:Usually it's a newspaper or a magazine, and the newspaper or magazine will have a title that sounds really similar to a famous publication. But it's made up, yeah. And so one of two things is happening When you see those posts either the person has made the whole thing up and they're just saying, oh, I was featured in this thing, or actually what's a little bit more common is that they themselves have been fooled, basically into paying somebody money to feature them in a magazine with a title that sounds like a famous title. So, for example, a very famous publication is the New York Times. The New York Times, this is a newspaper based in the city of New York, which with readership in the millions people all over the world. And so if you're a coach, you might get a message one day in your inbox saying, hey, we've looked at your profile, we love what you're doing. I'm an editor from the New York Timely News And I would love to publish an article all about you. And you get excited and you're like, oh my goodness, and it sounds like this big, important publication. And then you have some back and forth discussion with these people And then they say, ok, good, we're all set, we're ready to publish your article, we just need you to send the $500 fee or the $1,000 fee or whatever.
Speaker 1:And a lot of people will get caught up in this. And it's not technically illegal because they're not saying they work for the New York Times, the real publication. They're saying it's and they might make a website for this other publication, but it's all done for the purpose of charging people to be featured in it. So this is I call this the featured in the magazine or newspaper scam, and the hallmark of this scam is two things. As Alana said, it's not normal for a real and reputable periodical to charge people to feature them in there. That's strike number one. And if it's there's so many of them, if it's, if the title of the publication is clearly made to sound similar to a real famous periodical, when it's not, that's strike basically two and three right there, and we see, and I see it, this is number one on the list.
Speaker 2:I see it all the time, yeah, all the time. And like the one couple of questions you can ask are like, what is the reach of this publication? And like, when is it going to be published to? because oftentimes, like publishing dates is important to know too, like, especially if it's a magazine and they're like oh, the article is going to come out right away. Like magazines work like six months in advance, right. So, like when I was working in PR, we would be pitching Christmas in the summer.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because that's when they do all of the Christmas gift guides and all the stuff for the, for newspapers and for magazines.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And for TV, like summertime is Christmas when you're working in the media space. So just know that like it's a scam if they're going to run it like next week.
Speaker 1:Boom, there you go. That's a good insider tip from Alana Banks. Okay, so enough talking about that one. I think we've laid that one out, and it's pretty and it's pretty clear.
Speaker 2:And you know, Oh, I love this one.
Speaker 1:The next one Yeah, and, by the way, sometimes real publications will reach out to you. Like, i have a colleague that is featured in Forbes, which is a very real, very reputable publication, right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I was featured in Shadalane magazine, which is also very real and reputable.
Speaker 1:And they didn't charge you a dime. Is that correct?
Speaker 2:Didn't charge me anything.
Speaker 1:Didn't charge you a dime, okay. Next one The contributing author scam. The contributing author scam. This one is going to raise debate, i think, because, depending who you ask, some people will say this is not a scam at all And some people will say this is a scam.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And Alana, do you want to break down how this one works.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i was just looking at the message and then I put it on vanish. How do I get it off vanish?
Speaker 1:You can swipe.
Speaker 2:Oh, there we go, there we go Up.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so this is the message that I got. Hope you're doing well. Hi, alana, so they use my name. Hope you're doing well. We currently have a book project in which we are looking for 30 women who are working to create change in the world. The book is called Women Who Lead Female leaders changing the world and releases October 2023.
Speaker 2:That kind of was my first tip off. I'm like that seems very soon for a book. But anyway, they go on to like say all this stuff that it's going to be an Amazon bestseller, new York Times bestseller, featured in like USA Today, it's going to be published in 13 languages, 13 countries. And then she also goes to say that she saw one of my comments on like a Facebook page in a group that I'm part of. So I was like, oh, that's interesting. That's kind of like insider info.
Speaker 2:Anyway, she meant wanted to set up a call with me. So, even though my Spidey senses were like this doesn't sound right, i did decide to hop on a call with her just for fun And, just as I had suspected, it was like 1500. It was like $1,500 or $1,600 to be this contributing author, but you were going to be featured on their news channel, which was like specific to their company, and the money that I was paying was to secure the New York Times bestseller list, like advertising or something to secure these like bestseller kind of lists. So I was just like no, i'm not interested, thank you.
Speaker 1:But yeah, that's a no, So yeah. So I mean again, this is one. a lot of people would call this a scam. I would say what that person is offering is not technically illegal.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:By any means, not even close really. But I mean, what they're offering is an opportunity to be a respected author, And I would argue that that's not really what's being delivered. You know, there's so many of these books there's millions of these books because there's so many people doing this, where it's like 30 different authors, contributing authors. The only person who makes money from this whole process is the one who puts the book together and charges $1,500 or more per head And you don't really get a lot of notoriety. And I would be very surprised if you got any royalty money at all from a book where you're one of 20 or 30 or more contributing authors, especially in the personal development or motivation space.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, i mean, you put in this money technically And, yeah, you can use these companies, i'm sure, are very skilled at using different tricks to get books on bestsellers lists.
Speaker 2:Yeah, And they did have. Like she shared her screen with me and showed me two prior books and they're on Amazon Like I was able to go and like actually see the books. But you know, at the end of the day I knew immediately that it wasn't a legitimate thing And I would rather have my own book that I could self-publish right than be part of like a contributing book.
Speaker 1:Yeah, And I think the reason that this thing, that this model, works for these folks that are doing it and again, I'm not, you know, casting judgment, I don't like it personally, I wouldn't participate in it personally But I think the reason that it's working is because people you know especially if you're a growing coach or you're a growing person, growing entrepreneur that idea of being able to say, wow, like I can tell people I'm a New York Times bestselling author And like these people who to you, seem like they have authority and it's like this publishing company And they're telling you yeah, you're going to be a New York.
Speaker 1:Times bestselling author, you're going to be an Amazon bestselling author. People can really get lured in by that. But you know, here's the thing if you're an author and you're putting out great content, you're making money in many cases not necessarily paying money unless you're working with. you know, a very real, very reputable, published like I don't know what you're called publishing broker.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally Like if it was like Penguin or what is it.
Speaker 1:Well, i mean not just those ones, but there are services where you can go and you can work with a writer, work with a ghostwriter, work with a publisher, but you make a real book that has, that is packed full of real value, and those companies will charge you money for that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And probably it's worth it, but that's a different thing. That's a totally different thing because, like the money, this $1,500 that they were going to be charging me was purely for advertising, helping them advertise and secure these lists right, which was like hmm.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i got to say, as somebody who's day in and day out evaluating the quality of different coaches and different service providers, online presence being one contributing author in a book, in a generic book 30 other people is not going to do much to build your credibility in the place. It's really not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're probably better off doubling down on your own content.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Right. And again I want to throw in here some exceptions apply. Some exceptions apply for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Maybe you're part of one of these books and it's great and it's packed full of value and people who read it get tremendous value. God bless you. But I think that's the more. When it comes to these types of contributing author books, that's more the exception than the general.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, like it's not going to hurt you if you do go ahead and do it. Potentially Cool Next one.
Speaker 1:Okay, so this one, this one, the help me recover my account scan. This is on 100% of scan. Yeah 100,000% of scan. If you get a message on any social media platform from anyone, even if you know them, and they say I need your help to recover my account, you're going to get a message and I need you to copy and paste that message to me. It's 100% of scan And it's a hacker who's trying to take over control of your account.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm telling you 125% of the time. If you get a message from someone saying I'm locked out of my account or something's wrong with my account, i need you to go to your messages and copy and paste a message that you got from some source and paste it over to me. It's 10,000% of the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a scan. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Block the person.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The reason I say, even if it's somebody you know, if it's somebody you know, your dear, dear, dear grandma is asking you this. It's not her, It's that they. that person has already fallen for the scam. Their account has been taken over by somebody and now they're messaging people from that account trying to take over more accounts.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So if somebody sends you a message, coaches are targeted a lot because a coaching account with a lot of followers is valuable to scammers. Yeah, They want to take control of these accounts to run their scams with. Okay, So we don't have time to get into the details of how it works, nor am I here to teach you how scammers run their operations online. But I'm telling you, if somebody asks you to help them recover their account by and there's different variations of it, but usually they'll be like oh, you're going to get this message. I need you to go copy and paste it and give it to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Lock that person.
Speaker 2:Well, I just got one of these. It wasn't about recovering an account, but this woman messaged me and she had a photo that she'd taken Like one of my professional headshots. She was like I love this photo. We want to create a painting and put it up in this gallery or something like some special exhibition about women who are leaders and helping the world change. And so she was like I need it's $2,500, will pay you for this. You get a thousand and the painter gets 1500 to pay for materials and their time. And I was like, okay, i knew it was a scam, but I went along with it to see what would happen. And so she needed to get like information from me. And then she was like okay, i'm going to transfer you the $3,000 or the $2,500 and then you need to send me. You get to keep a thousand and then you send me the remaining 1500. And I was like that's when I like just stopped having conversations with her. But basically that's another fraud, like that's another scam too, where they're trying to like get money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Yeah, that one's no doubt ever Don't do that ever.
Speaker 2:That's a scam.
Speaker 1:If somebody send, if somebody any variation of sending you money and you sending partner all of it back to them. That is 10,000% of the time. That's a scam. That is good. Yeah, there's zero question about it. That's a good one, that's a good example And that's a way that they're going to see they're taking these old scams because that's an old scam, but they're modernizing it and targeting coaches.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and she sent me like a photo of the check, so it was like legitimate check.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, and to deposit into my account, and then just, oh yeah, just send me the 1500. I was like no, and it was like Royal Bank, but then, if you, then I went to her profile and it was clearly like just some bot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like, yeah, that's a good one, that's a good one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a good scam. I was like clever, clever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay. The next one on the list is the vote in my thing scam. Vote in my thing scam. This is another very, very, very common account takeover scam where somebody will send you a message being like oh, i'm in contention for to win this like award, or to win this thing, i need you to go and vote.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is this one.
Speaker 1:I can't say it's 100% of the time a scam, because there are some things online like this where your friend is in a modeling competition or this thing or that thing. So in the very rarest of cases this actually is not a scam. But in 99.9% of the time you get somebody sending you a message saying hey, i'm in contention to win this thing. I need you to go to this page and vote. It's a scam.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Don't click it, don't follow it. You're a forensic. If it's from a friend, their account has been taken over by somebody else. Don't fall for it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I call this the vote in. Go vote in this thing scam.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's not a good one. Well and the other thing to note too is, like on Instagram you can't Like, you can't blast direct messages either. So, like if it's coming from a friend, chances are they're going to be like hey Ryan, how's it going? Like I'm part of this really cool thing. I'd love for you to vote for me. It would be more personalized than just like you know a can thing where it's like a blast blanket direct message because you can't do that in Instagram.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's another tip off. I think if it's like a good friend of yours and you're like, why are you talking to me like a robot?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's another. Yeah, Cool, Okay. So the next one really big, really big thing on social media.
Speaker 2:I'll say.
Speaker 1:This is another one where some people will say, well, that's not really a scam, but it does involve deception. I can understand people's arguments about why this next thing is not necessarily a scam, because it's actually not illegal, but it does involve deception. And it's the brand ambassador trick, let's call it. And this is where you'll get a message from somebody saying hey, we've looked at your profile, we love your profile. If such a great engaged following, we think you'd be a great representative for our brand or a great ambassador for our brand, we want to give you 90% off of our products. You just have to buy one or two things and we'll give you this code for 90% off, and you just have to promise that you'll talk about our brand in your channel. Okay, again, there's lots of different variations of this, but what they're doing is tricking you into buying their stuff that you wouldn't otherwise buy.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's all it is.
Speaker 2:I've done it a few times. I wish I was in my studio, right?
Speaker 1:now.
Speaker 2:Because behind me usually is a little poster that I thought was going to be much bigger, and it's smaller than an 8.5 by 11.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, but I have gotten some cool things like earrings, necklaces. I've bought t-shirts, little posters and stuff like that with no intention of going ahead and promoting it, but did get kind of a good deal on something that I probably would not have bought.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's why it's not technically a scam, because a lot of these I mean it is technically a scam. It's not technically legal because they're sending you real merchandise. But the thing is, here's how it works. They tell you they're going to give you 90% off. Let's say it's sunglasses This is a really common one, sunglasses.
Speaker 1:So you go to their website and it's like, oh my God, this pair of sunglasses is $150. And they've given me this 90% off code. And you put in the 90% off code and it comes down to like $17 or whatever. And you're like, oh great, this is so exciting. And they send you the sunglasses. The secret is that those sunglasses are from a drop shipping website, usually overseas, and if you would have bought them directly from the drop shipping website, there would have been $2 with free shipping, right, yeah, so this company. They fooled you into thinking you're getting a 90% discount. They're pocketing 18 or 20 bucks on each of these transactions And then you know they don't care if you ever post pictures of it online or not, right? This is the brand ambassador scam. And it could be products. It could be different things, but here's the thing. It's just like the news, like nobody. It's not normal for you to pay someone for you to work for them.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's normal for them to pay you. So if somebody was like Ryan I want you to be a brand ambassador. You know I want you to wear my Hawaiian shirt when you're doing your Instagram lives I'd be like great, send me a box of the shirts in my size and $5,000. And then I'll do it. I'll wear them on my Instagram live. If they're like oh no, you need to buy the shirts and let them know. No, that's a scam?
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, i hope. I hope someone from like Bella Bong or Vans is listening, because I would happily wear all of that. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So the podcast. There's a lot of things that I wouldn't mind endorsing clothing. I hate shopping, so if somebody sends me clothes that are my size, there's a really good chance I'll wear them.
Speaker 2:Even if there wasn't a payment.
Speaker 1:even if it was just like just the free clothes, that probably would be enough for me. Or like food, If you have a restaurant in the Ottawa or Gatineau area of Canada's capital and you want me to eat your food on my Instagram live.
Speaker 2:Maybe we could do like a like a poutine test or something like that.
Speaker 1:Poutine Yeah, that would be cool. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like three different poutines, and then we just like talk about it on the podcast.
Speaker 1:Gourmet coffees. Alcoholic drinks. Yeah we get drunk on the podcast. Drunk on the podcast, that's season four. I was taking a turn for the luxurious and hedonistic in terms of food consumption and brand endorsements, i don't know. Anyways, let's get back to the list Brand ambassador scam. The next one is the featured in the news scam. The featured in the news scam.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 1:No, this one's different Okay, really similar to the first one that we talked about, which is featured in the periodical. The next one is the featured in the news scam, where it's like pay $97 or pay $497 and we guarantee that within 72 hours you'll be featured in ABC, nbc, cbs and Fox news. This is again, it's not technically illegal, because there's a loophole that these companies are using, but it is deceptive because what they're doing the way this works is the way they want you to think it works is that you pay them a chunk of money and then you get mentioned on these big news agencies' websites ABC News, nbc News, cbs News, fox News, whatever right, cnn, whatever. That's what they want you to think. but here's what actually happens You pay them $500 or however much it is, and then they take your money.
Speaker 1:they take a small little bit of your money and they go to one of the affiliates, like a CBS affiliate, which is like a substation in like some small town in the USA that offers paid advertising on their website and the ads kind of look like articles, and they give the company, like the local affiliate, a few bucks. they give them some generic article that they've written about you, a picture of you and it gets put on their website at this weird obscure like super long link right And when you go to that link, here's the article. there's that technically. there's that you know big national news logo in the corner, but it says right on the page sponsored content. It's plain as day that you know. the only reason this is on this website is because somebody's paid money to have it there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, those are called advertorials.
Speaker 1:Advertorials.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And so and here's the secret you could have saved $497 probably, yeah, you can work with a PR firm to get those placed for you, but you do pay for them, like we would place advertorials for clients with their budget if they didn't care so much about you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, again this is, in my opinion, not something that's going to build your credibility at all online and it's a waste of money And it's honestly it's disingenuous to then go and put in like your cover image, like featured in ABC, nbc, and you're like and people are looking at it and you're just some like coach who's been in business for a few months, like it doesn't even make sense, it's not doing anything.
Speaker 2:The best way to do this is maybe we should do actually an episode on this, because I have a bunch of ideas for like publicity, publicizing yourself. But one tip would be, if you do want to get featured in your, say, your local news or something like that, you can call the editor or like email the editor and just be like I'm an expert in XYZ. If you're ever looking for, you know, a quote or sound bite or anything from someone, i'm available for that, you know. So you could always kind of do that if you want to get featured locally. And even Tina, we'll give a shout out to you know her.
Speaker 2:She's being featured in, or her article is being featured in, the Costco magazine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which is really legit. The Costco magazine, by the way, nothing ascaffat has a very wide readership.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's awesome. So, and the bonus of that is you also get paid when you get featured in Costco, and it was as simple as sending an email to the editor of that magazine. So, there's a hot tip for you guys. Okay, costco's gonna get inundated with no excuses, listener, yeah you know, there's, there's, there's.
Speaker 1:There's not a local news, There's a pretty, there's. You know city TV news in Toronto, one of the probably most widely watched news channels in Canada, Yeah, Or a city TV, there's a few channels. Anyways, every morning they have this program called Breakfast Television, which is like this morning news chat show, And they always have like interesting local guests, local experts, local whoever's doing these segments on their show.
Speaker 1:I know that people are not paying to be on the show And it's, and a lot of them are coaches like a lot of them are relationship coaches, life coaches, business coaches, And all they did was get in touch with the producers of this show and be like I'm available if you want to do a segment. Here's what I'm all about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, The one thing with Breakfast Television is you need to have major media training to get on there Like. They need to know that you aren't going to get on there and just be like just panic and freeze Yeah.
Speaker 2:So most of the people that are on there are like heavily media trained. but one tip would be, if you want to go that route, get your pitch created that's very specific on who you help and what exactly you do and what exactly you're an expert in, because you only have like a few minutes for the segment, like three maybe tops, and pitch yourself in the summer, because in the summer they're a little bit more lenient with their guests. But yeah, that one's tricky. But if you have like it's too bad that Roger's shut down, because Rogers was always a good local.
Speaker 1:But I mean the point stands. You don't need to go to like the number one news show in your country. No there's a million shows like that, especially the more local ones where they're looking for people. They're looking for local interest stories, right Yeah.
Speaker 2:Or even podcasts or YouTubers or you know that. But I'm saying, if you want news coverage, right.
Speaker 1:That's a much, much better use of your resources than paying some broker to do advertorials 100%.
Speaker 1:Yes, Yeah, Okay. Next on the list is the promo post scam. The promo post scam If you are active on Instagram, you will notice that nine times out of 10, you post something, especially if you put a geotag, especially if you put a location tag. Yeah, You'll get somebody in your comments saying, hey, awesome post, send it to this for and we'll promo you. Right, Don't do it. Don't do it.
Speaker 1:What they want to do is charge you to, you know, repost your content on one of these accounts that has like a million followers. Most of the followers are fake. You're not going to get any more business. You're not going to get any more you know, credibility or anything like that. But what will happen is then you're going to be added to their list of people who have been willing to pay money for this, And you're going to get way more messages and way more solicitation. People asking you to, you know, invest in all these different things.
Speaker 1:So the promo post scams where they're like you know, it usually comes as a comment, Yeah, And sometimes it'll be like a comment and also, like in the comment, they'll say, hey, we sent you a DM. Go check your DMs, because they know their DM has been put in the spam and they want you to go find it. Don't invest in these. It's not going to do anything for you. It's a waste of money and 99.999% of the cases, maybe even 100. But it's so common. Not technically illegal. They're not doing anything illegal, but it is kind of deceptive that you know they want you to think you're going to get all this clout and exposure from their promo. But it's a waste of time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I stopped geo-tagging all my posts because when. I put Toronto, like when I was when I was promoting Hypnoflow. I would put Toronto because I didn't want you know someone in Winnipeg to be seeing my Hypnoflow stuff. But then I would just got inundated with those spammy comments And I was just like I've not. I never tagged my location anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cool, all right, so that's that one. How many we got left here?
Speaker 2:Two more Fake followers as real.
Speaker 1:Be very wary of the messages where they're like well, we'll use organic and we'll use SEO and we'll use all these things, we'll use all this jargon to get you X number of followers and all you have to do is pay them money. It's bots. They're selling bots. They're trying to trick you into buying fake followers. We don't have time to get into it today, but having fake followers is worse than having no followers. Don't ever pay money to have fake followers.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Or shooting yourself in the foot big time.
Speaker 2:Well, you posted something the other day where you were like I have like 100% real followers, or something like that. Was that like a website that you went to, or Yeah, there's this thing.
Speaker 1:I'm certain it's not 100% accurate because I know some of the followers that I have are not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, inevitably Yeah.
Speaker 1:But the reason that I found that, yeah, it's like, if you Google it, there's different versions of it. It's like the Instagram fake follower tool or whatever. You don't need to pay for it or log in or anything. You just put in your Instagram username and it'll like do whatever it does to analyze your followers and tell you approximately how many are real, and so, like there's an account who I've come upon a few times It's another coach And, like I noticed that this person jumped from like a few hundred followers to like 150,000 followers within a couple of weeks.
Speaker 2:I was like, oh, that's so interesting.
Speaker 1:Good for this person, certainly there's nothing untoward going on here. And I was like, just out of curiosity, let me see if this actually happened. And I like put that person's username to the fake thing And it was like it was like 50% fake. And I was like, oh okay, so even if they got like an extra 50,000 followers, you know that's pretty good, right, totally Yeah. And so I was like, but I wonder how accurate it is, like how could this possibly?
Speaker 2:be accurate And then I put in my account and yeah, I put it.
Speaker 1:It made a story about it in in Instagram And it said I have a hundred percent real followers, which I know is not accurate, and I was like, oh okay. So I was like, oh okay, i'm not sure if I have a hundred percent real followers, which I know is not accurate. It's probably closer to 90 or 80%, but which is normal. By the way, i've never, ever, paid for followers, but sometimes the fake ones will find you. Anyways, the bots will follow you, especially if you have a public profile. But yeah, it's just a fun little, fun little tool, right?
Speaker 2:You know what I do when I have fake people follow me. I you can. You can make people unfollow you.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's. I do that sometimes if I'm like in the mood Yeah.
Speaker 1:I generally don't do that because it's like I don't find it worth the time, unless unless the account is like an obvious scam account, like there's there's just fake bot accounts that exist for whatever reason, and then there's there's accounts that are like actively trying to scam people. I'll always block those which causes them to unfollow me. Oh man, We could. this could be like a seven part series.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it could be So funny, because when you brought this topic up, i was like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Anyways. The last one on the list is and I wrote this sentence profile cloning is not hacking. Profile cloning is not hacking. Don't, if you notice somebody has made a separate profile but they are using your photo and your name, don't say, oh, i've been hacked, i've been hacked everyone. You've not been hacked. That's not being hacked, okay. You're only hacked if somebody's gained access to your account without your permission. That's then you've been hacked.
Speaker 1:If somebody makes a clone account of your account, they're attempting to scam other people or to potentially hack other people. But you've not been hacked. But it's also not okay. It's a precursor. A clone account of your account or somebody else's account is a precursor to a hack attempt or a scam attempt, very common in the coaching field. Not that coaches are doing it. It's that scammers are doing it, because what they want to do is capitalize on the trust that you've built with your following and trick some of them into sending them money or whatever they're trying to do. So the key is if you notice somebody's cloned your account, don't go say I've been hacked, because that's so wrong that it's cringey Because Ryan is going to direct message you and be like I'm going to run, No, I won't.
Speaker 2:I won't.
Speaker 1:I won't. I'll just judge quietly, but block the person and you'll inevitably have your loyal followers like messaging you, being like look, somebody's copied your account and just tell them yeah, please report and block that account. That's all you can do. Don't panic If you see somebody's cloned your account again. It doesn't mean you've been hacked. It doesn't mean they have access to your bank details. A lot of people that's the thing People see, oh my God, there's another account with my name and face And they automatically assume that their checking account is empty and their car is gone and all of this stuff. And that's probably not the case. That's not that type of scam, yeah, but yeah, you do want to report it and block it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you want to get rid of it. Have you ever been?
Speaker 1:cloned Once, yeah, and it wasn't a very good. it wasn't a very good attempt And my followers were on it like immediately. My followers were like mass reporting it and blocking it and sending me messages, which is really, which was really good. I don't know what type of accounts they tend to clone more often. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't either.
Speaker 1:My personal observation over the last few years is that female accounts owned by women seem to be cloned more often than accounts owned by men, although maybe that's just my perception. I would say 99 out of 100 of the cloned accounts that I've observed in the last four years it's been women's accounts. But other than that, anyway, to answer your question yet once and it didn't work out at all- nothing happened And it got shut down. I don't know if it did even get shut down. Instagram is not and men are not terrible.
Speaker 1:I mean, they have a zillion accounts that they have to deal with. So it makes sense, but they're not always super on the ball with shutting down those fake clone accounts.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, but now we have the blue ticks. like you and I have verified. We're saved, so it's really easy for people to tell the difference between my account or your account and a clone account, because we have verified accounts. That's right, yeah, which is nice. I think that's the biggest benefit.
Speaker 2:I think so too. We should maybe do another episode on that, because my account did get shut down last year, last summer, actually. For about two weeks I couldn't access anything. I was sending messages to Instagram or whoever met, and I could not get my like. I did all the things I was Googling, i was doing all this research And then finally I did get my account back, but it was very stressful.
Speaker 1:Did it like smell different after? I don't know.
Speaker 2:It's never been the same since, but it's never been the same.
Speaker 1:Shoot. All right, that's all I've got on this list. So, listeners, please send me a direct message with all the different ways people have tried to scam you online that we didn't talk about, because I would love to do a part two of this episode and share your personal stories.
Speaker 2:Oh, I like that.
Speaker 1:People have tried to scam you, but we need a few of them if we're going to do another episode on this subject. So send me, or Atlanta or both, your personal stories of people who have tried to trick you or scam you and how you've triumphed over them or how you were fooled and you sent them some money, unfortunately, and got some mediocre experience in return. I'd love to hear about it, just for everybody's learning, really.
Speaker 2:Totally. I like that. I'd love to do more listener response kind of episodes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, me too.
Speaker 2:So, even if you have questions or comments or, like I don't know, something related to social media coaching, let us know.
Speaker 1:Are there any pen nerds in the audience? I'm really into writing instruments pens. Right now I'm holding a Zebra G750. I think it's a rollerball. Yeah, that's a rollerball. Nice, It's 100% metal construction, knurled metal grip. This is a fine writing instrument.
Speaker 2:I collect pens. Oh, that's nice. Is it fine point or medium? It's a fine point.
Speaker 1:rollerball with gel ink, black ink. This one, i think, is a 0.5. Yeah, like 0.7. Anything less than a one millimeter tip, i would call it a fine point. Yes, some people might argue Yeah, oh, it says medium on it It says medium, yeah, i like, okay, good, i like the medium.
Speaker 2:I like a good pen Like I don't like it when it's so fine that you're like barely see that you've written something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, i kind of switched. I used to be like into a really fine tip pen, like a 0.5. And then as I got bolder, so did my writing, and now I'm like a 0.7, sometimes even a 1.0 tip, and a gel ink tends to be a little bit bolder than like a ballpoint standard ink right, because it spreads when it hits the page.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So yeah, So watch out for a future episode.
Speaker 2:New merchandise.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, yeah, New merch The No Excuses coaching podcast. Official pen sponsored by Zebra.
Speaker 2:Medium, medium tip.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I exclusively write in black ink, by the way, i don't. I don't. in the rarest of cases I'll use a dark blue ink, but I really don't like writing in colored inks unless it's for, like, some fun art project or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Even when I was a kid, it was like no green, no pink, yellow, definitely not yellow.
Speaker 2:Okay, like the four color. You didn't like the four color pen.
Speaker 1:You know what? The thing is, i loved those pens, but I would like burn through the black ink, and then I would like begrudgingly use the blue ink, and then I would, and then the green, obviously, and the red would always be full, and I would have all this extra green and red ink Like yeah, yeah, yeah, i know that. With the blue plastic bottom, the big, the big fours. Yeah, those are the best Those pens. Yeah, anyways, we should probably end the episode.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we should wrap it up.
Speaker 1:Simple social sanctuary. Get in there, ryanmontuscom, if you're a hypnotist or you're a coach and you want to be part of a movement of simplifying social media and being successful on social media and being surrounded by your peers who are doing the same thing and being connected with a community of good people growing their coaching and hypnosis businesses on social media. Join the sanctuary. It's very accessible. I'd love to have you there. You get to work with me. Get to work with me. We do live calls and interaction and all that stuff. So come join us. It's as much a rewarding social experience as it is a business development membership. So come hang out Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm in the membership.
Speaker 1:And Alana Banks is there Yeah. Celebrity status, celebrity endorsement. Actually, there's a few big names in the membership.
Speaker 2:Yeah right, Everyone is big. Yeah, that's what I mean. There's over 100 big names in the So.
Speaker 1:But in addition to that, there's, like people from this industry that I guarantee you've heard of folks, so come find out. Yeah, yeah, what do? you got going on Palm reading Boom You want to book a party.
Speaker 2:Let me know I'm booking for the fall at the moment, so if you have any parties coming up Halloween parties, back to school just get together with your friends, reach out to me and I will be the entertainment and I'll read your poems, boom.
Speaker 1:Yeah, love it, and you got your Obviously. I'm also available for private readings. And then, yes, i have my retreat coming up in November.
Speaker 2:It's in Collingwood, so message me for more details on that. It's a great thing. It's going to be a full weekend of personal development, lots of fun, community connection, new friends Just new friends, no old friends, maybe old friends. If you bring a friend, i'll give you a discount.
Speaker 1:Well wishers, cool, all right, yeah, that's it Yeah, hey, hi everyone. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Hey, yeah.