If you have been on Youtube and you’re are younger than 40, you have probably seen a Tai Lopez ad. The main plot in most of his ads is Tai Lopez filming himself talking about his Lamborghini and his big house in Hollywood Hills.

If you haven’t heard of him, you should check out the video before reading.

He does all this to convince you that he can help you succeed in life. He is a part of the big self-help movement which has been around for ages.

If you have wondered “Who is this guy?” there is a chance you have found his subgroup on Reddit where people call him an imposter.

On the one hand, it seems he preys on young men because he is selling a dream about a luxurious lifestyle. All you need is his knowledge. At least that is the main opinion on the Tai Lopez subreddit. The rumors are that Tai Lopez started by renting his big house and car so he could tell you that he was more successful than he was. I don’t doubt that he is rich now, but he is rich because people bought his illusion.

On the other hand, if Tai Lopez is the one who gets you to kick ass who cares if he does it in a more colorful way than other self-help gurus? Is he that different from other self-help gurus?

What I learn from Tai Lopez and others like him is the marketing aspect of it. Without marketing who cares about your products or your services.

Tai Lopez’s product is self-help, and Tai Lopez is a brand that promotes his product. Personal branding is the way to advance in today’s social media world.

Tai Lopez realized this and so can we.

The evolution of Tai Lopez

I remember hearing Tai Lopez on a podcast where he was very humble talking about his experience living with some Amish people, and they taught him that hard work is important. At this point, I don’t think the Tai Lopez with the big house in Hollywood Hills and the Lamborghini existed.

It seems Tai Lopez decided to change focus from talking about being humble and working hard to focus on showing people that he was living their dream.

It was a brilliant marketing move.

Before I get sued, I’m not suggesting that he is a scam. Maybe he had the big house before he started making videos but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a brilliant marketing strategy to show people what they want.

Social media is all about the mantra Show Don’t Tell. He shows you his lifestyle because he knows that it’s a lot of people’s dream.

The new Napoleon Hill

If you love self-help books, you have discovered the name Napoleon Hill. He is one of the main reasons why so many people today talk about Law of Attractions. People from Jim Carrey to Will Smith (check video if you haven’t heard about it.)

In Napoleon Hill’s book Think and Grow Rich he demonstrates that you have to think rich if you want to become rich.

But the most impressive element about Napoleon Hill is the marketing behind his success. He only became rich by talking about how to get rich.

According to Napoleon Hill he was asked by Andrew Carnegie to interview rich people and write about it. The fascinating part of the story is that it’s presumably not true (see link).

Napoleon Hill needed to make people believe that someone rich and famous had chosen him to teach people how to be rich. If you wanted the secret of how to become rich, Napoleon Hill’s book revealed it to you.

Does it matter if the Andrew Carnegie story was a publicity stunt? It doesn’t change the fact that plenty of people have changed their lives because of Napoleon Hill.

In my view, Tai Lopez is the modern version of Napoleon Hill. He is using the marketing tools that are available to him. It doesn’t matter if Tail Lopez only became the Tai Lopez that you now see because he wanted you to buy his product.

I hope that Tai Lopez wasn’t rich and that he used his money to rent a big Hollywood Hills house and lease a Lamborghini so he could brand himself as rich.

Because it means that all of us should have a self-promoting marketing strategy.

How to be a marketing genius like Tai Lopez?

When Tai Lopez started using social media as his self-promoting platform, I thought it was everything that is wrong with social media.

But the problem wasn’t him. It was me. Because everybody who has something to sell, which is everybody, can learn two things from him.

You are the most valuable asset in your marketing toolbox. You need a personal branding marketing budget to expand your message.

Tai Lopez lives the life that people want to live. Like it or not but people prefer to listen to people that already have what they don’t have. Social media is fascinating because you don’t know anything about him other than all the content he decides to share. It’s a bad strategy to listen to people for that reason, but it doesn’t change the fact that people do it.

Does that mean we all have to act like Tai Lopez to benefit from personal branding? Of course not. I’m not fascinated by Tai Lopez’s lifestyle. I’m fascinated by the way he uses social media to promote his business. If social media were around in Napoleon Hill’s days, he would be the one posting on social media talking about thinking and growing rich.

The second point is that in the beginning, I think Tai Lopez looked wealthier than he was. The rumors are that he rented a Lamborghini and a big house in the Hollywood Hills. I hope (and believe) it’s true because it shows us that it was a marketing strategy from the beginning.

It appears absurd to spend money to self-promote yourself if you don’t have sufficient assets for the lifestyle. All companies do it when it comes to marketing. The idea behind marketing is to make more money, so you sacrifice your capital in the short run. If the marketing strategy doesn’t pay off you close it down and try something new.

We don’t learn to think this way when it comes to our personal life because it’s a disastrous way to think if you use your money on consumer goods. But when your mind is in a business mode you will constantly end up in circumstances where you have to invest money that you barely have. I say barely because you have them but if you spend them and it doesn’t pay off you are in trouble. I have talked to start-ups, and it’s common to have employees they can only afford for a few months. It’s because they don’t have a guarantee that a new employee will make more money for the company than the salary.

Think about this way: You have 1000$. If you spend them on marketing, you can end up with 5000$, or you can lose 1000$. It’s an investement because the purpose is to raise revenue.

Let’s say, for the benefit of the argument, that Tai Lopez rented all his stuff and he could only afford his lifestyle for three months.

It seems like insane spending right? But it’s not because it’s a part of his marketing strategy to show you that he is successful and if you listen to him (and buy his products) you will get the secret about how to make money.

What is the next step?

It’s essential we don’t look at what he’s doing but think about how he’s doing it. We don’t have to become Tai Lopez, but we need the same toolkit as he is using.

We need to embrace using ourselves for marketing purposes. It doesn’t matter what you sell because you always have something to sell and if you don’t show people nothing will happen.

You should always be your own biggest supporter because other people have their own struggles. It’s your job to get them to think about you.

I believe it’s necessary to choose a platform and stick with it. It’s even better if we have more platforms and do the work on them. But I’m not talking about having an Instagram account and a Snapchat. Everybody has that. I’m talking about your active accounts where you have a strategy.

If you like to write you have to start blogging and promote your content. A good idea is to create a public figure account on Facebook. I thought you had to be a very famous person to have a public figure account. But you don’t. If you create content, you need a public figure page on Facebook so you can target your audience.

Promote your content

Tai Lopez doesn’t create content without promoting it and assuming everybody will see it. You should be like Tai Lopez. Show people what you can help them with and why they should listen to you. Yeah, if you have a cool car why not show it?

Every successful self-help guru is good at one thing: Marketing.

They want you to understand that they can help you. The same way you need to show your customers why your product or service solve their problems.

Self-promoting on social media is not only a marketing strategy for self-help gurus. It’s for everybody. Create content and promote them with ads. Facebook and Instagram are useful platforms because you can promote your content for 1$ a day.

If you are upset because Tai Lopez’s strategy is working then you have to recognize that’s a misuse of time hating him. If you hate his guts and think his marketing strategy is disgusting, you don’t have to copy it, but you have to learn from it.

The next time you see Tai Lopez on Facebook, Youtube, Instagram or Snapchat think about how he uses the show don’t tell-strategy to make people listen to him.