Guru Bingo: 12 Red Flags to Watch Out For in Online Marketing

There’s a certain style of marketing that looks polished, aspirational, and successful on the outside but scratch the surface, and it’s all smoke and mirrors.

It's bro marketing.

You know the vibe:

Choreographed aesthetics, vague promises, and a heavy dose of faux empowerment. It might look good in your feed, but it often leaves business owners feeling confused, not good enough, or pressured into joining a $30K mastermind just to sit near someone successful.

So I co-created Guru Bingo with some advanced members of Marketing Circle, your red flag detector but more fun as a game.

If you're seeing more than a few of these squares in your feed, it's not you. It's the marketing.

Word Salad

Big energy. No meaning.

A mix of spiritual-sounding jargon, abstract metaphors, and invented terminology designed to sound deep but actually says very little. Think: "quantum leap into your internal home."

If you're confused, that’s the point.

Public Display of Wealth

Because nothing says thought leadership like a luxury handbag.
 

Journaling with a Prada bag, sipping Champagne on a yacht, or holding strategy calls from five-star resorts. The message? I'm successful and if you work with me, you will be successful too. But wealth signals don’t equal wisdom.

Rags to Riches Story

Inspo or manipulation? You decide.

A classic hero’s journey: “Five years ago I was a struggling single mother now I’m flying my kids business class on their 3rd holiday this year." These stories can be powerful but they’re also often embellished to create urgency and emotional buy-in.

Income Claims

"I made $70K in my last launch!" 

Cool. What did your clients make?

Without sharing the ad spend, refund rate, team costs, or customer results. Income claims without context are performance, not proof.

False Scarcity

Manufactured urgency, rinse and repeat.
“Doors close at midnight!” (And then mysteriously reopen next week.)

Scarcity works when it’s genuine but fake countdowns erode trust.

Mystery Method

Just trust me…but pay first.

The “secret” strategy you can’t access until you buy in. Usually wrapped in vague language and high ticket pricing. If it’s so good, why not share at least part of the approach?

Effortless Money

“I made $5K while picking up groceries.”

No mention of the 100 hours BTS to make it look passive.

Great. But where’s the context about the years spent building the funnel, audience, or offer? Passive income is rarely passive.

Gaslighting

“If this triggers you, it means you’re not ready to grow.”

Conveniently shifts accountability from them to you.

Translation: questioning their process is a you problem. It’s emotional manipulation dressed up as empowerment.

Shuts Down Criticism

“If you don’t get it, you’re not my people.”

Translation: I don’t want to be questioned. It’s a silencing tactic designed to avoid scrutiny, avoid nuance, and maintain control.

Invented Authority

Not all awards are earned.

“Best-selling author” sounds impressive until you realise it often comes from gaming Amazon’s algorithm.

Here's how it works: promote the book heavily during pre-sale, then time the release so all pre-orders count toward one day’s sales. If it briefly hits the top of an obscure subcategory (like “Hot New Releases in Women’s Spiritual Business Memoirs”), boom, bestseller status.
It’s technically true. But it’s not the full story.

And there's the business awards that are straight up bought and paid for. 

Celebrity Halo

Proximity ≠ credibility.

A selfie with a famous guru or celebrity. Borrowing influence by association is a classic guru move. But being in the same room doesn’t mean you share the same skills.

Paying for Proximity

You’re buying closeness, not substance.

Someone in my community shared this story:

"I actually spent $30K on a mastermind once. And their best advice was “energise before you strategise.” The chick who ran it was really smart (obviously—she made nearly half a million bucks from that mastermind), but there was zero substance to it. We weren’t paying for frameworks or strategy—we were paying for proximity."

$30K masterminds where the primary benefit is saying “I was in a mastermind with so-and-so.” It’s prestige by osmosis, not genuine education or mentorship.

Final thoughts:

You don’t need any of this to build a profitable, sustainable business.

You need strategy. You need substance. You need to be trusted because you’re good – not because you’re loud, vague, or highly filtered.

If you want to work with a legitimate small business expert, who will teach you strategic market skills, not just try to 'sell you a lifestyle.' Let's chat.

Let’s leave the guru tactics in the dust.