I spend a lot of time on the internet, scrolling through pages and reading articles on how to improve my business, where to find the perfect customers, and how to understand the age of digital marketing just to name a few topics.  It’s fascinating to read other people's ideas and thoughts but there is one term that I see used so carelessly and all too often that it really has become a term synonymous with cheap regurgitated business practices that are overpriced and under delivery.

It’s the term MASTERCLASS.

Yes, Masterclass has become a practice used by many coaches and presenters who are looking for clients.  It is a term used to denote excellence and professional quality, yet from my own experience (and trust me when I say I have been t literally hundreds of these), they are no more excellent than a well-presented YouTube video, using someone else’s content and sprouting it off as some new and amazing revelation.

Now I know that some of you reading this are saying to yourself, “who is this guy? and what does he know?” or maybe even question the crazy approach to this article but please keep reading, it will make sense soon.

A Masterclass is traditional used for people of exceptional skill, understanding, or knowledge.  Wikipedia says that a master class is “a class given to students of a particular discipline by an expert of that discipline; usually music, but also science, painting, drama, games, or on any other occasion where skills are being developed”.  Now we know that a masterclass could be given on any topic for any industry and yet these days the term is waved around like free balloons at McDonald's. What’s really different today though is that anyone can join in and participate as long as you can afford to pay the entrance fee (some a free Ill grant you that).

So then why use the term Masterclass? Well, it’s because presenters think that by using it they are positioning themselves above everyone as an expert, someone who knows more than they do, and someone whose information is exceptional and worth the time to listen to.

I once went to a so-called Master Class in Melbourne on Motivation and the presenter was off the chain.  I mean he was shouting and chanting, making us get up and wave our hands around, recite statements of confidence and power back to him, and yet the entire time I was there I felt like I had heard it all before.  The two friends I was in attendance with also felt like they were listening to an old song.  It then dawned on me once we could sit back down.  I got out my phone scrolled through some videos and links I had saved in google and BANG, found it.  It was a knockoff of a Tony Robins seminar.  Well once I showed this to my friends, we all laughed and got up and walked out.  While it did not cost us anything but our time it was seriously annoying to think it had been promoted to us as “A revolutionary new mindset in managing your emotions”.  Needless to say, the only joy we all got out of the night was an all you could eat buffet in the Casino downs stairs.

What really frustrates me is when these classes are put on and you hear the same content you have heard a thousand times before.  All that has changed is the venue and the person. Sure, they put their own spin on things but it’s the same thing.  I want fresh ideas, a creative new approach, not a reconstituted $199 seminar I can now get free online.

HELP ME BE INSPIRED.

If you liked this article, Please check out Part 2 Click Here