You did what every “expert” told you to do. You bought the course. You followed the steps. You did the worksheets, watched the videos, maybe even joined a Facebook group.
And for a minute? It felt like progress. You learned something you didn’t know before.
But now you’re stuck. Again.
If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone—and you’re not the problem. The system is.
Let’s Talk About the New Breed of “Digital Marketers”
Over the past year or so, a major shift has been happening quietly under the radar. People who used to call themselves “affiliate marketers” are now calling themselves “digital marketers.”
Why? Psychologically, you are more likely to purchase a marketing course from someone who calls themselves a “digital marketer” than someone who calls themselves an “affiliate”.
But here’s the truth: they’re not doing digital marketing.
Digital marketing (n) – Digital marketing encompasses all marketing efforts conducted using electronic devices and online channels to promote products or services. This includes a wide range of strategies like search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, email campaigns, and online advertising.
Affiliate marketing (n) – A marketing arrangement by which an online retailer pays commission to an external website for traffic or sales generated from its referrals.
They’re selling other people’s courses. They are affiliates. While it’s true that they may also be doing some digital marketing in the course of selling their affiliate stuff … they’re still doing affiliate marketing.
But you? You aren’t out there searching for someone who is an affiliate selling other people’s stuff to help you with your marketing, are you? I’m fairly confident that is NOT the term you put in the search box when you were trying to get help with your latest marketing question. You ended up getting something much different than what you were actually looking for.
Now to be clear, the courses themselves? Many (definitely not all) of them are solid. They offer good information, easy frameworks, and helpful tools. The real problem comes in when someone who doesn’t have a real marketing background positions themselves as a strategist, just because they can sell you a link.
Their entire business model is affiliate selling. There’s nothing wrong with this. They’re entrepreneurs and I love entrepreneurs.
But once you hit a roadblock that isn’t covered in “Module 3”? They have no answers, because they don’t have the experience.
So what do they do? Try to sell you another course to fix your problem.
- They can’t help you adapt.
- They can’t help you customize.
- They can’t help you build a real strategy that works for your business.
Because they’ve never done it themselves.
- The majority of them have never done anything except sell these affiliate links.
- Many have only been doing so a very short amount of time.
- Most have never done any other type of marketing.
- Some have never even taken the course they’re selling.
But entrepreneurs like you wouldn’t know that.
So you get sucked in by the promises that come with the original course from the original author of it. You spend time, energy, and budget. And when it doesn’t work the way you hoped, you think maybe I just need another course.
That’s not true.
You don’t need more modules. You need real marketing.
Speaking of marketing courses … When I create a marketing course, it’s not some repackaged fluff designed to sell itself. Every piece of the curriculum is developed by me, based on decades of real-world marketing experience—from solopreneurs to Fortune 500 brands.
It’s carefully curated to give you what actually works, not just what looks good in a sales funnel. I’m available for questions. I help you adapt what you learn to your business. I make sure you’re not just learning—you’re implementing, integrating, and growing. Because cookie-cutter advice doesn’t cut it, and your business deserves more than that.
Why These Courses Fall Short (Even When They’re Good)
Starting anywhere is better than not starting at all. I say this all the time. Start where you start. If that means you purchased a course and it helped you create forward momentum, that’s EXCELLENT!
If all you’ve done so far is take one of these marketing courses, that’s a win. You’ve started moving. You’re hungry to learn.
But what most entrepreneurs don’t realize until they’re knee-deep in it is this:
Those courses were designed to sell to you. Not to scale for you.
They often teach pieces of marketing, like funnels or lead magnets or email automation.
But what they don’t teach?
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- How to evaluate what your business actually needs right now
- How to pivot when what worked at 5 clients a month doesn’t work at 50
- How to adjust strategy across offers, seasons, or platforms
- How to integrate multiple tools and approaches into one streamlined, profitable system
They teach a tactic. They don’t teach strategy. Lack of marketing strategy is the biggest marketing mistake that we’ve seen tens of thousands of entrepreneurs missing and struggling to fill in.
When you need more than one small piece of the playbook, the person who sold the affiliate course to you can’t help—because their expertise ends where the course content does.
Are You Stuck in the Course Trap?
Take This Quiz:
Answer YES or NO to the following:
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- Did you purchase a course from someone who didn’t actually create it?
- Have you bought more than 2 courses in the past 12 months?
- Have you asked a support question after buying a course and been sent a generic link?
- Has your business grown since taking the course, but you still struggle making full sense of your marketing? Or has your business NOT grown?
- Do you feel confused trying to combine different advice from different courses? Maybe even more confused than before?
- Have you been told you need yet another course to solve your problem?
- Did you implement the course fully and still feel stuck?
- Does your business feel too unique to fit the “ideal customer avatar” they described?
- Have you felt like maybe you were the problem, not the information?
- Have you been trying to fix your marketing alone for more than 6 months?
If you answered YES to any of these questions… You’re not broken. The advice was.
And you don’t need another link to a pre-recorded funnel overview. You already know that isn’t what you need. You need a room full of real support.
Who’s Actually Behind Those Courses?
Here are some of the most commonly affiliate-sold marketing courses we see over and over again. You’ve probably heard these mentioned, and may even have purchased one or more:
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- Ultimate Branding Course (UBC) – Build a faceless brand for selling digital products.
- Selling With Confidence (SWC) – Set up systems and sell online through social media.
- Digital Boss Academy (DBA) – Launch your own digital product business.
- Digital Wealth Academy (DWA) – Create income streams through affiliate and digital sales.
- The Digital Mini – Basics of branding and Instagram growth.
- Threads to Millions (TTM) – Grow your brand using Meta’s Threads platform.
- The Mentorship Course (TMC) – Learn scalable online business systems.
- Catalyst Collective – Social media accelerator for creators and coaches.
- Secret Sauce – Business automation and profitability basics.
- Embrace the Space – Affiliate marketing and sales systems roadmap.
Did you notice how many of those are either for “digital” products or affiliates?
Here’s the thing: most of these courses are not teaching marketing as a profession nor as a way for entrepreneurs to grow their unique (non-affiliate) business. Most are teaching you how to become an affiliate seller of someone else’s program—and then calling that “digital marketing.”
That might work for people who want to build a personal brand around selling courses (other people’s courses), but most of the entrepreneurs I work with aren’t in that business and don’t want to be. They don’t want to make their income just reselling courses. They already have a business that they love — with real services, real products, and real clients.
So what happens?
An entrepreneur like you takes one (or more) one of these courses thinking it’ll help them market their business… but it’s not built for them. And the advice inside ends up being almost useless once they realize they’re not the target audience and their business isn’t the right model to implement it.
What About the Big-Name Courses?
Courses like:
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- Amy Porterfield’s Digital Course Academy
- Marie Forleo’s B-School
- Russell Brunson’s One Funnel Away Challenge
- Jenna Kutcher’s Masterclasses
- Kajabi’s Hero Courses
- ClickFunnels Trainings
- Frank Kern or Tony Robbins + Dean Graziosi bundles
These course creators absolutely know what they’re doing. But unless you purchased directly from them and not one of their many affiliates, there’s a good chance you missed the full picture — like the strategic context, live support, and follow-up infrastructure they build for their original customers.
And even when you do buy direct, many of these are still one-size-fits-all programs. They teach specific pieces: how to launch a course, how to build a funnel, how to run a challenge. All of which can be helpful information.
But they don’t teach:
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- How to adapt those tactics to your business model
- How to spot which tactic fits where in your buyer journey
- How to integrate everything into a complete, scalable strategy
That’s the difference between content and consulting. Between curriculum and clarity. And it’s why so many entrepreneurs feel stuck, even after doing everything the course told them to.
They don’t walk you through how to integrate it with everything else in your unique business. They don’t tell you what to skip or what to do next. And they definitely don’t personalize a plan.
PSSST … another secret, even when you use AI to try to help with your marketing, you run into some of the same issue.
Because AI was built upon the shoulders of everything on the internet – such as these courses (that have wide reach due to all of the affiliates who are promoting them).
Probably 80% of what is on the full internet is utter crap. So the advice you get from AI is often geared to the same exact information which already didn’t help.
That’s Why I Built The Unscrewed Room
I’ve worked with tens of thousands of entrepreneurs over the years. And the number of them who came to me frustrated after spending thousands of dollars and way too much time and energy on courses that they couldn’t squeeze the round peg into a square hole? Staggering.
And it wasn’t because they didn’t do the work. It’s because they outgrew the content — quickly, in some cases immediately, and the people who sold it couldn’t keep up because the whole thing wasn’t designed to.
The Unscrewed Room is the place for entrepreneurs like you who are done guessing. It’s not a course. It’s not fluff. It’s not community-as-a-service. And it’s not you alone.
It’s built for the entrepreneurs who still want to DIY (don’t need my done-for-you marketing services), but are done being screwed (and need access to all the marketing knowledge in my brain).
It’s strategy. Direct access. Small group insight. And real, proven answers to real marketing problems.
This is where founders fix the things that never should’ve been broken.
If you’re ready for guidance that doesn’t stop at the end of a worksheet… you’re ready for the Room.
