It stands to reason that the better you know the guru you’re trying to establish contact with, the better your chances of making a connection with them when the opportunity arises. If you know nothing about them, how will you know what to talk about that might interest them? If you can’t show that you know anything about them, how can you convince them that you’re stalking them (vs. some other guru) for any reason other than that you want to ride the coat tails of their success?

So how do you get to know them? Here are a few ideas:

• Use their products.
• If you’re not committed enough (or rich enough) to use their products, at least familiarize yourself with their products.
• Read or listen to any interviews with them that you can — interviews may be the most likely place to find them talking about how they got where they are, why they wanted to get there, etc.
• Subscribe to their blog if they have one, and their mailing list.
• Create a search feed using Google blog search or some similar service, and subscribe to the feed in an RSS reader. You’ll get a lot of uninteresting stuff like 5 people a day posting their review of the same product, but you’ll also stay on top of the really interesting and worthwhile stuff that gets said about them from time to time. guru-stalker.com’s homepage sports a search feed about my quarry, Russell Brunson.
• If you can find forums where they post regularly, hang out there and watch for their posts.
• If the opportunity arises, talk with them at offline events.