@ Keith – dude…long time man…what, you only come out of hiding every 3rd full moon in an even month? What gives buddy?

I’m just teasing my friend…I’m glad you stopped by! Yeah, You are right man, I mean we do see a LOT of BS products out there where they make these huge claims and the guys selling the stuff not only haven’t made the income their claiming, but they didn’t even write the book…what gives?

No wonder the FTC is all over this. I don’t blame them. It’s about time though..far too long.

I’m not saying that you need to be an expert in anything to make money online…I’m not even saying you need to write your own programs, ebooks or any of that. What I am saying is that if you do outsource your work and plan to resell the information, you’d better be darn sure you have personally tested, used and made money with what is in your copy and product. Otherwise, you’re no better than the “gurus” taking money out of your pocket today.

Like Keith said…”Buy what you need when YOU need it. Get one plan going and pursue it relentlessly.”

Thanks Keith!

-Chris

Yeah, it seems the customer isn’t really what drives a lot of marketers in the make money online niche– it comes down to the click and the upsell and conversion rates and gray hat and ROI and LVC and how many followup emails it takes to turn someone into a buyer….

There are so many products out there that are all about content spinning and outsourcing research and hiring out your ebook writing and automating your blog content– it seems that you can’t really even be sure what you’re buying has any validity at all… a guy who gets lucky and makes $800 with some Google ad campaign simply extrapolates what those 4 days of sales would be over a year, and writes an”amazing” story of rags to riches and sells 312 copies of some worthless rehashed info for $47 and a whole bunch of new potential marketers are left hanging and discouraged after buying the promise of another great salesletter.

It is true, this niche is foul with inconsistency and hype… But the consumer has to shoulder some of the blame. After you buy one product that promises you profits on autopilot and atm machine emails and stuffing your bank account- and those things don’t happen…. because there is a lot of eork that goes in to creating whatever ‘angle’ the info is suggesting… we need to simply figure out in a hurry that there is work, there is no magic bullet…

I always have to laugh at a “killer” salesletter for a product to teach you to write “killer” salesletters… or an autoresponder series suggesting you buy a complete set of prewritten autoresponder series’. Highly incestuous these days, the I.M. niche–

Folks, just buy what you need when you need it. Get one plan going and pursue it relentlessly. Don’t let the next shiny object pull you away from the course you choose!

Keith deBolt

Taking action is a part of it but if you see no success, with what ever your ‘limitations’ are at any given point in time, you will likely not continue.

Yeah…stick with it my friend. I wouldn’t be where I am today if I gave up. You will make it because you want to, not because some guru said so. I wanted to find an opportunity to work from and live a lifestyle that I could be with my family all the time and I made that happen. I believe it’s kind of like what they talk about in “The Secret” (The Movie) with the law of attraction.

I saw guys who I wanted to be just like and I went after it. Now I’m really good friends with them and I get to help people and subsequently make money helping others…too cool!

@Agnes – The FTC thing is crazy, I mean even guys like me who are trying to honestly help people are going to really feel this. I’m like crazy paranoid about these new rules. I mean I don’t make crazy claims or lie about things but even simple testimonials have to be really carefully done anymore. It sucks that the guys who are actually trying to help people will be hit by this but I would rather that I have to jump through more hoops to help you then these bs marketers taking advantage of one more person.

And I’m very glad to hear you found a product that actually solved your problem…kudos Agnes!

@Dee – Yeah, I’m not saying you don’t need to take action…that’s not at all what I meant and I know you get that, but they kind of use that as an excuse for their own bad marketing to push off the failure on the customer and not take responsibility for it.

I mean, you can’t learn to walk until you learn to crawl so would you create a course for babies to learn to speak a foreign language when they haven’t even learned to talk yet? That’s a bad example but that’s kinda what they’re doing here.

Thanks for you thoughts and sharing them with me, I really appreciate it!

@Ken – I get exactly what you’re saying and I’ve seen it before. I mean they sign you up and you expect that for the price you see initially that you are going to get the promises on the sales page for that price. That’s not always the case though…is it?

I’m not talking about one time offers guys, this is the kind of site where you go there and they say learn xyz in 3 days flat and you’ll be making more money than you can haul to your bank. Then you are all pumped up and get to the check out page only to find that the price you are quoted is their basic package, if you want everything you read on your screen then they’re going to put you into their platinum group and it’s a crap load more.

Totally different.

And you’re right, I’m sick of the empty promises too. I’m fortunate enough to have met a bunch of really cool guys in the industry and you can definitely tell when you meet someone you will never recommend because your “BS Meter” goes off like a high pitched alarm and you want to run as far away from them as possible.

Thanks for the comments guys, I really do appreciate them. Keep them coming guys…I’d love to hear what you have to say!

-Chris

I’m just a newbie branching out into affiliate marketing and I agree with what you’re finding. I consider myself to be intelligent, fairly computer savvy and I do know what a “cPanel” is. I have fairly extensive knowledge and experience in writing websites, and although I often tweak css and php files and can write html, I’m certainly no programmer.

One “turn-key” website package I got (thankfully for free) required programming skills to be able to implement it, but it was not marketed that way. If I were a person without my knowledge I would have been trying to “one-click” that website into existence, which simply isn’t going to happen that way. Fortunately for me the minute I opened the files I knew that some programming would be required to get it functional. I can clearly imagine the frustration someone could go through trying to do what the sales pitch said was possible.

I agree with you in that I too am seeing many with advanced knowledge marketing items to anyone who will buy without the consideration that some folks don’t have even some of the basic knowledge they take for granted.

Heck, I’ve written websites for clients and tried to walk them through a cPanel live and many just don’t understand it. It is something I too used to take for granted since I did it all the time, but now I get very real with my website clients up front when they are looking to “maintain a site” on their own after I’ve developed it. Most really don’t have the knowledge or skills to do that and I discovered that their idea of “maintaining a site” was usually akin to checking email, which it isn’t.

You’re right, even with the experience I have there is a lot that I’m a newbie at in this field. Alison’s right too about the acronyms- I’ve had to stop and do searches just to figure out what they are talking about.

The Guru’s are right though too… you DO need to take action. But that is true with any kind of business or program you undertake. The problem is when you have no basic information on how or where to begin it makes it hard for a newbie to take action. The marketing does seem to be geared toward “anyone can do this”, which is simply not always so.

I realize there will always be those people who want that “magic pill”-the one thing, the quick fix-that makes it all happen for them with no work. They will forever be disappointed though no matter what they’re buying into.

Now, I’m a die-hard researcher, which I realize most people are not. I hate to even think of the hours I’ve spent in the last month reading, researching and surfing just to try to get to the bottom of all this. I have come across a few very good marketers and programs that are very helpful to a total newbie. I noticed some of those names and programs in your tag cloud-but it took wading through a lot of muck to find those. Somebody with less drive would have given up weeks ago… even I reached a point of b.s. overload last night.

From what I’ve seen so far, no-the customer doesn’t seem to matter to a large number of marketers. I’m happy for Agnes that she finally found a product that will solve some the problems she identified. Clearly she has done her share of researching too and discovered the many things it really takes.

Although it’s a shame that we can’t always trust our fellow man, as with anything else this field is no different, so the old adage “buyer-beware” should apply.

I agree totally with your bottom line though, which is to focus on what you want, what’s helping you get there and stick with that. Then take your time in identifying what you really need help with and in searching out those people who can help with those needs.

Now they are trying to get us with HUGE videos like 30 minutes or more.
They make it easy like click click and after 30 min. you hear it doesn’t cost $5,000
but only $997.
Other things what they “forget” to tell you you need elance for writers, you need 50 domains or more.
Clickbank fees or PPC cash etc.

I finally joint a “big” ticket product that solved my bad writing and technical skills.
I’m really happy about it because it solves my above mentioned problems and I knew that if I want to make money I needed get extra’s. The guru was very clear telling about that.

Eric

You’re right Gary…Nothing happens overnight…it could, but rarely happens. It’s like winning the lottery I guess

First off, you both are welcome and I’m glad to be able to share my own experiences with you all and be able to get your much valued and appreciated feedback like this. And Gary, rest assured that any future content or programs that I produce will not fall into this category.

Alison, your question is great and see guys, I’m kinda guilty of this myself. I thought everyone knew what CPanel stood for. It’s actually short for “Control Panel” Alison. It’s the control panel that you use to manage your website.

The problem is really that the guru’s are not targeting the right prospect from the get go. They have no clue about their target audience and therefore fail the entire group. Even if some of that group succeeds using their system, the entire group is failed because of this lack of understanding to their customers and market.

Thank you for the comments you two

-Chris