Again, it’s not really with joy that I write this post. I feel like this is all I’ve been talking about lately.
But at the same time, I can’t bear to NOT write this. I can’t bear to NOT let you know.
I went out to the World Internet Summit in London yesterday, an IM event that is pretty much bottom of the barrel in terms of pitchy-ness. There’s no content, it’s a high pressure sales environment that preys on people who simply don’t know better yet.
But I wanted to catch up with a friend and hopefully meet some more half decent marketers in London.
There’s 2 groups of people there: The newbies waiting to be sold their hopes and dreams on a platter for $2000 (2000 Pounds actually at this one… more like $3300 or thereabouts) a pop, and then the speakers & their friends, there to meet JVs and talk about how much money they make from ripping off those newbies.
I go to events alot, just to meet interesting people and sometimes learn. But the ones I’d been to more recently were a lot more content based and had a lot more experienced crowds. I quickly got jolted back to what these things were like in IM, and in many ways, what it’s like for someone new to online marketing to be trying to start up from scratch.
I spend most of my time at the bar, which is where the latter of the two groups of people in attendance hang out. I don’t want to listen to the pitches so that’s the only other option.
The conversations you here there are just grotesque.
(All of the following are based on ones I overheard yesterday)
“He gets up, speaks for an hour, sells the crowd a set of 7 PLR sites for $2000… walks away with $100k”
“Hahaha, you wouldn’t believe it, in Malaysia he had a guy during his pitch TRIP OVER running to the back of the room to sign up for his course, hahaha – brilliant!”
“Well we know why he launched it – they knew it wouldn’t work anymore in 3 months time. This way he can add another 100k a month to his business and be done with it”.
And much more…
I put them in the same group: The “speak from stage is all I do” marketers and the “product launches are all I do marketers”. There’s often a revolving door between the two groups. They are both equally as douchey.
Here’s the worst, scariest thing I heard.
Two guys were talking about a clickbank launch that had just happened. They were talking about how much the product sucked. The launcher was someone you’ve definitely heard of.
One guy asked the other guy to tell me how many sales the launch did.
The answer? 40 000 copies………………………………………………
Think about that number for a second.
To put it in perspective: I’ve been online for quite a while, doing both affiliate marketing and teaching. When I release a new product I’m happy if I sell 500 copies. They do 40 000! 80 times more than me.
If you’re reading this post you’re probably one of the people who are less likely to buy the overhyped clickbank launch type products…
If you’re like me, you probably think that those products are only for those unfortunate newbie souls who are just coming online and getting the inevitable fleecing before they realize how the game works…
BUT NO… no no… it’s not just a small group of newbies who buy this crap. It’s not just a minority of those getting started. It’s MOST people. It’s the MAJORITY. If you’re not in that group and you’re reading this post and you know better… you are in a TINY tiny sub sect. You’re one of the lucky ones!
The guys who do these launches and are the most unethical… make the most money. No one I mentioned on my list of “the wisest and most trustworthy marketers” do anything like the figures these guys do. That pisses me off but I guess that’s life.
Everything I’m about to write here I already knew, but the day that was yesterday just crystalized it in my mind and even took my understanding to a new level of depth regarding how dodgy and disgusting this IM world can really be.
The majority of product launches, ESPECIALLY Clickbank launches, where-ever you see extreme Clickbank screenshots, whenever you get more than 5 emails about the same product (with a rare few exceptions) the following is almost always the case:
1. The “System” they’re selling does not work.
Period. What they do is sit around mastermind meetings thinking of one question: “What would sell?” They think of ideas for things that those poor unfortunate souls would buy and they create products based on them. If there was a list of things needed for a good launch, laid out in priority order, the factor of whether a system works… whether anyone’s actually going to make money from it… would be at the bottom. Great sales copy at the top, bunch of JVs next, perfect upsell third… good product? Who gives a ####. As long as it’s good enough that we don’t get too many refunds, it’s fine.
This is the RULE, not the exception.
2. The “System” they’re selling, is not something they even use.
Doesn’t matter what the income screenshots say, they DON’T use it. They couldn’t use it even if it did work and even if they wanted to use it. Their entire lives are consumed by doing product launches and promoting other people’s junk so they’ll get more JVs when their launch comes around. They say they use it, and they show the income screenshots from their last launch. They DON’T use it.
3. The $67 product never contains the “secret”.
This is what these guys get taught (I’ve heard it being presented myself)
“You have a front end product, $67 or $77, but you don’t give away all the details in here! You don’t teach them all the secrets for $67 – don’t undervalue your products like that! Your front end product is supposed to be a teaser. Your $67 product is supposed to give them just enough so they understand the idea, but can’t apply it without further help”.
I’m not even kidding, I’ve heard those words being spoken from stage. So if you’re looking at one of those clickbank courses where the sales letter says you’re going to learn EVERYTHING… ALL THE SECRETS… for just $67… it’s NEVER true. There’s always an upsell you need in order to implement anything.
4. They work on the principle that most people who buy these products won’t use them.
Will the customer actually be able to make money? Who cares?
I told one guy yesterday that I have a customer support manager for our products (this was the 40 000 copies launch guy) and he was shocked. I told him we have a live support system and he couldn’t believe it.
These guys don’t care whether people implement their methods or not. Once the sale is made it’s “what can I launch next?”.
Ok guys, here’s the deal.
I’ve been writing about this stuff for quite some time and I can’t handle having this be ALL I do about it.
I need your help today.
We have to make some contribution to cutting down the number of people in that early part of their journey who don’t know that this is how things work yet.
This is what you can do.
1. Stop buying this stuff: Please, make a commitment right now that you will stop buying, or at least be EXTREMELY skeptical before you buy any clickbank IM product that shows clickbank screenshots and has a massive launch fanfare. You know they are all the same and there’s no point wasting your money. The above is how those products come about and you don’t need to be involved in that.
2. Tell someone you know: Do you know someone in IM who’s newer than you, just getting started maybe? Send them an email right now and tell them to be careful. Tell them to stop buying these products too.
3. Tell everyone you can: Do you have a blog? A Twitter or Facebook where you are in contact with other marketers particularly newer ones? Make one tweet or update about this. Tell people that they need to know about it.
4. I’ve never asked for something like this before, and I probably never will again, but if you have a blog or a Twitter or Facebook and you can’t do any of the above, send people the link to this blog post to read for themselves. Every person who hears this news and takes it on board is someone who saves themselves $67 or $197 dollars next time. Every person who hears this is another $67 that those bottom feeder launch guru scumbags don’t get.
We can help people here. We won’t change how this industry works, but we can do something.
Until next time, thanks for reading and…
Thanks for being my subscriber even though I’ve never shown you a clickbank screenshot.
Great idea! There is too much scam online, why not do something about it.
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