Chapter 4 -The LIES
(Excerpted with permission from SABO – Starting A Business Online, an eBook) To Get the COMPLETE eBook go to http://ripoldlife.com/sabo/
The LIES
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SABO Copyright © 2014 J.M. Darcey
Many programs say that “no selling is involved”. But then, they want your money . That’s selling (or stealing or begging). And if they then ask that you do the same thing, you will be selling (or stealing or begging). Making money involves selling. That does not have to mean direct selling, but it is still selling when goods and/or services and money changes hands.
{redacted}.
The buyer is always the one in control (for legitimate goods and services), not the seller. But for someone to buy, someone else has to sell.
Sometimes it involves tricks, like “get it free Just enter your name and email”.
Ever heard this before?
“Free” Is the most powerful marketing (sales) word on the planet. There is “Fat Free”, and “Risk Free” and “Buy One – Get One Free” and thousands more.
The word “FREE” SELLS! But it brings in NO INCOME UNTIL A SALE IS MADE. So Free Sites that invite Free People suck as an “Income Opportunity”.
Email lists are a marketable commodity.
So entering that info is not free. Although there is not a dollar amount attached to the transaction, it is a sale. I’ll give you this if you give me that.
You now have a free thing that, hopefully, will do what it promised, and they have another fish in their pond. Sometimes that’s a great thing for both of you, and sometimes it is not.
Each person will have to determine if the value received was worth the cost. No different than buying a computer or a TV, or a loaf of bread. Or selling a computer or TV, or a loaf of bread .
All money making ventures, opportunities, etc. involve selling something, somewhere in the chain. Sometimes that’s exactly what the whole chain was designed for.
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Get this free for your name and email
Then Buy this for $37
Then Buy This for $97
Get My Super Duper thing For only $699.95
If you really want those other things to work perfectly well
join my coaching club for only $197 month
Since you are so special You are invited
To Join The Elite Coaching Club
only $997/month
and it won’t stop there.
There are countless programs that teach this exact principle. That’s why they say that you need a “traffic funnel”. And that you need a list. “Build the list and gold will come.”
While that is true ONLY IF you want to run a business like theirs.
I don’t. Not that there is anything wrong with it, it just ain’t my style. But the money says that this method DOES WORK!
The numbers bear it out, that if you have a list (a targeted list), you can expect to make about $1 per month per member of your list.
To start a list simply, with everything already included, and make some money building your list, go to Groove-Guy.com and be ready when when the next BIG THING hits.
Keep in mind that means that if you have a targeted interested list, and you send out an offer for a $50 profit product, enough will respond favorably to get you a $1 return for every one on your list. In this example 1 out of 50 would buy.
49 out of every 50 did not want the offer. That’s why all of our inbox’s are so full of junk, even when “we requested it”. That is ONLY IF you cultivate your list properly, and give them valuable information and tips, to keep them on your list. Too much work for me.
As explained earlier (in another chapter), there is a hidden lie with regards to “cookies” (those little pieces of code injected into your browser).
Tracking cookies, as in affiliate sales and tracking, are set by the website owner. Some owners have them set to “lifetime”. Which means once that you have referred someone to that site, through your affiliate link, anytime that they come back to purchase (as long as it’s with that same computer and the cookie has not been cleared), your affiliate ID will get credit (and the commission) for the sale.
Although this may sound great on the surface, there are some distinct drawbacks for the beginning marketer.
There are usually different affiliate levels. Big Guys, and the rest of us.
Upon a product “LAUNCH” or “PRE-LAUNCH” many guru type people flood their lists with their affiliate links. Many times this occurs BEFORE the product is even available, as they are in a “JV” or Joint Venture arrangement with the publisher. If their mail is good, or their subscribers really trust them, many will click through just to see the new plan or program or software or free video.
BINGO, a lifetime (or whatever the duration) cookie has just been planted on that person’s computer, whether they actually buy or not, on that 1st visit. Most will not, as explained earlier. It really doesn’t matter to the list owner. They accomplished their mission of locking up the potential commission.
Now, you come along and refer your good friend Joe, to this site. Joe Buys, and you get no commission. That commission is OWED to the original person (MS Guru X) who referred them originally, even if it was through a mass mailing months, or even years, ago!
This is a little secret that they fail to tell you about when they say “the money is in the list“.
Who’s List?
Have you received the email touting the GREAT BONUSES you can receive for buying this or that “from my link”. And then they proceed to explain or show you how to remove the cookie BEFORE ordering, in order to receive the BONUSES? (“$10,000 worth of Bonuses if you buy this $67 product” yeah, right. I believe you.)
I personally love these mails, as it is usually one guru trying to outdo the other guru that may have sent the mail first. I like to call it
“The OREO WAR”. A battle of the cookies.
Some merchants have cookie override capabilities. HostGator for example, has a feature in their affiliate area where you can set up a “code” for referrals to enter into the “Coupon” or “Code” box. If a customer enters your code, the code will override any existing cookie and use your affiliate ID as the seller. (Note: If you want great hosting at an affordable price with superb customer service use coupon code “JobSiteDiscount“. Yes, that is my cookie override from Hostgator)
Lifetime cookies are only great if you are going to be the FIRST person to introduce customers to the site. For everyone else they simply waste advertising dollars and effort. Because even if you get the sale, you may not get the commission.
Lad15 uses NO cookies. Because of the WEalthShare principle, we don’t mind if others benefit from our efforts. If you do as you are supposed to, and only personally refer prospects, they should be able to make up their minds NOW.
If not, then the next person to invite them should be the one to be paid. Very fair. Very simple. It’s a simple AD Program. Not rocket science.
Once someone actually signs up, the commission ($100) is paid directly to that seller.
And they will now promote both your ad and your adspot (#2) for you FOR FREE!
Some sites also have it set so a visitor must remain on the site for XX minutes to have the cookie implanted, eliminating the “put it on a Traffic Exchange or Safelist” people. That’s why so many refer you to the VIDEO page. The video usually lasts long enough to implant the cookie.
“Monthly plans are the best because you get monthly commissions”
Huge LIE!
Most monthly “autoship” type programs that have an MLM payout plan, only will drain your wallet on a monthly basis. First off, many only pay a fraction of the “sales totals of the lesser leg“.
Translation: You may make a few pennies on less than 1/2 of your sales, and that of your people.
This is one of the surest ways to go broke online.
Only get involved in a monthly program IF you can have your cost eliminated with 3 signups (3 is what the average person online will ever sign up to any program-actually it’s 2.77 people) AND you enjoy/use the product(s)..
The vast majority only buy the product to make money, not to actually use the product itself.
While the concept of a monthly consumable product for repeat sales is fantastic. The reality is most will NEVER see even a fraction of their monthly payment, on a commission check. For some that might be 30-60-90-120 days down the road. And then they quit, and you have to start all over again. And that cycle repeats over and over again.
To further show you how easy it is, they advise you to use traffic exchanges and safelists. Of course they have a system in place to get you to sign up under them, thereby getting free credits, so that they don’t actually have to click and read, and click and read all day.
Traffic Exchanges and safelists are actually viewed by people with no clue and no money for advertising. They are only viewing or clicking so that you will see their opportunity.
It’s like trying to sell milk, at retail, to a dairy farmer.
People who are NOT YET involved (target market for prospects) in an opportunity DO NOT USE TRAFFIC EXCHANGES or SAFELISTS. They haven’t even heard of them before some “mentor” suggested them as a free advertising source.
The best thing to advertise on a traffic exchange or safelist is free or cheap advertising. That is exactly what those people (newbies) are looking for.
QWIKAD is FREE-And has no problem with BizOp ads
Keep in mind that 98% of the ad owners DO NOT ACTUALLY SURF. They buy the space (as a “pro upgrade”), or refer others for their credits. So the only people seeing your ads are new, poor people, most of the time. That’s not a very good target market for anything.
The best way to make money (and sometimes a great deal of money) with a traffic exchange, is to own one. That way everybody who subscribes to YOUR exchange is on YOUR LIST! And all of your ads are free, and effortless. And you are marketing to the most inexperienced, who may fall for the hype. And to the experienced, who will purchase your upgrade. Many use this method just to sell and expand their original opportunity. It can become a free advertising source, and even a revenue generator, larger than the original opportunity.
You can get into text ad exchanges for as little as $8/month. Own one for $30. Or buy a script and hosting for a full blown exchange for a few hundred bucks. Or even get your own FREE AD Site for $24 upfront and just $14/month HERE
That is exactly why we designed LAD15 (Leveraged Ads) to be something that everyone needs, and can produce 2 sources of income (ad results plus ad spot sales). And it’s only $600 for An Entire YEAR-No Monthly Bill!Terms of Service
Many affiliate programs state in their terms of service (that’s the little box you checked as you first signed up), that you may NOT contact their customers for other opportunities (even if you are the one who signed them up)!
Depending on the program and the terms, many can avoid this violation
by making them YOUR CUSTOMER, FIRST!
2 Important points I want to make here:
1. ALWAYS READ the Terms of Service (TOS)
I know it’s boring with all that legal mumbo-jumbo…. Protect Yourself
2. Make them YOUR Customer First
I hope that you have not fallen victim to this, but:
I once read the T.O.S. for a $9.99 product that I was thinking of purchasing. In the TOS (not on the sales page) it was explained that they would also sign you up (using the same credit card) for a 35 day trial of Product XX, which after the free trial would cost $60/month! And, to add insult to injury, further on down, it was also signing you up for a 52 day trial of Product Y, which, after the trial, would cost $29.99/month! There was no “opt out”.
The reasons for the time delay and the price differences was evident to me. 3 DIFFERENT COMPANIES would now be hitting up your credit card, for varying amounts, at varying times, until someone realized it and canceled. They probably stole millions of dollars. This company was shut down, but the practice of cheating and lying and stealing (which is exactly what this was) is alive and well. The company stated that “all customers read and understood the terms and conditions”.
Protect yourself and avoid the headaches. READ THE TOS!
If you don’t know who you are dealing with, then use a prepaid credit card, not your regular credit card, and NEVER a bank account. If you only have $50 on a prepaid card, and buy something for $39.99, they can’t get more than $50, even through fraud. In this example you could only lose $10. And you can dispute that loss, if one occurred. Or just use Cash.
This does NOT apply to established payment processors like PayPal, {redacted}, ClickBank, and others. They have double and triple security layers to lessen these types of abuses. They are also very swift in dealing with reported cases, sometimes within seconds.
When filling out personal info and/or banking info online, make sure there is a little lock (down in the right hand corner) or that the address bar (upper left) says https://www.lad15.com/. The https is for “secure“, as in encrypted.
Each company or website has their own TOS. They are necessary, and in many cases REQUIRED by law. If you want to play in their yard, you must play by their rules. If you don’t want to abide by their rules, don’t use their service/site/company. If you want different rules, you must start your own, and you can write the rules. That’s part of the beauty of running your own business. You can write the rules.
Proof of Income
Please do not buy at face value all of the “Proof of Income” items on sales pages. They may or may not be real. And even for the FEW real ones, many have spent years, and thousands of dollars learning their craft. They WILL NOT give you, a total stranger, the “keys to the kingdom of easy wealth” for $37, $67, $997 or whatever is the going “7” rate is today.
No one in their right mind would publicly share what they have actually made, online, as the taxing authorities (IRS, etc) also have access to the internet. I have yet to see a tax document “proving” these incomes.
Also left out of these claims, is HOW MUCH WAS SPENT to get these figures. If someone spends $9,000 on an adwords campaign, and makes $10,000, they are being honest (albeit a little deceiving) when they show “proof of their $10,000 income“.
Heck, they might have even spent $15,000, and can still show you
“Proof of $10,000 made in 1 week”
When the truth is that they actually LOST $5,000. They will make up for it when a few fools rush over to buy their shiny new program or secret that “Makes $10,000/week!” for $1,997.00 .
(They only need 5-LOL)
Note: It ain’t a secret if anyone with money can buy it. It’s a product!
At LAD15.com they sell ad space for $600. If we (the affiliates) sell 1,000 this month, they could honestly??? show you proof of $600,000 going into their account for the month. The NON-LIE is that the members benefit much more than the company does, because that’s the design of that specific business model, But they could show you proof of $600,000 made in a month! They won’t.
Please Note:
ClickBank is a top notch, legitimate, affiliate system with more than 40,000 digital products, and more than 1 million affiliates (less than 10% who actively participate)
That said, there are a lot of sales pages that now include Clickbank results on their sales pages (screen-shots and/or video). Are those results from what they are purporting to sell to you?
Or their own efforts? Or the efforts of affiliates? Or the results of their very connected mailing list “friends”? (sometimes in excess of several million-total)
What did it cost those affiliates to get those sales and commissions? How much of that was paid to affiliates, JV partners, etc.? How much was given back as refunds? When they show “this account” and “that account”, they are showing you the results of the upsell(s) also?
“Proof of income” is just another graphic to me. No different than a picture of a frog on a balloon. Might be real, Might not. And IT IS NOT WHAT YOU WILL MAKE (until you have put in the time effort and expense to create your own-if ever!).
Anyone who is dumb enough to let the authorities know what they made before they do their taxes, and post it in public, is not someone I would do business with anyway.
The latest and greatest LIE is the “100% commission” model
First off, it is NOT 100% if you also have to pay a monthly affiliate fee.
It is NOT 100% if you “pass up” sales.
And it is definitely NOT 100% if they charge a 6% or 7% processing fee
(the norm is around 3%).
And some even “hold” 10% for 6 months or longer!
The TRUE percentage varies from program to program, but
NO ONE PAYS 100% They would go out of business if they did.
The closest to a real 100% Program is 25 Dollar 1 UP. There are NO MONTHLY FEES! There is, however, a 1-time $10 hosting/setup fee that is NON-commission-able. And you will pass up your 2nd customer. Other than that, it really is 100% MEMBER-TO-MEMBER DIRECT & INSTANT Pay system.
WOW-Look how much I make
Just sitting on my Balloon
(it purposefully looks pasted together -LOL
Do You Know how hard that is?)
[END of Copyrighted Material]
To read the entire book SABO-Starting A Business Online
To Get the COMPLETE eBook go to http://ripoldlife.com/sabo/
Just learn from it.
You may just find the one true way to make money from home simply!