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By Carl Haynes, Online Reviewer
Hello. My name is Carl, and I started looking for ways to
make lots of money on the internet at the beginning of 2005. Reason
being, that I lost my previous job. To be honest I hated working for
someone else, and I really did not fancy a nine-to-five nightmare
again. I'd heard and read lots about people making ridiculous
amounts of money on the Internet, and so I thought I'd give that a
try.
Over the next year or so I must have tried almost every type of
business opportunity there is. I got involved with MLM schemes,
scores of "get rich quick" and "make money online" products. I
bought countless courses, some were cheap less than $100, and one
particular one cost me a whopping $1000. I must have about 30
e-books that I bought on making money online still sittign on my
hard drive because they were just full of fluff and nothing that
tells you how the authors of these books actually make money.
I was desperate to make money, because I needed to get a steady
income quick. Despite my attempts for about one year, buying into
every scam and losing close to $8500 in about 10 months, I was still
determined. All of these programs were basically offering and
promoting the same thing, "you don't need any experience to make a
five figure monthly income". Yeah, BS!
The reality I learned was that you can make money quick - even
without experience - but only so long as someone teaches you certain
fundamental principles about marketing online and
practically shows you how its done!
I tried in all fifty-three (53) programs in all, as of last count,
and out of all of them, I actually came across just one
product at the beginning of 2006 that has made me stable monthly
income. The great thing is that once you have put certain things in
place, you just need to work a few hours a day to make it grow and
grow.
In what follows below, I've outlined my experience with it, and also
included screenshots of the actual cheques I've received and online
statistics of revenue that I've generated.
I have to warn you, if you buy into anything else, you risk being
scammed. I would only recommend this one product if your looking to
make money online from scratch, or if you've been trying but failed
so far.
Beware of Data Entry and Paid
Survey Scams
One of the most popular scams currently being promoted is not
a scam as far as the actual technique is concerned, but from the
angle of the language used to market the technique, namely "data
entry".
In real and practical terms, what a person is doing is one step of
the affiliate marketing process whereby ads are written promoting
someone else's product in return for a commission for every sale
referred.
However, the whole process is marketed as "getting rich by doing
simple data entry". There are literally scores of products of this
nature currently being promoted. Recently, Google and certain
payment providers have kicked out product owners or promoters of
"data entry" related schemes.
Another very heavily promoted scam is "paid surveys". You must have
come across claims such as "Earn $100 per hour filling out simple
surveys". How this scam works is that people are asked to pay a fee
ranging from $35 to $50 dollars in order to gain access to a list of
companies that offer paid surveys. The surveying companies
themselves do not charge people for taking surveys, rather they pay
participants who complete their surveys subject to certain
requirements such as age, demographics, gender etc.
Many, if not most, paid survey offers do not deliver the rewards
they promise. There are a number of ways that paid surveys mislead
or inconvenience participants. Many of them compile personal
information about participants to sell to marketers. Others require
people to pay to access a database of survey opportunities that the
participants could find on their own for free.
A few people might be fortunate enough to earn some regular money,
but it will never amount to much, no more than a few hundred dollars
per month at best!
Other Programs I've Bought and
Tried
I've pretty much bought into everything. I lost money with
MLM trying sites like Referralware and also Bizmakers which is now
defunct. This was at the back end of 2004. I remember waiting for a
$500 check from Bizmakers when I learnt that the company went down.
That was very disheartening for me! I also tried online education
programs. Amongst them Success University which purports to sell
educational materials as its business model - but that is really an
MLM program in disguise. It has some very persuasive and aggressive
marketing behind it. I fell for it. I also tried System X, which is
a set of online IT courses that you resell. I never really got it
off the ground, because I had little knowledge of marketing then. I
was also going to join Mindleaders and sell their IT courses, but
the problem was you had to buy quotas off them first and then sell
them. I was almost tempted to join PAS (Prosperity Automated System)
and was going to part with close to $4000 when I realised it was a
classic pyramid scheme!
I would say that I've bought something across the whole spectrum of
make money online products, and from most of the "gurus" out there.
Some were clear scams, others were cheap rubbish. Some did provide
useful information, but were very limited and did not tell the whole
story, whilst others were fair, but lacking in detail. Other
programs required a fair bit of initial investment and carried risk,
and others were just simply too good to be true.
Here are some of the products I tried in the last year:
Easy Chair Millionaire
I paid $47 for this ebook and it basically explains the Google
Adwords method and a few other common techniques. The product was
marketed well, and in terms of presentation, the ebook is quite
readable. The usual promises were made about "make money straight
away", but I did not find the instructions detailed enough and I had
to spend a lot of time trying to grasp what and why I was doing
whatever I was told to do. While I would say it is fair product, the
information can be found in many other much cheaper ebooks and I did
not find it to be value for money.
Robert Allen
I bought Robert Allen's stuff due to the hype surrounding him and to
be honest, for most people it would be next to impossible to make
the kind of money he promises. He wants you get involved in real
estate and stock investments - something that requires lots of
experience and is not for the newcomer. His stuff on making millions
from the Internet is the same as everything else. It gives you the
skin but not the flesh. The seven or so ebooks I trawled through are
just the usual information you find in most other cheap products. I
was disappointed to say the least! And for some of the techniques as
I said, you do really need some expert knowledge, but Robert Allen
makes it look as if it is so easy when it is not. I would advise
that you do not invest in this product.
The Rich Jerk
I bought this ebook in October 2005 This book was fair in that it
covered a wide range of money making techniques but it was useful
only for the advanced marketer. You had to have a lot of background
knowledge to implement the techniques. When you look through the
Rich Jerk forums, you can see clearly that people are lost. In
addition the Rich Jerk tries to sell lots of other products to his
customers, like for example a free website that's not really free
because you have to pay for the hosting (for which the Rich Jerk
makes a commission). While a lot of people have found the book
useful, I think it would appeal only for a particular group of
marketers. It was not something that benefited me greatly.
Affiliate Cash Vault
This is a very bad product, and definitely not worth the money. I
bought into it and realised like many other people that the quality
was atrocious.
Shawn Caseys Mining Gold on the Internet
I bought this in February 2006. A 103 page ebook with a few
additional bonuses. It goes with the subtitle, "How to make $1000
cash in the next 15 days". I found this book had a lot of outdated
information, and again, a hallmark of cheap ebooks, extremely vague.
There is a lot of information. It covers different ways to make
money, marketing methods, search engines, no cost marketing, low
cost marketing. Despite all the content you are still left thinking
"what the frick do I have to do next?". And I certainly never got
any sense of direction after reading that ebook. Most ebooks of this
type are just "introducers". They introduce you to the ideas or
concepts, but you will find it hard to get going.
Internet Million Dollars
I bought this product because the sales page looked really really
professional. Catchy music, real professional slick look, female
voice over promising me that I'll be taught how to get rich. When I
got the product it's just another ebook packed with a load of
bonuses to make it look as if there is more value. In brief the
product covered the same affiliate marketing technique that everyone
else is discussing in their products. Again, like many other
products you only get an introduction to the subject and there is
much more that you are not taught, which is what you really need to
know to make the kind of money that the authors are making. I find
that a lot of products are like this. You only get told so much, and
then you need to buy another product (an upsell) to get a step
further. To be fair, it was nicely presented, but it did not go far
enough to make it really worth the $50 I spent on it. The
information is also a bit dated too.
I also discovered that there was some real dubious marketing
involved with this product. A claim was made that this product has
made 1,327 millionaires in 2006 in a so called press release. I will
say straight out - "BS". If there were that many millionaires
made with this program it would be prime time news. After
investigating the names and companies mentioned in the press release
such as "Watkins Analytics" on Google, I found no trace of them.
Instant Personal Cash
This was, I believe, an outright scam. I paid $97 for this ebook
which gave nothing more than a basic introduction to affiliate
marketing using Google and Clickbank. The book was so vague and gave
very little away - leaving me (and others who bought it) completely
in the dark. Back in those days when I was new, this really hurt. I
was not happy with this product and tried to contact the author,
Katherine Scott, and got absolutely no response. I was also
encouraged to buy a website and hosting package from a related
company to get started after buying the ebook. I believe this was
another ploy to get more money out of me. This website no longer
functions and redirects to some sort of charity page (thank God!).
Data Entry Pro, Top Paid Surveys
I did try at least a few of these data entry programs and two paid
survey products. I can summarise them all in one word: Scam.
Other Products
There are so many ebooks that I have on my hard drive. To be fair I
did make some very limited amount of money from one or two of the
products mentioned above. But the products were not worth it. I
bought the hype, not the product.
UPDATE (28th February 2007) - Duvet Dollars
This is a fairly new product and I bought it a couple of days ago
(28th February 2007). It was being promoted on a few lists and I
thought I'd take a look at it. Well this is very clever marketing
for this product and a nice video too of "Victoria" sleeping under
her duvet - how cute! What you don't see though is Victoria
farting away under the duvet because that's essentially what this
product is: hot air! Its an ebook download and just a typical
rehash of all of the Adwords ebooks out there. Victoria's secret
isn't about what she keeps under her duvet, its simply this: choose
a product, use Google adwords to drive traffic and sit back and
watch the money come in. The same vague info that every one else is
pushing. This product is very annoying mainly because the marketing
for it is extremely good and you would have expected something new
and useful. Instead we get the same material found in other adwords
books such as google cash, adwords confessions and so on. Extremely
disappointing, a crap product given the hyped up sales page. Very
vague, lacks detailed information and I know from my own experience
that 95% of people will quickly blow money away because they simply
don't have the skills needed to use adwords effectively. The ebook
does not teach anything more than the basic idea and does not give
any in depth skills.
UPDATE (29th March 2007)
- Average Joe Income Package
I purchased the Average Joe Income Package two days ago as there was
a little bit of hype about it. Unfortunately, its just another
Ultimate Wealth Package type product. For a start, the author tries
to make more money off you because he introduces you to basic ideas
and then recommends you to buy other products through his own
affiliate links. Almost every link I see in the download section is
like that. The material is the same stuff in all the other products,
an introduction to clickbank and using adwords. There is a small bit
on Ebay (you have to buy other products through his affiliate links
if you want to get started). This product doesn't really teach you
marketing but just shows you how to blindly follow some steps with a
chance of making a bit of money. There are some videos in some of
the sections that show you some of the details. The members area is
badly designed. This product is just an excuse to promote the
authors own affiliate links so he can make more money from you by
recommending expensive hosting, lots of other make money products
like "wholesale dropshipping resources", and "adsense guides" and so
on. Another crap product!
I came across the author of this course in one of the forums
in early 2006 who was offering to teach some methods he was putting
into some sort of online course. He wanted to test the effectiveness
of the methods and whether the style, and content of his course was
easy to follow. He was planning to launch a new product for later in
the year and wanted to test it. I took this opportunity up.
This was at a time when I was trying almost everything. With a lot
of products the topics covered are generally the same, so you will
see similar topics discussed in the Rich Jerk, Forex Enterprise,
Ultimate Wealth Package and others. What I found with what became
"Profit Lance" is that it is much more than a single ebook (or
ebooks) that you download. It is a complete online course and system
that is designed to give members a thorough working knowledge of
internet marketing, instead of just a lot of theory that the other
products presented.
Also,
I haven't seen a more professionally designed website than the
current Profit Lance members area. There is a wealth of
information and the members area is divided into a learning area
where you read and grasp the concepts and a practical / management
area where you perform practical tasks.
Judging by the quality of the material and the way it is written and
presented, the author proves that he cares and wants his customers
to really learn the stuff and acquire what he calls "long term
marketing skills".
I can totally relate to this, because after my goose chase for the
last year and a bit and buying all that cheap trash, it makes sense.
Sometimes I feel that by me believing that riches should come to me
in a week or less, I've been manipulated by those "gurus" and
"marketers" to buy their stuff, hoping to achieve just that. So its
partly my own fault. But what's been drilled into me by the Profit
Lance course is that to be really successful you have to educate
yourself and build long term assets in an educated, informed and
scientific way. It doesn't matter if you fail. That's part of
learning.
There are a number of things that make this product light years
ahead of the rest:
·
Once
you invest in the program you are not sold anything else that you
need to start benefiting from the program straight away (unlike the
other programs)
·
You
are given a complete set of already programmed and hosted websites.
About 15 in total There is nothing to pay at all. The people at
Profit Lance set it up for you as part of your investment in the
program. I have to say that the website designs are absolutely
brilliant. Clean, crisp and really appealing to look at. With the
other programs (Rich Jerk, Forex Enterprise, Ultimate Wealth
Package), although you have a "free" website (for which you have to
pay hosting fees), you still have to create and write the content
yourself. These sites are there to enable you to practice the actual
skills in the course, which the owner says is the most important
thing.
·
There
are certain practical tasks that the author makes you do. These
tasks are aimed at giving you hands on experience with the
techniques, but you are also taught the significance of these
actions and where they fit into "the overall scheme of things". You
simply do not get that with the other products. The author also
reveals some really good techniques into how to do market research
online.
·
I
really love this one - an online tracking software that allows you
to enter and monitor your tasks and goals. Absolutely great for
organizing your activities.
·
The
author makes a really great effort to respond to your questions and
make sure you understand.
·
Extremely professional tutorial documents
·
There
is a separate and growing article base that gives more in depth
information on the core information in the course. I found this very
valuable in helping to develop and grow my understanding.
·
Recently, a new private members blog has been set up which gives
some real great lessons in all areas, marketing, personal
development and so on.
·
The
materials and the writing in the product really does make you feel
better and gives you great encouragement as a person looking to be
successful online.
·
You
can just straight tell from the professionalism of the site and the
content that what you are getting taught is the real deal. It's what
the "gurus" don't want you to know in case you reach their level!
Click here to learn more about the Profit Lance Online Course
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