I say dangerous things sometimes. Well, here goes…
Most people that are in business (especially Internet
marketers) are missing this. This is
probably the easiest way to drive traffic to your business either online or
off. However, in my humble opinion it is
the LEAST used method that I have seen.
I’m not saying that you’ll get massive traffic from this overnight,
because this is kind of like branding your product or service. It takes time, cultivating relationships and
building a list of customers or clients.
Let me explain…
Your Reputation Is Paramount
If you think for one second that people are going to buy a
product or service from you, and not form an opinion of you one way or another,
you’re kidding yourself. Recently, I was
thinking of purchasing an online product from a company I had heard of for
years.
A lot of big time marketing gurus were touting it as one of
the best courses that had ever been made.
I decided to look around the Internet to see if anyone had
formed an opinion of it one way or the other.
What I found was rather shocking.
As a matter of fact, it has changed the way I’ll view almost ANY product
online from now on.
If You Suck On The Internet Everyone Will Know It
This business and product, which has been touted as an
industry standard by well-known practitioners in the field, was one of the most
hated on the Internet. As a matter of
fact, so many people complained in one forum alone, I can’t imagine why anyone
would want to do business with them. The
rants ran on for pages and pages.
Suddenly, I felt like I
had been taken. Even though I
had not actually bought the product, I felt as though the gurus I had believed
in for so long, were out making paid endorsements for one and other.
As I said before, many experts were praising this product. I
thought, “Wow! I've been buying products
from these “experts” for years. Could it be that I’m just an easy mark? P.T. Barnum could quickly validate his most
favorite phrase by watching the likes of me.”
I have to say, the people that were selling the service,
were great at selling their product, because it had gained so much traction
over the years. However, the goods were
tainted. Very, very tainted. And unfortunately, many people felt like they
had been ripped off.
The Info-Product Model of Stupidity
If I were at an expensive seminar, some toothy-grinning guru
would probably tell me that I’m being negative.
However, reality is reality. If
something sucks and there are a whole bunch of very intelligent people spilling
their guts, then what does it say for that product or service?
Buy hey, this is the way info marketing is done over the
Internet. Build up all of this hype, brag
endlessly about your BIG PRODUCT LAUNCH, talk about false scarcity, tell
everyone that this is a one-time offer when it actually isn’t, and then sell
them crap.
Once you are in their pipeline, you’ll be “invited” to their
seminar at $2,500 a shot. You better
hurry too! The last one was sold out! Of course, they deliberately picked a smaller
conference room where they could have the scarcity principle work for
them. They could honestly say, “…we only
have “x” number of seats at this event, so you better hurry and fork over the
bucks.”
Then they give this impressive list of speakers that have
all written books, so therefore are an authority on the subject.
(This is the reason
why I’m a firm believer in going on Amazon and buying their books…USED. Not only that, but if you are an info-vulture
like me, you’ll eventually find some of these products on eBay for a lark
rather than the $500 + they’ll charge you for an uncomfortable chair at a
seminar. (Any chair outside of my
recliner is uncomfortable, especially when I’m reading a good book.))
I’m serious, though.
If Joe or Josephine Blow is giving an expensive seminar,
why don’t you
try to find their book on Amazon? I
doubt that whatever they’ll tell you at the expensive seminar will be any
different than what they wrote IN GREAT DETAIL in their book. Plus, you’ll have access to their expertise
any time you want.
Now, these are people that’ll tell you to track everything
you do. Track your sales, track your
direct mail campaign, track your Internet traffic, track how many times a day
you take a crap…You know the drill.
Well, I have never heard or seen any proof of their attendee’s rate of
success. In other words, how many people
made “X” number of dollars after going to one of their seminars?
I have never seen those stats. They’ll tell you they have no way of tracking
that.
Isn't that convenient?
It’s kinda like the government telling you it knows every
dime you make, so you better pay every cent you owe in taxes, but has no recollection
of the fact they had spent 20 bazillion dollars covertly invading Kazakhstan. Very, very convenient.
This is Where You Can
be Different.
Now listen, I’m not saying that everyone that sells info
products is like this is a charlatan, snake oil salesman. There are some really good info marketers out
there that sell well made products. I’m
sure there are some really great seminars too.
I am also positive that you can learn something from some of these
resources that will benefit you and your business.
However, if you are going to charge top dollar for your
product or service, then you better deliver.
Actually, you better OVER-DELIVER!
And, if you can dredge it up, some honest caring about the
people you are marketing to, wouldn't hurt either. Because, so few businesses
actually care about their fellow human.
They look at around and all they see are dollar signs, and it eventually
will be seen as that by the people they do business with.
However, if you actually care about the people you sell to
and service and go the extra mile for them, they will never forget you. At the very least, you’ll have someone that appreciates
you and what you've done for them.
I just had to get some of this off my chest.
Mark "Elmo" Ellis
"When it comes to high response copy, I've got your back!"
