ClickBank, popular affiliate network and cesspool of scammy make-money-online offers, have recently announced (kind of) a new set of guidelines. These guidelines could mean a very serious crackdown on said scammy offers. Is this the end of the “infinite upsell” era? Will some dignity and accountability finally return to this particular section of the ClickBank marketplace? Probably not.
Read on to see all the details of the new guidelines and learn why it probably won’t make a difference.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I am not a “guru-basher”. Yes, I say negative things about products that are bad and I do occasionally point and laugh at silly marketers. But I don’t want product-bashing to be “my thing” and I know that there’s more value in providing useful information that can help you move forward than in railing on about everything that’s wrong in the Internet marketing space.
Having said that, there are times when people need to be warned and when a rant is in order. Now is one of those times.
I’ve gotten phone-calls like this, and chances are, you have too. Here’s what happens: You buy some online marketing related product and during the order process and a few days later, you get a phone call. The agent on the phone says something along the following lines:
We would like to offer you a very special opportunity to be enrolled in our exclusive coaching program. This is a very special opportunity and we have hand-picked you as a good candidate. We’ll offer you one-on-one coaching, to grow your business and make [insert arbitrary dollar amount here] in the shortest time possible. In return, we ask that we can get a testimonial from you and use you as a case-study…
I have no idea why they do the “testimonial” thing. It’s probably just something that has proven to be effective.
On the face of it, there seems nothing wrong with this. Why not offer coaching as part of a sales-funnel, after all?
Well, there would be nothing wrong with this if it weren’t all just a big lie. Here’s what you need to know about these “coaching offers”:
The deal is not exclusive at all.
They’re trying to get as many people to take these offers, as they can.
They lie about their affiliations.
The agent on the phone might tell you that they are part of X’s company, X being the person you recently bought an IM product from. They aren’t. The way this works is that marketers get your contact info from the order you place and pass it on to some boiler-room operation that does nothing but call people all day long, with these coaching offers. The marketer simply gets a cut from anyone who takes up the offer and pays.
They don’t care.
What the above also means is that marketers who do this don’t care about you or respect you in any way. These are often the same guys harping on about “building a relationship” with your customers and all that, mind you. However, they are willing to pass your contact details on to some “company” that does nothing but scam people out of money. Another way of saying that: They betray your trust for money.
Price: All you’ve got.
The goal with these operations is to find out how much money you have and take it all. If you listen for this, when you get a phone call of this nature, you’ll quickly notice that the agent is prying for info on how much you can spare, how much you’ve spent in the past etc. Typically, they’ll ask you to “invest” between $5.000 and $10.000 for the “coaching”. If you make the impression of having more to spare, they’ll offer more non-existant stuff for more money.
There is no coaching.
The offer is not real. You certainly won’t be enrolled in a coaching program that’s run by the person who referred you to the call-center. There’s either going to be no coaching at all (and some fine print in the terms that make sure you don’t get your money back, inspite of this) or there is going to be some kind of useless “filler” content that’s nowhere near worth the money you paid for it.
In short, it’s all just a system set up to extract the maximum possible amount of money from people who tend to fall for “hope and dream” marketing (these are often those who are desperate and can least afford to lose so much money).
Not everyone who follows up on the phone with you is a scammer or a criminal. And not every coaching offer is fake.
Unfortunately, it seems that the majority of all such offers currently circulating are indeed fake. If you get a call like this and you want to make the agent squirm, start asking specific questions. Like what the company name is and where it resides. What their website address is, so you can get more information. What their exact terms of service are and whether you can have a signed agreement sent to you by mail… that kind of thing. Also ask about their refund policy.
In general, don’t hand anyone thousands of dollars for coaching.
On the bright side, when you get a call like this, you instantly know who you can’t trust anymore.
All the best,
Here’s just a quick video I put together on how you can, in many cases, recognize scammy and useless Internet marketing products by just taking a quick look at the sales-page:
This video is definitely made for newbies, so if you're one of my seasoned readers, there's gonna be no news for you here. Hopefully, the video can help some beginners steer clear of a bad experience and help them not get scammed out of their money...
In today’s post, I want to share a video with you and I hope that you’ll share your thoughts with me after you’ve seen it. You see, this is very much a work in progress. It’s probably one of the least planned and least professionally made videos I’ve ever published, but the subject is one that’s very important to me and about wich I just needed to share some thoughts.
What it really comes down to is that I’m working on finding a way to bring good, solid marketing skills and authenticity, honesty and integrity together in my marketing messages. Watch the video below to see exactly what I’m on about:
I have a confession to make: There are several products sitting on my hard drive that I wanted to review on this blog, but never got around to it. Actually, “never got around to it” doesn’t describe the real issue. I didn’t want to review these products once I had a closer look at them.
In this post, I explain a big problem I see with “Make Money Online” guides and what I want to change on RQR because of this. Also, in case you’re wondering why I didn’t post for a long time, I’ll briefly explain at the end of this post.
Every Friday, I list all of the best sites, articles, and cool stuff I found online about online marketing. The emphasis here is on quality over quantity, so you might not find a ton of links, but their all worth following.
See this weeks selection after the break.
An upsell is when you offer extensions, expansions, “gold-memberships” or related products to your customers. Often this is done right after the initial purchase (instant upsell) and the reason upsells are so popular is that they often work. A customer who has just agreed to buy your initial offer is quite likely to be willing to shell out a little more cash for the next offer as well. In my reviews, I rate upsells and especially instant upsells as scammy. In this article, I explain why.
