One of the biggest challenges when starting out is knowing who you can trust to help you succeed with your web-business.
As with all industries there are genuine people and scam artists.
So how do you tell the difference?
Here are 5 things to ask yourself next time you receive an email from an online marketer that you’re not sure about:
1. Are They Just Promoting Products?
There exists a category of internet marketers that I like to call the “Churn And Burn” guys.
They acquire large amounts of subscribers through solo ads and adswaps. Then they simply send out affiliate promotion after affiliate promotion to make money. They don’t create their own products (too much hassle right?) and they certainly don’t see their subscribers as real people, just numbers.
I’ve been a subscriber to many mailing lists like this. Basically, if you see they are only promoting products and are not providing any value (e.g., free video training, blog posts, audio interviews, webinars etc) then it is highly likely that you’ve got a bad egg! I suggest unsubscribing immediately.
2. Are they actually implementing what they are teaching?
Is there ANY evidence that they are making money from what they are teaching? Or are they just making money out of telling others to implement their strategy.
This is crucial because there are so many duff products out there where the success rate is incredibly low. If they have made money, rest assured they’ll been keen to tell you! So if they don’t then it’s probably safe to assume they haven’t and are just promotion junkies.
3. Have they been in other niches apart from Make Money Online (MMO)?
For the record, I actually don’t believe that it is necessarily unethical to teach MMO if you’ve not been in other niches. However, many strategies that are taught only work in MMO and some marketers seem oblivious to this. So try to be careful to ascertain where these strategies are effective in other niches because often they won’t be.
4. Are they suggesting a consistent business strategy?
If you’re going to be successful online then you definitely need a road map and battle plan.
How can you possibly succeed if you don’t have one?
But if you’re getting thrown from pillar to post by marketers who are just promoting the latest hot offers in completely unrelated areas then your information overload is going to go through the roof!
Kindle on Monday, offline local businesses on Tuesday, WordPress plugins on Wednesday, membership sites on Thursday and a “done for you” solution webinar on Friday. Agggghhhh!!!!!!
5. If you send them an email, do they reply?
This is a classic test of whether they see you as a person or just a number. Seriously, for each marketer that you subscribe to, send them email with a simple question or comment in it and see what happens. The results can be very telling…
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this one. Have you felt scammed in the past? Do you agree with my list or think I’m being overly harsh on others in our community? Please hit the “LIKE” button if you liked this and let me know what you think below….
Hi Rob
I agree 100%. One of my pet hates is signing up to a list only to be bombarded with offers from someone else. I joined that list because I wanted to see that marketers products and what do you get? Nothing from them. I judge marketers by their own products.
John Thornhill did a survey recently. The results show that the majority of people on line DON’T trust marketers and are fed up of being scammed.
What happened to honesty and integrity?
I have snow melting too, drive safely.
Dee
Dee
Hi Dee,
Thanks for your views, much appreciated.
It’s amazing how those things fly out the window when the potential of making fast cash walks in the door 🙂
Rob
Hi Rob. I’ve been around on line since about 98/99 but only particularly watching Marketers since about 2006…….. so many trends, so much crap…….. and yet, there are good guys (and Gals – Dee) about.
Your highlighter of what to look for and what to avoid is a great reminder to anyone in Marketing that folks will do whatever they feel happy with, and that can include Scamming (because that’s way some people are wired)! Just drop them like hot bricks, or even faster.
Thanks for the pointers – now I’m off to unsub a few more – and shovel a bit of snow while it comes off the path easily!!
Yours John Reed (aka JohnO’York).
PS: That’s my new site I’ve used here so there won’t be anything on it yet. I just happen to love the Cotswolds!
Hey John,
Great to see you here at GHG, thanks for sharing your views with us 🙂
We all need reminding now and again of this I think. I still stay subscribed to some junk lists just to see how they work and what they’re promoting but I try to only purchase from people I really respect.
Cheers – Rob
Dear Rob, I would like learn to make some money on line, and you are the only one I trust, you speak so clearly that I find you very easy to understand, but what I do find very hard is when you say ” you press this and that, then you go to this and press that, ” I just can not follow it all, If I could make about £50 per day I would be very happy, Is there a way in which you can simplifier what you have to offer, or you may know an easy way to make £50 a day, I lookforward to hearing from you thank you very much Mr N White
Hi Nigel,
The best way to start making £50 per day is:
1. Find a PROFTIABLE niche that you’re interested in
2. Build a list of prospects
3. Build trust with that list and promote products
This process will make you £50 per day and it’s also how people who make £10,000 per day operate too.
As for my training, I do always try to explain things in a very step-by-step way and not only tell you what to do but show you how to do it on screen too. This is exactly what we do inside the members area (here’s a link) – I’m not trying to sell you anything but this is the answer to your question so felt it was appropriate to mention!
Cheers,
Rob
Very good points Rob. I like #4 “Are they suggesting a consistent business strategy?”
And the last one is vita, to know if they see you as a number or as a personl. Although some legit people won’t have the time to reply to all the emails they get.
Cristina, yes I think #4 is one of the more important ones. After all THEY make money using one consistent strategy so why wouldn’t they teach that too?
Kind regards, Rob
Thanks for suggestions in this post. I agree with all your points. I was receiving really informative emails from an internet marketer but then lately it appears all they contain is several promotional links and nothing of value – so now I dont even read them – and I am sure I am not the only one either. They are confusing too as she is sending readers to three different sites in the one email.
If I send her a query in an email she rarely responds. My view is that if you market via email you should be prepared to respond to all emails no matter how many you receive – maybe with online virtual assistants.
Thanks for all the great value and information that I receive via your emails and blog.
Moira
Hi Moria,
Thanks for sharing that with us.
Yes, I agree that there is no excuse for not replying. Having a virtual assistant to do that is totally acceptable (there are only so many hours in the day after all). But not replying at all is really bad I think regardless of whether your doing online business of offline business.
Rob
Hi Rob,
You raise some very helpful points here!
I’ve definitely felt ‘scammed’ in the past, several times, over and over. I consider I’ve had a mental illness (as yet undiagnosed because it’s so new) and it has taken a few years to develop.
I once bought into a course that stated ‘NO WEBSITE NEEDED’ only to find it banged on about “setting up your site” in order to… Yawn…
Talking of online marketers, I’m on one guy’s list and although he does 1.Promote lots of different things (and you may recommend unsubscribing) he makes me laugh no end – his videos are hilarious and his grammar is priceless – he can’t spell the word Affiliate (bless him). Should I tell him it’s not — A F F I L A I T E ? I’m resistant as I feel a bit mean and “cocky” :/
ps.there’s something biblical about your header
Thank you for being so honest with your comments Anita, I really appreciate that.
It’s worth staying subscribed to that marketer by the sounds of it! I shouldn’t criticise spelling mistakes myself as I’m far from perfect, but if you’re getting amusement out of it then why not!?
Nice to see you here on the blog – hope to see you back soon 🙂
Take care,
Rob
P.S. Glad you like the banner, I never thought of it in that way!
Hi Rob
I totally agree with Dee. there are too many snake oil salesmen and carpet baggers on the net. The biggest hurdle as you so rightly say is knowing who to trust. I recently recieved an offer from a well known internet marketer from the singapore area, which on first glance looked excellent. I was about to take up the offer when my wife said lets look into this a little further and after a tour of the forums found it to be a total scam. Which just goes to show a little research goes
a long way and certainly saved me from parting with cash i would unlikely see again.
Anyway on a more cheerful note, I really enjoyed the taking payments online webinar really excellent LETS HAVE SOME MORE
BEST REGARDS
james
James,
Yes there are definitely a lot of scams out there. I hope this post doesn’t create a sense of paranoia amongst my subscribers though. We shouldn’t forget that there are a lot of genuine, hard working and honest people in internet marketing too!
Glad you enjoy the webinar, thanks for the feedback. Most of the webinars we do are inside the members area but I’m sure I’ll be doing more for general subscribers time to time as well. 🙂
Cheers! Rob
I have to challenge you a little on this article Rob.
When you talk about the people who market different types of products (number 4 inyour list) – aren’t you walking a bit of a tightrope with regards to your own activities?
You yourself work with and for Nick Laight as a writer for his Internet Income Detective newsletter (along with Jon Street, Avril Harper, Sharon Fussell etc etc)
And I think you also have articles in the “What Really Makes Money” newsletter as well?
Well Nick promotes lots of products that are not linked to each other – products about selling on Amazon, about setting up subscription web-sites, about setting up local advertising initiatives…..the list goes on….
Admittedly he also provides a lot of content through the writers (such as yourself) but he certainly fits in with your comment about “Kindle on Monday, offline business on Tuesday……”
His system of delivery is a lot slicker than a lot of the folks who work exclusively by email – but doesn’t the fact that he promotes all of these different areas mean that there is room for (genuine) providers like that?
Kind regards
Kevin
I have to disagree about Nick. Basically he is a copywriter who originally worked for Agora, and he has created his own superb information marketing business which was initially through using his copywriting skills and via advertisements. A similar business to Agora and Streetwise Marketing.
He has moved with technology and has adapted his business model for the internet. My observations as a long-time customer are that he only promotes products that he is happy with. His customer service is outstanding, so there is no hassle if you try a product and return it.
If any internet marketer wishes to take time out to write articles on their own area of expertise, then good luck to them. There is NO conflict with their online customer service, and certainly I havent seen articles written eg by Rob that promote products that they too are not happy with.
We all have a range of skills and backgrounds that we learned before tackling online businesses, so we should feel comfortable making recommendations in any “field” that we are qualified to make judgement upon.
The issue is with the blaggers who PRETEND to have an expertise just because they have a large database of (once) happy customers.
Hi Ian
I do get the distinction and I would agree the Canonbury is very much in the same vein as Streetwise Marketing (are they still around?)
I should perhaps point out that I was in no way denigrating Nick’s company – I am a long time customer of Canonbury and aim to remain so as they consistently present very iinteresting business ideas.
But without the sort of background that Nick Laight has (as you said he is an excellent copywriter and long-time publisher) it is very hard for other businesses of this ilk to get going.
I know that there are many scammers out there.
But there are also a lot of people who are trying to present legitimate products. But because they only have a small list to sell to – they tend overdo the marketing of these products in an attempt to stay solvent.
In the end of course – we can all choose wether or not to buy….
Hi Kevin,
Thanks for your comment – always happy to be challenged!
Yes, I do a fair bit of guest posting for Nick to generate traffic for my own sites. You’re also right that he doesn’t seem to conform to that particular rule. However, keep in mind:
1. A lot of those products you mention are in the biz-op niche so by definition there will be a variety of promotions as this is exactly what people subscribed for. Perhaps this is a bit of an exception to my test?
2. This is just 1 of the 5 tests that I mentioned. What happens if you send him an email, ask whether the products he promotes have been tested properly and so on. I know also he doesn’t just promote product after product, he offers a good deal of free value too.
With regard to point one I DO believe it is important to move from the biz-op mindset and focus on just one strategy, so I see your point and ultimately it is up to everyone to apply my tests (or their own) and decide for themselves.
Cheers – Rob
Thanks Rob – I have always found Canonbury to be excellent in their customer service and as I say in another posting – I am a long time customer of theirs.
And I now see that I should really be applying all 5 tests before playing “Devil’s advocate”…..lol
By the way – very much enjoyed your article “How to make money with webinars” in this month’s edition of Internet Income Detective – it arrived today so the timing couldn’t have been better for your article here….
Onwards and (hopefully) upwards….
Hello Rob.
You have made some very good points here. I would like to say regarding what Kevin said, there is no harm in writing for other people. I mean we are all I believe on the net to provide information about whatever niche we are in and to make m-o-n-e-y at the end of the day. Unless you are loaded and just doing it as a hobby.I myself have being scammed on more than one occasion. These scammers are very good at what they do. I have decided to insubscribe from all of them and to just concentrate on what I am doing. If I have a question I will ask you Rob as you are the one I have learned the most from.
Have a great day.
Ray
Hi Ray,
I like how your Health Remedies blog is coming along – good work!
Cheers,
Rob
Hi Ray
I’m not saying that Rob (ir anyone) shouldn’t write for other providers – in fact I welcome it as it makes life a lot more interesting.
But the people he writes for (Nick Laight is the example I am using) seem to fit into the very people he’s warning us about in point 4.
So isn’t it slightly disingenuous to be promoting yourself through these people and then warning your own subscribers to avoid them?
Unless Rob has another slant on this which I would be very interested to hear about.
Rob. Very interesting article and subsequent thread.
I now always get concerned when someone that I have bought something from sends out an email that includes a link to a “good friend”. Invariably I suspect that the “good friend” is nothing more than a commercial acquaintance via a large % affiliate fee.
I like to have evidence of their long-standing connection, and why they are a friend. This is something that their copywriting should include!
Healthy scepticism needed!!!
Hi Ian,
Yes the “good friend” is often overused. Sometimes it true of course. I do think that as people get more advanced with their internet marketing and start to network with other people it’s important to be selective about who their work with.
But again, this is just good practice for any person in business, not just internet marketing!
Thanks as always for your comments!
Rob
Another one to add to the list: Do they answer blog comments? – you are of course a good example 🙂
Cheers,
Dave.
Hey Dave – of course, yes that’s a great point! I know some VERY successful marketers who do exactly this so that just goes to show there is no excuse not for engaging with your subscribers.
Cheers! Rob
Hi Rob,
I particularly agree with point 5 – i was recently interested in a product promoted by a very well respected marketer. I had a few questions and emailed the prodiuct owner 3 times at 2 different email addresses he owned, but received no reply. Needless to say, I didn’t purchase the product, and it was a monthly subscription too, so he shot himself in the foot there.
What annoyed me was the waste of my time – I unsubscribed from his list! 🙂
Mary
Hi Mary,
Thanks for posting your comment – it’s nice to see you here on the GHG blog. 🙂
Yes, that’s a great thing to do actually. After watching a sales presentation I find I often have a question or two that I’d like answering so I email the product creators. If I don’t get a reply then I usually don’t buy. I think that’s fair, customer service should always be as high as you can make it.
Cheers – Rob
Good points Rob!
If there is no value of being on list, i dont stay on it – pure and simple. You can tell the good guys from the brady bunch who are just keep pushing useless products at you to make a fast buck. What they (brady bunch) forget is when someone hits that unsubscribe button they’re gone forever..
Lo
Hi Lo,
It’s just a numbers game for a lot of marketers like I said. They’d rather lose a few subscribers who get upset because instead of spending time on customers service they can spend it on acquiring a bunch of new leads. Business-wise it works, at least in the short term but I think it’s definitely to the detriment of long term reputation.
Thanks for your input!
Rob
Excellent advice Rob! Thank you.
I have been struggling with that question for quite a while.
Robert
Hey Robert – glad you liked the post! Cheers – Rob
Hello Rob …
Kickstart? Farewell Old Friend, Gone But Not Forgotten!
yes, I know, ”long time no see” but I keep in touch with your excellent content via your Kick Start messages and these nice little extra messages. After reading your last that Kick Start has all but finished, I think it merits grateful thanks for bringing some sanity back to the basics of Internet marketing via Kickstart. I’m a long time sufferer of Information Overload and its time to act on your advice and Kick Start my own path to online success. So hopefully you will hear more from me on a regular basis.
Must go, I’ve a backlog of your videos to watch! In meantime, I hope the teaching side of your ”operations” goes from strength to strength because there are a lot of appreciative people out here for your dedicated efforts, including me!
With my very best wishes … Andrew
Hi Andrew,
Great to hear for you – a long time indeed!
Glad you’ve been enjoying the content, please enjoy the blog updates going forward too and let me know if I can help you with anything 🙂
Kind regards,
Rob
Canonbury, when pushed, do refund – but twice I have had to remind them.
Unfortunately they are not that good in answering.
I have bought a couple of £500 plus products from them , only to be disappointed – it was in my early days and thought it was me so didnt refund.
But twice bitten etc., I have asked in the past 6 months, on 3 premium priced products, questions pre purchase and on NONE was there a response. And 2 of them I followed up with seperate messages to the vendors own websites, again the queries ignored.
Likewise Agora. The appear to sell ou of date rhubarb, the 2 I bought anyway, and did not respond to queries, so I refunded on both.
Rob is doing things the right way, which unfortunately (!) means he will grow and then possibly use a ticket system when I will walk away.
Chris Farrell was the best, then he got to big and got a ticket system.
The absurdity is that a good few months ago, he announced his wife was ill and a London meeting at which I had arranged to meet him, was cancelled.
I sent a “good wishes and get well” message, which received an automated reply telling me off for writing direct and that I should submit my message through a ticket
How bonkers is that !
I unsubscribed
Essentially, specialisation is the thing and I have found those people sticking to a particular niche are the ones who are in it because they actually like that niche and are pleased to correspond. Through that with one particular marketeer I am now at last making modest progress and building up my own small group of contacts and am determined not to deviate from that path. It’s hard enough to make progress in one never mind flying off in different directions
Hi Colin,
Thanks for your comment. 🙂
Obviously your experiences are your own and I can’t respond to the individual cases you cite. My points in these comments and the original post are really more general and are about all marketers (myself very much included!).
The only thing I would have perhaps reacted differently to is when I receive a ticket response. As you rightly say I still just have email myself. But provided the responses are high quality and are timely I don’t have a problem with ticket systems per se. I know from experience that the streams of emails can be really hard to keep track of and especially as some get filtered as spam and people sometimes respond with new emails instead of just hitting reply. So as I grow I definitely foresee me implementing one just to improve customer service and so it’s less time intensive on my side.
I’d very very sorry to lose you at that point Colin as I know you’ve contributed a lot to the Gain Higher Ground project. I’d understand though, it might just be a no no for you.
In the meantime, thanks again for contributing and I hope to see you back here again soon – you’re views are always welcome!
Rob
Hi Colin
I have read your comments about Canonbury with great interest.
It is worrying that you have not have a good experience with them in terms of customer service.
I will admit here that I have not been in the position of asking for a refund as at this point – so I haven’t experienced that side of things.
My comments about my customer experience were based on finding their office easy to contact (though I think they were in a serviced office situation back then – so it as third party contact)
I was asking about a book that hadn’t turned up as quickly as I expected and they looked into it straight away. They then assured me that it was on the way. It arrived the next day (so it obviously had been “in the post” as I had been assured that it was)
But I will tread a bit more carefully having read of your experiences with them.
Thanks
Kevin
Rob, your comments are appreciated. I only raised Agora and Canonbury as on e of your contributors appears to praise canonbury at least.
I must add that the ONE reply I had on a canonbury product pre purchase was from yourself ! So YOPU are doing it right.
That I didn’t buy the product was that I couldn’t, apparantly, use the trading platform I have learned, and being mechanically dyslexic, to learn the technicaities of another would be far to tortous for me. Same as website creation whatever the tools !!
Colin
I’ve really enjoyed the comments here and, of course, Rob’s initial Blog Post. Just as with leaving reviews on products one purchases, leaving comments on Blogs takes initiative and one review or comment represents many more people who feel similarly but who don’t take the time to write. So, the subject matter of this Post is a HUGE issue!
I began the practice a couple of months ago of unsubscribing from sellers who would not respond to my emails and then I following it up with refunding. What these sellers don’t seem to appreciate (or care to) is that building websites and doing SEO for the novice to intermediate is very time consuming and when one is “in the groove” and has momentum going, to have to then wait days and days to get support or a clarification from the seller/developer, brings everything to a halt in many cases. Morale just gets blown out the door.
I believe one should treat the IM world the same way they would any non-IM business. I wouldn’t accept that kind of treatment from any other type of business and I sure as heck am not going to accept it from IMers.
If you think about it, much of the basic template from which all IMing sprung was conceived by a well-known IMer who “cut his teeth” as a car salesman! What an impact that IMer made!
I’ve got nothing in particular against car sales-people. Heck, they just do what they are trained to do – just like us! But one would have to have never visited a car dealership to be blind to the striking parallels (upsells,downsells,OTO’s,get them on a list,…need I go on?). Even the words are straight out of the car sales industry.
Great job, Rob!
Hi Michael,
Thanks a lot for taking the time to make these great points.
Agreed on the car salesmen – I have no problem with them either and I have no issue with those tactics being used in IM actually. The only real thing that matters is the quality of the products. There are some GREAT quality products in IM but also a lot of trash. Steering between the two is tricky and my 5 guidelines here can certainly be expanded upon and developed.
Let’s NOT get to cynical about IM though. It IS a great industry and there are real genuine people making serious money in non IM-niches.
Cheers,
Rob
and here is an example of what can happen when an internet marketer does not deliver on promises or guarantees, as the guy says what goes round…. [LINK REMOVED BY ROB]
Hi Peter,
These situation do happen I’m afraid, in internet marketing and other industries too.
I had to remove the link in your comment Peter – I hope you understand! The spirit of Gain Higher Ground is about exactly that: Let’s all look to the positives and seek out and implement the right information. If I allow one link to negative experiences that I can’t verify for myself then the flood gates might open themselves!
Thanks for your contribution though – hope to see you back here on GHG soon!
All the best,
Rob
No problem Rob, perhaps I can put it this way nobody should go blindly into buying internet marketing products (especially hundreds or thousands of pounds worth) without doing some research. With the search engines we all have available just put in the product or IM name followed by review and that can be quite an insight. Having said that you do need to take an independent and balanced view of what you find.
Hi Rob
The number and variety of comments on your blogs (this blog included) goes to illustrate the need for objective as opposed to subjective thinking. It is patently obvious that a blog’s worth should be measured in the discussion it encourages. I can also see that showing genuine interest in good blogs could certainly prove to be an excellent traffic generator as you have emphasised.
I would like to offer a comment on the need for a clearly defined action plan. As a ‘limited techie bod’ I think that internet marketing is very difficult as a solo operation. I am an advocate of pooling manpower resources by tying up with friends etc. who each have specific skills in a particular area.
Hardware, software, web design and product creation are just a sample of disciplines which are pretty much essentials. I wouldn’t recommend more than 3 or 4 to make up an informal company but it could easily be an answer to the overload problem and thus accelerate progress.
All should be on equal remuneration and should be capable of performing general work within the group. It is better to get 25% of something rather than 100% of nothing and also the old adage ‘horses for courses’ springs to mind.
Having spent 2 years getting nowhere I’m going to put this into practise – or test it out anyway.
Great blog Rob
Cheers
Ken
Ken – I like that idea !
Are you going to try to collect some like minded people ?
Hi Colin
Thanks for your comment. In answer to your question – yes I am.
Perhaps we could keep in touch and see how things develop. At the moment I’m working on my site which gives away public domain books in the self help niche with the sole idea initially of building a list.
As to how I will eventually monetise my efforts…..?….?
Regards
Ken
Ken & Colin,
If you’d like me to put you in touch with each other let me know at:
rob (@) gainhigherground.com
More than happy to oblige 🙂
Rob
I’ve been on a number of lists where all the marketer does is promote their “friend’s” products. As soon as I see the affiliate disclosure a number of times I unsubscribe. They never have their own product so they aren’t showing me they can do much more than market. Also when I see a marketer promoting different products like you mentioned Rob, everyday they are promoting in a different niche, I’ll unsubscribe. Other marketers I will unsubscribe from are the ones who don’t offer any education to their subscribers. I’ve stayed on you list because you offer education about IM and do not just bombard your subcribers with promotion after promotion.
Hey Joan,
Thanks for your comment – glad to see you here on the blog 🙂
Totally agree with what you’re saying – it’s great advice to others suffering from information overload.
Of course, I do promote myself and right now I’m in the middle of a push for GHG Membership (until Thursday) but generally I try to keep a much higher ratio of content to promotions than average. I’d really recommend this to others too as it builds more value and trust with your subscribers.
Cheers!
Rob
I totally agree with everything that said in this post Rob..I lost count how many times I have emailed or asked for assistance via the hellp desk and got no reply at all..are your customers important or just a number and a way of making more money for themselves.
It’s sure great to see a marketer that truly looks after their customers/subscribers..having only just come cross your membership site Gain Higher Ground..I will be signing up shortly to learn from someone that truly wants to help his members/customers succeed
thanks Rob
Hi Mikaeri,
Thanks for your thoughts 🙂
Customer service is a very important point to me both when I am the customer and I’m dealing with my own customers. I mentioned in the post I very seldom refund anything but when I do it’s often because of poor or not existent support!
Will be great to see you inside the members area and talk soon I’m sure 🙂
Kind regards,
Rob