(photocredit: ItsaFineDay)5 Secret ways to finding Internet Marketing Training that works.
Summation: Community
This is the bottom line to all the research I've been at for all these years.
I looked over several ways people trained themselves up on making money online. There's a lot to it, but only three ways I've found so far are routinely held as working.
- 30 Day Challenge (free) http://www.thirtydaychallenge.com/
- SiteBuildIt (monthly fees) http://www.sitebuildit.com/
- Internet Marketing Center (much more expensive) http://www.marketingtips.com/
(Now I've got affiliate links for the last two, but they aren't included here - this is just free info for you to check out. Maybe I'm crazy, but just hear me out...)
The reason I can tell these sites work is because people are talking positively about them. Far more than run them down.
Here's a hint: Want to find out the low-down and dirty about something? Type in "(insert company name) scam" and you'll quickly find out if they are rip-offs.
But what you won't find are the many and real thank you letters and posts from people who they have helped. Go to these sites (and the more higher priced, the more you get the sales treatment) and check them out. You'll probably see some cherry-picked testimonials, but you'll also find forums and blogs where people honestly are thanking them for all their hard work and continuing effort on this line.
I mention these three because those are the only ones I've found to date with very high ratings by their own community.
That last phrase says it all - by their own community. If a company is a success, they've built a loyal following. Loyal. Like MACs, not Microsoft or IBM. Like Ubuntu and Linux distro's in general. This is the real point of marketing - building up a client base which doesn't quit, even after they've bought all you have to offer.
I've told you earlier (on a related blog if not this one so much) about setting myself up for a scam through Internet Income Solutions, BidFuel, and Bright Builders. These guys are all scammers. Not the people who work for them at lower levels - the ones I've talked to seem to be good, hardworking people. But the founders are scammers. Because they simply don't deliver.
What you won't find connected to any of these companies is a real, honest, active forum and community. Their customers don't stick with them for any reason. Because they don't deliver.
Those three companies above are based on simply overpricing Internet training to people who don't know better and then piling on monthly hosting fees and other nonsense to pull some more money from them. On top of that, they then sell their names as many times as possible to other scam-artists.
Actually, if you do get through their training, you can learn a lot. But people like me (who really should have known better - and do now) don't get anything out of it, because we've already been active for years in this industry and have a pretty good idea of how to make things happen.
What they don't tell you at the outset is that only about 3-5% of the people who sign up for their training make any decent money at it - much less recoup their investment. So the company makes their money by selling a whole lot of packages, under-delivering, and moving on. The bottom line is that they aren't set up to really help you make a decent living at this and don't really care if you do or not. They are only in it for the money. And this is why it is a rip-off.
I mentioned the underlings aren't that way. True. Nice folks. But they are limited in what they can offer and do. Bright Builders, for instance, really only gives you 4 hours of training on a line of 15 minutes once a week, every other week. They've since merged with a newcomer, Thrive Learning Institute (already noted as a scam - with more incidents being added regularly) - who now gives you two sessions of 30 minutes each week for four weeks. Adds up to the same. Pay your $6,000 and get very expensive lessons at stuff you can learn on your own for free. If you know what you're doing, you can get them to cut out the extra expenses, as you can do all of this with much cheaper hosting - but if you really know what you are doing, you don't sign up with them to begin with...
Anyway - they don't have a community for one simple reason: corporately, they don't care.
Simple.
Their corporation is there to make as much money as they can as fast as they can, and they see some suckers born on the Internet every minute. The guys they suck in don't know their way around the Internet and so click on one of these free training (for 15 days, and then they charge you $39.95 monthly thereafter - thanks, BidFuel).
Moral of the story:
- Never give your credit card data online (or over the phone) unless you've thoroughly checked out the company and all of their fine print. Same for your phone number.
- Always send your sign-up email address requests to a free email address you can throw away.
- Find out if that company has a real community before you pay anything, or agree to anything. Investigate that community and read their posts and comments. Thoroughly.
- Look them up on various scam boards (like RipoffReports.com) to see if they come up - and then compare these to their community comments to see if they are just sour grapes.
There you have it - and I hope you have incredible success in whatever you try.
PS. Why don't I link to Bright Builders, Internet Income Solutions, Thrive Learning Institute, or BidFuel? Because they aren't worth it. They don't get their traffic by using search engines or the marketing lessons they teach - because they depend on hooking up with telemarketing companies and their scammy salespeople.
PPS. Probably we should set up a support group community for Bright Builder survivors - for now, just head over to 30 Day Challenge's FriendFeed room - they'll help you out for nothing.
