Internet Marketing – Simple, Honest, Ethical?

Thank you for your support and for
following our progress. I hope they
have been interesting and useful to
you.

Your thoughts and recommendations
are always welcome.

Today, we have a case study which
illustrates a sales funnel. I have
changed the name to Today’s product,
as the review is not complimentary.John Thornhill, my mentor, works with
the structure of

‘Simple, Honest, Ethical’.
I follow his lead in my profession.

This is the review. I attach a picture
of the sales funnel, which does not
copy onto my autoresponder.

The seller appears successful, though
the reviewer has doubts that buyers
will enjoy the same success.

Neither I nor the reviewer

have bought the product.

So, what’s happening here?

So, the way he earns lots of money from
so little work is he uses an
autoresponder.

He can then include links to products
within those automatically sent emails.

But he says it takes him 15 to 20
minutes to MAINTAIN. That doesn’t mean
it takes such little time to set up in
the first place. I bet it does take
considerably longer than that to really
get this system set up.

I’m intrigued by the last item, “Where
the REAL Money is”. I suspect that
refers to the whole JV launch process,
which includes getting other internet
marketers to promote your products, and
upselling people on expensive
additional products. More about that
below.
.
How much does Today’s product cost?
The initial price of the product is
just $8.95. That sounds great, right?
To be shown how to make thousands of
dollars per month so easily, only for
$8.95. That’s amazing! As he said in
the video above, he’s only charging
less than 10 dollars for this. But this
is a lie because he is going to try to
upsell you on a bunch of additional
products which cost more.

What does this mean?

1.    After you have agreed to buy the
main product for just $8.95, you will
get presented with an offer to buy
another product for $37.
2.    if you decline, the price is reduced
to $17.
3.    Then you are offered another product
for $67.
4.    If you turn this offer down, it gets
reduced to $37.
5.    Finally, there is one last product
offered to you for $897.
6.    If you decline that, it gets reduced
to $197.
In total, if you were to buy all of
this for full price, it would cost you
$1,009.95 – more than 10 times the
original price!

(You earn 100% commission on the first
product, 50% on all other products
sold.)

Why does he do this?

Because it works. It’s a very effective
sales tactic. Once you have agreed to
buy one product, you are in buying
mode.

Then it’s much easier to convince
you to buy additional products for more
money, especially if they can convince
you that they will make the first
product even more effective.

This kind of behaviour is so common in
the internet marketing world, it’s not
even funny anymore. They do it because
it works, but that doesn’t make it
right.

It is a deceptive way to trick
you out of spending more money. Surely,
you don’t HAVE to buy the products, but
the way they are presented makes it
very difficult to turn them down.

And I strongly suspect this is how this
guy manages to make so much money every
month with such little work.

He sells these products which

promise to tell
people how to make money, and he has
these ridiculous upsell funnels which
squeeze as much money out of people as
possible.

Yeah, pay me $1,000 and I’ll show you
how to make $10,000 by tricking 10
people into each paying you $1,000.

See?

Methods to make money:
The first method he mentions is
surveys, which I really wouldn’t
recommend. I don’t think he does
either, he just wanted a point to start
from.

The 2nd method is doing small
jobs on freelance sites. That’s
probably an okay way to go, but you’re
still just getting paid for your time.

His 3rd and favourite method is to
build up a popular YouTube channel.
Some people can be very successful with
YouTube, but I think you do need to get
very popular. I think he’s popular
because his videos are all about how to
make money online, which a lot of
people are searching for.

Scam is a very harsh word. I should
maybe stop short of accusing Today’s
product of being a full-on scam. After
all, it doesn’t seem to do anything
illegal.

However, the insanely huge
upsell funnel is a big concern of mine.
So perhaps this is as close to a scam
that something can get without actually
being a scam.

Should you buy Today’s product?
Personally, I don’t think you should
buy it. You’re going to get sucked into
the whole upsell style product launch
game. Sure, there is a lot of money to
be made through that, but at what cost?
You will be using deceptive tactics to
squeeze as much money out of people as
possible. Do you want that on your
conscience?
Is there an alternative?

Yes, there is. You can learn how to
build an awesome website about one of
your passions or interests. Surely you
must have something you are interested
in or passionate about? Whatever it is,
you can create a high-quality website
which really helps people. This builds
people’s trust, and then they are more
likely to trust the products you
recommend.’

The reviewer has been in IM much longer
than I, but is critical of the
structure rather than the content.

As an affiliate (sales agent), you
could earn up to $500 from introducing
each buyer.

If the downsells, promoted to those

who decline full price are the same

as the upsell, this is not ethical.

The downsell should have

some products eliminated from the
upsell, to show you that the lower
price means less content.

Otherwise, it is a sales funnel that
your teachers will be helping you to
copy. If you do not have upsells
of $100 or more, you will never make
serious money from IM.

The comment: ‘once you have agreed to
buy one product, you are in buying
mode. Then it’s much easier to convince
you to buy additional products for more
money, especially if they can convince
you that they will make the first
product even more effective.’

This is how IM works. The buyer has a
guarantee that should be honoured by
the seller, if the product does not
meet specifications.

Income claims (for the buyer)
are rarely made directly as the seller
does not control the buyer’s
operational actions.

The basic product should stand on its
own and operate (as promised on the
sales page) without any upsells.

I do not consider it either dishonest, or
unethical, to offer additional products
that help buyers improve performance
and/or accelerate results. The buyer
can stop buying at any time.

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