A journey from Internet marketing stasis to business mastery and financial freedom (I hope)

… They’re a bit tough to start off with, but as you chew on them for a while, they soften up and begin to stick. Then after some time, they get a bit old and manky and you have to throw them in the bin!

And so it is with my business plans.

I’ve tried so many things, I don’t know whether I’m currently on Plan E, H or Q. So I’m going to start from scratch and outline my new Business Plans A, B and C.

Plan A
Here’s where I continue what I’m doing with my software business. Now I don’t know whether it’s the current economic climate, increasing competition or other factors but sales are not what they should be and I wonder about the future of this business. I think it has great potential but it’s a struggle and requires huge effort for relatively poor reward.

Plan B
This is where I finally decide once and for all to get into the Information Publishing business properly instead of just dabbling and thinking about it. A low-cost entry opportunity has come up and I want to really go for it. I’ll tell you exactly what it is in a moment but when I do, please hold back from yelling out “sucker!” at your screen. Think it by all means, just try not to let it out loud .

Plan C
Now Plan C is really an extension of Plan B and here’s where I get really serious about the whole thing. I don’t want to reveal exactly what this is right now but it involves a day of training and ongoing mentoring to help me started and make it all happen. Yeah, I’ll be surprised if I learn anything truly new on the day but I really think the mentoring will give me that extra kick to make sure I get on with what needs to be done. It’s expensive though. Only time will tell if it’s worth it.

So, what’s “Plan B” all about?

Well, it’s about a little trip to Brighton at the end of the month to Andrew Reynold’s latest 3-day Entrepreneur’s Bootcamp (hey, I heard you – I said keep it to yourself).

So Andrew’s at it again, doing what he does best; organising big marketing events and pulling in top speakers from all over the globe.

Now I’ve been to enough of these things to know what to expect. It’s going to be a pitch-fest. No doubt about that!

Sure, there will be some nuggets of great information given out by the speakers, but no single, coherent plan to follow. And all of the speakers are there for one reason only – to sell their products, courses or mentoring programmes. Why else would they do it?

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with that. They’re in business to make money and I certainly wouldn’t expect them to appear purely out of the kindness of their hearts. I just want to point out that whatever people think the event is about, it might not be quite what they expect.

So why am I going?

Two reasons:

(1) It’s for charity. The meagre £149 entrance fee is going straight to The Make A Wish Foundation which is a fantastic charity. I’m sure AR will make plenty of money from the JV deals he’s surely made with the speakers, plus the DVD sales later on, but he should be applauded for putting up all the initial event costs and raising so much money for such worthy causes. And I want to support that.

(2) This time, he’s thrown in some resale licenses for physical products (CDs/DVDs). Now apart from not being in “make money” markets, we have no idea what these are and how many there are.

And I’m not stupid (well, not very stupid anyway). I know there’ll be about 3000 other punters, all being given the same licenses. But if there’s a reasonable number of different product licenses (say 5) and only 10% of punters (at best) do anything with them, the numbers start to look a bit better.

I figure that if Andrew truly believes that decent money can be made with these product licenses then there’s every reason to believe that I should be able to make money with them, so long as I take immediate action.

So that’s the plan. Go to the event, pick up the licenses, try to figure out what the markets are and how to best approach them, pick my 2 favourites, make contacts to get the ball rolling and maybe look for supporting back-end products too.

Let’s see if I can really make this work the way we’ve been ‘promised’ it can.

Then again, there’s always Plan C…

Despite my New Year resolution to post to this blog every 2 weeks or so, I decided to concentrate on my business for a few months so I haven’t had the time. But something today compelled me to write again…

About a month ago I got an invite to Andrew Reynolds’ latest “Millionaire’s Bootcamp” down in Bournemouth. Apart from a £150 donation to Gt. Ormond Street Hospital (a very worthy charity in my opinion) it was basically a free event. It looked really good on paper but I quickly realised that it was going to be a re-hash of the 2005 Wembley event and “not quite what it says on the tin” (please correct me if I was wrong).

Needless to say, I didn’t go. I didn’t want to be subjected to yet another pitch-fest. Yes, there would have been lots of snippets of information that I could use to make myself a millionaire but not a detailed, coherent plan as promised.

So this morning, I got a “Greetings from Bournemouth” postcard offering me the Earth plus a few neighbouring planets completely for free and with absolutely no catch, as long as I responded by midnight tonight (well, I hope Postie managed to deliver it on time). The postcard, of course, led to a mammoth online sales page – the kind that Andrew Reynolds does so well.

Now, to my mind, when something says it’s “COMPLETELY FREE” and with “NO CATCH” and repeats this message throughout the letter, I kind of think that maybe it shouldn’t cost anything. Maybe I’m just a little weird but when it then goes on to say that all I need to do is pay £697 + VAT, I get a little peeved. Now I wouldn’t mind so much if it was a £200 donation to Gt. Ormond Street but this is money going straight to Mr. Reynolds pocket and he says “just £697″ like it isn’t really that much to ask. Not in his world maybe, but it is in mine!

There must have been some cosmic event last night where the word “free” suddenly changed its meaning. I do hope it wasn’t just a gimmick to grab attention and brainwash us into thinking the price was insignificant… No, he’d never do that, would he?

I really want to like Andrew Reynolds because I think his heart is basically in the right place and, having met him a few times, I think he’s a really nice guy. But from a marketing standpoint, every encounter I’ve had with him lately (ever since last year’s World Internet Summit actually) has left me less and less impressed. His systems surely work – they make him a ton of money out of suckers like me – but the sales letters seem to leave a bitter taste in my mouth.

And just don’t get me started on the “US-To-UK Deals Workshop” he arranged with Tim Lowe…

Yes, I’m still following Rich Schefren’s Business Growth System, though I use the term “following” a little loosely here because, the truth is, I’m way behind with it and I’ve also been struggling to see how I can apply some of it to my business. But that probably just means that I need to review the material and put some more thought and effort into it.

One thing Rich has concluded from running the course up to this point is that there have been too few “contact points” with us on the monthly program. I think that’s true. Life has a habit of getting in the way and providing distractions and without a regular reminder, the BGS has become a bit of a background activity for me. Even with the Q&A calls in between the monthly modules, I think communication could have been a lot better.

So after months of speculation, a couple of weeks ago we finally got firm dates for the seminar and it’s coming up fast – the weekend of February 10th and 11th. I guess I should have been waiting for the confirmation, ready to book flights as soon as it came in but, after all the mucking about, I kind of lost interest so I’m still considering my options.

The seminar itself is part of the course so that’s essentially free. With travel, accommodation and expenses, I reckon it will cost me around £850 to attend. Then I have to factor in a few days of lost work through travel and jet lag. Still, it’s doable.

So what’s the seminar all about?

Well, to be honest, I’m not really sure. And that kind of bothers me. When you sign up for a regular seminar, there’s usually a 300 page sales letter that tells you exactly what to expect but in this case, since it’s just part of the course, the details are non-existent.

We’re told that Rich will:

• tell us what’s working and what’s not (in relation to what? his business? do I care? does it have any relevance to my business?)
• review ‘exciting’ new developments in store for us (!)
• expand on topics from the Business Growth System

And pretty much, word-for-word, that’s it. One paragraph. I think it’s a shame when these same gurus are telling us that we have to “sell” even the “free” stuff that we’re not given more information in which to make up our minds. Especially since the committment to go is quite significant for many people in both time and cost.

Despite questions being made, there are no further details on the forum except for the usual banter from people saying how great it will be and what a good opportunity it will be for networking and making JV deals.

Ahh, the networking aspect…

If I had a penny for everytime I’d heard that the real benefit of attending these seminars is not to listen to the speakers but to meet lots of people and make deals, then I’d probably have enough to buy a King Size Mars Bar by now (and they’re really expensive these days). Just bumping into the right guy at a seminar could be worth, ooh, I don’t know, two hundred thousand dollars or more. Yeah, right!

The thing is, I’ve been to a lot of these seminars and met a lot of great people (and a lot of not-so-great people), some of whom I’ve stayed in contact with and remain friends with. But in every case, apart from offering a little help and advice, neither of us have been in a position to help the other with any kind of JV deal for the simple reason that we’re in completely different markets and, apart from that, are not at the level of business where we can offer such help.

For that to be the primary motivation for going to an Internet Marketing seminar, I think one of the following 3 things must be true:

1. You’re in the “how to make money” business. In this case, half the people at the seminar will be potential partners.

2. You’re a personal or business coach. I think there’s a parallel here with the “making money” business with it’s broad applicability and “business boosting” potential.

3. You know exactly the sort of person you need to make a deal with and can hunt them down by talking to as many people as possible until you find them. But even if you talk to everybody, you still might not find someone suitable.

I’m really talking here about business/sales partners and not about finding good copywriters or services like fulfilment houses. You don’t need to go to a seminar to find them though you might meet someone who could give you a recommendation. That’s the networking side of things. But you do need to know exactly what you want first.

Otherwise, the chances of meeting someone that can accelerate your particular business is slim. You may meet lots of like-minded people and make lots of friends but don’t expect your business to explode as a result.

Okay, rant over. For now…

I’ve been doing more thinking than writing these last few weeks and it’s high time I caught up with my Summit notes. So here we are with day 3…

1. Rick Raddatz

Rick spent the first hour (well, maybe not quite that long) telling us a story about how he drove up to the mountains in a clapped out car and all the mishaps along the way. I think there was probably a point to the story and I’m sure there was a punchline. It might even have been funny. I can’t really remember. I didn’t write it down.

So Rick Raddatz is an audio/video guy. I had high hopes for this session but I think Rick spent too much time demonstrating his own A/V and Web site generation products and too little time explaining all the different ways we could use A/V to our advantage.

A few tips he did share:

• Ship something now and fix it later (this is a difficult one for perfectionists like me).
• Make a 3-year plan every 6 months.
• Use a video newsletter to build relationships (not sell). This is where you send a short email newsletter that directs readers to a web page that shows your video.
• Video and audio have about the same conversion rate improvements on sales letters so use audio because it’s easier and may even convert better.

Rick described six Internet business models that could all (not surprisingly) benefit from the use of audio or video:

1. Own a product or service.
2. Own a list.
3. Own a membership site.
4. Own traffic (advertising).
5. Own relationships (MLM).
6. Own your time (consultancy).

We’re all different so the idea here is to figure out which business model is right for you and why.

Before the official part of the sales pitch (it was all one big pitch really), Rick suggested an exercise that I really liked:

1. Spend 3 minutes writing down all the reasons why you can’t take immediate action.
2. Hand these to a partner who then pretends they’re you.
3. As they read each reason, explain to them why they’re full of crap!

I thought that was excellent! Haven’t tried it yet though. Maybe I need to write my reasons for that down and hand it to a partner…

Pitch: Lifetime use of 4 products + some coaching.

Cost: $1500?

2. David Cavanagh

David is a very straight talking Australian and was quite entertaining. He went through many of the steps required to create a simple business from scratch, starting with picking a niche, finding a problem, finding a solution, and then building a web site to sell it.

He went through it very quickly and said we’d be sent a copy of the steps so I didn’t write many notes. I’m still waiting though.

It was a hugely popular presentation and he had no end of takers for his training package, coaching programme and workshop in Thailand (where he lives). I think a sensible choice for people starting out (most of the audience).

Pitch: Training package, coaching, workshop.

Cost: $5000

3. Ted Ciuba

Ted Ciuba acted as the main host for the event and he did a pretty good job of it.

His presentation was mostly about Napoleon Hill’s classic “Think and Grow Rich” book, how Ted knows more about it than anyone else and how much better (and not to mention valuable) the new version will be that he’s working on.

He was interesting to listen to but my lack of notes might be an indicator of how much useful info I got out of it. I think it was more about mindset than anything else.

Goal setting seemed to be a key factor (a familiar tune ringing in my ears) with the suggestion to:

1. Fix the exact amount you desire (we’re talking dollars here).
2. Determine exactly what you will give to get it.
3. Establish a definite date of possession.
4. Create a definite plan and jump into action.
5. Write it all out clearly in the PRESENT tense (”I have…”, “I am…”, etc).
6. Read aloud twice daily, enjoying your money!

It sounds great! I’ve done step 1 but I’m kind of struggling at step 2. I’m pretty good at making apple pie but I’m not sure if that will be quite enough to make my millions.

The other thing he said was to write down 1-year, 5-year, 10-year and lifetime goals. Then wrap it all up in some high denomination currency, like a 10,000 Japanese Yen note, so you can smell the money as you read your goals daily. Actually, I have some Iraqi Dinar that would be perfect but that’s another story…

Actually, there was a bunch of handouts from Ted about fortune principles and bringing products to market that looked very interesting but he didn’t actually go through any of that. Shame.

Pitch: “Think Rich” products, resale rights + workshop

Cost: $5000 + $45000 once $1m made (yeah, count the zeros)

4. Brett McFall

Poor Brett. He was supposed to take a morning slot but had to swap with David Cavanagh while he was in hospital having his arm seen to after falling down some stairs.

I like Brett. Maybe it’s because he’s a friendly faced Aussie. I first heard about him a couple of years ago from his involvement in Ed and Frank’s Underachiever system seminars. His BURPIES system for writing sales letter copy is very good and has worked well for me in the past.

Now Brett’s presentation was very curious. He started off by telling us to ‘be the general of the army and not a soldier’ (or something along those lines). In other words, we should leverage our time and direct operations while others do all the grunt work for us.

But then, he goes on to show us how to build a business where we do consultancy work building web sites for people and writing their sales copy. In other words, trading time for money and doing all the grunt work ourselves. Seems like a contradiction to me.

Maybe he was trying to show us how to start such a business and then hire other people and teach them how to do it for us. I’m not sure but I can’t see any other way to scale it up and not become a slave to the business.

In any case, apart from a really useful sheet full of ways to increase advertising response, here are a few things I took away from Brett’s talk:

• Take responsibility for your own success.
• Be different – have a USP.
• Once you’re successful with products, fill your ’spare time’ by offering services for even more cash.
• Find everything interesting!
• Never give up.
• Write 100 sales letter bullet points then choose just the best.
• If appropriate, offer holiday packages as bonuses (we can find these on Google for £20 – £30 apparently).
• Buy something as a bonus if you can still make a profit.
• Write testimonials for clients yourself and have them approve them; use the formula “Once I was lost, now I am found” (nice).
• To get better at something, teach it to someone else!
• Use of software turns beginners into professionals (use it to sell services).

Pitch: Web design business

Cost: $9100

5. Stephen Pierce

This time I was ready for Stephen Pierce. When I first saw him last November (on the same stage), his aggressive and arrogant presentational style really got by back up.

I understand where it comes from. He got in with the wrong crowd while growing up and has now completely turned his life around so he’s very passionate about helping other people achieve success. By all accounts, Stephen’s a really nice guy but, for some, his style takes some getting used to.

Stephen really does deliver the goods though. He talked a lot about mental attitude but also gave some specific techniques and advice for building a successful business.

On the mental front…

• Don’t undermine your worth by comparing yourself to others.
• Don’t take for granted the things closest to your heart.
• Don’t let your life slip through your fingers by living the past or the future.
• Don’t give up when you still have something to give (you can’t prove what you can’t do, you can only prove that you haven’t done it yet).
• Don’t be afraid to admit that you are less than perfect.
• Don’t be afraid to encounter risk.
• Don’t shut love out of your life by saying it’s impossible to find.
• Don’t run through life so fast that you forget not only where you’ve been but also where you’re going.
• Don’t be afraid to learn.
• Don’t use time or words carelessly.
• Life is a journey to be savoured every step of the way.

Stirring stuff that could probably be even more effective if re-framed in the positive.

There was further talk about setting goals but less in financial terms and more in the form of what that would bring. What is it that you really want? What are you really passionate about? That kind of thing.

There was a great example of a hypothetical car rolling down a hill, about to run over your child. Even if there were mounds of obstacles in the way, you’d do whatever it takes to save that child. No excuses! Compare that to the case of a shopping trolley instead of the child and that changes the situation entirely.

For some reason, this idea struck a chord with me. If I really, passionately want to achieve something then I should do whatever it takes to make it happen. But unless the passion and motivation is there, it’s easier to just sit back and watch while it all comes crashing to a halt. So what do I want? Answers on a postcard please…

Actually, Stephen got us to do a visualisation exercise (do we have to?) where we had to think about what it would mean to be successful and have financial freedom (if that is our goal).

I could have done without the cheesy background music but the effect on me was quite profound. If you don’t mind, I won’t share the details but suffice to say that I visualised some things I didn’t expect and mostly involving time with family and friends.

I had to write it all down immediately afterwards and even have “Wow” circled next to it in my notes. I’d never experienced the power of this kind of visualisation before and I must try it again.

Now my experience and emotions at the time may have been coloured by events of the day before (that I’ll reveal in another post) but it still made me rethink a few things about my life and where I’m going.

On the business side, there are two things worthy of note. The first is Stephen’s list of 12 ‘Strategic Degrees of Profit’ (SDP), or in plain English, different ways to make a profit from the same market:

1. Subscription profits (repeated, residual)
2. Post lead profits (follow up sales)
3. Direct sell profits (not recommended)
4. Lead selling profits (sell leads)
5. Pay per click profits (AdSense, banner ads, etc)
6. Advertising profits (show them a blog/site with traffic)
7. Pyramid profits (the funnel model)
8. Affiliate profits
9. Post sale profits (can break-even/lose money on front end)
10. License profits (intellectual property)
11. Blog profits (?)
12. Auction profits

The second thing is the advice to focus on and master one skill at a time. And the most important skill to master is Traffic:

• Amass traffic cheaply and use it, lend it or sell it at as high a price as possible.
• Getting traffic is the one key skill.
• Once you can get traffic you can send it wherever you want.
• Master this one thing, then build your business around it.
• A list is traffic in a holding pattern!

There’s other stuff Stephen talked about and even more I got from the seminar preview call he did with Ted Ciuba but I think that’s enough for now.

However, I will be writing another post about the way Stephen went about selling his coaching programme because it was quite amazing to watch and there are certainly lessons to learn from it.

Pitch: Coaching programme

Cost: $3994

So that was day 3 and after that lot, I think I deserve a nice cup of tea… Until next time!

After that dissapointing first day, I’m glad to say that day 2 was really excellent. That is apart from the first hour that was wasted with a pointless introduction to all of the speakers (those that were available anyway).

1. Mike Filsaime

Despite getting too many emails from him on a daily basis, I really like Mike Filsaime.

He presented very well and had all his slides prepared for us to download afterwards (I wish the other speakers had done this). Some of them were complex diagrams so it’s probably just as well.

I made about 6 pages of notes so I’ll try to pick out some of the main points:

• Begin with the end in mind and work backwards.
• Build a business that can run without you using automation, leverage and scalability (eBay is not scalable).
• Don’t be a perfectionist (one of my failings).
• Only work on 1 project at a time. Mike spent a lot of time on this with an example based around getting 4 projects done. This was one of the best parts of his presentation in my opinion.
• Keep an ‘Idea Book’ for noting down potential future projects (but don’t start them until the current project is done!).
• 3 ways to increase profits – Traffic, Conversion, Frequency (TCF)
• Traffic – more eyeballs: buy, borrow or create
• Conversion – more profit per eyeball: sell, up-sell, cross-sell
• Frequency – more sales per eyeball
• Use a funnel model – low cost front-end product with increasing cost back-end products. Make sure you have back-end products.
• Know your metrics. It’s possible to lose money on front-end product and advertising if metrics show an overall profit. Can even offer 110% commission to affiliates.

There was some other stuff Mike talked about but I got a bit confused toward the end with information overload. I made a note at the time to review the slides and make sure I got the DVDs to watch it over again.

Pitch: Mentoring programme with lots of bonuses including Mike’s Butterfly Marketing course

Cost: $1500 + $497 per month (min 12 months)

I think it’s a shame for Mike that he was on first. With the amount of great information he gave away I think he might have made more sales if he was on in the afternoon of day 3.

2. Morgan Westerman

Morgan was good. A natural presenter and a real showman. He gave out free donuts to everyone and “Interview With God” CDs (they ran out before they got to me) and actually ended with a spectacular magic trick. Very popular guy.

Morgan’s talk was all about buzz and how to create it. He defined buzz as “enthusiastic, positive gossip”.

• Word of mouth, referral marketing, viral marketing. We trust people we know; the barriers are gone.
• Viral = pushed into marketplace
• Word of mouth = pulled into marketplace
• Buzz = market penetration
• Exponential growth, X factor: anything greater than 1.0 = buzz
• Make the product a part of the communication process (e.g. hotmail, eBay).
• Have customers interact.
• Prompt customers to pass it on.
• Effective buzz campaign needs: Novelty, Effectiveness, Economy, Dependability, Simplicity.
• Turn visitors into evangelists. Customers buy an emotion and justify with logic.
• Think like Walt Disney – create an experience for Web site visitors.

Pitch: Tele-seminar and video coaching, list building seminar, partnership programme.

Cost: $4497

3. Michel Fortin and Sylvie Charrier

These two came as a double act. They’re getting married next month and were all over each other on stage. Aaaah… Michel has a huge reputation as a copywriter and Sylvie is also very successful in her own right but I’ve heard less about her on the Net.

I think their laid back style lost the interest of many people I spoke to which is a shame because they gave out some cracking strategies and a complete business model they call “Money Magnets”.

It’s based around content but using it in 3 ways: article site, autoresponder series and ebook sales. They use the same content for all 3.

Where to get content:

• Create it
• Convert existing (own written materials, record & transcribe, products with master resell rights, public domain materials)
• Reprintable articles (royalty free)
• Syndicated content (RSS feeds)
• Buy for pennies on the dollar (eBay)

They mentioned a ‘well known’ Internet marketer that had a Tattoo site that didn’t work at all and was losing money. They bought it for next to nothing and made money from it using their techniques. In the Underachievers world, Frank Kern is continually getting ribbed about his Tattoo site that went bad so I wonder if this is one and the same. It proves that even if you choose a bad market, there’s probably still a way to make money from it.

Tip #1: Build Email List

• Turn content site into membership site
• Allow them free access to just a few articles
• Get readers to register to view rest of content
• Use AdSense to monetise site
• Use a delayed, non-blockable, pop-up opt-in form
• Get visitors to either click an ad, opt-in or go away!

Tip #2: Spread Content

• Put some on site
• Deliver same content in an autoresponder over time (easier to digest bite-sized chuncks and makes more money)

Tip #3: Tease and Pull

• Don’t deliver content in full in autoresponder
• Get them to return to site and re-expose them to ads
• Use a very short message (plain text only, no HTML)
• Leave sentence hanging…

Tip #4: Seed Your Site

• Use blogs to deliver your content (WordPress)
• Offer ability to syndicate your content
• Allow comments (extra content)

Tip #5: Sell Your Site/Content

• Package same content and sell it
• People buy convenience
• Different formats: digital, physical, audio
• Use strategic excerpts
• Harmonise sales and content sites (sounds good – not sure what this means exactly)

My observation is that you probably need 10’s or 100’s of sites to make good money but this is possible over a period of time.

Pitch: Coaching programme?

Cost: Sorry, I lost the flyer

4. Rich Schott

Rich’s entire presentation seemed to be a pitch for some kind of video email and networking product. He went to great length to tell us all about the company, how great the product was and how many tens of millions were spent developing it (that now needs to be recouped).

I don’t think the live demo went as well as it was supposed to.

I’m not sure Rich actually talked much about how to use the technology to improve our business. I don’t think that was what he was there for at all.

Pitch: Some kind of product/reseller deal?

Cost: £199 + £44 per month to start but if you’re really good then you can later pay £1458 + £135 per month. Huh?

I was confused at the time and I’m just as confused now after re-reading the flyer as to what Rich was actually offering. Was it the products to use, a reseller deal or some kind of pyramid scheme? It seemed to me as if we were being asked to pay a huge fee to become glorified affiliates. No thanks!

It’s been a week since the Summit and, with one thing and another, I’m only just getting a chance to write up my notes. I’ll do a separate post for each day of the seminar.

The event was organised by Brett McFall, Ted Ciuba, Tom Hua and our man in the UK, Andrew Reynolds.

I had a real sense of deja vu actually. It was allocated seats in the Grand Hall of the Wembley Conference Centre, just like the Bootcamp last November. It’s a huge hall that seats about 3000 people. And where did I end up? About 5 feet away from where I was sat last time. Freaky!

So newbies day was mostly just that – a talk about lifestyle & mindset and a chance to get everyone up to speed with the kind of Internet business they’d be talking about (selling information products) and how to create a sales web page from scratch. They warned that it would bore the hell out of some people but that was fine. It was good to get a refresher and to see how they went about things.

But the reason most people were at the seminar was to see the 72-hour challenge get set up. It was exciting leading up to the demo wondering what they would do.

But what a let down…

“Give me a willing person… loan me a laptop computer with an Internet connection… and within 72 hours that person will have a product, a website… and money in the bank – plus a system to make that money over and over again for life!”

That’s what they said. The implication being (and in fact stated in the sales letter) that we would be able to copy what they’d done as soon as we got back from the seminar and make the same kind of money, all from scratch.

They started off talking about different niche markets and stressing the fact that we can do this in any market and not just Internet Marketing.

So what niche did they choose for the challenge? Was it learning to play the drums? Was it golf? French cooking perhaps? Or was it Internet marketing?

Hmm… let me see…

Why is it that all the examples they ever demonstrate with are all in the market of how to make money? If it’s not Internet marketing itself, it’s usually real estate, stock trading or some other cash making scheme. Even the Hair Salon, Accountancy and Dentist “examples” they gave were all about products to help people bring in more clients, increase business and therefore make more money.

Now there’s nothing wrong with doing any of that but then they tell us it works ‘even better’ for hobby markets and other niches aimed at consumers. Sure, they pop up examples of niche products that exist for learning to play guitar, braid your hair and paint your tractor. And no doubt those products do sell and make some money. But do they ever make the tantilising sums of cash that are presented for products aimed themselves at people who want to make money?

I don’t know because they never use them as examples.

If something sounds too good to be true then it usually is. I’m trying very hard not to be cynical about the whole thing, I really am. Very hard. But I was so dissapointed by the demo and so was everyone else I spoke to.

We were promised a demonstration of making £7K – £20K in 72 hours, from scratch with no product or list, that we could copy ourselves and do the same.

Well we could… if we happened to have 13 Internet marketing experts gathered together in one place for 3 days and about 1000 wannabes to use for instant market research. Then we could also set up a live Web-cast of the experts answering questions and sell that as an instant product. And did I mention the experts already? Oh good, because being Interenet marketing experts they’ll have their own nice big lists we can market to and we can joint venture with them.

It’s a good job the willing puppet (sorry Simon) did exactly what they told him and didn’t insist on doing that product about playing the drums.

Now I said that I was trying not to be too cynical and I can understand why they did what they did. After all, what else could they have done in the circumstances that would have been sure to succeed? Nothing!

It’s not that they told us porkies as such and the general principles make sense. But the whole point of doing the demo was to let us go away feeling confident that we can take the same techniques and apply them to any market and build a successful business (and not to show us how clever they are).

So am I feeling confident? Not really.

So I was at the World Internet Summit UK in Wembley a few days ago and I’ll be following up with a number of reports once I’ve got my notes in order.

If you read my last couple of posts you’ll know that I wanted to get to the bottom of Andrew Reynold’s involvement in the event and find out why he promoted it the way he did.

Well, I was more surprised than I should have been to find that he really was one of the key organisers and hosts of the Summit with most (if not all) of the bookings going through his company and via his list and sales web site.

In fact, when Ted Ciuba asked how many of us had heard the preview calls, as I suspected, I was one of only about 10 people that raised their hand. Out of 800 delegates, that’s not very impressive. I still think it’s a bit of a shame because there was some good content in those calls and not all of it got repeated at the seminar.

So, is Andrew Reynolds as approachable and down-to-earth as he always makes out to be?

In a word, I think the answer is “yes”! I have to say that my respect for Andrew went up several notches these last few days. Not just because he sat down with a bunch of us in the food hall for lunch , answering questions and chatting, but also for the kind support he gave me later on (I’ll probably post about that another time).

I told Andrew how I felt about the way the promotion was put together and he seemed to genuinely take it on board and even apologised. His reasoning was that he thought the “World Internet Summit” badge would confuse his customers and he chose to focus on the 72-hour demo aspect. He knew it might upset a few people but was prepared to take the risk. That’s business I guess.

So what does Andrew Reynolds eat for lunch?

The answer is fluorescent orange sandwiches it seems! I don’t know what was in them but I swear I saw them glowing as they came out the packet. Peppercorn and uranium I think. Nice!

Tomorrow sees the start of the World Internet Summit UK 2006 in London which means an early start for me to travel down there. Yep, I splashed out another ton of cash I haven’t really got to attend yet another Internet Marketing seminar.

Didn’t I just go to one of those a few weeks ago? Yes I did, and I’ll probably talk about that pitch-athon in another post.

The Summit looks like it’s going to be a great seminar (don’t they all?) and I love the opportunity to meet with like minded souls but I could easily have missed this one.

In fact, the reason I’m going at all has some very interesting marketing lessons, so listen up!

I’d heard a little bit about the Summit before but, to be honest, I thought it was just a typical, expensive Internet marketing seminar and really didn’t pay it much attention. You know, one of those things that would be nice to go to if I could afford the cost and the time away from my family.

So what changed?

Well, if you’re in the UK then there’s a good chance you’ve heard of a guy called Andrew Reynolds. If you haven’t then all you need to know is that he started with nothing and is now a very successful, multi-millionaire who knows a thing or two about marketing (and direct mail in particular).

Anyway, I’ve been a customer of Andrew’s for many years. In fact it’s probably due to Andrew that I got interested in niche product development and marketing in the first place after he sold me some Bill Myers video tapes (back in the Manhattan Direct days). Now that was a good example of a cheap ‘front-end’ product because I then went on to spend hundreds more on a full set of tapes (there were no DVDs then) and have since sent him thousands more.

So I guess you could say that I’m a fairly loyal customer. I’ve met Andrew. I really like him. He seems like a straight-forward, down-to-earth, honest kind of guy.

But sometimes he does things that really tick me off. And to get back to the story of the World Internet Summit, here’s a case in point…

A couple of weeks ago I got a mailshot about a special gathering where Andrew and some of his associates were going to show us a step-by-step system for creating several thousand pounds (or dollars if you prefer) within 72 hours. And they were going to demonstrate it live in front of us.

It was a new system this guy Brett had shown him a year before and he’d used it to pull in half a million quid in a week (this is the same half million he talked about in Wembley last year that was filmed for a TV documentary). It was supposed to fit in well with another of his systems that I’m currently following. Maybe I’ll talk about that another time.

Well, to cut a long story shorter than it might otherwise have been, I was convinced by the sales letter, the urgent scarcity play seemed plausible (after all, the seminar was only 2 weeks away), and the dates turned out to be amazingly convenient for me. So I signed up.

Now, at that point, I still had no idea that I was going to the World Internet Summit. In fact, for all I’m supposed to know right now, I’m not! Instead, I’m going to a “72-Hour Demonstration Weekend and Summit” that just happens to be in the same place and at the same time as the World Internet Summit. What the feck?

And how did I find out?

Well, I happen to know who Brett McFall is and recognised his picture in the sales letter (which only referred to him as “Brett”). So I did a bit of Googling and figured it out very quickly.

And here’s the point of the whole story…

Once I knew what the real deal was (though I couldn’t be 100% certain until the location information arrived in the post a few days later), I felt really angry. I felt stupid. I felt like I’d been duped or conned. That perhaps the seminar I’d be going to was not the one I’d signed up for or been ’sold’.

My first reaction was that I thought I ought to cancel it immediately and get a refund. No, actually, my first reaction was to wonder how I’d been so dumb as to do the research after giving him my credit card details!

So I was feeling pretty low about the whole thing at that point.

But I decided to do some more research and have a look at the ‘proper’ sales letter for the World Internet Summit and sign up for the pre-seminar mailing list. And I’m glad I did for 2 reasons:

1. I got to find out what the seminar was really all about. It looked pretty good and still included the 72-hour demonstration.
2. I discovered a whole bunch of teleseminars that were being recorded with the speakers in the run-up to the Summit. I had a few weeks of them to catch up on but they have been full of great information and a good primer for the seminar.

So after a few days of frantic pacing around, I mellowed and decided to go ahead after all.

But I’m still pretty mad at Andrew Reynolds for the way that he’s handled his promotion of the event. If I get the opportunity this weekend I’m going to corner him and ask him what is approach was all about. What was he thinking? That we’re going to walk through the door of the Wembley Conference Centre tomorrow and he’s going to say “Surprise! You’re actually at the World Internet Summit not that other thing I made up just for you!”

I feel like he’s been dishonest in hiding the true nature of the event and I think he’s done his customers a disservice by not giving them access to the teleseminar recordings. This is a very bad thing to do to your loyal customers.

I hope he has a good explanation for it all. Maybe he didn’t realise what the implications would be or maybe he just screwed up. Will I forgive him? Probably this time, but the damage has been done.

The irony is that the angle he took was what ’sold’ me on the event and I probably wouldn’t have been going otherwise. I just wish he’d come clean afterwards, that’s all.