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

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…