The 2006 World Internet Summit UK
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:
- I got to find out what the seminar was really all about. It looked pretty good and still included the 72-hour demonstration.
- 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.