These blog posts are from one of my close business partners - John Delavera

I really liked them and asked him for permission to reprint part of his posts on our blogs and link to his full posts as he has a great way of taking complicated issues and simplifying them for you.

I hope you enjoy his posts, I did:)

“Where the money is??” Part I by John Delavera

“Today, I have been categorizing my thoughts.

I was trying to isolate the CORE PRINCIPLES of the marketing I have been using so to be able to pass only the meat to you. As I told you earlier on, my purpose had been to offer you my “method” on May 17; while I am not sure if I will complete that work, I want to try it anyway, since it can mean A LOT to you… it will allow you to see the Marketing World through different eyes indeed.

Anyway.. no promises here so let’s focus on some core elements I used throughout my journey online…

Today, I want to tell you about something that CAN make you VIEW the marketing world in a different perspective”…(Click Here to Read the rest of John’s article)

“Where the money is??” Part II by John Delavera

In part 1 I underlined that “if you manage to operate as a PLAYER of a HIGHER role in that “Newspaper” hierarchy, then you will focus on CONCEPTS related to the creation of new products and also on the promotion of your products… that’s where the money is…”

And I also underlined the following:

“This is the real value of outsourcing.

With outsourcing, you learn to act as a Publisher. And because that level requires from you only to generate ideas and generate/promote products, you can easily find the time to hire more directors, who in turn will use more chief copy editors, who in turn will use more journalists…”

In one of my articles back in December 2007, I mentioned…(Click Here to Read the rest of this article)

If you liked these articles by John be sure to leave your comments on his blog, thanks!

If you bought Matt Bacaks Retirement package for $1 recently you may have been mislead by his sales page…

here’s why and also a lesson in marketing using trial offers for everyone (including Matt)

It’s not the product - I still believe the product is good - it is the way the product was sold - the sales system which I’m apologizing about endorsing…here’s why…

First of all, I’d like to offer a public apology for endorsing Matt Bacak’s retirement package for $1 yesterday without checking his sales page more thoroughly as I should have and usually do before sending an endorsement email out for a product.

I’m usually very careful about fully reviewing products as well as the sales process before endorsing things. In fact sometimes I spend all day just reviewing one product to make sure it does what is claims, is not too hypey or overpriced for what they get and will help someone with their business.

I get asked to endorse products daily so we usually have to politely decline many products, even if they are good just because we cannot fit them into our schedule (our own business comes first always).

Many times people have so-so products so we give them a few pointers to improve on them and send them on their way as well.

And then we have the ones that just get deleted as they basically are no good or their approach was off for us.

So let’s back up and do a rewind here…

About a week ago Matt showed me a private login area showing all the videos from his seminars that would be in the $1 for everyone. The videos worked fine then and I watched a few of them and decided they could probably help people out - and at just $1 it is almost free.

Matt also told me that the $1 would go to charity - the Habitat for Humanity - I considered this a very noble thing of him to do as well so it made me more willing to help also.

He explained he’s have a OTO set up for people to get some of his other products also which is quite normal in online marketing for free and low cost offers. The customer can easily just say NO, I only want the free or low cost offer etc, so no problem there.

I’d also met him in person about a year ago in Atlanta and we had talked for a few hours over drinks so I felt good about him.

So I told Matt I’d help him get the word out and wished him the best on his launch. Things got busy as usual around our offices and I forgot about it until yesterday when it was time to send out the mail. The mail was set to go already so figured all was okay and was busy doing things on our business…

when suddenly I get an alarming email from a good friend of mine.

He asked me if I had promoted Matt’s offer said he was very upset with him. I asked why and found out quickly as soon as I saw the sales page that was posted for this $1 offer.

(Click Here to view the sales page and see for yourself)

First of all, it starts out a little too hypey for me, but hey, I just ignore those things anyways and skip on to the meat of the offer. So I scrolled down the page to find the order area and I was shocked at what I found.

It was asking everyone to put in their credit card details to get the $1 offer access and then had a ‘bonus’ of his newsletter for free - that’s it. No mention of rebilling on the order form area until AFTER the person has paid and they have you on autorebill.

This is quite shocking for most consumers and I imagine quite a few were pretty angry, in fact I know a few were angry as the emails from our members started coming soon after asking if we were aware of this etc etc.

So I reread the sales letter about 3 times and then I finally saw where it was mentioned, around the middle of the sales page it says included as a Bonus:

“A Free issue of the Internet Marketing DIRT Print Newsletter. The Internet Marketing Dirt is the newsletter I just started publishing a few months ago, and it is already being praised at the “best of its kind”, “better than any other newsletter on marketing.” And you get to try that out for free… if you don’t want to continue receiving it it’s simple and easy to cancel your $29.97 monthly subscription (you’re crazy if you cancel… but it’s easy to do, and up to you!).”

It was mentioned after the headline: “So Here’s Everything You Get For Just $1″

However, many people (if they read through the sales page) may have read over that and it should have been right on the order form as well.

Not to mention the sales page goes over and over again how they get this great seminar for $1 and how much money they can make etc etc.

In any case, it is the issue of FORCED recurring billing for another product just to get the main product with absolutely no options to just get the main offer is the whole point of this.

It could have easily been a TICK BOX option instead or a OTO after they have gotten the $1 main offer - which is the whole reason people are interested anyways.

It’s like going to a store and buying a book, when you get to the check out counter they say you get this free newsletter included as a bonus also. Great you say, but then they tell you your card will be charged $29.95 or whatever in 30 days. If you say, you don’t want to do that then you cannot buy the book - which is what you wanted in the first place.

It’s not good marketing - PERIOD

Start of Damage Control at midnight for me

I immediately emailed Matt and asked him why he was doing this without ANY mention of the fact that everyone was being added to autorebill for $29.97 his monthly newsletter since it was just a ‘bonus’ anyways and not even part of the main offer.

I pointed out to him that by LAW he must be very clear about this. A quick google search pulled up the FTC link about this which I sent to him so he could rethink what he was doing and correct his mistake asap - which he did.

I got a reply about 30 min later and he’d updated the sales page to say:

Okay - fine - that is the first step at least and as an experienced marketer he should have known that.

It is also MY FAULT for not seeing that before the mail went out so I totally appologize to everyone in regards to the autobilling issue. I couldn’t sleep last night from worry and was up until 4am talking with Matt and replying to others who were complaining.

If anyone signed up and would like to cancel your autobilling please contact them (info is on their sales page website)

Second Lesson Here

Even if you state why you need someone’s credit card and that they will be autorebilled the way this offer was structured was totally off.

The main offer is the package at $1

The autobilling is for a newsletter

Two totally non related products here

So what they should have done (and I told them this - hopefully Matt changes the page) is to put a simple TICK BOX under the $1 offer asking people to check ONLY IF they would like to get 1 month of his newsletter free and be billed in 30 days at full price as an OPTION only.

This most likely would make customers happier and also increase his $1 offer conversions anyways.

I guarantee hundreds if not thousands of people saw that offer only to leave disappointed or angry about having to be put on a rebilling process just to get the orginal $1 offer.

He could have had more sales and more happy customers by making things 100% clear and as options - not ‘forcing’ people into things.

I hope Matt has learned from this and I do hope some of the other promoters also can learn from this.

I know I sure have…I will certainly be even MORE CAREFUL about fully reviewing the sales process as well as the products before endrosements.

In closing I respect Matt for the fact that he did listen to my advice and take action on it (even when no one else seemed to be pointing it out to him) and I think he just made some honest mistakes here. I do not think it was his intention to deceive anyone or try to ‘cheat’ anyone from his original offer.

We all make mistakes and the important thing is we can learn from the.

I posted this somewhat ‘private’ matter here on the public blog for several reasons, none of which are to hurt Matt, in fact we will probably discuss this more today on skype.

I mainly wanted to explain and apologize to all my members - as a token for your lost time & money I’d like to show you where you can get some great ‘FREE’ info as well:

Click Here to Get Free audio podcasts

Click Here to Get a Free Starter Membership to D4M - Lots of quality info inside (Note: you will get a OTO after you sign up - you can just click the No Thanks button - then click No Thanks again and you can enter the Starter member area.)

But ALSO I truely hope this helps anyone in business doing or thinking of doing trial offers. It would be a shame to see similar situations happen to others.

If you are doing trial offers make sure you are VERY CLEAR about your offer, time frame, conditions, rebilling amounts and dates etc BEFORE you ask people to put in their payment details.

Keep your customers happy, provide great products and services and you will certainly succeed in business offline or online. (You can leave your comments below)

I was talking to Jason Potash recently and he showed me a great piece of software that is pretty cool so I wanted to tell you about it.

http://www.commentkahuna.com/surefirewealth

Best of all, it’s a free download.

Before I tell you more about it and give you the download page, let me make one thing very clear.

This is NOT some piece of useless trialware or 15-day demo that nags you 10 times per day to buy and upgrade to the full version - because this ‘is’ the full version.

If you want more quality backlinks to your websites and to boost your search engine rankings and targeted traffic (who doesn’t, right?), then you should get your hands on this software right now and give it a try.

To see a quick video and for instant download access, go to this page:

http://www.commentkahuna.com/surefirewealth

 As you will see in the video, there is an upgrade in the works that you will get shortly.

It includes some powerful ‘web 2.0′ resources to drive even more traffic to your websites.

Go get a copy now while it’s still free! (I’m not sure when this offer will be removed, so sorry if it is no longer available)

Be sure to let Jason know what you think of it - I hope this helps you with your business 

Oh and here’s a special invite url to use also for something coming April 16th:

http://www.traffickahuna.com/invite/surefirewealth

Niches-in-a-Box which in my opinion is one of the BEST Private Label Right Content Sites around has reopened (not sure for how much longer though)

Have you ever tried to deal with PLR memberships?

Then you are probably all too familiar with the huge gap between what’s promised and what’s delivered.

Sure, you can get tons of articles but soon find out that you can’t do anything with them.
 
So, off you go to join another PLR site to get good squeeze pages, and off to a third site to get quality landing pages. 

You’ve worked hard to generate traffic and you want a complete, professional site for them to visit.
 
After piecing together multiple elements from multiple membership sites, you’re pages are starting to look really good… except they don’t integrate with one another.

 A quick email to the support department and you’re told that the problem is with the other site’s component, and they don’t support that.
 
Once again, you’re off to purchase more training videos, more ebooks and in the end, you’re still left guessing. 

You sadly realize that you’ve spent hundreds of dollars and are left with components you can’t use.
 
What are you supposed to do? 

It’s not supposed to be this hard.
 
Guess what… It doesn’t have to be!
 
I’m here to tell you that there IS a membership site that’s different. 

An opportunity that is not just another PLR program or Adsense Template service.
 
Niches-in-a-Box is a FULL-Service opportunity.

A True All-in-One, Ready to promote, Complete business! 

Every element is there for you, every feature is integrated with every other feature.
 
Niches in a box provides you with a Fully Operational and Profitable business each and every month. 

A business that is backed by experienced marketers.

In the rare event that you DO need support, they will not leave you hanging.

They are committed to Your success. 

Hey, I know the owner personally and they are dedicated to helping you.

Their Training Center alone contains Hundreds of valuable videos.
 
They are also aware that the internet can be an ever-changing environment. 

That’s why they are constantly improving their systems and developing new addons to fit with new visitor’s behaviors.
 
Yes, you still need to promote your new business, but as for all the rest…

It doesn’t get much easier than this

You even get 15 closely linked sites that target one niche every month.Each one of those sites has at least eight different ways to earn you money.

1. Google AdSense.

2. Yahoo! Sponsored ad searches.

3. Amazon

4. ClickBank

5. Chitika

6. Search Feed

7. Commission Junction

8. Your Own Ebook.

9. Plus, your own newsletter with an autoresponder series of 8 messages to promote affiliate programs, and of course your own ebook

10. Plus, you also receive an Affiliate Package with selected affiliate programs - You simply choose which ones you want to promote.

Check this out today:

http://www.surefirewealth.com/recommends/NBreopened

If you have any questions about this offer here’s their support desk:
http://support.ethiccash.com/

Ebay Declares War On Internet Marketers

How You Can Profit From This Move

Ebay shocked the internet marketing world when it recently announced that it will no longer allow the sale of digital download products.  This move effectively shuts down an income stream for many sellers of eBooks, software, and digital video that relied on the instant download support provided by Ebay.

Many sellers of information products see this as a blessing in disguise as they turn to companies like ClickBank which can also provide a huge stream of cash-in-hand buyers along with the ability to provide instant downloads to their customers. 

Sellers on ClickBank have known for years that their products on ClickBank sell for more, and their customers are more loyal than Ebay customers.  This is because customers from Ebay are bargain shoppers and like to buy for pennies on the dollar and will rarely pay fair market value, especially for information products.

By using ClickBank’s massive base of built in affiliates, the top sellers on ClickBank make over a million dollars per year just in ClickBank sales.  This far exceeds what anyone on Ebay was earning from their digital download auctions.

However, ClickBank does not give us easy access to its 100,000 active affiliates.  But there are some quick and easy ways to tap into this sales army with the system used in Scott Stamper’s ClickBank Stampede.

ClickBank Stampede reveals backdoors and loopholes used by top ClickBank sellers.  It’s the fastest, easiest and most efficient method of making money with ClickBank.

To learn more click here to visit ClickBank Stampede

So if you were a former information product seller on Ebay, don’t agonize.  Instead use it as motivation to change your business plan to make even higher profits.

Spencer Johnson sums it up best in his best selling book ‘Who Moved My Cheese?’ - “That’s life! Life moves on. And so should we”.