You’ll notice that I’ve capitalized some of the words above, and for a pretty good reason too.

Yes, I also review the “Latest and Greatest” to come out of “Guru-dom” (is that a word?) on my site, but like you, if I haven’t read it, tried it, used it, or have some personal experience with it, why then would I have any expectations of having one of my readers whip out their credit cards to purchase the thing and have any hopes of maintaining my integrity? I wouldn’t be around too long before I got “Flamed Out Of Existence”.

I’ve been around online for some time now (only recently have I decided to “toss my hat into the fray” though). I’ve seen plenty of “Wanna-Be Gurus” come and go in that time. Very few have any kind of “Staying Power”, but that’s because they only offer either the same old rehashed trash or try pushing something that’ll either not work at all or at best, only fill a fraction of the buyer’s needs.

Everybody comes into this initially for the same reason… to subsidize their current income, or at least, that’s the way I see it. That said, it really PISSES ME OFF when I see some clown hawking some crap PLR that he got for free to the newbies out there as the ONLY thing that they’ll need to “MAKE AN INTERNET FORTUNE” (read: “Buy my new garbage for an amount that you can’t afford so I can go to Hawaii on YOUR DIME!).

Unfortunately, there’s entirely WAAAAAYYY too much of this going on. So much so that it’s getting more and more difficult to dig through all the hoopla to see who actually has not only the “Real Deal”, but also, their CUSTOMER’S BEST INTERESTS at heart.

As for me, do I want to make a buck or two?
Sure.
Do I want to make that buck at the expense of someone who has placed their trust in me enough to listen to my ramblings about the supposedly “Next Big Thing” without having tried it myself?
(say it with me now)… HELL NO!!!!!!!!!

As you, I won’t place my integrity on the line for some “Flash-in-the-Pan” “Gee, I Hope This Works” total garbage. I’m not made that way, and neither are you.

I decided to do this for only a few reasons…
1. When I first came online, I just wanted a helping hand that would help me wade through all the Mis-Information available, so I wouldn’t be just spinning my wheels making somebody rich who didn’t have a clue.

2. After spending entirely too much of my hard earned cash on some “Guru Products” touted to make me a gazillion bucks in my underwear, I got, shall we say, “slightly miffed”. Enough so, that I wanted to make sure that anyone starting out would be able to find a safe haven that’d be more of a help than a “Hey You Just Gotta Get This NOW!!! site, only geared to lead the “Sheep to the Fleecing”.

3. (And, this is the IMPORTANT one) I feel that with all of these “Products” coming out from all directions from every latest “I’m A GURU – Who Are You” bozos, that it’s high time to pull the rug out from under these clowns who have nothing better to do other than raping and pillaging everyone they come in contact with for every penny they can swipe.

Initially, I felt that this was going to be a “One-Man” show, but after seeing some of what you’ve posted on your site, and the kind of responses that you get from your followers, I feel that you actually have the “Real Deal” and mind you, I don’t say that lightly.

If you’ve read the “About” page on my site, you’ve seen that I’ve decided to become a “Self-Proclaimed Watch Dog”, looking out for the best interests of my readers as well.

Are there affiliate links on my site? Absolutely. Hey, I got bills to pay too. BUT… before anybody clicks on one of those links, they’ll have a pretty good idea of just what they can expect from making a purchase of one of these products too. Again, if I haven’t tried it and gotten the results claimed from the product creator’s sales page, it doesn’t make sense for me to promote it, now does it? Can we say “INTEGRITY”?

Hey, I’ve taken up enough of your blog space on this one. I’ll leave some space for everybody else to post here.

Meantime, keep up the good work. It’s nice to know that I’m not alone in “Taking Out The Trash”.

Be well.

Why?…
… Because…

… Ed Says …
.-= Ed Says´s last blog ..Google Sniper – Tool, Stool, or Jewel? =-.

Still the one thing that remains unanswered, is how this is a business model that builds your reputation and branding and how it’s going to send “forever” traffic to your sites. My main concern with the how-to-be-a-launch-jockey ebooks is hardly any of them tell you how to pick the right programs to promote. If there’s no buzz about a product and there’s no overflow traffic from “gurus” mailing out, then what’s the point?

Also if I “guru” didn’t want to lose any of their traffic to the overflow reviewer’ sites, they could have one of these sites made up in a bout 45 minutes, bonuses and all.

I guess my main concerns are with people promoting crap, giving away unrelated or crappy bonuses, not knowing the quality of what it is they’re promoting so heavily, and this business model that seems rather short-sighted

It would work for a re-launch after you have used the product. Then the bonus could be your own product of how you made money with it. You could even sell it as a OTO or backend product.

If you use PRL and other sources to create a bonus, make it relate to the product.

As a customer ask for your refund on crappy products.

Here’s a case in point where I thought 60 days of testing was long enough to do a proper review, but due to the nature of the product/service being reviewed, it seems that 90 days of testing would have been more appropriate

> http://danielmcgonagle.name/1waylinks-reversal-on-my-1waylinks-review

Thanks for stopping by,

Dan

Looking forward to your coming on board Marketer’s Relief , and it good to know that I “check out OK” when you did your due diligence on the net about me…

Dan

RT…

The problem with review sites is that they are mostly owned by people who are trying to sell the product or opportunity that the review is about. So you hardly ever get the down side. They may throw in a couple of minor flaws to make it look objective, but nothing that could do serious harm.

Hopefully you’ve opened some eyes to the “other side” and make some people think about it.

Judson Lassiter

Jorge, que pasa mi amigo? Your #3 point is dead on, it’s ok to offer bonuses if it’s filling in a pereceived void. Come see me on Skype some time soon so we can catch up, k?

Johnny.you’re right in thinking that a productnamereview.com site will always have a postive spin, but I have 2 of those because I believe in the products and in a long-term way. IAlso, getting a domain name like that is by far the easiest way to rank well in the search engines for “product name review” but I do understand your point though, you’lll not be seeing an unbiased or neutral review on those types of domians.

John H., good point there about having solid products that go unnoticed and not taken advantage of because people have been burnt so many times before.

Gary, in response to your statement, I got a confession to make:

I hardly ever mail out to “my list” because I’ve said everything that has to be said, and delivered everything that needed to be delivered in my newsletter, and that’s why I’m slowly but quietly “going niche”.
I would like to see a movie called, “Fear and Self-loathing in IM, the nagging conscience of a flavor-of-the-day marketer”…

Fred, oops I almost missed you man! Congrats on your first signup to WP, and you only just started to do all the right things there, and I KNOW what it felt like to make my first sale many years ago and realize, “Holy S**T this stuff DOES actually work!”, you just gotta remove the haze of information overload and start doing the right things for your business.

I’m happy for you…

Thanks everyone for the comments thus far,

Dan

If the LAST KILLER PRODUCT was as good as the sales letter said it was and could make us all the money they said it could

… WHY do we need the NEXT MUST-HAVE PRODUCT???

Gary

You really have hit the mark here. IMHO.

There really is so much garbage out there nowadays, it really is good to have a beacon of light shining down on the BS, so that people do not jump in. So thank you for that, and good point about affiliates making a quick sale, rahter than trying, testing and working with the product before their “personal recommendation”…..

Don’t get me wrong here, there is still some gems in the IM world, the problem is that it is harder for people to see them and TAKE ACTION on them, even though they are right underneath their noses.

Also of course, it gets harder to get noticed when you actually have a winning formula / product because visitors have been scammed so many times before with vastly inferior products. ( and even worse ‘bonuses’ ).

Thanks for letting off a bit of steam on something that experienced marketers like us all feel at times.

Good luck

http://www.easyvideoproducer.com/clickthru.php?id=655

The questions are, “How do they expect to keep people on their list?” and “Where is the value added?”

They have succumbed to the short-range thinking point of view that, “If it gets sales, it’s gotta be good (for me)!” and not only doing their list members a disservice but making them more wary of EVER getting on ANY list!

The model is not bad, it’s the short-range self-serving thinking of those that use it! To use that model you should:
1. Get a copy of the product and look at it carefully
A. If it’s crap, trash it and go on to the next product
B. If it’s good, then continue, promote it…
2. Give an in-depth review, based on what you see, on the facts, not the hype.
3. Put together a bonus package that enhances, adds to, fills in the voids for the actual product.

Move quickly, do it RIGHT and you can get ahead of the wave and leave those Internet Marketing Product Launch Jockeys eating your dust….

Jorchav

One thing I’d like to point out here that I didn’t in the post is that what I/you/we all want to be is effective marketers, as well a caring enough to only reocmmend quality products, but if you care too much and offer too much help, then even more hand-holding is expected.

Thanks for your comment!

Dan

It’s what makes your blog worth reading. You say things in a straight forward way – exactly as I did in my article on the subject of Internet Marketing Chaos which can be found here: http://www.blunck.dk/recommends/online_chaos (it’s free for all)

Have a nice weekend.

And those review sites they throw up all look alike.

I’ve noticed a trend that even a lot of the “marketers” I used to trust are doing the same thing.

Too bad they don’t really care about their subscribers.

And I hate to see all those brand new to the online world get ripped off (especially in these tough economic times).

Thanks for having the guts to say it out loud.

PS – If you’re new to the whole online thing – and you buy a product that doesn’t deliver what was promised – ask questions of the product owner. If you don’t get an answer – get a refund!

Greg, those article marketing networks are becoming a dime a dozen nowadays, and I betcha someday soon there will be a devaluation on blog backlinks, or maybe sites with more of a variety of backlinks will rank better, who knows.

Beta Tesr? lol, there’s nothing to beta test when there are plenty of effective article marketing networks out there for same or less price.

Marian and Greg, thanks for the feedback,

Dan

Not at all!

Interestingly … yesterday, I received a “article marketing network” invitation for a limited number of “beta” users … at a subscription price of $67 (more than 50% off).

But the article marketing network is in reality a white-label version of another article marketing network that has been in existence for over a year and is retail priced right now at $47 a month!

Yet the “early bird” beta user marketing pitch would make it sound like it was their own network that they had been beta testing for two months …

GW

Marian