I received a lot of emails with that (almost identical) subject title last month. My inbox is being flooded with the word free lately, it’s driving me insane! Free this, free that, grab your freebie here, your freebie is almost gone! 99% of them aren’t free however! Granted they don’t have a monetary cost attached, but they do require my name and email address in order to obtain what ever it is they’re giving away, which to me, isn’t free.

With my inbox count growing by over fifty emails a day, it has to be a pretty good offer to get me to pass out my address to someone new these days.

After seeing enough capitalized FREE ACTION PLANNER attention seeking emails (seriously, it’s like a bunch of deprived children all with their hands up), I decided to take a proper look. I have to say, not too bad! When you’re trying to make money online, it’s crucial that you avoid as many distractions as possible. To avoid distraction, productivity is key. Simply put, productivity is anything that makes your working life easier. Productivity does NOT include spending your time on Twitter or YouTube unless watching The X Factor is included in your course outline. (I really should take my own advice here… Twitter… baaad!)

What this action planner attempts to do is help you prioritize your time when you are working on those projects that you simply must get finished. I say attempt only because it can’t actually do the work for you, so it’s up to you to follow what you’ve written down. I tend to use my diary for marking down not only what I want to do for the day, but also what I have done already. This allows me to sit down at the end of each day to see what I’ve accomplished, handy when my brain has died and long forgotten what happened 15 minutes ago.

The action planner is a 72 page document that basically has a page for each day where you can list tasks you want to complete along with a few other tips and info. You print it out, and photocopy it until you have twelve copies – one for each month of the year. (If you’re one of those stationary/perfectionist nuts like me, you can get it covered and bound at your local printing store. I do that to any good ebooks I buy, I’m really quite crazy that way.)

At the end of the month there is a section where you can summarize all your key achievements and review your time spent. This will allow you not only to feel pride for what you have done but also see where all your interruptions are coming from. You know… Twitter, emails, twitter, catching up on blog posts, random link clicking, twitter, facebook, that great commercial on TV and…um… twitter?  In reality, the whole thing is what you want to make of it.

Download your Action Planner by clicking here!

This makes a nice change in blog posts doesn’t it? A freebie AND a good review! Don’t worry, Friday’s is choking on it’s sarcasm…

Traffic. When driving to work we all wish it would just disappear, but when running a website, we want to be choking on the proverbial fumes. Everyone who has a website no matter how big or how small, wants traffic. Even if you’re just a blog like me who’s intentions are set more on informing your readers than simply emptying their pockets, you want people to actually see what you’re doing.

When I started receiving emails about Perfect Traffic Storm and it’s promises that “I may never need to worry about getting enough traffic to your sites EVER again“, I was intrigued. Even though I don’t have all the sales pages, the review sites and more to promote in attempts to convert as many sales as possible, I’d still like to reach as many people as I can with this blog. Investigating a bit more however, I made some very interesting discoveries!

Take a look at the following two images and tell me what you see…

Notice the big red writing? Look similar? No, they look identical and so do the entire sales pages for both! Perfect Traffic Storm’s sales page is a direct replica of Traffic Python’s. So much so you could even call it a… clone! Oh why hadn’t I had this example when writing the Affiliate Clone X blog post lol!

The funny thing is, there’s nothing really wrong with either product – you promote the program to earn credits which you then use to promote your advertisements on other people’s websites. Obviously there’s a little bit more to it than that, but you get the general idea. The problem I have however, is I find it really difficult to sign up to (or stay signed up to) a product that completely rips off someone elses sales page.

I mean, you just have to check out both pages!! Seriously, have to!! Open them up in tabs and flick between then as you read down. While some of the wording, mostly with regards to the testimonials have been changed, the layout, bullet points and information is identical.

Pay particular close attention to the “Banner Statistics” image about three-quarters down the page, the one with the 19.5% click through and 29.17% conversion. It’s the same image! Check out the Impressions count, clicks and sales. The numbers are the same. The only difference is that Perfect Traffic Storm photo-shopped out the dates shown in Traffic Python’s drop down section and under the graph.

From what I can gather so far, Traffic Python was released in July of 2009, whereas Perfect Traffic Storm was released November 10th of 2009. I can confirm the second release as I have 51 emails informing me of such. The thing is, there’s different owners involved. Traffic Python is claimed by Brett Ingram, while Perfect Traffic Storm was released by Mark Lareau and Todd Gross.

As I said, there’s nothing inherently wrong with either program, and supposedly PTS has upwards of 20,000 members now, which has to mean something (perhaps just a more aggressive promotion). Of course, if you are wanting to use it to promote and recruit to your ‘downline’ so you can then promote other products to people, a higher membership count is a negative – less people to recruit. Although for promoting your own sites via the slide-in ad impressions on other network sites, then PTS wins over Traffic Python for starting you with 1000 free ad credits.

I figure I might as well use those up to promote the blog since I have them

My question (actually two) to you all is:

1. Have you used either of these products before and do you have anything you can share about them? And
2. What is your opinion on the copying of someone elses sales page?

P.S. They say everything comes in three’s right? Well I found the third!! Web Traffic Juggernaut has an almost identical sales page to both Perfect Traffic Storm and Traffic Python. Same layout and information, just some slight variances with images used. That said, Juggernaut is also owned by Brett Ingram, so I would assume that it’s either the first draft of what was then made into Traffic Python, or he just really liked that sales page and reused it lol.

The 7 Figure Catch?

My inbox has been drowning under all the “Mike is leaving the “guru” business and giving away his 7 Figure Code course for FREE” (insert desired number of exclamation marks here) emails this past week. For something that was being given away ‘free’, there were an awful lot of people pushing their links – some even offering bonuses such as giving you $10 just for picking it up. What does that tell you? There’s a catch in there somewhere that will make these affiliates money, and they want me to click their link to ensure they get their sale.

Some were open enough to share this fact, such as Matt Garrett:

Oh, I’ll also be throwing in some bonuses, simply because if you do decide to take one of the upgrade options I’ll get a commission on it, so it only seems fair I give you something extra in return.

I respect the honesty they share and to be honest myself, I would be more likely to make sure one of them got my sale commission if I was to purchase what ever was being offered. Of course, we already know nothing is really for free except a kick up the ass, and for this giveaway, you are asked to pay the postage and handling. Fair enough really, no one is going to lose money by covering the cost to post out the advertised 10,000 copies. All of the emails that were sent to me explained this factor, I have no problem with that.

However, this brings in the first problem: The cost of shipping. I will admit to never having watched any of the pre-launch videos because I wasn’t interested in getting the 7 Figure Code. This has nothing to do with the product itself, how good it is or isn’t, I’m just not ready to take on any new items (let alone big courses) at the moment until I get my currect collection of ebooks, reports and other items sorted. Of course now, after reading a lot of comments from unhappy people, I’m wishing I had paid a little more attention. It seems the cost of shipping is one of the major issues.

Apparently the original amount for shipping was meant to be between $7 to $12 depending on where you lived. Unfortunately after searching through my 47 recent emails on this launch, no where can I see a listed shipping cost, however there are quite a few comments on the 7 Fiigure Code Blog stating that amount. Regardless if that price was stated previously or not, for me to be shipped the 80 page printed and spiral bound copy of The 7 Figure Secrets is $23.99. (This is the secrets, not the code. This is not the price to ship the DVD’s)

That’s a fairly high price for what essentially, is just some paper. No idea how the postal system in the US works, but in Australia we have what we call ‘tough bags’ which are basically thick paper (bordering on cardboard) envelopes. These are used to protect items a little better, but at relatively cheap cost. For something like an 80 page notebook, it would cost me around $2 to post. At the worst, maybe around $5. Big difference there.

The price of the shipping however is not the BIG problem, it’s the fact that people feel lied to.

Lie #1 – You get the Physical DVD’s

A lot of the emails that went out contained statements such as:

• “FYI – this course is the videos of a $5,000 workshop so you’re getting the same content as the people that paid $5,000.”  (Shawn Casey)
• “Mike Filsaime is going to be giving away his 7FigureCode 16 DVD course for free tomorrow, for those quick enough to grab a copy.” (Matt Garrett)
• “Melani, it’s open, get your 16 DVD’s for Free!” (Email title) (Matt Garrett)
• “Mike says he is giving away 10,000 copies on Dec 15th so make sure to register and mark down that date.  The 7 Figure Code is 16 DVD’s of the best selling home study course…” (Frank Salinas)
• “The 17 DVD’s are of a seminar that Mike held…” (JT Martin)
• “Now, Mike is going to let you have that set of DVDs for free – you just pay the shipping.” (Doug Champigny)
• “If you cover shipping and handling then you’ll get 16 DVDS of content from a $1297.00 course for free.” (Jeff Johnson)

However that’s not really the case. And if you listen real closely to the video shown on The 7 Figure Code’s main page, you will hear Mike state that the information will in fact be available via streaming video. Mike also sent out an email (titled “The Catch? There really is none… (explanation inside)” if you are subscribed to one of his lists) stating something similar.

Granted a lot of people can’t make use of the streaming video function – I would be one of them. This would take me forever to watch as we aren’t blessed with an unlimited download capacity and watching them would pretty much eat up our entire months quota. If, like me, the streaming video option is not an option at all, you can get the DVD’s shipped to you… for the additional cost of $97. And this is where people feel lied to.

There are a lot of unhappy campers out there that were led to believe they were getting the physical DVD’s for free, and instead, are faced with a $97 price tag when it all goes live. What’s worse, is that they feel instead of being a miscommunication, it was a deliberate ploy to get them all hyped up and excited before what is being labeled “a bait and switch” was pulled.

Was it a lie? No. Was it misleading wording by some affiliates? Unfortunately yes.

Who emailed it right?

• “He’ll give you instant online access to the 7 Figure Code home study course (the content from all the original DVDs) and he’ll ship you a copy of 7 Figure Secrets, the
  “condensed version” of the course (an 84-page ebook that slims down over 20 hours of video)” (Michael Rasmussen)

Lie #2 – No tricks, no gimmicks and no forced continuity

This is where it get’s a bit tricky. Technically there is no “forced” continuity, if you pay close attention. When you click on the add to cart button, you see the following page:

“Yes Please send me the printed and spiral bound edition of “The 7 Figure Secrets.” I can’t wait to get my hands on this product…” yadda yadda yadda. Now, the first issue crops up with the line “I know it is a $297 value and I get it 100% free today“. Why? Because nearly every single email and publicity note about this release highlights the $1297 price tag. So when people read that they are only getting something worth $297, they get confused. Very confused.

Right there, people feel tricked.

As you scroll down the page, you see big red tick marks with the words “YES” sign me up for the Instant Affiliate Website and MarketingDotCom Monthly Magazine for a 30 Day free trial before charging me $19.95 a month. And “YES” I also want the 7 Figure Zone Elite Community Membership free trial which will end up costing me a further $19.95 a month after 14 days. Again, more confusion…

But if you look closely to the top right hand corner of each offer, you will see that you can remove them from your cart.

What is “forced continuity”?

… it’s when in order to get the “free offer” you get automatically signed up to some sort of ongoing payment plan usually (but not always) after a “trial period”. - as stated in the email sent out by Matt Garrett titled “When is a “freebie” not a freebie..?”

To me, the above looks pretty automatic.

I find this a very tricky way to go about it, because people’s brains will automatically jump to the “What the HELL??” side of the fence due to the confusion caused. They won’t automatically think “Well hrm, I was told I don’t have to take these offers, so I must be able to remove them somehow”. Most will look to the red tick wanting to know how to un-tick it, and then when they can’t, they get upset. This is quite clear when you read the many, many comments posted on the official 7 Figure Code blog. *

Remember, a lot of the emails went out with details that there was no forced continuity, yet here is the order page which what appears to be forced continuity.

Again, people feel tricked.

Is there forced continuity? No. Is this a really bad way to get people to consider accepting your offers? In my opinion, yes.

The Result?

Unfortunately, with the high shipping and handling cost, the miscommunication that left people feeling they were being lied to about what was actually being sent out, and the automatic acceptance of the membership options which the user has to manually remove, it’s left a very sour taste in a lot of people’s mouths. Just the same, there are thousands out there who have picked themselves up a copy – be it with or without the extras. Whether they know what they’re going to get charged shortly or not I can’t say…

As a few commenters mentioned in reply to the official blog post that if it had originally been advertised as a $97 special to get all the DVD’s with the option to access a free version via streaming video, there would be less upset caused. However, there most likely would have been a lot less interest…

*Update* It’s no surprise that by the time I had finished putting this together, let it sit to come back and proof read, all the negative comments from the official blog post are gone. Deleted. That’s only about 5 hours. Annoyingly, I actually had the page open until late this afternoon and only closed it when I felt I was done writing up what I wanted to. Really wish I had of captured screenshots of all the negativity… there certainly was a lot.

Feel free to share your thoughts and feelings here, as well as spread the word for other’s to do the same. I don’t delete things just because they aren’t kissing my … well, you get the idea.

Further Reading

• The Seven Figure Code Hype, by Matthew Bredel