How excited would you be if I told you I had worked out a proven system to make money online, lots of money, and I was willing to tell you everything you need to know so you could literally copy and paste it to succeed? That I was earning almost twenty thousand dollars each and every month, and you could be too? Only you will do it minus all the trial and error I went through. Without all the financial loss I went through. And that I would share all this with you for… oh I don’t know… $77?

Are you nodding? Reaching for your credit card? Good, then before we make that purchase, I want to show you this ab work out machine that requires nothing more than three minutes a day to turn your flabby middle into wash-board abs! Oh no, no, wait! Even better, here’s a recently discovered berry from the amazon forests that will make your body simply repel any excess weight like it was last season’s fashion!

Yes, any of those ab machines will help you to get those rock hard abs of steel… providing you use it in conjunction with traditional exercise (cardio preferred) and a balanced, healthy diet. And that’s a diet in place of your junk food addictions, not as well as. Spending just 3 minutes a day but changing nothing else in your life will not work. Just the same as the berries on their own won’t work… although I don’t think they work at all, but they certainly won’t work some voodoo fat magic without the aid of exercise, diet and perhaps one of those ab machines…

Just like those infomercials, there is more to a “copy and paste” system when it comes to making money online. Yes they work, I’m sure that at least 50% of the people writing the ebooks claiming you can copy their methods are in fact making some money with the steps they are teaching. But, and it’s a very big but, there’s always going to be more to it. Why do I say that? Well let’s talk to Captain Obvious for a moment.

Put yourself in the shoes of one of those “I’m not a guru so you can trust me, but I’m making as much or more money than them and am here to tell you all my secrets” salesmen. Let’s pretend you’re making a respectable $10,000 a month, every month. You’ve gone through the trials and tribulations to figure out what works and what doesn’t. Sure, you’ve lost money along the way but finally, you’ve got it all sorted and would be comfortable making the claim that you could teach someone else how to do it. So, are you going to:

1. Share this system with anyone who wants to know?
2. Not only the methods, but give away your exact campaigns, and exact systems that allows anyone to duplicate your exact earnings?
3. And best off all, give away all this proven money making information for a measly $77?

No? Hrm, ok. No problem. I’ll just pop over to Copy Paste Systems because apparently, they will! And they make almost twenty thousand a month which is double you, so nyeh! In your face!

I’m not going to hide my dislike of these sorts of sca…. systems. I’ve been bitten a couple of times on the same sort of claim and I’ve yet to see or hear of any real copy and paste system that actually works. To me, all I see is Copy, Paste… Fail. Why? Because it’s common sense, something that is scarily uncommon these days.

I mean really, if you are earning just under twenty THOUSAND dollars a MONTH, and you are claiming that ANYONE who buys your system can do exactly the same thing with your EXACT campaigns, keywords, landing pages, etc… are you REALLY going to give away that big of a gold mine for $77….? No, you’re not. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to be proven wrong. I would be the first person to hand over my money if it was as easy as copying what ever they told me worked and plugging it in to where ever they say it worked. But it’s not that simple.

I’ve seen a lot of these types of sales pages over the past year, and have even fallen for a couple myself. But now, there’s no way I’d waste my money, because the only “copy and paste” system that is in play and working, is the “tell people they can copy and paste your campaigns”. Yes they’re making money, every time someone buys their eBook!

Just take a look at what the emails are claiming:

All the testing, tweaking, market research, landing pages, keywords, ads and all the other good “secret” stuff including exact systems and processes are already “done for you!”  and handed to you on a silver platter! There’s no more expensive trial-and-error!

That’s right, you don’t have to test, you don’t have to tweak, do market research or try to come up with the best landing page, keywords or ads. In fact, throw that brain right out your left ear, they’ve done it all for you! And all for $77? Gee, what a steal! (I mean seriously, stop and think for just a minute about how ridiculous that sounds!!)

I received a fair few emails on this particular product launch, surprisingly more than I would expect for a $77 ebook. Perhaps there’s some juicy up-sells after your original purchase that bump up the affiliates commissions? Who knows. I do love the ‘hurry now’ tactic used in a few of them though:

But, You need to hurry now because it’s extremely limited and available only for the first few people!

Yes, hurry. Limited. Right. I’ve been opening up the same website for the past 5 days (as of writing this post) and what do you know? It’s still for sale. That means that there’s either a lot more common sense happening than I first gave credit for or, more likely, there is no limit.

I do so love the other little tricks used as well. Like how the sales letter goes on and on about how you won’t need to worry about Adwords, Yahoo or MSN to make your money. A little play on words trick that gets the reader thinking that you won’t be doing PPC advertising. But you are. You just doing it via Facebook instead. How do I know it’s facebook? Look at the picture they provide for their “Traffic Tornado Sales System”, then look at the one under the ’step by step’ tab on this: http://www.facebook.com/advertising/ Oh my gosh! They’re the same…

And the quote “This brand new never seen before system does not require a web site or technical experience!” Um, yeah… Facebook advertising isn’t brand new, and you’ve never needed a website to do PPC, although it helps.

After noticing that along with a few other issues I had on the page, there’s no way I would be parting with my money for it. I’ve spoken to a few people on Twitter about it, but so far no one’s taken that leap of purchasing it yet, and apparently, none plan to. For what must work out to be between $26 to $50 commission, some of the promoters were hell bent on making sure I got the info about it – one of them even sent me seven emails, four on the ONE day! So I’m sure there’s at least some good info in there, because all affiliates purchase the product before they push it… right?

Oh yes, and I realise a disclaimer is pretty much required, but take note of the last paragraph:

ANY AND ALL FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS HERE OR ON ANY OF OUR SALES MATERIAL ARE INTENDED TO EXPRESS OUR OPINION OF EARNINGS POTENTIAL. MANY FACTORS WILL BE IMPORTANT IN DETERMINING YOUR ACTUAL RESULTS AND NO GUARANTEES ARE MADE THAT YOU WILL ACHIEVE RESULTS SIMILAR TO OURS OR ANYBODY ELSES, IN FACT NO GUARANTEES ARE MADE THAT YOU WILL ACHIEVE ANY RESULTS FROM OUR IDEAS AND TECHNIQUES IN OUR MATERIAL.

LOL!

P.S. I get that “copy and paste” is what this is all about, but, um, Chad Michaels… it might be a good idea when you “copy and paste” an email to promote it, that you don’t copy in the original senders sign off. Because when I get an email from you, ending with “Talk soon, Steven”, it kinda gives the game away.

Has anyone bought it? Care to tell me I’m wrong or are you too busy rolling around in all the newly acquired wealth?

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