To me, virtually the same thing goes on with the guberus in Internet marketing. These people would do just as well in MLM as they would in IM. They may not have multiple downlines but they do end up with massive “sidelines”. The affiliate marketers. If they have their own product they can amass huge numbers of other guberus to pimp their product for them. If they choose to pimp another guberus crap they can send out the suggestion to their massive list. Quite the profitable circle jerk.

When I was with Primerica, my “trainer” suggested I tool around grocery stores or other similar places and start talking to folks. Ask them if they are employed and if they like what they are doing. If not, or even if so, would they like to make extra money? Then pitch them this bullshit. The same thing is what these folks are doing in IM but digitally.

The thing that makes IM much better than MLM is that when you have a list you can continually suck out of the well. You don’t have to depend on downlines to sell crap because you have a continual source of suckers willing to buy crap from the email list. Make sense? And your sideline will be more than happy to pimp your crap to their list as well.

It’s like a supercharged MLM-like scheme. I wonder how many of these guberus are refugees from the MLM community. They think like those tools that I knew in MLM. They act like them. They market like them. I’m pretty sure it’s why I don’t participate. It’s too much like the douchebags in MLM. But for successful MLM folks,  affiliate marketing must seem like a selling breeze.

No reason why I bring this up other than I have observed similarities that I found interesting.  There is no real difference in a slimy Internet marketing tool and one in MLM.

Interestingly they are using the same promotion as last year. The birdcage seller. How exciting. I wonder why they couldn’t find someone else just as successful for this year. Like maybe the tophat seller. Or the heated toilet seat seller. Or the Obama LEGO seller. I have to assume that no one was more successful than the birdcage dude, even after a year of people working through the course. Otherwise they would have pimped that model, right?

Perhaps it’s not as easy as the guberus want you to believe. I have my ear to the Internet pipes. No one is screaming that you just HAVE to get in NOW or you WILL miss out. It’s like all other memberships. The information is good. But it takes just as much hard work as any other Internet Marketing scheme. You won’t sell shit if you don’t do keyword research. You still have to promote your site. It’s just on top of that noise you have to deal with physical products.

Dropshipping you say? Yes, that’s fun. NB2 has a database that is chock full of crap from people that can’t wait for you to spend (waste) your time selling their shit. I can’t tell you how boring/numbing/difficult/aggravating/soul-crushing it is to wade through the database in the hopes you will find something to dropship.

Sorry I’m no fan of this model. Ask the guberus that are pimping this offer if they have any dropshipping e-commerce sites that are productive. Most do not. They make their money in trying to get you to join shit like this.

Yes for all you folks in the cult, I’m sure there are plenty of people raking in millions of dollars selling dropship trinkets. It happens. I’m just too lazy to go back into that stupid model. If you have something to sell, then sell it. You don’t need some membership to set up an e-commerce site.  Set up a blog/site and sell your whizmo through PayPal. Couldn’t be easier.

Still curious about the spam email? Give it a shot. Try it out. Get your $500+ back when you realize it sucks.

Christopher, [SHOCKER] The creator of DigiBizPro kills himself …

My first thought was holy shit. That’s awful. So I read down and Jack Humphrey is pitching some mothereffing IM product.

The creator of DigiBizPro practically KILLED himself last night to personally make sure things were back up. Yes, this guy hasn’t had sleep for the last 38 hours just from helping everyone.

Really? You are going to jerk around people’s emotions to get a sale? So this is the depths you will sink to get people to read an effing spam email?

I don’t offend easily. I’m not crazy about political correctness. But I have a thing about civility. Clearly we continue our spiral into the gutter. Pathetic man. Truly pathetic.

This is like the ultimate circle jerk. Internet marketers teach their minions to write a review about a Crapbank product. But dude don’t I have to buy the product? Why no Johnny. You just need to read the salespage and write down 10 benefits of the product. Write another article on 10 tips of using the product. They won’t really be reviews but we’ll title it as a review so Google and its searchers will be tricked into thinking that your site is an actual review. You’ll build a crappy little blog on Blogger and write an article for Ezine. Even better if  you can be clever and write it like it’s a review but really not. Pretend you have bought the product. They’ll be clicking your affiliate link all day long.

I can’t imagine how many ebooks are out there that “teach” people to write so-called reviews on products and post them to the web via blogs and Adwords landing pages. It’s maddening. Actually it’s not because after a while you simply give up and realize that nothing is going to be truthful about IM products, particularly Crapbank  stuff. Reviews will be crap. Testimonials will be crap. The product may or may not be worthwhile but you can bet there will be a ton of hucksters telling you how great the thing is. You cannot believe anything you read on salespages or review sites. It’s pathetic.

Just once I would like to read a testimonial that says “Dude, I made $75 after using your blueprint and getting my site put up. It took 3 weeks but it looks like the system has potential.”

But no we get some douche saying “Gladys, this product is going to be a hit. I can already think of a dozen ways this will help my business. You’ve done it again. Thanks!” Really? Nothing is said that indicates to me that the thing is worthwhile. I don’t need cheerleading. I want to see how someone else took the product and made cold hard cash using the freaking system. But no, you NEVER see that in testimonials. And if I do now I wouldn’t believe it. Yes, that’s cynicism that you smell.

I love the JV emails. I’ve been receiving those blood sucking eye sores for about 4 years now. Not once. Not once has anyone promoting some other guberus product explained to me how they were able to make thousands of dollars. Oh you can bet your sweet ass that they’ll tell you how YOU can make fat stacks. Just another disingenuous review of a product that no one seems to have actually used.

I just pulled out the latest spam email from my garbage bin. The product is for some Crapbank Adwords product. Dropped it into  Google to see how many reviews were up for it. Yea the vultures have been busy:

You know maybe this product is the real deal. But you’d never know it with the bullshit above. Lots of killer SEO here. But mostly just bullshit reviews…of the salepage. I think I’d be annoyed if this was my product. Unless I didn’t care and knew it was crap and was simply trying to make a buck. Who the hell knows anymore?

So I know what you are thinking. I do the same thing when I knock some IM product. Yea but here’s the difference. I say straight up that I haven’t bought the thing. I tell you why I’m not buying the thing. And you don’t see many affiliate links leading to money making opportunities dripping off my post. If I’m positive about something it’s because I bought the damn thing. I’ll post a review of it with affiliate links because 1) I want to make a buck or two every once in a while and 2) I think it might be of value for someone else. As always there is the potential for mileage variability.

Looking though Crapbank and then doing a search for the product and review it’s pretty clear this is a money making tactic. If this is your schtick then that’s cool. Making money to purchase that third Ferrari is a fine thing. It’s just that it’s all a lie. It clogs up the web with more garbage. Immoral people making money on people that don’t know any better. It’s not for me and obviously I have an opinion about it but it seems to me if you are going to title your article “Product Review” then it should be a real hands on review.

If I had a product to sell I’d round up 5-10 of my best readers or friends. I’d give them the product and say that I thought this product would help doing whatever. Give it an honest try for 3 months or so. If you’ve made money or whatever then I want an honest testimonial of the results. With real data. Then I’d hit the market with it. As it is most of the people who get an advance copy of the products have absolutely no time to see if could work before the clown is trying to make a buck on it. What are they complimenting in their testimonials? Font type? Sentence structure? Entertainment value?

I hate that I will never be able to discover that one product that would make me easy money. It’s probably out there. Some technique that makes all the lights go on without blinding me with boredom or disinterest. Maybe there is an Adwords system that is easy and that I wouldn’t lose my rapidly worthless dollar bills on. Maybe there really is some auto system to magically write a thousand well-written pages of niche crap while I sleep. I’ll never know because those that came before it burned my ass good. I’m done trying out the latest $197, $97, $77 masterpiece. At least until honest reviews detail the facts how it has the potential to be a success for me. I have yet to see anything of the sort in IM. Just more of the same empty promises.

Anyway, Yahoo Mail seemed like the best place to start as I resisted the urge to do anything meaningful. I opened up the Inbox and started clicking the little boxes to delete all the crap that I allow to collect for various stupid reasons. Offers for this or that. Newsletters for forgotten interests. Affiliate managers begging me to get to work and promote their crap. Jokes that have been passed around since ‘99. Etc.

Of course there were the requisite Internet Marketing offers for getting rich. Or successful. Or something. I noticed another ebook/course/membership or whatever it is they are pimping on how to plan, build and promote websites. And I considered this offer as I have others many times before it. I have bought maybe 10 or so ebooks that detail the authors plan to create online properties that will make you successful in Internet Marketing. I have read maybe 10 others that came as bonuses from this membership or that program I purchased. And none have really helped.

I thought about this ebook phenomenon. How there is so much hope each time we purchase one. You buy it and it doesn’t inspire you to do anything with it. Or you try the method and it doesn’t seem to work for you. You become more and more jaded each ebook you buy. You become embarrassed to admit that you bought just one more in the hopes that it would spark something in you. They are like crack. The salesletter makes you think that maybe this is the one. After about 10 or so you are simply done and feel like you have learned your lesson. Not how to be successful but simply that it’s far better to buy the dinner the salesletter said you could give up for the price of the ebook.

It’s the Yin and Yang of getting rich on the Internet. There are a lot of crappy ebooks floating out there. There are a ton of folks looking for a solution that just doesn’t exist. There are a lot good ideas yet plenty of lazy people.

It makes you feel bad to read an ebook and not make money the way it was represented. Maybe in a way you feel like a failure. People don’t talk about it. You hardly ever hear people admit they spent $47 on some technique and it went tits up on them. They just file the ebook away and write shitty blogs about how ebooks are ripoffs.

But who is the real failure? If a writer cannot reach the reader then they have failed. Of all the ebooks that have been written about building planning, building and promoting websites, why are people still struggling with the concept? Writers argue that readers are lazy and that they want to be spoonfed. So if you truly want to help people wouldn’t it be incumbent on you, the writer, to motivate these people, outside of the damn salesletter!?

There is a really great ebook that has yet to be written. One that doesn’t regurgitate 98% of what we’ve all known since 2005. One that actually disperses the remaining 2% that matters. One that motivates. One that teaches. One that feeds you every mouthful.

We will no doubt search for that ebook and feel like shit for doing so. Ebooks will come and go. Most we will simply let float on by. But there will always be that one that makes us think that this time will be different. It won’t be but we still hope.

I haven’t bought an ebook in over a year I don’t think. Probably longer. Those days are past. I make some money each month and it’s good enough (ADD continues to rule and things are scattered.) But every once in a while I hesitate before clicking the checkbox to delete an email wondering if that could be the one. Too cynical to think otherwise I click delete.

Thought I would bring this, make your own product or service and sell it deal, to your attention. But with my own cynical twist. See I find it mostly is a sham. Of sorts. You know how guys sell their shit and you wonder if they actually make money from the technique or do they simply make money from the sales? Well interestingly this one guy that is surprisingly transparent indicates how lucrative it is to get people believing in your crap.

I follow the stock market a great deal. I’ve been investing/trading since college to make extra money. I find it far more interesting to find the right stock and make $100 in a half hour than spend 4 hours building a bullshit website for Adsense. Conversely you never really lose money with a website, only time. Obviously if you trade bad you can lose money. Anyway, there is a website that I follow via Twitter and Stocktwits from a guy named Timothy Sykes. He’s apparently a self proclaimed big stick that has made some cash shorting penny stocks. He seems successful and is happy to let you know about it. Tons of people follow the guy and apparently pay huge dollars to learn his techniques. And that is the point of this post. He makes far more selling his shit than actually playing the stock game. Props that he is so transparent about it. He’s not an affiliate marketer trying to sell to other affiliate marketers so he’s a little different.

He bragged this weekend how he generated $150,000 this month. Pretty impressive no? I thought, damn he is a trading savant. Until you look at the numbers:

Bragging aside, how did I just DOUBLE my blog’s monthly earnings from the $80,000 range to $153,450 in May 2009?

Here’s the breakdown:

May 2009: $153,450
$29,968 TIMalerts
$85,514 Instructional DVDs
$25,725 Advertising & Affiliates
$980 An American Hedge Fund
$11,263 Trading Profits

TIMalerts is a trading service. The rest is self-explanatory. $11,263 in trading profits? Really? Now given that he is a big stick I would have thought he’d deliver more than that. I mean, you’d be hard pressed to quit your full-time job after paying short term taxes on that.

$85,514 selling DVDs. Holy shiot. Monthly residuals of $30K. Holy shiot. This guy is a freakin Internet marketing genius. Check out his site. He knows how to sell himself.

Look, without getting into it, the last couple of months haven’t exactly been hard to make money in the market. The game has been rigged by the amount of money being pumped into the system. You simply can’t fight the Fed…or the Treasury. I’m just having a hard time getting impressed with how much he made trading versus how much he sold. Though he did make profits so I guess I’m being an asshole.

My point is that he makes the big money on servicing his products. A small percentage of his profits is actually him doing what he sells to the wannabes. We see this all over affiliate marketing. I always question these guberus about how they make their money. Do you make money actually doing what you are selling or are you simply making money on the product?

I would love to know what the Internet marketing guberus actually make with Adsense and affiliate sales versus product sales and memberships. Bet it looks a lot worse than Sykes. I have no idea why he feels the need to splash the data up on his website. Guess he wanted to brag about the money. That’s cool, but it really helps amplify a point I’ve been trying to make on this blog for a couple of years now. The money is in the product. Not the technique.

Let me be clear: I have no problem that people make the big money doing this. It’s fine. It’s cool. I just don’t find affiliate marketers very credible when they talk about how much money they make and how great their product is, etc. It makes me wonder if they make the money with the technique/product or selling the shit to the sheeple. Sykes helps make my point.

Does every Internet Marketer use the same salescopy writer? Seems like they do. Maybe they all bought the same ebook or video series to write their little epic for trying to sell their technique. Instant Payday Formula is different in only that it is a chick that is doing the pimping. Seems like more women would get in the game. Studies indicate they seem more honest at selling shit. But unfortunately this one went to the same salespage class that all the other d-bags attended. Same sad story of previous failure. Lots of hard work figuring things out. Joy at discovering the method. Afraid that other guberus will end her life for daring to publish the secrets. This one even throws in the faux outrage over the gurus and being “fed up” with them. But that doesn’t stop her from using the Big List Builders to shove out the offer on her behalf. Their symbiotic dance is mesmerizing.

Are there really that many secrets left? Is a secret a secret if you tell anyone? I build sites full of keywords and get backlinks. That’s my secret. Most fail. Those that do not make me some money. I sit down and build 10 Ebay/Blogger frankensites at a time knowing full well that 9 of them will suck ass. But the one non-ass sucker will make money.

I’m tired of seeing, yet oddly entertained at, these ebooks and videos of “instant payday”. The true instant payday formula are these long-winded, marketing rich, 74 page salescopy epics of sadness, perseverance and joy. That is the brilliant formula.

Ever wonder why they all read the same? It’s as if the real secret is one that teaches you how to coerce, convince and yes, swindle, money out of the pockets of those that get sucked into whichever tale is spun. One salecopy could be the sad, yet uplifting, rags to riches story. Another might be our hero who discovered the secret and feels compelled to share it with the peasants. The formula is getting overused and tired. Sort of like me writing this post.

If you do choose to buy Instant Payday Formula, for God’s sake click away from the offer. An agent is waiting just for you to give you $20 off the purchase price, if. you. would. just. give. it. a. chance.

I didn’t learn my lesson obviously. I still chased far too much garbage during my time in this business. I never thought to come back to my first little site for inspiration.

I just took a trip on the Wayback Machine and saw that initial site built on SBI on Jun 26, 2003. On Aug 3, 2003 there is a new design that I did myself. For the last 6 years (holy crap) that site has been on the first page of Google and Yahoo for my coveted keyword.

SBI had nothing to do with my success for that site. I proved that I could do it with Dreamweaver. The site looked pretty bad but it persevered anyway. It morphed into a Wordpress blog and then finally I settled on XSP. It is my most consistent performer.

Forget SBI. There are far better and cheaper tools for building a website. Still believe the hype? Then have a read of Lissie’s Site Build It Scam Review and/or Steve’s Is Site Build It a Scam? articles.

If you prefer to waste your money on this site builder then by all means click here.