Several people are very angry with me over my comments about Kooday.

A couple people complained that I called it PPC.  Sorry about that. Let’s call it PPK.  It’s a new business model so not sure what to call it. You aren’t paying per click but like PPC you are buying keywords. If you don’t want me to call it PPC or PPK you tell me what to call it and I’ll start calling it that.

I stand by my judgment that Kooday is at least a rip off if not a downright scam.  They are at least selling a product that doesn’t exist. They are at least exhibiting some suspicious behavior that you should be wary of.

No one has refuted my statement that Kooday doesn’t HAVE a search engine yet.  Yes they are selling keywords but they don’t have a search engine yet.

All you have to do to have a search engine is license an existing search engine. There are companies out there that specialize in this.  I saw an advertisement earlier for a company that licenses search engine software starting at $350 a month.  What I don’t understand is how can they be selling ads for a product that doesn’t exist yet? Shouldn’t it be easy for them to have a search engine? Don’t they have the money to license some software? Sure the $350 software might not work for them, but the point is that there are options available!

A few people told me that Kooday allows refunds. This led me to do further investigation.  Kooday’s terms of service say :

Kooday has the right to amend or add to our terms and conditions as it deems necessary and can enforce changes that affect its business plans at any time.

Due to the type of services that Kooday offers no refunds will be given. If your account has been terminated because of infractions of our terms or conditions then no refund will be given.

There are  a couple of concerning elements there.  You can mantain the rights to change the agreement but you have to state how users will be notified of the change.  You also should include contact information.  If you look at some of the web site approval services these are things they require that are suspiciously absent from Kooday’s terms and conditions.

Second of all Kooday says in their terms and conditions that they do not allow refunds.  That seems to go against what everyone else is saying about Kooday allowing refunds.  At the very least it shows that Kooday could change their policy at any time since you’ve agreed to the terms and conditions that say you are not able to get refunds.

Where is the privacy policy?  No record of a privacy policy at all.  So what are they going to do with my information when I sign up?  Are they going to sell my information?  Why isn’t there a privacy policy? Why is there only a terms and conditions/terms of service?

Another concerning thing about Kooday is they lack contact information on their web site. If this was a legitimate business they’d have customer support information, contact information, a link to their helpdesk, and even a toll-free number.  Heck I’m a one man show and I even put my phone number, skype, email, etc on my web site.

Why when I click the about Kooday button does it only take me to a sales page pitching me on buying keywords? Why doesn’t it have any information on the company, the founders, etc?

Am I the only one that finds these things disturbing about Kooday?

Maybe Kooday is totally legitimate.  Maybe they just are new business people.  Maybe these are issues they aren’t aware of.

Are you really sure you want to promote them? Are you sure you want to associate your name and reputation with a company that has this many risk factors?

Not me.  I agree with Janet Legere.  I’d rather wait 6 months to see how this pans out. If it is a legitimate business I can still hop on board 6 months from now.  I can still buy some long tail keywords.

- Ben Fitts

Disagree? I’d love to hear your opinion.

PS. there are no affiliate links in this post.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Dear surfer,

I have a warning for you today about a new online business opportunity called Kooday.

I don’t want to call Kooday a scam because I don’t know enough about it. But I certainly do want to warn you about it.

You see when people are new to the internet and home business they fall prey to a lot of these so called “opportunities”.  These scams, rip offs, con artists, or whatever you want to call them make these opportunities that sound great but are really full of false promises.  They make a big splash because everyone wants in on the latest greatest opportunity, but one day people wise up.

Kooday is a new pay per click search engine.  They are being marketed heavily in some internet circles right now and there is a lot of buzz.

They are selling themselves saying that you can buy keywords.  You can then rent those keywords to other people who want to use the same keyword, thereby earning yourself commissions. You can also recommend others to Kooday.

The issue isn’t whether or not that could work.  It could work.  You certainly could make some money now if you get started early and sell a lot of keywords.  However…. Long term buying keywords will only work if people actually search on Kooday.  What good is it to own a keyword if no one ever uses  the web site to search?

The real difficulty with search engines is how do you get a percentage of the market? How do you get people to search your web site instead of searching using Google or Bing?

Here is a warning right from the Kooday home page August 30, 2010:

Our Webcrawlers have not yet been turned on and once activated relevant results will be displayed. Our algorithm will impress the world. Currently our directory content is being used in beta and search relevancy is not accurate.

Kooday is admitting they don’t even have “relevant search results” yet.   At this point Kooday is selling false promises.  They are selling keywords in a search engine but they don’t even have a search engine yet!  Shouldn’t they have launched the search engine first?

This has happened at least 2x that I know of in the past.   Search Big Daddy and Search Estate both tried to take over the search engine market.  They allowed you to buy keywords just like Kooday is.  SBD even had some programs to pay surfers for searching their web site.  Yet they never took off.  They didn’t have enough people searching to make it worthwhile.

If there are only a small number of searchers using a search engine only the most popular keywords will receive enough clicks to make buying them worthwhile. Keywords that are not popular may go days or weeks without someone searching for them.  Advertisers give up because they’re paying for keywords that are never clicked.

The other thing to think about here is… if there wasn’t a business opportunity attached to it, who would use Kooday? Sure people would want to buy some keywords just in case it works out… but there wouldn’t be nearly as many people doing it… especially since the Kooday search engine doesn’t even work yet!

Is Kooday a scam? Maybe. Is it going to fail in 1 year? Most likely.

Could you buy some keywords and hold on to them in case it works? Certainly… but just be careful.  Don’t invest too much time or money into something like Kooday.  Don’t let it take time and energy away from building your real business.

- Ben Fitts

PS. No affiliate links were used.  This was not some trick to try and get you to buy Kooday ads through me. I genuinely don’t like the service and would not spend a dime there.  I’m not even comfortable giving them my credit card.  At least when Search Big Daddy and Search Estate launched they HAD a search engine in place.   Kooday doesn’t even have that yet! Smells like a rip off to me.

PPS. This is my opinion based on 17 years of being on the internet and 13 years of doing internet marketing. I’ve seen a lot of these come and go.

PPS. Some people are mad that I call it PPC.  I dunno what to call it? PPK?  Pay Per Keyword?

Popularity: 1% [?]

Dear reader,

Building a successful network marketing business is NOT about You making money!!!

It is about helping others make money!!!

Does that make sense?

When you help others make money you will all make money. If you get to be really good at helping others make money then I assure you, you’ll be wealthy. You’ll never have a hard time finding people to join your business. EVERYONE will want too.

Here is what made me write about this.

This guy I met online was promoting  this new social network (SWOM).  This social network targets people like you and I. It targets other network marketers.

I have seen many of these come and go.  The problem is they are sold to networkers like you and I. Being networkers we all buy into the hype. Mostly because we’re entrepreneurs and looking for additional revenue streams.  Here is where the problem comes in: We are all already in business opportunities. We’re not looking for new opportunities. They pitch us on the idea that we can market our business to a bunch of other networkers but it never seems to work out that way.

A lot of people join thinking this is going to be the next Facebook.  They usually go strong for 6 months and then begin to die out slowly.  Once all the rush of networkers joins there is no one else to join except new people just getting started in network marketing.  They don’t attract the public because the public wants to go to Facebook where 500 million people are.  They don’t want to go to a social network for network marketers pitch them on deals every day. be

Anyway, I was letting this guy know that promoting a program like that isn’t worth it.  That these programs usually die out.  Here was his response.

I have made over $700 with Swom, if the site closed down tomorrow I would still be in profit. So I do not understand what your point is. Please if you are going to make inflammatory comments about other peoples biz-op’s, make sure you know what you are taking about first .

I bolded and underlined a couple of points in his message. He basically said “F-You I made my $700″.  He doesn’t care if the program dies.  He has made his money!

That is the problem with a lot of network marketers. I feel that is one of the reasons why MLM and network marketing get’s a bad reputation.  You have people out there that are greedy and only care about themselves. They don’t care about helping others.

When you promote programs like this you hurt your reputation.  I’m not going to call SWOM a scam.  I doubt it is a scam.  However I do know SWOM is doomed.  Everyone going there is going to sell people on their opportunity but everyone there  already has an opportunity.  That is a recipe for failure.  When the average person discovers they aren’t going to get any sign ups they will quit SWOM.

I am sure you could join SWOM and make money at it.  However making a quick $700 isn’t worth hurting or risking my reputation on a business that won’t be around long.  Come back to me this time next year and tell me SWOM is alive and doing great. Then I’ll take a look at it.  My reputation isn’t worth that risk.

That is why focusing on helping others is important. Your reputation is in tact.

If you only focus on helping yourself make money you will hurt others in the process. You will hurt your reputation in the process.  Sure a sucker is born every minute and you can continue to market programs and make money, but not very many people will stick with you.

I have people who stick with me. If I promote stuff I have people I know will buy anything I recommend. Why? Because they have benefited from working with me in the past. They’ve made money. I’ve taught them stuff. They know, like, and trust me.  That is worth a lot more than $700 to me!

Making money in networking marketing is about helping others.

Agree? Disagree? Want to spam me with your SWOM links? Want to tell me I’m wrong?  I’d love to hear from you!

- Ben Fitts

PS. This week one of those people that trusts me asked me about paying for a SWEEVA membership. (see the graphic for sweeva in the sidebar.) I told her no.  I told her no because I don’t think her product would market well on Sweeva.  I didn’t want her to buy something from me that wasn’t right for her.  I didn’t think loosing that trust from her was worth the money I’d make from selling her Sweeva when it wasn’t going to benefit her.

Popularity: 1% [?]

If you’re a network marketer and you’ve been in business for awhile at some point you may be offered a chance to buy mlm genealogy lists. Many people consider these to be the creme de la creme of mlm leads because they are people who are already familiar with our industry. However there are some things I feel it is important to warn you about.

Tonight I received a phone call offering to sell me MLM Genealogy leads. Let’s call this woman Ms. B.

Ms. B. told me she had a list of YTB people to sell. She said she had heard some bad things about YTB and that the company might be shutting down. She said she had about 8400 names, phone number, email, and address for YTB people to sell and she was calling me because she thought someone in my company might be interested in them. She thought these people might be looking for a new opportunity.

Being an ethical guy, little warning bells started going off in my head…

After she gave me her pitch I asked a few questions.

Question 1.
Why aren’t you using the leads yourself? Why are you trying to sell them?

Ms. B answered.
She has a lot of MLM experience but she prefers to be a leads broker and she has a lot of experience brokering these kind of leads. Her family were MLMers but she never really got into that side of the business.

More warning bells are going off for me. Why doesn’t she do MLM? Did she sell these to family members or friends already? If they are so great why isn’t she working them?

Question 2.
How many times are you going to sell these leads?

Ms. B answered.
Anyone selling you leads would be lying if they said they didn’t sell them multiple times. However she said since it was a small list she would only sell these 3-6 times and would give me 3 months exclusivity before selling them to anyone else in my company.

This was pretty honest. She is right leads companies sell leads more than once.

Question 3.
How fresh are these leads?

Ms. B answered.
18-24 months old.

More warning bells are going off now. If they are 18-24 months old, why are they just now going up for sale? Has she been selling them for the last 18 months? Did the person generating the leads already milk the leads as much as they could before selling them off to someone else?

Question 4.
How were these leads generated? Were they from an existing YTB members genealogy list?

Ms. B answered.
These names were generated from web sites of YTB members on the internet. Someone wrote a program to capture the names, emails, phone, and address of YTB members from the internet.

At this point I’m livid with anger. You see I run web marketing web sites for my company. I HATE people like this. This person is what we call a “scrapper”. They scrape the content of web sites. They find someone who has YTB marketing web sites and they scrape the content to find the name, email, address, phone, etc.

If you’re someone like me that runs marketing web sites for team members of my company, what happens is this person points a computer program we call a “bot” which is short for robot. They point the bot at your web site. Then the bot tries a bunch of different combinations of usernames until it find someone that exists. It then scrapes the content off the site for the name, email, phone, etc. and puts that info a database. It then continues trying more variations of usernames.

Besides this being unethical it is also a computer attack. They generate tens of thousands of requests or even hundreds of thousands of requests on the web site in order to find a few thousand names. It can even temporarily break a web site, cause a web site to perform poorly, etc.

In addition I feel this is unethical behavior. I feel that people who try and steal genealogy lists are bad apples. I would hate for someone to attack my downline and try and steal them all away for some new opportunity and I would never want to do that to someone else.

Ms. B. couldn’t believe that I was upset. She couldn’t believe that I didn’t understand that this is they way business is done. She claimed that because this information was freely available on the internet that I was upset.

Needless to say the phone call ended shortly thereafter and I won’t be recommending anyone to her.

I hate people like this. She isn’t a networker so she has no idea how dirty her behavior is. She can never truly understand because she doesn’t have a downline. Or maybe this is one reason why she doesn’t do MLM herself and only brokers MLM genealogy leads.

What do you think? Have you ever bought a genealogy list? Have you ever bought lists that were generated from spamming/scraping web sites? Have you ever had someone attack your downline to try and steal them away to another company?

- Ben

Popularity: 4% [?]

We’ve had a lot of comments on my article: Local Ad Link – Scam or Legitimate Advertising Opportunity?

A few of our readers have had some pretty interesting arguments.  Several felt that Local Ad Link (LAL) was a scam and were claiming bounced checks.  Others (mostly people SELLING the service) were talking about how great LAL is.  They talked about how LAL had problems and was in beta and things were getting better all the time.  They also talked about customers who were happy because they saw themselves listed on Google.

A couple criticized me and said I don’t know what I am talking about.  One criticized me for recommending people invest $47 in a Perry Marshall training on how to properly do their own PPC advertising.  Keep in mind that the top package at Local Ad Link costs $200 A MONTH.  I was recommending a training program that someone would buy one time and would give them a good understanding of why LAL is a scam.

Some other people recommended I do my homework.  They didn’t think I knew what I was talking about.

So let me clear up a few things…

I’ve been doing pay per click probably longer than most of you have been on the internet!

I’ve been on the Internet since 1993. I’ve owned my own internet service provider (1995-1996).  I created a search engine of soccer web sites which I sold for 5 figures in 1999.  I’ve been doing pay per click since Overture was called GoTo.com (Overture was bought by Yahoo and is now Yahoo’s PPC service.)  GoTo.com got started doing PPC in 1998 and I started with them in 1999.

Here are some reasons why I continue to think Local Ad Link is a bad investment.  I won’t call it a scam for now but I’ll continue to say LAL is a rip off and is for people who don’t know any better.

First and foremost…

Most LAL customers are basically buying ad placement on Google NOT clicks!  They are happy just to have their web site listed on Google. They don’t realize that there advertisement may not be getting clicked on AND even if they do click on their ad they have to go to Local Ad Link first before getting to their web site!  Since LAL is basically reselling Google ads Google requires them to go to the LAL web site first, then on to their web site.  Most of the LAL customers are too ignorant of internet marketing and PPC so they don’t realize how bad this is for them. This also effects the page relevancy which I’ll talk about in a moment.

Second, LocalAdLink provides a limited number of keywords and you must pay more if you want more keywords.  LocalAdLink limits you to 3 keyword phrases.  You should only pay more for more clicks NOT more keywords. That way you can buy keywords that are not clicked on very often and you can buy a bunch of them. Therefore you can buy a bunch of cheap keywords.  LAL instead charges  you based on the number of keywords you buy regardless of whether or not you actually get any clicks from them! (In the search engine world we call these long tail keywords and they can be some of the most profitable keywords to bid on.)

Third, You cannot select negative keywords which allow you to exclude certain negative phrases from your ads. PPC experts know that negative keywords are just as important as the keywords you want people to use.  Negative keywords allow you to weed out freebie seekers and people who are wasting your money. For example, you can setup negative keywords like “free” or “hacks”.  If you were selling cellular phones for example you wouldn’t want people who are looking for cell phone hacks to waste your advertising money.  LAL does not allow you to select negative keywords.

Fourth does Local Ad Link allow you to pick exact matches? I doubt they do since they don’t allow you to do negative keywords.  Basically there are 4 types of keyword matches at Google.  Broad match which would match any keywords were “cellular” and “phone” appear in the search.  Phrase matches where only phrases that match “cellular phones” appear in the search and exact matches which are only “cellular phones” and no other matches so it would exclude “free cellular phones” or any other 3 keyword searches.

You might be saying Local Ad Link defaults to “broad searches” so that’s best but in fact this is a major flaw in the LAL system. Because they are by default doing broad searches it means they are paying for a lot of extra clicks that are not effective clicks.  Since LAL is basically reselling Google PPC ads and they are wasting money on broad matches, they will run through their advertising budget faster!  If they used phrase matching, exact matching, and negative keywords the advertisers would get fewer clicks but they’d get better quality clicks.  LAL would save money.  LAL is trying to show a lot of clicks to their advertisers which is actually the OPPOSITE of what you want to do in PPC advertising! You don’t want a lot of clicks you want HIGH QUALITY clicks that lead to sales!

Fifth, LocalAdLink offers limited zip code selection and charges you based on how many zip codes you select. PPC should charge you based on the number of clicks you receive not the number of zip codes. You should be able to pick as many locations as you want!  If you pick a zip code of a high end neighborhood for example you might not get a lot of clicks.  For example I know of a neighborhood in Boston’s Back Bay that is very exclusive.  One city block has it’s own zip code!  Needless to say you wouldn’t get very many clicks by targetting that zip code, but anyone who clicked would be a millionaire and would be the kind of audience you would want to target.

Finally and perhaps worst of all is the fact that Local Ad Link provides a negative relevancy on your advertising. Google has a page relevancy or advertising relevancy rating. This essentially means that if you link your ad to a crappy web site you will show up lower in the listings.  It also means that if you’re ad gets more clicks than your competition you might be able to bid less on the ad and get rated higher on Google’s search engine listings. LAL is providing a negative relevancy because they are performing in a role of intermediary.  Linking to your page at LAL isn’t as good as linking directly to your web site is.

When you click on a LocalAdLink advertisement you are taken to LAL’s web site! This is the WORST possible thing to happen. MANY MANY MANY people who click on your ad will get to LAL and will NOT click through to your web site. You have a short period of time to get someone’s attention and making them click through LAL before they get to your web site adds complexity.  This means you’ll be paying for a lot of people to visit your web site that will never actually get there. They will get to LAL and click back to Google, click away to another link, etc. BUT you’re paying for them to visit your web site and they NEVER actually get there. (Actually LAL is paying for them and that is one reason why they will never succeed at this game financially unless they rip off a lot of users by providing them far less advertising for their money.)

Let’s say LAL is a good web site. Let’s say the design is good. Let’s say they Let’s say do a good job of getting people to click on your link  and go to your web site.  A GREAT result would be 80% of the people who click through get to your web site… That basically means you’re paying for 20% of the people to click on your add that don’t actually get to you. That’s 20% LOSS.  That’s 20% BREAKAGE.  What if the site isn’t any good? What if 50% of them fail?  Should you pay for a 50% failure rate? Should you pay for a 20% failure rate?

Here are some other good articles on whether or not Local Ad Link is a scam:

http://www.forestmarie.com/why-localadlink-is-a-scam-localadlink-review-local-ad-link/

http://hubpages.com/hub/Local-Ad-Link-Scam

http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/427/ripoff0427685.htm

http://www.idowebmarketing.com/local-ad-link-review-its-a-scam-people-heres-why/

And some message boards where there are a lot of complaints.

http://www.feedagg.com/feed/138261/Local-Ad-Link-Scam-Comments

http://scam.com/showthread.php?t=80303

Some of these go back to the discussion of bounced checks, bad support, and technical problems with Local Ad Link.  I haven’t used it so I can’t talk about those things.  My analysis is based on sound PPC advertising practice.

I dare anyone with a strong background in PPC to tell me that using LAL is better than doing your own PPC advertising OR hiring a firm who charges you a small percentage to manage your ads for you.

- Ben Fitts

Popularity: 17% [?]

Local Ad Link - the newest advertising FAD

Many of you have probably heard of the latest advertising gimmick, Local Ad Link. (NOT an affiliate link.)

In my opinion Local Ad Link is just a FAD that most businesses should avoid.

First of all people contacting me about Local Ad Link are idiots.  They’re telling me it’s ok if I don’t like it. I should buy a position and market it to others anyway. Hello?  McFly?  Are you there? Don’t you realize that if you are telling me to do it anyway just to make some money, this screams out “SCAM” to me.

Second of all, the advertising packages with Local Ad Link are HORRIBLE.

$50 a month for 3 zip codes and 2 search terms
$100 a month for 10 zip codes and 2 search terms
$200 a month for 50 zip codes and 3 search terms

Here is my big problem with this.

If you know anything about Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising you can get a better deal for yourself.

My dad has a web site for granticrete countertops.  He is only licensed to do these in Rhode Island and Connecticut.  So we have a simple pay per click campaign setup to target keywords in Rhode Island and Connecticut.

#1 My dad can buy more than 3 search terms.  We’re currently targetting 24 terms.
#2 My dad can target more than 3, or 10, or even 50 zip codes. We can target as many as we want.
#3 My dad spends less than $10 a month on average on his pay per click ads.
#4 My dad can specify the landing page! He can have a page that’s unique to Connecticut or a page that’s unique to Rhode Island.

Now take a look in comparison to LocalAdLink.  My dad targets the entire state of Rhode Island for example. He’d have to pay $200 a month to get even close to that with LocalAdLink.  Yet my dad spends less than $10 a month.

Are you getting the picture?

Do you see why this is a big scam?

How is LocalAdLink getting their ads on Google in the first place…. Pay Per Click!  Basically what you are paying LocalAdLink for is having them manage your advertising for you.  If you a computer novice then maybe LocalAdLink is for you… but if you are someone who is willing to learn you’d be much better off actually investing the $200 in Perry Marshall’s Definitive Guide to Google Adwords. In an hour’s time you could manage your own PPC ads and save yourself hundreds of dollars a month AND do more effective ad campaigns than you’ll get with Local Ad Link!

And I haven’t even gotten into the real Pay Per Click tricks like customizing your campaigns based on your keywords, sending them to a landing page that targets that keyword, etc.  Local Ad Link sends you to their site (because they need to bump up their search engine and alexa ratings to convince more people to advertise!)  The person then has to click on a link from local ad link to be taken to your actual web site! So Local Ad Link is adding in an extra step in the process and you’ll loose some of your prospects right there!

Is Local Ad Link a scam? No. It’s not a scam but it is a company that is specifically targetting ignorant business owners that don’t know much about how to market online.  Personally that’s the kind of company I like to avoid. AND who the hell wants to go door to door selling internet advertising anyway? YUCK!

- Ben Fitts

Popularity: 99% [?]

The scam otherwise known as Chat to Text is back. I hate it and I recommend all of you avoid it.

This is a facebook application that allows you to get facebook chat messages sent to your cell phone. It costs $6 and has an MLM payplan associated with it.

Here is one example of why I hate it.

I got an email yesterday from a friend.  She is not a technical person.  In fact she has told me she hates being on the computer all day.  She is an outdoors person. She likes being outside. She enjoys traveling.  She enjoys meeting people and networking face to face, NOT working on the computer all the time. She explicitly told me she doesn’t want to spend a lot of time on the computer.

Yet this woman emailed me and asked me to take a look at Chat to Text.  This is a woman who doesn’t want to be on the computer all the time and yet now she is promoting a product that puts your computer chat on your cell phone.  If anything it’s the exact opposite!  This woman wants to try and get away from the computer and yet now she’s getting text messages on her cell phone?!?!

I feel like the ONLY reason she is pushing this crap is because:

1. Someone she knows probably sent her the link.

2. She hasn’t thought it through.

3. She is promoting it because of the MLM component and the ability to get paid for referring others.

In reality this is a product she won’t use. This is a product she actually won’t like at ALL!  Yet she is promoting it to others!

Chat to Text is one of the worst examples of MLM scam and is what causes people to not like MLM.  The majority of people promoting this JUNK aren’t even going to use it.  They are just promoting it for the MLM. That is how MLM get’s a bad name.

I encourage all of you to boycott Chat to Text.  Next time someone asks you emails you about Chat to Text send them here to find out why what they are doing is so bad for our industry.

Popularity: 28% [?]

I hate to say I told you so, but I did.

Yesterday I wrote about the latest MLM fad and encouraged you to avoid it.  The fad is called Chat to Text.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one that didn’t think this was a good idea.  Facebook shut down Chat to Text yesterday.

I quote from the Chat to Text web site.

UPDATE – Facebook just shut down the application as of 9:42pm Eastern Time Monday, Feb. 2nd. Don’t worry, everyone that paid already will still receive their commission as per our agreement. But let’s get this back up and running…this is a way for ALL of us to make money. As you all know, MLM is legal and MLM works…this was exploding and Facebook may even have felt threatened by us.

WE NEED YOUR HELP!!! POST YOUR COMMENTS TO THIS NEW FACEBOOK GROUP – WHAT DO YOU THINK???

Email Facebook to tell them this is a legitimate business model that doesn’t violate any terms. Read Facebook’s terms for yourself, ChatToText doesn’t violate ANY of them! Here is the email they sent, a 5-second copy/paste email:

————————To the developer of ChatToText, application ID #43000236800,

Your application has been disabled for violating Facebook terms and policies.

For further information, please email platform-policy@facebook.com .  Please note that attempting to recreate this application may result in further action.

Sincerely,

Facebook Platform Developer Operations & Support

And just as Chat to Text is trying to create buzz and get support for their application there are groups of people forming who are trying to make sure they stay banned from Facebook.

Here is the group you should join if you want to keep Chat to Text off Facebook.

The problem with Chat to Text wasn’t that they charged money for a facebook application but that they were doing MLM.

You might wonder why I am upset by this. I do MLM and make a full time living doing MLM.  My issue with it wasn’t that it was MLM but that there wasn’t any real residual income here to be made.  All the money was up front money from selling the application AND it was an application that I felt I’d never want to use.

To be honest I don’t do much Facebook chat anyway. Why would I want Facebook chat to come through to my cell phone? That’d be annoying to me and I bet a lot of people would start to use the application, find text messages to their phone annoying and turn it off.

I felt like a lot of people were promoting it not because they liked the product but because they wanted to make money referring the product to other people. Or perhaps even worse, the product was only $6, so “why not” try it.  That’s a pretty bad way to build an MLM.  You will end up with a lot of unhappy people when they realize they wasted their money.

Apparently I was right.

If you are an established MLMer you have to beware of the junk you promote.  Several of my friends started promoting this junk.  One was even promoting it as “Facebook has gone MLM”. You have to remember that your reputation is more important than a quick paycheck. WHO CARES IF I CAN MAKE A PROFIT PROMOTING IT.  It takes bigger guts to not promote something.  If I don’t have to promote every little thing that comes up it shows I’m serious.  And I have a better reputation.

Remember the old tv commercials “When EF Hutton talks people listen”?  People would be at a restaurant eating. It would be very noisy.  Then one of the guys would start to talk and everyone would suddenly stop talking to hear what he had to say.  Then the voice over would come on and say “When EF Hutton talks people listen”.

That’s how you want to be perceived. You want people to listen to what you have to say.

What do you think? Do you think I’m crazy? Do you think ChatToText will be back on Facebook?

- Ben Fitts

Popularity: 36% [?]

The latest MLM fad

Heads up people,

It’s the newest MLM fad that I encourage you to AVOID.

It’s called “chat to text” and it’s a new facebook application that allows people to visit your facebook page and then send you chat messages.  They sales pitch says you don’t even have to be at your computer you can receive the chat messages via text to your cell phone.

UHM. Hello?  I don’t WANT chat messages sent to my cell phone.  That would be extremely annoying! It could also get expensive if you aren’t on a flat rate instant messaging plan.

Once again this is something I think that people are promoting because there is a business opportunity/affiliate program associated with it.  Everyone pays $6 to install the application to their facebook page.  I don’t think they are promoting it because they really think it’s a good idea.

It SOUNDS like a good idea but in reality I bet a lot of people who start using this chat to text will end up turning off the damn thing off when it gets too annoying.

Just my 2cents.

I could be totally wrong here of course but I’d rather not be the person out promoting the latest junk all the time.  I’d rather be the person who people trust because I don’t promote every junk program to come to me in email.

Sure it’s only $6. That’s actually the psychology they are using.  For $6 most people will just say yes and do it.  Even if they don’t like it and don’t use it, it was just $6 right?  It’s the same principal behind $7 secrets. They sold a bunch of cheap ebooks and products for $7 because it minimizes returns, minimizes support, etc.  It doesn’t mean those products were any good.

Agree? Disagree?

- Ben Fitts

Popularity: 36% [?]

This is a continuation of a blog post I wrote yesterday about an MLM expert (Kim Klaver) promoting non MLM products. (See the original post here.)

Now here is what you may not understand.

First of all if Kim Klaver is a JV partner for this launch she is making 60% of all initial sales and the recurring on this sale. (Yes this is not only a $47 one time sale but they will also upsell you on a monthly membership.)

Second of all this is a non MLM product. It doesn’t teach you how to sell your MLM products, recruit people, sponsor up, get more traffic to your web site, develop leads, etc.  What it teaches you is how to sell products on Clickbank.

What is Clickbank?  It’s for internet marketers mostly.  If I was selling an ebook or software product I can put it on Clickbank’s marketplace.  Clickbank handles the sale for me and pays me a month or so later.  Clickbank also helps manage my affiliates and their sales and pays my affiliates for me.  Clickbank is a great service, but what does it have to do with MLM?

Nothing.

The Clickbank inner circle is all about teaching people to make money online “selling Clickbank” products. but let me ask you something…

If you want to learn more about building a massive MLM enterprise… Why would I direct your attention to a product that has nothing to do with building an MLM?

This is a mistake I made a few years ago when I was starting this blog. I covered all sorts of topics not just MLM. It was too confusing. There was too much going on.  I was sending out too much information.  I was promoting all my friends products and stuff and some of it was just because they were my friend. Some of my friends would start a joint venture with me on some of my projects.  In exchange they’d want me to help promote their products. Sometimes I’d promote something I wasn’t sure was a good fit just because I felt I had to pay jmy friends back.

This is the mistake Kim Klaver is making now.  She’s gone from being an old fashioned face to face network marketer to become an internet marketer. Now that she’s gotten into the internet marketing world and now she’s trying to do too much.  She’s lost her focus.  AND it doesn’t look good that she’s a joint venture partner making 60% commissions selling you on something that will only distract you from building your MLM business. Again I made this mistake myself.  (see this article from September 2007 where I apologize for my lack of focus)

Let’s put this another way… if you were a real estate sale coach teacing people how to sell real estate… and you suddenly started to pitch people on selling cars… It’d look kind of strange right?  To me that’s what Kim is doing.  She’s an MLM coach who is now pitching people on selling ebooks and stuff through Clickbank which has very little to do with growing an MLM enterprise!

If I was a real estate person taking her training and I started to suddenly try and sell cars, it’d probably effect my real estate business, right? I probably wouldn’t sell many homes because I’d be busy selling cars.  Sure I might learn some sales skills, but at the cost of hurting my primary business.

Kim Klaver. I implore you to regain your focus.  Get back to your roots.  Just because you’ve started to get involved in internet marketing doesn’t mean you should promote every internet marketing deal you see.  If you have to tell people that the sales letter is bad, then it’s probably a good sign that the product isn’t a good fit for you to promote.

Again I relate to this because I found myself making the same mistakes.  So please take this advice with the respect that it is intended.

Kim, I invite your reply.

- Ben Fitts

Popularity: 16% [?]