The Biggest Webinar in IM History / Perry Belcher

[Lynn Terry]

Good points, Tommy. There is a 4th group though:

Those of us that never got sucked in, that stay focused and driven, and know what we want well enough to determine what takes us closer to our goals - and what distracts us from them.

It's my goal to help people get to that place in their online business quest as early on as humanly possible.

[pschlegel]

Something is seriously wrong with this market. And it's obviously not JUST the marketing.

And that's one reason we see good people leaving all the time. The guys behind Zamdoo (one of the best PPC "spy" tools to come along) left because of it:

To me, many of the remarks they made for why they closed down said volumes about the IM space.

"Dear Customers, Friends and Supporters:

Back in June 2006, Jeff and I decided to take a departure from our "comfort zone" of developing media sites, and took the plunge into Internet Marketing toolkits with the development of ZamDoo.com. As many of you will recall from our initial outreach to the community, our forums, our 500+ person beta test, our shock at the way competitors treated their customers, and our eventual launch - we did things differently, and we treated our customers the way we'd always wanted to be treated ourselves.

As a result, it is with both a touch of nostalgia and sincere pride that we announce today that we'll be closing down both the ZamDoo.com and ZamDooReports.com offerings on August 15th. All existing customers will no longer be billed for your access, and we will no longer be taking any new subscriptions or signups. If you were due to be billed between now and August 15th, you won't be - and all existing members will enjoy their access until that time.

ZamDoo.com and ZamDooReports.com were both very good businesses to us, and taught us a lot about an industry that we knew very little about prior to entering. The fact of the matter is that the sites we build have all fallen outside this vertical, and by entering the IM space, we were entering uncharted territory for us. The marketing tactics, customer relations, quality of products, and customer attitudes are very different from "traditional" online consumer spaces, and frankly Jeff and I weren't as "at home" in IM as we have been with our other products."

[Lynn Terry]

What a shame. I don't recall ever hearing about these sites either. I'm not sure why. I hate to see good people like that leaving the space though...

[Lynn Terry]

Yes, I'll at SNL8 this weekend, and I'm attending Jerry West's pre-event get together as well. I'll be with Nicole Dean (Jimmy D Brown's affiliate manager) so catch us there. I'm really looking forward to the weekend - I'm actually reviewing Dan & Jerry's seo guides side by side this week.

The auto-follow/unfollow is interesting. I was watching that with particular interest as those same guys enthusiastically promoted Perry's Social Media Money System that same week. Which is the slant I bought up on the IMTW Podcast (episode 20).

Look forward to seeing you Thursday!

[ScottTousignant]

OK, Lynn you are not a 'terrorist' nor a 'renegade', you simply provide useful, thought provoking, and applicable information to help us become the best that we can be. You do this with integrity while not being afraid to state your opinions and keeping in line with your values. Sure doesn't sound like terrorism to me

Superstars are the same in any industry. So many people look up to them, yet rarely are they they type of role model that you would like your children to grow up to be like.

It's funny, this post could easily be about the diet industry. A lot of mass confusion and over-complication of basic fundamental principles. Hyped up products with wild claims... scams... false guru's and people buying status rather than what's best for them.

I kind of laugh about the whole Party Principle thing. If you follow his example here's what you do...

Go to a party, pretend to be people's friends, tell funny jokes, be entertaining, get them to tell their friends that you are funny and entertaining, then when you have enough friends you pull out your credit card machine and ask for a few grand from them so you can teach them how to pretend to be peoples friends and ask them for money.

Here's a funny story. Someone I know in the fitness industry actually goes to parties with a payment processing machine on his hip. He'll get people to talk about how much they wish they could lose weight and then he'll pull out his machine and ask them to swipe their credit card so he can send them his book and sign them up for coaching.

...And people actually do it!

So yes it works. But does that align with your values?

If your sole purpose is to rake in wads of cash without caring about whether or not your customers use what they've purchased from you, then this model is right for you.

I however have a purpose in life and a legacy that I want to be proud of. You can earn a wonderful living and stay aligned with your values, passion, and purpose.

We're building more than a business here. We're changing lives and making the world a better place. We're impacting families. We are a family. Let's start acting like it.

You ROCK Lynn. Love ya to pieces.

[TraciKnoppe]

Oh good grief - a card swiper on your hip?!! LOL

Yeah well, some folks also once drank some Kool Aide... just because that once worked, doesn't mean it was such a great idea.

My point is that some marketing is more about charisma of the marketer, than usage of common sense by the customer.

[Julie Anna]

They have charisma, and that is what sells. They are selling themselves, sometimes more so than their products. People will buy whatever they are selling, because it's them selling it.

So I think that for some folks, the real issue is "Rock Star" Worship. They are viewing these gurus like rock stars and these people are their groupies.

True. However, there is nothing new under the sun. They are selling dreams to people and tapping into two basic characteristics we all have to keep in check to stay focused - greed and laziness. This has been happening since the days of the Gold Rush and long before. Hm, wasn't there a launch named Gold Rush something or other?

I didn't read your blog post but I bet you touched on this, Traci.

JA

[MaryGallagher]

glad I had my blinders on for this one, deleted the 'thousands' of emails about it. M-

[Lynn Terry]

Thank you Scott

Excellent points!

[Brismom1]

I did watch the webinar and I was not impressed.