Promotion on this product itself is big. Practically every affiliate marker is promoting it. And it’s become very controversial. It’s hard to get to the product without going through what seem to be “mandatory” upsell pages.
Newbies may feel inclined to buy the $500+ sells before even looking at the base product they just purchased. I think for us marketers this isn’t really anything new.
Darren Scott Monroe has just put out a video on his disapproval of the up sell pages…View My Video As Well, although Darren has a very valid point, you need to see what’s inside. He didn’t do that.
I agree with Darren’s opinion on the hidden link. You should be able to SKIP to to what you bought! Darren comes out with a lot of surface content. He’s a good spotter!
We’ve grown, and we know that Content (= value) is King. And we know that giving away the good stuff is what makes us money. Who doesn’t appreciate value? And even as marketers, when we are a client how much do we expect over delivery in a product? So the sneaky “force marketing” for those who don’t know better,meaning newbies, is definitely sneaky. When us marketers can’t get out of the page to move on it’s a bit Taboo, and I’m not cool with this as well.
Now I’ll go on and show you what Anthony’s product actually consists of, and give you the keys to getting it as cheap as possible if you still think it has value to you (and yes, I’m going to give you an affiliate link, LOL)!
… or else you could find many of the sites you use on a regular basis permanently closed to you. And maybe find your sites closed to many of your regular visitors.
The Basics
SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act) is a bill currently in the US Congress that would allow the US Government to add sites to a blacklist, preventing anyone in the United States from accessing them. The stated goal is to limit access to pirate (“warez”) sites, and sites that sell counterfeit physical products. Fake Rolexes, designer clothes, prescription drugs, etc.
The intent of the bill is something we strongly support. Piracy affects many of us, especially those of us who spend immense hours creating quality products and information only to have them freely distributed when our living and support of our families depend on selling our own unique intellectual property.
Our membership includes tens of thousands of authors, musicians, graphic designers, photographers, programmers, copywriters, videographers, public speakers and others, from nearly every creative field. We feel the impact of digital thievery first hand.
This bill is not the way to handle the problem. It is a disaster in the making. It would damage the Internet’s basic security infrastructure, possibly require ISPs to monitor every site you visit, and make the operation of any website that contains user-generated content (blogs, forums, digital marketplaces, and social media sites) too risky for investors and new developers.
Wikipedia has posted a good basic summary of the potential problems. Read it. It is frightening. And you need to be scared.
How It Would Work
Here’s the simple version: If the Justice Department or any copyright holder accused a site of “encouraging or facilitating” piracy, the government could order that site removed from US-based search engines and ad networks, forbid payment processors from handling transactions for them, and require ISPs to block access to those sites by their customers.
Let’s consider how that might apply to this forum… There are currently over 335,000 pages on this site. If just one of those pages contained a single post promoting an illegal download, or one WSO seller has used graphics or code from a copyrighted product without permission, or we miss just one Chinese spam for counterfeit goods, we could be blocked.
Would it matter that we actively look for and delete those posts? Maybe, but only after the process had begun. And we’d probably never know about it until the block was in place.
The amount of time that it would take to correct such an unjustified blocking would cause permanent damage to any interactive site. Shifting the membership away from a destination for that long nearly guarantees the site would never recover.
Along with that, there is no requirement that payment processors re-accept a site that has been blocked this way. You know how these guys work: They don’t care if the site is eventually found innocent. They’d label it as “high risk,” and never deal with it again. And they’d probably start creating whole new categories to lock out, just to avoid the headaches.
“You let visitors post on your site? Sorry. We don’t accept interactive services in our network.”
And, unless the ISPs are working from a centralized and regularly updated database, it’s unlikely most of them would ever remove the blocks once they were in place.
Mistakes would almost certainly be fatal to the target sites. We’re talking about legitimate sites that provide real value for their visitors and real incomes for their operators and their families.
It is unclear at this point whether the legislation would affect sites based in the US, or if it applies only to “foreign” sites. Even if it doesn’t start out applying to sites hosted in the United States, do you really think it will stay limited to “offshore sites” for long?
And how do we justify sitting by while our friends around the world are subjected to this potential for arbitrary blocking within the US?
Do you think that this won’t affect you?
Maybe you aren’t involved in a market where this would seem to matter, and you’re not interested in the principle of the thing. Consider a few possible examples that might make the reach of this Congressional folly clearer.
Any blogs you like? Keep in mind how many of them are hacked every day. One of the main activities for those hackers is pointing the victim sites to online shops selling illegal drugs.
*POOF*
GONE…
Hang out at any scrapbooking sites? A lot of them let the members share their original page themes and other digital scrapbooking elements. If one clueless designer uses graphics from a catalog or other copyrighted source, your fun little hobby community could be taken away from you. And the site owner could lose their income.
Use shareware or freeware? Legitimate software libraries, like CNet’s, would be prime targets. After all, it only takes one mistake.
Do you surf using proxies to protect your privacy? Forget that. It’s only a matter of time before that’s marked as a refuge for pirates and they’re blocked.
Have you ever tried to keep track of which sites are pirating your products? If you live in the US, you can forget that, too. Once they hit the blacklist, you can’t see them. Which means you can’t take any action to reduce the damage.
That’s just the tip of the virtual iceberg.
The real damage will begin when the pirates implement new systems for distributing their warez. Evading a domain-based list is child’s play for experienced people, and pirates really don’t care if it’s illegal. If they did, they wouldn’t be pirates.
And it won’t just be the traditional pirates who join in. Anyone who’s studied history knows that prohibition just romanticizes the suppliers and users, and creates networks dedicated to serving that “heroic” image.
And, of course, there’s the problem of retribution. If the US starts arbitrarily blocking access to foreign sites from within our country, how long do you think it will be before other countries develop similar approaches to advancing their political goals, and block their citizens from accessing sites they don’t deem suitable?
At that point, it isn’t even nominally about piracy any more. It’s about politics, pure and simple. If you doubt the temptation, consider how quickly nations in the Middle East tried to block their citizens from accessing western social networks at the first sign of unrest over the past few years.
Think about how this would look to the world after all our comments about the Chinese “Great Firewall.”
If you believe our bureaucrats would be careful enough to only list sites that existed for the sole purpose of piracy, remember: These are the same bureaucrats who listed a then-sitting US Senator (the late Edward Kennedy, of MA) on our anti-terrorist “no fly” list.
What’s your recourse if someone accuses you of “encouraging or facilitating” piracy and you’re found to be innocent? Good luck with that. The only way you could get any satisfaction there would be if you could prove they willfully and knowingly made false allegations.
Ask your lawyer what the chances are of proving that. Be prepared from them to laugh and say “Zero.”
This is the single most dangerous piece of legislation to regulate the Internet that has ever had any real chance of becoming law in the US.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
If you live in the US, contact your Senators and Representatives and encourage them to vote against SOPA (H.R. 3621) and PIPA, the Senate version (S. 968).
When you contact them, be calm, clear, and concise. Tell them that you support the goal but oppose the legislation, because of the damage it will do to small businesses and the security of the Internet in general.
If you feel the need to cite a source for them, point them to the Wikipedia article, which lists a number of US government studies and reports that show just how much damage the legislation could do.
And be clear that you don’t want to see an edited version of the bill passed. This thing is not just poorly implemented. The concept itself is flawed and dangerous.
Emails count a little. Phone calls and faxes count more. A short, clear printed letter mailed to them counts the most.
If you’re contacting your representative, mention H.R. 3621 (SOPA). If it’s your Senators, the bill number to mention is S. 968 (PIPA).
You can find the contact information for both Senators and Representatives at Contacting the Congress. Just select your state, type in your zip code, and click the “Submit It” button.
When contacting them, be sure to either mention your name and address to the person you speak with on the phone or include it in your correspondence. They want to know you’re actually one of their constituents.
Remember to be polite, clear, and brief. These folks are trying to protect your interests. Most of them simply don’t understand the potential problems the bill would create.
Calling them, or typing a brief letter and putting a stamp on it, will probably take less time than you were about to spend in this forum today. And it could make a huge difference.
If every US citizen who reads this takes that few minutes’ worth of action, we can generate a ton of pressure against the bill. If we all just leave it to everyone else, we’re likely to be stuck with this as law, along with all the problems it brings.
It’s up to you. It’s Your Life. IT’S YOUR FREEDOM! Choose wisely.
Here’s a quick introduction to using bit.ly to shorten your links. Bit.ly also works well for cloaking links, but ideally it is an easy way to not only shorten a link to use in posts or small messaging applications such as twitter, but it’s great for tracking the clicks you get on a particular link. Take a look!
Over the years our online tools have exponentially increased. It’s amazing what you can do online. You have a blog and you want to post a video, well YouTube makes it easy. You upload a video, you embed a link in a post, and Voila! You have a video in your post. It’s wonderful. But it’s not always that easy. Sometimes that copy and paste video can be a 3 hour nightmare of “why isn’t this stupid link just working?” I’m highly technical and I’ve been there more than once. Unfortunately although our tools have become more powerful over the years, so have their complexity.
This is not about posting videos though. This is about posting images. And if you post images anywhere (and I know you do), then you might want to take a look at Imgur.com. I gotta tell you, when it comes to uploading, storing, organizing, and serving your images, it just doesn’t get much easier. Go to their website and leave your brain at home!
Seriously, a blind monkey could do this. Similar to bit.ly and other immediate services, you can upload an image and get a short-link to it well…immediately! You’ll see the following:
"Not Logged In" Welcome / Upload Page
If you like you can choose to create a free account which then affords you the luxury of making your own albums which you can then sort your images into. You can then grab a link from any image and put it pretty much anywhere. Here’s a quick video to show you how it works:
If you’ve run into this it’s a fairly simple fix. This specifically focuses on fixing the following error in Photoshop (click to enlarge the image):
Now you could simply replace the font, but it won’t be the same as the original template. If your goal is to get the exact effect that the template (PSD) was created as, you want to obtain and install the original fonts used for that particular file. I’ve put together a video that explains how to do this. For best results choose 720p and set the video to full screen.
You know what? Internet marketing is hard. That pisses me off.
I thought that I would learn very quickly how to just crush it all over the place. I’m talented, damn it. I got mad tech skills, for real. Humbling. Let me confirm some myths:
Yes, there really is such as thing as information overload. It hurts. This is where I’m learning to mentally discard what isn’t important.
Yes, there are many Shiny Objects. Not only will another product distract you from your goal, but so will TV and unnecessary sleep, or anything that gets in the way of what you’ve already mentally planned to do. This is where I’m learning that I can’t do 30 methods at once.
Yes, there are many distractions, most of them Shiny Objects. Put out an SOS (Shiny Object Syndrome)…
Many Shiny Objects Cause Information Overload, especially if you try to absorb them all at once without creating an order that you understand. Test to see if it works. If not, discard it. There really is no such thing as wasted time.
Split testing, or binary search, where things go one way or another, works out in favor of where the most energy is focused.
And I Quote: “You don’t need all of the information in any product that you purchase. In many cases you’re buying something because it has at least one specific function you need to get the job done, whether you realize it or not. And you’re usually being sold on one main thing and the rest is a rising emphasis on ‘Bonuses.’ Nothing wrong with that by the way, I often love a good upsell. But be careful about getting so much you can’t possibly watch it in your lifetime or ever use it because it’s not resellable, rebrandable, etc. I never worry about refundable, but of course everyone will have a guarantee. That’s fine, get what you think you can use and then use it”. – Nuff Sed
I have to admit that I love working. I just didn’t think I was going to have to “work” this hard. More like think this hard. That really pisses me off, it’s a good thing it’s fun!
A few days ago I received this notice from Google:
We’ve given much consideration both to our current stance on ads deemed unacceptable due to their business practices and to the many complaints that we have received from users and publishers about these ads. We understand that there are serious ramifications to our stance, and that many of our clients are affected. However, providing our users with the highest quality ads is integral to the long-term success of our program. In turn, we believe that preserving trust in the Google brand, and in our ads, is also beneficial to your success with our program.
So I logged into my AdWords account and sure enough, there was a bright red banner across the top showing my account was suspended.
I was totally shocked! I went over the terms of service with a fine toothed comb and could find not reason why my account had been suspended. My campaigns were pointing to relevant content (some not even being monetized with Adsense or any ads yet for that matter).
In another letter they said (I’ve had about 10 ongoing emails with them):
Your account was and we will no longer allow your ads to run on Google. Please refrain from opening any new AdWords accounts. We will suspend any newly created accounts upon registration and your account fee will not be refunded. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, but unfortunately we cannot provide any further assistance in this matter. Google’s primary objective is to provide safe, relevant experiences for our users. The decision to suspend your account was made after careful review of your account and the low quality landing page experiences promoted through your ads.
You can review these Terms and Conditions here: https://adwords.google.com/select/tsandcsfinder. Again, we’re sorry for any inconvenience this may cause and I appreciate your cooperation in this matter. Have a nice day!
And in yet another:
Also the site xyz.com is violating our Security Hazards Policy. Google AdWords reserves the right to refuse to run certain ads or categories of ads on a case-by-case basis. Your ad was recently disapproved for the following Unacceptable Content: Security Hazards.
In order for your ad to run, please remove this content from your ad text and your site. Once you’ve done this, an AdWords Specialist can review your ad again.
Google believes strongly in freedom of expression and therefore offers broad access to content across the webwithout censoring search results “<<MY ADDED QUESTION AND COLOR HERE – But really? Without Censoring Search Results?>>”
At the same time, Google may refuse any ads or terminate any of your ad
campaigns at any time, for any reason, as noted in our program Terms and Conditions.
You can view our Policies at: blah,blah,blah.
I appreciate your cooperation in this matter. ..etc, etc…
I’ve replaced the actual sitename with xyz.com. I had no idea what this site was. And once I found it, it really was a pretty tame old marketing site for a decent product. So what? It still exits and holds some weight, but I could find no reason or terms of service violation. I deleted all my campaigns just in case. After a few more emails I finally started to get some answers.
As it turns out, Google can go back in their cached data as far back as they want and suspend you at any time if they find a violation. It doesn’t matter how long ago (or from what I gather at least 2002 since that’s when these terms of service were put into place).
Well guess what? That’s exactly what they did. One of the first campaigns I ever ran (almost 5 years ago!) that had no click through, didn’t make a penny, and only ran for a day or so was apparently in violation of their terms of service! The same product I mentioned before. Even though they say please remove this content from your ad text and your site, it is impossible to do so since the actual data isn’t even in my account, the sites haven’t existed for years, and it was a one day experiment I ran when I as a complete newbie started my first Adwords account! How sad!
Once again, to say the least, I was shocked! How can they do this? It’s completely inhumane. Because of this I have lost a huge amount of respect for Google’s business behavior.
This is completely unfair and unethical. I told them that it was akin to getting arrested for a parking ticket you paid 5 years ago in another state!
What’s scary about this is that is shows that “Big Brother” Google is eternally storing all the data they have ever collected on every account, campaign, website, article, search result, email ever sent (really scary), and anything else you can possibly imagine that goes through Google’s fingers. If it passes by or is “botted” by them it is sucked into Google’s ever growing massive data base of human behavior and all seeing eye. Now I’m not a conspiracy theorist or anything, but I bet things like this have got the conspiracy theorists having a field day!
I mean truly, what is all this data being used for? I understand that Google uses this information to capitalize on the unimaginably ever growing information world, I think we all understand that much. But to what degree? Anyway, that’s not what this is post is really about. My warning is this: If you’re using Google AdWords to promote your sites, have a backup plan! If there’s the potential that within the last 9 years you have run a campaign against Google’s terms of service, expect to have your account banned! Cover your butt! I’m sure some of you out there are pumping thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars into your AdWords account, and Google DOES NOT CARE! Lately I’m seeing this trend with PayPal as well. Make sure that you have always and are continuing to abide by their terms of service, and if you think that you may not have even for a single day have a backup plan! There’s nothing worse than having your entire income stream suddenly cut off all at once. Fortunately I have typically used AdWords to test the traffic marketing waters instead of throwing large amounts of advertising dollars at it. I’m one of the lucky ones. It could have been worse. But in the end it makes me extremely paranoid as to what could potentially happen with other accounts in other endeavors.
If anyone one has any advice in these matters, if you’ve ever been able to get your account restored, if you’ve found ways to replace your AdWords income, if you have advice, please say so!
This is the first product I’ve purchased from Darren Scott Monroe, and I can tell you that it won’t be the last. He’s totally real in this and practices what he preaches. I don’t know him, have never talked to him, I’m telling you this from going through this product from start to finish.
One of the things that struck me is the consistency in the way he delivers the subject. It’s “Fast Cash Crisis”, right? So he puts down six different ways to bring in an income quickly (and this isn’t a “push button” or a worthless rehash scam), and each is presented in order of quickest to longest. So if you start with technique one, you have the greatest potential to generate necessary income in the shortest possible timeframe as opposed to technique two. And each successive technique will take you a bit more time (but most likely create you better results, and he explains “how much is your time worth?” in this as well and explains ways to better utilize it).
What I really found that made this useful after listening is that DSM (I’m just going to use that for Darren Scott Monroe from now on, cause it’s kinda long and you know I’m actually typing this crap!), is that not only has he been there and done his own hard time doing these things and making his mistakes, but he lays it right down on the table and is incredibly inspiring in the process.
These videos (or audio page presentation, i.e. PowerPoint) are really not all that long and are easy to digest quickly.
It’s broken into two parts, the first being Conditioning, the second being Positioning. Where DSM really stands out here in my opinion is the way in which he first presents a mental perspective you need to have before approaching the task. Oh it’s a simple idea that’s time tested and brilliant (and we all know he didn’t invent it – or did he?), but he utilizes it very well in a a concise and to the point course that if you truly take action on you will succeed in your effort. I have little if any doubt in that, and I am using his approach so I will keep you posted on how my attempts to use this product test out for me!
The two parts are downloadable in the two parts,the first being 75.4Mb and the second being 156Mb, making for a total download size of 231Mb covering 10 videos. Included as well are to complimentary bonus programs that I highly recommend you go through thoroughly as well since DSM has specifically chosen these two products (which normally you would have to buy independently) to work along side the Fast Cash Crisis model. The first complementary product is 23.8Mb of content and the other is a whopping 1.24Gb in templates and an additional 163Mb in training videos and PDF files.
All in all a super solid product from a very down to earth guy who is sincerely interested in your success!
YOU CAN FIND THE WSO HERE! As of writing this review you can get it for $9.95 in the WSO (Warrior Sales Offer) forum but it is scheduled to end as of July 11th, 2011. Enjoy!
JULY 12, 2011 UPDATE: Fast Cash Crisis is no longer available on the Warrior WSO Forum. It looks like DSM will be relaunching (most likely at a higher price but I can’t say for sure) on his marketing website. I’m leaving the link above since it still goes to the WSO offer which has a link to his website.
