Is IM all just a giant con?

[timer]

I've been nibbling around the edges of IM and making money online for a couple of years and am on several lists.

I can't help but notice from the waterfall/lavaflow of e-mails I recieve a seemingly constant reinvention of the wheel going on with 'new' surefire techniques available for $1000's that are so much better than the previous 'new' surefire technique.

Apart from making 'gurus' a few hundred thousand dollars more each year what is the point? My simplistic understanding of how to make money is
1 - have a decent site
2 - drive traffic
3 - sell and make money.

Traffic needs backlinks so write articles, get hubpages/squidoo etc, maybe do some short screen capture videos and post on video sites.

If I or anyone else is organised and committed and does that, what need is there for all the hyped courses?

Or have I got it all wrong?

Please enlighten me...

[Dan C. Rinnert]

Originally Posted by timer

I can't help but notice from the waterfall/lavaflow of e-mails I recieve a seemingly constant reinvention of the wheel going on with 'new' surefire techniques available for $1000's that are so much better than the previous 'new' surefire technique.

That's just marketing.

Look at Mighty Putty. It's just an epoxy putty. Nothing terribly different from anything that's been around for years. But, then they gave it a catchy name, had the late Billy Mays promote it, and it became something people had to have in their toolbox.

With marketing, you could do something like put plain ol' water in a bottle and sell it. Literally.

[Steven Wagenheim]

Originally Posted by timer

I've been nibbling around the edges of IM and making money online for a couple of years and am on several lists.

I can't help but notice from the waterfall/lavaflow of e-mails I recieve a seemingly constant reinvention of the wheel going on with 'new' surefire techniques available for $1000's that are so much better than the previous 'new' surefire technique.

Apart from making 'gurus' a few hundred thousand dollars more each year what is the point? My simplistic understanding of how to make money is
1 - have a decent site
2 - drive traffic
3 - sell and make money.

Traffic needs backlinks so write articles, get hubpages/squidoo etc, maybe do some short screen capture videos and post on video sites.

If I or anyone else is organised and committed and does that, what need is there for all the hyped courses?

Or have I got it all wrong?

Please enlighten me...

To an extent, I actually agree with you.

The problem is that, your simplistic outline above is just that. It doesn't
take into account what each requires.

You say, have a decent site.

Does somebody just starting out even know what that means or how to
go about putting one together? And if you simply say, have them get
a web designer to put one together for them, if they don't know what
one is supposed to look like, how will they know if they're ripped off or not?

At some point, you need knowledge and information.

I'm not saying that you have to purchase every full blown course that
comes out, but you need to start somewhere.

As for the courses themselves, I know from personal experience that
things change. So what you bought it 2006 may not work so well in 2009.

One only needs to look at the MFA business model that was so big at one
time but because of Google throwing down the hammer on it, is no longer
a viable option.

Is a lot of the info in each new product the same as the previous
product? Sure. I mean not everything changes 100%. But enough changes
that relying on an old course may not be in your best interests if you
want to maximize your profits.

Personally, I try to learn all the "new" stuff just from reading forum posts
and going to the Internet News sites. Anybody who has been doing this
a while can pretty much pick up on new techniques easily.

And make no mistake about it...there are new methods coming out all the
time, especially when some new social networking site comes out and you
need somebody to give you the 2 cent tour on how they work.

I look at what I have, what I already know and then decide if I think that
shiny new toy is going to be worth the money I'm spending on it to
increase my income. If I believe it will, I get it. And many times I made a
wise choice. Sometimes, it was a bad choice or I learned nothing new.

But a giant con?

I don't believe that for a second, not when I have learned so much in 6
plus years and have gone from earning $28 in 5 months to a 6 figure income today.

Of course everybody is going to have their own opinion.

For what it's worth, this one is mine.

[Jeremy Kelsall]

Timer,

I used to feel the same way!

If you think about it all, most are unique products....somewhat.

I'll use myself as an example.

When I first started out, I was making money with nothing but Bum & Article Marketing. I then hit a plateau of sorts of around 5K a month. It seemed like regardless of what I did, I just couldn't get over that hump. Then I bought a course on product creation, put it into place, and kicked my earnings up a couple notches. It wasn't long after that I bought into a review site system, learned quite a bit, and again started making more money. Then Came CPA - you guessed it, more money.

Now, with everything that I've learned I obviously can't do it all myself so, I bought a handy dandy course on outsourcing and from that, I was able to pick up some cool info to have other people do my stuff - well, some of it anyway. I'm still a bit of a control freak

The other thing that you have to keep in mind is that, different people explain things differently. You could buy 2 courses on the exact same thing and read the first one and not get it - but, when you read the second one, you can completely understand it just because of the product creators style...that has happened to me more than once.

There is no doubt that to a lot of people it probably does look like an endless circle of the same garbage, but if you focus on what YOU need to learn and do next and only pay attention to that stuff, the picture gets a lot clearer.

[TLTheLiberator]

Of course this is planet Earth 2009 and scams are in most any field of endeavor.

Stay away from mlm/network marketing/team building/recruiting people systems and depending on others to build your business stuff and you'll avoid 90% of the scams.

( sorry mlm folks, that's just my humble opinion and readers please acknowledge that you have been warned )

Stick with proven online business models and you can simply test your way to success.

An online business is the 21st century Magna Carta and you can use it to gain a lot more control of your financial situation.

If you purchase a how to make money course from someone that uses paypal or clickbank you can always get your money back if you feel you've been scammed.

If you don't have a clue, here's a thread that will help you avoid lots of confusion and info-overload and get you on the right track.

Newbies Are Darn Lucky These Days!!

Hope This Helps!!

TL

[CWDSteve]

Youre going to have your good and bad.
and everything in the gray area as well.

but like you said, you get an AVALANCHE of emails to deal with when looking at potential products.

as with anything else, in most cases you get what you pay for.

I wouldnt call IMming a scam, because by definition a con or scam is something that takes money and doesnt return a prodcut/the money back. in most cases internet marketers offer 100% money back gaurantee.

[Arted4Life]

Originally Posted by Dan C. Rinnert

That's just marketing.

Look at Mighty Putty. It's just an epoxy putty. Nothing terribly different from anything that's been around for years. But, then they gave it a catchy name, had the late Billy Mays promote it, and it became something people had to have in their toolbox.

With marketing, you could do something like put plain ol' water in a bottle and sell it. Literally.

As they say a good salesperson can sell snow to an eskimo.

And while it is true that gurus have tons of new systems, most are just how to do something with a new site/angle and what mistakes to avoid. It'll prolly be faster if you buy what they sell, but you can just as easily do it by yourself.

[Rich Struck]

Originally Posted by timer

Apart from making 'gurus' a few hundred thousand dollars more each year what is the point? My simplistic understanding of how to make money is
1 - have a decent site
2 - drive traffic
3 - sell and make money.

You hit it right on the head. All I would add is that your site needs to be about something people are interested in.

[Keith Kogane]

Is it a con?

Ouroboros - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yes it is and no it isn't.

In the gold rush days, you had prospectors who went broke, and people who got rich selling them gold-hunting tools.

The internet is like an infinite goldmine because it's a vast interconnected audience of people, most of whom have money, and many of whom buy stuff online.

As long as people keep inventing new ways to connect people via the internet, there will always be new shovels and pickaxes to sell to people who want to mine that gold.

One of the quirks of IM is that you can make money by teaching people how to make money by teaching people how to make money... and so on down the rabbit hole.

Hence my link above.

The draw to start creating your own "make money" products is strong.

The reasons being are the following.... Ive thought about these reasons many times over:

1. Its easier to package ideas and sell them... MUCH easier than executing them and making them successful yourself.

2. Marketing to other marketers, regardless of how ridiculously hard it is, is a very secure comfort zone for many IM'ers. We know how to market to them, what they want to see, and exactly how to go about it in most cases.

3. When you get into IM, you start learning all the ins and outs of advertising products (your own or others')... and at some point you reach a level of knowledge where you start coming up with a few good ideas... and rather than take those ideas to the next level and figure out how to make them work, you may try and fail, or try and succeed a little... but then that urge to "package the idea and sell it" comes back.

Some infoproducts have made me many thousands of dollars, and some are laughable. Either way, reading a few here and there does help keep your mind flowing with new ideas, which is always a good thing.

[Keith Kogane]

Originally Posted by mozzie

The draw to start creating your own "make money" products is strong.

The reasons being are the following.... Ive thought about these reasons many times over:

1. Its easier to package ideas and sell them... MUCH easier than executing them and making them successful yourself.

2. Marketing to other marketers, regardless of how ridiculously hard it is, is a very secure comfort zone for many IM'ers. We know how to market to them, what they want to see, and exactly how to go about it in most cases.

3. When you get into IM, you start learning all the ins and outs of advertising products (your own or others')... and at some point you reach a level of knowledge where you start coming up with a few good ideas... and rather than take those ideas to the next level and figure out how to make them work, you may try and fail, or try and succeed a little... but then that urge to "package the idea and sell it" comes back.

Some infoproducts have made me many thousands of dollars, and some are laughable. Either way, reading a few here and there does help keep your mind flowing with new ideas, which is always a good thing.

Also keep in mind the prospector/shovel analogy. There are PLENTY of people who sell shovels that don't actually have ANY interest in prospecting for gold.

Just as there are many info product vendors are solely in the market of selling info-products and NOT in the business of whatever it is the book is about. That's not necessarily a bad thing (unless it's promoted as otherwise), but it's something to be aware of when selecting info products.

[Andyhenry]

You're right it is that simple -so why aren't you rich?

The devil is in the details.

Andy

[Dan C. Rinnert]

Originally Posted by qkz283

You know, almost everything in the world is a "con."

How so? How is "almost everything" a con?

[timer]

Hi To Everyone who replied

It's great to see a range of opinions and cogent arguements being presented. As a part time online marketer I fit it round my day job, as I actually really enjoy my day job, earn a good amount and don't want to quit it just yet.

The result is I don't have the depth of knowledge on display here. I take on board most of the points made and seem to have struck an interesting seam.

My initial point was deliberately simplistic because I do think that any business model is based on the basic premise of selling stuff to people both on and offline. It's no good having a fancy website with no visitors or a lousy website with loads of visitors. You need some aspects of both.

I am lacking in plenty of knowledge regarding the different options available. As a result I have not really got past the simplistic stages of articles and haven't touched product creation, review sites, CPA etc.

Overall your group of excellent replies suggest I need to really apply myself if I want to get the best out of my internet business (small though it is) and maybe then start looking at the more 'advanced' options. Perhaps most importantly I need to unsubscribe from the lists for a few months to avoid the constant distraction!!

[timer]

Hi Keith

Thanks for your analogy regarding prospector/shovel. I have probably made the mistake of thinking I should know something about what I'm selling rather than just selling it. Your point is well made.

[Mike Long]

Originally Posted by timer

Perhaps most importantly I need to unsubscribe from the lists for a few months to avoid the constant distraction!!

You hit the nail on the head right here.

It was mentioned earlier in the thread that many of the products out there teach similar things, but they are taught through the filters or perceptions of the person that created them.

This alone makes the products wildly different from one another.

Article Marketing is a great example of this. What Tim Gorman, Josh Spaulding, Steven Wgenheim, or 'lil old me teach is pretty similar to one another.

But we all teach it from our own perspective, so the end result comes out in very different ways.

I know Tim's work the best so I'll use him as an example. His 20 years of military service shines through in everything he does. He is VERY thoughtful, deliberate and task oriented.

If you like working from a step by step, itemized list and program, you'll learn a great deal from Tim's methods.

On the other hand, I tend to work in more of a natural flow, and my focus is on business structure and proper mindset. As a result, what you will get from me is "the big picture".

If you like focusing on the overall structure and focus of your article marketing business, and how you can eventually build an online biz that looks like an offline one, I'm your guy.

Tim and I both teach how to be successful with Article Marketing. We both do very similar things overall, but we come at it from wildly different perspectives.

Start to thin out the lists you belong to, but as you do so, be sure to read each one carefully and see which ones you "resonate" with. Keep those for now, and lose the rest.

Eventually, you want to narrow it down to just a few people who you feel you *really* understand, and follow what they teach with a laser-like focus.

I believe that modeling the success of others (meaning just one or two other people, not dozens or hundreds) is the quickest way to achieving your own success.

Good luck!