Is it true IM products are designed to fail?

Depends on the product. Some are pure garbage I'm sure. And some are likely good reads IF you really want to learn something. Just like high school or college - if you WANT to learn, you will. Sometimes the person purchasing the product doesn't think it's any good because they failed to put the concepts learned from it to good use.

Depends on the product.

Some will fail big time

Others will proffit like crazy

Cheers,
Yoangov

I think its just the truth, people make very wild claims on these forums and basicly anything relaing to IM products such as "lose 60 lb's in 60 days!", "earn $345 with this automatic script per day" and "Get women of your dreams starting today" - lets be honest these dont work.
Im focused on nitche websites as my main form of making money online (advertisements) as people only click the advertisements if they want a genuine result, my niche sites dont premote clicking on the ads for the sake of it.I just feel bad making wild claims that i can improve somes life with a simple .PDF or a video, when i do make WSO or eBooks I will ofcause charge for them but I try my very best to make realistic claims.

Each people to there very own marketing methods, I might even start to make these wild claims some day in a bid to play for the big $ because lets be honest, it does work for the seller.

I think this has subject has been talked about so much that I can't even think of a clever way to say this is unneeded.

You make me sad.

Most are. Yes, I'm not sure the exact percentage though.

Hahaha. This make me laugh. Sorry, but this is wrong.

I can understand that some products leave a liittle bit of content out hence the need to upgrade OTO`s etc but I dont think any programme is "designed to fail" per say

What was he selling on the webinar?

Its just a ploy on peoples emotions to make it seem like "its not your fault".

In reality , it has more to do with the person than the product. Because really, you don't need an IM product to be succesful in IM.

I'd say, most of them are. However it really depends on how designed them, some might fail a really big time, but the others you make tons!

Products don't fail. People fail to make business models work. There's a big difference. As for gurus, there ain't no stinkin' gurus.

It seems people that think gurus sit around and plot ways to rip off dopey newbs. I love it when people open their sales copy with stuff like:


Hehehe... right.

Here's an amazing statistic I discovered back in the early 90s at a real estate seminar. I was hanging out at the back of the room where the gurus sold their poisonous products to the suckers (). I asked the guy selling the stuff if he had any stats on how many people were successful with the how-to products.

He said he'd been in the seminar business for over 20 years and had seen several success studies done. Only 3% of the people who bought a course ever made any money. He said only 10% even bothered to listen to the material past the first tape. Yeah, this was back when info products were mainly put out on cassettes.

But look at those numbers. I once listened to a guy who produced info products on tape. He was trying to motivate the audience to take intelligent action.

He said he'd recently put out a product and had sold 250 tape sets. Then he found out that the second tape in the set was blank. But after almost six months of sales he'd only had two complaints out of 250 sales. Pretty telling if you ask me.

So what's the point? It ain't products that are the problem. It's people who are more in love with the idea of wealth and success than what it actually takes to make it happen. That's the problem.

no this is not true. Now there are some crappy IM product and there are some killer ones also.

The reason people fail is not information, the reason people fail is due to lack of taking action or being lazy. I was one of them, tis funny that I did not make a single dollar online till I started takin action.

I think the big problem here is the people actually buying the products failing to implement them. Most people (and I am sticking my hand up here as a guilty party) tend to succumb to the Shiny New Object Syndrome. You start working on something and you end up getting distracted by the constant barrage of SNO emails bombarding your inbox. Its obvious you are going to see some that look good so you buy one or more then you get sidetracked checking that new product out. By the time you have got part way through it becomes too hard or another SNO takes your attention away.

Seriously, the only way out of that maze of confusion is to sit down and work out who you believe is ethical and has good, solid information products or software that actually works. Check the products or people out in the Warrior Forum BEFORE you buy. Delete the people that promote rubbish and block them from your email list. Block the ones that are just bombing your email account all the time. Then pick out the truly valuable strategies and get to work.
TAKE ACTION.....FOCUS.....the results will come.
The alternative is to keep jumping from product to product or strategy to strategy and never achieve anything. Either that or you will end up with zero balance in your bank account, credit cards maxed out and it all gets too hard.
Most people in that situation will just give up and forget about the business of IM.
Of course there are a load of rubbish products out there. Products that give bad advice. Products that will land you in trouble with Google. Products that are just plain garbage and don't work.
Get off the treadmill before its too late and focus on implementing a good solid strategy and you will start to make money. If you just keep chasing the latest product and hoping it is the Goose that lays Golden Eggs will never amount to anything.
Trust me.....been there, done that!!! The money you waste on buying stuff all the time is better spent on outsourcing and actually getting results.
Just sayin'

I wonder what he was selling after the webinar....

I could list a whole lot of "IM Products" that were designed to succeed and do so quite well.

Was he more specific or just generally whacking around with a big broad brush?

Here are some terrific "IM Products" that were successfully designed not to fail.

Market Samurai - A great tool that saves lots of time in analyzing keywords and doing competition research. Not only is it designed not to fail, it gets updated regularly to keep abreast of Google changes.

Warrior Forum - With one-time fee of $47 it can't be said that the WF Membership is a poor product designed to fail. In fact a lot of IMers make a living on WF alone.

WordPress - A boon to IMers not only is this product very successful, it is free.

CamTasia - You may argue that this is not an IM Product, but I'll bet 90% of the users are in Marketing or selling to the IM market.

Anyway- there is an endless list of successful IM products so without a more specific complaint about a product it is hard to take such generalizations seriously.

And you can see by the number of people following Amazon WSOs who are doing quite well, that those courses are successful for those that take action. Both Dan Brock and Jan Roos have very comprehensive courses to get you started with Amazon. That success has been replicated by multiple students.

These "all IM products are scams" threads are started all the time- usually by people who haven't made any effort to implement a proven system.

Mahlon

yep, all 7 billion people on earth are out to get you. natural selection is a bit**.

in all seriousness though, i do believe it is a fact that most people in the IM game are only in the IM game (most dont make money outside of IM). which means they may or may not know IM, but they do earn their money by selling IM products.

of course that brings into question their motives. i can say this. most IM product developers create products with #1 priority being their ability to make money with them since it is after all their way of making money. that does not mean they are doing anything wrong, but it does mean that their priorities are probably not as pure as you would like them to be.

I definitely don't think this is the case. While i'll admit, some IM products just plain don't work, there are many others that are wonderful and do exactly what they say they will. I've purchased several WSO's that have been nothing but value for me.

Are there some unethical marketers who may practic the "mechanic syndrome" (when you bring your car in to be fixed, they break something to get back)? sure. But the majority are ethical, and woul dhave nothing to gain by selling a product that doesn't work.

I know that most would rather be known for selling products that provide extreme value.

It was a webinar for one of those $1,000 softwares.

I completely agree. I am an expert in a few IM and Product developement fields and plan to promote pdfs and how to videos on things I have experience with. Iwill not ever have a WSO stating some outlandish claims like some that Ive seen. Its very discouraging to newbies which I am here in WF. The ones that get hurt or burned are the one that have no experience at all and believe everything they read..

There's a good quote:

"It's not information overload, it's filter failure".

There's a lot of crap out there. There's a lot of excellent stuff out there. It's up to you to get informed and chose. You might even get some valuable pieces of information out of "crappy" procuts.

It's all about what YOU do with it...

Definitely not true! It really depends on the product. I'm currently working for an Internet Marketing company and we buy loads of WSOs, softwares and plugins to test them.

It's really trial and error and also how relevant it is to your website/niche. Different niche will have different ways of marketing.

Having said that, some are good but some are crap. Mostly crap actually

But when we hit on a 'goldmine' then it's "woot"!

There are some quality programs and ethical marketers out there, but lots of times, they are overshadowed by the crappy programs and fast - talking, unethical marketers. I've noticed that a lot of people tend to look at making money online as some kind of magic button. It isn't until they have been scammed a few times that they are ready to take a real go at things.

Joey

When I first saw the title of this thread I had a flashback to my CUTCO knife selling days. It was there that I first heard the term "planned obsolescence". Designing something that has a limited useful life. In my case back then it was me talking about knives that are designed to go dull.

But in the case of IM products that is not the case all the time. A better phrase would be that some technique taught in IM products are short lived. The other ones may not be designed to fail. However the creator may not be the greatest in explaining his method. Letting you in on the nuance.

But I would say they are not "all" made to fail. Case in point, I purchased a wso almost two years ago about selling on tradebit. It was very inexpensive and very short. But ya know what ? He told enough for me to make my money back in a week. And even now to this day I get a odd sale or two from that site. And I have not touched it in forever.

Designed? No. But definitely expected to fail.

See, I used to sell a product called Zombie Blogging. I designed this product with John Schwartz, a true AdSense guru, and personally proved that with two hours of work I could generate a passive income that went on for several months. All you had to do was follow the instructions.

Then I sold it to a couple hundred people, who promptly went


and completely ignored the instructions.

Most of them failed to make much, if any, money. A lot of them demanded and got refunds. And a number of angry emails showed up in my inbox which said some variant of:

"I did exactly what you told me not to do, and Google did exactly what you told me they'd do if I did that! IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!"

And there's not a damn thing you can do about this stuff.

Look, the only thing I can do is tell you what to do. You're the one who has to do it. And most people are too lazy, stupid, or dishonest to do that.

Plus, you can't win on the price.

If you put a low price on the product, you get a lot of idiot customers who aren't making any money and won't do the work, and people go "if it works, why is it so cheap?"

If you put a high price on the product, the people who actually need it can't afford it, and people go "if he really wanted to help, he would price it more reasonably."

I have had complaints that my products are too cheap to be any good at $67, and complaints that they are too expensive to help anyone at $27. So clearly my products need to cost more than $67 but less than $27, but unfortunately I do not live in Bizarro-world so that's just too bad.

See, the fact is, you can't win. No matter how good your products are, your customers will bork it up. And no matter what price you put on them, it will be wrong.

So a lot of marketers just... give up. They stop trying. They stop working. After all, the refund and complaint rates are about the same for your three-month labour of love as they are for a two-hour piece of garbage you farted out without even testing anything, and you can charge pretty much the same price either way.

And those marketers can only live with themselves and what they do by continually insisting that everyone does it.

Except we don't. Only the lazy ones do. Some of us produce quality because quality is the only thing worth producing. Yes, it's inefficient. Because efficiency is bad for people you care about. And since we care about our customers, we don't really give a crap how efficient it is.

Products aren't designed to fail. It's just that most of them aren't designed at all.

You have to be very astute when buying products online and yes the rate of people that buy product and they never use it. They may start but it all seems too hard and then they put it on the shelf.

There are some products out there that are flawed. Why would you believe that some multimillionaire is going to sell you all his secrets for $97 or $47. Think about it - would you buy the product.

There are some good products that people do not ever use after they buy them. It really depends on your own knowledge and where you are at in the IM world. As a newbie, if you buy something that is way over your head - you will take years to learn enough to profit from your purchase.

Think carefully before buying anything.

i created my WSO out of all my experience and put my heart and soul into the product so much that i forgot about the sales page (stupid move) no one bought my book because the sales page was shotty and didn't look nice but i designed my course to succeed. Most marketers do design them to "fail".....the key is finding one that give good products consistently.

Why wouldn't they?

Seriously, think about it. Why wouldn't I tell you exactly what I do to make money?

Imagine that you have a job working as the executive VP of a bank. Someone walks up and say "hey, what do you do?" at some party or other.

Are you going to look around like a paranoid freak and make something up?

No! You're going to say "why, I am the executive VP of humping small business in the butt with exorbitant interest rates at Shove It Up Your Arse First Trust and Federal Reserve."

Why would it be any different for a guru?

"Hey, Tony Robbins! What do you do for a living?"

"Um, I, um, REAL ESTATE! Yeah! That's the ticket! I buy and sell real estate! Wholesale! On the um, foreclosure market! Yep! That's what I do!"

Pfft. Please. He's going to tell you exactly what he does.

Why? Because you can't do it. Same thing with the executive VP job up there. I tell people exactly what I do, over and over, right to their face, and they... don't do it.

Why? Because


that's why.

People in general are SLIM: Selfish, Lazy, Ignorant, and Mean. They want the money, but they won't do the work, don't understand why they have to, and think anyone who has the money ought to be punished.

Hence, the "Occupy" movement.

Use your common sense: NO-ONE will tell you their precious "secrets" for $10 or even $30 (the usual price for WSO).

Why did I use quotation marks for secrets? Because there is no secret that will make your business a success over night. Sale pages promise just that to get higher conversions. But a good business always stands on foundations of trust and relationship with your customers.

Daniel

No, they are sold by people who are more interested in making money selling them, then actually testing the method sustainability long run.

As for buying next product. If someone sells me a product that makes me a lot more money, I will be back. I attended a $2,000 training earlier this year, it added $8,400 to my bottom line, so I attended another $2,000 training. It was by someone who was proven and showed results.

Having this discussion (I am guilty) is just wasting time from getting results

Cheers,
Mukul

I can't speak for anyone else but I prefer my customers to succeed so they have more money to buy my next launch. What good are a bunch of broke customers?

As many others said much more eloquently than I, "Products don't fail... People do!!"

I think that's how Apple became so successful.

I think you were listening to a moron who knows nothing about business, sales, or logic.

Absolutely ridiculous.

If I get a course on SEO and it works when I apply it, are you saying that I couldn't then buy a course on PPC because the first one worked?

No, it would be a second set of results on top of my existing results, in the form of more money coming in.

Is valuable information helpful? How could it not be. This topic is useless.

This has been an interesting thread.

It reminds me just how incestuous the IM community is. IM 'ers create 'offers' to appeal to people in a specific mindset - the mindset of the typical Internet Marketer. They're programmed differently than most people. The majority have absolutely no business acumen whatsoever and have absolutely no clue what to do to work for themselves. So the only way to appeal to them and separate them from their cash, is to promise a dream, pie in the sky. Internet marketers end up selling to people on the same premise that they bought into the community in the first place....hence the incest. They're breeding a new species and it's growing rapidly, spreading like a virus through the online world. They communicate in their own language and use the style of marketing copy that is simply shunned outside of their own community (Think big, bold fonts, wild unsubstantiated claims, etc). The 'footprint' of the Internet Marketer is like that of the Sasquatch, big and deep and visible from a mile off, only a lot less rare.

I've been in business management for around 25 years and prior to that received my theory from a renowned Business School/University in the UK. A couple years ago I wrote a 200 page book to try and coach people into building a web business on a solid foundation. I sold my first copy on Kindle and immediately the $2.99 was refunded. I can imagine the person who bought it was someone getting into Internet Marketing, and was totally underwhelmed by the logic and common sense presentation of the content.

It's a sad, sad world.

Happy Holidays.

As I posted earlier in this thread. Only 3% of people buying MMO stuff or any how-to-make-money info actually make money. And that's because they're more in love with the idea of wealth and success than what it actually takes to make it happen.

Most successful people are more than happy to tell you what they do. And to prove the point, check this out. It's a blueprint from an Internet marketing multi millionaire:

The Truth About Abs: How To Make $1,000,000 Per Month with Digital Products (Plus: Noah Kagan results)

Look at it like 10,000 junior high students being taught how to be football place kickers. One will make a career of it in the NFL. A hundred will get to college with football scholarships. The rest will 'fail'. Does that mean the instruction was designed to make them fail?

I.M. should be approached as a business not a get rich quick scheme,those who succeed set up businesses and build from there.
Regards
vivi62

I dont know if any are designed to fail or designed to make you fail.

What I do know is that a lot of sales letters and sales videos state that 'other products are designed to make you fail' so that theres looks like the one thats going to show you the light.

Its like a similar technique thats used by people to portray authority. Oddly enough people do it with books, movies, music, politics etc etc.

For example take one movie that everyone loves, then imagine being the only person that turns around and says 'nope that movie is below average because the casting wasn't right, the lighting gradients didnt match and the story line dragged in the 87th minute'. You'd look like the movie boffin right? The knowledgeable guy who knows something the masses dont.

It works just the same in IM niche when sales copy or a 'guru' says 'I know you all think X but thats because guys in the know understand Y'

Check out a product and test it yourself, thats the only way. Having said all that.....yup lots of products are pure tripe!

I think the biggest flaw in this is the exclusion of one word. It should be:

"Is it true SOME IM products are designed to fail?"

Take away the absolute, and you come closer to the truth.

If this pitch followed the path I've grown accustomed to seeing, the next step after buying the $1k software is a "free coaching session" conducted by a high-pressure telemarketer, designed to get you to commit to a much larger private coaching program or private membership site, with price based on the estimated open to buy on your credit card or on a quick review of your credit report.

If you hesitate, the "coach" goes into full assault mode, accusing you of wasting his time (and it's always a 'he'), of not being serious about your business, of wanting to fail, being dumb and clueless and ungrateful for the opportunity being presented.

What I got out of this thread is these 2 exceptional insights...

Every 'guru-killer' is a wannabe guru in drag.


"It's not information overload, it's filter failure"

If this thread was an IM product I had Just bought, with all the nonsense and red herrings and failure conspiracys.

Those 16 words alone will make me a sizable income. they sparked at least one product idea and a possible 2nd

I've been making a full-time living online since 2000. That's ten solid years. In that time, I’ve learned a lot through observation and experimentation. And I also quickly realized that –
the reason most people fail is because they expect not to have to think for themselves

observe, listen, experiment. Can't be taught

But it is an unwritten expectation of every product producer out there...That the person buying the product isnt a zombie, and that they are expected to take the information and forge it to their own needs

There's a lot of good advice here and some folks have obviously caught there share of B.S. and shiny new whatever it happened to be. I can't believe anyone designs something to fail as suggested, I think that's just someone trying to promote that there's is better than all the rest, the new secret shiny thing, whatever.As many others here have said, ignore the hype and develop a plan, a system or find someone who has a good one and follow it, but be prepared to work and dedicate some time, most folks simply won't focus and do what they know in there heart they need to do!

I think many people fail to take time and learn the skills that the product teaches then give up to find something easier. Some internet products may just provide you with a little information then create another upsell that tell you a little more so you can spend for money. I can say that there are some reputable products out that teach you the real, long terms skill to be a successful internet marketer so every product is not meant to be a failure.

If people aren't going to follow any advice from the thousands of digital products that they are going to read before they go broke, then that is their fault.

There are many good "IM" products out there that tell people how to succeed. There are also many "self help" books out there for people who need help. I feel there are equal amount of people who fail no matter what advice or what product it is.

Something that is designed to fail: Your built in China, bought at Wal-Mart vacuum, the same month it falls out of warranty

i dont know what percentage, but i do think most people who teach IM do in fact make most of their money from IM.

i have watched this industry for over 15 years. i have been to countless conferences and such. and most of the guys teaching IM are in fact only in the IM niche. i am not just talking about WF folks. i am talking IM in general.

the truth of the matter is that most of us who are not in the IM niche, make way more money than those who are in the IM niche with far less headaches. which is a major reason why many of the best of the best IM guys never enter the IM niche at all.

I think the webinar host misspoke! What marketer in their right mind intentionally puts out a product expecting it to fail?

I can just imagine the thought process: I'm going to launch a product that's no good, and then a few months later I'll promote another no-good product to the same people who bought the original product and make a killing.

I doubt there would be anything left of his or her reputation after word got out.

Would you buy a second product from who someone who ripped you off before? I don't think so!

Hermas

On a side note, CD...

If you make $300 per month and create a product about it... what's wrong with that?

As long as you're not exaggerating the income. Where does one draw the line of qualification to create such a product?

AFAIAC... you are just as qualified, if not more than the next guy to teach how to make money the way you do. Then it's up to me as to how much I ramp it up.

Nice wiki-find by the way.

I bring good news from the IAAIMG (I AM AN INTERNET MARKETING GOD) committee. Side note: Internally we despise the term guru and those that use it when GOD (capitalized) is more appropriate.

We have seen this thread as well as others and have just voted to stop creating and publishing the DTF (Designed To Fail) products. Instead we will focus more on the GMW (Get More Worshippers) products.

The vote was pretty much along "party lines". GOD P, Q, and G put up a fight because they already have a DTF promotion started with launch here in a couple weeks so we gave them some leeway under the IAAGACDWIWTD (I Am a GOD and can do what I want to do) rule.

In order to soften the impact, we are going to intersperse those 3 upcoming launches with the ones from GODs J, A, Z, and R. So out of the next 7 launches, only 3 will be DTF. Unfortunately our bylaws don't allow us to divulge more than that.

GODs H, B, and M were pretty adamant about the DUD (Dud) line. These are NOT DTF products they argued. Upon further discussion and in accordance with what has been done in the past, DUD products will still be created and promoted.

Many other GODs argued that this discussion was irrelevant because of the IDIOT (I Don't Implement Offered Training) rule which seems to be the real problem (except for the DTF line which will be discontinued).

We believe that these changes should put an end to the bashing that we unjustly receive from the IDIOT crowd.

All correspondence or questions regarding these changes can be addressed to our help desk at I//.A>AIMG{ { Su\ppo"""r**t.c?<@om. Just click the hyper link to contact one of our helpful representatives.