Help please - So tired of of the sea of scammers and gurus

11 replies
Hi everyone,

I am hoping someone out here can offer me some guidance, I have for quit some time now been looking more and more into online businesses, I have pretty much settled on two areas that seem to resonate with me as a path forward. Those are Affiliate marketing using email to start with and Lead Generation. I think for me, the starting point will be Affiliate Marketing. With that in mind,

I have realize that I of course need an offer, a landing page, auto responders and traffic so I kinda know what pieces of the puzzle I need. However I am desperate need of guidance on things like email content, the right offers to use, the right landing pages to use that sort of thing. So I have been looking online at webinar after webinar, so called free class after free class and to be honest I am so sick and tired of getting barraged with what I think might be a path forward only to get hit with that OFFER at the end of the webinar of "Just pay us $997.00 or $10,000 or 5 payments of whatever" to make this all work.

Ill be honest here, if I could afford to just drop 10 grand or heck even 1000 at a drop of the hat I probably would not be so desperately seeking to get into this the right way and be so trigger cautious. I do realize sometimes getting into something like this requires some investment, but I truly want to invest in something that actually works and to be honest don't really have 10 grand to drop. Can anyone who is actually making a success of this process offer some sort of advice or path forward please. I really wish I could find a legitimist mentor of some sort out there that was honestly only trying to help and not get me to reach into my wallet. I am truly at the point where I am starting to feel like I might just wasting my time.
#gurus #scammers #sea #tired
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  • Profile picture of the author Kay King
    I have realize that I of course need an offer, a landing page, auto responders and traffic so I kinda know what pieces of the puzzle I need.
    You already KNOW enough to get started - and other questions could be answered with searches on this forum and reading FREE blogs found with a google search.


    You are looking for someone to 'lead you' - and that is an employee mentality. You need to make a list of what you NEED to know and then get busy learning without trying to find a person/course that will teach you everything in one fell swoop.


    legitimist mentor of some sort out there that was honestly only trying to help and not get me to reach into my wallet
    Have you asked yourself why a successful busy marketer would have the time to DONATE because you want free help? I see a lot of mentoring on this forum - but it usually comes when someone is working hard on their own to begin with. The big payouts you mention are by marketers who make their money selling information...not hard to figure out. Some are worth it - most aren't.



    Start here:
    https://www.warriorforum.com/warrior...m-nothing.html



    Then get started - as you have specific questions, ask them here. What is the worst that can happen? You do something wrong and have to do it over? You don't have to spend thousands of $$$ to learn IM - but you have to spend the time working on it, testing and tweaking, learning bit by bit.
    Signature
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    Sometimes I just want someone to hug me and say...
    "It's going to be OK - here's a horse and two million dollars."
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  • Profile picture of the author Barsaga
    I think you have a bunch of experience to start with and you can start with what you know because learning starts from know to unknown if I am not mistaken your looking for mentor and that will be a bad mentality for you wanting to grow I recommend you list down what you want, get a team and get them do what they know better and outsource some on up work or fiverr
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  • Profile picture of the author firerave
    Landing pages, autoresponders, etc.. are just tools to help build your online business. But I did not see where you mentioned two of the most important parts of online network marketing. To me, the two most important parts of online marketing is promoting a product that you believe in and building relationships. I recommend being a customer first of the product that you are considering marketing. If you enjoy the product and are having great results using the product, document your experience and results. That way, once you decide to promote your product, you will be able to share your story of your experience and results of the product. People buy into people and their story and not the product. Think about it this way. Let's say you are shopping for a product for weight loss. You come across an ad that states what a certain product can do to help you loss weight. You also have watched a person you may know through Facebook or twitter who has used another product to loss weight and you can see the success they are having. Which product would you be more likely to invest in?
    Now, how do you share your results and experience with people you never meet or know? Well that reverts back to the tools you mentioned like landing pages. Use those type of tools to create a funnel to get email addresses for drip campaigns and sharing your Facebook group page or twitter page to them. The main goal is to get them to want to become part of your social media so they will begin to get to know you and building a relationship with you. At the same time, they will see how your products have been helping you.
    Hope this helps. Good luck on your journey!
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  • Profile picture of the author Serene Carmen
    Hi Ricky

    If you are interested in Affiliate Marketing I can totally recommend the following two this courses available on Gumroad by James Lee. I am not an affiliate, and have nothing to gain by recommending these courses. I have used them to build my Affiliate sites. He provides a complete blueprint in easy to follow steps. I would start with the free course since it includes a section on email marketing which is of interest to you.

    Affiliate Guerrilla - How to Start an Affiliate Business on a Budget (this is a free course)

    Affiliate Site Empire - A Complete Traffic & Monetization System
    Bundle Version (this was $97)
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  • Profile picture of the author Mark Singletary
    I'd caution you about labeling people scammers just because they offer a product for sale. That's a common mistake and it demonstrates a mindset not prepared to succeed online.

    I mean you yourself are looking for people to pay $, right (if no one buys what you are offering no one gets any money)? Does that mean you are a scammer or wrong in some way?

    There is a ton of free information here on this forum you can use. Look for those that regularly contribute and have over the years.

    Put up a site. Write some emails. If it doesn't work adjust but at least you'll be learning and improving. Start with the knowledge you have now and what you can get for free. You may discover you don't need or want those high priced products.

    If you attend webinars, listen for the principles and then figure out how to apply them. Most of the gurus will tell you what to do, "create a list" but won't tell you how to do it without paying. With those principles in place though you can fill in the gaps yourself. In a lot of cases, you will find that paid products aren't that much different than free products. In fact, many gurus teach giving your best stuff away for free, like in a webinar.

    Most everything works if we do. But if there were a 100% guaranteed system, we'd all be using it. Everything has a risk.

    Good luck on your journey.

    Mark

    Edit: The "right" emails, offers, and landing pages are the ones you can put up today with what you have where you are at. Then learn and grow. Doing something bad is better than waiting for perfect and never doing anything.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jason Kanigan
    Originally Posted by Ricky Brown View Post

    Hi everyone,

    I am hoping someone out here can offer me some guidance, I have for quit some time now been looking more and more into online businesses, I have pretty much settled on two areas that seem to resonate with me as a path forward. Those are Affiliate marketing using email to start with and Lead Generation. I think for me, the starting point will be Affiliate Marketing. With that in mind,

    I have realize that I of course need an offer, a landing page, auto responders and traffic so I kinda know what pieces of the puzzle I need. However I am desperate need of guidance on things like email content, the right offers to use, the right landing pages to use that sort of thing. So I have been looking online at webinar after webinar, so called free class after free class and to be honest I am so sick and tired of getting barraged with what I think might be a path forward only to get hit with that OFFER at the end of the webinar of "Just pay us $997.00 or $10,000 or 5 payments of whatever" to make this all work.

    Ill be honest here, if I could afford to just drop 10 grand or heck even 1000 at a drop of the hat I probably would not be so desperately seeking to get into this the right way and be so trigger cautious. I do realize sometimes getting into something like this requires some investment, but I truly want to invest in something that actually works and to be honest don't really have 10 grand to drop. Can anyone who is actually making a success of this process offer some sort of advice or path forward please. I really wish I could find a legitimist mentor of some sort out there that was honestly only trying to help and not get me to reach into my wallet. I am truly at the point where I am starting to feel like I might just wasting my time.
    What do you have to offer that is valuable to someone else?

    When you can answer this question, you'll get somewhere.

    Right now you're outwardly focused, searching for the magic bullet. There are no magic bullets.

    EVERY business, back into the dawn of time, needs two things.

    People coming from somewhere to look at your offer...

    ...this is called TRAFFIC...

    ...and a way to turn some of those people into buyers...

    ...which is called CONVERSION.

    You are doing the typical newbie thing of casting about for some unicorn thing that squishes traffic and conversion into a single step, put your money into the machine, pull the lever and Ding! Ding! Ding! it pays off!

    Guess what?

    Doesn't exist.

    An old school print newspaper is a traffic source.

    A trade magazine is a traffic source.

    Facebook is a traffic source.


    Some people have to come out of that thing and go to your platform.

    You could do this with a print ad.

    You could do it with a mail-in coupon where they give their info in exchange for a free sample and an offer to buy more.

    You could do it by hopping them over from the FB ad to your website's landing page, where you capture their name & email so you can follow up with them by further emails.

    Those are traffic examples.


    Some of those people who came to your platform and shared their info with you will go to your conversion tool and buy.

    You could do this with a live phone call.

    You could do this with a long form, typed out sales letter.

    You could do this with a video sales letter.

    Those are conversion tool examples.


    Start thinking in terms of traffic and conversion. It's beyond what 99% of the people on this forum do... they are "too busy" squirming about looking for the magic bullet to be handed to them.

    There are no silver platters. The map is not the territory. Some guru can give you the map, but you have to walk the walk and figure it out yourself. Just because they can do it doesn't mean you can. You might not be a fit for that traffic method. Your first choice of conversion method might not be right for the platform. You have to stick with it, adjust and learn.

    That's a barrier to entry. It's also a moat that protects you from competition, because most people will give up and whine that "the secrets" are being withheld from them.

    This forum is an example of a traffic source. I used it well from when I started in 2011 through around 2015, around the time it was sold and traffic quality and quantity dropped. I had a conversion tool: at first it wasn't even a WSO. It was a web page on my own site linked to by a signature link here, for a $20 sales training offer explained in a brief letter. Later on I had WSOs.

    I knew what I had to sell that was valuable to others. There were actually four or five different things I could have focused upon, and I participated with the market for three months of evenings without trying to sell anything... just answering questions, seeing what people were up to, what they were struggling with and what I could help out with. Nobody does that. They're all too eager and desperate and looking for the magic bullet.

    When I was ready to release an offer, there was so much pent-up demand for something, anything, from me, it went through the roof.

    Nothing I did was special. But I was willing to put in the spade work--and I was not interested in following some guru around to find out "the secrets".

    I occasionally come back here to interact with the dozen or so genuine people who have cared for the past decade and continue to contribute good ideas.

    You have to have a customer.

    Who's your customer?

    At this point I know you don't have an answer. Get to work on that if you want to succeed in online marketing. Most of the other answers ("What form should my offer take?" "Where's my traffic source?" "What conversion tool should I use?") will stem from that.

    Everything I've said here is basic business stuff, yet it gets ignored by nearly all the visitors to this forum in their desperate search for the "magic one right way". I hope it makes an impression on you and helps shift your perspective.
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  • Profile picture of the author Stephen Gilkeson
    Have you thought of just setting up a Wordpress Blog for free? Google the most popular topics for blogs, find one you are knowledgeable about and write an honest to goodness, decent blog with genuine good content. Maybe even about your struggles to make money online? Add eBay and Amazon affiliate links and write reviews for products... Straightforward and trustworthy info is worth a lot on the Internet these days! Don't pay for anything written by people with fewer skills and less decency than you do!
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  • Profile picture of the author Monetize
    Originally Posted by Ricky Brown View Post

    Hi everyone,

    I am hoping someone out here can offer me some guidance, I have for quit some time now been looking more and more into online businesses, I have pretty much settled on two areas that seem to resonate with me as a path forward. Those are Affiliate marketing using email to start with and Lead Generation. I think for me, the starting point will be Affiliate Marketing. With that in mind,

    I have realize that I of course need an offer, a landing page, auto responders and traffic so I kinda know what pieces of the puzzle I need. However I am desperate need of guidance on things like email content, the right offers to use, the right landing pages to use that sort of thing. So I have been looking online at webinar after webinar, so called free class after free class and to be honest I am so sick and tired of getting barraged with what I think might be a path forward only to get hit with that OFFER at the end of the webinar of "Just pay us $997.00 or $10,000 or 5 payments of whatever" to make this all work.

    Ill be honest here, if I could afford to just drop 10 grand or heck even 1000 at a drop of the hat I probably would not be so desperately seeking to get into this the right way and be so trigger cautious. I do realize sometimes getting into something like this requires some investment, but I truly want to invest in something that actually works and to be honest don't really have 10 grand to drop. Can anyone who is actually making a success of this process offer some sort of advice or path forward please. I really wish I could find a legitimist mentor of some sort out there that was honestly only trying to help and not get me to reach into my wallet. I am truly at the point where I am starting to feel like I might just wasting my time.

    You are overcomplicating things and you
    might also be suffering from information
    overload. This is very common so try
    not to frustrate.

    You could setup an affiliate marketing
    campaign by forwarding a domain name
    to a Clickbank product. I have done that
    myself and it's about as easy as falling
    off a log. Of course I have hundreds of
    domain names so that helps. There are
    tons of methods you could use, you just
    have to know what they are. People
    aren't going spill their guts and reveal
    their methods that may have taken
    them years to develop.

    As to the courses that people are selling,
    there is an old saying in business:

    DON'T LET BEING CHEAP KEEP YOU BROKE.

    Sometimes you have to spend money to
    make money, and if you are starting from
    scratch and don't have a clue about what
    you are doing, you may find yourself at
    the mercy of others and it will cost.

    Take my advice, do what Kay said above
    and also read a book or two on affiliate
    marketing. And passive income.

    There are YouTube videos on affiliate
    marketing, but I recommend you find
    older ones since everybody is making
    videos now for the millions of people
    who all want to make money online.

    I've been at this for 20+ years and so
    happy for the knowledge I have gained
    over the years. And much of it came
    from the Warrior Forum.

    Stick with it, stick to the fundamentals
    and you will be fine.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ricky Brown
    Wow , guys Monetize, kris, Stephan and Jason and anyone else. Thank you so much for your honest straight forward advice. To me that advice from someone who is actually out doing affiliate marketing and who has been through the trenches is worth so much more than any course or book I could find out on the internet. I truly respect and am grateful for your advice guys and will most definitely take it to heart.

    Thank you again
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  • Profile picture of the author tombelldigital
    Hey Ricky,

    Hope you are doing great! Great post - did you have a traffic source in mind that you were looking to get started with? I would recommend just focusing on one to begin with I'm a big spender on Facebook Ads and have had a lot of success promoting Clickbank offers on there, via a simple article style landing page --> offer.

    Tom
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  • Profile picture of the author 10 millions Dollars
    Banned
    [DELETED]
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  • Profile picture of the author adammoore
    Instead of expecting magical ideas from others, just get started at what you're interested in doing. Personally, YouTube is a great platform with many growth opportunities, as they have 2+ billion monthly active users. Try to find a niche you're experienced in, and find keywords people are looking for, and rank on those keywords.
    • Learn how to do keyword research
    • Publish an engaging and high retention video
    • Optimize it for the search engines (video SEO)
    • Promote your video, so YouTube ranks your video higher = more organic traffic
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