Distressed Emails - How Do You Handle Them?

It's a pretty tough situation no matter how you go about it when your humanity kicks in. I usually stand behind my product, offer to help in any way possible and offer a refund if they ask for it. Genuinely apologizing and trying to help them fix any problems is about as much as you can do

I think giving out your resource for free, or even farther, giving a refund - thats great!

I think its great that you give them a free resource they can use to start making money. You even offer to show them exactly what you are doing. If only they would actually use it. That's the kicker. Its a little tricky because even if you do give them a refund, which I think is a very nice gesture, will it really help their situation? It might help them survive another day and then they will end up right back in the same situation.

Personally I think the best thing to tell them is the truth - that they probably aren't going to earn the money they want using Internet Marketing in the time they have. And anyway, I don't believe that good internet marketers act out of desperation. They act out of motivation, and there's NO WAY that these people are acting out of motivation!

It's tough I know, but personally I feel the best solution is just to let them know upfront that they are better spending the time and the effort on an offline solution, instead of stringing them along.

I get many emails and PMs from people asking me for help everyday. Some of them ask me to coach them for a low fee or even part of their earnings, others ask me to take them step-by-step through the process of creating a campaign and I have even received emails from guys asking me to reveal my campaigns to them!

The fact is that I can't do any of those things. I have a lot of work to do, campaigns to manage and create, an offline company to take care of, a membership site that I intend to launch in the next months, etc... I simply can't help everybody.

So what I try to do is to put them in the right path. 90% of them are investing their time and money on useless things, jumping from one system to another or doing nothing at all! So I tell them what they should focus on, recommend some products if necessary (no affiliate links, no JVs, just honest recommendations) and try to give them some steps to follow. For example:

1. Join these networks...
2. Pick these offers...
3. Test campaigns on this platform...
Etc...

I can't give them very detailed explanations, but I try to put them in the right path. If they can learn a couple things by themselves (e.g. how to split-test ads, track campaigns, etc) and actually follow those steps I do believe that they can start making some money in a relatively short period of time.

We can't save the world, but we can help people by giving them honest advice.


William