How to avoid the BS WSO's, and only buy those with real value?

dude stop buying them, 99% of all WSO's are just crap and contain stuff that you can find on the internet FOR FREE. Its just repackaged and made to look AMAZING, REVOLUTIONARY, ONE-OF-A-KIND! (im starting to get your attention arent i )

what exactly are you looking for, how to build a site? how to make your first dollar? how to get traffic?......

we can help you out for free

ALL of the services which offer "suggestions" on WSOs to buy are affiliates who earn a percentage of a sale on WSOs they "recommend".

If you want to know what WSOs to buy, maybe be a bit more selective. Look through testimonials, the history of those offering the WSO, and above all, trust your instinct.

Hi Jean,

To answer your question, I don't know of a site that lists only the good wso's. I would imagine that putting a site together like that might be a bit tricky. What's rubbish to one person, could well be a gem to another. Having said that, a warrior here has a site called wsocop. I don't know what that is like, but it might help you out.

To be honest, every wso I've bought I've found to be superb value for money. So that makes me think I must be either very lucky, or, the small amount of research I do, into the wso is paying off.

I generally check the sellers post count, check back on a few posts of theirs, see if they've been thanked, and check the posts of the thread itself to see what the general "feel" is.

I know it's pretty basic, obvious stuff, but if it seems to balance out in a way that suits me, I buy it.

All the best
Steve

The sad truth is people want a quick way out. You know what happens when you launch a high quality wso? Noone wants to buy it.
Nobody wants to actually apply the "real" stuff that will benefit them, they want a one button system that will make them money without doing any work, i wonder how many of those "one button wonders" really work

Most of the IM products and services out there is B*S in my opinion, and it is sad that this "trend" has also made it to WSO.It is quite easy to write a compelling sales letter and it seems to work so well that people are willing to buy just anything.

Before buying anything, think if you really need it.After that, head over to Google and do a full research about the product.It can save you a lot of money.There are no short cuts to make money online, it´s like a normal job only harder.

Stop buying WSOs...and start thinking...

Hi Misel,
I totally agree with you 100%. I too have been stung buy spending my hard earned cash on a 20 page pieces of crap costong £10 plus and after having been duped by the positive feedback - which i no longer believe - kick myself because i could have aquired another dot com name for less!!
Such sad PDF guides often have less content in them than the sales copy that is on the forum squeeze page. Really quite nasty i think.
Sadly, these crap offers will weaken this GREAT FORUM as wannabe Internet Marketers will lose faith and move on. I suggest there is a SCREENING PROCESS before being allowed to sell such tat.
My inbox is now full every 24 hours with affiliate hogwash and links to more affiliate links - ad infinitum.

For me what is really sad is to see the testimonials. These are the people that got the WSO for free and afraid to tell the truth.
Or you see some that say "just got the WSO, looks promising will post a review once I am done" and they never do. People on this board are afraid to tell the truth. If a WSO is garbage, they should say it is garbage.
I my self bought some WSOs. very few were VERY good. Most are just rip offs.

Buying random WSOs just for the hell of it without any business plan before is just wasting money. 99% of the WSOs I buy are fantastic, but there's no way I would buy 50 of them within 8 mnths ... and there's no way I would just buy random WSOs without a plan.

If you're looking for flashy headlines and unrealistic promises, you'll find them by the hundreds and most are not likely to help you build a business or even to fulfill the promises that they make.

If you have a problem with WSOs being crap, stop buying crap WSOs, and that is WSOs that make unrealistic claims. You're a big boy or girl. Start making better purchasing decisions and stop looking for dreams.

Buy info products that will help you with your business once you decide what that business is going to be.

Hi,

Can I go first? Please please?

Thanks for letting us all in ... (the entire forum) ... on what a miserable little thieving DICK you are. Appreciate the advanced info.

If you weren't promoting a data entry scam in your sig, I would download whatever **** you were selling and personally upload it to every black hat forum on the Internet. Good luck to you in this forum. You'll need it.

As usual, I'm having a different experience from a lot of folks. Most of the wso's I've bought over the past few months have been excellent. Or at least I thought they were. I don't just buy something because the title says I'm going to make a gazillion dollars from it. I actually buy either in areas I actually work in, offline marketing, or in areas that I want to get into. So, in that sense I'm selective.

LondonCoffee, There is, unfortunately, no realistic way to do that. And if we did, anything that was allowed would appear to have the endorsement of the forum, which would tend to make people even less careful about what they spent their time and money on.

My advice is pretty much what it's always been:

Don't pay any attention to income claims or promises of specific results.

Ignore "earnings" screen shots.

Ignore the WS-Onlys - people whose only activity here is in the WSO section.

Only consider testimonials from people you personally deem credible on the subject.

Don't buy things that you don't have a specific use in mind for right now. Know where it fits in your business plan.

Always read the last page of any long thread, as this is often where you'll see comments about any problems that might have come up.

Leave honest feedback on your WSO purchases, good or bad.

Don't bet money you can't afford to lose.

From my experience seeing the complaints and problems in the WSO section, most of the trouble offers fall into a relatively clear group. Backlinks and SEO packages, coaching programs, CPA-related offers, and content writing services from people for whom English is a second language.

Are there legit offers in those groups? Absolutely. Just be very careful when considering them, as they tend to be things done by people with little or no real experience, looking for a quick buck.

A really big problem promise is the "We build it for you and guarantee you'll make $XYZ per month" kind of thing. I wouldn't touch those with a barge pole. If there's a good one in there, I haven't seen it yet.

There's a lot of gold in the WSO section. There's also a lot of junk. If you pay attention, it's not that hard to separate the two. And if you keep that last suggestion in mind (don't bet what you can't afford to lose), the occasional piece of fool's gold won't do you much harm.


Paul

I've noticed the majority of WSO sellers now mentioning income claims, even people who months ago were selling tools are now positioning many of those same things as a "make $$$ per month" setup.

Why? Well, because the WSO section is flooded with those offers and unfortunately, they sell because it's hard to teach someone skills when all they want to hear is that they'll be making $500 per day next week.

I would love to see any sort of income claims banned from the WSO forum, but until that day comes, you should value any sort of income claims at exactly zero. Because that's all they're worth. (not to mention the funny math that goes on there e.g. "300 per day!" is actually a guy who had one single $300 day)

Just curious...

Most WSOs these days are dirt cheap, usually $7 or less. If you find one chapter, one paragraph, or even one sentence in a $7 WSO that makes you say "hmmm, I didn't know that", would you say that it was worth the price of admission?

You are looking for a site that tells you what to buy. Is that really a smart thing to look for? Why not start with your own hard drive and the 50+ WSOs that you have already bought. SURELY, you can find one sentence in each of them that helps you get to where you want to be? That is, if you even know what you are trying to accomplish.

I'm off to the grocery store to indiscriminately throw items in my cart. I sure hope I pick something nutritious for my kids to eat. One can only hope I guess. Last time I tried this I ended up with a cart full of nylon pantyhose.

Maybe you are the most qualified to start such a service.

Many moons ago Stephen Pierce in his Whole Truth ebook had
a review section on IM products he bought. Some the of the
authors who got poor reviews were upset with him but it
was his personal review of the products and so they couldn't
really do anything about it.

You got a lot of tips to help you to be more critical next time.

-Ray Edwards

I only buy WSO's from people I know make real money from their own products or services outside of this forum. It is pretty easy to figure out if they fall into this category.

** Edit - I haven't bought one for over a year.
And - if you are looking for quick money for nothing it isn't going to happen. Start thinking like a real business person. Stop chasing a fantasy.

Also - the more hype, the more you need to stay clear.

And newbies - listen to Paul Myers above. He summed it up well.

I think the best way to tell if a WSO is pure BS is to wait a few days after its release, then check the later comments. For the really big launches, the first page is going to be filled to the brim with false praise. After a bit, if it's a lousy product, you'll start to see a trickle of people saying things to the effect of "what are you guys talking about, I couldn't have possibly bought the same WSO as you did because this was pure garbage, I've asked for a refund". It's a pretty consistent pattern.

While I'd like to believe that anyone spouting false praise in order to help their friends/help their affiliate sales is going to lose their credibility in the long-term with good chunk of their followers, my guess is that the false praise does more net good for their bottom line than net harm. Unethical, but effective..

STOP BUYING THEM.

Look, you want the real secret? Here it is.

Do not buy another WSO for ninety days.

Take any of the last 50 WSOs you bought, just arbitrarily, and do whatever the hell it says to do for that ninety days.

Do not buy any other WSO. Do not use any other method. This is the only income source you will actively work on for ninety days.

I did this with affiliate marketing. I said "I do not know affiliate marketing. I would like to learn it." And I shut down everything else I was doing and did affiliate marketing for 90 days.

Now I know I don't want to do affiliate marketing anymore. But whenever somebody says "you can't make any real money from affiliate marketing," I can tell them they are full of hooey because I did it myself so screw you buddy.

If you just STFU and use only one method from one WSO, and you have the discipline to turn your back on everything else you already know works, you will make that WSO bring home the bacon.

Everything works if you work it.

John - I love that sig!

I pretty much only buy software programs with video demos at this point.
Most of the guides and other stuff are just bs.
Most of the software I have purchased has worked as promised.

Hey again,

Great discussion we are having here.

After reading all your comments, It actually surprise me, that some people feel the quality of the WSO's is pretty good/great(!), while some (like me), think many of them are BS.

Who to claim?
So really, who is the most qualified to be right? I don't know, but maybe it's the people who are busy right now, trying to build their money empire, with or without a WSO, instead of sitting on their butt (like me), being busy grumbling about, why I don't earn my share of all the great $$$. Then it's easier to claim everybody else about my missing earnings.

Some WSO's are not only promising too much, they can actually also damage your future earnings...
But when that is said, I still believe, many of the WSO's are crap. Why? Because they often promise this and that, but when it comes to the truth, you can't really earn the money/get the traffic/etc they claim, not even close to. They do everything to hype their salesletter, so the WSO will sell, but at the same time they almost lose contact to reality.

Some WSO's are actually also telling/teaching you something completely wrong. These cases are actually the worst, as they can have consequences for your future earnings.

By an example, your existing sites can get a Google penalty, by using wrong link building methods, which some WSO's teach. Or you can have your Adsense account banned, by using the strategies recommended in some of the WSO's. It's scaring, but I actually saw it teached in some of the WSO's I bought.

Just my 5 cents!

Jean,

My advice is to use the War Room. You are already a member and quite a few of the good WSO products end up in there for free. This is a resource that is simply priceless and you will be surprised with what you can find in there.

Benjamin Ehinger

Bluntly, this is positively ridiculous. Sorry to be so harsh, but there it is. There are three GLARING problems with your situation and your statement:

1. As Kay said, don't expect someone to do your thinking for you. Think for yourself. Yes, we all need feedback and help to know what's best to buy, but that's what recommendations and testimonials are for.

Think outside of the WF for a minute. Every business of every type uses testimonials and recommendations to help sell their products and services and people use recommendations and referrals to help them buy. In IM, find people you know, like and trust and use their recommendations and endorsements to help you make smart buying decisions.

I haven't been on the WF much for a while, but in IM, I long ago found IM mentors I could trust to listen to, buy from and get recommendations for other products and services. This is a small circle of people, but I know I can trust them implicitly as they have experience and results, AND high integrity. It's paid off in spades for me. Anything and anyone else I look at with a jaundiced eye. They are my core group of mentors and I suggest you find a similar group. It will save you a lot of grief.

If you truly can't trust those giving testimonials, make a note of who they are and never listen to them or buy from them again. Period. It's YOUR job to winnow it down to a group of people you can listen to and trust, no one else's.

2. 99% of WSO's are crap?

I've had only 2-3 WSOs (and nothing for a long time) posted in my entire time on the forum. Warriors are not my primary market and so I have no vested interest in saying this.

Bluntly, YOU are the one with the problem. This statement has virtually NO credibility whatsoever. Comments like those from people like you and High Plains Drifter speak more to who YOU are as a person (NOT good!) than to the quality of what you've bought or the results that you've gotten.

Are there some bad WSO's? Sure. But my experience tells me they're truly in the minority.

Value is in the eye of the beholder. If you're more experienced or knowledgeable, a very basic WSO aimed at complete newbies will seem like "crap" to you. "Oh, I already know this! Why do people have to sell rehashed crap?" I've seen the "rehashed crap" comment a LOT on this forum. But the majority of the time, it simply means that you already know it, not that it's actually bad info. You just know more.

The ONLY time you can call info "crap" is if it's inaccurate or not as advertised. Otherwise, it's good info. It's just not as valuable to you as you expected. (And I've seen other Warriors with good results post the same thing.)

So stop blaming sellers and start looking at yourself and your buying choices! Stand up and be a man (or woman) about it.

3. Amen, sister!

If you're buying random info to help you make money, that's your first problem right there. If you're serious about making money in IM, you first need to choose a business model and a niche and a target market. This is a basic step that a lot of Warriors overlook.

Without a business model, niche and target market, you're NOT going to get the value out of any IM info that you COULD get out of it.

Clarity is a HUGE part of IM success.

IM is actually pretty simple: you can sell only one of two things:

1. Products
2. Services

That's it!

And selling products or services online happens in the same basic way for everyone, no matter what they're selling:

Traffic > Opt-in page > Autoresponder series (or e-zine) > Sales page

That's it! It's just that simple. (We IMers tend to overcomplicate things.)

But no matter what your niche is, or whether you're selling a product or a service, do you know what your business model is?

A business model is the framework or skeleton of your business. Essentially there are three types of online business models:

1. Membership-based model

A membership-based business model allows you to build a community of people (your members) who are as passionate about your subject as you are. Your membership fees can be monthly or annual, but either way, you're building recurring, passive income.

There are a lot of resources and information out there to help you build a membership-based business if you're interested in doing this.

2. Product-based model

Selling products allows you to maximize your time and effort by selling items over and over again. This can be hard goods or it can be information products. Information marketing is it's own business model under the product-based model. Information marketing allows you to take your brain to the bank by creating a product ONCE based on what you know and selling it over and over again.

I see someone has already recommended affiliate marketing. You can choose to market either products or services as an affiliate.

3. Service-based model

Selling services can be great for 1) generating quick cash (as in the case of article writing or video producing) and 2) establishing your expertise and getting testimonials.

However, in the long run, your goal should be to offer services at a PREMIUM. The biggest advantage of IM is LEVERAGE. You're able to leverage your time, money and expertise exponentially online. We all have just 24 hours each day. Time to get ruthless about what you expect for those hours you spend in IM each day. Expect more of yourself and more from your business friends, clients, partners, etc.

What results are you getting for those hours you spend online each day? Ultimately, your services should be at the bottom of your funnel and cost the most since they involve your time and personal attention. (We all have a limited amount of time each day.)

The fun (and confusion) comes in with all of the endless mix-and-match possibilities of the above models. If you're just starting or still struggling to make money, keep it simple:

Pick just ONE!

1. Pick ONE niche. (Something you're interested in and know something about.)

2. Pick ONE target market for your product or service. (Who will buy what you're offering? The more specific you are, the more you narrow it down, the more successful you'll be.)

3. Pick ONE business model.

Now that you're clear about what business you're in, FOCUS! (And stop buying any info not related to your niche and target market, period!)

F -- Follow
O -- One
C -- Course
U -- Until
S -- Successful

In IM, it's easy to put the cart before the horse. Take a deep breath, step back and consider what type of business you're REALLY want. Don't worry about getting traffic or buying that expensive traffic product until you know 1) what your business model is, 2) what niche you're in and 3) WHO your target market is!

Successful business people will tell you that MARKETING is more than half the effort that's needed for success anyway. So pick a niche, target market and business model. Then spend most of your time and effort marketing it.

If you DON'T have a solid plan or system, THAT'S when it's hard. A good system will shave YEARS (and save you big $$$) off of your learning curve

That's why I recommend investing in at least one good, comprehensive IM course (or mentor who will give you such a system) instead of jumping from one $37 e-book to the next. A lot of people here complain about not being able to make any money. But neither are they willing to invest in their business. (Buying a random bunch of $37 e-books doesn't count.)

The best thing I ever did was invest in a comprehensive IM course aimed at REAL business owners, not just other IM wannabes. Yes it was $1500. (Now it's only $997. :p) But it was truly some of the best A-Z IM info I ever bought. Everything else I've learned (from the $37 e-books) since has simply been plugged into this system.

Get a solid plan or system and then work the plan!

Hope this helps!

Michelle

Ho hum...

Another day same old - same old.

Can we have an all-in-one thread for this stuff?

rule of internet market 5% knowledge 95% effort..

if you followed that rule and 20X more effort in working your sites and funnells compard to the time spet in reading 50 wso youd be quite well off.

pretty sure you could have used the money to buy a proper programme rather than 50 crap ones too

Well I have Bought One WSO and I didn't get the product. It was supossed to be send to my home address but it never did. I wanted that WSO because I paid money for it

Stop hanging out in the WSO section and spend more time working on your own biz.

If you want to know what WSOs to buy, maybe be a bit more selective. Look through testimonials, the history of those offering the WSO, and above all, trust your instinct.

Let me ask you this OP.

If you and I were both given an identical orange and asked to squeeze as much juice out of it as possible, if I were to end up with more orange juice in my glass than you had in yours, does that mean your orange was worth less than mine?

The amount of juice produced has more to do with YOU than the orange.

Lame analogy I know, but sometimes the simpletons need it stripped right back.

Ive find dont trust the first few testimonila- go to the last (most recent page) of the wso and read reviews /comments there. There are several 'gurus' who hype up each other wso's - very unethical.
Ive bought a few gems of wso's - mainly plugins for WP and WP themes. Most of the money making schemes arent worth buying.

If I have $37 to spend, I'd rather spend it to purchase domain or outsource than to buy IM tips ebooks. purchasing how-to products won't really make you money, it will just give you insight. IM is very methodical. you won't be able play piano just by reading books how to play piano, eh?

The way the current wso section is set up is an enabler of the outlandish claims and titles that we are seeing. I'm not saying that its all the forums fault but the way its set up now does contribute to merchants feeling like they have to make crazy ass titles. They just seem to get more outlandish every day.

This is due to the fact that WSO's tend to fall off the first page pretty quickly.

No one that I've seen has even brought this up to my knowledge but if we are really honest about it we could possibly admit that the merchants are trying to get as MUCH as possible out of the $40 dollar bump fee. right?

The thread titles are the first barrier the merchant has to overcome because they've paid money to be listed on a page with 49 other competing vendors for the same eyes.

So merchant makes the CRAZY, (How I made 45k last month and I'll show you How with just a few clicks of the mouse!), Title in order to compete with all the other 49 titles on the page.

Then the following naturally happens. The actual post/copy has to follow the thread title theme in order to stay consistent or the visitor feels duped instantly. Then when product doesn't actually appear to live up to the dream that was sold in the title and copy it is thus deemed a piece of crap.

Now this IS Alan's forum and he can run it as he wishes and I am perfectly fine with that. I play by his rules while in his sandbox. These are just my personal observations but I don't think I'm off base though.

Happy birthday today Bill! = )

Hey there,

When I first started in IM and happened upon the Warrior Forum I was just like you, seriously I bought so many WSO's and then said they were all crap - some were, some had average information, some probably much better but the real issue I had was with me - I didn't take action!

Fast forward a few years and I have only bought a handful of WSO's and I have been careful in my selection process. Firstly I know what I am interested in so I don't buy things that I know instantly I am not going to like. I am not interested in CPA or offline work (at present as I am travelling) so I instantly bypass these.

If I am interested in a WSO I now subscribe to the thread, read through all the posts and look at the sellers history on the forum, see what type of posts they make and generally do my research. If this sounds like too much work for you, then it will most certainly be too much work for you to carry out the advice given in the WSO you have purchased.

My advice to you now is to stay away from the WSO section for a while. Decide what it is you actually want to work on and then go through the WSO's you have already purchased and work solidly on one of them for a month and see if you can make it work for you.

Holy bejeezees! Misel, I think Michelle just handed you a good chunk of everything without buying anything See - there are great people here!

Unfortunately, I don't see how there's any way of knowing for sure if a WSO is going to give you anything good or not. About the best you can hope for is to rely on their history, reputation, etc...

However, I got severely burned on this hiring a very 'reputable' service provide here on WF for $500 months ago (which I still haven't gotten back or the service). So yeah, instincts. I'm much more hesitant than I was before.

Pretty simple. Stop hanging out there and start working on your own projects. The "Earn $10,000 a Week!" WSO's always seem questionable to me. But I can't judge them, since I've never bought one.

Usually the good WSO's are services that are well reviewed by other members. Not the latest "magic pill" WSO.

One in, I don't know, a thousand WSO is actually a Gold Mine, you just need to find that one.

A lot of good advice posted here already. Much of it seems to get to the core problem: lack of focus and what seems to be an expectation that you're going to find some secret in them that will do all the work for you.

Though I've bought maybe a quarter of the WSOs you have, I've only bought one that I would call "crap" and that was easily resolved: I requested and obtained a refund. And moved on.

The rest were worth at least what I paid for them; a handful, many times more.

I already had my IM business up and running well before I bought a single WSO, so each purchase was bought based on how it billed itself in terms of addressing existing needs I had at the time of purchase for each. I based that decision on reading - line by line - the actual copy of the WSO and deciding if it would likely fit that need or not. If it didn't, I passed on and kept looking.

For what its worth, there was a time when I was so skeptical of WSOs - because of the hyped headlines that are often the norm - that I resisted buying any at all. Then needs arrived that WSOs looked to address for a reasonable sum and I shed my skepticism when each consistently delivered the goods I was looking for. But I already knew what I wanted before I went looking for it, and I've already given the criteria that I base my decision on.

I think that combination is why I feel very differently about WSOs than you do, and have bought maybe a quarter as many.

-Spyder

WSO's that some people say are crap are crap only because they are not willing to dig down deep and take action.

Think about it!

I have bought a $17 WSO, and there was one sentence in there, that completely changed our business, and doubled our profits within weeks.

So was that $17 worth it. LOL.....ummmm YES!

WHile yes there are some junk WSO's ..... most of them are pretty good.

But most of them are worthless if you just keep buying them up and doing nothing with them. Pretty simple really.

Many of us spend a lot of money to get started in IM. I spent tens of thousands to start an offline business and thousands to keep it running.

When we decide to buy information, many of us are looking for the "magic bullet", the "ah hah" piece of info that will make us sucessful.

I suggest that you go back over the 50 WSO's and separate them into 2 piles. The first pile is the "I can start working on this tomorrow pile" and the second pile is "I can't use this right now pile."

Since you've been on the forum since 2009, you'll get a feeling for what you can start working on tomorrow. You have to trust people who have been there and done that.

At least, at that point, you're on a track to somewhere. Take the remaining WSO's and start categories on a spreadsheet or in folders.

Work on your business 80% of your available time and allow 20% ONLY for research.
Start making friends with the people who are sucessful in the area of IM you have chosen.

We've all spent money or time on things that weren't valuable but remember that sometimes what you're looking for is already saved on your computer.

Hi Jean

Good WSO's are only Good if you can and will personally use them.

Always remember that "one man's trash is another man's treasure"...

The advice that you received in post #2 or #3 was STOP buying them if you think they are Crap. It's good advice.

Regards

Bronwyn and Keith

I just wish the producers would get rid of the filler. I just bought a wso today because it was matching a keyword on my watch list. But damn,, the guy spent soooo much filler time going through all the sign ups. I swear,,, there was probably 30 minutes of signing up to crap like yahoo mail,, and every other sign up. I think that 99.9% of people here already know how to sign up for something. We did to get here. And the dude did it like 10 times during the video course..
So, please,,, wso producers,,, enough with the time filler "how to sign up" bs. We know already, Sheeeeeeeeesus.
And butt out suzzane,, go bug someone else. get a life

My advise to you is to stop buying WSOs all together. I'm sure from the 50 WSOs you've bought, you would have gain some knowledge on I.M in general.

Now, take massive action right away. Create your site, drive your traffic, start making sales.

I have to agree on this one.
if you are making $30k a month handing out flyers why would you sell this idea for $10?
I would say that more than 90% of these products are BS.
this kind of offers you can find here everywhere.
the target here are the new warriors like me.
I already bought maybe 3 products here and Im stopping.
no more money for their pockets.

Saturday morning you go out to your car to check the oil and realize it's down a half a quart. Do you get in your car, drive down to your local auto parts store and pick up 10 different quarts of oil?

Of course not...

Do you buy a quart of oil of a proven brand for the regular $3 or $4 dollars or do you take a chance on Uncle Jim's "Special" at 50 cents a gallon?

Of course you shouldn't go for the cheap, unknown brand...

And if you aren't too sure about what kind of oil to put in your car do you just guess at it or do you ask your neighbor who's a mechanical whiz when it comes to cars?

Of course you shouldn't guess at it...

So when it comes to WSO's, why do you totally ignore all three of the examples above and make the worst choices you could possibly make?

If you really think you're going to pop in there, find a one size fits all, fast track path to wealth WSO, you either need a psych evaluation or would be far better off spending all that money on lottery tickets.

If you're fairly new to IM and looking for opportunities to make money, the best place to start is by locking up your cash and credit cards for the first 3 months and staying out of the WSO forum.

But since you most likely won't do that, here are some other WSO buying tips you can freely ignore as well (in no particular order):

1. Check out the WSO author to see how much they actually participate in the WF itself other than the WSO forum. This will give you a sense of who they are and what they really know. Needless to say if they do not regularly participate in other forum areas, it's unlikely I'd buy their WSO.

2. How long have they been a member of the WF? While not a perfect metric, combined with a high post count (and using #1 above), chances are they're reliable, safe to do business with and probably know what they're doing.

3. Does the WSO author have websites and products being sold outside the WF? If not, then consider that the author's online business experience may be limited just to the WSO forum...not sure I'd take advice on making money from someone like that.

4. Is the the WSO author using a real name and avatar? Again, not a perfect metric, but someone who is basically anonymous is risky to do business with.

5. Check out the author on Google, i.e.; their user name, real name or whatever. What are they like on other forums? Did they get banned from those? Are there an unusual number of complaints about the person?

Anyone in business online is going to eventually have their "Haters" so reading a few complaints is normal (and usually just a disgruntled or two), but watch out if you run into a high volume of negative comments from a lot of different people.

6. If the WSO is about SEO, Page Rank, etc., the most obvious thing to do is to check their websites out. Go to WHOIS and first see how long their domains have been live (look for the created date). If the sites don't rank well in Google or have high PR, do you really want to pay this person for help on your own sites?

NOTE: Don't fall for this trick - they register a new domain, get the site indexed quickly and appear to rank well...this is normal behavior for almost all newly registered domains. If the domain is less than six months old, pass on the offer.

7. Does the WSO author promptly answer questions or does he or she just post to every comment with a one-liner "Thanks for buying" type of post? These folks do that to artificially inflate their "Replies" count, to make the WSO look more popular than it is.

8. Ask these types of questions:

a. How many times has the author replicated the system?

b. How many times have customers replicated the system?

c. With B, ask to be PM'd the name/email address of at least 3 customers who can vouch for it, answer questions and show live examples.

d. If no refund is stated, ask for clarification of their policy.

e. Ask if any stated results are typical of every customer or unique to the author.

The WSO forum is not a regular discussion forum and as such, you should avoid discussing the WSO if you haven't purchased it. But...and a lot of folks seem to miss this point, you ARE allowed to ask questions as you would for any potential purchase.

9. Ignore all testimonials and positive feedback unless you personally know the person leaving it. Then go ask them directly...don't waste your money taking advice from people you don't know!

10. Only spend money you're willing to throw away - if you run into a problem you need to understand that the WF is NOT responsible for business you conduct with someone selling a WSO. If you've been scammed you can report it, but it's not their job to be your advocate. it's up to you to resolve the problem.

On that note, if you bought a bum WSO, then for God's sake, leave a comment in the WSO thread and state that. State your opinion objectively and support it with facts. Do NOT make it a personal attack on the author or your post will end up deleted.

Most importantly of all, use some common sense...if it sounds too good to be true, then it will be, so don't waste your money.

After being burned a few times with WSO's a piece of advice I can give is, if you don't know what the product is about after reading the sales page, then don't buy the product.

Blind sales pages and massive income claims prove very tempting to newbies but 99 times out of 100 if the sales page leaves you with more questions on the product than answers then leave it well alone.

All the best things I've bought on here have been products that have made it explicitly clear what they are and what they do in the sales copy. That way you can clearly decide whether or not it will be of use to you.

DO NOT JUST BUY A WSO, BUT =

ACTION - ACTION - ACTION

after you buy one WSO, lets do to action.