Thanks a lot for your valuable input. This is something I got in mind for my next product as I got a great method to make decent money but the actuall method involves lots of tedious work. So I have developed a software that automates most of the tedious work for you. So I was thinking on doing method for FE and software for OTO but not sure if your guys prefer all bundled in one package with one price.

Man like I said if you are coming here with the vendors mentality then you can just stay out man. I understand when the Admins and Mods list on their rules Buyers Beware to protect their shop but when I see a vendor saying that is basically telling me "beware or I will be the first to ripp you off". No offense bud but it sounds like that. Yes, when I go to McDonald's they try to upsale me Big Soda and Fries but here is 2 things first this is NOT McDonald's and second when you go to McDonald's the next time instead of ordering the Big Mac right away take the time to actually LOOK at the Menu because the Upgrade offer is usually right there in front of you "Get Big Fries and Big Soda for $1.29 More" The guy is just reminding you about the offer that has already been advertised to you nothing wrong about that. The OTOs are usually not advertised to you on the sales page you find out once you already invested money reason why they are a big deal and reason why is IMPORTANT to listen how customers feel about this because in the end the customer is always right.

Hey Will,

That is a poor comparison. At McDonalds you can clearly see what you are buying and to boot they are not trying to upsize you to large fries either. And I don't see your point about consenting adults here.

The reason a lot of people talk about OTOs is because customers are getting tired of them since many times they are just ripoffs. So if you are going to have an OTO make sure it is a value product.

People don't mind paying for value but they mind being cheated. In the long run it is not the customer but it is the seller who is going to suffer the consequences.

A while ago a scenario tried several times had many people riled. It was something like this: WSO offered personal license and OTO offered developers license. That was done by a few IMers (couple of pretty well known) and I honestly believe that some lost their customers because of that.

People felt they had to pay twice for the same product. They really felt cheated and there was a lot of unhappy discussion on the forum about this. One of the sellers eventually realized his mistake and was apologetic, but the whole incident left a bad taste in people mouths.

So a seller has to offer a value front end product and a real value OTO otherwise he will have a lot of unhappy customers who will not buy from him again. I certainly would not trust anyone who will cheat me once.

I am speaking from customer's point of view.

I agree with WillR

My opinion is that yes they are frustrating sometimes, but if I don't need them I don't buy them. The thing I like about WF and these days of marketing is that marketer's know not to have an OTO that is necessary to make the original product work... The OTO's are usually extensions and if the marketer is reputable then they will give you opportunity to purchase later.

The old days of IM they would sell you a half a** product and sell you OTO's that you would need to make the program work... I am glad those days are behind us and now marketers are smarter with their OTO's

and if you sell anything than you absolutely love OTO's because nowaday's you are missing money if you are not using them and they are almost completely necessary because they give you options as marketer.

It's funny Will that perhaps you are not realizing that on this forum we have buyers and sellers.

I am truly surprised by your answer particularly the sentence "It's ridiculous and I'm not sure why the mods allow it to be honest. "

I can't believe that as an avid seller, as you are, you would say something like that. Trust me the first thing I am going to do after I am finished here, I am going to open my email box and unsubscribe from your list, so I will never receive an offer from you.

Yes, they are all perfect examples of upsells... and none of them effect the value of the front end product. So why on earth should they be a part of the decision to buy the front end product?!

Buyers should not be asking this question in the WSO forum. It's a really silly practice that someone started and now everyone does.

Honestly... :rolleyes::rolleyes:

If you don't like the value in the front end product then don't buy it. It's that simple.

"Excuse me, before I buy this car I would just like to know if you are going to be offering any upsells?"

"Yes, we will be offering you the option of an extended warranty should you want it."

"Really?! That's just wrong. I don't want to buy this car anymore."

See how silly it sounds in the REAL world.

I think pretty much everyone is pretty much saying the same thing...

I went to the gas station the other day to buy gas and the clerk ask me "Do you want a drink to go along with that?" now that's good selling.

and for your car reference I use to sell cars for over 13 years. I know your right about warranties and paint coverage as back ends or upsells. The car business waits until you are about to sign all of your paperwork to tell you about them... People use to pre-print the paper work with the extended warranty already on it, but now they have to disclose it before printing.

And all the years of me putting people in the finance office there was always a big portion of them mad that they were being upsold. Even though having warranty on something you can't fix is a good idea, they still were mad about it.

Now as a salesman I don't have to disclose that they are going to be upsold in the finance office very true... I agree, but if you were to ask me are there any additional fee's or anything else I can purchase after I buy the car, then I would not run from you and be silent. I would say absolutely and tell you why I think it is of value and what it covers. I use to tell people that they were going to be pitched on warranties before they went in to finance. I told them why they should get it and why it made a difference.

The bad part of life is that people hate salesman for some reason when everyone on the planet is selling something... You are either selling or being sold, not only money but relationships, kids, jobs, etc... Everything is sales. It just has a bad name for some reason.

Even when I sold cars I had people up front ask me "how much is warranty" before I even sold them the cars... and would get mad if I couldn't tell them right off even though I didn't know the cost.

so if your product is great quality be proud of your upsells and don't worry if someone ask how much an OTO is? YES You don't have to disclose it, but if someone ask, then tell them how much and why they should get it and move on. It's their loss if they don't get it.

Me personally I buy upsells when they make sense and when I sold cars I bought extended warranties... When someone asked me about extended warranty I would show them I bought too.

and the people who I sold cars to who gave me the most resistance were usually the people who bought all the upsells and paid all the money.

people are just scared of being scammed and they listen to others who say they have been scammed. Most of the time they are scared or mad because they don't know.

Transparency is the best

And at that job you'll probably get a chance to be upsold if there's insurance involved. You know - choose a $100 deductible and $x a year for $75 a month or a $200 deductible and $x a year for $50 a month OR ...

Mark

There's absolutely nothing wrong with OTOs or upsells. They are a good and sensible marketing strategy. However, it's the way in which they are presented which is the real issue.

When people complain about OTOs or upsells, really the objection they have is, no so much the upsell itself, but rather the lack of value given in the initial front end offer.

A front end offer should be enough to stand on its own, full stop. It should contain enough inherent value that makes it totally unnecessary to purchase any upsells.

An upsell should be an added bonus that is related to the front end offer and enhances it, rather than making the customer feel that they've had a vital component left out of their front end purchase.

To use Will's McDonald's analogy, it would be like purchasing a Big Mac and fries, only to find out after purchase that in order to have them in packaging you need to pay for it, which wasn't advertised before purchase. That would be totally unreasonable and the customer would rightly feel cheated.

However, if you purchased a Big Mac and fries, didn't need anything else and wasn't expecting anything else but the seller said, "Hey, you know that we also sell soft drinks, right? Well today only, we're doing a special offer where you can get a large soft drink to go with your meal at the reduced price of (x-amount). No? Okay, can I interest you in a regular soft drink at an even lower price?", then you're likely not going to mind that.

The upsell should be something that enhances and compliments the original front end purchase, not something that only brings out the true value of it and leaves the buyer feeling that their purchase is incomplete without it

Savvy buyers also know that the OTO as in a one time offer is complete BS and if you decline it, you most often can get it at any other time. It's rare that I've seen the offer actually disappear forever after declining it.

I am both a seller and a buyer. My sense is (I've never taken a poll), that a significant number of people do not like OTO's, generally. I am one of them. Now, how I "feel" about something is not always technically the right answer, but it is how "I feel" and anyone doing business with me, should take that into consideration if they want my money...

BUT...

To me, it matters less who is right or wrong in the argument of "OTO's"... as a professional marketer, what matters to me is what do my potential customers think and believe... right or wrong, it is still their perception and I need to deal with it; In fact, more than deal with it... I want to make my customers happy...

It is absolutely true that OTO's and upsells are part of a good sales funnel and done "correctly", can certainly be valuable... or not. I also believe that this is a forum of "IM'ers" who have a higher level of knowledge about things than many people and because of that, they may feel like they are being "sucked" into a sales funnel for the sole purpose of increasing the sellers average sale... our job as sellers is to provide a sales funnel here in the WF that provides great value, makes sense with the FE product and of course, increases the average sale as well.

Anyway, lots of good points on both sides of the discussion... but, as I said, for me, I don't want to solve the issue, I want to recognize it and deal with it as a savvy marketer who wants to 1. Have Happy Customers (always #1 to me), 2. Provide great products, 3. Enjoy Myself, 4. Make money in the process...

If you are required to buy the OTO in order to get full value from the FE product, then that is against the forum rules and should be reported to the moderators.

The only way to get bad sellers to fly right sometimes is to hit them where it hurts, when the mod shuts down their offers.



The reason why we would not necessarily want to talk about the Up-sell offer in the main thread is because we don't want to distract the buyer, when they are considering the FE product.

That is Selling 101... Focus on only one offer at a time... Don't distract the buyer... The more we distract the potential buyer from the FE offer, the less likely we are to sell that offer.

The Up-sell is usually a related product, and in most cases, it is something that the buyer will want, but only if they buy the FE offer too.

So the deal is, "Here is the FE offer. If you want it, get it. If you don't want it, don't get it."

The BE offer is simply a distraction at this point, and remember, as marketers, we want to reduce distractions.

Once the FE offer has been purchased, then we can offer the BE offer, with full sales copy.

When you are demanding to know about the BE offer, before you buy the FE offer, we are caught between a rock and a hard place:

1. We don't want to distract people from the main offer; and

2. Anything we say on the Front End offer about the Back End, diminishes the value of the BE in the mind of people who might have otherwise purchased it, b/c when we drop a quick description of the BE in the main thread, we are unable to tell the real story of that product accurately.


I don't get mad when people ask me about up-sells, but as a seller, I know that I don't want to talk about it much, based on the two points I just made.



As a consumer, it doesn't bother me at all, because as Big Mike said, I don't necessarily want to pay for all of the features that a software might offer me. And, I don't necessarily think that I should have to pay more on the FE to get the part of the training I do want.

I have personally purchased about 6 WSO's in the last week, and on two of them, I also purchased the up-sell, and I was really glad that the seller made them available to me.

And on the four offers where I did not buy the up-sell offer, the value might have been there for others, but it was not there for me.

The existence of an Up-sell or OTO should not be a death sentence for any product purchase.

The only thing that should kill a product is a bad product.

The up-sell or OTO is simply an additional item to purchase, and maybe I want it, and maybe I don't. But the availability of the up-sell or OTO is not going to sway my decision to buy the FE offer or not, and if it does for you, I am sorry that you are willing to shoot yourself in the foot like that, but it is your choice to buy or not to buy.

This here is why there is a problem with OTOs , you don't get the chance to see what you have purchased, because of the OTO pop up ! hence the questions in the WSO about OTOs.

I have also fallen into the trap at the start of my IM and I was very much the noob and the product was crap and so was the OTO nothing worked , and was very Bluefart!! ( this was not explained on the sales copy it was ) some of the vendors have come on here with there own agenda which in mho is not the way to look at it but to find the solution so everyone is happy.

Thanks for you input and I find it very interesting so let me ask you this.

What about if the FE product is a money making method. A great way to make money online and something very unique. So the method itself is great and can stand alone but the fact is that it involves some tedious work that none of us want to do. I have developed a software that automates the majority of the method and I left out of the software some key portions to make sure that nobody is doing the same thing to avoid saturation but with the software the amount of had work is minimum. What would you prefer the method as a FE for 9.95 and the software as an OTO for $37 or would you prefer both in a package as a FE product for $47 both?

The only one silly here is you with such unprofessional response.

Thanks for your input much appreciated.

I think the same is dishonest.

The problem is a lot of marketers will sell you the electronic without you knowing batteries are needed to make it work. Then they try and sell you the batteries as an upsell. So without the upsell the product is virtually useless. That's not good selling and that is when the bad taste is left.

But normal OTO's or upsells are fine and in most cases customers are actually getting access to a product for much cheaper than they would if the OTO or upsell was not in place.

That's what customers seem to forget.