Randy’s Ramblings 9th August 2010
HypeFree advice to help us all.

EAVB_DTILRUXZEC

In this Post
* Catch Up
* A Genuine Review Of Mobile Monopoly
* Better Places To Invest in This Week
* Sign Off

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* Catch Up

How are you? – I’m hoping you’re well, and I hope you checked out the 100 Blog Challenge?
http://creatingmybusinessonline.com/the-100-blog-comment-challenge/

I’ve been blog hopping all week, and I’m amazed at some of the great posts I’ve come across!
I’ve also met some new people who may go on to become good friends… so although it takes a little time – for me the benefits far outweigh the time it takes to make new friends.

PLUS – as a by, the extra traffic I’m getting is nice too…lol

Don’t worry – I’ve not been working too hard
I just neglected other activities…hehe

Actually – I had two days practically stuck at home and suffering with a tummy bug (not nice at all)….
Thankfully that’s cleared up now so I thought I’d write on a Sunday evening to catch up a little.

OH – and I got my new glasses too!
Or was that over a week ago?… Either way I’m getting used to them now (Varifocals) – around $350 for a pair of specs!!!
It seems I have to wear them all the time now and not just for reading (I guess I’m getting older)

On the home front, I’ve had time off to ‘babysit’ Cameron due to the school holidays, and time out for some social fun with Rachel… (see – how could I fit much work in?)

But I have kept up as ever with my emails and support tickets…
Well mainly www.WizardResponderPro.com questions and customer support, I did leave a couple of JV requests unanswered for a couple of days.
I also wasted a good few hours changing all the passwords and login info for www.GuruBypass.com admin – as it seems we had a visit from a skilled
marketer who has no scruples!
He managed to hack into the site and use the mailer to send a promo for some PPV program (I sincerely hope no one visited it)

I did get an email to let me know, so it was just the one…. But the clever ‘BarSteward’ (me trying to write illegitimate person) had deleted my own membership – so I didn’t receive a copy of the email or I would have acted sooner!
(That knocked my confidence in the LFM script)
Oh well – what’s done is done and is now rectified – and I hope you knew it wasn’t me if you got one of the emails… I NEVER sign ADMIN, I always am happy to sign my name to my emails!
(Future hackers take note if you’re on my lists! – You might be clever but it’s short term… Use your skills for good and you might make your mothers proud!)

Anyway – I’m rambling already and I have some important stuff below, so I’d best get on with it 
Let’s see if we can’t save you from wasting some of your online budget and give you some news of where it might be better invested!

Randy

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* A Genuine Review Of Mobile Monopoly

I saw this product being promoted by so many people, I figured it had to be a major launch!
And with reports of doing over a million and a half last week already – it seems it is…lol

Now I was invited to JV on it – BUT…All I had seen was the prelaunch videos – and they are fantastic… what a great presales job!
I was very tempted to promote it as it all made so much sense… or at least the sales pitch did!

BUT
Yep – a large one..

I then started asking some more techy people what they thought of it?
When Martin Brock (www.vtctalk.com) wrote a full review on the warrior forum my eyes opened !

So much so that I asked Martin if I could steal his review and use it to show my readers!
He’s a tech and doesn’t yet have an IM site, but you can follow him on twitter here:
http://twitter.com/martin_brock

Anyway – here are his words:
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I actually spent a few hours on this review, so I hope it is ok that I post a new thread about it.

I apologize for the poor grammar/writing – I wrote it very fast.
As I stated in the other thread, I am only reviewing this product because a friend of mine bought two of this guy’s previous products. I paid for this one myself, and I will be refunding it out of sheer principle. I would have refunded the two others as well if I had paid for them.

There are 11 modules and some extra videos in the members’ area.

Module 1 – A lot of mobile stats and data in this one, most of which should not be surprising to most people who regularly follow industry news.

Module 2 – In this module he seems to go on and on about sending traffic to mobile optimized squeeze pages. What if 30 people converts, then I just made $150”, “this can really start to add up”, “Alright so I send them a Clickbank offer, and boom” – that last one is just classic, timeless relationship building advice! (I hope you can detect the irony). He goes on with “I get a huge list that I can market to forever”, “CPA stands for..” and so on..

He keeps talking about his conversion rate, and various numbers, and how much money you can potentially make, and yet fails to explain how to accomplish it – is it by any chance because sending traffic straight to affiliate links is THE most fragile business model in existence? The rest of video 2 contains more pipe dreams and “think of the possibilities” moments, again without any tangible, actionable direction.

Module 3 – Here he explains how the interfaces of the ad platforms work again peppered with regular “just think of the possibilities” moments (sorry if I repeat myself, but monkey see, monkey do, or whatever the appropriate saying is in this context.. I am speed writing here! – this is very basic stuff.

Module 4 – More from the same drawer – and then the big secret is revealed. I don’t even own a cell phone, and even I know that a mobile browser is different from a standard browser. At this point the “just think about how much money you can make” filler is getting more than unbearable.

Module 5 – “Clickbank is amazing, you can make a lot of money with it” that is not an exact quote, but close. He spends a long time explaining the basics, and includes regular mentions of “big money”. He also talks about his squeeze page software – which comes at additional cost (67/month) – but he never provides any tangible proof that the squeeze pages presenting the mobile offers are the true source of his income, or that they have any sort of real effect.

Module 6– In this one he shows how to get affiliate links from Amazon in order to sell physical products as an affiliate – the most creative part about this module is the title: “let’s get physical”. I noted that his account shows no sales activity. This is generally another uninteresting video that covers very basic stuff.

Module 7 – In this module he explains how to get pay per call offers. Pay per call is really just another way of tracking an affiliate sale, but through a phone number instead of an affiliate URL. Again, the information provided is very basic “how to find an offer” interspersed with even more “easy, easy money” comments, but no real guidance or insight is offered.

Module 8 – In this one, the “just think about the possibilities” moment deals with mobile marketing for local businesses. Sure, you could go out and manage mobile campaigns for local businesses – they may not be tech savvy, but you can be sure they want to know exactly what they get from their advertising dollars. And what do they get? Is there even enough volume to support very specific local offers through mobile advertising? He just mentions this as an idea, one of many, that is not supported by anything tangible in the form of how to do it, or what results he has accomplished (I know what my guess is).

I did see the remaining videos, but found no reason to mention anything further about them.

Oh, except the Iphone app module. That was the first video that actually made me laugh out loud. Again, completely in line with the rest of the product – he talks about possibilities and potential, and how a lot of people make a killing with apps – but again – with no with real direction.

I will just let these links speak for themselves:
So, You Want To Develop iPhone Apps, Eh? You REALLY Want To Read This! Dvorak Uncensored: General interest observations and true web-log.
Is The Rush To Develop iPhone Apps Creating A Bubble? | mocoNews

And a quote from one of the articles:

Supercollider Blog reports on several levels of paid app downloads, the relevant number is that half of all paid iPhone apps get less than 1,000 downloads. The median point is under 1,000. Lets call it 999. That number times $1.95 per paid app gives the ‘most typical app’ the total revenues in its lifetime – the full two years of App Store existence – of $1,948 dollars. This is before Apple takes its cut of 30%, so we are left with $1,363 over two years or $682 per year. This is so ‘successful’ that half of all of the developers of the 164,250 apps – will actually earn LESS THAN THIS. Before you start to cry, remember, there is that Angry Bird game that had 4 million paid downloads and the Bewelled 2 game with 3 million paid downloads. Thats your math there, they are totally skewing the averages, and you are stuck in the ‘long tail’ indeed. Half of all developers will earn less than $682 per year. Do you still think this is a good business idea?

The overall verdict

There is a lot of filler and basic stuff where he spends time on the usual suspects; Clickbank, what is CPA offers, and so on. “Clickbank pays high commissions” and “Amazon pays lower commission”.

Most of the content has been regurgitated in 100s if not 1000s of products since. The few things he mentions that some people may not have heard of (such as pay per call) are covered in an extremely superficial way.

He almost never (if at all) mention aspects of real online marketing (relationship building, improving conversion rates, pre-selling) – stuff that is vital – but maybe that is because that sort of thing requires real EFFORT which would be more than 99% of his intended audience bargained for (judging by the sales letter). To fill out the holes it is apparently much easier to just have tons of “how to sign up for Clickbank” videos – yes, I think that is actually a title of one of the videos.

In regards to getting low CPCs – you can not by any standard compare the CPC of display ads and search ads. Getting a positive ROI is by no means guaranteed just because you get clicks at just a few cents. As an example, it is relatively easy to get clicks from Google (Adsense), and a number of other platforms from 3-10 cents (I have nothing for sale here or anywhere else), in some markets higher. I have done that several times. The key however, is conversion, as most of us know. And on top of that, it seems that most people are paying much more than the few cents he talks about.

He does not go in and show concrete tangible examples of winning campaigns – sure he has “proven” campaigns. But anyone who knows anything knows that any CPA network or affiliate network will throw their best performing campaigns at you like they were dead rodents (I realize that was a pathetic analogy . No solid proof that he makes money from the mobile offers is ever presented – why does only Clickbank and Paypal earnings show on the sales page? He is particularly generous in showing his Clickbank earnings in the sales videos. But he does not navigate to the pages in his various accounts that show proof of earnings in the videos inside the members’ area. For someone who likes to talk so much about how much money he makes WHY does he not show any real tangible results achieved promoting these offers? And why do all screenshots/videos that involve his campaigns show all campaigns on pause?

As someone else have already hinted – which is completely on par with my own sentiments – is the fact that you get a very distinct feeling that the author is not actually applying most of these things, he just explains the “potential” and how this is “easy money”, and adds in various random potential earning scenarios, conversion rates and so on. A critical voice might infer that the results shown on the sales page could very well come from sales of his previous “make money online” offers in Clickbank (which also supports Paypal), and not from real b2c affiliate marketing offers on mobile phones. The author has so far been unresponsive in terms of submitting the proof I emailed him for.

In reality, it is not as easy as he makes it out – as also already pointed out earlier in the thread by someone who is doing it – and several other posters who have posted results from their campaigns. And those who make the wildest claims, including the author, does not seem to want to or be able to provide irrefutable evidence of their alleged quick, easy, and significant earnings.

Now – I could probably write another 5-10 pages about this product easily. But the time I have already spent is more than enough time wasted. I think is a shame that this type of product can “break through” in these circles. Of course, people can get a refund – but they can not get their time back, and the money invested in campaigns that don’t produce results.

And if this is by any means the industry standard, a lot of people will end up in a cycle where they jump from one quick fix to another because the product is carefully constructed to give the illusion that it does really work with no effort required…”but just not for me”. And so, the story repeats itself with no one the wiser because “quick fix” authors refuse or lack the skills to educate people on the true principles of Internet marketing.

Martin
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I hope this helps you save some ca$h!

And be sure to follow Martin to see when he gets around to getting a site up with more grreat reviews
http://twitter.com/martin_brock

Or if you are techy – take a look at www.vtctalk.com

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* Better Places To Invest in This Week

Well now we’ve seen that we might not want to believe the hype follow the mass sales just because other have….
I figured I’d best mention a couple of sites that I believe are worthy of a serious look:

The first is available now and provides some great options:

In fact as part of my own testimonial for Rob I wrote:
“If people study your blueprints, I’m sure they may find
that they lean towards something they may not have thought
of before….. And yet they find so much more fun, and profitable!”

http://randysmith.co.uk/recommends/12roads

Rob’s course is actually a complete set of 12 business blueprints that will take you to business success in a series of easy to follow steps.

Robert shows you how you can use very simple and cheap solutions to sell more products to a very targeted audience who will return to you to buy time and time again.

Complete with pdf and videos, Using the information in 12 Roads to Success you can build a series of low cost start up businesses that will provide you with an income for years. Or choose one or two that you may not have thought of before to focus on.

At the silly low price (with no hidden extras) I would suggest taking a look for yourself:

http://randysmith.co.uk/recommends/12roads

I hope you find this recommendation useful

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My Second recommendation would be to grab a bargain that will help Children with CHD…

Yep – Every once in a while I try my best to send some traffic to Dr.Mani’s sites like:
http://www.chdinfo.com/chdaware/howdonate.htm

But today – I’m actually promoting one of Dr.Mani’s products

It doesn’t launch til the 15th,
but I wanted to get you to earmark $19.95 now so you can grab a bargain and help save a child

When Dr.Mani’s “Think, Write & Retire” launched on Amazon.com, it raced up the charts to hit #83 in the Business & Investing category within 16 hours!
This book was written for a worthy cause, one that I believe you will want to get behind, too.
You see, ALL profits from the book launch were donated to his Children Heart Foundation, to sponsor a child’s life-saving treatment.
Over the years, the Foundation has raised over $130,000 and sponsored SEVENTY surgeries up to now.

“Think, Write & Retire”
Will be available as a digital ebook from the 15th August 2010 that can be instantly downloaded – and I hope this will raise even more money to help more kids live!
Like a ripple, word will spread – and a lot of folks are already excited about this launch. (hopefully I beat them to it in telling you well in advance)
By buying your copy on the 15th, you’ll help raise money to heal a child’s heart.

Will you do it, please?

There’s also another reason I’d like you to buy your copy…
You’ll Get Over $120 In Gifts & Bonuses!
Get your copy on the 15th August from here:

=> http://randysmith.co.uk/recommends/DrMani

Oh, and please tell your friends too.

Thank you
Best wishes

Randy
P.S. – The Good Dr. will have an upsell… Your choice to look at it or not, all I can say is it will be a great product!
(He doesn’t do hyped up fluffy stuff!!)

P.P.S. - If it helps, I have a review copy of this BUT.. I’ll still go and buy it again because I want to know I helped too!
AND the product is easily worth more than the cost!

P.P.P.S. Dr.Mani just recommended I look at EmpireAvenue.com (a new sort of social site),  So I have looked and joined (More details in my next post) – but I need to add this code EAVB_DTILRUXZEC  in order to activate my blog feed (so now that’s done…lol and my profile is http://www.empireavenue.com/randy)

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* Sign Off

Here’s hoping you’ve enjoyed your weekend.
I hope I’ve given you some food for thought in this email?

Do Check Rob’s 12 roads, and
Earmark the 15th for ThinkWriteRetire

And don’t forget to get blog hoping in the challenge to up your traffic and contacts

****As ever – only spend your ca$h on things that WILL help you
(Not the stuff that Might One Day!)****

Til next time
To You and Yours,

Here’s hoping you’re
Loving Life, Living it with Passion, And Passing it on!

Warm Regards
Randy
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