Internet ‘Get rich’ schemes, affiliate marketing are not business models

This post is part 4 in a series of ‘How do I leave my day job?’. The first 3 posts are linked below in the ‘Also Read’ section. I cannot remember how many posts I have written both on this site and others about the con that is ‘get rich’ internet schemes and affiliate marketing schemes. They do not work. Period.

The only people who make money are the ones selling this stuff.

If you break it down logically why would these supposedly mega successful ‘internet marketers’ making millions decide to tell you all their strategies for a couple of grand? Hell I wouldn’t and I bet neither would you because if everyone was doing the same thing online the internet would be saturated so much that no one would make profit.

These con men and women prey on the naive, desperate and plain stupid to sell their wares.

The con normally works like this:

1) An offer of a free eBook which you receive once you hand over your email address. They normally include a bunch of other stuff that somehow is worth hundreds of dollars, but just for the next 24 hours they will give it to you for FREE. If you go back to the same signup page a week later the count down to expiry is still 24 hours. The more smarter cons actually do expire these freebies to create a sense of rarity == value,  but then they re-package and rebrand and offer it again.

2) The ‘exclusive tell all’ freebie eBook is full of the most commonsense basics on creating a website, adding a signup form and attracting visitors. You can find all this stuff just on our site without having to give up your email address. I have also seen more lower level marketers copy and paste content from other sites into their eBook. Some are so stupid that references to the original site are still there! The eBook is purely there to get your email address – thats it.  The con might add in some affiliate links into the eBook linking to recommended products. This is just a little earner for the con just incase you don’t move up the sales cycle.

3) The next stage normally splits into two parts: the first is a set of automatic sales emails are kicked off – possibly in the hundreds spread over months – all designed to brainwash you into thinking this is all real. They always seem to come from aweber as well. Fake testimonials, photoshop created fake paypal accounts with loads of incoming fake sales. The other part only happens with the higher level cons – your email and details (God forbid that you actually gave your phone number!!) gets sent to a boiler room business that actually calls you. See this article for more on boiler rooms.

4) Hopefully by this stage you are so brain washed that you end up buying a product/service from the con – maybe you attend a weekend retreat event or pay for a DVD training package included with phone meetings with a successful mentor (actually a sales rep). This stage is designed to excite you and give you some tasks to work on that will start you on the road to making millions. This is all BS as well. You see they are pitching at the people who are addicted to events or paying huge sums of cash for useless products. Its a proven fact that some people get a high from these events or buying products that they actually don’t even try and use the things they have learned. The con knows that these types of people just want to signup for the next event/product so they can get the high back. Its the same principle infomercials use to sell their crap which ends up in your garage or under the bed never taken out of its package.

5) If you are at this stage be happy in the knowledge that you will probably be still where you are in life but now more broke and the con is upgrading to the latest ferrari – its game over for you.

Whew!

So I hope this is the last time I have to tell you that ‘get rich’ internet schemes and affiliate marketing are NOT a business model for you.