What I Don’t Like About Most Internet Marketing Seminars
Oct 18th, 2007 by Martin Lee
If you think you are an internet marketing newbie, please read this post carefully because this was written specially for you. In the past one year or so, I have attended four internet marketing events in Singapore organised by three different organisers. These are actual events and not previews. All the events have something in common which I will talk about later. But first, here’s a brief summary of the four events.
The first event is a 2.5-day seminar conducted by only one trainer, Derek Gehl of Internet Marketing Center. The good thing about attending an event with only one speaker is that the entire presentation and lesson delivery is organised and coherent. The retail price of the event ticket ranges from $1.6k to $2.2k and the event was attended by about 200 plus people.
During the event, there was an upsell on the 2nd day for all of Derek’s products and software for about $4k, and another upsell on the 3rd day for a mentoring package at (get this) over $10k. There were many people who signed up.
This year round, Derek is doing a similar event in Singapore and ticket prices are only at $100-200!
The next event was the World Internet Summit at the end of 2006. The ticket price was at $1000 and the event was attended by over 600+ people. For this event, there were many speakers who each had about 1.5 hours of speaking time. During this allocated time, the speaker had to deliver both his content as well as “sell” something to the audience. The prices of the products sold ranged from about $2k to as high as $9k. The problem with this kind of event is that the topics covered tend to overlap heavily.
The following event was another World Internet Summit in the middle of 2007. This time round, ticket prices was from $100-200 and was attended by a few thousand people. The ticket even entitled us to attend any WIS event in the world for free for the next 12 months.The format was similar to the previous WIS and again there was advanced training sold with prices ranging from $1k to $10k.
The last event was the Internet Millionaire Incubator. The ticket price ranged from $1 to $200 and the event attracted about 400 people. The price of the advanced training sold ranged from $600 to about $5k.
From the general trend, it appears that prices to internet marketing seminars in Singapore are dropping. As long as it remains highly lucrative to provide such seminars, supply will continue to rise to meet the demand and eventually, prices will have to find an equilibrium level.
The thing that irks me most in all these seminar is that a lot of time is wasted by the speakers telling us about “why an internet business” and “you can do it!” rather than focusing on “how to do it‘. To learn more about the “how”, you always need to purchase the advanced training offered by these same speakers.
I suppose the speakers still need to make a living so I guess it’s ok with them selling things that might benefit the attendees. However, a few of the speakers have no sense of shame offering over-priced and useless products.
You belong to the top 1%. You know more than 99% of the world. You are ready to make a lot of money on the internet. You just need to take action, massive action.
When everyone sees everyone else buying those advanced training, caution is thrown to the wind and everyone just goes ahead to buy.
Now, what the speakers didn’t tell you is that of the 1% who know about internet marketing, you belong to that bottom 1% of that 1%. When you start marketing your website, you are going to compete among the 1%!
For example, do you know about:
Search Engine Optimization - nofollow tags, anchor text linking, different search engine and user navigation
Technical - 301 redirect, changing your htaccess files
Pay per click (PPC) - site targeting, negative keyword qualifier, writing effective ad copy
Copywriting - formula for effective copywriting, examples of proven headlines
To succeed in building and marketing a successful website, there is a lot of things to be learnt and a lot of hard work.
Unfortunately, very few speakers will tell this to you upfront because otherwise they won’t be able to sell their stuff to you…
The sad thing is that most of the people who end up paying alot of money for those advanced training do not followup on it. There are some people who attend seminars after seminars, signing up for packages after packages. After having spend tens of thousands of dollars, they still struggle to make their first dollar online.
There is actually a reason for this and it’s part of human psychology. Have you ever bought clothes that you didn’t wear? Or books that you didn’t read? I do and everyone else has done it at one point in time as well. It’s the same with those advanced packages offered at events. There is a need to satisfy the carving at the point of that sales offer.
Many give up because they do not want it badly enough. When you tell yourself, “I will try and if it works good. If it does’t, nevermind“, you are setting yourself up for failure.
Remember this. Taking action is not about buying that advanced package from the guru and expecting things to happen magically. That is just the preparation. What you do after that is the part that requires massive action from you. And success here is not dependent on whether you bought advanced packages from the gurus.
If are feeling overwhelmed after attending your first internet marketing event, need some guidance but don’t want to overpay for it, I recommend you to get a copy of Insider’s Secrets to Making Money Online by Derek Gehl. It’s one of the best and comprehensive internet marketing courses around and reading it from cover to cover will provide you with much more knowledge than you can learn in any 3-day internet marketing seminar.
Don’t bother getting any of their software though. My personal opinion is that their software are simply not up to the mark.
And if you are the kind that needs hands-on training, you can consider attending internet marketing classes at the ITE. They have a structured course that teaches you all the basics and they won’t upsell you with overprices courses. :)
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Hi, Martin,
I agree with your opinion. I have 2 opinions would like to share with you also.
Firstly, is about sales. No matter you are in offline or online business. Sales is very important when comes to business. No sales, no money; no money, not a business in a world is able to survive.
The participants should not go and attend any seminar or buy any products if they don’t have that mindset. No matter how many products they buy or how many seminars they attend. They will never earn any money if they don’t take any action - an action that will bring sales.
Secondly, is about platform. Those who attend the seminars are those who have the desire to become rich. They bought the products provided by those “gurus” is because they want to be rich. What they have forgotten is that they need to find a platform to use what they have learnt. No matter how much we learn, how much product we buy, if we never find a platform and use what we have learnt, is always equal to zero.
Ok, that’s all. Thanks for reading.
Hi Michael,
Just to add on to what you have said, yes sales is important, but it need not be selling of a product on your website. Even a content site need to sell itself to attract visitors to come and revisit.
Hi, Martin,
For the content site, I will treat it as a “quality” of a product or service. There are many amazing creations come to this world every year, every month, maybe even every day, but this means that every single one of them would help the human society? The answer obviously is No.
It is because… the scientists don’t know about marketing, period.
I’m saying sales is very imporant. Before that, I would like to share “9 Most Important Words in Marketing History” which I learn from One of The Best of America’s copywriter - Gary Bencivenga.
The 9 words are - “A Gifted Product Is Mightier Than A Gifted Pen”. It simply means “USP” of the product. What benefits can the products bring to the clients or human nature? We have to think about it, if we cannot find any “USP”, then this definitely is a lousy product
When we able to find “A Gifted Product” then we can set us apart from other competitors. After that, if we can find a world class marketer to help us promote this product. Then will be the most powerful combination in marketing - “A Gifted Product and A Gifted Pen”.
How do you feel about it?
Thanks for reading.
Hi Martin, it’s me again. :)
I’m sorry to read of yr dismaying thogs after attending those paid net seminars.
Pardon me should I be blunt here:
I think such seminars, the pp who runs them n especially the attendees - are really much wasting resources.
No. I’ve nothing against how-to-sell-on-net seminars or seminars per se. In fact, I operate a business online too. :)
The way these seminars are profilerating, n the marketing hoohaa surrounding them, one should be able to see thru the smokescreen n sniff out the hype within.
U give good information here. And going to net seminars like these n reporting on them will naturally be part of yr worthy content.
It’s a sad reality that U’ve not gotten what U’ll expect.
Thanks for sharing, pal!
TA. :)
Hi Michael,
You are right. there are simply too many junk ebooks around.
Hi TA,
No worries about me. I fully knew what to expect from such seminars. It’s a good thing to rant about it once in a while and warn others at the same time. :)
Hi Martin
A good rant.
The problem with web based programmes is that they all seem to be sold as a way to get rich quick.
While I’m all in favour of helping a hungry crowd come back for a second meal I can imagine that it much become a real chore listening to presenter after presenter selling their stuff rather than delivering high value content.
On the element of not taking action, then this is a common failing of any one-off training course and why regular coaching brings such value.
Cheers
Paul
Ya Martin is right, i attended most seminar in sg last 12 months and I advise all my friends who attending keep their Credit Cards at home.My favorite sales pitch on the recent Internet Millionaire Incubator’s Adam Ginsberg ,the ebay n myspace expert. I doubt about his “how to” too but I believe he rake in the most money.not to forget he book another session to sell his Binary Network mlm “Monavie” d grape juice ! do you guys know that Monavie is a Flop in Singapore 2 yrs ago and the Support office beside Starhub Centrepoint Shopping Centre have been closed down and move to Hong Kong already! I am not expert in Internet Marketing but an Veteran in Internet mlm Network Marketing, so for those consider joining him in Monavie, just take note ok …
May the force be with You
The mlm Jedi
Hi Paul,
Some of the presenters like to hype a bit so as to get the crowd all excited to buy. When your mind starts thinking about the tens of dollars you are going to make, you won’t stop to think twice about forking out $5k to buy whatever the speaker has to offer.
Hi mlmjedi,
I feel that Adam Ginsberg is a very good platform speaker. This guy can pretty much sell ice to eskimos if we can get a group of them into a room. lol
HaHa Martin , lol totally agree, Adam Ginsberg really can sell ice to eskimo.
btw his software, myspace friend extractor can go : http://myfriendmagnet.com n get it d Free Trail there
May the Force be with our Credit Cards…always
The mlm Jedi
Hey mlmjedi,
Thanks for sharing the link.
I think there are several problems with most of the internet marketing “wealth” packages and seminars that they all have in common.
1 - They are always designed to sell the products of the affiliate who has produced the original package or seminar
2 - The formula that works for one person or business will probably not work for your business. It is designed to promote THEIR business.
The real solution in my mind is to get an education in marketing, then learn the specifics to marketing on the internet. The sales process whether live or on the internet is the same, although the tools are different.
The education can’t be from an eBook either. You have to be able to learn from a real person, or at the very least have the equivalent of a techers aide to bounce ideas and questions off of. I finally stopped throwing my money away reading programs and going to seminars put on by Internet Marketing Gurus and went back to grass roots marketing, and since I made that switch 3 years ago, I have create 1 successful online business that teaches people how to design healthy nutrition programs that work for their bodies, and now I am working on building an accredited internet marketing certification program. There is more information about this on my website and my blog.
Warm regards,
Steve
Hi Steve,
You are right.
I think it is more important for people to have the marketing mindset and see the big picture, rather than being too tactical and keep on searching for the “secret formula”.