Shoemoney - Skills To Pay The Bills

Can you handle the truth? & ShoeMoney November Recap

Posted: 02 Dec 2014 08:26 AM PST

As always if you just want to get to the posts in November just skip to the bottom.

Well already through November. I did some fun stuff. Got married (again) to my wife in Vegas. Was a total surprise. Really nice and well done by my wife. It’s not easy to surprise me. Normally I smell a rat a while away but I was completely surprised. I also went and drove Ferrari’s and saw a bunch of shows.

My wife and friends left and I stuck around to speak at the Ungagged conference. It was their first show and it was really awesome. Reminded me of the first Pubcon’s and SES shows. Both attendees and speakers really knew there shit and I made a lot of great new friends and contacts. Good stuff. Looking forward to their next show in Europe this spring/summer.

Can you handle the truth?

Last Friday a company called Boost Software got hammered by the FTC. They seized all assets and stuff. Neverblue affiliate network is also involved but because they are in Canada not sure if they will be named or not.

I don’t even want to link to the case or talk much about it because its taking away a bit from the point I wanted to make in this post. I will be doing a writeup on it just was waiting to hear back from a few sources that know the inside scoop.

Today everyone is making products and selling them. Marketing them in various ways. Some might be misleading…. Seth Godin wrote a book called All Marketers Are Liars. Awesome book and the truth. It had a lot of controversy though in the title and he eventually changed it to All Marketers Are Story tellers. He talks about it when he was a guest on my radio show many years ago.

Basically its the truth. I am a hardcore realist. Marketing is basically getting people to take action on something they wouldn’t normally do. So as marketers we create visions of what this product can do for the customer.

Now, as I have written numerous times, I know the fact is that probably 2% of people that pay buy my ShoeMoney training products will actually take action and do anything with it.

I reluctantly accept that..

But lets look at companies who’s business model is praying on man kinds weaknesses. The best example I can use is a gym membership.

I was talking to the owner of a local gym and he was telling me typically they oversell subscriptions to about 2000%. That means that if a small percentage of people paying a monthly fee for their gym membership actually used it, they could not fulfill what people were paying for.

Is having a business model that prays on people’s weaknesses bad?

Ok let me bring up something else that most people just accept but don’t ever think about.

Lets say I had a company that you could pay me monthly and on average lost 90% of your monthly money.

NO IM SERIOUS follow a long.

AND lets say that if you did one month get your money back then I am going to ensure that you loose more in the future.

AND AND lets say that I get the government to force you to participate in my gambling (essentially) program and fine you if you don’t participate.

That is auto insurance.

Thats just 2 basic examples that most consumers never think about. I could go on forever about existing accepted business models and other things that are obviously not good for the consumer.

Here is the point I am trying to make. You have seen and will continue to see FTC investigations into online marketing companies for a variety of reasons. The ground work is being laid down now. Eventually some of whats considered “deceptive” practices will be accepted in the future and what is considered not good for the consumer will be a common practice that people just accept.

Anyway have a great December and a safe holiday. Dont drink and drive!

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