RANT WARNING!!
Why oh why oh why!
I promote a ton of products on autoresponder sequence. This means if you are on any of my lists you will receive offers at pre-determined times. Unlike most marketers I tend to promote the little guy to help get him started. It’s just the way I am.
So if I agreed to promote your product on autoresponder sequence do you think you would benefit?
Of course you would, even if I only got you one sale per week that’s 52 sales per year. And if that’s a $47 product this means I’m earning you $1000 per year on complete autopilot if you set your commissions at 50%. And that doesn’t count the amount of subscribers I will send your way.
So would you do everything in your power to keep me promoting for you?
The answer should be yes but unfortunately some people don’t seem to want to make money. Allow me to explain.
I needed to update a few emails that are in my sequence for various reasons so I have checked every product I am promoting and guess how many I need to delete/amend?
28%, yes! 28% of the emails I am sending out are no good.
Most have dead links… What the??? I can make you money on autopilot and you can’t even keep your sales page online?
Some have switched affiliate programs without telling me so I don’t get paid anymore. You can say goodbye to doing any business with me ever again in the future. You know who you are.
Some have taken their product off the market and have added a squeeze page in it’s place. Sure, take the free traffic I am sending you and don’t reward me. Once again you can say goodbye to future promo’s from me.
I think there is a lesson to be learned here.
If you change anything you need to let your affiliates know. Or you could do more damage than you can imagine.
Also, if you are promoting a ton of products on AR sequence now is the time to check the emails you are sending out. You may be surprised at the amount of emails going out that will never make you one cent.
So now I’m left with a dilemma that brings me to an opportunity that could see me promote your product for life.
I need to update a lot of messages in my autoresponder series so if you have a QUALITY PRODUCT that you feel can benefit my subscribers please contact me at jv@john-thornhill.com and I’ll see what I can do to help.
All I ask is your product is Internet Marketing/eBay related and is 100% created by yourself, I can’t promote eBook/PLR collections. You also need to be prepared to leave your page up for life. No taking pages down without informing me.
If you’re interested I need to see the following:
- Your product
- Your sales page
- Your affiliate resources page
Don’t underestimate what I am trying to do for you here. This is an opportunity for you to earn a small fortune on 100% autopilot.
As always your comments are welcome.
36 Comments
Mark McWilliams
August 12, 2008John, your my hero! 😀
SERIOUSLY…
I received an odd email here and there from yourself and one was about an audio product. I noticed that the site was no longer active, and I’d been meaning to send you an email about that! (Sorry I forgot!)
Now if I was going to be added to YOUR autoresponder series, then why the **** would I want to change anything without having the manners to go and tell you! It’s just rude!
Speaking of a rant though… (Nah, I’ll leave that for another day!)
Although I am working away on a few things, I’d die for you to promote a product of mine. In fact John, I’ll be sending you an email about this anyway. Just a few questions I have, for something, and I’d love to have your input! 😉
Now I know you send out quite a few emails and as you say, 28% is a lot. That’s probably quite huge when you consider what you’re actually doing for people! – It just spoils business when people don’t inform you about things!
FANTASTIC post John, and well said!
Thanks
Mark
John Tan
August 13, 2008Hi John,
THanks for giving the little guy this opportunity. I will contact you with my own product very soon! Love the way you do business online.
John Tan
SEOGuy
August 13, 2008This is interesting and informative all at the same time. It also teaches affiliate marketers to be careful of dishonest people. I will be E-mailing you about my Viral Video Websites, but wanted to thank you for excellent information on what to look for as an affliate marketer.
GregT
August 13, 2008Awesome rant, John. Can’t say I blame ‘ya. Seems some people just dont “get it”.
You are one the few IM guys I respect. A couple others are in your network. Keep up the good work and continue setting the standard by which others should be judged.
Andy Fox-Hulme
August 13, 2008Incredible that folk could be so casual with their business.
It’s a great lesson for those of us hoping to end up somewhere near the level your business has reached!
Also important for any list marketing tho even at a small level.. A reminder of something even those of us at the early stages of our business still need to consider but most likely haven’t.
Thanks John
Andy
Nicole
August 13, 200828%!!! Are you serious?
That’s way too high.
If someone is making me money I wouldn’t
just abandon them and leave links that
lead to a dead end.
Let them R.I.P.
See you at the funeral…
Kevin Riley
August 13, 2008John
IMO it’s the short-sightedness of many IMers. They look for the big kill during launch, and then forget about that product as they go after the next big fish. I’d like to see more evergreen products and more marketers making long-term plans.
Kevin
Stan Craigie
August 13, 2008John
And I’ll bet those people post on forums as to how they’re not making any money!
I reckon it’s also indicitive of an attitude that seems to exist that you need to fiddle the system to succeed. Whereas nothing could be further from the truth.
I haven’t been at this all that long and am really only just starting to make progress but I’ve learnt that playing it straight succeeds more than not.
BTW that is a great offer, you’d have to be mad not to take it up, I’ll be in touch shortly!
Thanks
Stan
Omar Martin
August 13, 2008Wow….
John that’s unbelievable. I can understand why you’re so upset man.
I’ve worked so hard to EARN my JV partners. I can say from experience that getting people with big lists to give you the time of day is not an easy task. It takes months of building trust and cultivating a good online relationship. After all, who needs who?
I now have over 168 affiliate partners and 3 of them have over 250k subscribers on their lists. The fact that someone would extend that sort of a gesture to help me build my business is not something I take lightly. as a matter of fact I keep them in the loop of what I’m doing and they are more than willing to help me because the communication is there.
It’s very important in marketing and, in life, to appreciate kind gestures and not take people for granted. I’m happy that you caught on to the problem and now you can promote me more!
Omar Martin
http://www.KickAssSalesPages.com
Chris Lockwood
August 13, 2008John, I agree with you in principle, especially if you had had previous contact with these sellers.
However, I’ll bet some of them were unaware that you were promoting their product.
If the product was at Clickbank, the seller has no way of contacting affiliates, so how were they supposed to notify you of changes?
Some of them might have been products that didn’t sell well, so the person just took it off the market and either didn’t have a way of contacting affiliates or just didn’t think about it.
I personally would never remove a product from Clickbank once it had made sales. If I went to a new processor, I would leave the Clickbank page alone and put up a new page for the new processor.
I’ll bet many of these are just someone not thinking things through or not knowing you were their affiliate, rather than people trying to screw you over.
Have you tried contacting any of them?
Reply from John:
I agree Chris, some of this is down to inexperience. However, with one marketer I had made a few sales then they stopped. Upon checking the sales page the payment system had changed. The marketer had made sales from me and probably others so why get greedy and change things.
Also, anyone in my AR series knows they are in it.
I contacted most of them and most were apologetic but one or two I never contacted as what they did was wrong and they know it. Maybe they’ll contact me after reading this
Randy Smith
August 13, 2008What a fantastic Opportunity for current readers John!
(And what a loss for those who faled to keep you informed!)
I think you may end up with a pretty full inbox soon…lol
Randy
http://www.RandofSmith.com
Ian
August 13, 2008Hi John,
I too get really annoyed the way some people treat their affiliates like dirt.
Although I am in the process of writing a series of eBooks myself I do not have any I could offer you at the moment. However, when my series is complete I would like to offer them via some kind of affliate program. Are there any affliate programs, apart from Clickbak, which you would recommend budding publishers like myself to join? Or, indeed, is there any affiliate management software you would recommend fellow publishers to purchase and install on their own webspace?
Ian.
Jeremy Zhong
August 13, 2008Man, after reading this, it makes my blood boils.
It happens to some marketers that I subscribed to on my list. Of course I did told them but I didn’t notice yours as I was on your list since last year. The links were probably still “alive” back then.
I believe those marketers understand how you felt too.
Nonetheless, I like the way you go all out, helping your students or little guys to get started. This simply shows you spare a thought for your students and a caring heart.
I’m saving money right now to hop onto your coaching program because I know it’s awesome. I might be able to give you a proven testimonial one day!
Thanks John.
Dave Nicholson
August 13, 2008Hey John,
Well said there mate, I had exactly the same problem and it really boils my blood when my subscribers have to tell me about pages that are down or simply re-directing to somewhere they should not!
I do not give second chances where this is concerned, once they mess it up they are toast … for life!
Dave.
Pete Bradley
August 13, 2008That’s weird timing – my first ever product launches today!
These people are abusing a situation that most of us would be extremely grateful for. And I’m betting that these aren’t hyper successful marketers either. If you take people for granted in this way, it’s going to rebound on you. Internet marketing is a small world, what with blogs, forums, etc.
I’ll be sure to get in touch with you later today about my product.
All the best, John.
Pete.
Suzanne
August 13, 2008Wow, John, That’s amazing. It’s too bad my product is not really appropriate for this list (it’s a totally different niche), but I want to thank you for the offer. I gotta tell you, I do have 47 (and growing) affiliates for it through PayDotCom.com, which DOES enable me to send out mass e-mails to them from time to time. One thing that I’ve found very scary, though, is that one day a couple of weeks ago PayDotCom.com went down for part of a morning, and not only did that freeze my sales page, it put me out of communication with all my affiliates. Once it came back up, I tried contacting them with the request that they send me their e-mail addresses, because if PDC went down too long or too often I wanted to be able to notify them if I needed to change affiliate tracking services. You know, it took a WEEK for that e-mail to go out! I thought it was being censored, and I was quite angry about it, until it finally showed up in their mailboxes. I find it quite frustrating that PayDotCom.com feels the need to conceal their e-mail addresses from me.
But now I know. I don’t have any ClickBank products, and I hadn’t realized how good I have it just to be able to contact them at all!
Hey, I do like to read Alice Seba, who offers a course in treating one’s affiliates right: http://tinyurl.com/5jhpu6
😉
Daniel Sumner
August 13, 2008Nice Post John,
I think that this is a small lesson to be learned by all of us who have auto responders, to have a small clean up every few months to ensure to we are not giving away free traffic and non affiliated products (note to self on this one).
Great post mate.
Dan
Sandy Hall
August 13, 2008Hi John – Sandy here,
Believe it or not, I just had a VERY similar experience two days ago.
Four of my paying customers of my misspellingsmakemoney.com eBay Search Program ebook just emailed me and told me two of the Misspellings search engines that are included within the ebook disappeared off the internet. Quite a lot of my customers use those particular misspellings engines on eBay every day.
All seven of the owners of the Misspell engines know I promote them because of all the traffic and sales I’ve made them, plus we’ve corresponded in various ways.
But they never informed me of their intention to take their product off the market.
My very loyal customers were somewhat tiffed and as bewildered as I am.
So, in conclusion to this very long comment, you’re not alone in this kind of thing.
One more thing I’d like to add is, that your newsletter and blog are one of the VERY FEW I actually open and read every word.
Take Care John,
Sandy Hall
Rich Boy
August 13, 2008Hey, John. I have sent you an email offer about JV’ing with you. Just want to make sure you don’t let it slip through the masses, because I know we can make a fortune together promoting my product, Make Your Cash Stack™.
It pays a commission amount of 75%, which = $37.50 per sale to you, and I also pay 75% of the downsell, which = $18.75 for you.
Good post though… I’ve been screwed out of affiliate commissions before, and like you I will never deal with those dogs again.
Take it easy and drop me an email response…
Rich Boy
http://www.TheRichBoy.com
Paula Brett
August 13, 2008Hi John
This is a lesson to all those hoping for the chance of JVing with marketers who have large lists. Take care of the interests of those that are promoting you, and take care of their subscribers.
This kind of practice is spoiling it for all those talented newbies that have excellent ideas and products but find it difficult to get JVs. What list owner wants to take the risk with their subscribers?
As one of those lucky enough to have you promote a few of my products, I would say to everyone, jump at this chance, but take it seriously. Like Kevin Riley said further up, think long-term and not just a quick buck.
This is a fantatic opportunity!
Great post, John.
Best wishes
Paula
David
August 13, 2008Hi John,
Like you, I am amazed at how stupid and greedy some Internet marketers are. How do they expect to survive long term, if they are only thinking of short-term gain?
I would treasure a group of super affiliates offering me their support and promotion of my business. I give 50% commission on all my eBooks and 45% of my sales come from affiliate sales that have cost me zilch to promote.
I’ll be in touch as I have an eBook that I think you would like to promote.
Kind Regards
David Dalton
Keith Purkiss
August 13, 2008Hi John
I bet a lot of us quickly check their sites after reading this.
Mine’s working and still bringing in sales, so thanks again for your help.
I did have problems a while ago with my server but it’s fine now.
Thanks
Keith
Reply by John:
Don’t worry Keith, I’ll still be promoting you. Everyone has server issues from time to time, that can’t be avoided.
Here’s to many more sales.
June
August 13, 2008That shows the difference between someone that’s running a serious business and someone that’s just fooling around.
It is a total lack of consideration and just plain bad manners.
Thanks for the awesome offer. You’ll be hearing from me soon.
Aloha,
June
Leona
August 13, 2008Hi John,
Thanks for posting this. I’m a ‘shopper’, also an ‘author’ in-the-process! (I would die too for the opportunity to jv with you!)
For each of those 2 hats i wear…it’s great to read your insight and your honest observations that you share so generously.
Thanks again!
Leona
Kerrie
August 13, 2008Hi John
Great rant and well put. It so frustrating when you find something interesting only to have a bad link. I now try all links twice because I have trouble with cloaked and tracking links from some ARs. If I know the marketer I will send an email or support ticket but most of the emails bounce and I have no way of contecting the marketer.
However I now know why they don’t always work. 28% that’s about one in four no wonder I get so many bad links.
So thanks for the opportunity for us lesser but genuine marketers to have you offer to market our products.
Kerrie
Ray Johnson
August 13, 2008Hey John,
Understand your point here totally… it’s pretty frustrating as the authority figure marketer like yourself. You are obviously trying to assist as many people so that they by your products and promote you.
Just so I can understand something… Where you say:
“Some have taken their product off the market and have added a squeeze page in it’s place. Sure, take the free traffic I am sending you and don’t reward me…”
My question is, this is different for Butterfly Marketing Sites? I presume it is ‘cos you are “cookied” for the OTO’s right?
Even so, if people are stupid enough not to even create an OTO after a normal squeeze page that an affiliate can be “cookied” for – it’s madness!
They are simply throwing valuable business away!
You can’t help everyone though John – that’s life pal.
In my book, anyone who wants to f*** up a great opportunity of:
Name Exposure to a big crowd
Future JV’s with a big list owner
Viral exposure on a huge scale
…is crazy!
It’s all about win-win in this business, and the people who try to get something for nothing will be the losers. I learned that lesson a LONG time ago in my early days as you’ll know.
Now it’s all change and things are flourishing for me as you’ll know John.
I’m on my way to Elance to see if there can be a software product made up to combat this
All the best JT,
Ray
Art
August 13, 2008Hi John,
I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read your rant!!! Talk about biting the hand that feeds you! You are the first IM person I’ve ever seen who has asked us for products to promote and the fact that there are morons out there who are too dumb to realize their good fortune is just unbelievable. Some day when I have my own product, I’ll humbly come and ask you to promote it, and then (well, you are now) you will be my hero for life.
Art
Gavin
August 13, 2008Hi John
I can see where you are coming from you have a right to have a good rant, as everybody knows the work you have to do behind the scenes to get traffic and business is hard so you don’t need things like that to happen.
Gavin Cole
David
August 14, 2008Hallo, Chums! I do not have affiliates nor do I do much Im-ing, so I guess I am more of a lurker than anything but I do enjoy all the information and postings on this blog.
I am commenting because I have found a site that all of us who enjoy selling Digital Downloads and whom had our throats cut on ebay can go to and take their ebay feedback with them! It is a rather well done site, too. It looks quite simple, at first – but in fact there are 20 million products being sold from 165 countries. The account pages are very funtional, and it is simple to and free to sign up. It is a place where all the bad things recently put in place by ebay, DON’T EXIST! So I just had to get this out to you. There is no affiliate program here, so I am not fishing for signups, or whatever – just sharing some good news!
Some facts:
It’s called iOffer.com
http://www.ioffer.com/info/home
4649 items found for: Ebook last night. Most are digital downloads!
The site says of itself:
This is not an auction. It’s better! No bids, reserve pricing, auction end times, and last minute sniping. iOffer is a trading community that allows you to buy, sell and trade – just like you would in real life – by negotiating.
Negotiation allows the buyer to make an offer on one or more items. Sellers can accept, counter, or decline the offer. Buyers get a good price. Sellers get the price they want. iOffer – an easier way to buy, sell and trade.
Now don’t get put off by the word negotiation! That is only one possibility under their Make An Offer feature. Buyers can buy instantly, or contact the seller to make an offer if the seller has selected this option.
If the seller or buyer is online, you can see it!
No insertion fees, just a final value fee when the item sells for sellers. The interesting thing is, you can grab all your ebay auctions and bring them to iOffer for free. Picture hosting is free, and unlimited. You can upload ten items or 10,000 items from auction sites with a few mouse clicks. Or create your own on iOffer’s sales page creation pages. Html is allowed. And most interesting, you may list a whole lot of items on ONE sales page and have visitors choose which ones they want out of your list!
All comummincations between potential buyers and sellers may be posted below the sales page but if you choose, the communication can be PRIVATE and viewable only by the seller and interested buyers.
You can accept or make OFFERS on any item if you choose, or just sell outright. Paypal is available as a payment option (Digital Delivery Heaven restored!) Google Checkout, Money Orders, Personal Checks, etc… your other items for sale are automatically presented along the left side of your sales page!
A free store is available if you put just two items in it! The store has its own shopping cart.
Feedback called a Rating is left for both sellers and buyers. But you don’t have to start all over as far as Feedback is concerned! If you are John Thornhill, you can move all of your thousands of feedback ratings directly to iOffer and they appear next to your username!
You can place a free WANT AD, Watch Items being sold, and contact any other seller through their email system.
Anyway, I am crazy about the place. I found three very, very RARE items in my niche for sale and promptly got them!
There is a books category, but you can sell ebooks in several categories. Doesn’t seem to be any restrictions on this. Yes, John’s classic 90 Day Powerseller ebook is for sale with resell rights!
GO CHECK THIS SITE OUT!
If just a few of the ebook sellers from ebay come to iOFFER and plant themselves, an island in the storm for ebook sellers will be created!
4,641 ebooks for sale as I write this on the site, so it is a place to get into on the ground floor, imho.
Multiple Streams, right? I don’t see why anybody couldn’t build their lists, and follow John’s advice on this site!
Best to all, David~
zara
August 14, 2008Hi John
Times like this I wish I had a killer product of my own making!
Regarding the dead links – I’ve seen this before – in ebooks – I expect about 28% of ebooks (or more) have a similar problem to this – i.e banners missing invalid links or redirections due to out of date promotions etc.
– so this message should be beneficial to ebook creators & rebranders – check links before you give them to your customers!
On the topic of ebooks – they seem to be getting a bit of an image makeover in the form of “digital magazines” – which are essentially multimedia ebooks – so the challenge to creator’s on a budget is to look at the highend ebooks and see what tools are out there to raise the standard – I’m learning!
example of a digital magazine:
https://www.linx.net/files/hotlinx/hotlinx-15.pdf
David
August 15, 2008Hi, Zara! Wow! That’s all I can say about the Digital Magazine sample you put up! Makes most of our efforts look like leaky rowboats sitting next to the world’s largest luxury yachts!
What incredible work and planning must have gone into this idea!
Mega step forward if you can afford those kinds of graphics and organization behind it although I think that there is something to be said for the well-written plain old ebooks I have bought so many of that contain just the information I need or want and look decent at what can only be called the low end of ebook production now that I have seen this!
Ebooks are a model-T kind of thing, anyway. It is not surprising that such a leap in quality is possible for the Corporate Guys with a lot of production resources.
Still, a well written ebook from ANYBODY with solid information in it can sell, and sell well, imho.
I am somewhat surprised that ebooks are not more often powerpoint presentations which are so much more impressive on a computer screen but .PDF seem to be the standard, and I love ’em. You can print them out and take them anywhere if you like or send them to friends instantly, put them on portable reading devices, etc., but what you have shown us is trully impressive, too!
Jackie
August 16, 2008Hello John
I agree that’s a lot of dead weight you were carrying and cleaning up showed you how bad it was – 28% is bad.
People get negligent and lazy, quit and move on thinking they’ll hook up with a better deal for themselves. I wonder how well that “move on” actually worked for those who did that with you! I’ll bet not too great at all!
Great post with a good lesson for all,
Jackie Pollock
Angela Meyers
August 17, 2008Hello John,
28%. O-U-C-H, that hurts. I don’t blame you for ranting and rightfully so.
I don’t understand why anyone would go to the trouble of gaining your confidence and having you (the top internet marketer in my opinion) to promote a product for them then take down the sales page, especially if they are making even a little bit of money.
That doesn’t make any sense at all.
If they were going to change anything, they could have at the very least sent you a courtesy email to give you a heads up by explaining the reason why they were doing what they were doing.
There are those of us who would do just about anything to have you promote our products for us, yet there were those who took your promoting for them for granted. I don’t understand that.
I’m sure they will regret it one day. As the saying goes, what goes around comes around and some day someone is going to do the exact same thing to them.
All is not lost though. I tend to look at the bright side of things.
This gives you a chance to weed out and get rid of all of the dead beats and gain a whole new influx of internet marketers who would truly appreciate the opportunity to have you promote for them and never take you for granted.
This is also a great opportunity for all of us little guys (or girls) who need all of the help that we can get in promoting our products and it is icing on the cake to get them promoted by an expert internet marketer.
Thank you, John
Hang in there.
Because you are the type of person that you are and because you are the way that you are, the only thing that can happen is that you will come out on top.
Regards,
Angela
http://www.resellrightsandplrmadesimple.com
Albert
August 19, 2008Hi John,
If I had halve a chance to JV with you I would not let any of my links and websites go to waste.
You must not need the focus or money that comes with the internet marketing scene when in partnership with you.
Stupid people that don’t see opportunity knocking.
Regards.
Albert.
Michael Robinson
August 29, 2008Hi John
The thought of never being able to do business with you again would frighten the life out of me-I’d do anything to avoid it!
Thanks for a great post, and for your enduring skill, creativity, fairness and sincerity. There are thousands of people who wouldn’t have made a cent online if you hadn’t shown them the way. Keep up the fantastic work!
Michael Robinson
http://www.startmakingonlineprofit.com
Wayne Harvey
September 16, 2008John – I am one of your followers. My 17 year old daughter is doing a Senior High School project with Internet Marketing being the focus. She must invest at least 100 hours in this project. She needs a mentor and guidance that I can’t provide her. If you would be interested in helping her, I am sure it would provide you with a great opportunity for your Blog and business to show how one of your young students could succeed. My resources and contacts are available to her so she already has a leg up on the start.
Please advise if you have an interest or if you don’t maybe someone you know would.
Regards,
Wayne K. Harvey
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