I’m not Ewen Chia’s biggest fan, for the fairness of the review, I decided to buy his $5,000 From Scratch program. Here you will find what is inside the program and how based on a real marketer’s standpoint (my own that is) if the program is worth checking out. The main thing, there are 3 problems I personally saw which did not make me want to recommend it and this review will explain them. So let’s get into this:
Quick Report on $5,000 From Scratch:
Creator: Ewen Chia.
Price: For the original program: $27.
$37 for a one time up-sell (then down sell to $27 if you don’t buy the $37 one) and finally a long video about a “free” offer which leads to a third party high ticket offer Ewen is promoting which to me was a bad signal…
Overall Rating: 4 out of 10 stars.
It almost got to 5 stars in my opinion, and that’s a first for something of Ewen’s that I’ve reviewed, but there were 3 big problems that really pushed it back down to a program I really wouldn’t recommend as much as I would say to be careful if you get it as I’ll explain in this review.
What is $5,000 From Scratch?
It’s one of Ewen Chia’s latest make money online programs.
I have done reviews prior on Ewen Chia’s programs (such as this one on Autopilot Profits) and most of his programs have not been recommended due to them not really evolving in a modern day internet marketing world.
In other words, in my opinion, as the strategies to make money online have evolved, Ewen’s previous programs have not kept up in my opinion so I couldn’t recommend them.
What $5,000 From Scratch teaches you to do to make money online:
In this program, you basically learn about promoting high ticket items, through affiliate marketing that pays you extremely high commissions. And you promote them through Facebook, Facebook Ads and so on.
What Ewen shows you how to do through a series of videos is where to find a hot niche market, but instead of promoting traditional affiliate products that pay a small commission, you instead promote the most lucrative options instead.
So basically as an example, rather than promoting a weight loss program that pays you $10, you can find a higher paying program that will pay you $100, thus making you more and bringing you closer to the $5,000 goal.
Now I can totally get behind this idea and it was during the first video where he showed this idea that I finally began to think I could recommend this product and truth be told, as the training videos went on, I enjoyed a lot of what Ewen was showing me, so much that I saw myself doing it.
But as I went through the videos, certain things seemed (at least to me) to be missing and that is something I will separate into the 3 problems I saw with this program, but first let me get into a little bit more detail on Ewen’s strategy:
Inside $5,000 From Scratch. What is inside the program:
The members area features 5 main videos teaching you the strategy I listed above. Now in addition, there’s a few more bonuses added underneath them and a few pitches to other programs to join, but for now, we’ll stick to the 5 videos:
Video 1:
Basically explains the concept of high ticket selling to niche audiences.
Video 2:
Explains where to find affiliate promotions that pay high amounts per sale. Something I liked here was that Ewen showed in particular a page on Amazon where you can filter out high cost items that pay a lot by simply selecting a price range.
Video 3:
Gets into the set up of Facebook marketing. You learn to set up a fan page for the niche topic you chose.
Then he explains how this page you create has to provide and attract the niche audience by posting articles on it and sharing content that people who will visit the page will be able to learn from, possibly like the page and in the future potentially become the same clients you may be able to sell to.
One of the examples you can use based of the video is that you can hire article writers to create the content you will then share on the page. This is used as a means to save time, but create the information that can give weight to your page and show the niche audience you can be a helpful source of information.
Video 4:
Gets into specifics of the marketing.
Based of the video, you can go to other niche related pages on Facebook, leave good comments that can potentially attract other people on those pages to come back and visit yours and/or you can pay to advertise your page on other BIG fan pages on FB that also pertain to the niche topic, an almost identical and good strategy I have also seen used on this program called Turnkey Profit Machines.
Video 5:
A branch of the 4th video, but it gets into finalizing sales, be it through providing straight up affiliate links on the fan page, to directly messaging potential leads and even collecting email lists to offer content and sales pitches outside the Facebook realm.
And that’s really it in terms of the heart of the $5,000 From Scratch system.
Overall, the span of all 5 videos combined is a little over an hour.
Bonus content you also get in $5,000 From Scratch:
There are bonus materials (really more videos) you can download.
Out of the 5 provided, I looked at 3 of them.
2 of them I found to be pretty interesting, one taught you about how to make webinars and another provided information on YouTube video creation a means to generate traffic.
Honestly that second video was something I felt had good value. The “surprising opportunity” I eluded to above was basically something like this video not being tied into the main training, although it easily could have been.
Why not make YouTube videos on your niche topic and share them on your Facebook page?
It can offer more opportunity and traffic. But these videos are more meant to be extra content that you may choose or not choose to connect with, but I really feel like there’s more opportunity if someone who is new would have that connection made for them vs trying to make it themselves.
Now I didn’t yet mention the 3rd video and I won’t just yet because that actually depreciated the program’s value in my opinion, but I’ll talk about that in a moment…
Final Rating: $5,000 From Scratch.
Yellow Flag
4 stars out of 10. Everything I mentioned above about the program was more than enough to make it something I’d recommend, but as I said, there were 3 problems I found with it and that’s what eventually made it 4 stars and right below I will mention those 3 problems, giving specifics on why they bring down the value of the overall program.
My final thoughts and the 3 issues with $5,000 From Scratch:
1) No case studies? Big red flag!
I always like a good money making strategy, but at least 1 case study pointing to it would really solidify the theory.
Now I did see the actual word “case study” used on one of the bonus videos, but they were actually more so examples of theories and from what I saw not actual sales reports. If anything, the only case studies I actually saw here, particularly with the YouTube bonus I liked, it’s that they showed other people doing the strategy they recommend, but it’s not the actual author of the training doing it.
2) Again, the usual outdated training in certain spots.
Now the second issue deals with one of the bonuses you get. Aside from the 2 I mentioned above, there was a third and it talked about content creation through Ezinearticles and this is where the issue I previously had with Ewen’s programs arose again.
Do you remember how I said that his programs tend to be outdated? Well the strategy here about article writing was like this. It simply is a waste of time in my experience to do this.
And the main point is that this “mixed bag” of good content you can extract with other outdated content that in my opinion is not useful makes the program more difficult to actually use. Personally, I’d say skip that particular training because in SEO, it really doesn’t offer much in my opinion.
3) The promotion of a scam program that the FTC took down.
And third is the biggest problem. It deals with the second up-sell you get from Ewen prior to visiting the members area.
In the pitch leading up to the up-sell is Ewen talking about how he’ll give you all these amazing bonuses for free, how you can get a great coach to show you how to make a successful business and a lot of things that can be done for you if you act on it.
He calls this up-sell the “Million Dollar Alliance”.
Now I know that when someone is taking a long time to tell me about a great opportunity, that it can’t be free, so I actually went through the whole video until an “application link” came up and it took me to one of the worst pyramid scheme programs I have ever reviewed: MTTB.
Now that program and it’s parent, MOBE were both shut down by the FTC. And even beforehand, I warned people never to join that.
So, should you get $5,000 From Scratch? I honestly don’t recommend it.
For a price tag of $27, there’s a bunch of stuff on this program that’s good in my opinion and you can certainly give it a shot, but there’s more risk in this type of strategy vs building your own site and making money the SEO way which I honestly recommend attempting first before experimenting with this one.
I said the same thing about the other program above which I said has a similar strategy to 5FKS and I stand by that:
And to summarize, out of the previous programs Ewen has put out that I’ve reviewed, this one is of the better quality, but still not enough for me personally to suggest to everyone.
This is just what I was looking for. I will not be joining $5000 from scratch. It really frustrated me to sit through a long video just to be smacked with a big fat upsell. I did not know that he is involved in other business opportunities. I won’t trust anything Ewen has to say again.
It’s not uncommon for business people to be involved and upsell through their program Jonathan, the question is whether or not the offer they are making is legitimate or not and obviously, you already know where I stand on that.
I find that there are many people online who profit from selling their income generating “methods” online more than they do from following their own teachings. Its hard to determine who has a solid plan. I really sympathize with those who pay these people money and receive nothing in return. Do you have any tips on discerning the well meaning entrepreneurs from the fake ones?
Honestly, the answer is experience Anthony, but not the unfortunate kind where you buy scam after scam and learn what doesn’t work, but sticking to 1 proven plan like this that does and then with that experience, you will be able to distinguish the differences.
While there will always be the option to experiment with other products and systems, you’ll be far less likely to try it (and potentially get scammed by it) because if there’s at least 1 that works for you, that’ll be all you’ll really need. That desire to find the “one system” that works will be gone.
Thanks for your reply to my previous comment Vitaliy. I’m intrigued that you say you’re earning over $5,000 per month at Wealthy Affiliate.
Probably because I have just watched a video by a guy telling people promoting his product to create a video telling prospects a story about how they’re making $1,000s per month, with seemingly no regard to whether they actually are or not.
Another webinar I watched said that even the screen shots they show you are all fabricated. So now I think it’s probably safest not to believe anyone who makes income claims.
Sorry to be a bit pessimistic but there are a lot of smoke and mirrors in this business.
No I completely understand Deb. What I would counter with is a few things:
1) The scams you speak have one very common feature to them and that is that they don’t really teach you to build anything other than a promotional funnel to a hyped business.
In short, they basically do what you said that guy from the webinar told his affiliates to do and in all the products I find that do this, I call them out and basically say that they’re not really teaching you anything.
However in what I recommend and prove with my own stats (income numbers), I explain very descriptively what you’re going to do and there is massive substance I provide vs just talk that they do. Just read any of my reviews or my WA one and you’ll see what I mean.
2) For proof, I did make a video where I logged into my account showing income stats. This is something that can’t be fabricated because it’s a real time log in example where the stats are shown without any ability to have them edited.
But still I totally get your position and still would tell you to be skeptical no matter who tells you how much they make and to provide more evidence than just words or claims.
Hello Vitality,
Most individuals don’t buy high ticket items in this economy, the one’s who do already have money to throw away, and even then most of them are much smarter and know Ewia Chia’s work.
He was one of the first guru’s who took my money and offered nothing in return but a bunch of tired out of date garbage. I could tell that the only person making money from this was Ewia Chia, even this could have been hidden if the marketing was right! He just goes on and on about nothing new. You know like politics, 🙂 maybe I should edit that remark? Nope!
I began getting interested in affiliate marketing in 1997, now I am telling my age. I am so glad I saw your review of his latest offerings, I can be happy that since you did find some value, maybe he has grown wiser? Did you find any value in his affiliate marketing techniques? I do follow your blogs and they make me want to comment! I so enjoy learning the facts.
With Kind Regards,
Linda
Hi Linda, thanks for sharing your experience with Ewen Chia’s products, regarding the value thing, by the time I first discovered his name and his products, internet marketing had developed so much farther than his products were covering that I had no choice but to not recommend it.
Would I have said the same thing if I found his products at a time when the techniques he taught worked? Probably, but even then, eventually it would ultimately lead to the same future problem of the marketing techniques losing their fuel.
This latest one is ok, but honestly, it still has that element of not being very high quality in my opinion.
I don’t like outdated advice, it really annoys me because it’s such a time waster. If someone is selling a product I think they have a duty to keep the product up to date.
But I do agree that to make a living on the Internet, we have to concentrate on promoting higher priced products. Especially if you want to do it quickly because if time is a factor you’re probably going to have to use paid traffic and how can you afford to do that promoting small ticket items?
Thanks for the heads up on this one.
Deb
Not necessarily Deb, in some cases, promoting to a larger, less income audience pays better. It ultimately depends on your niche and what best product/service (which you’re affiliated through) can make them happy.
It’s a shame that he recommends posting to EzineArticles. From what I understand, that has not been a worthwhile technique for several years now, right? I used to post a lot to EzineArticles back in the day when they ranked well in Google and also gave link juice for backlinks.
It shows that Ewen Chia is not really keeping up to date with the best internet marketing methods if he is willing to recommend outdated techniques like this.
But ultimately, promoting a high ticket scam such as MTTB from within his products is the biggest letdown. It reinforces my belief that Ewen Chia is not to be trusted.
I’m won’t say article directories (Ezinearticles) don’t completely work Marcus, as they still get traffic, but they are not good for SEO and for the work someone puts into writing articles there, the long term benefits of putting that same work on a personal site far outweigh putting it on an article directory.
First of all let me thank you for this honest and detailed review. I have never heard of Ewen Chia or this product before.
A few things I noticed in this review is that the videos you described seem to be a bit “commonsense” if you may, to anyone even remotely familiar with marketing.
Promoting high ticket items opposed to lower ticket items. Hummm well it only makes sense that your commission would be higher on a higher end product. Personally I don’t need to sit through a video to hear this.
Filtering out the cost of items by setting a price range in Amazon, again, another no-brainer there.
Your right, with the internet and marketing strategies changing, I want to spend my money on a program that is willing and able to keep up with the times. I believe it shows credibility in the company. And it proves they care about the success of their members and not just lining their own pockets!
Hi there,
It’s a good concept but you are relying on people engaging with you on Facebook. Sure, there are ways and means to do a good Ad campaign on FB but quite frankly, not everyone spends a lot of time on FB these days. I actually think it’s decreasing in popularity.
I think I would prefer to stick to getting ranked by traditional SEO methods and also use FB to promote. With this FKFS you are kind of limited so I can see why you only rate it 4/10.