Should You Pay $1,000’s For Internet Marketing Training? No!

I once did a review on an online marketing program which charged you close to $5,000 for training.

In that post, I received a comment from a man who asked a very though provoking question.

He asked if it was a good idea to buy it because after all, if the price is high, naturally the quality of the product must be high too which means it’s in the companies best interest to offer some incredible training right?

The answer is usually no in my experience.

But after answering that question, I also began to re-think all those other programs I’ve seen in the past, some of which I’ve actually bought into thinking with the same mentality, how it ended badly, and it occurred to me this question is probably on many people’s minds so I want to cover it.

The truth is when internet marketing originated and few people knew about ways to succeed on it, it “may” have been somewhat fair to charge so much for such things, but as the internet evolved, and the industry of marketing on it became more and more popular, many products began to be released onto the market that taught you how to succeed and with that, the price of these products should actually be lower if you follow basic economics.

Yet through most of the reviews I’ve done on these products, I’ve noticed a couple of eerie similarities in the way they market themselves:

A) They sucker you into buying them saying they’ll teach you $1,000’s worth of information, but charge you very little. Somewhere around the price range of $30-$100. And when you buy into that product thinking you’re going to get golden nuggets…

B) They hit you with surprise up-sells after the purchase. And these up-sells can cost anywhere from $100’s to even $1,000’s. It happens SO often that it’s just ridiculous!

Programs like My Online Business Empire which is no longer around for such practices, would charge you close to $20,000+ in up-sells after you buy into it for about $50. Here are some other companies I’ve reviewed that follow this method:

• Bring the Fresh. You can buy in for a $7 day trial. Good information, but all up-sells total to several $1,000. 
• OMG Machines. Initial purchase of about $100 then a $5,000 up-sell.
• Empower Network. Initial purchase of $25, then up-sells which go over $5,000 + monthly charges.
• Cash Machines 2.0.
• Usually MLM companies.
• And MANY more…

Now as I’ve said before in those reviews, up-sells are optional, but programs like the ones I showed you above are very clever in the way they pitch them to you. They make you think you need them and in some cases like Empower Network, they require you to buy them if you want to promote and make high commissions.

C) All of these programs make it seem like their training is incredible, secret and something no one but them know about. They also tell you what incredible results their members are getting by following “simple” instructions. I hear it so often, it’s starting to feel like an over used joke.

But is it really worth the price tag?

I say absolutely NOT. In every scenario where I’ve reviewed the above companies and others, I have yet to see even 1 of them offer you truly unique training. I have seen some programs use unorthodox approaches to becoming successful online, but in almost every instance, it turned out…

• They used outdated tactics which no longer work and can ruin my website. Black hat methods basically.
• I can find this information elsewhere and even free if I look far enough. 
• After seeing what they have to offer, the information is nowhere near the price tag they put on it. 

And to make matters worse, what you’re really paying for in many cases is really…information. Yes information. If I created an e-book on how to make money online, put down some standard ideas and charged people $1,000’s for it, that would not just be unfair, but it would ethically wrong.

But it would sell if I hyped it up enough and that’s what many of these programs do and they are good at it, unless you know how to spot which are good and which aren’t. I’m not saying they are all bad. Some of them do offer good information, but the price tag is way beyond fair. 

 What you need to know:

The places which charge you the most almost always give you a little snippet of possibilities when you join them for a free/low price and leave their biggest training covered behind their up-sells. And it’s all done to make them money.

Plus as I’ve said before this kind of training usually isn’t worth it.  You can absolutely get the same/better/updated kind of information in places like my #1 recommendation where there is a straight forward approach to online marketing being taught.

As I’ve said a number of times before, if you’re looking to do things like start an online business, you need to stop looking for answers through programs which charge you so much money for what is essentially so little. The price is never worth it in my opinion. You’re just asking for trouble if you do. I’ve fell for it several times, paid the price (literally) until I finally learned my lesson.

At the very least, if you absolutely need to see what’s inside one of these places, you can try to see what’s inside a program by trying to do things like this:

1. When you visit one of these sites, click the back button. There’s many places which try to keep you there by offering you a discount. In some cases, if you keep clicking back, the price will keep dropping and dropping until it’s either very low or even free.

2. You can pay the small price to see what’s inside, but if you’re bombarded with up-sells and feel you’ve been lied to, leave it.

Again, my advice is to avoid these programs in the first place. It’s really more hype more than anything else and in some cases if you try and leave many of these places, they may still end up charging your CC. Another reason to stay away from them.

Bottom line: Stick to legitimate places like the ones I showed you above or the areas on this site which I’ve indicated as “Best places to learn”. They all have a green light.