I started off loving Market Hero, specifically Hero Sales Academy, but then I saw more and more issues, so I’ve updated this review. It is not a scam, but see my experiences to understand why I eventually left the program (reluctantly).
I do have to say real quick that originally when I made this review, I had incorrectly thought that Hero Sales Academy was all that Market Hero had to offer, not taking into account until later than Market Hero is a combination of an advanced autoresponder and online sales training on making sales (the Academy part).
So I reviewed the latter without covering the first part of the whole program. It was a huge mistake and I apologize to Alex Becker.
So I updated this review and it primarily discusses Hero Sales Academy, with which I had the issues. I did not buy the autoresponder program so I could not comment on it.
Quick Report on Hero Sales Academy:
Creator: Alex Becker.
Price: Free 14 day trial, then $47 a month membership.
Overall Rating: 4 out of 10 stars.
There’s good value, lots of great content, good training and the stuff is taught by Alex Becker, a guy who uses the exact same stuff he preaches.
However, the reason I took the original score (which was a 7 out of 10) to a substantially lower one (4 out of 10) is because as I got more and more immersed in Hero Sales Academy, I noticed much of the training was outdated and taught in a way that was very difficult to grasp and follow.
This not only made it more difficult for me to try and put it to use, but frankly, I just couldn’t actually do it due to these issues. So after being a member for 7 months, I left.
Is Hero Sales Academy Recommended?
Not anymore. Until the issues I asked to be corrected (I did let the support know) are fixed, I’m not going back to HSA or recommending it.
As of this moment, it is ridiculously hard to use parts of the training, when it’s outdated and hard to follow, especially if you’re a beginner. So I’m still recommending this alternative:
Update: This video shows the issues I had with Hero Sales Academy:
Now let me explain all the details (What Market Hero & Hero Sales Academy are):
Market Hero (MH) as a whole is comprised of 2 parts:
Part I:
The autoresponder program which is a plugin that helps you collect leads and includes tracking and optimization tools so basically help you convert leads better and track them better.
And to keep things honest, I didn’t actually get this because until way later, I only realized it existed. I made a foolish mistake and I am not including any review of this autoresponder in this article. What I do know is that reviews of it are pretty good.
Part II:
The Hero Sales Academy. THIS is what I joined and stayed as a member of for 7 or so months. This part of MH gives you training on the following things:
And to be honest, the first time I saw all of this, I was floored and REALLY excited. Before joining this, I had been making money online through SEO and Bing PPC mainly and I had been seeing a lot of success with that (affiliate marketing is what I do) and this was actually thanks to the very same alternative program I now advise instead of MH, which is Wealthy Affiliate (WA).
But my reasoning for joining MH was that WA at the time did not have as much comprehensive training on the above bullet points I said Hero Sales Academy covers, so I felt I could improve upon my online marketing education that way and make more money.
And after all, Alex Becker is amazing at convincing people like me to join.
Now when you put both parts of the whole MH system together (even though you don’t have to use both things), you use the autoresponder to collect leads, and then implement the above traffic training to get the leads.
Another thing that is taught inside HSA (if you don’t want to use the autoresponder) is to create membership pages on Facebook and funnel people into them and have them pay you for that.
And finally, one thing I forgot to mention is that there is also email marketing training in Hero Sales Academy, which I still think is one of the best parts of the program. I used some of it’s tips to get these kinds of results with list building for people opting into a niche site I tested.
A quick look into Hero Sales Academy, aka HSA (the members area):
In case you were wondering what it looks like inside this program, here’s a quick tour:
So there’s 5 sections in this page, each section having it’s own set of training and/or case studies.
But despite there only being 5 sections, make no mistake, some of them have a PLETHORA of training (but some of them have issues as I’ll explain soon).
Let me summarize each of the 5 sections of Hero Sales Academy:
1) Hero MCS:
This area features numerous case studies where Becker speaks about YouTube advertising and getting more clicks, more conversions, and basically showing how and why his strategies work.
2) VMA Program (Video Market Accelerator):
This has a plethora of training on YouTube ads, getting free traffic by having your own channel using tactics like the piggyback technique I mentioned above and setting up ads for more conversions.
3) Hero Overdrive:
Feature a combination of FB ad training, case studies and YouTube ad marketing.
4) Hero Sales Academy:
This is the section of the members area which covers pretty much everything else on this list of 5 things and the training on all the things I mentioned above (membership sites, opt in training, PPC networks and more).
If you ever decide to join, this is where everything is “organized” to give you the most immersive experience with HSA as a whole.
5) H-Com Lite.
Features a combination of email marketing case studies and training as well as training on Shopify store set ups and making money through them.
So Vitaliy, what are the specific issues with Market Hero’s Sales Academy?
Again, 2 things:
- Outdated training.
- Alex Becker is hard to follow because he talks too fast and it’s hard to keep track of his guidance.
These are the biggest standout cons I found with Hero Sales Academy and I pointed them in the video above where I showed my experience inside the program before leaving.
Now you may wonder, why I would stay for 7 months if I saw these issues and the TRUTH is that for a large portion of my time there, I was too busy on building my business with the other methods that had already been working for me through the Wealthy Affiliate program and that required my attention.
By the time I was free to learn the stuff from HSA, I was very tired from working, that I could not process the training, so I kept putting it off, while also believing that HSA and the training were awesome and that I could learn it anytime.
But eventually, I did force myself to devote time to learning everything I could find within HSA’s training. I even went through the things I didn’t need to learn such as create membership sites on Facebook. My goal was to fully make up for lost time and go through the entire system.
And it was during this process, that I began noticing the above 2 issues I mentioned.
1) For starters, when I say outdated training, it applies to 2 things specifically:
The Facebook ads training and the YouTube Ads training which happened to be the 2 core things I wanted to learn.
As I said in the video review above (if you watched it), the FB ads training is not actually run by Alex, but by another dude, and even though I liked his teaching style, he was providing the lessons on the Facebook ads that existed YEARS ago.
And the problem there is that I DID try to adjust and run some ads on FB using this outdated training, but it looked so different that I couldn’t risk it in the end and waste money.
2) And when I say that Alex Becker is hard to follow, it specifically applies to his YouTube Ads training.
Yes he gives some great advice and I did learn good things, but like the FB ads training, this stuff was also outdated, because in order to use YouTube Ads, you need to sign up with Google Ads. I had my account suspended there long ago, but reinstated for the sole purpose of trying to put Becker’s stuff to use.
But with the updates that happened while I was gone (or when Alex recorded his YouTube Ads training), the options, menus and many other things changed, so I couldn’t follow along.
PLUS the HUGE issue I have is how fast Alex talks. It’s even faster than my video above (I wasn’t a newbie YouTube video creator at the time, give me a break).
He clicks so quickly in his tutorials and improvises his teaching techniques and talk, such that you have to listen multiple times and even though I’m not a beginner, taking into consideration how tough it already is to follow with it being outdated made it nearly impossible for me to use it.
This was very frustrating for me because like I said, I like Alex and I wanted this to work, but how he does his regular YouTube videos and speaks pragmatically, and how he teaches this stuff when it comes to specifics are 2 different things and I can’t follow the latter.
And thus I left HSA because I couldn’t put the training to use:
Because the 2 main traffic training’s were outdated and I couldn’t use them, I felt I had no reason to stay with HSA or Market Hero. I left support a message before leaving, telling them about these issues, before cancelling but never got a response.
I will give them credit though in that when I was a member, and asked them questions, they did respond.
Final Rating: Hero Sales Academy.
Yellow Flag
4 out of 10 stars. Again, this is a score that went down 3 stars because of the issues I mentioned. That’s a big deal, but again, if I can’t use the training, what’s the point? I sincerely hope that Alex fixes these 2 issues, because in my opinion, they are HUGE roadblocks.
Furthermore, I honestly believe much of the training, even the good parts of HSA are too advanced. I strongly advise beginners start with Wealthy Affiliate and I’ll get to the details of why I think it’s far better in a moment.
The bottom line is that HSA is not a scam, but these 2 issues which can easily be fixed are preventing me from returning as a member again and promoting it too. I would love to change that position and come back to this program.
My final thoughts: 5 reasons I’m sticking to Wealthy Affiliate (And recommending it).
One more thing I want to say is that when I first joined HSA, and thought it was absolutely amazing (before getting into the details and seeing the issues), I still recommended WA as an alternative for beginners, but I did also promote HSA as well.
And by the way, when I say WA is better for beginners, I don’t mean that the training is somehow “inferior” to HSA.
It just means it’s easier, updated and financially safer in my opinion to put to use than what I found with HSA and with all the sales I made thanks to WA, it works.
The first time I wrote this review of HSA, I did include affiliate links to it, but I have taken them down HSA since I saw the issues.
Once again, I TRULY hope that I can come back there and learn the things I wanted to originally, but I have a feeling that by the time they (hopefully) update HSA’s training, WA will have already added that to their list of training.
I bumped into this platform sometime ago and while it seems to look like a legit training, I think the testimonials on their homepage can be somewhat misleading. All I am seeing is how people are boasting about making money in the shortest amount of time and even though that’s not impossible, I think many people don’t realize that it costs a lot of money to get those kind of results. It may be a good platform for those who want to scale a preexisting business, but certainly its a risky approach for beginners.
That’s the thing Cathy, you see through this and so do I, but newbies do not. There is a common mistaken mindset newbies go into these programs with and that is the mindset of easy/fast money.
While Becker DOES mention how this isn’t a get rich quick scheme inside Market Hero and does say to quit if you can’t out in the time, the sales page impression produces a different, opposite message which you mentioned, so while I do like the program, I don’t always agree with that hype pitch being pushed.
It gets people in, and there is a safe trial to go through and quit if you’re not happy, but I would rather Becker have that “real talk” on his sales page as he does inside his program.
Very fair and unbiased review of this program. I was not aware of it or the program creator before. I understand why you indicated that it is more for the advanced internet marketer.
The red flags which you pointed out would make it rather challenging for a beginner to get started and actually stick with it. Although there is a lot of good content with this program like you said, beginners are not ready for the more advanced paid advertising methods.
I do like it that there is Live Support available. But it definitely would make things easier especially for beginners to have the training area more organized in a better step-by-step basis.
Even with all this good content, a beginner would most likely feel overwhelmed and not sure what to do next.
Thanks for these insights.
You know, I had a comment on this program review not too long ago from a lady and she basically said what I believe most beginners would feel within Market Hero: That it would be overwhelming and confusing.
I did update this review and added a video to showcase the issues. There is step-by-step training, but many of the steps are outdated and/or are mentioned so quickly that it’s VERY tough to keep up, even for me. And the live support basically handles bugs on the site, such as login issues.
Most of the marketing question are referred to the Facebook group they have. The comments in the lessons are also very dead in my opinion. In Wealthy Affiliate, these are not issues you’d see. Every lesson has a large number of people commenting on it and helping others when they have questions, and that is a huge plus for Wealthy Affiliate, and something I’d like to see in Market Hero.
Great review Vitaliy
Like so many other people I’m looking to make money online to quit my life sucking day job. I am looking for a program to join to teach me how to start making money. I had heard about Market Hero and was researching it before handing over my credit card info.
I’m glad I found this as I’m a bit of a newb and want training geared at my level. Sounds like Wealthy Affiliate is more my level.
It’s refreshing to find someone offering a less than glowing review of something. I appreciate your honesty.
Thanks Ian
No problem, the program is good Ian and I hope they make the updates I mentioned in my video review, but otherwise, for what you stated, Wealthy Affiliate will be a much better choice in my personal opinion.
Great review on Market Hero. You’ve obviously spent a considerable amount of time researching what value this program has to offer, and where it is lacking in terms of organization and teaching their methods to beginners. I tend to agree that SEO is the way to go; to learn to write good content and capture organic traffic. Using methods for paid traffic down the road is a good additional strategy, but SEO is important to the longevity of a website.
I appreciate the information you’ve gathered, and the pictures you provided. I plan to sign up for the free trial just to access the training information, as it’s always helpful to continue learning new tips and tricks. I may just see something that I’m not currently doing that I could implement. I agree, though, by the way, that Wealthy Affiliate is the best overall platform for all things website related. I actually use WA myself, and find it offers a tremendous value to my business.
Yeah the 2 week trial is a good way to see for yourself what I did Cris. But yeah overall, I agree on all your points with WA.
I wish I had seen this article before investing in Becker’s program. I know some things about online marketing, but I’m still a beginner when comparing myself to Becker’s training. There is so much information to absorb, that I find myself overwhelmed most of the time.
I know what I want to do, but when I try to do it, I run into huge roadblocks and I’m still learning what they are after 2 months. What autoresponder does WA use, and how are your leads stored with WA?
Linda hi, so in WA, if you choose to promote them, they use their own autoresponder to communicate with the leads you funnel into the program, then you can send the leads followups, and it’s actually a very hands off system because WA runs its own promotions through the leads you get into the program, so that can increase your sales without you having to add extra work.
However, based on the things you mentioned about leads, autoresponders and a lack of knowledge in this business, perhaps you may want to join WA, but do their online certification training, which will help you with picking out a topic you love to build a business from, and from there, you can do email marketing or other forms of marketing, but I’d start there, and grow your knowledge. Join here.
You don’t need to promote WA to be successful online and WA itself will teach you how to do that.
I agree with you that there is no one size fit all kind of program. It really depends on each individual the level of understanding they have before deciding which program to join. Wealthy affiliate, in my opinion successfully lays everything out in a easy-to-understand way, so it is perfect for a beginner to build up their foundation. Now that I have completed their training, seems like checking out Market Hero is on my next to-do list now. Thanks for the review!
No problem Grace, do drop me a comment on Market Hero once you check it out.
Hi Vitally,
I really enjoyed your honest and straightforward review of Market Hero, but from what you have said it does seem very obvious that the information which it offers could indeed be very useful, but I would agree with you that it looks far too advanced for beginners.
In my opinion, I would think that for anyone just starting out in online marketing the most important thing is to get a good grounding in building and running a website, and get that established, before even considering buying this course.
Could you tell me just what is included in Market Hero that could not slide be found in the training at Wealthy Affiliate? I have been a member there for some time now, but I am still finding more and more things to learn, and the fact that the best possible hosting for websites is also included in Wealthy Affiliate is to my mind an incomparable bonus.
Very many thanks for your very informative post.
Chrissie 🙂
In terms of SEO training and free included tools like hosting, WA is the best Chrissie, the only thing which really sets Market Hero apart from it is the training it includes in the following areas: YouTube, free and paid traffic, adwords, FB ads, and Shopify stuff for drop shipping info.
These things are exclusive to Market Hero and WA hasn’t really touched upon them yet. They do feature some YouTube training and there is slowly more and more training coming up on FB ads, but for now, Market Hero wins in that field, but at the same time, Market Hero has no SEO training and WA does and in my opinion that’s the better place to start from for beginners.
Great review on Market Hero. I may have to try it later. Right now I’m still a beginner and working with Wealthy Affiliate, which is awesome!!! Once I get through the basics of that I’ll look into coming on over to Market Hero as well as keeping up with Wealthy Affiliate 🙂 It looks like it would be a great program! Thank you!
That is exactly how I did it Kaeyoes. I also started with WA (and still work with it), but I am also enjoying Market Hero very much. I still think WA delivers more value, but that ability to leverage FB ads, YouTube and marketing in other fields is something intermediate marketers need to keep in mind.
Although you explain Market Hero’s approach, I’m not really convinced it’s the right thing for me. Although I have been doing this online marketing thing for a while, I still feel like I’m not at the point of adding those techniques, plus I’m seeing results with SEO, which is essentially free to me, just like you said. Maybe at a later stage, when I truly feel like a pro, I’ll look into getting rich quick schemes.
Hi Petra, I assure you, Market Hero is not teaching get rich quick schemes. Paid advertising is a legit thing to do, but it takes skill and money to risk, and as I’m going through the Market Hero training as I write this, I am very impressed with Becker’s work. I may even add another star or two to this program once I finish the training, in any case though, it’s awesome that you’re getting results with SEO and with Wealthy Affiliate, you’re already in a 10 out of 10 star program.
Great post and good info.
I never heard about Market Hero before but it seems to be a good one, however, I’m not sure if a beginner can do it like it seems.
I’m at Wealthy Affiliate for qulte a time now and I’m very happy with it, and for me it is the best in the market. So for me personally, I won’t change to Market Hero. Anyway, thanks for sharing it with us!
As a member of Wealthy Affiliate myself, I totally understand your position. I say work with Wealthy Affiliate for now and get the best results you can from it (which it does give). There is a difference in training between both programs and Market Hero is better later on for it’s paid ads training, while WA is better for it’s free traffic training.
As a Wealthy Affiliate newbie I am psyched with the WA platform, included premium hosting and step by step easy to follow instructions. For any newbies reading this definitely go with Vitaliy’s recommendation for WA, you won’t be disappointed.
I am currently researching affiliate programs in my niche of Christianity and I’m so excited to find a broad range of high quality Christian-related products to offer, I’m busting at the seams. Trusting WA in the beginning has proven to be a real good move.
I will keep in mind Market Hero for the future if and when I want to really master PPC and other high level techniques. Bookmarked for future reference.
Wealthy Affiliate has PPC training too Alexander, but it covers Bing Ads and a little bit on FB ads. You’ll find a lot more focus on FB ads, YouTube ads and Google ads within Market Hero. All 3 of those networks are gold mines if used right.
Thanks for the thorough review on Market Hero. It definitely sounds like an interesting platform with some good qualities. As I’m a beginner I’ll take your advice and wait until I am able to build a profitable niche website from the ground up before I try delving into Market Hero’s more complicated concepts. Once I’ve figured out this whole making money online thing I definitely wouldn’t mind trying this out. Thanks again!
Yeah, this will be the right flow to go with Jon, paid advertising can honestly be one of the most lucrative and FASTEST ways to build an income but at the same time, there’s another side of that “extreme” and that is you can also lose a lot of money, in some ways, it’s like gambling and honestly, the people who win in that gamble are those have experience in this whole field, who know how to pick which paid advertising campaigns to pursue and how.
Those are the people who hedge their investments in paid ads and can have better chances of making it, and in my opinion, people who do not possess that experience should truly start with the other recommendation.