Finally Kevin Trudeau picks a subject that he can probably keep himself out of trouble with since it's NOT health related. The book "Natural Cures they don't want you to know about", a total sham and lie of a book, was followed by "The Weight Loss Cure They Don’t Want You to Know About" which I didn't bother to read because it had scam written all over it, and sure enough it got him more trouble with the FTC AGAIN. Both were health related, and it's far too easy to cross the line by making health claims, which Kevin is infamous for.
So this time he's chosen "debt" and money for his new book "Debt Cures They Don’t Want You To Know About". Now I am NOT going to buy this over priced book ($29.95 plus $11.95 in shipping) which includes a couple of "bonuses" (he is after all a master marketer... I'll give him that), because there are MUCH better sources for the same information.
One of the tag lines on his site is "Kevin is blowing the lid off the banking and credit card industry". Well, since you can't get into legal trouble pointing out just how greedy these industries are, and how easy it is to get into debt, this is actually a legitimate topic for him to attack. However, there are so many great books, advisers and advice already, the last person you should send $40 to is Kevin Trudeau.
Here's some simple debt cures:
- stop shopping for stuff you don't need
- rip up your credit cards
- call your credit card companies and demand lower rates - don't accept "no"
- create a budget and track every dollar you spend, then find things to cut out (like that $4 coffee when you can make a cup for pennies at home)
- improve your credit score.
If you've never tried to improve your score before, there are probably some really easy and simple things you can do. To start, order your free credit report at www.annualcreditreport.com. It's a virtual guarantee there will be numerous errors on your report, like other people's names and addresses. Get online and on the phone with each of the 3 credit agencies and start cleaning up all errors. Late payments and collections are much harder to clean up, but even more important. There's plenty of free advice on how to do this... like this article.
Cleaning up credit will make it MUCH easier to get the credit card companies to lower your rates. But don't wait to call your credit card companies. But the higher your score, the lower interest rates on car loans, credit cards and mortgages. it's probably the single most important financial thing you can do. Get your score as far over 700 as possible.
Finally - don't waste $40 on any Kevin Trudeau product when there is probably superior information, from more trusted sources, for less money. If you're in financial trouble, find a trust worthy adviser, and Kevin Trudeau is anything but trustworthy.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Unanswered E4L questions
Finally E4L sends out an email that doesn't try to extract money from it's members... AND Brad now promises a December launch. Could be another promise about to be broken, or just maybe they'll turn this apparent scam into a legitimate business. But even IF they actually do launch, it's time to return to the still unanswered questions.
The biggest and most important one is WHERE is the compensation plan? What or how will members be paid!!! Will they get a percentage of gross profits, a percentage of the gross sale, what???
WHY is this simple question not answered? Listen to the zealots and you hear how great it is that you get a "matching bonus" so if someone in your downline earns $10, then you earn $10 too. But not one person knows what their downline will ever make. Maybe they'll made 1 cent per product purchased, so it will require 5,000 purchased products just to earn a measly $50.
Why aren't members kicking and screaming to get a published compensation plan? Why would they spend so much time and effort building a business (meaning their downline) with absolutely no idea what, if anything, they will earn from their efforts?
My guess is that only Brad will make any "real" money if the business ever does launch. He's proven that he's OK shamelessly extracting profits from his members, so why should it be any different with the "real" business? And by hiding the compensation plan details... presumably until AFTER products start being purchased, he can introduce anything he wants AFTER he knows what his personal profit potential is going to be. He will have to pay that "matching bonus" but he can decide that very little initially gets paid so that there's very little to "match".
So where are the screaming calls for a published compensation plan? How can a business launch without one? Will Brad pocket virtually all of the very limited profits from a very low margin business and laugh all the way to the bank? Only time will tell. For now, no one appears smart enough to demand details.
If Brad can actually launch, and not pay for recruitment, he can put himself in the "legit" box and stay out of the "scam" box, and so my review job would be done. But I still predict a dismal failure of a business for everyone, except maybe Brad.
The biggest and most important one is WHERE is the compensation plan? What or how will members be paid!!! Will they get a percentage of gross profits, a percentage of the gross sale, what???
WHY is this simple question not answered? Listen to the zealots and you hear how great it is that you get a "matching bonus" so if someone in your downline earns $10, then you earn $10 too. But not one person knows what their downline will ever make. Maybe they'll made 1 cent per product purchased, so it will require 5,000 purchased products just to earn a measly $50.
Why aren't members kicking and screaming to get a published compensation plan? Why would they spend so much time and effort building a business (meaning their downline) with absolutely no idea what, if anything, they will earn from their efforts?
My guess is that only Brad will make any "real" money if the business ever does launch. He's proven that he's OK shamelessly extracting profits from his members, so why should it be any different with the "real" business? And by hiding the compensation plan details... presumably until AFTER products start being purchased, he can introduce anything he wants AFTER he knows what his personal profit potential is going to be. He will have to pay that "matching bonus" but he can decide that very little initially gets paid so that there's very little to "match".
So where are the screaming calls for a published compensation plan? How can a business launch without one? Will Brad pocket virtually all of the very limited profits from a very low margin business and laugh all the way to the bank? Only time will tell. For now, no one appears smart enough to demand details.
If Brad can actually launch, and not pay for recruitment, he can put himself in the "legit" box and stay out of the "scam" box, and so my review job would be done. But I still predict a dismal failure of a business for everyone, except maybe Brad.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Last chance for E4L
Now 3.5 months past their "count down" launch expired, Brad sends yet another email whose real purpose appears to be to sell the same crappy eBook, Get Google Ads Free. Except this email (with the usual numerous mis-spellings and 3rd grade grammer) makes some big promises, shows ENORMOUS naivety, and states the "very important" thing about this email is to make sure your email is right in the back office... hmmm... isn't that where you got the email to send this update email??? I really can't get over how dumb this guy is... you have my email if I'm able to read this "very important" thing.
But let's start with what I think is important. The big promise... after all, these are the ones Brad constantly breaks. He said "next week" they are going to "export and import everyone" to the new database. This is a promise that has been made over and over again, and now we've got a "next week" date being promised (yet again), which as we all know is 3+ months late, but it's now totally unforgivable not to make it - after all, it's a simple database export.
Now the naive idea: Brad says it's too hard to make money on video games (huh? what about offering the lowest prices any where for DVD's and other entertainment products - low prices EQUALS low margins - so his entire business has the same problem). So Brad's solution is to get programmers to build new games that will be branded "E4L Games". Now I'm sure the cool aid drinking E4L'ers will see this as brilliant. I see naivety. Have you played a video game in the last 10 years? How many hours of programming goes into these? This is not "Pong" or Tetris or Asteroids or some simple and bygone era of games. I give this idea ZERO chance of taking off because IF they get a programmer to build for them, it will be a simplistic and cheap game that are largely available as freeware on the Internet already. So they'd be luck to sell a copy for a buck or two. No one else will ever build for these guys, ever.
But Brad does say "We will still sale the name brand games..." Oh, so you will still "sale" games? With the grammar and spelling errors in this email, you can only imagine the kinds of mistakes he's making if he really is building a site to "sale" Entertainment products.
And the real point of the email.... looks to me like it was to re-pitch the eBook for the umpteenth time.
Well... while U.S. marketers seem to start the Christmas shopping season on November 1st, to me it's still the weekend after Thanksgiving, which is a week from today. Brad's worst case promise has been "in plenty of time for the Christmas shopping season", so this is it... the final promise a legitimate person could make.
But let's start with what I think is important. The big promise... after all, these are the ones Brad constantly breaks. He said "next week" they are going to "export and import everyone" to the new database. This is a promise that has been made over and over again, and now we've got a "next week" date being promised (yet again), which as we all know is 3+ months late, but it's now totally unforgivable not to make it - after all, it's a simple database export.
Now the naive idea: Brad says it's too hard to make money on video games (huh? what about offering the lowest prices any where for DVD's and other entertainment products - low prices EQUALS low margins - so his entire business has the same problem). So Brad's solution is to get programmers to build new games that will be branded "E4L Games". Now I'm sure the cool aid drinking E4L'ers will see this as brilliant. I see naivety. Have you played a video game in the last 10 years? How many hours of programming goes into these? This is not "Pong" or Tetris or Asteroids or some simple and bygone era of games. I give this idea ZERO chance of taking off because IF they get a programmer to build for them, it will be a simplistic and cheap game that are largely available as freeware on the Internet already. So they'd be luck to sell a copy for a buck or two. No one else will ever build for these guys, ever.
But Brad does say "We will still sale the name brand games..." Oh, so you will still "sale" games? With the grammar and spelling errors in this email, you can only imagine the kinds of mistakes he's making if he really is building a site to "sale" Entertainment products.
And the real point of the email.... looks to me like it was to re-pitch the eBook for the umpteenth time.
Well... while U.S. marketers seem to start the Christmas shopping season on November 1st, to me it's still the weekend after Thanksgiving, which is a week from today. Brad's worst case promise has been "in plenty of time for the Christmas shopping season", so this is it... the final promise a legitimate person could make.
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