What Judah learned. #1/2

Friday, February 19th, 2010 at 3:47 pm

The most satisfying purchase I ever made was a $4.95 plug-in that made me a little less than $25 in the same week. (Yes, Commissions Automator. And I don’t have to do the whole FTC required disclaimer because if you click on the link, you’ll know that it’s the type of product where the amount of subsequent buyers revert to you.)

The least satisfying purchase I ever made was a $37 course that never came with a course, it just dumped a whole load of book on me and said “Read these.” The books were not only next to useless, they were also available elsewhere for free.

Somewhere in the middle is a $27 blogging ebook that came with an upsell which was more or less useless, unless you bought a second upsell. The ebook itself was also unsatisfying in that all of the information in it was also available elsewhere for free. The difference, however, is that the unsatisfying blogging ebook pissed me off enough to try to do everything in it, step-by-step, so I could, in good conscience, go back to Clickbank and ask for my money back.

Following the steps didn’t earn me millions, but I did end up with a workable, earning site, which was more than I had before I started. I still wouldn’t sell or promote it if it were the last Clickbank product on earth, because I’m sure there re other similar products that would offer my clients a better and more satisfying buying experience, but I’m not going to ask for my money back. But I’m not going to slam it too much either, because it did its job, more or less.

So here are the two lessons for newbies like me.

1. Everything works. Nothing works. Seriously, if you buy something on the internet (even if all you’ve purchased it with was your name, email and time) please give it a try before you write it off. And if it really doesn’t, heck, ask for your money back. Everything works if you pay attention to it and work on it. Nothing works if you don’t. Some work better than others, but “better” is still relative. And an unused $4.95 product can NOT WORK just as well as a $1997 product if you’re not planning on using it.

2. You can sell a bad product to a person once. If you’re lucky and frustrate that person enough, he’ll give up and just concentrate on something else, and maybe just ask for his money back. If that person grows up to be a whiz-kid superaffiliate no thanks to you, however, your ass is grass.