Thursday, December 31, 2009

ATTN: MARKETERS -- I CAN HELP YOU!

This blog is primarily about The Arbitrage Conspiracy, but it occurred to me that people who come here might need my services. As an advertising/marketing professional with over 20 years experience working for "the bigs" (major agencies and corporations), I bring some serious chops to the table.

I'm a top notch Creative Director by training. In my case, this means I do both design and copy writing. So, if you're in need of help with your sales and ad copy (for sales letters, websites, email, ebooks, etc), graphic design, logotypes and branding, site design, mini-site/squeeze page creation, banners or just general marketing advice – and you want the very best – please don't hesitate to ask.

Simply ask to see samples. The first consulation is FREE. Click to email me, or email: mannartt<<at>>>gmail.com

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

My Post In The GD Thread Regarding AC At SpeedPPC.com

[I thought this was posted in the thread at: http://www.speedppc.com/google-cash-detective-2-review/ Apparently, it isn't. Don't know why. Oh well. Here's what I THOUGHT I posted. Sigh...]

Hey Guys and Gals!

For what it's worth, I WAS an ACer for two weeks, and I put up a blog of my experience, thoughts and reasoning for jumping ship at the following site: http://arbitrageconspiracydiary.blogspot.com/

I encourage you to check it out, and please feel free to post some comments there if you like.

For those of you who are pissed off and frustrated, I feel your pain. I now consider AC to be, at best, a train wreck of truly epic proportions. Whatever the *intent* of the AC Boys (and I still believe it was basically good), their delivery will go down in the annals of Internet marketing history as one of the worst ever! Further, their incompetence, crap customer service and pathetic instruction and instructional materials have stained the reputations (IMHO) of every single guru associated with them.

I will NEVER again take the word of Brad Fallon for *anything.*

And I commend the integrity (for whatever it's worth) of the other gurus and semi-gurus who resisted the siren song of "easy, big JV money with AC."

Even though AC may well have been the single biggest launch in IM history (by my rough calculation in the $5 million+ range), nobody is crowing about the total dollars at all. I believe that's because the AC Boys don't want any more of the negative publicity they have already garnered and so richly deserve.

IMHO, they are (and have been) acting like spoiled rich kids who, when challenged on their bad behavior, simply go hide behind locked gates, closed doors and then, to add insult to injury, flip you the bird and laugh.

To cite a bit of my own experience: the ONLY email they ever responded to from me (and I sent quite a few genuine, polite and professional inquiries) was the one demanding a refund. And that response was in the form of a form letter. Even in my last communication to them I offered to discuss my concerns and issues in a rational, constructive way. In effect, I was offering them a way to keep me in the program. All they had to do was take me up on the offer and spend five minutes with me. But alas, even this was too much trouble for them.

Ayman and Emmanuel may well be geniuses at arbitrage, I will give them that. But as businessmen (again, IMHO) having to deal with real people in the real world, they are negligent and incompetent to very edge of criminality. If there was Golden Turkey award for IM products, I think AC would be more than just a shoe-in for this year's award -- it might get the trophy named after it!

"And the winner... er, *loser*... of the AC Award for WORST program goes to..."

I doubt the AC Boys aspired to the Hall of Shame, but their faces (well... their names anyway... without *last* names...) will surely be enshrined there for all time. Which raises a particular paranoid point. Why *didn't* they want us to know what they look like or what their last names are from the beginning? Perhaps they already knew ahead of time that they never wanted to be recognized in a bar?

In the Warrior Forum blog and elsewhere I said something to this effect: if I take an "all inclusive course" for TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS and it doesn't deliver, I have every right to be angry. Further, if I learn that I can't succeed with what the course is teaching me -- in other words, there is more that has to be bought and learned outside the course -- then by definition it is a bad course.

By contrast, take a look at PPC Classroom. Now there's an online course that's done right. There are quizzes and study material, indexes and forums, experts who answer your questions, etc. I'm not here to plug PPC Classroom, but of all the courses I've taken online it most closely matches courses taken in the halls of academia. So far as I'm concerned, PPC Classroom is the benchmark against which all the others will be measured, and against which all others have come up short.

To think that it is a fraction of the cost of AC!

I hate to say it... and it gives me no great pleasure in saying it... but I have come to the conclusion that AC is just junk. I've yet to meet A SINGLE PERSON from AC who is doing well with what they have been taught. Even now, in Week 10! Weren't we all supposed to be "in profit" by Week 5-6 or something?

Due to my AC blog and postings in various forums I've had the pleasure of getting to know many former and current AC members, and they all tell me the same sad story. One current ACer with whom I have become friends said this to me the other day (when I inquired as to how AC was going): "Oh... that? I don't even listen to those idiots anymore!"

I was shocked. This was a guy who had defended them for a long time. He has moved on, as have I. And BTW, he IS making money in arbitrage... using other products and only some of the techniques he learned in AC. He, like me, credits AC with opening the mind to the possibilities of making money in arbitrage. But he is over and done with them beyond that, and I certainly can't say I blame him.

I wish all of you who are buying Google Detective the best luck in the world. I hope Chris Carpenter really delivers on what he is promising, and for what it's worth it appears he is far more concerned about his customers than the AC Boys ever were.

He also has a real name, a real face, a real reputation to protect... This, after the AC debacle, should give one some hope! (:-)]

IMHO, there may well be a small window in time in which GD is very effective. However, I believe that in short order there will be "countermeasures" (as someone here put it). And very rapidly all the top affiliates will be cloaking. So, at that point, game over. BTW, the friend I mentioned above already is, and he is only nominally successful to this point.

Drop me a line if you'd like: mannartt<<>>gmail.com. And thanks to Jay for letting this turn into a mini AC gripe forum. (;-)]

Sunday, February 22, 2009

ATTN: AC STUDENTS -- THE END OF THE LINE!

It's recently been pointed out to me that I never definitively posted on what I decided to do. Well, the fact is, I decided to PULL THE PLUG. Big time.

Though extremely stressful at the time, I'm glad I did. And after hearing the non-success stories of those still in the course (at least the folks I know), I can say I'm doubly glad I got out!

In all fairness to the AC Boys, they promptly refunded my money.

This was actually stunning and more than a little bit ironic.

Why? I couldn't ever get ANYBODY to respond to repeated inquiries and requests for help (of various kinds). But once I wanted out, they were lightening fast.

Weird, I suppose. But good on them. I was never impressed with much about the course, the materials or the teaching, but at least they didn't try to screw me on the refund!

Right now I'm checking out several new programs in the PPC/CPA realm. I MAY have found a real winner...

A program that:

• Has great materials...
• Has great instruction...
• Has specialized, dedicated software to make success easier...
• Is a helluva lot less expensive than AC ever was!

It's a bit like AC... only BETTER! Or so it appears. If you're interested in this program drop me a line and I'll be happy to point you in the right direction. If it really works out the way I'm hoping, I'll be back to do a full post on the subject.

And then I'll start a blog on that subject... yikes...

Best of luck to all of you in all your endeavors.