You Are Nothing But A Cash Cow
I find it absolutely amazing how some well known Internet Marketers talk about integrity, business, etc and yet, when it comes to the basics – operate on the principals of “take money and run”. Lack of basic support is absolutely amazing and simply shows to me that once you are rolled into whatever profile they expect – you turn into this..
Yeah… buddy! You have been milked and your actions were recorded, analyzed and will be turned into next Latest And Greatest Product that will “surely show you How You Can do Same”!
And perhaps it is not even the fault of the marketer behind the entire process, although he is responcible for hiring a very poor support stuff and as such their action reflect badly on his reputation. This entire post was prompted by my recent experience with affiliate program of the one, very well known internet marketer. It is nothing more then rant but a rant prompted by a question:
Who Is To Blame? The Marketer Or His Support Stuff?
Situation is very simple …
A while back I have posted on this blog about a free report. Many people downloaded and some became customers of the marketer who created it. As result I got some commissions. Not much, just a bit above $400, but hey – 400 bucks is 400 bucks… And I’m not rich enough to simply ignore the cash.
So I have played by the rules, provided all the info, filled and faxed the w2 form when requested and fully expected to get paid. Rather simple process – you earn money, you get paid, right?
Wrong!
At first in the beginning of this year my stats became partially unavailable. Unfortunately from Affiliate Dashboard there was no way to contact support so I had spend some time locating helpdesk, submitting ticket and then… been ignored!
So I go through the process and locate some emails for the marketer as well as one of his stuff who is supposed to run the support operation. About a week later I finally get email! It took them nearly a week to simply read the email and reply, then another week or so to address the issue and tell me that I’ll get paid next month.
Now, that was nearly 2 month ago and now my ledger shows 200+ were paid to me..
Problem is – I never Got Any Money!?
So, once again I go through the process of locating his helpdesk, submitting a ticket and fully expect to be ignored for a while, perhaps even until I again contact the support manager.
Rather sad to see when a well-known marketer has a support that goes beyond being piss-poor and bordering on complete neglect. I do know one thing – I will think and think before I do ANY promotion for that marketer. If his support for affiliates is so poor – I’m afraid to ask how his customers are treated… After all couple of my customers have purchased his program and even though I never promoted anything but free report I still feel responcible.
I guess I can only hope that customers are treated better then affiliates. I can survive without $400+ in commissions they owe me but I think if my experience if any indicator – he is not using his own teachings and treats his affiliates rather poorly and all I got left to say is ..
M-o-o-o-o….
… and learn from experience.
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11 Responses to “You Are Nothing But A Cash Cow”
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You Are Nothing But A Cash Cow…
You have been milked and your actions were recorded, analyzed and will be turned into next Latest And Greatest Product that will “surely show you How You Can do Same”!
And perhaps it is not even the fault of the marketer behind the entire process,…
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Oh man does ever suck. I was promoting Joel Comms instant adsense templates , made some sales and had to email his support guy brian i think his name was, 5 times to have the moolah released. Sometimes I think that some of the marketers think that we just put up a link or a banner and forget if it makes money and wait for us to pester them. Which is Click bank is a good option to use, they pay you not the merchant. I steer clear of any merchant who uses 1shoppingcart well at least I am for the time being anyways. Unfortunately I doubt it is going to change.
Cheers and beers
Shane
make moeny blogging’s last blog post..3 best blogs that teach you how to make money blogging
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I have no intentions to turn this post into a “guru bashing” session and I even withheld the name of the person used as an example in this post.
I do agree that it is a common issue with affiliate commissions when private Affiliate Management software is used. You are often left at the mercy of the marketer and rather sad to see how they manage it. I even seen it on PayDotCom.com because while it is centralized service – your commissions are still paid manually by individuals whose product you sold.
Funny thing is – after writing this post I went through and evaluated all outstanding commissions that still haven’t been paid to me due to multiple factors, such as: haven’t met the minimum, commissions paid every 90 days etc. and I calculated that they ALL owe me a total of $1258
While the $487 mentioned in article is no big deal – combined effects of multiple people not paying on their obligations is enough to almost pay my mortgage. I’ll be definitely thinking twice BEFORE getting anything paid directly by ANY marketer. All those small prints that state you need generate certain minimum to get paid, wait 90 days and other crap is rather irritating because it is my money and they already got paid on sale they wouldn’t have if not for me!
Now, where in the hell are My Money?!
Alex
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This really does suck Alex, since you put in YOUR effort and time to promote somebody else business which makes THEM more money. So hell yes you should get paid YESTERDAY.
I think that is the problem in the MMO niche. A lot of the so called gurus jump in with each other to promote the crap out of their wares. Instead of the good old fashioned 1 email/week max we get like 3 and often it is about helping to launch X’s new product by promoting it to your own list.
Personally I don’t like this and this was the reason that I unsubscribed from most lists I was on before.
In the end it is the missing factor called integrity. Shame on them who think they are above this and really, these guys should be called out because while they are not, nothing will ever change.
Monika Mundell’s last blog post..Freelance Writing Blog Crawl – Round Three
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Hi Alex,
It’s been quite a while since I visited your blog. I was crazy busy with lot of things. Nice to be back here. As far as the post goes, yes, it does suck big time when you don’t get a proper response, especially when the person owes you some money. BTW, have you dropped this issue or do you plan to contact that marketer somehow and get your money back?
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Thanks guys,
And no .. I have not dropped the issue. I’m a strong believer that when someone owes me money – they WILL pay. But that is not the core issues here…
The post was a rant on discrepancies between what we hear from the people very highly regraded in IM community and what they do, or rather what their stuff does on their behalf, which to me same thing – they hired them, they are responcible for the actions of their employees.
And that above one single reason I have not even considered outsourcing support for my own product. I would hate to deliver the value to customer only to have it all destroyed by a piss poor actions of the underpaid support stuff who doesn’t give a flying frack about you or the product you sell… or your reputation for that matter.
I know I’ll get my money but so far it is as predicted – after submitting ticket I got one email with acknowledge that they got it (4 days ago) and no single beep. More then likely it will require emailing support manager, etc.
I do know that once I get paid – I’m out of his affiliate program and will not be promoting his products.
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Im very wary of any one that calls themselves an “internet marketing guru” or the like. Im wary of anyone who only makes money telling other people how to make money. I think the knowledge that these people have is very specific to this one field (and it’s already plenty crowded)… Sure I guess I’m doing the same thing with my internet marketing blog – except for me, this is sort of a side deal. I like to treat it more like a diary.
Zibblu’s last blog post..Market Health Affiliate Program
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I think you’d be serving your readers better by revealing the name of the person or company that is holding your money. It would sure be helpful to know which marketers to avoid. It would be a shame for any of your readers to put any effort into promoting them, not knowing about their neglect, when you could provide the information to prevent it. Otherwise, your own credibility may be compromised.
A little bit of bad publicity might be just what they need to learn about their own business’s weakness.
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Chuck,
I don’t see how my bad experience compromises my own credibility. This post was a rant as I have clearly stated. I don’t like what I’m seeing but I believe that each of us should make our own choice. In this post I’m not making any recommendations but simply venting the frustration. It is quite possible that person is easier to deal with and my experience is a one off – I’m not going to venture to guess.
I can tell you that his affiliate manager made promise to work with me and even requested w9 form (again). So, we will see what happen
.
On promotion – I promoted a free report by that person – not his product – so I have nothing really to be ashamed off, the report was worth every penny, considering that it was free. Will you be promoting product by that person is not is up to you, but I have no intentions of bad mouthing someone based on my personal bad experience.
Alex
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That’s one reason why I like Commission Junction so much – they take care of paying all the affiliate commissions so I don’t have to worry about it.
It’s maddening when you promote something and then the owner of the product fails to follow through. Kudos to you for not letting the matter drop.
Data points,
Barbara
Barbara Lings last blog post..Dumber Than Dirt – Tell me you do NOT do the following to your customers.
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Barbara,
I agree but sometimes we do engaged with other people. It is inevetable in Affiliate Marketing, and who would think that a reputable and a well known marketer would try to stiff a few hundred bucks of cash … I still think it is a mishandling by the stuff but if unable to resolve – I will make sure one way or another that he will hear about it. So a part two might follow to this “rant”…
Alex
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