Mainstreet Marketing Machines System

[Dexx]

So is there a thread that has the instructional aftermath of what was learned and what can be salvaged and implemented from the MMMS debacle?

Thanks...

You might be interested in my local biz reports [BETA] that's just about to get rolling (link is in bottom of my sig right now, couple spots left)

~Dexx

[MrPhelps]

How can we leverage this info to make bank....I am interested cause I had to resist with all my might not to buy and then once I saw all the refunds I knew I was OK...

So is there a thread that has the instructional aftermath of what was learned and what can be salvaged and implemented from the MMMS debacle?

Thanks...

Why do you refer to MSMM as a "debacle"? I would think that Mike and other MSMM owners would be the only people in a position to say something like that.

This is the 3rd or 4th launch Mike has done. Don't you think he's developed a profile of buyer behavior by now?

What you describe is typical behavior for a small group of people who buy into a membership program (ANY membership program), suck down all of the available materials, then request a refund. It's a well-known problem for vendors that has nothing to do with the price. I've seen it reported for $5 membership sites!

If it was YOUR membership site, what would YOU do to make it worth the while of people who stick around?

BTW, since you're not involved, you have no insight into the other things that they've been adding to the program over time.

Personally, I purchased MSMM through a link with the Social Media Science guys and basically got a two-fer -- additional membership in their Local Web Science program. They were the 5th or 6th highest affiliates. I don't know for sure, but I suspect the refund rate of their customers is lower than many others.

Anyway, all of these purchases depend on the value you derive from what you bought.

If it's of no value to you, then it's worth exactly what you paid for it -- zero. Actually, you wasted a lot of time viewing videos that apparently weren't of any value either, where you could have used that time more productively.

I notice a chronic problem among most people who have not been in business for very long. They place a $0 value on their time, and think that the only thing that matters is the dollar cost of a product or service and what they can earn directly from it.

This mindset is precisely what makes it so difficult for most to understand how to negotiate sales to businesses.

When your TIME is at a premium, and the long-term success of your business depends on where you focus YOUR efforts, the cost of things becomes secondary.

Also, if you sit down and add up the REAL COST to a business owner to hire someone, pay them to sit there and learn everything about MSMM and how to use Traffic Geyser, then get some value out of it, it'll cost them MORE than the price of MSMM. There's nothing that keeps that employee from jumping ship and using their knowledge for personal gain rather than for the business who paid for it.

Basic TG costs $97/mo. If you can't afford that yourself, you should be able to find a half-dozen clients who'll pay 2-3x that to you for running one 10x10x4 campaign for them every month. Look at what most SEO outfits do -- they post a few articles, a few bookmarks, a few blog posts, and charge ... $500-$1500/mo for it.

How much were YOU paid to go through those videos? If your time is worth $100/hr, how much did you earn sitting there watching those videos? If you say "nothing", then someone ripped you off! (Hint: it wasn't the guys who put out the videos!)

If you look at the cost of MSMM to YOU and think it's "high" relative to its value to your customers, you're looking at things backwards. If that's your perspective, then you SHOULD ask for a refund, since you'll never get any real value from it.

Business owners are constantly evaluating things from a very simple perspective: "Make vs. buy". They also factor in the "time value of money". Consider these two options:

(1) a $100 expense today gets $1000 more business this week, vs.

(2) a $10 expense that gets $1000 more business in three months

If you pick (2), you'll be out of business very quickly. That's the "#1 is too expensive" perspective.

If you have rent and payroll to meet THIS WEEK, throwing $10 at something that won't make anything for three months is just a waste of $10.

THAT is what most people don't understand about dealing with business owners.

Anybody who's confused by this should find a local group of people who play Robert Kiyosaki's CashFlow game and play it a dozen times or so -- until you get the idea of what "ROI" is all about.

-David

[kelvin brown]

Well said.

Kelvin

[SEODiva]

@ Dexx - I did buy the 15 part autoresponder series, that is how I found the forum...so I will look at your other offerings as well, as I really liked the fact you supplied the sphyntext versions as well.

Just Jumped in on your Beta test....that is just what I was looking for...excellent....thanks...looking forward to implementation.

@David - Thanks for the dash of cold water and many of your points are well taken...I did mis speak to say such a harsh phrase as Debackle, but I think many people were disappointed that enough quality content would not be offered until the refund period was over and in WF and other places, they felt it was disingenuous to do this to people especially folks that wanted to ramp up quickly. So that said, I am hoping that there can be learning that comes out of MMMS that can benefit those that can't plunk down that sort of money, or found that may be there are other better less expensive ways to get this information to the hungry marketer like myself.

I do enjoy MK and have learned al ot from his videos over the past year and a half. I did use TG a year ago, but found that most sites found the video techniques they offered spammy and so many of my memberships and videos were deleted and so I could not see value in maintaining such an expensive membership when I can use Big Mikes VideoBot and HeySpread and Tube Mogul for a lot less money.

IMHO, I think that MK has moved into the Main Street area because of this factor and Biz owners have more ad spend then your average IMer, since your basic business video will be perceived as less smarmy than the typical Clickbank video...

[MrPhelps]

In this business, we're basically selling AIR -- BY THE POUND.

Air costs ... nothing.

Yet so many people complain about the fact that they need to spend their own money (OMG!) on big heavy tanks needed to store the air so they can deliver it to their customers cost-effectively. So they get the cheapest, smallest, most limited tanks they can find to "save money", in spite of the fact that the people making the MOST money in the marketplace are using large tanks mounted on trucks.

These are the same tanks needed to distribute things like natural gas and propane. Yet neither of these gasses are "free" like air. In fact, there's a HUGE up-front investment required to get them into canisters for sale. Air is free.

So why do people complain like stuck pigs about the COSTS required to make money selling FREE AIR?

See my point?

Look ... I just figured out a way to almost triple what I charge for part of what I'm selling. My costs didn't go up a penny. But I realized that using a slightly different approach, I can price something at $25,000 rather than $10,000 for the exact same thing. And prospects will STILL think they're getting a deal!

I ran into a guy this past weekend who's a hard-core sales guy. He asked me to explain my business model. I didn't do it very well at first, and he misunderstood; in the process, he basically told me that a $25k up-front investment for the back-end revenue streams I was proposing seemed very fair to him. In fact, he said, "I've got 80 sales partners in 15 countries, and once you can show me a working model, I'll tell them about it and I bet most of them will jump on this in an instant!" When I corrected him, he shrugged -- "Well, hey, that's even better!"

I've committed ten grand to infrastructure costs so far. Why? Because it lets me scale-up easily. In the long run, it drives my overhead into the ground.

One sale at $25k pays for EVERYTHING! From that point on, our monthly overhead is minimal.

And while Mike keeps piling more and more value into MSMM, I can turn around and make MY offers look EVEN BETTER.

There's nothing "disingenuous" or unfair about Mike's offer. It's a deal at 5x the price as far as I'm concerned. The fact that lots of people can't see past their own nose and think they're being cheated ... well, I guess I don't have to worry about competing with them.

Again, two suggestions:

1) play Kiyosaki's Cashflow game a dozen times or so, to develop a better sense of what "ROI" is (by all means, do NOT buy it! It costs WAY too much for a "mere game"!)

2) read the book, "Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs" to get a better feeling for how to sell VALUE rather than "features".

(People keep saying that Apple's computers have less than 10% of the market, as if that's supposed to be meaningful. Apple just passed Microsoft in terms of market capitalization. Pundits call the iPad a "failure" because it has no stylus for data entry. Meanwhile, Apple has been selling iPads at the rate of one every three seconds since they were introduced. Some failure, eh?)

-David

[SEODiva]

Dave,

Thanks so much for your in sights. Maybe this can help, I was laid off over a year ago and have been trying to make it in IM...I have struggled to keep my house payment up, food on the table and my car payment going. Our town lost over 2000 jobs when the 2 mills closed and my towns population is under 100k, so there are limited opportunities to find work the normal way, so online is where I must turn. Then my partner lost his job too. Combined we made over six figures and now we don't any more...so unfortunately some of us do not have the money to invest in the big gun products.

I have played the Cash FLow game and own it myself, yes it is a good thing to have and some times to take risks, well I have invested all I have to make this work...so when you don't have the money to invest you don't have the money to invest and making someone feel bad because they made a business decision based upon their personal situation just makes me feel sort of well....not very good....you are passing judgment on someone and calling into question my ability to make decisions and it is not very fair of you to do that....especially since you don't know my situation or the situation of many people that are struggling to make it right now...

I made the decision to purchase this forums product at a much lesser price over spending thousands for a bloated program, that many people in many forums have made many comments about, that are not the highest praise for Mike...so I went by the insights of people I respect and decided not to buy MMMS...and I am glad I made that decision, both financially and now because I have more of a chance to learn first hand in a much smaller group.

Yes I have to take responsibility of my situation, I am not a whiner, but please do not tell me what I should invest and what I shouldn't if I have decided it is not right for me, it is a business decision that I have made, and asking me to over spend on something I do not see value in, the same as you do, is not helping a business owner move in a positive direction towards financial freedom.

I have over 20 years of sales experience and have spent the past 15 years working in the high tech sector selling cutting edge software products to the military and other very large corporations, so I am not new to this game, most of my products cost well over $10k and I have always been a top, if not THE top sales person in my companies- from Kirby to Insurance to Fortune 500 Corporations, so selling value is something I am extremely familiar with.

I think I will stop there, and say thanks again for your insights, and I wish you well in your work.

[MWGrubb]

The techniques DO work!

I placed a couple of videos to test the market and in TWO hours I was at the TOP of Google for the search terms I used. Additionally, after a couple of days, I held SEVEN out of TEN top positions for my keywords. I used Keynote on a Mac to create the simple 34 second videos and uploaded through TG.

I would like to know more about SYNND, if anyone has had personal experience with them.

Warmly,

Millard

[MWGrubb]

Just a note to SEODiva,

I've been where you have been.... It can get a little scary. Thankfully, the internet is worldwide and countrywide, so you don't need to leave your house to make a few bucks. If you need some quick cash, do you have a "product" you can sell on Craigslist or Ebay? I was a performer for many years and created 12 different audio products and sold them via Ebay.... I was able to make some pretty good coin with little more than a mic and cd burner. Everyone has something inside that they know better than most everyone else.

Just recently, I interviewed 16 performers and made a CD-ROM. I sold a lot of copies at $97.00 each. It is now being sold via a magic distributor for $67.00 each.

Maybe you just need to go talk to people you KNOW locally who own businesses that you can help. Even if you charged a low, low price of $197.00 a month, do you think you could get a few?

Perhaps you could hire a salesperson in a big town and train them to make sales for you at BIG prices... You give them a generous comish and then you do the work?

Hope this helps.

Warmly,

Millard

[nickg]

Does anyone know if he will be re-opening the Mainstreet Marketing Machines System?

[jimweb43]

Thank you Dex, just read your post got excited. So I went to the website to give it a look and it appears the product is sold out.

Are there any equivalent products that you would recommend?

The video shows you what it contains, but basically it has a 12-week training program, case studies, Q+A with coaches, and then a whole suite of tools like pre-made marketing materials, website templates for clients, videos and music clips, etc.

There's also a built in Email, Mobile Text and Voice Broadcast follow-up system built in (no need for additional tools) and the cream of the crop...an iphone / droid app creator that some members of Firepower have already used to charge clients (like a Dentist) $13,000.

An opportunity finder software that locate profitable keywords for local businesses, and the contact information for pre-qualified contacts in your area etc.

I'll probably be signing up since I can make the money back with just one client even at $250/mo (which is a no-brainer if I charged so low) and then scale up with additional marketing services from there

You can choose to pay monthly payments instead of an upfront $2,997 cost, with a 30 day money back guarantee. So combined with how fast you can rank for low-comp keywords...you can use the software and training to get a ranking, and contact leads within your first week...if you don't close any clients or don't think you got your money's worth...get all your money back within that 30 day period...Win-Win =)

~Dexx

PS - Here's my aff link for the system http://bit.ly/FiremanMikeVid with funds going to support the forum's upkeep