How To Sell Out Without Ruining Your Reputation
The time has come my friends to sellout. Yes, I know I’ve said many times I would never do so, but sometimes you get offers sent to you that are just too good to turn down. Since the creation of my blog I’ve been getting offers to allow advertising on here from many different sources, and until now, I’ve turned every single one of them down. Why? Because as much as I love making money, I always saw it as a tacky thing to do, to put ads on a site when I didn’t like or approve of the advertiser. So why will I be accepting ads on my blog now? Well, simply put, from my research on forecasts and projections (not the weather), I stand to make about $150,000 from December 2006 - December 2007 from ads on my blog. Sorry, but there’s just no way I’m going to turn that down. I can easily turn down a few grand here and there, and feel honored that someone would be willing to spend that kind of money on here, but in the past, the readership wasn’t as strong as it is now, and quite frankly, I was just too wrapped up in research for some of the biggest non-blog related projects in my career as an internet marketer.
I feel that now is a good time to sellout and accept ads on here. Plain and simple. I also feel as if I am a lot better connected with larger industry services and products so that I can command a higher price and at the same time stand behind what they offer. I know I’m known for someone with little ethics or morals, but even now, I won’t accept ads from advertisers who promote something I think is fake/fraud, or just plain crap. You won’t see ebook shit on here, ever, because I will never sellout THAT much.
One of the reasons I labeled this post with the topic up there is because I wanted to compare how to sellout properly without people hating you for it or thinking differently. I’m sure most of you will agree, accepting ads because I stand to make six figures from it is a wise choice and you’d do the same, but what about people who sellout because of greed or stupidity? I’m not saying Aaron Wall or Shoemoney are stupid people, because they are not, and even though I have a lot of respect for both guys, I do think their little seminar that’s charging $5k per user is a bit much. These seminar things are a good idea, I know they are, because they always seem to make a lot of cash, BUT, there is a line that needs to be drawn here between reality and just plain bad judgement.
I’m sure many of you have heard about the “Elite Retreat” that is going on next month. They are charging about $5k total (I think the price is actually $4k+) per person who comes to the event in Texas, and for that amount of cash you can ask or find out how to do everything they do. These types of seminars are usually done by the ebook guru crowd like Yanik Silver and Joel Comm as a way to sell some DVD’s and passive income cashflow systems for god knows how much more, so I really hope that the Elite Retreat is not going to go that route, because then my friends involved with this will lose a hell of a lot more of their reputation and respect points from not just me, but tons of other people in the industry. If it were my call, I’d scrap the whole damn thing, and just put more ads on my blog or get back into the consulting area, but then again, I am not them, and they are obviously doing this as a quick payout. If they do have a sell out crowd of 30-35 people, they each stand to make about $30k-$50k each for two days of work, which by any standard is pretty impressive, but then again, are you really getting your $5k worth when going to one of these things? One of the reasons I feel that this is poor judgement on their end is because they are also associating themselves with someone I dislike a lot, a person named Lee Dodd. Who the hell is this guy, and what can he possibly know other than how to make money from crappy forums and jacking ideas from other people? PLUS, and this is a major plus, Lee Dodd went and registered the domain for their little Elite Retreat, but failed to realize that the .com for their seminar is, and get this, is actually a domain name for a gay mens club in Portugal!! Yes, I did in fact laugh my ass off when someone on WickedFire pointed it out, and even more so when Quadszilla from SEOBlackHat blogged about it calling it Pink Hat SEO. You’d think that an expert in their field would do some simple domain research and see if the name of their seminar coincided with the name of some “Gay Portugal’s Best Kept Secret”. Hahahahahahaa, yes that deserves one hell of a laugh, and I hope Jeremy and Aaron laughed as well, because even if it was an honest mistake, it’s one hell of a funny one!
In closing, I’ve kept out of the huge threads on WickedFire about the whole Elite Retreat bullshit, mostly because Shoemoney and Aaron Wall are buddies of mine, and aside for their bad judgement call on this, it’s their own choice to go forward with it, and I’m sure they will be getting a hell of a lot more shit from others, so they certainly don’t need it from me. But overall, if you guys are reading this, be serious, because by you guys doing this thing, you are probably losing a lot of respect from a TON of people who may no longer respect you the way they do, or who will just pass you guys off as another Lee Dodd trying to make his way into a cutthroat industry as a self proclaimed high earning guru who no one respects.
In the wise words of Alice In Chains, when Metallica came back with their new haircuts in the mid-90’s - “Friends don’t let friends get haircuts”, but here’s my variation of it:
Friends don’t let friends run shitty bullshit seminars that can and most likely will hurt their reputation in the long run.
That’s all I’m going to say about it, and I will not take part in the bash fest that exists on WickedFire and in other people’s blogs, because again, even though it’s a bad call on your part, it’s not my place to rub it in. Listen to the majority of the people, not the 30 something idiots willing to shell out $5k in desperation to get help for their “I just want to press a button and make a million bucks overnight” quest.
I may have sold out by agreeing to allow ads on my blog, but I will never sell out in a way that would ruin or tarnish my reputation with some quick payday, or some queer ebook, because I’ve said this time and time again, I’m in this for the long haul, and $30k-$50k for a seminar is just not worth it to me to fuck over people of their cash. I’d much rather take cash from advertisers rather than the people, which is why I scrapped all plans on charging people for the WF resource area (which is still scheduled for a launch as soon as the programmers move their asses!).
PS - AD:TECH NY was amazing, and I’m going to blog about that next, as soon as I can remember what happened in my 3 days of no sleep and too much caffiene and Adderall. Nonetheless it was one hell of a fun and absolutely amazing for networking opportunities, but I am so psyched for Affiliate Summit West, because when it comes down to it, as much as I love hanging out with the ad network friends, affiliates are my people, and to go somewhere with the affiliate to advertiser ratio at 17:1, that’s just got to be so much fun!
I doubt anyone will mind anyone would do the same thing.
But btw the gay crap is elite-retreat and shoemoneys thing is without the hyphen so its not like anyone will make a typo and stick a hyphen in the middle. I dont think Lee made a mistake with that since the .com is a landing page.
I don’t see how having ads on your blog is that much of a sell-out. I would expect a leading affiliate marketer to have ads on his blog. Plus sometimes they add value, and most people reading will be savvy enough to make their own judgement on the ads.
All the best
Yeah, advertising on a blog, especially a expert blog for a certain topic, is truly no big deal these days.
As for the seminar–I’m not sure that I’d pay $5000 for some tailored content to a group, but individual consulting may be worth looking into, especially with Shoe or Aaron. How much would it be worth to you for anyone to come and spend a day or two with you as their mentor?
There’s no need to apologize about posting ads on your blog. In fact, it alerts your readers to new offers that can be of actual benefit to them. So whats wrong with that? Looking forward to ASW as well. - katoved
putting ads on your blog is not selling out it is a smart move to monetize existing traffic. As you provide good or interesting info why not make a buck from it?
CPA is right on. calling it selling it out is similar to the argument that an artist is not truly an artist unless he is impoverished and “starving” as the phrase goes. moreover, anyone with firefox can block all ads, and even those displaying ads can easily choose NOT to click on them.
I totally agree about that retreat, though I haven’t spoken out against it other than a short one liner in SPF saying I think its just there to make money. It is not my job to protect the suckers of the world from losing their money.
Although I will say that I noticed a lot of the people mentioning how great it is supposed to be work with or for Lee.
Things like this also make you seriously wonder too. How much of the hype that they build around themselves is nothing more than hot air meant to draw people to a stupid event like this?
Lee runs some big forums, and when he used to blog about that I was interested. Now practically everything I see that he writes is promoting himself.
Aaron Wall, is the opinion of someone who has been doing SEO for 3 years worth $5k? I’m guessing no. Not in my opinion anyways. Not that he is a bad guy, but I do think he is overvalued.
But ya, here is an agreement that the “Elite Retreat” stinks of a late night infomercial.
I’m not here to be a Shoemoney apologist; however, you should know that there is a decent chunk of the $5k that has to go towards actually paying for the seminar itself.
Conferences aren’t cheap to put on. The reason the bigger conferences like SES, PubCon, et al. can keep their rates more “reasonable” is they have an exhibit hall. Exhibitor fees go a long way toward offsetting the cost of putting on the conference in the first place.
Since elite retreat, to my knowledge anyway, doesn’t have any exhibitors, they have to charge enough to cover the costs of the conference and (obviously) make it worth the time of the experts to attend.
there was a golden ticket contest for a free admission to the next elite retreat. i said F it and wrote and essay to see if I’d get in. No dice. But I did get a call from a pepperjam rep who offered all expenses paid and $500 bux off of the entry fee…I was told that my essay was one of 5 that didn’t win but had kevin? from pepperjam very interested.
if it looks like shit and smells like shit…………………..