Broke My Rule; Learned A Valuable Lesson
photo credit: Harvard Avenue
If you read my last post on Keywords, you’d have seen down near the end my statement:
Alas, one of the goals I laid out for myself was to not spend any more money on tools, books, software or even domains until I have used what I have to generate some actual income. I slowly put away my ‘buy’ urge and settled back to do the hard slugging until I can meet my goal.
Well, I broke that rule last week. I succumbed to a marketing offer claiming to show it’s customers how to get Facebook ads for nothing in order to promote on Facebook. I bought the offer and then quickly realised the promises were way bigger than the delivery.
The promised ‘free ads’ were nothing more than buying ads and then offsetting the cost of them by the income derived as the result of placing the ad. The fact is, unless you hit it lucky with a hot market, you would likely lose more than you’d make. I immediately went to Clickbank and requested a refund.
I then did what I should have done in the first place. I visited the review section of the Warrior Forum. (if you are not already a member, you should become one) Sure enough the product was being reviewed. Customers were not happy at the sense of being ripped off.
If you want a lesson in what not to do when it comes to producing and launching your own product. Read that thread. If you watch closely as you are reading, you’ll discover that the product owner JaniG only posted to belittle those who were unhappy. He also tried to thwart people wanting a refund by changing their refund requests at Clickbank to tech support.
Neither action did him any good. People became angrier not just at him but also at those who push products in the same manner. Clickbank made the refund promptly when I called them. Now, one marketer did suggest that he had some good ideas, but they were not what he promoted.
So the lessons learned:
- check for reviews, real reviews, of a product before buying. The Warrior Forum is the best place I’ve found to get legitimate reviews. Not reviews produced as part of the marketing of a product launch.
- When you launch your own product, make sure what you promote, is what you are delivering. Don’t promise free, unless it truly is going to be free. You might think it’s clever to play with the language. It just makes your customers angry.
- If you are participating in promoting a product launch, make sure you have a look at the product before putting your name to the promotion. You’ll see in that thread that some marketers lost subscribers because of their promotion of the product. I’ll admit, I unsubscribed from several who promoted it to me.
- When customers want a refund, give it to them. Don’t try to make them feel like they are caught in product hell. Sure, there is nothing wrong with trying to communicate with the customer and encouraging them to reconsider, once. JaniG kept sending the same canned ‘encouragement’ and then changing the refund request to ‘tech support’ which only served to make his customers angry.
- If you make mistakes or handle something badly, don’t compound the problem by continuing to handle the situation badly. Own up to the problem, either resolve it or offer the refunds being sought without question.
So, back to my rule about not spending until I’ve made income.
What have your experiences been with products you’ve bought? Did you learn lessons from how the sale was handled?
visit the Patti Network News to see where else I’m writing.
Broke My Rule; Learned A Valuable Lesson
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