A Midwest Journal

Since I’ve experienced both sides of the sales/scammer fence, I can tell you that they essentially use the same principles and tools for a fraud as they do for a really great deal. But it’s how they use it and what they’re after that counts.

• A scammer simply wants the most amount of money for the least amount of effort. They deal in one-off’s and want you only for a sale – which to them is only a numbers-game. They just want your money. They don’t care about you.
  
  
• An honest and valuable service-provider is interested in your welfare and wants you as a continuing client. These guys don’t really care about the gimmicks and know that even if you only buy from them once, your honest recommendation will bring more people to them who they can honestly help.
  

Now, I wrote the basics of copywriting over at my book-blog at Online Sunshine Plan.

And there’s far more to it in the Online Sunshine Plan book, available at Lulu.com

But I haven’t laid out anywhere what goes into a sales page and the difference that makes it a scam – so here goes:

Key point:

They are using your emotions, feelings, and attitudes to get what they want.

95% of the average humankind person operates mostly on subconscious reactions. If they can get you to “think” about something,  especially in thinking with your feelings, they can get you to react in their favor.

Will Rogers was talking about modern advertising and sales pages when he said they are just, “getting people to buy things they don’t want with money they don’t have.”

Here’s the rough layout of most sales pages:

• Headline
• Greeting
• Bullet Points
• Exciting transition paragraph
• More Bullet Points
• An exciting testimonial or two or three about your book
• More Bullet Points
• An incredible guarantee
• A free bonus if they buy your book today
• An easy way to buy your product
• Your close
• A P.S.

Go ahead, open up a new tab or a new window and see if this isn’t true. Check out some sales pages. The majority of them follow this exact scene. Some are longer than others. Some have found that “interactive” videos help make the sale these days.

The headlines, bullet points, and testimonials – all the copywriting, actually – are all about “features” which again are always based in the key points which people use to get sales (and I quote from my Cialdini and Levenson Scam-free pages):

Cialdini:

1. Reciprocation

2. Commitment and consistency

3. Social proof

4. Liking

5. Authority

6. Scarcity

Levenson:

- The need or want for security.
- The need or want for approval.
- The need or want for control, or to escape control.

These are all the buttons which are being used to get you to act on their offers.

When you look at these pages, they are all telling you how great you will feel, how people will look up to you, how everyone around you has one, how such-and-such celebrity or professor recommends it, etc. etc.

The difference between a really good deal and a scam

There are some things to look for, and some to look out for.

First, most people are wising up to this. They look for social recommendations – just like people always have. What’s the word of mouth on this product? Reviews, listings on the complaint boards, etc.  Now this can also be booby-trapped if that product or service has an affiliate sales network. For many products, if you look up the company product, followed by “scam” or “fraud” then you’ll find a nice sales page disguised as an honest review of the product. And the links are affiliate links. So the page author can make some money if you sign up through them.

Get on some discussion boards and check these out. Again, there are people who exist in life just to be critical of others, no matter how good they or their products are. And some websites only act as consumer complaint sites, but actually are shaking down the people who are mentioned on their sites (RipOff Reports – Wikipedia article). However, the bulk of them are straight. A rough rule of thumb is if they are 50% or better with actual good reports, then they aren’t scamming.

(The most pathetic sites I’d ever seen were where scammers were actually offering Internet Coaching to unsuspecting people. Once they educated people how to research on the Internet, they found out they were getting scammed and then posted to their new blogs how bad that company had ripped them off. Then they went to the complaint boards and really let loose. Idiot scammers.)

Second, they will actually offer you a trial version for nothing, except maybe postage.  Now, beware of this like the devil. You can easily (as I have, with a company called Bid-Fuel) who will send you a mostly useless CD and then in fine print tell you that they are going to be billing you monthly for access to their site (which is also useless). And then they sell your name and number to other sales floors who will then sell you some over-priced online training from a service provider.  But you will keep getting phone calls, as they sell your name over and over and over and over. (Use my stop telemarketer recipe to get them to quit if this has happened to you.)

A decent company won’t ask you for your phone number and will actually tell them that they aren’t going to use your credit card or give your name to anyone else. (Why do people need your phone number unless they are going to call you, anyway?)

But again, you can Google their “free offer” and see if others have found it useful.

The key differences between valid businesses and scammers

Key points for valid businesses:

They have overwhelming favorable comments and you can try their free product with no strings attached.

Key points for scammers:

They are overwhelmingly criticized and at best will give you a discounted intro which you then have to cancel.

Otherwise, they both use essentially the same sales pages.

Here’s a PLR article I found which gives more on how this whole sales page system works:

1. The header/graphic block
HEL-LO!! The opening graphic should grab your visitor by the eyeballs and plunge him or her into your site. Its primary purpose is to get your visitor to read your opening headline.

2. The testimonial / credentials block
Who is this guy and what is he offering? This block promises BIG BENEFITS – enough to keep your visitor reading. Make this as powerful as you can, but a word of caution – you’re going to have to justify that claim later.

3. The informational block
Tell your visitor what problem you’re solved for them.

4. The product introduction block
Here is where you point out (in general terms) how your product can cure their problems.

5. The benefits block
In this block, you build on the benefits that your product brings, this time, item-by-item. Bullets are useful here.

6. The call to action block
Here’s where you first ask for the sale. And here’s where you give a time deadline (plus a reason for the deadline). Make sure there is an easy method of ordering, even at this early stage. If not earlier, here’s a simple form or link which takes them to a sales page.

7. The guarantee block
Here’s where you place it your guarantee. If you use Clickbank, they have ample guarantees you can quote. It reinforces the visitor’s growing need to buy and reassures them.

8. The bonuses block
Now throw in some great bonuses you’re going to give them. Also include the actual value of what you’d pay to get these separately.

9. The action summary block
Here’s where you ask for the sale – clearly and without hesitation. This is really what you want to ask from the beginning.  But the earlier blocks enable this one to work. Make sure your customer knows the price and you tell her what is expected now. Make sure there’s no doubt what their next action should be.

10. The postscript block
Like any good sales letter you should add a postscript. Your visitors will be sure to read two things: the heading and the postscript. This is where you should shine. It’s your last chance to give a light shove to anyone still teetering on the edge.

So it’s no real difference to the sales format, but you can tell the subtle differences – something which should keep you away from scammers for the most part.

You also have to know that the testimonial portion can be faked easily. I’ve seen testimonials which were made up out of whole cloth and sounded very convincing. The other point: a lot of these companies have about 1 in 100,000 who actually are outrageous successes. These are the guys who appear on the video’s and infomercials with the rave success stories. What the don’t tell you is that about 10,000 people actually “make money” with that product. Meaning 99,000 people were scammed and lost money. And these are actual statistics I got from people who have worked for those scammers.

You’ve got a wire-thin road to follow at first. But once you get the hang of how to find out what’s real and what’s fake, you’ll be astonished – at least I was – when you see that 97% of what’s out there in Internet Marketing is bunk.

And here’s some recent Internet Sales Fraud links:

Avoiding Internet Sales Fraud
But consumers have also suffered because of online scams that go to great lengths to take advantage of people who do internet shopping for a bargain. How can you protect yourself from being the victim of an Internet sales fraud? …

Curbstoning – A Form of Auto Sales Fraud
The internet is a new way for curbstoners to pawn off their vehicles. It can be quick for sellers to conceal each their identity and location from buyers and govt organizations that test to maintain an eye on them. …

Steps to avoid internet sales fraud
Among all types of purchasing, Internet purchasing is most fastest process. But if a buyer is not careful, then he or she can easily get cheated. Several steps which a person can be keep in mind while doing online purchasing are as …

The SuperChallenge for Scott Klein CEO of SuperMedia. « Dallas SEO …
The director of internet is gone, as he is no longer listed as a director (Briggs Ferguson of Citysearch). Now there seems to be no expertise at the senior management level for internet search either. …. This is a credit nightmare and shows that they could give a care less about preventing sales fraud and future accounts receivable issues. They offer credit to anyone that has a phone number under the majority of headings with hungry commissioned sales …

Fighting Internet Auction Fraud
The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), a partnership between the FBI and National White Collar Crime Center (NWC3), has launched its 2007 figures to fight against computer crime complaints received and referred to the police. …

Turkish PM rules out IMF stand-by deal
DIS Technology Holdings Bhd (DIST) (0063), listed on Bursa Malaysia’s ACE Market, could see net loss widen to RM82.6 million from RM555,000 due to misstatements arising from an alleged sales fraud. It said the estimated higher net loss …

Internet Scams: Don’t be a Victim by Mark Thompson
Vehicle Sales Fraud. If you place an advert online to sell a car, boat or motorcycle you will probably receive one of these scam attempts. You will receive an email from abroad saying that they would like to buy your vehicle and arrange …

How to Get Rich
…what a scam is.This video goes over these three steps in more detail.http://robertworstell.com/scam/how-to-get-rich/ Work from home and make money online in Internet Marketing. Become an Online Millionaire. Visit http://onlinemillionaireplan.com …

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You have to admit when you are smarter than you give yourself credit. The rest of the time – at least for me – you’re just stupid.

Ok, I admit it – I’ve been addicted to search engines. I thought these had something to do with “getting traffic”, “getting conversions” and “making online sales”. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

If’ I’d only been reading my own stuff.

I did a book last year on online marketing, called Online Sunshine Plan – and another on scams called Get Your Self Scam Free. And I should have taken these to heart and seen their cross. Even though there are mentions in each about the other. Of course, looking up my old stuff, I was predicting SEO problems over two years ago. And another about how social media are taking over, leaving search engines in the dust.

Now, it’s a given that you are going to be talking about search engines when you are figuring out how to design sites and so on. And while a 700 pound gorilla in the room deserves respect, it doesn’t mean you scrape and bow down and kiss feet, etc.

I wrote about how search engines are basically scams because they survive by selling advertising, which is a scam. That has proved out in the last year as I found out you can get better search engine standings by 1) putting adsense ads on your site, and 2) buying PPC ads. Both help your “organic” results.

Which means Google simply skews the playing field to suit itself.

And anyone in SEO can tell you that they have a perfect job that doesn’t quit, since it’s a constantly moving target. Recent research has shown that even inside Google, no one person knows all the algorithms on how the searches are done.

My last advice on this is to write good content and label it so that people can find it. Not search engines, but people.

Two things prompt this – First, as outlined above, search engines are playing catch up to social media – and are trying to become social media engines themselves (look at Googles’ Buzz and the aquisitions both Google and Yahoo have made, meanwhile Facebook is poised to take over the whole scene – if they don’t implode, anyway).

Second, the whole point of marketing has never, ever depended on search engines – it’s always and forever depended on word of mouth. What your neighbors, spouse, friends, and associates talk about is what really determines your buying habits. That, and your actual budget.

Advertizing has been much bally-hooed, but just look at the results of their industry award “Clio” to see their actual results. It’s a scam and always has been. All their psychological studies don’t change this.

When you throw out credit cards, advertizing, and search engine PPC campaigns, what do you have?

Social media, your friends – all the old standbys.

This came to me when I was studying my own analytics and trying to get Google to tell me what actually was going on. Google Webmaster tools won’t show you all the incoming links to your site. Nor will their Blog search. Even though they are there. Because they have this thing called supplementary results. And there are ways to find out how many pages of your site Google actually has indexed and how many of these are in their “supplementary index”.

Problem is, this isn’t accurate either. I’ve got more people finding and going to my pages than Google has listed. And this is where I started seeing my own stupidity.

A website isn’t there to get traffic, it isn’t there to get high SERPs. It’s there to provide service. You are there to give great service and to help others with solutions to their common problems. The better you do this, the better you get paid.

But the service you provide has to be something you are fascinated with, utterly captivated by. Because you have to keep this up. Going the scammer route of searching for “long tail niches which have products which people will buy” is a scammer’s paradise. The bulk (at least 97%) of what is being sold as Internet Marketing is pure scam bunks. Rubbish. Trash. Ripoff.

So just leave it all alone. They are just telling you the “latest and greatest” and they are just making money off your ignorance.

What I realized looking over my actual logs is that I wasn’t applying my own metaphysical principles to my life online. While it was true that about 60-70 percent of my traffic was coming from search engines, what it also said that my spikes were completely independent of search engines – and didn’t show up because of them. In every single case, someone put a link direct to one of my pages and their readers came to see what was happening. In no case did they use the search engines (well, maybe to begin with a teensy bit…)

And that’s the point. Be social and find your community. Contribute to that community and there’s your site traffic. Continue to give valuable solutions that you can be repaid for and there’s your economy.

The bottom line to search engines appears to be getting remote, one-way links back to your site. Again, this is where people find your stuff good enough to link back to. This is community. Sure, you can work this a bit by publishing articles and leaving comments on sites where you can post your website link – or social media like Scribd and YouTube and Flickr where you can leave a link to your site. And Identi.ca for those shorturl links. But that doesn’t mean other people will find your stuff valuable just because you link it. (I found one scammer company who has had most of their back-links go to the supplemental index simply because they were scamming the social engines to get those back-links.)

This is all in finding who is linking back to you and seeing how you can help that community. Yes, you use Yahoo Site Explorer and Google Webmaster Tools to find incoming links – as best they will actually show you. At least they’ll give you the ones they consider valuable and you can go from there.

But the real rule for getting links, traffic, and everything else: “You have to give before you can get.”

You have to give links in order to get them. You have to give great value before you are going to get paid for it. (Look at some of the top blogs out there – how much they link to their own stuff compared to how much they link outward to others is balanced heavily on the outward side – like 12-1 or better.)

And as I transition from blogging about scams and cults and self-help over to grass fed beef and cartoon parodies, I’m writing my last self-help book ["Freedom Is - (period.)"] and after I get a ton of promotion out on this, I’m retiring to simply getting my own artwork posted and going along. And offer all my older books, plus posters and t-shirts, etc. with cartoons on them – plus collections of cartoons.

But making fun with people and their attitudes should be a lot more interesting than all the scams in the world.

And that’s what this universe is all about – enjoying the dance, not figuring out how to get to the otherside of the room through the crowd and music.

Thanks for visiting my blog and reading this entry.
If you’ve found it valuable, please consider donating via PayPal to enable my continuing research.

Our latest upcoming release, “Freedom Is — (period.)”

What do these three have in common? Simple:

1. They have to threaten you to get what they want.
2. They are based on convenient fictions.
3. They need your money to survive.

Of course, they also are all government related, but they also prey on your basic needs. And they are all scams, but what else is new…

Global Warming does exist, but it runs in cycles, both on 30 years periods, and also 1500-year and even longer cycles. Al Gore and his fictions started out with bogus data inside a Powerpoint, which was compounded by scientists who falsified their data in order to get or preserve huge government subsidies. Gore himself profits by this with his personal company that makes money off selling “carbon credits”. …While he meanwhile lives in a huge mansion and flies jets around to accept his awards.

The IRS was originally voted into law on the basis that they would tax the “very rich” in order to pay for the Civil War. Of course, since then it has started picking all of our pockets. It’s a favorite boondoggle of politicians, who riddle the code with inconsistencies on behalf of various corporate lobbyists. And these same politicians – who never think in terms of saving money by cutting spending or a balanced budget – only proclaim that we would “lose money” if we cut taxes. (But practically, we have the evidence of actually raising revenue as well as providing more jobs in each instance where presidents cut them: Kennedy, Reagan, Bush.)

Scientology threatens excommunication from friends and family if you don’t go along with their demands and keep supporting their financial causes. They got their IRS exemption as a “church” by actually suing and threatening the IRS and its officials itself. And the Anonymous protests continue due to the C of S denied-but-practiced policy of enforced disconnection. Of course, no one can trace where all those millions which their parishioners spend (mostly tax-free) with them goes. Or how hard it is to get it back, even when you are a celebrity. (And of course, these facts have to be documented, while the other two are more common knowledge.)

How to stop their bullying

All is not sad, however. Tracking back these commonalities also show us how to get free from their effects.

It has to do with people not wanting to return the way they came into this world – helpless, penniless, dependent. Essentially, they continue learning to thrive by exploiting the Lester Levenson buttons of control, approval, and security. If you learn to accept (or welcome) these and let them go (or release), you don’t have to stay effect of any of these. (Of course getting scam-free has been laid out “Get Your Self Scam Free”…)

And the other point is to learn to do with less government in your life. Because none of these would continue to exist if you didn’t give away so many of your rights to others.

Now, these all may seem far too simple. But these simple solutions work. It just takes a lot of people applying them personally. The only real side effect is that you get more personal Freedom, Happiness, and Peace of Mind showing up in your life.

A far cry from how government officials and their flunkies sleep at night.

Here’s wishing you a scam-free life.

Thanks for visiting my blog and reading this entry.
If you’ve found it valuable, please consider donating via PayPal to enable my continuing research.

Our latest upcoming release, “Freedom Is — (period.)”